William Thien

This evening while switching between two major network news stations during the evening news I overheard the financial analysts speaking about today’s plummeting stock market. Both analysts made the statement in some context that “we have been in a sustained ‘bull market’ for several years.”

That of course is a false characterization of the market and may have propagandistic origins. The term “bull market” refers to an exceptionally well performing market under “normal” market conditions. Keeping the interest rate low, zero in fact or thereabouts as the discount rate has been kept for several years, is not a function of a “normal market.”

The United States has not been in the midst of a sustained “bull market.” What we are in is an artificially stimulated market that is the result of unnaturally low-interest rates kept low for an extended period of time, part of a program to improve the economy called “Quantitative Easing.”

What we have really been in is a market that has been kept on life support since 2008 and now that the market has grown accustomed to the machinery keeping it alive any talk, a whisper, whatever, of pulling the plug has had disastrous effects on the market. It’s not just a reaction to a fall in the Asian markets we are witnessing as many analysts are claiming. The market and the economy are fundamentally unsound. All performance measurements are based on the extraordinary fact that interest rates have been kept at or near zero.

I am not saying you need to exit the market. But clearly we are not in a “bull market” and it helps to have accurate information when making sound decisions about your financial future, something which the major network news financial analysts are not providing when they falsely characterize the market as a sustained “bull market.”

The major fluctuations in the market are a panicked reaction to a potential and necessary increase in interest rates which the FED has been delaying. What we are seeing now is that the market is so unstable that a mere discussion of even a minor adjustment to interest rates is causing a significant, disproportionate correction prior to any adjustment to interest rates ever even happening, any adjustment whatsoever.

That’s not an indication of a “bull market.”

That’s something else and in mixed company I don’t think it should be mentioned.

Copyright © William Thien 2015

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Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of those traffic cameras up at the top, almost out of sight that is, of streetlights and poles and things spanning intersections where I reside.

I live at the edge of the edge of town, you could say. Across the river the cornfields start, and I was kind of surprised to see all of them cameras staring down at me, leering at me while I waited at the light. Now, while I drive along I take notice of those cameras. No doubt the cameras were paid for with one of those fancy grants from The Department of Homeland Security, that’s DHS if you are chewing on a piece of grass right now, to prevent the spread of terrorism throughout the cornfields of America.

And while I was driving along it occurred to my city born hayseed self that there is probably someone sitting behind all of them cameras watching what was going on, watching me probably, too. Sometimes I get the feeling they are playing with the streetlights themselves, switching them to red and green. Maybe because of my rhetoric, maybe they are even keeping a file on me sitting there in my car at the streetlight. The file must be pretty boring because I mostly wear the same type of clothes all the time, practilly like I’m one of them people that don’t use ‘lectricity or something, and do about the same things most of the time. But there is one thing for sure I do that I know they don’t like. This.

So I got to thinking about how much them cameras cost and how much it cost to put in them special poles they are on and how much it costs to put people behind them and the maintenance costs and the cost to repair them when the guy in the snowplow drives into one of the poles in the winter clearing the roads and knocks a camera off of the pole and I thought, wow, that must cost of lot of money honey, a whole lot of money. I got my foot up on the rocking chair on the porch right now while I tell you this for ‘mfasis.

Now I’m not so sure I have a problem with all of this sir valence but there isn’t anything that I can think of around here that requires all of it, a new strip mall, some of those big box retailers opening up, but there ain’t no international security installation or nothing, just a bunch of betties shopping and minivans and pickup trucks here and there. But it’s really kind of like being in the sticks I have to say. I know where you think I’m going with this. You think Imma gonna ask the question, “why are you wasting all of this money sir valing a bunch of cornfields?” Well you are wrong, ladies and gentlemen. Totally wrong.

That’s not my problem with the cameras. My problem is this. Not ten yards after I recognized the first camera was exactly what it was, a sir valence camera, I heard a loud THUNK! on the right front end of my car and felt the car rock. Then again in the rear right side of the car and it rocked once again. I had just driven through a massive pot hole in the road that I didn’t see and could not have avoided because I was surrounded by cars leaving the strip mall so I couldn’t swurve if I tried.

Last year I spent several hundred dollars having work done on the suspension of my car, the same the previous year on the steering. In fact, over the time I’ve had the car I’m now driving I’ve spent thousands of dollars having work done to my car that was probably the result of holes in the road, pot holes, giant cracks, you name it, rattling my car to pieces.

So, ladies and gentlemen, my question is about priorities. Why are we spending so much money on all of this sir valence in the sticks when you need a military vehicle with a military suspenchant to drive on the roads?

If you ask me, there is too much surveillance in this state which is rapidly becoming “A Police State,” (out of the vernacular: you knew the police state was coming and you knew the cost of the generalized misdirection of funds away from what was truly necessary was coming, didn’t you?) and not enough getting the work done that needs to be done, such as fixing the holes in the roads, repairing the bridges, the infrastructure stuff, that type of thing.

This is one place where I think the country has its priorities mixed up. Now don’t blame me for sticking my neck out for the rest of you who ain’t got the gumption to do or say anything about what is going on. Just because you got a wife and kids don’t mean you ain’t got a pair anymore. Or maybe it does these days with the way women can bait ya and pick a fight wit’ ya and then scream bloody murder, throw some lies out there and next thing you know, yer divorced or worse, locked up and you lost all your stuff. Or maybe you are just gutless natural like. There’s a lot of them around these days. Calls ’em, pacifists or something. And ladies, I don’t hear you saying nothing, either. I mean I hear ya talking to me in public places, but nobody will say anything public like this here. What’s everybody worried about? Have they got you all that afeared?

If you ask me, the Department of Homeland Security would have better spent the money to fix the roads and not demoralize the country by taxing us to protect us and the corn and beans and then making us pay to fix our cars as well. It’s like getting billed twice for nothin! acourse it ain’t really nothin, it’s just not really as much of what we really need in my unsurfisticated opine.

Cuz if you ask me, protecting the pocketbooks of ALL Americans from having to pay for unnecessary repairs to their vehicles is the real priority rather than protecting them there cornfields from terrorists.

But then who am I? I’m just some city born hayseed who never left his own town and ain’t even been around the world enough to know what’s going on in these here parts.

That’s right. I got my eye on you, too.

Note: By the term “Police State,” I do not mean “police” personnel in general. What I am referring to is the surveillance state within which we all reside. The police themselves are merely personnel doing their jobs. The surveillance or police state is a condition of liberty or lack thereof.

Copyright © William Thien 2015

Don’t forget to read my books! Just click on the link I’ve provided to Amazon and it will take you right to my page. Sales of my books are how I pay for all of this. The Kindle version is only $1.00! You can buy my books at Amazon.com

Sign up to receive updates. It’s easy and safe. Just go to the upper right hand corner of this page and add your email address. Or if you don’t want to offer your email address, click on the “Follow” button midway down the page. We will never sell your contact information to anyone.