We discuss in this video why Technical Analysis is completely useless right now at these elevated levels in the Financial Markets. It literally all comes down to one thing, who is the big seller that chickens out first.
You can throw all that Technical Analysis Garbage out the window, everything can be reduced to the first big player that decides to take profits, starts the entire stampede out of the market. Technical Analysis isn`t going to give you the heads up, in fact it will come without any notice at all, the player just makes the move, that they want to be first, and everybody else is left dealing with the consequences or ramifications of the fact that they are at best second to exit.
I have seen it start quietly overnight in Asia, after the European Close, after an awful job`s report, an ECB Meeting, a Political Event. But these are just the excuses for the selling, it all comes down to a game of chicken, making your move first before the music stops, and the bagholding game begins in earnest.
Of course, as we noted previously, our system of education is not entirely to blame. The truth is that young Americans spend far more time consuming media than they do hitting the books, and what passes for “entertainment” these days is rapidly turning their brains to mush.
According to a report put out by Nielsen, this is how much time the average American spends consuming media on various devices each day…
Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes
Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes
Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes
Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes
When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.
And if you allow anyone to pump “programming” into your mind for 10 hours a day, it is going to have a dramatic impact.
In the end, I truly believe that we all greatly underestimate the influence that the mainstream media has on all of us. We willingly plug into “the Matrix” for endless hours, but then somehow we still expect “to think for ourselves”.
There are very few of us that can say that we have not been exposed to thousands upon thousands of hours of conditioning. And all of that garbage can make it very, very difficult to think clearly.
It is not because of a lack of input that we have become so stupid as a society. The big problem is what we are putting into our minds.
If we continue to put garbage in, we are going to continue to get garbage out, and that is the cold, hard reality of the matter.
For the past several weeks, an environmentalist by the name of Rob Greenfield has been walking around New York City with 42 pounds of trash and counting strapped to his body. [1]
Normally, Greenfield is as friendly to the earth as he possibly can be. But for one month, he has committed to behaving like the average American and generating about 4.5 pounds of trash per day.
That means chowing down on fast food and soda, then stuffing the empty cups and packaging into see-through bags strapped to his body for about 7 hours a day. Says Greenfield:
“I’m fully embracing the American way of making trash.”
He thinks he’ll wind up accumulating about 100 pounds of trash, just 35 pounds short of his target, when his 30-day “Trash Me” project wraps on October 19. [2]
The experiment will be the subject of a documentary later on.
Why Wear trash?
Greenfield – who is also an adventurer – wants to open people’s eyes to the amount of trash they generate every day. Hence, the suit with 13 see-through pockets. He explains:
“A lot of people don’t realize how much waste they make as a person. What better way to show how much waste one person makes than to wear my trash that I make for a month?” [3]
And to be like the average American, Greenfield has to throw away 85% of the recyclable materials he encounters. All of those materials have started to drag him down, physically. [1]
He says:
“It’s starting to get heavy. I was out yesterday for 6-7 hours with it on, so still able to move around pretty effectively.” [3]
He goes on:
“The most difficult part is the bending of the knees because of the trash covering the knees and the elbows.” [1]
You’re probably wondering how bad Trash Me Rob stinks. Well, since he has to be around other people, he cleans every item before stashing it on his person.
Covered in garbage, Greenfield goes about his day just like anyone else would, by riding the subway, going into Starbucks, and buying fast food. He says:
“I wanted people to see what the trash is so that they can relate to it. They’ll see a cup of coffee and think, ‘Oh, I drink coffee,’ or a pizza box and think, ‘I eat pizza."” [3]
In his personal life, Greenfield tries to lead a zero-waste lifestyle. He hopes his extra “baggage” will inspire people to be more conscientious about how they treat the planet.
He says that people who want to reduce the amount of waste they generate can start small by bringing a reusable water bottle with them, carrying reusable bags to the grocery store, purchasing a reusable coffee cup for their favorite coffee shop (or carrying one with them), and changing their shopping habits by making a point of buying more unpackaged foods.
Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.
