The fact is the average person making $500,000 a year is probably spending large sums on helping others and that’s before you get to donations and tithes. The spin on attacking the so-called wealthy is that others need or even deserve that money. The middle class and less well-off need financial assistance. That’s exactly what most self-made millionaires are doing, but without fanfare or without being mandated to do so. In the land of the free, where free speech is revered, as are other individual rights, people can choose to help or choose not to.

We can hate folks born with silver spoons in their mouths, especially when their strut around like peacocks, but I feel that is only jealousy. Sadly, our envy toward those few people (most fortunes disappear after three generations or less) results in mean-spirited feelings for the very people we should applaud and emulate. Should we now teach our children to strive for middle-class status and avoid becoming a well-off person lest they face the wrath of a nation?

America has always been associated with bootstrap stories, folks that simply get the job don and people with dreams who roll up their sleeves and make it happen.

We aren’t attacking slum lords but instead people that climbed out of slums. We are on the verge of going after people that create things that benefit the lives of others. We are on the verge of going after people that create jobs. We are on the verge of extinguishing the American dream.

When Wall Street crashed in 1929 the rest of the nation fell into a hellish abyss where day-to-day survival was questioned by the masses. Watch what happens in New York over the next year. Ask the middle class if they are better off and then consider if this down period were made permanent, because it could very well happen and our envy will lead to our demise.

Epilogue

There is a real battle to crush businesses and rich folks (unless they entertain us) and no-so-rich folks in America and it's gaining momentum. It is scarier than its being portrayed in the media. Businesses represent the ingenuity, dreams, innovation, passion and perseverance of the nation. We hear the playing field should be leveled so everyone could reach their dreams, but for many (I’m sure the majority) the dream is to be rich. Talk about a conundrum wrapped in an enigma floating down Niagara Falls in a barrel.

In effect, we want to take those that have achieved our dreams down a notch. Each morning as I drive across the George Washington Bridge at 4:20 in the morning I wonder why so many people snuggled up in bed (some will wake up whenever they feel like it) think they have a right to take the money I’m trying to earn for my family.

Despite the myth, only a sliver of people get rich without making extraordinary sacrifice, including massive hours of work and overcoming devastating defeats to keep pushing ahead. I wish we would embrace them rather than try to tear them down because in the process we are tearing down America, too.

Do We Dare Hope against Conventional Wisdom?

It’s a good thing I’m naturally an optimist because it would be easy to be manipulated by the press, politicians and the market into going into a funk. Life is cyclical and so, too, the economy and stock market. But when we begin to slide from the top of the cycle it’s worrisome. When we are at the bottom of the cycle it feels like an abyss and not even the rays of hope can be seen or felt. Hence, most people are bracing for the absolute worst case scenario. Just about every economist says its coming and just about every politician says its coming, too. The only thing that’s weird is the one forum/entity that doesn’t seem to be buying into the hype hook, line and sinker.

The stock market doesn’t act like there is no hope. On the contrary, stocks act like there is a chance that this is the harshest part of a typical business cycle. The stock market is supposed to see into the future. Sure, the market isn’t perfect and from day to day it often reflects everything other than fundamentals (current or future) but over the longer stretch the ability to predict the future is amazing. That said, there's no doubt recent initial jobless claims are foreboding and the pipeline of foreclosures are like watching an avalanche down a large mountain in slow motion, but not on film, instead standing directly beneath it as it occurs.

Yet, the market has been resolute. Moreover, many charts are compellingly forming bullish hints and signs. Take the Russell 2000 Index (RUT) which finished the week above all the key moving averages (exponential). The chart of the index is like a technician’s textbook. Coming off a reverse head and shoulders formation (see circles) the index breaks out through 760 (see curved arrow) and it would be a convincing move.


Click to enlarge

This last week of August should see thin volume and that could mean wild gyrations but after the last year or so how could the swings become any wilder and wider. The question with this week and the last several weeks is just how much of the action is an indication things could be better than the experts are telling us or could it just be reflective of how the market trades when nobody is around.