Fear mongering takes us to other times
NSDAP election poster in Vienna in 1930. Translation: "We demand freedom and bread".
Namely the 1930′s. The landscape, a defaulted Germany. After being defeated and economically devasted from this first World War, Germany is in dire straights. The thoughts come to mind of the woman taking a wheelbarrow full of money to the baker for a loaf of bread. As she goes outside to get her wheelbarrow, she finds the wheelbarrow gone, but all of the money still there. When a wheelbarrow full of money is worth less than the wheelbarrow, things are in bad shape. Then in 1934, with the death of Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler abolished the presidential office to become Führer. We should all know what happens next.
Although America may not be in the exact same position to have it’s democracy overthrown in favor of a dictatorship, we are suffering many of the symptoms. We are all in fear right now, and this is the real weapon of a tyrant. Who is this tyrant? I have no clue, even if he or she did exist. So before you start, leave the Obama hating out of this. You’ll miss the point.
Right now we are puppets. Just watch. One word from a politician will make sweeping changes within the people. Case in point. Christopher Dodd makes a remark about the need for nationalization. What happens? The banking sector crashes. They have us by the balls and they know it.
I am urging anyone with one iota of sense to begin thinking for yourself. I watch the news get more cloudy and murky daily. They completely miss the point more often than not. They make representations of the truth, most often comparing apples to oranges. Either too many of these reporters are clueless, or well too clued in. I applaud Meredith Whitney, formally of Oppenheimer Securities. She was the obscure analyst that rang alarm bells on October 31st, 2007 about Citigroup. The market listened. Even more importantly, Citigroup listened.
The difference between reacting from truth and reacting from a rumor is the company’s reaction. If the nationalization threat was immediately on Citi and BofA, changes would have occurred already. Instead, only the markets reacted out of fear. Imagine waking up sick this morning to find that Bank of America had dropped from $3.93 to $2.66 in just a couple of hours. Out of a rumor. The stock is back at $3.68 right now. Still below its real value but about 30% better than it’s intraday low. That should tell you something.
So people, please please please stop running around like mindless sheep. We say we don’t believe everything we hear on TV, yet the stock market proves otherwise. Maybe I need to go on and say Jesus told me he was coming back tomorrow, and that if you wanted to get into heaven you needed to give me all of your money and assets! I’d make Warren Buffett look like he needed food stamps.
(image from Wikipedia)
