ETF Update: Absolutely Nothing to Love 17 comments
- Jeff Miller's articles on Seeking Alpha
- Jeff's blog: A Dash of Insight
- Jeff's portfolio management firm: NewArc Investments
- Contact Jeff
an article to
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
Pay attention!
Even when you are not doing day trading, it is wise to monitor your positions. It is important to go beyond checking quotes and news on your trading screens. Each day, an hour before the market close, we make a careful and systematic review of everything. This includes considering important news events and scheduled earnings reports. With plenty of action overseas and overnight, it is important to bring the right position into the next day's trading.
Our TCA-ETF system helps in this daily review. We currently have a universe of 57 different ETFs representing many sectors and including international exposure. We stick to stocks, since that was the basis for the development of the model. We are selective about including international ETFs, helping to maintain diversity in our holdings -- always the top group of sectors. We welcome suggestions for addition to the universe.
The change in sector rankings also highlights which ETFs deserve closer monitoring. In short, we view the daily model output as a different and valuable perspective on the market -- newsworthy information that we share once a week on a one-day delayed basis. (For new readers, there is a more complete description of our methods and ratings at the end of the article.)
A World of Negativity
The model captures the overwhelming negative sentiment of the market. Last week we wrote about The Fear Trade. Selling is so broad-based that everything is in decline. Markets normally include a few sectors that defy the broad trend. Not this time.
There is nothing to love. Well, nothing unless you own inverse ETFs. We try to feature a sector each week, but shorting the market is still working, so we refer readers to our recent article, How to Play Short by Going Long. That continues as our best trade.
Regular readers of our site know that we believe the sentiment to be overdone. We have some deeper studies in mind. Meanwhile, here are a few non-scientific indicators:
- The New York Times (NYT) collects some Op-Ed contributors on the question of "When Will the Recession be Over? They come up with a pretty gloomy collect, which you should check out for yourself.
- The economic data continues to be dismal, especially the GDP report for 4th quarter 08.
- Anecdotal evidence. We are not a fan of the anecdote, since it is so subject to abuse. Sometimes the evidence of the individual stories has a pervasive quality.
Differing Perspectives
We note a dramatic difference in perspective between public opinion polling and the stock market. The former has been generally supportive of Obama and the various initiatives. The market has not. (We acknowledge some over-simplification here. We cannot go into depth in each article, and promise to revisit this topic).
A reader has shared the results of a special survey of a group that most would regard as well-off. These are people who can have a significant marginal impact on the market. The reader has graciously allowed me to quote the results on an anonymous basis. It is obviously an unscientific sample, and that is the point. It is a prevailing viewpoint of part of our society, consistent with what many of us have observed.
The average age of investors in our group is 48. The average invested dollars is 1.2 million. In the last surveys within our groups the sentiment is just staggering in numbers we have never seen. Here are some of the latest surveys over the past 4 weeks: Percentages were actually better in December than they are now:
As of mid-January 2009:
1) 99% believe GM (GM) will declare bankruptcy and the bond holders will be wiped out. This amounts to billions of dollars lost by pension funds and individual investors.
2) 100% believe Chrysler will declare bankruptcy and bond holders will be wiped out.
3) 15% believe Ford (F) will survive.
4) 90% believe Ford bondholders will be forced to accept equity in return for bonds.
5) 92% believe gold will reach 1500.00 within 6 months and 2000.00 within 1 – 2 years.
6) 5% believe gold will retrace to 600.00.
7) 75% believe the US dollar will collapse within 5 years pushing a depressed economy to levels beyond the great depression.
8) As of last week, 82% believe everyone should hold 40% of their total assets in gold bullion. Not certificates or shares, but actual gold bullion! No survey we have ever conducted ever had anyone considering gold bullion.
9) 70% believe GE (GE) will break up.
10) 99% believe GE will cut its dividend.
11) 5% believe the US economic stimulus will turn the economy around.
12) 80% believe Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) will either break up or be nationalized.
13) 90% believe US treasuries are the worst investment to be in right now.
14) 72% believe the S&P will hit 450 within 2 years.
15) 55% believe the advanced economies are already in a depression.
16) 82% believe the depression will last 7 to 10 years.
17) 85% believe unemployment in the US will reach 28%.
18) 88% believe unemployment is actually higher than being reported by the government.
19) 65% reported taking sleeping aids and/or prescription medications for sleeping.
20) 30% believe the UK will default on its bonds or suspend interest payments and redemptions for a number of years.
The group is an instant winner on #10. Some other striking results are the 5% believing in the stimulus package and 85% thinking unemployment will reach 28%.
Wow!
President Obama and his economic team have some serious work to do.
Weekly TCA-ETF Rankings
The last of the three inverse ETFs moved into the buy zone during last week, and all of the long positions went into the penalty box. For investors in our weekly program, we made some mid-week adjustments. The market was down 4.5% on the week and we did more than 2% better.
We are not happy with this, of course, since we seek absolute return. Losing less than the market is not the road to riches. The best trading comes when there are some bullish sectors, and now we have none. As a result, we have continued our bearish stance in the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment poll. There are only three of 57 sectors in the "buy" range, and they are all inverse ETFs.
Unlike most observers, we think this could change rapidly with a really solid plan for troubled assets or a change in mark-to-market accounting.
Note for New Readers
Our weekly ETF Update is designed to assist both investors and traders interested in ETF's and Sector Rotation. Before turning to the current rankings, let us undertake a review for readers new to this series.
Our Method. In this past article, we described our basic methodology and why we believe the rankings are useful for fundamental traders and technical traders alike. While we urge readers to check out the entire article, the key point is that ETF's pose challenges and opportunities different from investment in individual stocks. The fundamentals may be more difficult to assess. Even with a good grasp on fundamental trends, there is a lot of technically-based trading in ETF's. This means that those trading with a fundamental approach (and we do this as well) want to monitor the "hot money" moves. Here is an article on that point.
The system synopsis. We look at Trending sectors, Cyclical Sectors, and build in an element of Anticipation for both entry and exit -- thus the name of the model, TCA-ETF. While we do not reveal the exact methodology for spotting trends and cycles, the system is not a "black box." The basic elements are used by many, and widely reported. We even discuss the need for human analysis as opposed to black box trading.
We report the rankings each week, now on the weekend with a one-day delay, using the Thursday output from the model. We monitor and trade this daily, and offer a free report (request via the email address on the top left of the site) for those interested in our weekly trading program.
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
TraderMark
-
3
Don Dion
-
4
Cliff Wachtel
-
5
Mike Havrilla
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
Each of these high end investors would have their own particular rational reasons for making these predictions (if that's what they are) on such a scale, which sounds pretty gloomy if not scary for the months and years ahead...A 28% unemployment level in US would certainlly have severe consequences down the road, and may even cause some social unrest if it lasts to long.
1. Late'80, in USA, the democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US greedy companies to move jobs out of country to low cost regions, mainly Mexico and Asia.
2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started to loose their jobs...
3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened...... see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what a nice dream for American people...anything happening, BTW?
4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American plants reduced their production, started to close one by one, more lay-offs…
5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and harder…
6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
7. American peoples are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will have a job, so they can pay the family house mortgage. As soon as they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they could not afford to pay anymore for the house…the financial crisis started to develop…but nicely covert under the name of “subprime”…
8. All the big American companies, including the auto manufacturers, moved the majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many plants left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for American workers, because there are no more US plants left on US.
No jobs, no salaries, no money for the majority of working class to be spent, circulate, keep the economy in motion, dynamic…
9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong: they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas to be done there, at a cheaper rate, but profit for the project administrating company…Profit, who cares about workers…But one can not transform a healthy multiskilled working class (once upon a time) in a bunch of low level bridges painters…there are 2.5 million people out of jobs…bring back the jobs you moved overseas, industry, steel, electronics, auto, machining equipment, and so much more…
10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in conditions like these. They are turning more and more toward right wing deep conservative-fundament... Southern-style religion, become violent, started to hate foreigners, immigrants, the rate of killing among them is increasing, same with the suicide rate…Very bad, it looks like there is not hope…
But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root cause…
I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not talking to the walls…
Please find bellow my humble comment, why this entire crisis is happening:
1. Late'80, in USA democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US companies to move jobs out of country to low cost regions, mainly Mexico and Asia.
2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started to loose their jobs...
3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened...... see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what a nice dream for American people...
4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American plants reduced their production, more lay-offs…
5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and harder…
6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
7. American people are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will have a job so they can the family mortgage.
As soon as they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they could not afford to pay anymore for the house…the crisis started to develop…
8. All the big companies including the auto manufacturers moved the majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many plants left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for American workers.
9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong: they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas…But one can not transform a healthy multiskilled working class in a bunch of low level bridge painters…there are 2.5 million people out of jobs…
10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in conditions like these. They are turning toward right deep conservative-fundament... Southern-style religion, become violent, started to hate foreigners, immigrants, the rate of killing among them is increasing, same with the suicide rate…Very bad, it looks like there is not hope…
11. The same key people that created this mess by starting NAFTA are now back, same strategy (hope not!)
But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root cause…
How to fix it...I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not talking to the walls…
Sincerely,
Florian Bibicu
Only because I sense that you're playing Democrat/Republican with us, I would submit the following, thanks to the on-line Wackypedia, written by people who obviously went to grade school but skipped grammar entirely and forever:
"Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990 between the three nations, the leaders gathered together in San Antonio Texas on December 17, 1992 to officially sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexico's President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, made history that day when they ceremoniously signed the agreement. The agreement needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch before it could actually become law. In the U.S., Bush, who had worked to "fast track" the official signing prior to the end of his last term, ran out of time and had to pass the required ratification and "signing into law" to incoming president Bill Clinton. Prior to sending it to the House of Representatives, Clinton introduced clauses which would hopefully provide protections for American workers while placating concerns held by many of the House representatives. It also required U.S. partners to adhere to environmental practices and regulations similar to its own. Being able to enforce these clauses, especially with Mexico, was considered questionable, and with much consternation and emotional discussion The House of Representatives approved NAFTA on November 17, 1993, by a vote of 234 to 200. Remarkably the agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and only 102 Democrats. That unusual combination reflected the challenges President Clinton faced in convincing Congress that the controversial piece of legislation would truly benefit all Americans. The agreement was signed into law in the U.S. on December 8, 1993 by President Bill Clinton and went into effect on January 1, 1994."
Why do you continue to believe that there's a difference between the parties? Without Big Money, neither elephants nor donkeys could 1) get elected, or 2) get rich. Do you really believe that both parties would be so adamantly against eliminating campaign contributions (when they benefit neither party) if they were unable to siphon a bunch of bucks off the top for themselves? And think about why someone would give money to BOTH parties/BOTH candidates. Does charity run so deep in the veins of the rich?
I doubt it.
As for 99% of Americans knowing what mortgages cost, you seem to believe that 99% of Americans own (or their friendly mtg company owns) their house or apartment. This is seriously quaint. Charming. We, as a group of people, are richer than I ever dreamed!
At least, unlike many of our countrymen, you're thinking.
Best,
SOB.
On Mar 02 05:54 AM Bibicu Florian wrote:
> My humble comment, why this entire crisis is happening:
>
> 1. Late'80, in USA, the democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US
> greedy companies to move jobs out of country to low cost regions,
> mainly Mexico and Asia.
>
> 2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started
> to loose their jobs...
>
> 3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and
> "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened......
> see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what
> a nice dream for American people...anything happening, BTW?
>
> 4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand
> for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American
> plants reduced their production, started to close one by one, more
> lay-offs…
>
> 5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the
> US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and
> harder…
>
> 6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to
> make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
>
>
> 7. American peoples are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much
> mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will
> have a job, so they can pay the family house mortgage. As soon as
> they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they could not
> afford to pay anymore for the house…the financial crisis started
> to develop…but nicely covert under the name of “subprime”…
>
> 8. All the big American companies, including the auto manufacturers,
> moved the majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many
> plants left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for
> American workers, because there are no more US plants left on US.
>
> No jobs, no salaries, no money for the majority of working class
> to be spent, circulate, keep the economy in motion, dynamic…
>
> 9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong:
> they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges
> and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas
> to be done there, at a cheaper rate, but profit for the project administrating
> company…Profit, who cares about workers…But one can not transform
> a healthy multiskilled working class (once upon a time) in a bunch
> of low level bridges painters…there are 2.5 million people out of
> jobs…bring back the jobs you moved overseas, industry, steel, electronics,
> auto, machining equipment, and so much more…
>
> 10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in
> conditions like these. They are turning more and more toward right
> wing deep conservative-fundament... Southern-style religion, become
> violent, started to hate foreigners, immigrants, the rate of killing
> among them is increasing, same with the suicide rate…Very bad, it
> looks like there is not hope…
>
> But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root
> cause…
>
> I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not talking to the
> walls…
>
>
>
> Please find bellow my humble comment, why this entire crisis is happening:
>
>
> 1. Late'80, in USA democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US companies
> to move jobs out of country to low cost regions, mainly Mexico and
> Asia.
>
> 2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started
> to loose their jobs...
>
> 3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and
> "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened......
> see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what
> a nice dream for American people...
>
> 4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand
> for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American
> plants reduced their production, more lay-offs…
>
> 5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the
> US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and
> harder…
>
> 6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to
> make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
>
>
> 7. American people are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much
> mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will
> have a job so they can the family mortgage.
> As soon as they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they
> could not afford to pay anymore for the house…the crisis started
> to develop…
>
> 8. All the big companies including the auto manufacturers moved the
> majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many plants
> left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for American
> workers.
>
> 9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong:
> they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges
> and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas…But
> one can not transform a healthy multiskilled working class in a bunch
> of low level bridge painters…there are 2.5 million people out of
> jobs…
>
> 10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in
> conditions like these. They are turning toward right deep conservative-fundament...
> Southern-style religion, become violent, started to hate foreigners,
> immigrants, the rate of killing among them is increasing, same with
> the suicide rate…Very bad, it looks like there is not hope…
>
> 11. The same key people that created this mess by starting NAFTA
> are now back, same strategy (hope not!)
>
> But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root
> cause…
>
> How to fix it...I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not
> talking to the walls…
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Florian Bibicu
>
>
>
On Mar 02 05:54 AM Bibicu Florian wrote:
> My humble comment, why this entire crisis is happening:
>
> 1. Late'80, in USA, the democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US
> greedy companies to move jobs out of country to low cost regions,
> mainly Mexico and Asia.
>
> 2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started
> to loose their jobs...
>
> 3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and
> "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened......
> see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what
> a nice dream for American people...anything happening, BTW?
>
> 4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand
> for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American
> plants reduced their production, started to close one by one, more
> lay-offs…
>
> 5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the
> US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and
> harder…
>
> 6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to
> make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
>
>
> 7. American peoples are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much
> mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will
> have a job, so they can pay the family house mortgage. As soon as
> they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they could not
> afford to pay anymore for the house…the financial crisis started
> to develop…but nicely covert under the name of “subprime”…
>
> 8. All the big American companies, including the auto manufacturers,
> moved the majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many
> plants left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for
> American workers, because there are no more US plants left on US.
>
> No jobs, no salaries, no money for the majority of working class
> to be spent, circulate, keep the economy in motion, dynamic…
>
> 9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong:
> they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges
> and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas
> to be done there, at a cheaper rate, but profit for the project administrating
> company…Profit, who cares about workers…But one can not transform
> a healthy multiskilled working class (once upon a time) in a bunch
> of low level bridges painters…there are 2.5 million people out of
> jobs…bring back the jobs you moved overseas, industry, steel, electronics,
> auto, machining equipment, and so much more…
>
> 10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in
> conditions like these. They are turning more and more toward right
> wing deep conservative-fundament... Southern-style religion, become
> violent, started to hate foreigners, immigrants, the rate of killing
> among them is increasing, same with the suicide rate…Very bad, it
> looks like there is not hope…
>
> But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root
> cause…
>
> I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not talking to the
> walls…
>
>
>
> Please find bellow my humble comment, why this entire crisis is happening:
>
>
> 1. Late'80, in USA democrats created NAFTA. This allowed US companies
> to move jobs out of country to low cost regions, mainly Mexico and
> Asia.
>
> 2. The plants started to close in US and move overseas, people started
> to loose their jobs...
>
> 3. In parallel to this, Hillary Clinton started to "volunteer" and
> "fix" the Health care system...Nothing happened...worsened......
> see under president Obama...Universal Healthcare coverage...what
> a nice dream for American people...
>
> 4. Cheap Asian goods started to flood American market, the demand
> for more expensive American product dropped dramatically, again American
> plants reduced their production, more lay-offs…
>
> 5. Cheap foreign labour (very much illegal) started to invade the
> US, driving down the local salaries. Life in became US harder and
> harder…
>
> 6. By loosing their jobs, more and more people could not afford to
> make anymore their mortgage payments and started loosing their houses.
>
>
> 7. American people are not idiot! They (99% of them) know how much
> mortgage can afford, but they cannot control for how long they will
> have a job so they can the family mortgage.
> As soon as they started to loose their jobs, again I repeat, they
> could not afford to pay anymore for the house…the crisis started
> to develop…
>
> 8. All the big companies including the auto manufacturers moved the
> majority of their plants overseas, there are not very many plants
> left in US, so jobs are hard to be reopened on US soil, for American
> workers.
>
> 9. How Obama administration is planning to create jobs it wrong:
> they want to create jobs by fixing holes in highways, painting bridges
> and repairing schools, because these “items” can not be shipped overseas…But
> one can not transform a healthy multiskilled working class in a bunch
> of low level bridge painters…there are 2.5 million people out of
> jobs…
>
> 10. American people became depressed; they are not used to live in
> conditions like these. They are turning toward right deep conservative-fundament...
> Southern-style religion, become violent, started to hate foreigners,
> immigrants, the rate of killing among them is increasing, same with
> the suicide rate…Very bad, it looks like there is not hope…
>
> 11. The same key people that created this mess by starting NAFTA
> are now back, same strategy (hope not!)
>
> But there are some solutions…what I said above was just the root
> cause…
>
> How to fix it...I will tell you more, as soon as I realise I’m not
> talking to the walls…
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Florian Bibicu
>
>
>
Jeff: what, if anything, do you know about DYY and DAG?
Thanks in advance.
In the 1930s, MEN could line up for unemployment, because women worked various positions to earn money for food and bare necessities.
In the 1930s, capital was structured so that job creation was very focused - agrarian and industrial jobs counted, services jobs did not.
In the 2000s, we have a services-dominated economy with home laborers common, and jobs that would never have even counted as jobs in the 1930s are routine.
Finally, in the 2000s, to be listed as "unemployed" you have to file a claim and show that you are currently seeking employment by submitting a certain number of applications, etc. It's not too difficult to make it impossible for "newly unemployed" people to be counted - or to tweak the numbers any which way one pleased.
Is 28% "underemployment" possible? Certainly, and we may be approaching it now. Is 28% "unemployment" possible? Yes - if America starts to resemble Somalia. Until then, folks are just being paranoid.
u.s corporations sent the jobs to asia by their own decision.
NAFTA was sold by the politicians to the u.s public as a mechanism for increasing exports of u.s domestic factories to latin american countries. it sure hasn't turned out that way. u.s public was sold a bill of goods.
> jack
DYY and DAG, are leveraged and commodity-based. We are careful about applying the system in completely uncharted territory. Perhaps when we can do some research on ETN's and commodities, making modifications if necessary. We also believe that there is plenty of volatility and trading opportunity without adding leverage.
Thanks for asking this question and helping me to clarify how we make choices. I wish I could provide more information. Meanwhile, I am open to suggestions to extend our list or replace existing choices. We also provide a custom rating service for some investors who have their own lists.
Thanks again,
Jeff
I negated it with a "thumbs up".
There are a few posters who feel maligned whenever I ask questions regarding their comments, I receive 60 or more Thumbs Down on previous comments of mine every weekend. You answered my question, you get one too.
Sorry about that.
thanks for refreshing my memory on the history of the NAFTA legislation. were the environmental & worker safety requirements in the law ever enforced with mexico?
> jack
You guys are such a bunch of hypocrites! Do you really care if the workers in Mexico are wearing protection equipment? My ass! Or about the environment? Yeah, right! All these are just reasons to try to be “politically correct”, not to offend anybody, but say: “see, they don’t respect these things there, let’s close the plant in Guadalajara and reopen it in Detroit, we are going to sacrifice for them, poor Mexicans”…That’s why this country will never get the respect it deserves, you just simply can not stand up and speak for the truth, for youselves without being scared of offending somebody…somebody who: the Arabs, the Mexicans, the politicians, your wifes...the whom?
Over the Past 10 years, those poor Mexicans have stolen Millions of Jobs here in the USA, Not because of NAFTA, but because of sneaking across the Border illegally.
They live the way they do because they have chosen to do so. I do not hear/see stories about How The Poor Mexicans are Fighting to Improve their conditions.
Hell, there is more news about dissent in Russia and China (where free journalism isn't exactly "free") than comes out of Mexico.
If we were "scared" of the Arabs, we wouldn't be in Iraq, Afganistan and wouldn't be supporting Israel.
I have no problem at all offending Bibicu Florian.
”I have no problem at all offending Bibicu Florian"….
Whooooo Paul, the things are getting hotter here…Very intelligent comment, I would even say...arogant! But that's OK, it's you...
You don’t offend me, because I don’t know who you are, what are your moral values, the way how we're both thinking…You’re like my lovely wife, when she does not have anymore logical arguments, she starts to offend people around…
Soooo, let’s see:
Paragraph 1:
I agree with you, but the jobs, the plants, have to come back to USA, or unless you’re a big fat cat (and through your typical American arrogance, you may be one) you and your kids (hope mine not!) will paint forever the Obama bridges. Yeah, let’s make a movie out of this! What is you favourite paint colour?
Paragraph 2:
What US is doing to stop this illegal immigration? Nothing! What is US people doing to stop this? Not much! Remember your words: “They live the way they do because they have chosen to do so”…were you talking about Mexicans or generally about all the people living on Americas? (Mexico-USA included…) Me no get it…This is a lost battle…Whoever aspirant-president will try to mention this in his speeches, the united Latino block (how many millions of voters?) we will kill him right away…so, adios change, got to love them!
Paragraph 3:
Agree again with you, but just wait and see when they will move in your neighbourhood and start playing loud music from the windows, how much the price of your brand new house will be…How are you going to fight then, to improve, what,... living conditions? Hasta la banana!
Paragraph 4:
Who cares about news from Mexico, etc. unless is something that can help sell the newspaper....
Why are paying attention to China and Russia? Because it sells and because we are still afraid of them! Still under Cold War mentality, plus they have our economy in their hands, many nukes, and they even mentioned, are willing to use them…do you think, against... Mexicans?
Paragraph 5:
…now Junior, this is a painfully one, at least for me…You shouldn’t have open it this way...is not the right place...However...Why did we have to lose so many lives, how many more will, when all this problem could have been resolved much faster, the right way, in short time.... You know, the French say: “À la guerre comme à la guerre”…it’s said, it’s true, it’s cruel, but if you can not do it, better stay home on the back porch, and let the big dogs play the game the right way, quick and efficient…
Paragraph 6:
I support Israel’s cause too, been on both sides of the fence, is not right to fear those damn rockets, but if the Palestinian problem is not resolved, they will launch forever rockets…Can you understand what means to be a desperate person, no future, nobody wants you? So what are you expecting from them? The true problem is that no politician has the willing nor the power to change it. Want solution? I can give you, at least three; each can be implemented in max one week, and of course no loosing life involved (unless you’re throwing yourself in the front of the tanks, but that’s your own personal problem…)
That’s all, Junior…still want to offend me, I have no problem with that…
I love to see explanations based on logic rather than opinions without explanation.
As a matter of Fact, I agree with everyone of your comments. Especially Number 5, a first Cousin of mine died in Nam. His father recognized his Nose. An RPG found its way into an APC two weeks before his tour would have been over. I tried to get drunk after the Wake. I couldn't do it. We were drinking buddies as well as relatives.
The Iraq War wasn't stupid, Staying was and still is.