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Paul B. Farrell
April 27, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT · Recommend (2) · Post:
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Obama vs. Goldman's Reaganomics
First Take "º
Bullish industrial outlook, or just bull?
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- So Congress enacts financial reforms. Big deal. Wall Street must be drunk on Dom Perignon, celebrating the huge paid-offs from their successful $400 million investment in "kill reform" lobbyists. And that GOP concession? Phony. Wall Street will reward them for the loopholes denuding Dodd's financial reforms.
And even with all his rants about fat-cats, Obama wins. Expect Wall Street to spend another $400 million to keep Obama in office for a second term.
Author of the Greatest Trade Ever, Gregory Zuckerman, explains to Simon Constable why he thinks the world of investing has changed and how small investors should be willing to try new tactics to make money.
"Change? Yes we can?" That's funny today. Obama is now Wall Street's best asset, their new Trojan Horse replacing Hank Paulson, a troika with Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner. Wall Street always gets what it wants.
And you can bet they'll cough up yet another $400 million keeping lawyers and lobbyists busy fighting SEC regulations, to make sure its back to business-as-usual with free-market Reaganomics capitalism. Spending $400 million is chump change compared to the hundreds of billions Wall Street gets cheap from the Treasury and Fed, by playing us taxpayers for suckers after screwing up the economy and triggering the 2008 meltdown.
Yes, we're suckers, and Wall Street will take advantage of us the next time they melt down, coming soon.
What can you do? Shift focus from them to you. You need a whole new strategy. Are you ready? OK. First, let's assume you really are tired of the pain of fighting Wall Street. You are? Good. Then you've had an epiphany ... an awakening ... you've had one of those rare ah-ha! moments ... what Zen masters call enlightenment ... you finally see the light ... the futility of denying reality ... and as you see into this new reality, you surrender the fight, you accept these six secret wisdoms underlying your new investment strategy:
Seriously, you stop fighting Wall Street. They won. Admit it. You join with Wall Street in spirit. You flow with this new reality, without being tortured by inner anger because it's eating you up, worse than marching with the Tea Party. Acceptance works for the president, he's obviously "at one" with Wall Street. Peace of mind is more important.
Besides, if you think about it, there's nothing you can do about it. Voting out the bums? That'll just increase gridlock. Wall Street loves gridlock, makes Washington even easier to manipulate. But if you're one of the new enlightened investors you accept this new reality even if you're certain Wall Street's insatiable greed will eventually destroy America's cherished democracy and capitalism (which it will).
Yes, if Wall Street's takeover of Washington won't kill us, the global population bomb will. So you must also accept the larger, global reality: That absent a global disaster of epic proportions, the world population will increase 50% from 6.3 billion to roughly 9.1 billion by 2050, largely in developing nations, as the U.N. predicts. And you realize adding 2.8 billion new humans, all demanding an upgrade to the American Standard of Living will place unsustainable demands on the world's natural resources.
The coming population boom was highlighted recently in Mother Jones magazine, exposing huge golden investment opportunities for the future. Julia Whitty's article, "The Last Taboo," exposes the global cover-up uniting "the Vatican, lefties, conservatives, environmentalists and scientists in a conspiracy of silence."
Cover-up? Yes. Denial that this population explosion is destined to deplete the planet's limited resources and destroy civilization. Get it? This conspiracy will make certain absolutely nothing is done to rein in future demand for commodities, putting ever increasing demands on limited natural resources, driving up prices and creating fabulous opportunities for enlightened investors.
In a second incredible Mother Jones piece, Clive Thompson challenges us with the other self-sabotaging economic taboo in the our blind disregard of the limits of growth: "Nothing Grows Forever. Why Do We Keep Pretending the Economy Will?" Why? Because the human brain cannot face the truth.
And the truth is that world governments and the planet's 6.3 billion people are on a collision course with the limits of our planet's resources. Our civilization is on a path of self-destruction, we are in denial and suicidal, not a psychotic playing Russian roulette, more like a divinely inspired kamikaze pilot.
Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The Millionaire Code," "The Winning Portfolio," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing." Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology.
There were signs of life Monday in the industrial heartland, writes Jim Jelter.
3:02 p.m. April 26, 2010 | Comments: 18
- cinghialed | 11:27 p.m. April 26, 2010
"Six investing rules for a worst-case scenario http://on.mktw.net/bcJ1ct" 11:05 p.m. EDT, April 26, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"President Obama vs. Goldman's Reaganomics http://on.mktw.net/9dnq88" 11:01 p.m. EDT, April 19, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"New Dow high ahead? Happy talk feeds sheep http://on.mktw.net/auhV57" 11:03 p.m. EDT, April 12, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"Mighty America's 5 stages of rapid decline http://on.mktw.net/aMqSFu" 12:02 a.m. EDT, April 6, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"How Lazy Portfolios will whip 2010 Collapse http://on.mktw.net/cDYUDQ" 11:45 p.m. EDT, March 29, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
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