Imagine a retail sap who wanted to get an objective viewpoint about this hot new IPO he heard about, Slack Technologies (symbol WORK). He figures the professionals who are paid millions of dollars per year to dissect such things must know what they are doing, so he finds the research, such as here:
I’ve lived in Palo Alto since 1984. The local papers around here (the Palo Alto Weekly and the Daily News) are funded almost entirely through ads for real estate, so it’s pretty easy to keep one’s pulse on real estate by way of how many ads there are, how large they are, and what they emphasize. I will say, however, that in the past 35 years, I have never witnessed two particular words of the English language until now.
It probably comes as no surprise to my readers that I’m not exactly the hard drug type. Choir boy. Eagle Scout at 13. All around good kid. You get the idea.
I have read, however, about the experiences of those who use powerful drugs, hallucinogens, and so forth. It’s the safest way to satiate my innate curiosity about just about everything. Heroin, for example, is supposed to provide new users with the most peaceful, euphoric, blissful state imaginable. The flip side of that is that when you come out of your drug-induced fantasy, you once again realize how awful life is, how much everything sucks, and the one thing that matters to you more than anything else is to get back to That Feeling which was so magnificent. And you’ll keep doing that until you die.
(more…)The world was presented with a tremendous opportunity in the thick of the financial crisis over a decade ago. There was a crucial juncture in the road we collectively needed to decide upon. In one direction was hardship, austerity, and a re-balancing that would have meant a few years of pain but, in the end, a path to true prosperity. In another direction was the easy way out with freshly-created trillions of dollars to paper over all our troubles and spare ourselves any more discomfort.
As a planet, we chose the easy route. Big surprise.
What has taken place over the past ten+ years has been so gradual, so steady, and so all-encompassing, that the madhouse we all occupy goes unnoticed by virtually everyone. I often ask myself why most people don’t puzzle over where the tens of trillions of dollars of debt came from, where it went, and how, if ever, it could be paid off. Most people, let’s face it, are dumb as posts, and have the attention span of a Kardashian, so virtually no one dare trouble themselves with considering any of this.
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Hedging when the market is up is like buying an umbrella when it’s sunny out: you’ll be protected when it rains (Photo by Vivienne Gucwa).
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