A Deference of Poetry
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
All the pieces are in place, but the market still finds itself stuck in neutral. There is no doubt the rally is in need of a spark, something to push it through the current atmospheric resistance, something to get people to jettison the reality of their own lives and that of too many other Americans, and buy into a frenzy of sorts. In the past, the best spark always came from the monthly jobs report, yet now the best we can get from that data point is hope the Fed keeps printing. This is the conundrum.
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For so long, the stock market has been able to rally on thin volume and even thinner news. Last week the rally not only survived but also exhibited a fair amount of resolve on news that portrays domestic growth a notch above bed-ridden. While much can be said about the role hype plays in achieving success, whether in the locker room before the big game or in the media to push a certain agenda, it also can mask problems that must be resolved to ultimately win more than a single game or to get a sustained rally based on fundamentals and not on cheerleading.
Fourth Estate
"Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporter's Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all." Thomas Carlyle
Edmund Burke saw the power of the press and how it swayed politics. While other powers are held accountable to oaths and the people they press, particularly its current configuration in America, they are only accountable to particular beliefs and agendas. Luckily for left-leaning politicians, his vast majority of the press drinks from the same cup of beliefs-a chalice of fairness. For this chalice comes the wisdom that a perfect world can exist that rewards intellectuals with power and wealth and the task of controlling society for the good of all.
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Exceptions to this club in America include celebrities that somehow are thought to have wisdom because they can kick a ball or tell a joke. Chris Rock is just the latest of these celebrities that has bought into the notion that we have elected more than a politician-but a mommy and daddy. I guess that's a little less astonishing than the notion Barack Obama is the savior of the country or even a sliver of the country, but it points to the kind of hype that's not only pushing an agenda but trying to push the market over the hump.
As good as his comedy can be, Chris Rock, and the ever-expanding cult of Obama in Hollywood, can't provide that spark of inextinguishable thought.
For all of its outlets, the Fourth Estate still needs help to convince the masses things are great when it's obvious to anyone that doesn't live in Alpine New Jersey or Beverly Hills California there are still tons of problems. The glorious road painted by commentators is in reality still marked with potholes and sloppy patches of asphalt from quick fixes.
So this is where we are today. The stock market rally is holding up, but in desperate need of some kind of catalyst. A bit of news where the masses don't need an explanation of why it's good or why the good parts outweigh the bad parts.
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