Yesterday, the stock market had a huge rise. Gold, on the other hand, dropped. In the past month, many have sold stocks and bought gold. Today, many are selling gold and buying stocks. If we attended elementary schools with seesaws, we do well to remember the basic lesson, if one side goes up, the other side goes down.
If we imagine the seesaw to be inside the trailer of a semi-truck driving across country, and picture each of us the size of a very small ant, we can visualize what happens. The seesaw goes up and down while the truck, which symbolizes the economy or the nation, goes up and down hills, crosses long flat areas, occasionally wrecks, and sometimes needs repairs. Each ant on the seesaw describes a cyclodic curve as the truck goes forward, up and down. Ants are always getting on and off the seesaw. Once on, they may move back and forth from one end to the other, always trying to get above the other ants.
Those of us inside the truck, riding on the seesaw or watching those who do, don’t always know if the truck is headed up or down. When the truck is going downhill, the “gold end” of the seesaw tends to rise. When it looks like the truck is going uphill, the “stock end” of the seesaw tends to rise. The people on the seesaw are largely unable to tell what way the truck is going in the future.
When we see ourselves in such a way, we realize how helpless we are. No one knows if the truck will be smashed into by another vehicle whose driver wants to destroy or hijack it and everything aboard.
