Lesson of 2007: Don't Panic

Sorry for the light blogging folks. I'm spending Christmas vacation in our great nation's heartland - a place where it is common to see numerous men and women in uniform lounging about the airport awaiting flights home, unlike back home. My daughter took special notice of this, asking me why so many "army mans" were at the airport. I didn't have an answer fit for a six year old at the ready so I just told her to pick one and go up and say thank you.

So, we are just a few trading days away from the end of the year and the markets are up handily, looking like a nice cherry on top December rally is close to being in the bag. As in most past years you had to be ready to make one macro call in order to make decent money in the stock market this year. And this year the macro call was to be prepared to ignore the constant drumbeat of pessimism that prevailed post August in the MSM and the kooky bearish theories that popped up overnight in response to the subprime debacle. In other words, one needn't have panicked. Gee, stunning lesson. Anywho...it is also a safe bet that we will go into 2008 with the conventional wisdom telling a pessimistic story, or a cautious one at the minimum. I think that conventional wisdom, once again, will prove not wise at all.

On a few miscellaneous notes, Mr. Instapundit notes something that I noted and expressed thanks for a good while back. Also he notes the faulty logic behind focusing on negative externalities without considering the attendant positive externalities. That's worth reprising an oldie but goodie.