The Shawshank Way

This will be a data-free post without charts because, well, I mean really, what’s the difference?  Your lines and squiggles have done very little for you since August other than trick you into acting on umpteen false breakouts and breakdowns.  It’s okay, you can admit it.  Not to me but to yourself.

And Santa Claus can’t be bothered with the stock market this year either.  He is too busy trying to teach his workshop elves how to make iPads and digital content before his whole operation fades into obsolescence.  Do you have any idea what kind of unfunded liabilities he has with those elven pension and health care plans?  F***in elves live to be like four hundred years old.  No, Santa’s hands are full, we are forsaken.

We don’t appear to be getting that traditional, gently upward-sloping year-end rally we’ve come to expect as our birthright.  Not this year -this infernal, horrendous year.  Instead, we’ll be escaping 2011 by the same route that Andy took in his escape from Shawshank Prison: Through miles of sewage into the black unknown beyond the walls, beyond the next turn of the calendar page.

Will things much change in 2012?  Barry has a preview of sorts at The Big Picture.  It will not inspire you to pop open a bottle of champagne but it won’t make you want to open your wrists with a shard of glass either.

This is not a time to be making bold predictions, but rather to recalibrate expectations and assumptions.  “Less bad” doesn’t get anyone excited, but it’s probably what we can expect as a best case for the time being.  Now get in the pipe and drag yourself through with the rest of us.

It’s almost over.