My Mental Rorschach
Tonight was curriculum night for my younger son’s 3rd grade class. We heard the Head of School and Lower School principal give stirring talks describing the wonderful, liberal, open-minded, curious and intelligent children they have the privilege of educating, and listened to their teachers speak about the curriculum used to challenge and inform their young, fertile minds. I’ve been to 11 of these (7 for my older son, 4 for my younger son), and each one leaves me excited, inspired and happy for my children, the entire school community and the world. These are the kind of citizens I want running our country in 30-40 years.
As part of this exercise, parents were asked to do something that our kids do several times a week - sit down and write, non-stop, for five minutes. About anything, without specific direction. Not necessarily prose, but thoughts. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this - I know I haven’t. And you know what popped into my mind? A stream of thoughts concerning the markets. Here is my mental Rorschach from 7pm this evening:
- The financial markets stink
- Bank stock prices down 25%+
- The European Central Bank is confused, and their U.S. counterpart is no better
- Consumer sentiment is plummeting
- Investors, big and small, are heading for the sidelines
- The big question: to stay in the markets and ride it out, or bail before the next big leg down?
- The conundrum: the global stock and bond markets are heavily driven by sentiment, and negative sentiment just exacerbates the decline which further worsens sentiment. So why not focus on improving sentiment as the vehicle for repairing the financial markets?
- People, wealthy and less so, are scared
- The feeling is pervasive
- Trust is in short supply
- This doesn’t feel like a transient decline
If this is what’s rattling around my conscious mind, I’d hate to see what lives behind the curtain. 5 minutes and a pencil is all it took to find out what is really going on inside my head. I only wish that someone had stolen my pencil.
