Ok, I’ve been dithering through two posts to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that:
- The Chevy Volt sucks so bad that even the craptacular Edsel (formerly considered the wheeled definition of unmitigated total automotive/financial disaster) was a resounding success by comparison.
- At least one guy thinks the Volt is totally awesome and we’re all missing out by rejecting what he perceives as the best car going.
I felt pretty smug that I, Curmudgeon extraordinare, would never hold an opinion that simply wouldn’t budge given real world experience. I pride myself on putting mind over wishful thinking.
Then one recent day the news reported that the DOW had cranked out a record high to close at 14,673. “Holy shit” quoth the Curmudgeon, “I smell inflation afoot!” It’s true, I was mightily displeased with that report.
I don’t see the DOW hitting nosebleed numbers as a necessarily good thing. With a federal debt of $16,806,987,247,849.34 and the Fed printing money literally faster than any physical printing press could muster… I see gains in the DOW as losses in the green paper I keep (when I can) in my wallet. It’s like when your get a brutal stomach virus for a week and wind up standing on the scales marveling that you’ve lost 5 pounds. Yeah, it’s cool to lose weight but the bathroom scale is missing the part about you running a 101 fever and vomiting. Such is my paranoia about the economy.
But wait! If I, Curmudgeon that I am, think a rising DOW is a bad thing wouldn’t I be pleased with a sinking DOW? Actually I wasn’t. Back in 2008 when everyone lost their shit and pushed the DOW to 7,552.29 (November 20, 2008) I was livid. “Are they insane?” I ranted in that fateful year, “Every building, factory, bulldozer, and forklift what was around last week is still here.” I interpreted a DOW at 7,500 as proof positive that everyone had taken leave of their senses and we’re valuing stocks based on whatever the hell floated into their empty heads.
Which brings me to my conundrum. When the DOW went down I interpreted it as a bad thing; a disconnect between the true value of assets and the securities we use to trade them. When the DOW went up I interpreted it as a bad thing; a disconnect between the value of assets and the green slips of paper we use to monetize them.
There’s the rub. I think were screwed when the DOW goes up and when the DOW goes down. Thus my opinion is not affected by a metric that I observe everyday. In effect, I’m just like the guy who thinks a Volt is just groovy despite ample evidence to the contrary. He thinks his Volt is groovy. I think were screwed. Neither of us are responding to outside information. (Or at least I am unwilling to accept the DOW as a rational valuation.)
Now is the time when I’m supposed to wrap it all up with some pithy comment that proves I’m intelligent and Hippie Mc.Volt is a moron. I can’t do it. He and I both have opinions that are resistant to outside information. I haven’t figured out a clever way to either get with the rainbow people and love our new Obamaconomy or think my way past hating rising and falling stock prices simultaneously.
Ah well, perhaps a conundrum of human existence is being aware you’re thinking foolishly yet doing it anyway.
A.C.
P.S. Regardless of the DOW, I’m definitely certain that the Volt is horse shit. I’m bitter about that. I’ve been waiting for a real electric car since the Carter administration and apparently it’s not coming. (Side note, the armed flying drones of science fiction are now real and blowing people away right now. How could a decent electric car and predictions of housekeeping robots have been eclipsed by the Terminator?)