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POPSTo document our pessimism Max Boot is member of the infamous neo con cabal. Still, he knows a thing or two about warfare and national security policy. His opinion here is not good news.
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POPSHow do you cope during tough times? This has been on my mind for some time and is probably has on yours...too many people are suffering from the economic crisis going on around us. My wife was reading a headline about there being another real estate crash coming. I didn't even want her to read the article as it is too depressing. If you feel the same, try these helpful tips:
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POPSObama, singing a song to himself To document our pessimism about the Obamoid government, Michael Barone introduces a new slant on analyzing ideologies in the US"lyrical leftism. Leftists of the past were able to mobilize people in the expansion of the state through war"Wilson and Roosevelt used their wars to take control of wide swaths of the economy. Leftists today are "lyrical" when they repudiate the state's use of force and celebrate diversity. It's just singing in the wind. This is the "basic contradiction in what the party and the liberal movement stand for," according to Barone.
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POPSPOLL: Opposition to Health Care Reform Is on the Rise
One additional figure shows the extent to which the Obama star has faded: At his 100-day mark in April, 60 percent of Americans expressed confidence in him "to make the right decisions for the country's future." Today, just past 200 days into his presidency, it's 49 percent. Tellingly, in a result that's been steady since spring, even among Republicans, fewer than half " 46 percent " have confidence in their own party to make "the right decisions" for the country. And just 25 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, vs. 35 percent Democrats " roughly steady since 2007, as disapproval of George W. Bush pushed the country away from what had been political parity a few years earlier. Obama's best hope is that a less gloomy economic outlook could leaven the public's mood more generally. One risk is that economic expectations can improve long before current conditions follow suit. Another is that when economic discontent eventually does ease,
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POPS15% of teens expect to die before age 35, and these expectations correlate with high-risk behavior I suppose this isn't surprising, but it's the first real, large-scale empirical confirmation that pessimism in teenagers is connected with dangerous behaviors (on the one hand) and with disadvantaging circumstances such as poverty or single-parent family situations (on the other hand). In other words, kids in bad situations are more likely both to believe they will die young and to act in ways that make it more likely that they will.
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POPSPessimistic executives cash out of shares Here is the same story last month, except this month, the inside selling is more than last month's record! "US market’s best-informed participants do not find valuations compelling. April saw the lowest level of insider buying (by people associated with the company) ever recorded by research firm TrimTabs with insider selling 14 times as high. Likewise, companies sold 64 per cent more shares than they bought in April." http://openintelligence.amplify.com/?s=shares+selling
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POPSSummer of Rage: The Anger Meme The preliminary data for 2008 show a marked drop in confidence in every American institution since 2000 except military ones and education. These figures are the stuff that nasty movements are made of.
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POPSMickey Kaus: Wagoner: Obama’s Diem? ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “Will Obama be getting rid of the head of the UAW also?” Gettelfinger should go, but won’t. Responsibility is kinda selective here . . . .
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POPSAfghanistan Made Easy Years of reporting from combat zones in Bosnia, Uganda, the Sudan, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea have convinced Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts, The Coming Anarchy) that Thucydides and Sun-Tzu are still right on the money when they wrote that war is not an aberration and that civilization can repress barbarism but cannot eradicate it. Reminding readers that “The greater the disregard of history, the greater the delusions regarding the future,” Kaplan conducts a brisk tour through the works of Machiavelli, Malthus and Hobbes, among others, to support his advocacy of foreign policy based on the morality of results rather than good intentions. From those classics, he extracts historical models and rationales for exploiting military might, stealth, cunning and what he dubs “anxious foresight” (which some may regard as pessimism based on disasters past) in order to lead, fight and bring adversaries to their knees should they challenge the prevailing balance of power.
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POPSThe skeptical environmentalist Borg LOMBERG's book has caused important controversy about the the appropriateness of policies for dealing with environmental challenges. Begin your study of his remarkable story here, then search through the Cambridge University Press site for early threads of the debate presented in The Economist, THS, American Scientist, etc. There could be a whole university course studying just Lomborg's writings, and the controversies they have caused! He is a true trans-disciplinarian, who has raised important questions about the best allocation of scarce resources...
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POPSHave the Rules Changed? No, the rules haven't changed. I think greed is extreme at the tops, and pessimism is extreme near the bottoms. There always seems to be a consensus that the rules have changed or that this time it's different at those extremes. Rarely if ever is that the case, though.
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POPSWhy kindness has become our forbidden pleasure? "What is to be done? Nothing, many would say. Human beings are innately selfish and that is that. Newspapers bombard us with scientific evidence to back up this pessimism. We read about greedy chimpanzees, selfish genes, ruthless mate-selection strategies, even about meerkats - those famously cooperative creatures - who instead of looking out for their fellows spend most of their time "watching their own backs". Richard Dawkins of "selfish gene" fame lays it on the line: "Human society based simply on the gene's law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we deplore something, this does not stop it being true ..." Yet Dawkins does not despair: "If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity "
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POPSCuTe And you thought I was all cynicism and pessimism.
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POPSThe Financial Crisis - are You Game Enough to Go Against the Pack? Recently I have done some research on this topic through my own company http://www.karmafinancialresearch.com which indicates some of the lesser known funds have made money over the past year. Generally these have made most returns of between 10 and 15%. Whilst it is not spectacular, it is certainly solid in terms of risk management as well as capital growth. One such fund I have noticed is the Australian Unity Retail Property Trust which has made over 10 % in the last year. So there is no real reason to have a blanket approach of never investing again. Further many shares and managed funds can be regarded as cheap compared to 12 months ago especially blue chip stocks. It is worth noting that Warren Buffetis currently swimming against the tide and BUYING STOCK.
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