Archive for October, 2008

1992′s Sneakers is a very underrated movie.  It’s got intrigue, laughs, clever quips, cool hacks, utterly improbable uses of technology, and some great quotes… what’s not to love?  Here’s one of my favorite quotes (I couldn’t find the actual clip, but this one’s pretty good too):

Cosmo: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.
Cosmo: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Conclusion: You can make banks fail.

I believe this concept, in its entirety. Most financial analysts and economists agree that the market is in many ways based on confidence (here’s a decent article on it).  When confidence in a company dips, so does its stock price.  When confidence in the market itself dips, so do prices dip across the board.

For almost a year now journalists in virtually every publication have surmised about an imminent recession ready to hit the US economy.  Some take it to the point where they assert it as a fact, not just a possibility.  Now I’m all for speculation, and there’s a pretty good justification to help people out with the financial equivalents of “winter storm warnings”, but I believe the media has taken it too far.  Here’s an excerpt from an article I read this morning:

the government reported Thursday the economy did shrink in the summer, sending the strongest signal yet that a recession may have already begun.

Now believe it or not, that was actually fairly accurate reporting.  With a 0.3% drop in GDP, we actually just saw the first possible sign of a recession. Yes, the “credit crunch crisis” is real, and yes there are many unsound financial practices going on.  But by and large these problems were either exacerbated by a sluggish economy, or sharply accelerated due to panic attack (or both in some cases).

But here’s the real question – if we hadn’t been reading about imminent recessions since last November, would spending have slowed?  Would this have been a mild “correction” to fix up the messy mortgage problem? Would Heroes season 3 been quite so disappointing? There’s no real way to answer these questions of course, but its pretty easy to think consumers and enterprise decision-makers alike have been preparing for the storm for a little while now.

Posit:  The media create a constant, non-stop “the theater is on fire” style of alert about an imminent Recession or possibly even Depression.

Result: People panic, markets tank, banks fail. The rest is to be determined.

As I write this, the Dow is down to its lowest point in about 5 years.  International markets seem to be in freefall.  Unemployment is rising, rapidly.  People are getting evicted, and those who aren’t are finding their home values “underwater”.  The glaciers are all melting.  Commonly used plastic products are causing genetic mutations in humans.  A hateful, power-mad woman might just become the 2nd most powerful person on the planet. And tomorrow I won’t even get to eat a decent meal (or any meal really).

And tonight I will sleep soundly knowing all this.  I’m an Optimist, with a capital O.  I can’t say I was born this way, but I can distinctly recall the moment when I shed my life of worry and negative outlooks.

It was my 2nd year at CMU, and I was busy failing my way out of school as a member of the “square-root club” (I’ll let you figure it out).  I had just utterly bombed a final exam (I think it was for “Calculus in 3D” – holy crap), and walked out of the room wondering what the heck was going on in my life (not that I was ever a straight-A student).  I was wandering the hall heading back to my dorm pondering how I could “fix” the situation, recover my lousy grades, not get booted out of school, etc.  And I realized in that moment that anything and everything I had done until that moment was in the past, the only events which were left to deal with were in my future.

It was then that I truly took control over my life.  I never even bothered looking at the grade on the exam, because I knew it didn’t matter – my mistakes were made, I could either choose to learn from them and grow, or wallow in them in fear.  Ever since I’ve taken a positive look on all things that are in my future.  Every time.

Am I fearful? Sure.  Do things go wrong? Of course. Do I have bad days? Yes.  But do I recover? Yes, and quickly.

Robert Scoble and I had a bit of a debate on FriendFeed last night on the topic of the “death spiral” he recently blogged about.  In a nutshell (paraphrasing), Robert felt he was expressing the truth (death spiral) and I felt that by making statements of that nature he (and others) are adding fuel to the fire.  I think the comment that I’d like to summarize with was this:

“just as success breeds success, panic causes MORE panic. choose what role *you* want to play in this mess”

I’m not delusional, I most certainly “get” that there’s a lot of bad times ahead.  But there’ve always been bad times ahead, and these cycles simply aren’t new.  Things will get bad.  And then, one day, things will get good.  It’s all about how you choose to spend that time, and yes, it is a choice.

I will choose to find the signs of hope.

I’ll read more news from GoodNewsNetwork (and ignore the stuff on televised news – it’s fearmongering and designed to control you, not liberate your mind).

I’ll keep playing Xbox (NHL 09, COD4 – gamertag: bigtoesf).

I’ll root for the Habs (Happy 100th! Now it’s time for 25, boys!).

I’ll cast my vote for the guy who promises hope (the other guy is fostering hate, and is unelectable on that grounds alone).

I’ll spend more time with my family (we’re in a growth year!).

I’ll enjoy drinking scotch with my friends (should you feel the need to contribute, I’m open to Oban 14, Macallan 18, Auchentoshen 10).

By the way, for those of you wondering, I did graduate from CMU, and the very next semester ended up on the Dean’s List.  Funny how much the attitude shift changed the results, ain’t it?  The best part about it is the amazing feelings of empowerment.  Try it, you’ll like it.