Did U Think The Ponzi Scheme Would Last?

Nominal vs. Real Gains

"Fewer oligarchs dividing up a growing pie."

That pie is no longer growing. Sure the fixed income business is as everyone tries to float new debt but soon enough there will be nobody who wants any part of other people's promises to pay because default rates will be extreme.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals: Undervalued and (Now) Oversold

Did any of you who negatively rec'd my post on the 25th learn anything from the 20% drop SPPI has taken since then? I say again, learn to read a stock chart because this junk stock is headed well under $2 again, probably under $1. Don't fall in love with a stock!


On Sep 25 06:43 PM Did U Think The Ponzi Scheme Would Last? wrote:
"Learn to read a stock chart. It peaked and is now in freefall.
Perhaps you forgot that it was 60 cents per share back in Oct 2008?"

Jim Rogers on the Next 10 Years

Good luck with China. They do not have any money to spend on their own products. Americans have been overpaid for years and thus still have gobs of money compared to Chinese. As Americans greatly reduce their consumption in line with the boomers retiring, how is China going to prosper? They have taken out a bunch of loans to build mega capacity for demand that is drying up. China as a nation is in serious trouble. If you want to know what is going on in China, listen to Hugh Hendry who wants nothing to do with them as deflation takes hold.

Bearish on Banks - Why Now Is the Time to Sell

On Oct 05 02:22 PM aarc wrote:

"As for being over-bought; it is simply not true. $BKX was only
able to recover 30% of it's total losses from January 2007 to March
2009. Basically $BKX went down by 85.33% from it's Jan 2007 high
of $121 to Mar 2009 low of $17.75.

Today it is still selling at 62% discount from it's highs. That
is not an over-bought condition. So for longer-term hold; buying
$BKX or XLF at these levels is still buying at a discount of 62%.
You cannot be paying at an over-bought price with that kind of massive discount."

You talk like the highs were something other than a credit Ponzi. You make it sound as if it was normal for banking to be 25%+ of GDP. Don't you understand that they don't add any economic benefit? They are money changers, not producers of anything. They are scam artists and the scam is bust. They will NEVER return to their old highs and in fact they will be lucky to stabilize at 20% of their old highs once this depression really plays out.

Out of control fractional reserve banking was a scam that was allowed to run amok as long as it goosed the economy but now that banks won't loan and people won't borrow it is foolish to look for some return to the old days or anything close to it.

E*Trade Appears Ready to Climb

You really think real estate is improving? Why does Meredith Whitney disagree with you?

CIT's Failure Could Threaten Financial Sector's Overall Recovery

What a laughable title for your article. You should have called it "Can CIT BK be the catalyst for the popping of the banking sucker's rally?".

To call what has happened over the past 6 months a "recovery" is to not know your a$$ from a hole in the ground. Almost every important metric except tier 1 capital ratio has gotten much worse and the only reason that metric got "better" was accounting tricks enabled by the softening of mark to market rules.

The banking fundamentals have continued to implode lead by falling home prices and rising unemployment. Credit card defaults have increased and late or missing payment recidivism after mortgage "workouts" have proven to be the norm. The consumer is broke and not likely to recover any time soon. Boomers have finally started to worry about their retirements and so they are going to keep the cash they have and walk away from underwater homes.

Recovery? Suuuuuuure there has been a recovery. After all, didn't Bernanke and Geither and Obama tell us the "recession" is over? Anyone who believes this crap is a total patsy.

Is It Time to Recognize Reality?

On Sep 29 12:54 PM Donald Ingram wrote:
"and the hot potato was passed back to the financial sector who once again promptly - hup hup, passed it to the FED, who in no time at all went deep and passed that hot spud to all the taxpayers."

I cringe when people talk about taxpayers in the US getting the brunt of the fallout because that is not where the brunt is really being felt. Taxpayers did not pay enough taxes to run the empire BEFORE the stimulus started. That's what they call running a deficit government. So while all of this unpayable debt may be getting placed onto the account of the US taxpayer, rest assured that someone else will be eating the bill.

I believe that the only hope of America maintaining its hegemony over the world (which is required in order to maintain the current quality of American life) is to start a preemptive war with China and then enslave its people. Do I want US to do this? HELL NO!! That's why I voted against the warmonger McCain because I could see that he was leaning in this direction (first bomb Iran and then increase US military presence in the area as a staging point for further conquest).

God help us all because Obama and Bush sure as Hell aren't.

You Can Spend Your Way Out of a Recession

What a pithy bit of rubbish. You can only spend your way out of a recession if you earn at least as much as you spend. But if you are in debt up to your eyeballs and if every spending is deficit spending then no, you cannot spend your way out of a recession. You CAN postpone the recession like this and you can even turn it it into a massive depression that has to be suffered by someone else but you cannot deficit spend your way out of recession or depression forever.

Problem is, we have been doing it for 30 years and it is now time to pay the piper. The credit Ponzi is bust and there is no reflating it because the social mood regarding having a bunch of debt and no savings has changed. This is the new reality.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals: Undervalued and (Now) Oversold

Learn to read a stock chart. It peaked and is now in freefall. Perhaps you forgot that it was 60 cents per share back in Oct 2008? This thing is far weaker than the overall market and when the S+P comes back to Earth Spectrum will be on its knees again and it won't be shorts to blame it will be longs avoiding RISK by running into treasuries.

The whole stock market is a Ponzi scheme and there are few credible valuation metrics except what dividend is being paid and how safe it is. Spectrum has neither dividend nor safety. It's bleeding cash at a time when future financing is very uncertain. The days of writing a business plan and receiving perpetual funding without profitability are OVER.

The Coming Consequences of Banking Fraud

GREAT analogy. If the bankers are ever forced to look at it they die...


On Sep 09 10:42 AM Roger Knights wrote:

> "transactions that have been kept secret from the world, and that
> will have severe and negative consequences"
>
> The Portrait of Dorian Grey--hidden in the attic.

U.S. Markets Flash Strong Warning Signals

Too much talk, not enough honest truth. The stock market is a Ponzi scheme which must crash when there is a lack of new money coming in. Boomers are retiring and thus not only cutting their 401 k contributions but also starting to draw down on their 401k balances. New salaries in the market are lower and thus will not be able to replace the retiree salaries in terms of 401k contribution.

It is inevitable that, deprived of its energy source, a Ponzi scheme must collapse. Anything which must happen will happen. The only variable is the timing.

I ask again, did u think the ponzi scheme would last forever?

Dollar Update: Inflation Forces Are Brewing

Great article except that you completely missed the truth of the matter. First of all the dollar is fiat currency and it is measured against other fiat currencies like the Euro and the Pound and the Yen. The economies upon which these currencies are based are even weaker than that of the US. Look at Japan, Debt:GDP is 170%! The UK's housing bubble was 20% worse than the US' on a relative measurement and the Eurozone is full of PIGS who have borrowed themselves into oblivion. Even Germany is screwed. While it is in vogue to beat on the dollar and the US, history will record that other countries were in even worse shape at this time.

Second, the USD is the world's senior currency and in a deflationary crash it will strengthen. We already saw this begin to happen during the 1st wave of the crash. The second wave of the crash was actually a rally which weakened the dollar. Now we will see an even stronger run into the dollar as the third wave of the crash rolls in. This one is going to leave a mark.

European Economics Can't Break the Dollar Deadlock

There is so much bearishness against the dollar right now that a significant upward turn is coming soon. Are the Euro, Pound or Yen really any better off than the dollar? No, they are not. Take the Yen (please). Debt in Japan is 170% of GDP with a declining workforce and an aging population who will need an increasing social safety net. How is that currency every going to strengthen against the dollar from here? And is not England doing QE too? The Eurozone will be lucky not to revert to a war zone when the PIGS finally get slaughtered. Even Germany is not nearly as strong as people believe.

The greenback will strengthen as all the global, dollar denominated debt fails.

Letter to Her Majesty: Suggestion for Low-Tech Apparatus for Economic Horizon-Scanning

Man what a long winded way of saying"Madam Queen, the whole economy of the world is a credit driven Ponzi scheme and you, my lady, are right at the epicenter of it. You know full well why it happened: that scam called fractional reserve banking. You know exactly how and why it happened because it was your henchmen that did it! Fractional reserve banking is specialty of your county which pressed it upon the US back in the early 1900s. you and your blood lines have been using this scam for generations."

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

—Thomas Jefferson, The debate over the recharter of The Bank Bill, (1809)

WAKE UP AMERICA! Stop making it so complicated. It's a fvcking SCAM, always has been, always will be until we return to honest money and do away with fictional reserve banking.

Current Market Turmoil: You Can’t Explain 'Stupid'

I will hang onto my worthless paper in order to buy real gold from a real sucker who still thinks the worthless paper has value.


On 2008 Sep 16 02:16 PM regeya wrote:

> Ponzi Scheme, feel free to send as much of your worthless paper to
> me as possible!
>
> Honestly, is it just me or do the von Mises followers sound like
> anti-Marxists?