"People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. Advertising [perception management] is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."
George Orwell
Watching the commentary on the stock market and Egypt on US financial television today was an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
See, there are no problems in the world, because the Dow has hit 12,000. All is well, and now is the time to buy these shares from us, so that we can unload this misvalued paper just like we sold slop buckets full of collateralized debt obligations to the institutions and foreign banks, in celebration of the deregulation which we bought from the politicians, causing this financial crisis in the first place.
The hubris and arrogance of Wall Street is almost shocking if one does not realize that these fellows are very afraid, and probably trying to bluff their way out of this latest crisis. They are whistling past the graveyard, treading lightly over the bodies of their victims, keeping one eye on the exit and one hand on your wallet.
There may be a bull market in Swiss chalets and South American villas coming, depending on how steadily the winds of change sweep across the globe.
