Ever wonder why, when you wake up in the morning, you have fresh running water, or delicious food you can cook or buy? Ever wonder why you get to sit in an air-conditioned setting on a 104 degree day. Is it because you are a raging success? Is it because God loves you more than say, the Somalians? Or is it perhaps that you simply happened to be a member of the lucky sperm club? The fact that you were born here, or in Europe, rather than in Bangalore, has far and away the most impact on why your life rocks --- for now (rocking being a relative term). But as the market implosion of 2000, 2008, and now 2011 demonstrate, things built on luck and pipe dreams and folly, eventually get arbitraged away by that funny little thing called mean reversion (no pun intended). And the reversion your about to experience will be mean, cruel, and ruthless. Oh it seems like a grand occurence now, but when someone pens The History of the World - Condensed in say, the year 2235, your existence and the mean reversion you experienced will be but a blip. Perhaps a couple of pages at most. See, mean reversion happens all the time in a historical and statistical sense. Its nothing new, rare, or strange. You got laid 3 times this month? Odds are, unless you are Brad Pitt, you probably won't get laid again till New Year's Eve. You made $2.5 million in 2007? Odds are you will not see that kind of jack again, well -ever. You are a 3rd generation industrial tycoon heir? Well, in a few of generations, there's a fair chance your descendents will be working at Wal-Mart. That's just the way random shit happens.
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