HARM

US Government: No Surprises Left

<i>They've lost 110,000 jobs and $2 trillion, and you want their heart's blood too. Guess what? If you get it, you will be broke.</i>

"heart's blood"?? LOL Oh, give me a break --where's my tiny violin? The asshats in charge haven't even been forced to suffer major consequences, much less go broke. When I see Lehman's and AIG's BOD lined up for the TV "perp walk, with all their toys and mistresses gone and offshore accounts seized (for repaprations to taxpayers), THEN we can talk about real "pain".

So, I should feel empathy for rapacious Wall Street greedbags and their reckless, myopic minions? Screw 'em and let 'em fail --that's true "free market" capitalism. Why should *my* hard earned money go to bail these paper-pushing asshats out? Why should *I* be forced to support government baliouts designed to protect reckless idiots from the consequences of their own immoral and fraudulent actions? Why should more of *my* money go towards preventing bubble-inflated house prices from falling to truly affordable levels?

F**k 'em all. It's economically and morally the RIGHT thing to do.

Six Situations to Monitor for the Remainder of 2008

"Let's not forget that Bush didn't have a choice. Nothing is worse for our economy than letting terrorists mow us down on our own soil. Sounds like you'd rather take your chances with that. Typical leftist Dem philosophy."

That's tellin 'em, SCC! Those were out only two choices: (a) "letting terrorists mow us down on our own soil", or (b) invade Iraq and give massive tax cuts to the richest 2%.

No false dichotomy there... no, sir... Yup, all 19 of those 9-11 hijackers were *definitely* Iraqis, you betcha! Well... er, they were "trained" in Iraq. Or, trained in a country that sounds something like "Iraq". And the Iraqis had, y'know, "terrorism-related program activities" n'stuff...

Yeah, that's the ticket!

Gold Is Just a Brick ('Active Value Investing' Book Excerpt)

"Despite its unique properties, gold has not been a good investment. Over the past 200 years, its returns have barely kept up with inflation."

Interesting choice of time frame... 200 years. How about the last 5 years? (300+% returns) Or, for that matter, how are those Enron, HomeGrocer, or homebuilder stocks doing these days?

"Treasury inflation-protected securities may turn out to be the key challenger to gold's store-of-value supremacy status in the future. Aside from being issued by the U.S. Treasury and therefore backed by the full faith of the U.S. government, they also protect investors from inflation - one of gold's most-valued qualities. TIPS' principal is tied to the CPI"

Does anyone paying attention for the last 10-15 years actually believe the BLS hedonically-adjusted CPI "inflation" figures any more? They are about as credible as "progress" reports on the War on Terror (or Drugs), or cooked "unemployment" figures (that exclude the marginally employed, millions of illegals, and the long-term unemployed).

"It is important to note that gold's monopoly as an instrument of choice at the time of fear and uncertainty has been undermined by other very capable and often superior financial instruments."

Yeah, those Alt-A & subprime MBSs, CDOs, Super-SIVs and other derivates are working out great! They're definitely "superior" at spreading the risk around. Thank God for the Wall Street Wizards, creating all these cool, new "innovative" financial instruments that hedge risk so well.

"Any cash flow-generating asset, like a stock or a bond, can be valued on the future cash flows that it is expected to generate. Predicting gold prices is extremely difficult because gold is not a cash-generating asset. In fact, it is important to note that gold actually has a negative yield. Gold is a cash-consuming asset; its safekeeping and transportation cost money. TIPS, as well as any bonds and dividend-paying stocks, have a positive yield; they pay investors for holding them."

Physical gold may not pay dividends, but gold mining stocks certainly do. It's also fair to point out that most tech stocks or VC start-ups do not pay dividends. And, thanks to the easy-money Fed, TIPs, Treasuries and most corporate bonds today pay well below the true rate of inflation --in other words, a negative yield.