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The other day was a perfect sign of the doldrums we’re in at the moment.

No. it wasn’t the boring day in the stock market that I discussed yesterday. And sure, today was more of the same.

Regardless of how boring these first two days of the week have been, no one that I know is about to complain about the extra 200 points that have been tacked on to the Dow in the absence of any tangible news. Since I don’t consort with short sellers for the most part, everyone I know has been happy with the relative calmness of the past two days and happily accepted the added bonus of gains.

Actually, as I look at my Google+ circle I guess I really don’t consort with anyone, unless geometry now allows you to define a circle on the basis of a single point.`

In what seems a lifetime, I haven’t heard anyone mention the word “volatility” or use the phrase “risk on/risk off.” For that matter, “catch a falling knife” and “rip your face off rally” have also taken much needed breaks. Although that, too, may be related to my lack of circle size.

But I do watch lots of TV and those sounds have been silent.

What could have been a day of great excitement on Tuesday turned into just another great yawner as Italy failed to live up to diminished expectations.

Conrad Murray guilty of involuntary manslaughter of Michael Jackson?

Yawn.

Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, set to resign once economic reforms are passed?

Yawn.

But the real sign of the boredom that’s set in centered on the latest Republican dynamics in their contest for the 2012 GOP Presidential nominee.

Had you not known better, you would have thought that the debate a few nights ago from Las Vegas was part of the process of coming down to the wire with the last remaining and surviving candidates.

Bloodied from the previous grueling debates all that were left from the once huge pool of Presidential wannabes were Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.

Clearly at this point it would have to be a battle of gladiators to fight until the death, if only two of the standing candidates are there to debate.

Much like ancient Greek gladiators who knew no fear and retired only upon the time of their battlefield death.

Instead it was the meeting of the two sausage kings, Newt Gingrich, sausage by stature and shape and Herman Cain, sausage provocateur du jour.

Obviously, they had nothing better to do, while the likes of Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann and the rest all had reasons for not getting involved with what promised to be a verbal blood bath.

Given that previous debates have seen the moderators criticized for asking questions that sought to elicit differences among the candidates, you would have expected more of those kind of fireworks, but not between the candidates.

Instead, the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich in a combination Kumbaya/Rodney King moment urged his fellow combatants to resist the goading of the moderators who were clearly allied with the Democrat enemy in attempting to get the Republicans to bicker in public.

In the world of politics it’s not surprising to find words nuanced, but most people seem to have the same understanding of the meaning of “debate”.

In the past, the meaning of that word hasn’t been open to debate.

What is this thing you call “debate?” is a question that’s rarely asked, except at GOP debates.

Instead, this most recent debate was just a lovefest, so well suited for the likes of Bill Clinton’s biggest detractor on the morals front, Newt Gingrich, who had proven himself to be quite the player and illicit lover.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 Not on the same plane as Democrat John Edwards, but still, pretty scummy and hypocritical. Even for a politician.

Not to be left out, Herman Cain, deacon of his church, is battling allegations daily of seeking to insert unwanted sausage into each and every order.

Papa John’s doesn’t have to be the only one playing the Sausage Fest game. 

 And why not? As Godfather’s Pizza CEO, he knew the great value of extra toppings and great customer service.

Back in those lonely Washington DC days, lobbying for the NRA, not to be confused with the other NRA, which was once led by an actor who knew how to quiet the desert dwelling and commandment craving crowd with his own staff, Cain was just a good servant.

Even if you have something better to do, you can’t just leave your sausage unattended for any length of time. Otherwise, it will go bad from disuse.

Cain knew that all too well and was proud of that sausage. Listening to his comments this afternoon, how could you not possibly believe that his attentions to an increasing number of women were anything other than pushing his fine product.

On a real positive note and demonstrating the entrepreneurial spirit that is still alive, Godfather’s Pizza announced their new limited time special offer. The Herman Cain. An extra large pizza with unwanted sausage.

With nothing much better to do this day, I at least got a couple of “yawner” kind of trades off. The kind that will barely be enough to cover Wednesday’s trip to New York City. I sold some calls on Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, British Petroleum and Amazon.

Although not on the agenda, if the boredom continues, I may just stop off to see the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon and maybe snap a picture or two.

Unfortunately, I’ll be competing against Wednesday’s GOP debate.

While they’ll be lining up for another debate, this one sponsored by CNBC and taking place in Michigan, I’ll be appearing on Bloomberg Rewind, hosted by Matt Miller, who is bravely growing out his mustache on air, in honor of “Movember” in order to help raise awareness of prostate cancer.

I’m hoping that I’ll be asked my opinions on debates and the candidates, but I don’t think that’s in the cards, although I did warn the producer that I suffer from a variant of Tourette’s Syndrome and may occasionally blurt out details of my tax plan.

Although I’ll miss the CNBC sponsored debate, because I do have something better to do for a change, that excuse won’t last very long.

The next debate is being sponsored by the Cartoon Network and any number of GOP candidates seem to have an inside track to be the crowd favorite on that one. You can never go wrong with Paul or Bachmann in that regard, but watch out for that Gingrich. He cuts a pretty cartoonish figure, reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty.

Hopefully, by then volatility will be back and Italy will entertain us in the manner that we had come to expect.

I’m tired of yawning these past two days and am pinning all hopes on the dysfunction that everyone has been expecting to come out of Italian politics to lead us back into the promised land of uncertainty.

But in a nod to the contrarians, so far, Berlusconi is letting us down by avoiding the theatrics that we’d come to expect.

It’s not as if he has anything better to do, after all. Why can’t he upstage Papandreou and make Merkel and Sarkozy do slow boils as they try to save the European Union despite their “challenged” Meditteranean brethren.?

Besides, what’s a 75 year old billionaire going to do? Go out with a couple of underage hookers?

Exactly. So he does have something better to do.

Yawn.

 

November 7, 2011

No matter how selfless any one of us may make ourselves out to be, there is no escaping the fact that we all have an ego. In fact, the mere act of thinking one’s self to be selfless is feeding into that ego.

You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to know that ego is indispensable and the source of many of our problems. Those problems can be self-inflicted, but more likely are those that we inflict upon others in pursuit of satisfying an ego.

An example of a self-inflicted problem related to ego is when you believe that sometimes a cigar is not a cigar. The inevitable comparison is ego deflating and may lead to ED.

Ego dysfunction, which in turn to can lead to another kind of ED.

To become everything that you believe that you were destined to be typically requires that some collateral damage be done along the way.

Sometimes that collateral damage may be in the form of a missing $600 million of client funds, sometimes it may take the form of diminishing shareholder value.

Sometimes it means making you and your nation look like babbling idiots.

The delicate balance between instincts, moralistic oversight and pragmatic approach to life is what distinguishes us from one another every bit as much as DNA aids forensic scientists and our scent alerts a dog.

In the name of ego we do great things, but also terrible things.

There’s no doubt that ego has been front and center this past week.

Jon Corzine comes to mind. Jerry Yang? Yeah, him too, but for much more than a single week.

By all accounts, Corzine believed that he was not only the smartest of the smart, but also charmed. He ventured into an area of great risk and reward, but without the requisite knowledge, as his ego blinded him to the reality of the situation.

Thrown out by Goldman Sachs, nearly thrown out of a speeding car, losing a Gubernatorial election, Corzine needed a big win to satisfy a big ego.

They never deflate, you know. They constantly need to be fed and the stakes just get higher.

Yang’s ego took the form of a paternalistic attitude toward investors that blinded him to the reality of the situation. What he still hasn’t realized, being somewhat stuck in the pre-1500’s world, is that Yahoo! does not revolve around him, but rather around its universe of shareholders.

Even Pope Clement VII was able to understand that God’s law is not inviolate. Copernicus was not burned at the stake.

Copernicus, who proved that the earth was not the center of the universe, interestingly was also the first voice to proclaim what 75 years later became known as “Gresham’s Law” and formed the basis for monetary policy 600 years ago.

Copernicus was the first to address the phenomenon that debasing currency would drive undebased currency out of circulation. “Sovereigns” debase currency at the expense of the citizenry.

Yang? Center of universe. Yang? Debased currency?

He is the anti-Copernicus. 

Corzine dealt with his stunning descent into reality by leaving his ego behind, especially as ego is often measured in terms of money. He declined to accept any contractually due payments, although it’s not terribly likely that a bankruptcy court would have made that gesture necessary.

Yang, on the other hand, continues to be blinded to the reality.

That sometimes is the paradox of ego. Freud described it as the pragmatic component of the troika, further composed of id and super-ego. But for all of its pragmatic qualities, ego sometimes makes us do some really stupid things, most of all, neglecting to understand events on the ground.

Every investor has an ego, as well. In it’s most simple form it’s measured by portfolio performance.

Sometimes, a well trained ego will consider performance relative to some standard and will keep himself in check if his performance doesn’t meet the standard.

Other times, an investor will focus solely on the one great trade. The one that made lots of money, while forgetting the big picture and the fact that the rest of the portfolio may have woefully underperformed.

Celebrating that victory, though, and pointing it out to others, serves to embolden for the next battle. Without being emboldened, who would ever take risks?

I don’t know what Jon Corzine’s recent victories have been, but he sure was emboldened, although maybe it’s easier to be so when using other people’s money.

It’s still not clear what role ego played in this past week’s doings in Greece.

When both your father and grandfather served as Prime Minister before you, there’s no doubt that there has to be an incredible clash of egos at whatever the Greek equivalent of Thanksgiving Day dinners are, in the Papandreou household.

In that kind of household probably the only way to have a chance of survival is to see to it that your own ego can withstand the obvious comparisons and intellectual debates. No doubt that American born and educated PM Papandreou the Third, still has to prove his Greek “bona fides.”

So what do we make of the political events in Greece last week?

Where was Papandreou’s paternalistic streak? Third generation Prime Minister, you’d think that he would have a patrician air, and as best as possible in the nation that gave us democracy, rule by fiat.

No doubt that his ego and that of all of Greece was stoked by the thought that they could possibly unravel the European Union by following their collective id and ignoring their national super-ego.

But as a politician, did Papandreou put his ego on hold by putting the decision to accept the 50% haircut to a referendum or was he, as the former deputy finance minister said, an emotional wreck, incapable of leading?

Or maybe he was crazy. Crazy like a fox.

Instead, you have to marvel at an ego that played second fiddle to politics and political strategy.

As news came on Friday that a new coalition government was about to be formed in Greece, but not being led by Papandreou, the markets rallied.

What does that do to your ego?

Ask any CEO who after a dismissal or retirement sees their stock price rally. Was anyone more pilloried than Leo Apotheker recently? How’s that ego doing, Leo?

That must not be the best of feelings. Luckily, since money, even from severance, serves to inflate ego, the net result is elevated ego.

Was the past week of high drama and what appeared to be dysfunction all carefully coordinated plans to promote personal and national ego?

Did Greece get everything it wanted and needs without really having given up much in return? In fact, what seems like an selfless act by its leader may be anything but, as he gives the appearance of putting state before self, while being available to return and “save” his nation from themselves and the EU when the coalition fails.

In the meantime, it’s off to Italy, where the next ego has a sense of buffoonery.

After the last couple of months, my ego is doing reasonably well.

I really only need to fool two people. Myself and Sugar Momma and don’t have much need or chance to inflict collateral damage, unless you believe that everything done in the market is part of a zero sum game.

In that case, I hope to litter the streets with undeserving citizenry and will occasionally leave some cigar ashes on the carcasses.

That would make anyone feel good.

And besides, it’s time to give that super-ego a rest.

  

 

I must have missed something in life. I grew up at a time when The Beatles were just beginning their “US Invasion” and can still remember their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

It was a time of free love and drugs, although the option to pay was always available.

Do you remember the song “Daytripper”?

If you really grew up at that time and took in all of what was going on, you likely can’t remember that song, but you can still probably take a guess and be right.

I took a guess and was totally wrong. I just assumed that it referred to LSD trips. The actual lyrics said otherwise, although McCartney said otherwise to the otherwise. According to him, Daytripper” was an example of playful wordplay in an attempt to mask the true meaning and escape the wrath of more prudish critics.

Whatever.

It’s sad as I sit in the Nashville Airport, ready to return home, after having just arrived this morning, that for me, at least, today “Daytripper” just refers to a nameless and faceless traveler, blending into the scenery with the ubiquitous blue blazer and laptop.

Fortunately, the Nashville Airport seems to have the highest concentration of guitar toting passangers of anywhere in the world and served to break the sea of faceless daytrippers..

I never was much of a “daytripper” of any sort, but I am of the nameless and faceless variety right now, along with what appear to be travel weary salespeople.

You know the kind. The ones with the crisply pressed shirts and corporate logos. The ones that are told to always smile, lest their sorrows be a bad reflection upon the home office.

A life of that kind of daytripping doesn’t have as much appeal as the kind that The Beatles had characterized. I don’t even think that there are sad country and western sings paying tribute to those traveling cowboys.

But then, there’s also that other variety of daytripper.

Lord knows that the trading variation of “daytripper” seems like a good idea these days. But unlike a few years ago, when a large population of those day traders was wiped out, who needs to play for pennies here or there anymore?

Instead, think big. Sort of like why think a joint when it could be THC, to borrow from The Beatles post-Yogi phase of mind, if you buy into that interpretation of the song.

I usually spend Thursdays going after different kind of pennies. I usually am looking to sell some call options of 1-2 days duration, just to pick up a few of those errant pennies.

And do on Thursdays I scour my old maid holdings, those that aren’t already paired with a short call option, looking specifically fpr those that are below their cost basis and have shown some price recovery, but aren’t expected to get back to their cost by the time of option expiration.

I know. I had to read the paragraph over a few times, as well.

But lately, even those price moves that seemed unlikely to occur in such a short time frame have been occurring on a regular basis. When that happens, I lose my shares.

On top of that, the old conventional wisdom that smart traders wouldn’t stay long into the weekend, especially when there were economic overhangs, seems to have died a quick death. So instead of being able to count on a nice Friday plunge, thereby bringing my shares below their strike prices, lately they’ve just moved further away.

Luckily, just like in this past week, I can often count on “down Mondays. Those are the natural consequence of too many unwarranted moves up. They help bring share prices back to a more reasonable level so that I can re-purchase thoise shares.

Hopefully, at a lower price that they had been assigned for.

 Today, once again, I was totally shut off from all human contact. By that I mean that I was with people and that prevented me from being glued to anything electronic.

Although I was fully equipped with my trusty little travel modem, batteries and chargers to spare, all tucked into the blue blazer, since I didn’t need baggage, I was still unable to do anything other than get an occasional glimpse on the puny screen of a smartphone.

That’ not terribly satisfying. Size matters.

Leaving home this morning before the market opened, I did at least hear about the surprise move to lower EU interest rates.

This one was no rumor. Only made sense for the market to react in an appropriate way and accept that news with fully open arms.

Maybe even a hug.

On top of that the world learned that when Greek Prime Minister Papandreou was calling for a referendum, he really meant “concensus,”

When will we ever learn that whenver we try to translate from thr original Greek to Grrk, something important is always lost in the translation.

Since there is no video proof in English of the Prime Minister ever suggesting a referendum, the market just assumed that it was all a misunderstanding and proceeded to squeeze the shorts just a bit more.

Despite the fact that a former deputy finance minister from the opposition party referred to Papandreou as basically an emotional wreck who was unable to deal with the stress of the situation, talk has now turned to the idea that Papandreou simply outmaneuvered his opponents.

Who cares?

Simply add another 200 points to the Dow, go right past S&P 1250 and all’s good in the world.

What’s fascinating is that these days facts seem to be daytripping, too, although it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between facts and rumors.

The way our mindset is working these days, if something is rumored to be factual, that’s good enough. If the previous rumor is contraindicated by a new rumor, that’s good enough, as well.

Think of it as playful wordplay.

In fact, the daytripping of rumors is considered in and of itself to be a new age manifestation of fact,

As a Harold Ramis inspired character would say, “That’s the fact, Jack,” and you’d be very hardpressed to counter that unless someone else saluted you and shouted out “That’s not the fact, Jack.”

How likely is that to happen?

Very likely, if recent events are any measure.

The words may be different, but the outcome would be the same.

So even though I was fully isolated from the world, I know that today’s market response will surely lead us to Friday and recently, there’s been no negative rumors coming out of the EU on Fridays. That can only lead to more unwarranted buying, because it’s already too late to sell on the news.

Or not.

So that then brings us to Italy and the sense of deja vous will hit yet again.

The characters will be different, the politics are a bit different, but regardless of what side of the Atlantic you’re on, it’s clear that there’s lots of dysfunction going on.

We’ll probably never truly know what Lennon and McCartney had in mind when they colloborated on that song, just as well never know what was really going through Papandreou’s mind.

Either way, enjoy the outcome, because sometimes it’s just best not to know.

 

　

I rarely get bored.

That explains why I can sit all day and stay glued to the TV screen watching and listening to various “experts” spread their wisdom.

Today, though, as good as it was, turned out to be very boring.

For a change, not only was there no news to move the markets, but there weren’t even any rumors.

To make matters worse, even though I am a big fan of Ben Benanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, his press conference, which now can no longer be referred to as “unprecedented”, came to pre-empt CNBC’s “Street Signs,” which for me has been a reincarnation of the old NBC concept of “Must See TV.”

To put that into perspective, I felt the same way today as when episodes of COPS and America’s Most Wanted are pre-empted by NASCAR, except I don’t like NASCAR.

Instead of dealing with the boredom, I did something that I really dislike. I went to the Mall to pick up some more stylish accessories to complement my typical daily outfit, as I was making a business related day trip to Nashville on Thursday.

While driving there it was either pay attention to the road or think about anything else. So I chose anything else, but focused on the earlier thought this week regarding “expertise”, but now I was focused on “at what cost” should we bow to expertise?

Each day I seem to wonder why we don’t hear more people speaking out on the clear and constant assault on our intelligence.

Listening to the barrage of statements whose contradictory nature is masked by the passage of time, it would be nice to see the occasional use of that modern miracle to objectively measure expertise.

Video, or at least its digital counterpart.

These days nothing happens without someone having captured it on video of some sort.

Since I do nothing else in life these days than sit and watch, I maintain my intelligence by trying to recall everything I’ve heard and seen in the process. That includes the local cable advertisements for computer repair and pest control.

A rodent prancing on your motherboard will cause great damage, but at least I think I can remember where I put the piece of paper with the shop’s phone number on it.

But when memory is lagging, video is great.

 A number of years ago, Joe Kernen offered to drag out the video that he inferred would contradict the statements that an esteemed guest was making, regarding his personal exemplarly prediction track record. That individual was giving the strong impression that he had called for market caution just prior to the collapse of the markets. He was equally clearly upset with the suggestion that he was massaging the past.

So much so that he passed away not too long after.

Kernen will do that to people.

In that sense, I guess Kernen got the last laugh, although that was a bit extreme. The official party line is that the two events were unrelated, but the mysterious disappearance of the DNA evidence certainly leaves room to wonder.

There’s no question that there’s some very high priced talent out there willing to manage your assets and provide your portfolio tending loving guidance, while playing a revisionist version of history.

I don’t totally understand the “2 and 20” nor the concepts of “high water mark,” but I certainly understand the proven concept of closing a fund when losses make it improbable that the “2 and 20” will ever kick in. Doing that also erases all memory, other than for those that get left holding the bag with losses from the old fund.

Yet, amazingly, high priced losers always seem to live yet another day. There’s a whole other world of investors out there who likely are unaware of the real performance they are buying into.

Now that’s a nice concept. Walk away from your failures and start anew.

The unsaid, or more likely loudly stated concept is that “you get what you pay for.” That’s somewhere along the lines of “it takes money to make money”.

That appeals to lots of people. So much so that many mega-church pastors are able to convince their not terribly worthy parishioners that God will like them more if they donate more lavishly to the church.

Only then will they become more worthy, while in the process becoming less wealthy, which is a stopping point for becoming more wealthy.

Inferences being what they are, if you should lower your self-respect by paying less, you will get less. Like say, a lesser Hindu God.

Since there’s no equivalent measurement to Price – earnings ratio in the world of portfolio or hedge fund managers it’s really difficult to critically assess if you really do get what you pay for when your portfolio is managed.

 No doubt that there is truth to almost everything that’s said or left unsaid. After all, how many absolutes are there in life? Even the Ten Commandments have some wiggle room. Even those absolutes have back door escapes.

Don’t want to commit adultery? Fine, bigamy for you.

But I think I’m beginning to understand why we’re so accepting of such clear and blatant contradictions. In fact, they really don’t insult our intelligence, they help hone and maintain it. Besides, we’re surrounded by contradictions and never think twice about tehir co-existence in what should be a mutually exclusive relationship.

Beyond that, axiomatic sayings, the ones that we simply accept as being true, often have their own axiomatic, yet polar oposite counterparts.

“The best things in life are free.”

How does that even begin to square, especially when you get what you pay for?

With time, I’ve come to very strongly believe that the science of stock picking is neither art nor science.

It’s either blind luck or access to very special and timely information.

Given the ferocity of market moves and the rapidity with which they occur or change direction, it’s not terribly likely that anyone can really fare well by simply picking stocks. Obviously managing positions through the use of derivatives is increasingly important to manage risk, but that just further confirms that even the best and brightest have no clue what will happen to their favorite stock fromr one moment to the next.

So, do you really have to pay for the expertise that is every bit a hostage to external forces as you, a lonely individual investor is?

Clearly, when there are massive moves, it’s not legions of little guys who are creating or perpetuating the waves.

The little guys, though, are still to often led to believe that the deck is stacked against them. As such, the only way to have a fighting chance is to pay for it without regard to performance. There’s also much more prestige to having a managed account at Morgan Stanley than one at E*Trade.

That’s the suburban equivalent of class warfare and snobbery

Obviously, when all of the chips are ready to be cashed in, prestige has lots more cache than bottom line.

I bring all of this up because among the reasons I maintain this blog is to sell books. For that purpose, I have a publicist.

He is paid nothing and worth every cent.

Alright, I paid for his college education and may have fed him on occasion, but otherwise, he gets nothing.

Best of all, he has nothing to work with.

I’m anti-social, lazy, content to be sitting in my La-Z-Boy and watching TV.

In the meantime, I do find some time to make some trades. Today they were simple ones and not terribly rewarding as there’s only two days left until this week’s options expire. When you subtract what I pay my publicist for his services from the premiums I received today, I still have all of the premiums.

He has the memory of meals past.

After about 500 points of loss, today was a gift that allowed me to sell calls on Riverbed Technology, Netflix and Amazon.

I didn’t get much for the effort, but it was something that I could throw into the box that holds all of those other meaningless trades.

My publicist, in the meantime, was doing some real work. He’s informed me that I’ll be appearing on “Bloomberg Rewind” next week.

I was watching Bloomberg Rewind tonight and the guest, John Ryding, Chief Economist of RDQ Economics disparaged Twitter when asked if he participated in that social medium phenomenon. His position was that his clients expected more than what could be delivered in 140 spaces.

Newsflash: Clients don’t want verbosity. They want performance. They’re not paying premium fees because they want your wisdom in doses of greater than 140 spaces.

But still, all of a sudden, my publicist is earning his way. I hope he’s not expecting a little extra in his envelope.

But here’s the problem.

When you start getting more than what you paid for you can go one of two ways.

Either you congratulate yourself on the great fortune of faring so well, or you wonder “what if?”

For me, there’s no “what if?”

There’s nothing better than not needing to have your hand held and then topping it off with the hand you held for so long giving it back.

There’s no price on that. And I still have about 120 spaces left. Now that’s economical.

I can still think back to those days when my kids would be put to bed each night with a story.

“Moo. Baa. La La La.”

That phrase will be stuck in my mind until the day I die, as like most parents, I found myself reading the same story over and over, night after night, because that was the story that wanted to be heard.

Whatever it took to get the little darlings to sleep. Whatever it took. Even Moo. Baa. La La La.

I was only talked off the ledge because the nice policeman promised me I’d never have to hear those sounds again.

Instead, it was a book devoid of silly sounds, but sadly chronicling the deaths of brave, hungry, thirsty, polite, sleepy and explorers, leaving only a single smart explorer to survive.

“Six brave explorers came to Egypt alive, one discovered a rare bird and then there were five.”

Different kids, different tastes. Different stories, but with the same need for the comfort that comes with repetition.

It was always so nice when one was ready to move onto a new book. I don’t really recall, but I may have occasionally hastened that process by telling the kids that their mother threw out their favorite book in a moment of unrestrained rage.

Not trusting a parent is part of healthy childhood development. You can look it up.

Even “Atlas Shrugged” would have been a welcome change from some of the Berenstain Bears adventures, especially the dentist one. The Berenstain Bear loving kid of mine didn’t have the same love for my attempts to read to him from more legitimate dentistry textbooks to try and offset the inaccuracies of the Berenstain version of teeth.

Fast forward some 15+ years and that brings us to today.

And here it is. The same old story. Instead of reading the book, all I hear is the constant repeat of the musical refrain, “Greece is the word, Greece is the word, is the word that you heard…”

Greece, the nation that gave the gift of democracy to the world also showed that it could lead the way in abandoning electoral responsibility, as Prime Minister Papandreou called for a national referendum to get approval for the austerity measures necessary to prevent a “hard default.”

I’ve already forgotten what the root cause of the market’s Monday downturn was ascribed to, but today everyone was on the same page.

“Greece is the word, Greece is the word, is the word that you heard….”

I’ve never really gotten to the point of being apoplectic, but I can imagine that Angela Merkel is at that stage.

Have you ever seen what happens when a German head of state gets upset?

What was really a sight was watching the former Greek deputy Prime Minister of Finance, who by the way was part of the more conservative opposition party, refer to the current Prime Minister as being emotionally and psychologically a basket case.

My words, not his, only because he didn’t have the same fluency with American idiomatic expressions as I have.

So today’s market was a reflection of all of the pent up anxieties of the past few weeks that were falsely put to rest late last week.

I’m not certain that InTrade is making book on the likelihood of the Greek populace voting to take the austerity measures that are part of the now infamous “Greek Haircut”, that apparently requires shaving 50% of the head.

I’m guessing that if the vote can ever get pulled off before the Greek government falls, there not much of a chance that people are going to vote themselves into a life that they’d rather not live.

The good news is that each person can decide for themselves whether they want heads shaved in sagittal or transverse planes. If they play their cards right and perhaps use some entrepreneurial spirit, the “Grecian” may yet come to replace the “Brazilian.”

See, you never got that kind of detail out of those stupid Berenstain Bears stories.

The Greek story was so dominant that even Jon Corzine was moved to the back burner. Any other day and news that MF Global may have violated some very basic elements of trust by using some $700 million of their client’s funds for their own in-house and ill fated pursuits.

Sometimes it’s a good thing when some other story pops up.

To this day, ex-Congressman Gary Condit is no doubt grateful for the timing of 9/11. His role in the disappearance of young intern and romantic liaison was all but forgotten as he quietly stepped away from the spotlight.

Of course, the opposite can just as easily occur. Just ask Farrah Fawcett.

Figuratively, of course.

He fame long ago faded was rekindled with the effort to document the ravages of her anal cancer and subsequent death.

Unfortunately for her, her producer didn’t clear her passing with Michael Jackson’s itinerary for that day.

So Corzine got a pass and may still be on the short list to replace Timothy Geithner as our next Treasury Secretary, unless of course someone on the search committee has an “aha moment” and remembers that Corzine was the guy in charge when MF Global went bankrupt and stole their clients’ money.

That may be a bit harsh and things still remain to be sorted out.

What is clear is that Corzine bet and he bet big and he bet wrong.

Corzine used to be one of the big boys at Goldman Sachs, co-CEO with Hanry Paulson. There’s a reason that the Goldman people are called “the smartest guys in the room.”

What Corzine failed to take into consideration was that he had left the room and apparently the other kids took all the smarts with them. People marching up and down Wall Street may disparage Goldman Scahs and may blame them for the financial meltdown, but last I looked, no one was accusing them of stealing money or dipping inappropriately into anyone else’s pockets, as your old weird uncle used to urge you to do with him.

While Corzine was being trivialized, news from Greece threw the market into spasms of optimism interrupted by spasms of pessimism.

Word that the idea of a referendum would never occur helped the market recoup about 100 points from its low.

Further word that Papandreou might be psychotic or having some kind of a breakdown was comforting to the markets.

When it was all said and done it looked as if only some form of chaos was in the near term crystal ball, so the market just gave up.

Not capitulated, just gave up and called it a day. A bad day.

I picked up some more shares of Riverbed Technology and marveled at how the ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF that I owned, some of which is hedged, has been serving as the perfect antidote to both the fleeting feelings of elation and depression.

Those feelings come and go because it’s just a reflection of the same old story that is the big picture. The book, as it were. The book that encompasses Greece, Corzine, the Yen Carry Trade, High Frequency Trading and so much more.

That story of that book is that what goes up must come down and must then go up again, only to come down in time to do it all over again.

Strangely, I never tire of that book, only the stories in it.

To me, the details of each breaking business or economic story now all sound the same.

Moo. Bah La La La.

All I care about is that at the end of each day I’m not one of those investor explorers who doesn’t live to see another day.

I’ll do like that smart explorer who just stayed in bed and avoided the predictable traps. Who needs excitement?

Just make mine a La-Z-Boy and make certain the Moo Lah, Moo La La stays safe with me.