If You Listen Closely, the Markets are Speaking Clearly

The collective wisdom of people who read, think, read some more, think again and then take action (as opposed to the: Ready! Fire! Aim! crowd) is worth paying attention to.  The market is not ALWAYS right, but it is right often enough to listen to it rather than the media, a candidate, or your brother in law...

Last night at a party I got pitched the electric "Volt" from G.M. and the next generation "Prius" from Toyota are going to solve the energy crisis (and oil is controlled by speculators and greedy oil companies and the CIA, etc...).  Oh, G-d, it was painful... 

My fellow "Americans capable of abstract thought": IF these technologies were the answer the market cap of G.M. and Toyota would be many, many MULTIPLES of Exxon, or GE, or, MicroSoft...  Millions of smart, educated, experienced, thoughtful folks with BOATLOADS of money are LOOKING for the company with the solution.  It will be no secret when it is found.  Money will pour into it like RAIN.  Not words... MONEY.  Whoever solves this will not need advertising agencies or public relations firms to manipulate the public.  They will be keeping everything CLOSE TO THE CHEST until they get their patent, after which they will trumpet the solution louder than the SECOND COMING.

Quietly, the market is slowly figuring out that the answer will be decidedly low tech - using less energy.  Just take a look at ethanol stocks if you want to see where the other alternative stocks will be in a year or 2 - flat on their backs.

Yet the bicycle biz seems to be doing well in all of this.

I ride a bike to work.  Want to know what the trick is?  Live really, really close to where you work and biking is a viable alternative, irrespective of the climate.  Don't live close to your work?  You have 2 options:  Move your work close to where you live, or move your home close to where you work.  Pretty simple, really.  You say it that that is impossible for you?  HA!   The market is going to force that solution down your throat much sooner than you could possibly imagine.  It reminds me of investors that "don't want to take a loss" on an investment.  So they hold a loser that invariably gets worse, selling only after they have been completely decimated. 

Take action while YOU are in control, rather than have action FORCED upon  you.  

Your first loss is your BEST loss.

Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0T) com