Warm Wishes from "The Greek"

Visit the front pages of Wall Street Greek and Market Moving News to see our current coverage of economic reports and financial markets.

In this joyous time of warm hearts and good tidings, we here at Wall Street Greek wish you all a happy holiday. This year especially, we know many of you are in need of money or something else. For this reason, we will incorporate more information on the many government programs recently initiated to help you. I'm also available to talk to always and for everyone, and I will try to respond to your comments at the blog more often. Shortly, we will have forums for discussion purpose as well. If you would like a more private medium, you can email me at WallStreetGreek@gmail.com.

Perhaps the greatest gifts I can offer are not stock picks, nor economic forecasts, but my words and my heart, which is open to you. I hope that I give you something more than the bland financial reporting you find across the Internet. I hope we help you navigate financial markets of course! But, I also hope we sometimes educate, sometimes uplift, sometimes inspire and even conflict. Because, when my thoughts conflict with your beliefs, it leads to debate, the consequence of which is a sharing of knowledge. This fosters a greater understanding of varying views, and often improved knowledge either here or there, or on both ends.

Today and Faith

While financiers would label the remainder of this note "style drift," no man is two dimensional. I have more interests and concerns than just those limited to Wall Street. Days like today allow me to share some of my other interests with you, if you care to know.

Now I know many of you are agnostic or atheist because I usually lose you on articles like these. I happen to have great faith. However naive that may sound, I know that my open-mindedness has only solidified my faith, because the hardest thing for an analyst to believe in is something invisible, or intangible. I ask you to tolerate my faith, as I tolerate your opinions. From time to time, I will author "feel good" stories here, which I label "life" topics. I hope atheism or religious labeling does not harden any reader's heart enough to close ears from life topics that concern many, if not all of us. The focus of this blog is all things financial, and factors that interplay with financial. Nothing else will ever become staple here, except goodwill.

That said, for me God is not a myth nor legend, but a personally well-proven reality. While I cannot prove God to an atheist in two sentences, I can say that a man with his eyes closed, or who will not look, will never see. One important note: while myths fade and die, faith in a higher power has lasted through millenniums. I believe that occurrence is impossible without substance and truth. Even the skeptic must admit to a possibility of that. Too often, I find skeptics argue against God without first having any base of knowledge on the topic. A well rounded debate can only occur when both sides have been researched thoroughly, so I encourage that, and Matthew in the New Testament is a great place to start. I'll note that I'm no authority on the subject and not preaching from some illusory pulpit born of ego.

So, in conclusion, for me and many of you, today we celebrate one of the greatest days for mankind. Thus, it is unnatural for me to not express so in my holiday greeting, and I hope you understand this. I view those of you who disagree with my religious views as my brothers, sisters and friends nonetheless, and look forward to many engaging debates over coffee or beer. I love Jew, Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant as much as any Eastern Orthodox, many of whom are often even harder for me to love. So now you know that when I say God bless you, I mean it literally. I ask you to keep me up to this high standard when I inevitably slip. You might also try to not crucify any person when they slip, and try to show love to even strangers you would normally not engage. For a writer, as you might expect, fighting "the criticism" temptation can prove extremely difficult.

I think I've kept you long enough on this festive day. Please enjoy it peacefully with your family and friends. Still remember, whether you believe in God or not, the worthwhileness of sincere goodwill is not debatable. God bless you, warm wishes and good day. Please see our writers' warm wishes expressed via the comment link to this article.


Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. (Article interests: AMEX: DIA, AMEX: SPY, Nasdaq: QQQQ, NYSE: NYX, AMEX: DOG, AMEX: SDS, AMEX: QLD, AMEX: XLF, AMEX: IWM, AMEX: TWM, AMEX: IWD, AMEX: SDK).