-- Posted Sunday, 7 August 2005 | Digg This Article
The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is -- Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
A random study was conducted with 348 young children to find how many of them (3-7 years of age) had a television in their room. The results were shocking, over 70% of them had televisions in their rooms. These kids had an 8-point drop in math scores, 7-point drop in reading scores and another 8-point drop in writing scores. A similar study was conducted by John Hopkins University with 400 children. Full Story
The English call the Television the boob tube and rightly so; individuals are weaned from one breast that provides nourishment to another that provides nothing but pure arsenic for the mind. Most of these kids watch meaningless cartoons where the concept of extreme selfishness and violence is the norm of the day; is it any wonder then that they grow up only thinking about themselves, their own needs, the fastest possible way to satisfy them and how to make a quick buck.
More and more parents are being put into old age homes because these chaps don’t want to be burdened with any problems. They forget all the hard work and sacrifice their parents went through in order to raise them. There are more frivolous law suits now then anytime in history; everyone is looking to make a big quick buck minus the hard work. The rate of fraud has reached historic proportions and people are willing to do more insane things for a quick buck; a woman auctioned the space on her forehead for 10,000 dollars. This gives the online casino that won the bid the right to tattoo her forehead with their logo for life.
The previous generation was dumbed down to a certain extent but the present generation is getting a super sized portion of dumbness and the biggest culprits for the most part are the parents. They simply don’t spend enough time with their children; their reason for this is “we don’t have enough time we are to busy trying to earn a living”. Our response to them is then why did you have kids in the first place. We poised this question to some of our associates and we rather surprised to find out that many of them were doing the same thing
In many instances the answer was “oh we felt it was time to have kids” or we wanted to have kids or some variation of that answer. Not once did any of them state that they wanted to have kids to maybe make this world a better place by teaching them the things they were denied or something along these lines. They however all claimed they wanted to give their kids everything they did not have; it seems this world thinks that material things will make for a better generation (many parents seem to think that if they give the kids all the material things they lacked that they are doing a good job; wrong they are doing a terrible job. If these individuals have nothing to strive for as kids they will not want to work hard for anything when they grow up). So I said offering them a 100 times more TV viewing time is how you give them everything you never had. Some of them saw the logic after I sat down and explained to them that TV makes the mind lethargic and at most it might improve the deductive part of the mind but not the most important part, which is the inductive part.
Inductive thinking is where you have to determine something without being fed standard or distorted data. Inductive thinking; you look at something and draw you own conclusion without been giving a set of parameters to work with. For example true Technical Analysis; here you look at a chart and try to determine a pattern but you do so based on indicators that appeal to you and you also determine how you should use them. Now in fundamental analysis you just look at fixed data so you and everyone else end up with the same conclusion. The same is true for the so-called TA that the masses learn; the masses are taught to use a standard set of tools in a specific manner so no inductive thinking is involved. That’s why it’s far better to let kids read books or play games then to let them sit by the TV and vegetate in every sense of the word. Is it any wonder then that the United States cannot even make it to the top 20 in the world when it comes to Mathematic, Science, and Writing skills even though we spend more money then any other nation on education; some of the poorest countries in the world are leading in these areas. For more details click on this link Americans are behind other developed nations
Now we can understand why so few people truly know the true significance of Gold and how it could end all the misery caused the insidious silent killer tax other wise known as inflation. It seems that things will have to get so bad before this generation attempts to understand the true power of this powerful metal. This is another reason why Gold has not appreciated as fast as say real estate and some of the other hot commodities; when the panic hits though it will move rather fast. The only problem is that no one really knows when this scenario will unfold; we seem to be getting closer to it with the passage of each day (and the printing of billions of more dollars each year).
This also proves two points:
One should apply the contrarian perspective to every aspect of ones life and not only to the investing aspect if one is to be a true contrarian; do not forget the mass psychology component too. It also illustrates the paradox theory in full effect one never gets what one chases or hopes for. There is no room for hope or desperate people (those who chase usually are very desperate). In their desperate attempt (it may not seem desperate but study the actions of most parents and you will find that in general it is) to give their kids a better live then they had they are actually giving them one that is infinitely worse then they could have ever imagined.
Once again we find ourselves mouthing the same phrase “welcome to the new world order”, an order which will be built on chaos and the “I want everything now syndrome”.
The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.
Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4227989
Tyler from Down Under
Jesus said , “ Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you.For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest”
The Gospel of Thomas vs 5 ( from The Nag Hammadi Library )
Under the guise of being “well informed”, the Age of Communication races toward the time when information is instantaneously available via a modem and brain interface made of nanomaterials and implanted at birth. Hello the ultimate cyber-geek.
However there is no proof that more information helps the majority to be any happier, compassionate, or give us a few more nanoseconds of leisure.
If unable to evaluate information, or realise that all information is tainted with someone else’s values, its values become part of you, just like viral code being entwined in our own cell’s machinery - or computer code – or belief sets.
These belief sets are first moulded by our parents. It was then the role of religious institutions and schools to develop our “internal software”, but now we are in a time when most are weaned onto the boob tube.At school, we have teachers who were themselves nurtured on “the boob tube”.
With television, imagination is not needed for entertainment, and information of many types comes “plain wrapped” with no need to descriminate between reality and fiction, the useful or useless.
There are many reasons that have been advanced as to why traders fail. My own experiences with educating traders is that:
1. thinking without discrimination
2. skimming information without understanding
3. impatience with expectation of quick gratification are major contributors to poor results.
Just as burning the bra didn’t help women’s liberation, smashing the boob tube is not going to change the way you think.
We must abandon ourselves to uncertainty and not cling to anything because it appears to give an answer. It is when we are prepared to look at multiple possibilities, that we have the option to identify and follow The Truth.
By abandoning incorrect beliefs and certainty we can follow The Truth. Strange but True. Beliefs that are forged in the fires of doubt can survive the light of reality. All other beliefs remain untested. Will they survive? Will you survive?
jtyler@trader007.com
-- Posted Sunday, 7 August 2005 | Digg This Article
