I hope you enjoyed the birthday card for Gloria Steinem on March 25. Happily that blog helped break the radio silence I’ve had for months. (The publication of the new edition of Raising Financially Fit Kids killed my writing jones for awhile:) But this email from Daniel Rutnik, a funny, skeptical, talented financial advisor in Albany NY so tickled my funny bone I decided to use it to keep the momentum going.

Daniel sent me a great piece on March 13, the title of which is, “Why did the stock market sell off today? To answer that question, Joshua Brown compiled this list of explanations from various news agencies that day:

Wall Street Journal: Tensions in Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula
Yahoo Finance: Russians
Fox Business: Obamacare
CNBC: It didn’t sell off at all, it was actually a reverse rally
Forbes: Taxes are too high
Huffington Post: Taxes are too low
Fox News: Gay marriage
Motley Fool: Sign up here to find out!
Bloomberg TV: The opposite of whatever CNBC said.
Quartz: Chinese shadow-banks
FT Alphaville: Chinese derivatives
Washington Times: Fallout from explosive Benghazi revelations
StockTwits: Here’s a chart
USA Today: Let’s take a poll
DealBook: lack of M&A
Zero Hedge: Better question, why would it have gone up?
MSNBC: I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the term “stock market” per se…
Financial Times: Please take a moment to register and accept cookies
MarketWatch: 1929
The Reformed Broker: More sellers than buyers
Buzzfeed Business: It’s like that time on Party of Five when Charlie was giving Julia the silent treatment…
Reuters: HFT
Barron’s: Valuations got ahead of themselves
Investors Business Daily: drop in momentum. And record deficits.
History Channel: Ancient Aliens

Then Daniel comments: “You have to be a financial nerd to get the humor in most of these. They are many different “hypothetical” answers to one question. All express a self-interest bias that reflects popularly perceived attitudes of the identified author. The fact is that sometimes things just happen when human beings act. Very little has just one simple cause. Many things evolve over time but do not move in a straight line. Nevertheless, we feel compelled to reduce complicated things to simple messages to express some mastery over the otherwise mysterious. Simple messages can reveal our biases or agendas. As for the specific question, I like this response: more sellers than buyers.”

Daniel’s take on the so-called news is the kind of clean, clear financial education I most enjoy.

Have a great week!