Challenges and opportunities abound

(20 Jan) So, we have another changing of the guard and, as a result, now it's all different and yet it's all still the same.

I was thinking as I watched the speech that it's really a great thing that our transfers of power are so smooth and decorous - even if it is only on the outside. There are many places - including a couple where I have been - that such transitions are a lot more noisy and much more "rancorous." Neither of the latter being in a good way, shall I say.

Just one of the many blessings of living where we do.

The markets forgot to cooperate

Apparently missing the fact that today was being touted as a day of change, all the major US indexes were lower today - continuing a trend that's, unfortunately, been in effect since election day last November. The Dow, off 4% today, finished below 8000 for the first time in a while. 8000 is just a number but I'm sure someone will try to parlay some significance into it. It was the biggest election day drop on record.

The main dragger Tuesday continued to be the financial stocks, especially the money-center banks. Those things might as well be radioactive the way they're being dumped and no one stepping up to buy. BankAmerica, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JP Morgan all saw their share prices drop around 20%. Nobody said it would be pretty at the bottom.

Corporate earnings expectations for this year are also being reined in even more as the economic slowness makes the tea leaf readers believe companies won't be able to keep up over the year.

Treasury instruments dropped for the second day as bond traders believe that record amounts of debt will have to be sold to totally kill this recession.

On top of all this, even though oil is off about $3.60 a barrel in the past month, the national average gasoline price is up 17 cents. There are really two reasons. The first is that the oil being refined now was bought at higher prices that haven't worked their way into the system yet. The other is that refiners have cut their production back anyway as the number of miles being driven across the country is way off.

The sun will come out tomorrow

To paraphrase the definition of crazy, you can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. Idealism has to take a back seat to pragmatism in order to get us back on top our collective games again. You can't fund "programs" without money.

Based on what I heard this morning and suggestions made before that, I'm confident we can do this. But, we're now past the rhetorical part and into the "what do we do now, coach" part.
We'll see what type specifics are going to be brought into play by the new administration to deal with all this craziness. Successfully managing a campaign is way different from running the largest economy in the world.

If you ask me - our future's so bright, I have to wear shades...I totally believe that.