Opportunity is a funny thing. It almost always resides in the mind in the form of a number of possibilities that can be wrung out of any situation. In order to be recognized and acted upon, it must first be formed and shaped by the attitude of the individual. That's where the “power of positive thinking” comes into play.
I think a large part of the success I've achieved is that I almost always look at new situations in terms of how I can exploit them rather than how they'll negatively affect me. Thus, while right-wing radio pundits waste their time and energy wringing their hands over Obama's government give-away programs, I see him creating fantastic opportunity for those who keep on keeping on buying and selling houses in today's market.
Despite the assurances of myriad soothsayers on TV and the Internet, nobody really knows what the future holds for the market. There's a big economic and financial tug of war going on between nations and between various economic interests within nations. The stakes are enormous as are the pressures that are being exerted on the various players. This can readily be seen in the differences between what Obama said he was going to do once he became President, and what he has actually done.
For example, the NEA which is notoriously against any kind of rating system that would identify good and bad teachers, and who strongly supported Obama's candidacy, now find themselves confronting a national program to reward good teachers and to penalize poor teachers.
His pledge to withdraw troops from combat as one of his promised “changes” seems to be honored in the breetch as he re-appointed the same Secretary of Defense and got Congress to beef up military spending.
His threatened tax increases won't be on the table until 2011 for the most part.
He has repaid strong support from industrail unions by forcing automakers into insolvency just short of bankruptcy.
He is giving trillions of dollars to financial institutions and hedge funds.
His vaunted bailout of struggling homeowners still hasn't really gotten off the ground.
What lessons does this teach us? That merely throwing money around at problems without understanding them, and how to avoid repeating them, is going to trigger the Law of Unintended Consequences. In so many words, the more Obama “helps”, the bigger future problems will probably be.
My advice to those who read this post is to keep on keeping on buying and selling your houses and recycling the cash into other houses until you find you can't find houses to buy at low enough prices to make a profit. Regardless of the direction the economy drives the market, you'll never go broke taking a small profit as often as you can instead of waiting for the “big one” that never arrives. Next post, I'll tell you how to do this without any money at all.
