Hip Hop Flip Flop

I was driving down the highway listening to the local FM radio channel when I noticed something.....when you listen to contemporary music, there are four main themes to 98% of contemporary songs. They are as follows:

1. I love you

2. I hate you

3. I miss you

4. Love is empty

Part of it is just people trying to find fulfillment. But just listen. The first contemporary song you listen to--what theme do you hear?

The songs that follow the trash-version themes of love (love is meant to be short, breakups are mandatory, etc.) go up and down the charts extremely fast. They fall off and vanish. Thirty years from now we'll listen to them on the 'oldies' station as we drive down the road.


Now, I am the first to admit I do enjoy some of these songs, but they aren't really all that fulfilling. Unsuprisingly, a good number of the songs that stick on the charts have to do with a long-lasting relationship or simply geniune love. (i.e. Nickleback's Gotta be Somebody) And why not? One of our basic human needs is for a stable relationship with other people. We're social.

So when you drive around, listen to the song's lyrics and decide whether you've had enough of that perspective for the day. Then go ahead and pop in something actually enjoyable.

We're going down---AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

The stock market. I am convinced that it is actually just a supercomputer spitting out random numbers simply for the entertainment of watching us mortals run around like chickens with our collective heads cut off when the markets go down. And I'm sad to say that I have volutarily put my own neck on the block too---and I don't even have any money involved.

My college class is doing a stock contest---take a group of four people, pick four stocks, and see how you're doing.....in an economy like this, it's pretty bad right now. Three of our stocks are 'safe stocks' and one is a bit of a risk.

And so, I find myself checking out our stocks every time I'm on the internet. Then I ask myself...how in the world do actual investors survive in this type of environment. When the market is dropping like a rock, how are you able to keep your nerve throughout all of this? I have quite enough trouble with entirely theoretical capital.

The stocks we picked were Walmart, Amazon, Manitowac Co, and a company called Hunstman. As of right now, the best of them (Amazon) is down 57 cents.....AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH