The New Normal

That's the 2009 version of "it's different this time". Of course, it's not and normal is the same old normal. People are the same. The "new normal" is the same old normal with lots of excesses tossed onto the dustbins of history.

I thought I'd toss out a few ideas I've mentioned here over the past few years for the "new normal".

People will prepare and cook more of their own food. Food is practically free if one buys simple ingredients and prepares the meal at home, saving the leftovers to spread the labor over a second meal.

McMansions in exurbia will have little demand. Why own such a big home that requires "help" to maintain and forces a lengthy commute.

Central city and small town living will be the trend. Suburbs will be stagnant.

Shopping centers must be re-invented to offer something that is not available online. Services are one possibility. The Apple stores with their service centers make a lot of sense.

Microsoft will stay in its lengthy decline. Vista stinks, Vista Explorer 8 is both nosey and crummy.

Overpaying will be seen as the killer of companies and investments.

The home will be seen as a place to live, not as an investment or as a piggy-bank.

This is a hope: Companies will start to cut or cap the pay of the top executive suite.

Another hope: Education in real learning and real skills will get a re-birth, and less novel and entertaining subjects.

Today's silly infatuation: green jobs.

World economic growth will be led by the emerging markets and eastern Europe, with the US, western Europe and Japan providing the same old 2-3% growth. Soon this will be recognized and the stock market will return quickly to the long plateau on the 100 year wall chart, viz. around 1200 in the S&P.

The structure of the world was set in the early 1920s in both economic and social contexts. All we see now are incremental changes and technologies. That great song by Julie Andrews, "Thoroughly Modern Millie" makes the point.

I'm open to other ideas & will post any "good" ones.

Markets

Obama Fund is now all cash. I locked in a 31% year-to-date gain. Those stocks in Obama Fund are really good ones for "trading" a return to the plateau as they make huge percentage moves. In hindsight, I should have traded them a bit more on an individual basis.

Once my distractions end, I'll look for re-entries on a stock-by-stock basis.

I also sold GE in Fido Fund. That stock looks like still water until financial regulation clarifies the status of GE Capital.

Word of the Day

"Conceit" - noun [$10 - meaning #2]
Conceit means 1. personal vanity, pride; 2. (literary) a. a far-fetched comparision, especially as a stylistic affectation; a convoluted or unlikely metaphor; b. a fanciful notion.
Sentence: The great overused conceit of modern environmental leftism is the conceit "green" for their hair-brained schemes. Brown would fit better, to match the color of the manure they favor instead of efficient, white nitrogen fertilizer. Most "green" ideas belong in the outhouse.

Słowo Tygodnia

"Gówno" - noun, neuter
Gówno means s*** (vulgar, very informal) [pronounced 'guvno' with the 'u' as in 'put', not 'putt']
Zdanie: Energia zielona ? To jest gówno !
Sentence: Green energy ? That's s*** !