Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Lawyers, Politicians and News Reporters

There 's a joke in the US, like: What do you call 100 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? Answer: A good start!

I thought of that this morning (but then with lawyers replaced by politicians and news reporters) when I saw the front page of "DeMorgen" newspaper, leftist minded, kinda the 'sophisticated' type with shedloads of 'cultural' reporting. The kind of paper that has got no issue putting that moron Michael Moore on the front page every single morning...

You might ask, why the heck do you keep buying that tabloid then? Well, I don't like it, but it came home via the siblings and the wife loves it for telling the 'truth'...dream on baby! I don't read the papers anyway as I hate the journalistic race to a level that hurts. In Switzerland, if you need to to show contempt about someone for any reason, that's what you call him: a freakin' journalist!

Back to the front page (see the shot). All devoted to yesterday's cataclysmic events. Spread the panic, baby! Last time they did that was when the late king died... or Iraq was invaded, or 911. Spread the panic among the simple minds. Make them buy more disaster papers. Bad news sells! Worst news sells even better! I haven't read details, as I was too busy throwing up, but the spouse did, and said: S... (our cousin) will take all her money out of the bank... and you hear (the paper says) about scores of old people waiting in queue to pick-up their savings. Spread the panic baby, there's not been enough suicide bombings today and the Bourses are the best target to deal with. Especially the Banks. Shoot the bastards because they are lazy and rich. Every single one of us is born to envy and hate the rich. Unless he/she happens to be one.

Anyways, the storm will pass by, the rich of this world with tons of liquidity will have to put their wealth somewhere and, as the Treasures of Ali Baba are just fairy tales, most of the richest will have to go back to a rational place to safekeep their wealth instead of looking for a secret cave that opens its gates at the sound of Sesame or Abracadabra! And the markets will go up eventually. And the 'rich' (read 'smart') will get richer... Duh?!

Trust me, the times are wonderful for those with liquid cash at hand. The morons among the commoners will take it away and let it rotten in lofts or under mattresses (best times for occasional burglers too, BTW). The clever ones will put it to work. Seen Mr. B. buying-in into the guts of Goldman Sachs last week? Already got himself a bonus of $432M in preferred stock dividends and warrants. No wonder he's the richest alive on the planet.

Buying stock or futures is the best one can think of these days. You may still think the bottom is deeper and wanna wait, but what the heck. We are closer to the bottom than ever before. You can't have it all, can you? Even more, buy big Banks if you got any testicles left. Citigroup and UBS are the best candidates! UBS, you said? You must be out of your freaking mind! Well, yes! UBS is the safest of them all. It's so big that if it falls, nothing will matter anyway. But it won't fall and we'll be back here in a few months time to laugh about... 'member? I told yah!

A friend called me yesterday in panic. 'What should I do', she said! 'My husband wants to take all his money from the bank as he's afraid they'll go bankrupt'. 'Make sure he buys one big mattress', I said! What else to say? I get it that people who have no knowledge of economy panic. The oldest have even been thru the war and were traumatized for life. They remember what it was. But, us, Baby Boomers and later? Gimmee a break! Worst of all, my experience shows that those panicking most are those with major degrees in Finance, for crying out loud!

It's a mad world... and politicians and reporters, mainly thinking about their personal gain, make it sound even more crazy. Stay out of their range folks. Vote the former down and stop buying the latter's papers today! ... and go buy some technology stock. With today's prices it's a hot bargain.

No comments: