At 3:10 EST – oh, screw it, this is my blog I'm going to use my own time zone – at 12:10 PST, I was up $60,000 for the day. When the market closed, fifty minutes later, I hadn't made a dime. Believe it or not, it isn't so much the destruction of paper profits that bugs me; it's the waste of time and emotional energy.
Trading in a market like this requires a lot of concentration, emotional energy, and dedication. If you can score five-figures in a day every now and then, it's worthwhile. If it's for a $0 payday (or, worse, a loss), it's a gigantic, disappointing waste of time.
The market doesn't owe a penny to anyone, but this kind of action disgusts me:
Now all of you know what cutesy little government musing caused this to happen – – the government plan to squander whatever wealth the nation still has and pick up the check for all the homeowners who aren't paying their mortgages anymore. So people like me – who haven't missed a payment in their life – look like idiots. And the sitcom-watching dimwits who bought at the top of the market, sucked six-figures out of their house in home equity loans so they could buy trucks and televisions, and then ignore their bills each month, leave it to the nation to pick up the tab.
Oftentimes there is a lot of handwringing about the debt being shoved onto the unborn grandchildren and great-grandchildren of our once great land. Listen, I don't lose any sleep over that. Why? Because I'm not sticking around for my progeny to suffer the penalites for such idiocy.
I am loyal to values, not a flag. The values I honor are freedom, opportunity, honesty, industry, creativity, productivity, and applied intellect. Those used to be American values, but not anymore. So if I wind up taking me and my family out of the US, it will be because I have decided the values I cherish are embodied better elsewhere.
And that, my friends, is the kind of brain drain that is only going to speed up this nation's demise. Because, look, I know I don't mean anything to the US. No one cares if I'm here or not. But what if 100,000 families like mine do the same?
And what do families "like mine" represent?
I can tell you what mine does. I created a business. I created employment. I created products. I am an aspect – – just one, for there are many – – of what America used to mean. So what happens if a country creates a circumstance for itself so that tens of thousands of people like me, and their families, get the hell out of here? I think you can reach your own conclusion.
What is happening around us is horrible, and I fear the rash decisions being made, all in the name of "helping out", are simply nails in the country's coffin. The United States is a country, not a prison. If things keep spiraling out of control like this, I'm not sticking around to get stuck with the tab. And I'm certainly not letting future Knights get stuck with it either.
