Did U Think The Ponzi Scheme Would Last?

Total Rating:
+3 / -3

158 Comments

    • Thu Nov 13th 14:47 PM | Rating: +1 -1
      Commented on:
      If Only Hope Were an Investment Strategy
      I am constantly amazed when I hear that people are amazed about this economy tanking. Everyone knows the economy was juiced by low interest rates, a housing bubble, the yen carry trade and a variety of other financially manipulations from Greenspan et al. including repealing of Glass Steagal, money market sweeps to get around reserve rules (so that more leverage could be used), vendor financing of the US economy by China, use of artificial home equity as an ATM...

      AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON AND ON.

      It is an incredible list of fake, unsustainable economic stimulus that is unmatched this century, and perhaps in all time. And now when the bubble has popped, people cannot grasp what the unwinding must mean to the stock market and to the economy. There is no fixing this, people. Bernanke (who we never even hear from anymore if you haven't noticed) can't fix it. Paulson (who is preparing to exit stage right if you haven't noticed) can't fix it. And Obama certainly can't fix it, in fact it is very likely he will make it worse with more unwise spending programs.

      The market hasn't even started REALLY collapsing folks. Get used to it. The party is OVER. Did you REALLY think the Ponzi scheme would last forever? Really???
      View article »
    • Mon Nov 10th 03:48 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Union Pacific: Outlook Uncertain
      Where are all these crazy forward looking numbers coming from? What a crock!! Anyone who thinks a company is going to have pricing power leading to 2009 growth of any kind (except the negative kind) is smoking crack. Does the term "world recession" cease to have meaning with respect to railroad companies?? now go look at their stock charts. Huge run ups since Y2K that were unprecedented in the history of the company. UNP, for example, ran up 4x in that 8 year period!!

      Face it, rail is just another bubble in a long line of bubbles in a mania economy and this bubble too will pop and pop badly.
      View article »
    • Mon Nov 10th 03:39 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Ben Stein Watch: November 8, 2008
      Ben has been behind the curve the entire time. At some point he will just give up on the stock market completely and that will be my signal to by. He and Cramer are in the same league. They both know the score and they use their media positions to mislead the sheeple so that they can profit. If either Ben or Cramer followed their own advice both would be in the poor house.
      View article »
    • Mon Nov 10th 00:08 AM | Rating: 0 -1
      Commented on:
      Gamestop: A Good Buy into Earnings?
      Lemesee. You want to talk about spending money on shares of a RETAILER of GAMES? In a depression? You are just gambling. Roll the dice, your odds will be better. Gaming is a mania that is now going to peter out as people get their heads out of the clouds and back down to basics. Like economical food, clothing and shelter.
      View article »
    • Mon Nov 10th 00:03 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Don't Bank on Republic Bancorp - Barron's
      It doesn't. All banking is predatory in some way. But now we have moved into the phase where there will be villification of the successful. So, XOM will be asked to disgourge profits for the good of the socialist republic and so on.
      View article »
    • Sun Nov 9th 23:16 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      It Might Be Impossible to Stop the Decline of Housing Prices
      Well said. There is no gov't solution short of tearing housing down and that makes no sense given the number of homeless we have. It would be better to create work projects to turn blocks of abandoned single family dwellings into rental properties or old folks homes with a live in quarters for a "host". Old folks of limited means could live their final days there living which would be assisted by the otherwise homeless host. The old folk's homes could themselves be sold to pay for the very reasonably priced care.

      But spending taxpayer money to keep prices high? That is insane and it fundamentally cannot work.
      View article »
    • Sun Nov 9th 02:54 AM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      We Have a Debt to Discharge
      "We're all bagholders now."
      Not really. Some people who are buying physical gold and silver are not bagholders. You may not buy gold or silver at the best possible price (and thus dollar cost averaging is by far the best way to save using these money metals), but you will NEVER look in the bag and find it empty. It will always contain exactly as much gold and silver that you originally bought. I think this reality is lost on many people who are enamored with FRNs.


      On Nov 07 10:30 AM Consider_this wrote:

      > Consider that all dollar bills are effectively "Federal Reserve Notes"
      > backed by the full faith of the government.
      >
      > From the above statement should be plenty clear that each dollar
      > is effectively a unit of debt.
      >
      > (This is a very little known and little publicized secret with our
      > government. See landru.i-link-2.net/mo... )
      >
      >
      > Using that measure, trying to discharge debt or trying to default
      > on them, effectively destroys money. It's also not the action anyone
      > (in the system or in the know) wants the populace to behave.
      >
      > In that context, trying to expect government to stop bailout, stop
      > the inflation of more debt, is so fundamentally against what the
      > government and the system has built that it'll be a futile effort.
      >
      >
      > I know this will be a shock to many who read my comment and the article
      > I linked to, but this is the difficult truth.
      >
      > We've been sold a bag all the way back when we adopted the fiat known
      > as FRN, or the "dollar bill". We're all bagholders now.
      >
      > It's not as simple as a plan to gradually get back to our feet and
      > out of debt. This system is designed such that that's never possible.
      > Trying to imagine or plan otherwise is futile. There's no gradual
      > way out of this mess.
      >
      > On the other hand, perhaps this bubble isn't big enough to destroy
      > the system. if so, we've simply tested the system's limits, and we'll
      > all collectively go on with debt-inflation after this intermission.
      > Pretty soon, "Trillion" will be the new million.
      >
      > As the Chinese always say, "May you live in interesting times."
      View article »
    • Sun Nov 9th 02:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What's Happened to the Equity Risk Premium?
      I am concerned that the Dow is only down to 8900 yet people are trying to act like a bottom has been put in.

      Why do I say "only down" to 8900 given that the peak was 14k? Simple: that peak was a clear bubble. It was never real - not ever. Thus it should not be used as a relative metric of fair value. In fact, we never did finish unwinding the dot bomb bubble. In 1995, pre dot bomb, the Dow was 4k. then over a scant 5 year period it rose to touch 12k. 3x in 5 years is a little extreme. Strike that - it's a LOT extreme. In 1990 it was 2500 and so even the move to 4k in the next 5 years was quite good, but 3x in 5 years? No way. So now we gave some of that 14k peak back and the Dow is now up about 2x in a decade. Many people think that makes stocks cheap. But unemployment is skyrocketing and wages are starting to fall as a result. We are having a deflationary crash and very smart people like Mike Shedlock and Robert Prechter and others have been saying this would happen for many quarters now. So all of this was predictable, and these guys predict it will get a lot worse.

      Pretty soon people will figure out that stocks cannot go up this high this fast. The stock market is not a wealth generation machine, it's a wealth redistribution scheme. It's gambling the same way a pyramid scheme is gambling and 1/3 of the participants are boomers who are by now scared to death that their retirement will evaporate, and rightfully so. Any gambler knows, once the gambling money is gone, it's gone. Thus, the boomers will continue to pull their money out of the ponzi scheme in any way they can. It also may not be much longer before money markets start to break the buck like Reserve Primary Fund did. Many would have followed already without the treasury bail outs, but will those last now that the elections are over? Why did Paulson say he wanted no part of the position of Treasurer once Obama came in? Clearly he knows that the bail outs must stop and when they do the markets will collapse.

      Just think what the markets would look like today without all of the bail outs. Dow 1500? Less? What will happen when the bail outs do stop?

      Think about it.
      View article »
    • Sat Nov 8th 21:23 PM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      A Buy & Hold Forever Dividend Stock Portfolio
      Yes let's talk about buy and hold going into a greater depression. Let's buy MMM which hasn't crashed YET but which will certainly crash soon because that's what happens when a credit bubble bursts.

      Forget dividends until we hit bottom and then start picking through the survivors for a buy and hold portfolio.
      View article »
    • Thu Nov 6th 02:31 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Has the Last Investor Thrown In the Towel?
      You think capitulation has occurred? Please, look at the chart of 192901933 where the credit bubble was nowhere near as bad as what just popped and tell me if you think we have bottomed.
      View article »
    • Thu Nov 6th 02:20 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Hedge Funds: What Happens When the Chickens Come Home to Roost?
      Your statement about the bigger the party the bigger the hangover should be thought about long and careful by anyone who expects anything but lower highs and lower lows in 2009. This party really started in 1995 so you know the hangover is going to be a doozy.
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 29th 16:37 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Bailout, Schmailout
      They don't care about being profitable anymore. They have given up. They know they cannot compete with the Asians on price and so they just want to monetize what's left of the company name. All bail outs should stop immediately and the cards should fall where they may. We are not going to stop the collapse, so we might as well have some national wealth left afterwards to pick up the pieces.
      View article »
    • Sun Oct 26th 06:48 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What’s With This Crazy Options Market?
      Buying and holding the jan 2010 puts on any stock that is in mania breakdown mode is going to make money. Anyone playing short term 1-3 month options is taking a huge risk either way at this point.
      View article »
    • Sun Oct 26th 04:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Options Strategist: A Simple Formula for This Overly Complex Market
      Let me get this straight. You want people who hold stocks like BHP to sell puts? Have you looked at the chart lately? It's a mania chart in full plummet mode. Before you give any more of this genius advice you better go look at the chart of the the south sea trading company and of tulip mania because that is exactly what BHP is.

      Mark my words: BHP will be $8 (eight dollars) within 9 months.
      View article »
    • Sun Oct 26th 04:15 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Recession Is Already Priced Into Stocks
      epeon,

      Your ignorance about the interconnnectivity of finance to business will be your undoing. You will not listen to what you are about to read today, I know that. But later on, after it comes true, perhaps you will think back on this and try to consider how I could predict what was going to happen to ARLP. Nobody should know this unless there is rhyme and reason instead of the randomness you currently believe rules the day. So here goes.

      ARLP is getting ready for a major plunge. You are only a week or 2 away from this. Today is 10-26-08 and ARLP closed at ~29 this past Friday. My target price for ARLP within 6 months is $8 and it could very well trade down lower. $8 is simply my safe shorting price for this stock. Also, they will cut the dividend to zero within a year, probably much sooner.

      Again, it will not help to explain how I know all of this to you because you will not believe anything that isn't bullish for stocks. That's because bullish markets have been the order of the day for your entire life.

      Get ready for a new life's experience.
      View article »
Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:
Quick Links:
Contribute an Article Become a Seeking Alpha Contributor

Transcripts

More Transcripts»