My question to you, the mainstream media here in America:

 

Why is the barn-burning pep rally yell of a candidate trying to keep his hard-working team's spirit more newsworthy than these issues:

 

--        The President's apparent AWOL status while serving his country;

 

--        The leaden pace of the investigation into the outing of a CIA operative by the White House;

 

--        The systematic obstructions of the 9/11 Commission;

 

--        There were no WMD in Iraq, according to David Kay;

 

--        The CIA is worried that Iraq is on the verge of civil war;

 

--        The IMF is concerned that the massive, mounting U.S. deficit may threaten the world economy;

 

--        Vice President Cheney may be indicted by the French government on corruption charges;

 

let alone the dozens of other pressing and important issues that threaten us right now.  Any of these issues above are far more urgent and deserving of greater coverage than they are receiving.  Instead we are treated to trash-talk about “acting presidential” and “green shag carpeting”.

 

Get over yourselves.  In case you hadn’t noticed, the public is moving towards a time when we’ll do the reporting ourselves.  Make yourselves invaluable or begone.

 

  11:46:06 PM    comment []

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been on a bit of a guilt-trip for a while.  I did something over which I’m really conflicted.

I made money.

 

No, I didn’t print any.  I didn’t do anything illegal to acquire this cash.

 

I made an investment.

 

There was a chunk of cash that needed to be put to work; something had to be done about it, it had been idle too long.  I couldn’t think of anything particular into which I should put this cash; I was afraid of getting emotionally attached to the investment once I put the money in.  I have a nasty habit of doing that, investing with my heart.  I have a few dogs that languish about my investment accounts; I’m unable to put them down, as if they were some old yellow retriever that served me well and still threatened to do something more than wag its tail at me.

 

I picked something that I wasn’t particularly bound up in emotionally.

 

Really, who gets all hot and bothered about the Standard & Poor’s as an aggregate?  It’s just an arbitrary statistic, isn’t it?  Nothing very sexy there at all, a little bit of this, some of that, all bound up into a tidy little bundle.  S&P (Depository Receipts fund) is kind of like an Asian buffet; it’s a good sampling without feeling like you’re obligated to eat nothing but duck or California rolls.  I could dump it at any time and not blink, right?  No hard feelings.

 

I bought a bunch of shares in SPY for this reason.

 

Not bad; the shares have done nicely, about 30 odd percent growth in the last 10 months.  (Wish my other little old pets would have kept up, but one doesn’t expect much where emotions are involved. Hanging in there is enough.)  It’s not the rate of growth that bothers me, though, although I do confess some trepidation.  What if a single event caused the S&P to tank?  You know what I’m talking about.  The kind of event to which the red arrow in the center of the graphic points – one that will suck the wind out of your sails and make you completely forget to call your broker.  But the trepidation only chews on me.  It doesn’t stop me in the middle of my day and make me re-think my mores.

 

I bought this the day after the bombs fell on Baghdad.

 

It makes me nauseous, even thinking about the calculation involved in that decision.  I knew I was going to do it for weeks ahead, watching the market continuing to drift and flounder, watching the television as most of us did for the first signs of actual aggression.  The moment that first step was taken, I knew the market would be at ease about the direction in which we were headed, whether heaven or hell in a hand basket.

 

I disgust myself with this each time I think about it.

 

Around the other side of the world from this cool, dispassionate and deliberate decision to act based on indicators I saw in the market place, there were women and children fearing for themselves, for their families, for the world they knew as home.  Our own family was torn by this situation, my stepson deploying even as I hung up the phone with my broker. My God.

 

I made a decision that many wealthy people and their financial institutions made those first few days and weeks.

 

It was a new thing for me, to make money so completely separate from my heart, bonded only to my head.  It was a rationale, premeditated, calculating choice to make money work at a time where it would do the most with the least effort.  That’s how the wealthy do it, collectedly, without emotion; they see the storm passing and they know that there is value lying in the debris which they will collect once the clouds have departed.  Here is a coming storm, there go the clouds, here is the value.  Collect it, liquidate it.  Do it again. 

 

In the mean time, in spite of all this improvement in investment value, there are millions of people in this country without a job, with no financial fall back, with no prospects for change anytime soon.  They didn’t have some capital lying around idly doing nothing, could do nothing about the coming storm whose winds rocked their foundation and left them bereft.  The truly wealthy see the jobs numbers and flip to the next page.  Yawn.  They see the leveling, promising blue line, like watching the Weather Channel for the leading edge of a front; they log into their investment account or call their broker, sell their dogs and take the cash, put it wherever that storm is headed.  They wait awhile for the line to crawl northward. Then do it again.  Sounds easy enough to do, doesn’t it?  They know what to do, when to do it. 

 

I don’t know what to do next, though.

 

I don’t think I’m cut out for this; I don’t think I can do this again.  And I’m pretty certain I’m going to have to do something truly good with the proceeds when I liquidate this investment.

 

I don’t think I could get the emotional, psychic stink out of this money otherwise.  Perhaps the wealthy have neither the emotional attachment to their pet investments nor a well-defined sense of smell.

 

I’m not certain I’m ready to give up emotion or smell.

 

  2:55:49 PM    comment []

 

Listen to this speaker if you have time.

 

I miss this.  Badly.

 

I miss the kind of person who can make the case for specific change to improve the lives of billions.

 

The kind of person who can do this extemporaneously, on a few hours sleep, perhaps with a very few sketchy notes.

 

The kind of person who’ll walk the talk after preaching, who knows his limitations and the limitations of others, but is still willing to bet much on the good he finds in us all.

 

The kind of person whose speech won’t be an object of pity the world over the next day.

 

Will we ever have a person like this lead us again?

 

Not if the press continues to have its way.  Bet the press here in the U.S. didn't even notice this speech.

 

 

 

  1:28:21 PM    comment []