thku4grace

20 Comments

    • ON: Sun Aug 3rd 17:08 PM
      Commented on:
      Yahoo Appoints Icahn to Board, but TWX Non-Compete Clause Keeps Jon Miller Off
      Icahn buying into Yahoo will be like Motorolla part 2.
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    • ON: Sun Aug 3rd 17:06 PM
      Commented on:
      It's Official: Jerry Yang Has Won
      The sad fact is for the long term, Yahoo is a great long term----- short play. In the next couple of months it may rebound back into the low 20's but there isn't anything that will get it back to 30. Short some now, and some more if it gets to 22 or so. The Internet is a very mature market but can be better monetized by those that can identify those types of opportunities. Sadly, Jerry Yang does not have that ability, at all. This might be an early call, but the die is cast. Yahoo is done.
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    • ON: Sun Aug 3rd 16:45 PM
      Commented on:
      Rant Anniversary - Cramer's Mad Money (8/1/08)
      Any regular watchers of CNBC havel seen this Cramer implosion at least a dozen times. I think an important fact about this video is part of what Cramer revealed. He was upset with the Fed to be sure, but it was due to the loss of jobs by many of his friends who had been working in the industry for 25 years. One should ask who his friends are who are losing their jobs? Cramer's 'friends' were working for hedge funds, and investment banks that didn't due their own due diligence before entering into what had been a very lucrative market, but one that had yet been unchallenged by the eventual defaults that would occur as these adjustable sub-prime loans adjusted upwards. Cramer's friends richly deserved to lose their jobs. They were irresponsible with other people's money. They didn't do the required due diligence and instead banked on the lucrative fees they made in the short term so as to fully capitalize on their bonuses year end. These guys should be working at McDonalds with the business acumen they show. So Cramer's anger is very, very misdirected. It should be directed at the sheer stupidity and greed his good friends had. But then this just goes to show you what a pompous, out of touch, greedy jerk he is.
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    • ON: Thu Jul 31st 22:28 PM
      Commented on:
      Why I'm Buying Massey Energy Ahead of Earnings
      Consolidated Energy may have a bad reputation for production problems but Massey missed earnings two and three quarters ago. Tonights earnings beat expectations substantially but only before litigation expenses. I would think the street would ignore the one time write off, but the after market hasn't been too kind.
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    • ON: Tue Jul 29th 10:58 AM
      Commented on:
      Congress Saves Fannie and Freddie: The Cure Will Kill Us
      How this fiasco may have been next to nothing if Congress had done the job of reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back in 2001, or 2002, or 2003, or 2004, or 2005....but Noooo! So he we are paying for their mistake. Reform Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and kick out of office each and every politician that received any money from either a GSE or a mortgage company anytime this decade, and blocked the efforts to reform the GSEs.
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    • ON: Tue Jul 29th 10:46 AM
      Commented on:
      The Housing Bill: One Step Closer to the United States of Zimbabwe?
      "However, as Ron Paul points out, mortgage employees did not cause the housing crisis so it is an irrelevant provision that does nothing to address the root source of the housing crisis and is just an attempt to scape goat them"
      To be sure, the blame doesn't rest on any one business or sector, but to even imply that mortgage employees didn't have anything to do with this crisis is not only laughable, but a downright lie. I would be surprised to find no evidence of mortgage companies padding Sen Paul's campaign warchest, but that's the skeptic in me. However, the alternative is that he is incredibly stupid and ill-informed. The fact of the matter is that mortgage companies like Countrywide served by their employees who sought commissions on as many new mortgages as they could throw together had aggressively pursued sub-prime and alt-a mortgages when it became apparent that both investment banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and credit rating agencies weren't minding the store. There is blame to go around but it was the mortgage company greed that initiated this crisis in the first place.
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    • ON: Mon Jul 28th 11:17 AM
      Commented on:
      The Housing Bill: Uncle Sam Is Moving Into the Spare Bedroom
      Yeah, no political axe to grind here! Ha ha! Let's get a few facts straight here. Number one, mortgage speculation is hardly the doing of the Bush administration. Alan Greenspan has a hefty amount of responsibility here. He was apprised of the developing problem with sub-prime loans, and chose to not get involved in the free market. There is been no oversight of mortgage lenders ever. This could have happened during any administration. Second, it was the Bush administration that did an annual appeal since 2001 for Congress to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Since these GSE's buy most mortgages, do you think the situation would have developed as it has? The problem is that government regulatory powers have to be balanced between what is needed to keep markets functioning properly and allowing for innovative solutions. Congress has a tendency to do nothing or far too much, like the current bailout. My biggest problem is the fact that I don't currently own a home. Some may say that's a blessing. I disagree. While homes will get cheaper, as they should, I will bore the added tax expense of bailing out people many of whom bought outside of their means, and others who out and out lied about their income in order to qualify. Both cases were of people greedy to get into a real estate market that they thought would go up indefinitely. Many buying beyond their means knew they could potentially see their mortgage payments ratchet up considerably but thought they could sell into a great market and pocket a good return. This is what I'm paying for. Additionally, I will pay dearly to buy into a home loan due to the need of financial institutions to make up for what they are losing on these home loans. The spread between mortgage rates and comparable treasury securities will expand exponentially for years to come. There isn't any way around this. So I repeat, if you don't yet own a home, you're screwed!
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    • ON: Fri Jul 25th 13:38 PM
      Commented on:
      The T. Boone Pickens Approach
      The T. Boone Pickens approach isn't quite what some have made it out to be. Pickens of course, is leveraging his name to gain wider acceptance for his own plan of windmills in the Texas panhandle. His goal is to build enough support to get Congress to act on tax credits for his new fledging operation. However, Pickens' commercial raises a lot of other questions. I doubt that he isn't genuine in his desire to see America stop sending greenbacks to other nations. However, these commercials only highlight one of his ideas, while his biggest plan is to see government and industry move to natural gas for transporting goods nationwide. Furthermore, his statement "we can't drill our way out of this" plays to the left for support for windmills while in subsequent interviews he admits we need to drill off the coast as well as ANWAR. This is much more realistic but not supported on the left. The fact is we need to stop shipping dollars overseas, and we will only accomplish this by doing EVERYTHING. The left would have us pick out only a few potential sources for energy----solar, wind, and geothermal. With this plan, we are sure to see oil much, much higher for years to come. But that is the plan. With oil at 200, 250 a barrel, these alternative energy plans become more competitive. However, it won't relieve us of the high cost of these energy sources. Its pretty clear that at some price oil could easily send the world into a recession. As bad as that may be, we will benefit from lower oil prices do to a drop in demand. With solar, wind and geothermal, that's not the case. Companies can not cut their prices due to a drop in demand. They have to recoup their large investment. We are now locked into a lower standard of living. This is an extremely unwise plan.
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    • ON: Fri Jul 18th 15:50 PM
      Commented on:
      Look What's Blowin' In: The New Wind ETFs
      Denmark isn't quite so happy anymore. Large increase of Muslims have left the country with terrorist fear. Always had freedom of speech and the press but now finding they can not critique Muslim life, Middle eastern countries, other than Israel of course, and no cartoons of Mohammed.
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    • ON: Fri Jul 18th 11:21 AM
      Commented on:
      No Atheists in Foxholes - No Libertarians in Financial Crises
      One important point to make about the current bail-out proposition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Six or seven years ago, it was revealed that the GSE's were cooking the books. It wasn't long after that the Bush administration was harping on Congress to reform them. I heard it so many times over these last few years, I concluded that it must have been impractical or virtually impossible, or they probably would have done it by now. Now we know. It was because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were lobbying like crazy. Dumping loads of money on Congress. Everyone knows it takes 60 senators to get anything done in Washington. While we approach the next election, voters ought to focus on the trail of money from the GSE's to Congress. Congress needs to pay the price politically for the awful price generations will be paying for years to come.
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    • ON: Fri Jul 11th 12:28 PM
      Commented on:
      10 Winning Stock Themes in an Obama Administration
      "Globalization is a shell-game, a scam. What good is it if I pay 10 cents less for a pair of socks from China if the dude across town goes on unemployment because his domestic sock factory closes? All globalization does is shifts costs from business to goverment, and this ends up causing taxes to rise. Foreign goods should be subject to sensible tariffs to offset lack of minimum wage laws / environmental protections in the exporting countries. Level the playing field. You do that in sports-- why not in trade?"

      Oh my, how incredibly uninformed can one be?
      First of all I think the price difference for a pair of socks is more than 10 cents. The theory behind globalization is that different countries have different strengths. Using China for comparative purposes--we have a country with a huge population and an inexpensive labor force. Some may see it as slave labor wages but the fact of the matter is a little money goes a long way in China. One can still buy a cup of noodles on a street corner in Beijing for 7 cents. Clearly, we can't compete in easy to enter low-tech manufacturing. Applying tariffs to offset the price discrepancy was part of the prescription for the 1930's depression. I can't blame politicians of that day for their missteps as they didn't fully understand the ramifications of their protectionist policies. To spin this drivel now is incredibly ignorant. The question for Americans that have worked in low-tech industries is, so what can we do? My answer is get an education in this education-friendly nation. Take advantage of the opportunities that abound in this nation. There is a belief held by many in this nation that China is a highly educated nation, but that's largely untrue. In fact, while a good education is looked upon highly in Chinese society, and they push their children hard, only 3% of the population get a university education. Interesting coming from a country that prides itself on socialism. What a failure.
      Lastly, the shift of costs from business to government---there is truth to this statement. All nations have provided support for various industries that export products overseas. China, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, U.S.....the list goes on and on. It is actually addressable through international trade laws. The problem is the length of time from infraction to remedy. There also is a problem of transparency. The U.S. is seemingly more transparent than most all other nations. Even European nations have been more capable in covering up their subsidization machine. So far, the only remedy is the expense incurred on the taxpayers. Countries can't indefinitely subsidize industry. With a globalized world, there will always be a new country with a lower standard of living that would be willing to host an foreign company seeking cheap labor.
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    • ON: Fri Jul 11th 11:05 AM
      Commented on:
      L.A. Times: The Inconvenient Poster Child for the Newspaper Debacle
      "Times journalists should strike against Sam Zell."
      Yeah right! That was the same strategy UAW used to fend off those tight automobile manufacturers. Wow! That sure helped them.
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    • ON: Tue Jun 17th 10:01 AM
      Commented on:
      "Rubinomics" Is Back
      Interesting how the author didn't mention the double-digit inflation and stagnant growth Reagan inherited from Carter. Must have slipped his mind. Reagan actually left the economy in great shape. Clinton was headed down the same path as Carter with the Dems holding the house and senate, but with the upheaval of the Dems in 1994, Clinton realized he didn't want his legacy being that of not getting anything done. He wasn't a new Democrat until the contract with America bulldozed him. He still fought tooth and nail which brought back to back to back budget impasses every year. What did that bring us? Slower growth of government. It surely wasn't by his design. Then into his second term he saw the light and accepted the Republican proposal to lower capital gains taxes which brought in a load of new government revenue. Who remembers this differently? Read up on history. Yet today, Democrats take all the credit. Go figure!
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    • ON: Thu May 22nd 11:06 AM
      Commented on:
      Senator Dodd's Housing Solution - Cramer's Mad Money (5/21/08)
      Christopher Dodd and Cramer are both wrong about this housing bill. This bill may, in fact, entice many to stop making payments in the hope of getting a lower principal loan. While there are many that can no longer make payments and have stopped or will stop with this housing bill or not, there are others that will continue to make payments because they can and because they don't have much confidence that their lender will refinance with a lower principal loan. With this bill, these payment makers will start feeling foolish to make a larger payment when they can easily follow others down the path of nonpayment so as to trigger a new deal with their lender. The devil in these details is that the lender can reject a deal and take the home back, but if this snowballs, they may find it impossible to take back such a large number of homes. One must remember that a certain percentage of people who will be failing lied about their income and thus will not be eligible for help anyway. If we add together all those who can't make their payments but still qualify together with those that can but want a better deal, the numbers could create more damage to the real estate market than if we had no housing bill at all. But let us assume that this housing bill does the job in reducing the downside of this housing market. The Senator would say that it helps all Americans, but does it? The housing bubble was created due to demand that wouldn't have existed had lenders done their jobs and qualify only those that could afford. Therefore, the housing market would never have seen the heights that it saw had it not been artificially inflated as it was. Existing homeowners saw a spike in their values that wouldn't have occurred if lenders had done their jobs. The only thing they are out is the extra property taxes they may have paid on inflated values. Last of all, this bill does a disservice to those who resisted the temptation to buy a home in the bubble environment of the housing market over the last few years and astutely raised capital over these years for a larger down payment after the bubble bursts. Shouldn't these responsible people be reimbursed for the potential loss of opportunity? Why is this segment of the population being mistreated? Who are the true beneficiaries in all of this? The politicians! This is an election year and it will surely buy votes with a bill that will not help the current situation but will likely be forgotten in the next election cycle.
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    • ON: Tue May 6th 13:02 PM
      Commented on:
      Warren Buffett Is Wrong on Fed Intervention in Bear Stearns
      I agree that the bailout is economically unethical. Seeing stupid, reckless firms like Bear Stearns take the full blow would provide a strong incentive for other firms from using similar tactics in the future and reap benefits for the industry in the long term. Additionally, it would also apply some pain onto the economy which would be directed back at the Fed rightfully so, for not supervising the industry. Unfortunately, it had more to do with Greenspan's Fed. I believe the Fed and the additional pressure from Congress to act will lead to additional oversight and/or rule changes which the industry won't like but are richly deserved. I think the pain of mega-billion dollar losses experienced by these investment banks together with the expectant new oversight and future rule changes imposed are all we can expect and or desire in a free market economy. The prospect of actually allowing Bear Stearns to go BK may have a much stronger effect than desired for the entire industry and the whole economy. It would probably be overkill just to force change. Change that can be had for a lesser cost.
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