The common element to investing, sports and life in general is human emotion. Simply put, the emotional pendulum in each example spends precious little time at the point of equilibrium.
More often, that pendulum is to the right or left, which represents periods of excessive pessimism or optimism.
Witness events of recent days.
Begin with sports. In the span of a few days, the Steelers and their partisans went from extreme highs to extreme lows, having beaten Baltimore, then somehow losing to lowly Cleveland.
We’d addressed the subject of the Steelers earlier this week, noting they were on the rise with an asterisk, that asterisk having to do with inconsistent offense. While the Steelers attack eventually did find the end zone on a snowy night in Cleveland, it was relatively late in the game.
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin displayed yet more curious clock management. The Steelers defense almost bailed out the offense with two late takeaways. But it added up to unexpected defeat.
What does it all mean? Not as much as some would think. The Steelers still are a 93 percent pick to make the NFL playoffs according to metrics from the New York Times – even after the Cleveland loss.
What was reinforced by this setback in Cleveland is the take expressed here previously, that while the Steelers will make the playoffs, they are not likely to thrive there.
Emotions have been hitting extremes elsewhere.
The annoying hosts of The View have plunged from outrageous Kamala optimism to crushing, Donald Trump-induced pessimism. Along the way, the panelists’ screeds against Trump’s cabinet nominations have prompted the adults in the room – ABC’s legal team – to force misnamed Sunny (looking like her dog had just died) to read disclaimer announcements several times on-air noting that the people the crew had defamed were not really guilty of the charges.
Can legal action from a certain bakery, or yet another public mea culpa, be far behind?
Meanwhile, leftist cable outlets were orgasmic that Matt Gaetz had withdrawn his name from consideration to be attorney general.
Trump was quick to sub in former Florida AG Pam Bondi, an impressive person as judged by her record and some TV appearances that I’ve witnessed. A bit of sanity was introduced to the MSNBC celebration by a panelist who informed his crew they should “fear” Bondi since she’s “competent” and “actually knows how to do this job.”
Simply put: Perhaps the leftists were spiking the football prematurely celebrating the Gaetz withdrawal.
Here in Pennsylvania, systemic over-reach hit a peak in Bucks County when an elected official proudly proclaimed she would be ignoring election law. Leftists celebrated.
Then the Pennsylvania Supreme Court weighed in – again – and pointed out these petty dictators cannot ignore the rules. The chastised egomaniac was forced to get off her emotional high and admit to reality.
Soon after Robert Casey got the memo that illegal votes were not being considered in the recount, he belatedly conceded the Senate race to David McCormick.
The left had hopes of 2020 redux, when demands to count “all the votes” didn’t specify that the votes be legally cast examples. They were optimistic briefly, then plunged back into despair.
Finally, imagine the emotional swings of a prosecutor in the office of far-left New York district attorney Alvin Bragg. Presuming all such types in that office to be far left, we can only speculate about her joy at how her office has dragged Trump through a sham trial.
Perhaps she had joked that criminals roam the streets freely while the man about to resume the presidency had been persecuted in their bailiwick.
Emotions would have been different after that prosecutor reportedly was robbed and subjected to a “lewd act” by an import from Venezuela, one left to prey on the New York City innocent despite SEVEN!!!!! arrests since arriving in this sanctuary city a few months back.
Ah, but this time the alleged attacker is being held without bail. It couldn’t only be due to him having allegedly attacked a member of the politically protected class, could it?
And I wonder about the mixed emotions leftists must be feeling since this time one of the questionable immigrants they defend to the death has dared to attack one of them.
To these people I say, that’s life.
Sam Ross Jr's site 