Perspective

Today's blog post is actually more blog-like than offering market observations. So if you are looking for what's hot and what's not go ahead and flip over the Cramer.

When out with friends and they talk a bit about their careers I always reply that if all of us were marooned on a desert island that I would be the first one to be eaten. Why? What do I really offer to society?

I don't cure the sick.
I don't build the shelter.
I don't grow the crops.
I don't fix the plumbing.
I don't even sweep up the mess.

I write about the financial and commodity markets. Big whoop. They don't even have a buttonwood tree on a desert island let alone futures and options.

OK, I'll concede I do help people with their financial lives. Many a reader has written in to thank me for getting them out of the market many months ago. It's actually been a lot more than those writing in to gently disagree with my work. Of course, by gently I mean following me around cyberspace with torches and pitchforks.

So in this holiday season, when so many are losing their jobs and their homes, I suppose the only thing I can contribute is hope. No, not the hope that the market will miraculously return to its lofty highs but the hope that there are those of us out there than truly want to do right by the client. I remember who pays the bills (customers) and try never phone it in when things are getting rough.

The arrogance of those companies who thought they were above common sense and fiduciary responsibility, from subprime to CDOs to Bernie "Ponzi" Madoff, was shameful. But we are not all like that and by "we" I mean 99% of the rest of us.

So Happy/Merry/Joyful/Peaceful/Green (fill in your holiday) to everyone. Do what I do before I go to bed at night and spend a few moments looking at your kids - even if it is just your teenager's back as he/she is talking on iChat. Maybe raising them right is my real desert island purpose.