bear and bull.

I’ve been having to read about the economy of late and it is not my thing. While I was reading I started to think about the bear and bull market. Whoever developed this concept was stupid. But they went down in history. Well probably not- I don’t know their name and I’m not going to google them.

The epitome of maturity.

Why does bull mean the market is doing well? If there is one thing you don’t want to name or associate a positive market with is a word that usually followed with shit. And why the bull? Its not a particularly happy creature. Most of the time they’re persuaded into being gored by Spaniards with fancy red fabric. Not the most intuitive or clever animal. And really? That whole Merrill- Lynch statue. It certainly has two noticeably “prominent” features. So basically when our economy is “good” we associate it will a dull, unhappy and indecently exposed animal.

Now the bear. While they may not be the most embraceable of animals, they are certainly better than the bull. First you have endless cartoons of kind, friendly and helpful bears. Winnie the Pooh, Yogi, and Baloo (from the Jungle Book) are compassionate and helped little boys (Christopher Robin and Mowgli.) I’m not sure if the second characteristic is positive, it could however qualify them for status as a sex offender or Catholic Priest. Nonetheless, they are helpful. Speaking of helpful- look at Smoky the bear. He is protecting our Earth from forest fires politely and also fully dressed. By wearing pants, he is already more appropriate and professional than most of the deep south. Only he could pull off that hat.

I don’t know how the leaders of our fair nation don’t see it. The bear is clearly much more accurate representation of a strong market economy. Maybe Smokey can figure out how to save our economy. Maybe he’ll do something intelligent, like borrow trillions of dollars and throw it at forest fires, and then we can give park rangers who start the fires by burning old love letters a bonus. Thats it. Problem: solved.