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- Bust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
- Historic Financial Collapse Underway? [view article]
- Alan Greenspan's Bosnia Moment [view article]
- A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
- Things You Would Never Have Said Eight Days Ago [view article]
- On Oil, Gold and Flying Pigs [view article]
- Economic Upswing? Check Back Next Year [view article]
- A Look at Long-Term Stock Valuations [view article]
- Strategists' 2008 S&P 500 Price Targets [view article]
- Three One-Percent Gains in Five Days [view article]
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
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- Friday Outlook: Stepping Back
- The Fed is Fighting a Two Front War
- The Lost Decade: S&P Annual Return Just 2.5% Since 1998
- A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis
- Bust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
- Economic Upswing? Check Back Next Year
- On Oil, Gold and Flying Pigs
- Thursday Outlook: Overbought!
- Strategists' 2008 S&P 500 Price Targets
- Full List of Articles »
Lathrop
A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
I started reading this article until I got to the point where the author started speaking about how low rates and inflation stimulate home buying. I then checked the Fed Fund rate and saw that banks are borrowing for 2 percent and lending it out to prime rate customers at 6.74 percent - higher if your credit, income and teeth are not spotless. You would think that a bank could live on those kinds of spreads but they are not passing them along to the homebuyer, they are just hoarding and speculating. At that point the rest of the article degenerated into a discourse of T. Boone Pickens' wit and wisdom. Its sort of like calling up the fellow who won last weeks Mega Millions and asking him what he would do to save the economy. And this article is an editor's pick? Shame. ReplyCulligan
A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
Since we could not find a vehicle registered for T. Boone Pickens, the oil man on television, see what vehicle his wife driveswebofdeception.com/#pi...
Reply
A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
We always talk about the Fed and interest rates, but there is another tool that is far more effective: fiscal policy, i.e., tax rates.A 1% income tax surcharge (about $28 billion) both dampens economic activity [maybe we should have done this a few years ago] and reduces the federal deficit, a KEY cause of the weak dollar. Likewise, when times are difficult, a 1% tax decrease puts more money into the economy right away. Tax changes, unlike interest rates, directly affect the average American and start working immediately.
While the Bush tax cuts might have made sense during the early-2000's economic downturn, they should have been reversed as the economy improved and then overheated. Then we could be cutting taxes now, much better than lowering interest rates. You can't have it both ways, stimulating the economy when it is hot and when it is cold.
For those who think taxes are always bad, how about we just cut them to zero and borrow the entire Federal budget? That OK with you? Reply
A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
You are overlooking that many of the problems we face today are the direct result of interest rates being lowered too much for too long...The argument for lowering rates is to stimulate the economy-- but you can't fix overleverage with more leverage
Meanwhile, interest rates that are markedly below the rise in the cost of living (not necessarily the textbook definition of inflation) means that you are taking money away from savers (aka the elderly and others on fixed incomes) and diverting that money to stupid bankers who shot themselves in the foot.
Punishing the prudent to reward the foolish is no way to fix anything Reply
Frugal
A Look at Long-Term Stock Valuations [view article]
Mr. Bennett is becoming widely known in the Finance Community, but not for reasons most would find attractive.I would view his body of work, posting as "Hocus" at various sites, before giving any credence to his theories. Here are two links; one to a board he runs ,the other to one dedicated to him, at which he frequently participates under the screen name "Hocus":
s162532268.onlinehome....
www.s152957355.onlineh...
Reply
pieces
Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e0...www.bloomberg.com/apps... Reply
Bust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
Faithless, when you start a new enterprise you begin with yourself, sometimes a business partner and hopefully some advisors. Growth adds employees and more management. Let's say the business grew to 250 employees from 5 over a ten year span. Now, the CEO retires at acquisition, along with three or four other C level managers. New managers come in and make poor management decisions, giving themselves raises instead of redeploying capital into R&D, marketing and increased sales. 1/2 the employees get laid off within two years as revenue drops off. Do you blame the 125 employees and say "the employees deserved it" that "the employees gambled with there time at the company and lost?" This is Washington, a place where it is the taxpayers fault they couldn't keep up with the spending and debts Washington created. It is lawmakers whom pass laws. The American people are not educated, one political party has a dominant position in media and can provide a version of truth that is remniscient to Pravda (Russian for 'Truth').That party attempted a massive economic and social experiment in the 1990's, repealing old safeguards that prevented the financial system from preying on the little guy. Whom is more educated? A banker or a consumer? There are documented cases of fraud and conflicts of interest surfacing everywhere and they tie into the same political party. Look at the 'friends' of the political party. New York City iBank Chairmen and CEO's. financial system and the consistent tie. Those at the top of the banking system carried Washington's message of "McMansions for all including those whom can't afford it".
Capatalists are a bunch that finds a way to reach profits no matter how, but they have to follow laws created or rescinded by Washington.
If you want to assign blame for the citizens being dumbed down, you probably could point to the counter-culture, funded by Communist propoganda in the early 1960's. The counter culture hippies of the 1960's are now the liberal elites whom run Washington. They are whom they were brought up to be. Is every American citizen part of the counter-culture of the 1960's era, has a silver spoon to afford to get elected into office?
It is not the American citizen which is a spoiled brat. The American citizen bit into the 15 year economic and social experiment which has begun to collapse our economy. The American citizen is now feeling the pain and will receive the full brunt of this failed experiment. The socialists will finish the job in the next four years. But instead of being the Gods and Clods utopia they imagine being worshipped in the streets, they will see a social or physical revolution. These people are so arrogant and blinded by such an easy coup to them that they dont realize you have to kiss the behind of your military to have a socialist government, to fully enforce the fleecing of the middle class and prevent revolutions. Socialists past and present like Fidel, Mussolinia, Hugo Chavez, China all know this.
Socialism has failed every time in 6,000 years. Now both primary political parties are a hydra with slightly looking heads but the same objective, preserve personal power and wealth at all costs. After all, if it feels good do it right? Sounds like the late 1960's counter-culture crowd to me legislating into there own pockets at the expense of 290 million citizens. Reply
On Oil, Gold and Flying Pigs [view article]
The lesson is: Buy gold---Hold gold--close the drawer and forget about it.It's no secret where the dollar and the economy with it are headed.
Even IF they could, politicians and the Fed. don't have the guts to do more than make speeches!!
The real fools are the ones who listen!!
A piece of farmland might come in handy too; See if you can breed a few of those flying porkers that are coming out of Washington!! Reply
Bust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
Just wait until we have a new president in November... I bet that a whole bunch of this artificial stimulus goes away, we crater into 2009-2010 and they (either Dems or Repub) hope a recovery in time to get re-elected in 2012. ReplyBust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
what else can be done?if the fed did not intervene we would be dire straits not only in USA but globally.
Reply
Bust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
Why are there so many articles here with blatant typographical errors? Surely one can take the time to proof read their own arguments. ReplyBust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
Simply put, our government (all levels from the congress to the oval office) is completely corrupt now. They are owned by the small group of elitists that own 90% of this country's net worth. The government, Federal reserve, Paulson, et al, are just willing pawns in this game. Hearings and other nonsense do nothing to solve any of the problems we face.The root of if: The american people have completely and utterly forgotten that they own this country, and that any moment they can take back this country if they so choose. We have no standing armed forces that could stop even 1% of our country should they wake up and realize what is going on.
There are times I think to myself, "Self, what is it that has made the american people so complacent and uncaring about their own future that we sit back and watch a select few plot out our destiny."
I guess the only thing that "might" wake people up and break the cycle of dumbed down, would be a depression of god awful proportions or quite frankly an hostile invasion from another country, on a people who are completely asleep.
Who knows, for I see no answers right now.
Boston tea party anyone? Reply
Economic Upswing? Check Back Next Year [view article]
Really excellent summary. I'm inclined to be more bearish, but it's pure guesswork at this stage. The only thing I'd take issue with is this continuing talk of an interest hike. Really? In an election year? Or next year, with consumers and banks still in intensive care? As for the dollar bottoming, you're probably right - but it'll be because that's what the moneymen want, it certainly won't be on fundamentals. ReplyBust, Bail, Repeat: The U.S. Enters into an Ever-Worsening Cycle [view article]
I agree with many of the comments on this forum, and that is the sad part. United States: Fat, dumb, lazy, completely bankrupt, and utterly divided -- those "with" vs. those "without"... But hey, the business might be dirty but the money is always clean. ReplyStrategists' 2008 S&P 500 Price Targets [view article]
I'm sufficiently cynical about such forecasts because, should these financial instituions estimate an 1100 or even 1000 finish to the year, I think they think that'd stimulate a sell-off. Since the S&P has such a strong financial component, what they think they'd be feeding is a sell off of their own companies. Hmmm..., a vested interest perhaps?? Reply