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  • An animated game show (video, 2:10) featuring some very discouraged workers helps show why the headline unemployment figures are always a little sunnier than reality. (via)  [View news story]
    Nice little video; tells the story as it is.

    @Hyper: you "well known fact" is complete nonsense. By your definition, there was no poverty before 1917, when Socialism first became a real political factor. A 3-year-old has better reasoning power than this.
    Dec 04 22:54 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment
  • Understanding the Dollar's Reversal: Who Will Feel the Pain? [View article]
    One day spike, and you're talking about reversing a year-long trend? That's a bit premature.
    Dec 04 17:11 pm |Rating: +26 0 |Link to Comment
  • Reappointing Bernanke [View article]
    I agree, especially with the last sentence <shudder>.
    Dec 04 17:08 pm |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Reserve Currency: There Can Be Only One [View article]
    1929 doesn't tell us much. Now banking all over the world is instantaneous, so currency behaves a bit differently.

    Still, I think it could be very instructive to ignore the (inapt) headline here, and contemplate possible ways for world finance to function with ambiguity. There's no absolute value, anyway; if everything is relative, why only one reserve?
    Dec 04 16:52 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • The Betting Line on Bernanke [View article]
    No bet. An unknown candidate would have to be vetted, which would be tedious and politically risky. Of the known competitors, no one has Ben's placid telegenic appearance, which is so reassuring in times of crisis.

    Besides, mastery of "Great Depression avoidance strategies" is about the best qualification you could ask for these days. Other than actually giving a damn about what happens to America outside a small circle of plutocrats, and you can hardly expect to find that quality in anyone who can talk Banking convincingly with millionaire Senators.
    Dec 04 09:34 am |Rating: +2 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Bunning vs. Bernanke [View article]
    Bernanke works only for the too-rich-to-care class, of which 95% of the Senate are either members or indentured servants. He also has the advantage of looking good on TV (unlike Geithner, for example). There's nothing that could threaten his job.
    Dec 04 00:54 am |Rating: +2 -1 |Link to Comment
  • The Right Reform for the Fed [View article]
    Is the problem that the Fed is not "independent" of political interests, or that it has conflicts of interest? Being free from congressional influence doesn't help, if it acts as if its mission is to protect Vampire Squid et al.

    Bernanke's job is secure, neither because he does it so well, nor because he's a political toady, but because he has such an outstanding TV presence and calming demeanor. If Geithner or Summers had his job, they would drive us crazy with worry.
    Dec 02 10:56 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • China Provides a Tailwind for Wind Energy ETFs [View article]
    Funny "tailwind" that shows a 10-week downtrend. If you'd posted this article 6 months ago, it would have been useful.
    Dec 02 09:43 am |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment
  • Is a Deficit-Neutral Stimulus Possible? [View article]
    A deficit-neutral stimulus would take funds away from programs that low stimulus value and reallocate them.

    War has low stimulus value, since most of the spending is on materials and overseas support services, not on domestic goods and labor. So, with the escalation in Afghanistan, Obama is now moving in exactly the wrong direction.
    Dec 01 21:49 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment
  • Can the Federal Budget Be Balanced? [View article]
    Imagine my surprise: there are actually some very good ideas here. I especially agree with the cuts in the military and agriculture subsidies.

    Entitlement programs are more difficult. Social Security is based on the premise that everyone pays and everyone benefits; you are supposed to be collecting on your own investment, not supporting other people. That's how the program was sold by FDR. Repackaging it as a wealth-redistribution plan would be politically problematical: even if it passed, there would then be an influential constituency opposed to funding it at all.

    Other discretionary programs do not necessarily become more efficient when they are less-funded. Regulation of industries and crime control, for example, cannot be done efficiently unless you have resources at least equal to those of your targets.

    Finally, why not add taxes? Bush cut taxes on the rich, and most of that money went into buying more assets, driving up prices and making them richer without a corresponding social benefit.
    Dec 01 21:45 pm |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment
  • Consumer-Driven Deflation? Not Even Close [View article]
    The author says he is terrified, and we should be too.
    No one makes their best investment decisions when they are terrified, so he is asking us to join him in making bad decisions.
    He's waiting for "private, gold-backed currency." Aside from this being unlikely: If you think GLD is risky because you can't verify the gold backing the asset, how the h3ll are you going to trust private currency?

    In short, one doesn't even need to know anything about economics to see that this author is peddling pure folly. I'm not buying.
    Dec 01 20:52 pm |Rating: +6 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Mutual Fund Charts of the Day [View article]
    So this was presented as an argument for index-fund investing? But when has an index fund ever outperformed the market? There's no there there. Stick to ETFs.
    Dec 01 10:18 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • Cutting Back on Blackstone, Shorting EWJ [View article]
    Agree with previous comments. I have already shorted Japan on chart weakness, but with QE this looks like a losing bet. However, QE also means currency weakness, so that could mitigate the damage.
    Dec 01 09:24 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • Emerging Europe ETFs Head-To-Head: ESR vs. GUR [View article]
    No fault of Mr. Dutram's. This is a perfectly good report about an utterly useless product. I can only imagine that iShares wants a complete set, like a stamp collector, to cover the globe with ETFs whether anyone needs them or not.

    But my reason for concluding this is entirely different from Pelican Pete's. If a fund is 75% in one country, and that country has its own ETF (RSX), you haven't improved on it by tossing in a token amount of something else.

    The reason Turkey has been left out of this fund is that iShares already has TUR. And now that Poland also has its own ETF, no one could possibly need yet another way to invest in this region.
    Nov 30 14:44 pm |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment
  • Five Worst Performing Country ETFs: A Golden Investment Opportunity? [View article]
    Darn right you're not picking a bottom!! This trade is 8-10 months old, and has been obvious to everyone else in the world for at least the last 6. Did you just wake up from a long nap? They are now momentum picks, not value picks (although Russia still has some value elements).

    The only country that has not rallied far enough to get out the "despised assets" zone is Japan.
    Nov 30 10:13 am |Rating: +2 -1 |Link to Comment
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