Because of my participation in BUGS, what has become routine for us is to spot the obvious fallacies.
All you need to do is count what the mainstream really and truly takes for granted.
Things like:
“Youth doesn’t count race as important”
“The emerging markets will dwarf America’s dominance”
“Climate change is our biggest threat”
It just astonishes me that the people mouthing these really believe them.
But I’m convinced they do.
Just like in the markets, you must absolutely be on guard against the unexamined consensus, which is that part of the consensuses both bulls, bears, including the “contrarians” agree on.
That’s how you know what’s wrong.
It never occurs to all but usually a single lone voice in investments matters, that for most part, it is the investment vehicles that everybody agrees on that are wrong. It doesn’t matter whether you won by betting right on the long side, or the short side, from a risk management standpoint, you are wrong.
You need to take your gloves, balls, and bats and leave the game and take an entirely different approach.
This is what hardly anybody sees.
#1 by mderpelding on 06/06/2008 - 11:11 pm
At the margin, I doubt that anybody, well connected wealthy, or poor blue collar, actually buys into the conflicts you reiterate.
What you are talking about are moral questions.
They are centered not on facts, but on narrative.
What is is what is.
Why are you astonished?