It Seems I Was Wrong

At the beginning of the year, I stated emphatically that we were no closer to a recovery than the year prior. I further added that we would see a summer selloff that rocked the markets and shattered talk of the looming “2 quarters out” growth acceleration.

Well, summer has come and is very near gone, and it has not happened.

Thus, I must say that I was wrong.

I am not apologizing to the people I ridiculed, mind you. Because these people have just been repeating that we were 2 quarters out from a recovery every quarter for four years. In fact, I would say that this is the first time I guessed a summer market fallout since 2010 and haven’t had it materialize. Ask any gambler, eventually you hit the slots; but it doesn’t make you brilliant and rarely makes you whole.

But that doesn’t excuse my being wrong about an unmistakable market selloff. Now, we’ve had a lot of turnover, and personally I’ve experienced selloffs in my holdings over the last few months, which I have graciously taken advantage of to apply cash to add to positions.

But, we all know very well that when I said “market selloff”, what I meant was “market selloff”. Not, “turn over” or “sector rotation”.

Pleasantly listening to old records on a gramophone, sprinting over the walls of my 9th floor office, I’ve been catching up on the news.

The Syria warmongering remains nonsense. Not only do we not know who set off those chemical weapons, but even if we did, it probably wouldn’t change anything.

Consider, if you will, that the Iraq invasion was initially supported by 62% of the public in 2002 according to the Pew Research Center, while 68% of the House of Representatives approved the resolution, as did 77% of the US Senate.

Today, 9% unconditionally approve moving on Syria, while 25% approve moving on Syria “if Assad uses chemical weapons”. While this has confused some pundits, who are asking around the blogosphere, “hasn’t the US already said Assad did use chemical weapons?”, there’s actually not a contradiction here. It’s just that 16-25% of Americans, depending on the polling questions and methodology, don’t trust the US government or our intelligence apparatus to throw a stone, and think our leadership is full of shit.

Meanwhile, a solid >75% of Americans don’t care about Syria.

In summary, support for a Syria intervention could be swallowed whole by the initial surge of support for Iraq, between 2-8 times over, even though Iraq was, I am told by certain reputable acquantainces, unconditionally “THE WORST THING TO HAVE EVER HAPPENED ANYWHERE EVER”.

Back to the world of business, I am encouraged by the growth of jobs and seeming resilience of the US economy. I would still recommend having a slightly larger than normal cash position, but surely not the 50/50 allocation I was pushing earlier.

Muni bonds are getting slashed, but that is to be expected. Other than that, signs are holding up that there may be favorable outlook. Michigan itself is doing great right now, as far as manufacturing and engineering are concerned, the dead wood leadership of our cities has been set on fire, and I find I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a while.

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