link Markets Start to Anticipate Obama Victory in November – Fast Money – CNBC – CNBC.
This is a classic “as if” scenario. Despite demonstrable incompetence and ill founded principles offered during the incumbent’s stay in the White House, the narrative is being pushed that the ‘stability’ offered by the Obama reign is somehow benign for the financial markets. Only those who are still subscribing to the tooth fairy fantasy; those that are on their 3rd hit of the bong or those from California could possibly subscribe to this delusion.
The fact is, markets are anticipators of events, usually 6 to 8 months into the future. For example, when the stock market suffered the massive swoon in early 2008, it was partly in anticipation of the Democratic victory in the fall of that year. While the write downs in bank and mortgage valuations did substantiate the big selloff, it was the anticipation of a incoming regime that was expected to be unfriendly to markets that started the cascade.
At the moment, the Republicans are almost finished with their circular firing squad process of vetting their candidate to oppose Obama during this year’s November elections. It appears that the presumptive victor, Mitt Romney will prevail and consequently, an experienced and capable economic individual will resume control of the Presidency. It is more likely that this assumption is the scenario causing the markets to advance. To subscribe to CNBC’s version of reality is to assume that people have come to accept and embrace out of control spending, skyrocketing deficits and a sure but steady neutering of America’s economic and social system. In other words, they assume that people have thrown up their hands and accepted that the U.S. will become Greece, Portugal or even worse, California.
While of course people will always adjust to whatever reality is thrust upon them, it’s a stretch for anyone to claim that the financial markets are stabilizing ahead of an Obama victory. It’s as if someone chose to go back to eat at a particular restaurant after becoming violently ill when they last ate there. It’s the logic of ‘the devil you know’. Sounds like spousal abuse to me.
link North Vancouver District wrestles with longboarding.
Modern times calls for modern updates to the staid old Olympic events. In the 21st century, do people really care who throws a spear or hurls a ‘hammer’ the furthest? Is it really captivating to watch someone lift the most dead weight? Then there’s the running competitions.
It’s amusing enough that in a time when there are all sorts of possible conveniences of transportation invented and available, that people will still be fascinated by how fast a human can run 26 miles. The marathon was created as an homage to the couriers who had to run back to generals to report messages from the battlefront….about 20 centuries ago. Yet to this day, modern athletes still perform these feats of human accomplishment and compete against others for national glory despite the fact that they have no particular relevance to modern life. Thank goodness no one had to roll a stone for 26 miles back then.
I say it may be time to freshen up some of these traditional measures of human physical accomplishment with events which more clearly reflect modern society and sensibilities. As the linked article describes, it appears that we are well on our way to adding ‘longboarding’ to the list of possible Olympic events. Longboarding, for those who don’t live in Lotus land, is most simply described as riding a long skateboard while in the supine position down a steep and winding mountain road. Did I mention that there is car traffic on the road at the same time? While the ancient marathoners had to endure the risk of being killed as they ran back to command central, so would modern ‘longboarders’ run the risk of being taken out by a Volvo.
Adding the element of mortal danger would greatly increase the skill level (possibly) of aspiring athletes as well as dramatically spike viewership to the sport. One can easily imagine categories of ability which would revolve around how many cars are on the track or whether to add trucks into the mix for the really advanced athletes. In another time, parents would have done their best to tell their children not to play in traffic. Who knew that they were holding back potential Olympic contenders? If you can’t control kids, then legitmize their activities into sport.
As a matter of fact, we can pick many such childhood pursuits, tsk tsk’d by most parents, which can also morph into legitimate sport. Swinging on a tire off a cliff. Diving off rocks into rapids. Cycling downhill in the dark. An entire generation of kids can be brought into the Olympic movement. Once parents see the light, they can encourage their kids to seek Olympic glory instead of being killjoys.
Of course purists will object to having such sports included among the traditional measures of human accomplishments. Fair enough. We can then re-brand these as the Darwin Olympics.