Remember the scene in the movie Titanic? The ship is sinking and the band is faithfully playing as people continue to dine, until the ship turtles?
That's the feeling I had watching TV news reports as Americans scrambled one over the other to shop on Black Friday. (tragically one person was trampled to death)
"People on unemployment benefits, single mothers with children, and soon-to-be-unemployed people working in construction stating that they are keeping their Christmas shopping expenditures down - they are even shopping? Another volunteers, “I don’t usually save, so this year is different,” as she buys an iPod. “He really wants one thing.” WT*? She needs to say, “We do not have the money and you can’t have it!” Another’s husband is in construction and doesn’t get enough work, and she is spending $1,000 - this is called “saving?” And Obama is promising to give these people a bailout?
The proper analogy for the situation is the following. Category 10 hurricane winds are already uprooting trees, the swells are breaking over weakening sea walls, while these folks are heading down to the beach for a last stroll and they expect to be bailed out? There will be no freaking money left as Paulson, Bernanke empty the Treasury for the final heist, even as Obama is bringing back the previous gang. The world economy is being tag-teamed by idiot savants blinded by the failed mainstream economics.
For the last two years, as Rich can attest, I have been telling people to hunker down, unload real estate, equities, and be in cash. I remember sitting on airplanes and telling people this. And they answered to me, “You are a pessimist, I’m an optimist!” I remember walking around a lake in August 2008 with a friend of mine affiliated with a very large conglomerate. I gave my typical better hunker down a “bad moon’s on the rise” speech. And he said, you are overly pessimistic etc. In October, his firm got the equivalent of a multi-hundred million dollar margin call. Now he won’t speak with me - probably because I have put my investment dollars where my mouth is.
The suffering that Cassandra went through. In earlier times, an “optimist” was not a synonym for a “fool.” Optimism is associated with realism - not deliberate ignorance. Sometimes people can’t hear or feel the wind even as it is tearing at the clothes on their back.
I only hope I am wrong and the people buying on “Black Friday” are right. If they are wrong and I am right, their children will have iPods but be relegated to homeless shelters. This searing experience will never let them forget how thoughtless their “optimistic” parents were."
http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/2008/11/30/clueless-and-irresponsible-americans/
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