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| In commodities I miss the stability of a real supply and demand market. We always complained that ADM, et al would not bid more, but they only bid enough to get what they needed. I wasn't happy with $2 corn but we we're trading our mothers organs to get one more acre of high dollar cash rent either. Stability meant you could fine tune your operation for a pretty consistent gross.
On the other hand, the volatility that has occurred has given us some great opportunities to pay down debt and be better positioned when things are not so rosy. For us being smaller farmers it was enough to make a couple of improvements, but mainly weather the storm in hogs (still weathering in my case - one day the buildings will be paid off). In the stock market game it's been great if you were on the right side of things. It is just Las Vegas with all sorts of games going on to get buyers into the market.
On companies these days and stocks - I remember working for Chrysler when Lee Iacocca took over for $1 salary and stock options. He did not play games to improve stock price, but rather take the company out of it's slump and into prosperity. He got folks to buy cars. Getting the minivan and front wheel drive going really made the company even if they were pretty basic. Lee even had the moxy to step down and let a car nut take over (Bob Lutz) and we have the viper and eventually 700hp challengers. This is good management - he had good ideas and sold them to all of us and it worked. Today there is just no accountability in board rooms and as long as they can play stock games and regulation games to limit competition they will survive. It may be too late for the US voter to elect a president and congress that gets out of corruption, but that would pretty much take care of the games and force companies to be real.
I would much prefer a stack market at 6000 that represented real value because you actually bought and liked using the products the companies made not just some P/E ratio that may mean absolutely nothing.
It's a nice ride, but don't be fooled into thinking you can't be on the wrong side of it. | |
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"dont panic" stock market comment on national news
