Thursday, March 14, 2013

Plausible Deniability: Opiate of the Masses

There is a fine line between objectivity and lack of judgement. I don't even attempt to walk that line. As a blogger who scorns the general lack of objectivity in the financial press, I am a hypocrite, because I am not the least bit objective. I consider this blog as a public service announcement from someone who has no vested financial interest in the direction of the market. Do I bet on the market, sure. But I can bet any way I want. I don't make money by telling other people what they should with theirs...

Therein lies the problem. The vast majority of financial prognosticators manage money and therefore have a vested interest in certain outcomes. They have no way of being objective. More to the point, the overwhelming majority are bought in to any type of market that goes higher regardless of the durability or sustainability of its underlying fundamentals. Scalpers and short-term speculators don't even care what happens beyond the next few days. Consider all of this in the context of the prior post showing that the number of "bears" is at a two year low...

Therefore I find the constant equivocation in the financial press to be a false form of objectivity. Comparing ten facts about the economy and assuming they are all equal weighted, only gives the pretense of objectivity. What it really amounts to is a lack of judgement or worse yet, a vested bias. The reason why few people would take their information from a blog like this one, is because they don't want certainty. Or I should say, they don't want negative certainty. What they really want is positive certainty, but if they can't get that they will settle for plausible deniability. Everyone knows there are many things wrong with this economy and it's largely fake and phony, but the last thing people want is for someone to tell them with absolute certainty that all of this could end badly. Therefore, this route of pretend "objectivity" conveniently allows the reader to choose his/her own preferred outcome. It's the financial media's gift to the Idiocracy - allowing them to choose their own fairy tale ending. Of course, when the range of probable outcomes is skewed in one direction or another as it is now, then it's all pure delusion. Dungeons and Dragons for adults. If there was a meteor hurtling towards the earth, the last thing we would think to do is flip a coin as to whether or not we should do anything about it, yet that is what the financial media does every day.

What's My Motive?
Everyone has a vested interest, so I will tell you my "vested interest" for writing this blog (beyond venting rage at the immorality of the globalized Ponzi Scheme). I have been investing since 1996. I was wiped out several times in a row years ago, during the Dot Com bust, during 9/11 and then again when Bush decided to invade Iraq for some still unknown reason. But the root cause of pain was due to Central Banks inflating phony asset bubbles that only lasted long enough to suck people in and then spit them out again. Meanwhile, my job, the value of my house, and my savings (if I allow them to be) are all 100% correlated to this latent clusterfuck some call an economy. So the last thing I will abide is to have yet another Central Bankster wipe me out while I lie to myself that this third asset bubble in a row will somehow turn out differently than the last two. I am sick of this shit.

The bottom line is that I may not be objective, but I don't get paid to blow smoke up your ass either. Therefore I don't mince words when I repeat over and over again that this shit show is going to blow up and leave a smoking fucking crater that makes 2008 seem like a picnic. 

What can we do about it? Now that's a more interesting question. Again, I refer to Prechter's guide on how to survive the Crash (no, I don't get paid a fee).