I as a trader will be looking at next resistance level to short again though. As you said, the economy is not out of trouble yet and chances are this problem will only increase in intensity in coming days. No matter what “steps” world leaders take.

@dobes
Sensible advice. Another good book on the basics of investing is “The Disciplined Investor” by Andrew Horowitz. I’ve got lots to say about mutual funds, but I’ll save that for a future post.

In the book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” I learned that over a 40-year period or longer, the “buying the market” outperforms top professional investors and mutual funds on average; picking a good mutual fund is no easier than picking stocks, and mutual funds lose money (relative to the market) over time due to commissions and management fees.

Allen Taylor

What can we do about it? Check out these websites:

http://www.OrphanVoters.ca
http://www.FairVote.Ca

We can however, challenge our beliefs and see if they can be disproven. If so, the belief not only ceases to be seen as the truth, but we also stop believing it! Oops … “truth” still means what be believe.

The word “belief” is often used to mean either “opinion” or “truth” however, so you might say “truth” is a sort of strong belief.

Also, some people don’t believe things easily and challenge the beliefs of others in order to “hunt for the truth”. Tested beliefs seem more “true” to the rest of us because they’re less likely to turn out false … but even then, can we ever assert the truth to be truly true?

Only in mathematics and other pure fields can we find fundamentals truths which really can not be disproven.

Anyway, this was a really long comment – whoa!

Thanks for the thought-provoking article!

Consider the bias “life is difficult” or “bad things always happen to me.” Not only will your memories be kept in line with these beliefs, but your actions will also be changed to support them. The mind actively pursues actions that support our beliefs and avoid cognitive dissonance.

On the other side, a bias of “people always like me” or “I easily achieve success” allows a person to see and take advantage of opportunities ignored by their more dour counterparts because success won’t cause any dissonance.

Cheers,
jdc.

It’s hard enough to overcome our own mental barriers in order to admit mistakes, but to overcome societal ones is even harder. I agree, I think most people just want the truth, but it doesn’t seem like something we’re going to often get from our leaders / experts…

It’s so ironic to me because often what people most want is an honest acknowledgment that wrong has been done to them and a sincere apology for it. Yet that’s exactly what cognitive dissonance inhibits us from providing. I haven’t been able to find the referene for this, but I recall reading about a hospital system in one of the United States which began to encourage its physicians to apologize to patients and their families were they had made a mistake. This was partly in response to some change in the State’s laws that made it less likely that such apologies would be used to support lawsuits against the physician. The result, as I recall, was a significant reduction in physicians being sued. I really think we often just want the someone to honestly acknowledge and apologize for the harm that’s been done. Anyway, another interesting blog from you – Thanks.