Let's play it out, for heaven's sake. The GOP shuts down the government because President Obama doesn't offer any spending cuts. Then what happens?
Do the Democrats take the Republicans to court? Does the Constitution insist that the country's bills be paid, as the 14th amendment seems to indicate? Do the Republicans put their feet down and stop sending Social Security checks, or stop paying soldiers? Is that the deal? Do we really expect the president to change Medicare or Social Security?
So, what's the conclusion for the stock market?
I have three.
One: Move some of your money off shore right now into any other market around the world.
Two: Make sure that your companies are more international than domestic.
Three: Buy gold -- we can't find as much as we need.
After we get hammered on the idea that there can be no resolution, you return some of that money to this country because, in the end, we are not going to default, we are not going to stiff the seniors or the soldiers and we are not going to commit suicide over this.
I am not so undisciplined as to tell you to buy up here. I don't do that. I have only bought up 2% out of total desperation and I have largely lost money when I do it. I have to be willing to pass, even as we go higher. We have been sellers of stocks in the charitable trust all day. That's just what I do. I don't know how to do anything else.
But I am adamant that you have to stop thinking the world is ending, even as that's all I am hearing.
There's too much opportunity elsewhere. And there will eventually be too much opportunity here, too, after the internecine struggle finishes and the Republic is saved from Washington
