Here on the Central Coast of California, the weather in June turns to fog in the morning. Every day the fog in the morning casts a grey pall over the land. We call this the June Gloom. At right about 11:00 (okay so maybe there is an hour variance here and there), the fog melts away and the bright sunshine breaks through.
The same feeling I get with the June Gloom I get with the market these days. I am a bit subdued by the breathless media’s constant flow of market “threats”, but then I remember that, like the fog in the morning here in June, the sunshine will break through as the fog melts away. There is just too much “sunshine” out there to not have it go this way.
Yet there are true threats out there and one of them comes from our broken political system.
- With deadlines looming on several must-pass bills, the stage is set for brinkmanship that could last through the summer and into the thick of the 2016 presidential primary season.
Get ready because the dodo heads in Washington will soon start using our lives, our money, and our economy as political tools to score points with their particular constituencies. This will affect the market, but it won’t crash it, unless, of course, the dodo heads do something stupid like shutting down the government, again.
Yes, prepare for a summer of stupidity and then prepare for that stupidity to carry over through the whole of next year, at least until November when the whole crazy process ends …
- Norway’s $890 billion government pension fund, considered the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will sell off many of its investments related to coal, making it the biggest institution yet to join a growing international movement to abandon at least some fossil fuel stocks.
More fuel on the fire that is stoking the movement away from fossil fuels because of climate change. The interesting thing about the above is that Norway is big producer of oil and gas, so the country’s divestiture and the stated reason why (climate change) strikes me as both forward thinking and bold …
- Facebook, Google, and China’s Baidu are spending billions of dollars to create machines that may one day possess common sense and to help create software that responds more naturally to users’ requests and requires less hand-holding.
Really? Talk about going down a path well worn. Why on earth would they do this? Where is the value? How will they make money? What is the point when we already have this technology available, and it has been available for centuries?
- Siri, Apple’s Digital Assistant, will attempt to figure out what you want before you want it.
Hello …! Wives were invented a long time ago. My suggestion is, don’t wait for the techy big dogs to create a mechanical wife. Find a real flesh and blood one now.
Mine has worked out great for me, especially when I cannot remember where I put my Bluetooth earpiece, or when she hands me that afternoon cup of coffee I desperately need but did not think to get for myself.
Trade in the day; invest in your life …
