Saturday, March 21, 2009

Unintended Consequences are Often Good

My Friday Night Rant (and some will argue as evidence for contrarian bullish sentiment):


One of the unintended consequences of the populist pitchfork wielding performed by Congress Thursday is that now the curtain is pulled back to show the Wall Street wizards in all their dirty disheveled inhumanity.

The executives are now officially vilified not only in the presumptuous hearts of taxpayers and investors, but in the Congressional Record that has votes tallied showing our official disdain for the omnipresent greed on Wall Street. What we all kinda knew has now been corroborated by our representatives. The AIG cretins were more concerned with negotiating their bonuses as the world was melting down due to their own negligence.

The unintended consequences of this legislation is that it will only further the mistrust we have for publicly traded companies by putting some stamp of officialdom, however tainted by populist angst... and I would argue that this mistrust is healthy and long overdue.

While the economy was in free fall last September, the perpetrators of the debacle were not interested in fixing the damage, no, they were instead only interested in protecting their zillion dollar bonuses.

And the CNBC talking heads were out in full force defending the bonuses, and other business media were outraged at the outrage, and still others scoffed at the unwashed masses' and their uncouth behavior and talk of piano wire. How dare the royal financial wizards put up with such bourgeois emotion!

I predict the outcome of this drama will be a stronger economy and a stronger nation. Instead of wiring hard-earned coin to New York, I envision a future where Joe Sixpack keeps his investment in his hometown, his own business, a local bank, real estate in his neighborhood. Why do the craven wizards of Wall Street deserve our investment anyway?

We will have to endure the talking heads like Kudlow and Cramer telling us how short-sighted we are for eschewing the sacred engine that drives the economy, ie, Wall Street, as the DOW plummets to 6000 then 5000 and the cries will become more plaintive at DOW 4000 and 3000.  

Ha! The sacred engine that drives the economy is the guy or gal who gets up at five o'clock, gets dressed and goes to work to do something useful, to make something pertinent, to perform an honest service. And, no, that does not include anybody on Wall Street, my friends.

Why anybody would put one red cent into any company's stock after all the lies, the boldface lies, the wanton negligence, the unmitigated greed, is beyond me... On what planet is a banker or insurance salesman worth more to society than a nurse? Or a teacher? Or a dry cleaner, for that matter?

Yes, the consequences may be unintended, but they will definitely be righteously beneficial. DOW Zero! Bring it on.

5 comments:

  1. Great .... You want the good Contrary... Is I'm still very Cautious..

    but an uptrend develops over a few trading sessions. A slight up day.... Followed buy a solid one. there are days ahead to chase it.

    but... you know once joe six pack starts building a good main street economy... well Wall street will go up.. Cause he has money to eat Frito's and make Pepsi stock go up.

    Good stuff

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  2. Fritos and Pepsi? What, no WFC? :(

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  3. LOL... did you trade all week?
    Put in a ton of hours? I'm always in meltdown after a long week.

    Generally takes me all of saturday to recover.

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  4. I called a friend tonight... They said

    "These fuckers don't get it, People are sleeping in cars. Who will be paying the bill for this for years.... and they don't want to give up multi million dollar bonuses"

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  5. Funny, after reading this, then having it come up in my reader a second time. I read it again...

    Good stuff.

    This is the best part
    And the CNBC talking heads were out in full force defending the bonuses, and other business media were outraged at the outrage, and still others scoffed at the unwashed masses' and their uncouth behavior and talk of piano wire. How dare the royal financial wizards put up with such bourgeois emotion!

    ReplyDelete