Archive for the ‘Side Notes’ Category

The Dangers of the Mob Mentality

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

We as the people of the United States are at a historic impasse where we can either band together to get through these hard time or fight and create a hostile environment where recovery is more difficult and prolonged.


When viewing an economic crisis over history many economists strictly view the flow of money, whether it is spending, lending or monetary. My view is somewhat more of the psychological viewpoint of the masses. If we strip out the dollars and cents of a crisis what we are left with is the acceptance of a failed endeavor.

We as individuals are able to handle extremely difficult stresses in life by going through stages of acceptance to finally moving on. As pointed out by Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd the individual is typically smarter than the crowd. As an individual we cope much faster with a crisis then the masses. Since this crisis is affecting so many people it makes it harder as an individual to go against the irrational actions of the crowd and move toward the somewhat obvious solution.


So instead of acting out of anger, we need to think as individuals and act rationally. If everyone thinks as an individual rather than part of the mob we would make more progress toward the resolution of this difficult time.

Unfortunately, if history is any indication of the future, people will jump on the bandwagon and the resolution will be prolonged and full of irrational behavior. Interesting that it is not the economic factors that determine the outcome, it is the human action.

The Financial Press – Seagulls

Friday, March 20th, 2009

So I read a lot of financial newspapers and watch just as much financial television and it seems like the message changes daily. One day the market is up and we have hit a bottom and Dow 10,000 here we come. The next day the market is down and Dow 0 here we come. The interesting thing is that many times the same reason the market is up one day is the same reason it is down the next.

I really would appreciate a financial network that tells us the news and leaves off their “experts” opinion of why, since in a given day you can find as many bulls as bears in a crowd who are willing to comment market momentum. Another interesting side note is that these “experts” are representing Financial Firms, who are using the free air time as a marketing effort.

So what happen to just the news? So many times I hear these reporters give their opinions. I think they should probably start reporting the news and stop trying to convince us of their (or their networks) opinion.

Sometimes I feel like I am listening to the Seagulls from Finding Nemo: