Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Greek myths, the market, and the bottom of the box
The Nikkei dropped over 7% today, hitting 2003 lows.
So odd to see transpiring in slow motion the mess that has for so long been talked about and predicted. Ever since my interest in the markets was ignited, the more rabid bears have given the "big" breakup coming a daily urgency, as if the moment we woke up the next day, we'd see the dead walking the earth, clothed in rags, eyes vacant, searching for food, now scarce. However, day by day, the day of reckoning was pushed out in the future. It would happen after this rally, after that bubble, after this this next new thing.
It feels as if at least some of that future is here...the mess behind credit markets, investment banks, mortgages...it's pretty ugly and aside from all the jokes about broken clocks, 'they' were right. The work now is to rein oneself in from swallowing the hook, line, and sinker in one go. How awful to be your own best reversal indicator and not know it!!
My cat Boris, bless his dear departed cat 'soul', was once mewing mournfully at me. I wondered what was wrong with him as he was fat and just as fiesty as ever. I leaned over to pet him, stroking his back and tail. Then, this horrible thing happened. As he just sat there, a sickening pool of yecky greeny stuff oozed from him! He had a hidden abcess!! The pressure from my hands was enough to burst it. I took him to the vets as, after I drained it, it was enormous...you could almost see to his bone! He never, until that moment, gave a sign that he had such a terrible problem. I should better say, I never saw the signs. They were subtle, even for such a talkative cat.
You can believe I became vigilant after that, regularly checking him for signs he'd been out fighting and getting into scrapes. What's worse with what is going on now, it doesn't seem to me that people will really learn from it. If the AIG execs can go to the spa, on the company,
after they got the bailout...these guys are totally clueless! They just don't get it. They are the zombies, walking glazed eyed through a world of their own, oblivious to anything outside of them.
Two mythical Greek women come to mind: Pandora, the first woman, created by Jupiter as a gift to man, from whom we get the idea of "Pandora's box"; and Cassandra, who, given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, was cursed by Apollo after she spurned him, The curse? No one would believe her prophecies, even after coming to pass. What are we to learn from these muses?
Troy would fall, tricked by a Trojan horse, even after Cassandra foretold the event and they had heard what would happen.
The curious coda to Pandora's story is that, once the box seemed empty, she looked in to find only one thing remaning, hope.
Hope remains once our curiosity has had its fill, or in the worst case, once even cynicism has run its course. From something we can't even see, touch, feel, smell, or taste, the world must be rebuilt.
Here is Alan's update to his Dow "Alan Box"
Labels: alan box, attitude, sentiment
