The Unreasoning Antipathy for the Bull Market in Gold Deconstructed as Cognitive Dissonance
Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain
"Foolishness is my theme, let satire be my song." George Gordon, Lord Byron
The comments in the news today following the suggestion that the US Dollar is not eternal, and that gold might be rising in price because of increased demand and changing economic climate and taste, might be humorous, if not uproariously comical, if the underlying subject was not of such potentially serious consequence to the savings of many.
For example, a major gold bullion site, that seems to be permanently bearish on gold through its house commentator, has even added a new chart to its main site that purports to show that the rising price of gold is just a dollar doppelganger, not real, and not a bull market. Given that said analyst has been bearish on gold for the last several hundreds of dollars, one has to ask, "Is he talking someone’s book, or just feeling sheepish?"
But, trying to accept that these things as genuine and sincere expressions of thoughtful analysis, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, here is some speculation on why the concept that the dollar might no longer be the focus of Creation, and could be replaced by something that includes gold, proves to be so disturbing to the point of mania in some noted and otherwise presumably public figures in the face of four years of steady price increases and an unmistakable upward trend.
We do not have an issue with someone who thinks that some future outcome might diverge from what we think might happen, since it is all about probabilites. But it is odd when people choose to continually deny what IS happening, and keep rationalizing that it is not happening, cannot be happening, and is merely some illusion because it does not fit in with their firmly held belief. That denial seems a bit irrational, coming from those we suppose are ordinarily rational and otherwise grounded in reality.
Prechter, Shilling, and the Ideologically Predisposed Deflationists
Those who have decided what *should* be happening, and are not pleased that reality is not cooperating with their ideological predispostions. "I reject your reality, and substitute my own." See ‘Flat Earth Society’
"An early version of cognitive dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger’s 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails.
This book gave an inside account of belief persistence in members of a UFO doomsday cult, and documented the increased proselytization they exhibited after the leader’s "end of the world" prophecy failed to come true.
The prediction of the Earth’s destruction, supposedly sent by aliens to the leader of the group, became a disconfirmed expectancy that caused dissonance between the cognitions, "the world is going to end" and "the world did not end."
Although some members abandoned the group when the prophecy failed, most of the members lessened their dissonance by accepting a new belief, that the planet was spared because of the faith of the group." Wikipedia
Market Analysts and Financial Newspeople Syndrome
Sometimes people who have chosen a particular path, profession, or investment strategy will strenuously reject anything that suggests that their choice might have been incorrect, or threatens their status quo, with sometimes humourous results. Similar to ‘pampered child being denied their candy and rejecting that possibility’ syndrome.
"In a different type of experiment conducted by Jack Brehm, 225 female students rated a series of common appliances and were then allowed to choose one of two appliances to take home as a gift.
A second round of ratings showed that the participants increased their ratings of the item they chose, and lowered their ratings of the rejected item. This can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance. When making a difficult decision, there are always aspects of the rejected choice that one finds appealing and these features are dissonant with choosing something else.
In other words, the cognition, "I chose X" is dissonant with the cognition, "There are some things better about Y." More recent research has found similar results in four-year-old children (Bloomberg and CNBC news anchors and commentators) and capuchin monkeys (Several prominent metals analysts and chief market strategists)." Wikipedia
But we would have to admit that at the end of the day:
"No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions." Charles Steinmetz
