virilio

Forecast: Recovery, But Not Until Q3

i imagined the recession would end when investment bankers were stripped of assets and entered prison cells (like Enron, but stricter) ... & then the public would feel confident enough to put money back in the stock market.

Apparently we are still at the house arrest in a $12 million solid gold apartment fed-ex'ing jewelry to relatives and Madoff's wife can keep the money stage. Hardly confidence inspiring.

Distressing Details of the UltraShorts

really? I thought an article titled distressing details of the ultrashorts would reveal that bernard madoff and hank paulson were using the TARP funds to secretly short the DJIA.

A Stimulus Plan to Actually Improve Economy Fundamentals

why is it tax cuts - which doesn't increase jobs directly at all, doesn't do much for foreclosures either - instead of creating a government corporation that outright hires 4 million workers, at $40k per year, and ties them each to a mortgage on a foreclosure at the same time, as well as an auto loan on an american manufactured hybrid vehicle (toyota plants are located here too)?

Doesn't really matter what they build, but what the hell, why not put the majority into solar panel manufacturing and have the government buy the majority of the panels to put on rooftops in grid-tied systems?

Over time this idea pays for itself and does so by putting people back to work.

Why Patriotism and Your Portfilio Don’t Mix

CLH, your spelling and grammar are sub-prime ...

Americans have moved money in huge amounts directly to Russia through BRIC and Oil/NG investments. It was safer than investing in Fannie/Freddie/AIG/Mor...

The Russians understand how corrupt and unstable their financial sector is and move their money ... Not to the US financial sector but to Monaco. Cayman Islands. Lichtenstein. Isle of Man. Bermuda. Switzerland. Dubai. "America is the best?" It certainly isn't considered the best place to invest money. In 2007, EU banks held 53% of worldwide assets, up from 43% the decade earlier. Sense a trend? Enjoy the next decade.

Financials Soar

stupid government bailout money. it's like they forget the dump in pump-and-dump. i cannot even short when I see the artificial tide pull back and drag them out to sea as I see the financial sector fundamentally as weaker and more untrustworthy than ever before.

Why Patriotism and Your Portfilio Don’t Mix

who wants to play in a fixed game? I can't even analyze the data anymore - with the government as the primary shareholder/regulator the books are cooked all the way up now... they benefit from false positive numbers as much as the company - suddenly the government regs will be asking, yessss its fraud but can we afford to let this company go down for it?

I just don't think it's safe to invest in US markets anymore.

How Bad Is the Dollar's Fall?

"Last time rates were near 1-2% lenders gave out money like it was nothing, if rates go back down near those levels it will be very interesting to follow where that cheap money goes"

borrowed for next to nothing to short YEN EUR GBP CAN CHF on their red-days. Like the low-interest CHF was borrowed & converted to short USD against EUR, so low-interest USD could be borrowed & converted to short YEN against EUR.

How Bad Is the Dollar's Fall?

"When the bush presidency ends the dollar will stage a celebration rally" vs "When the Bush presidency ends it very much depends on who succeeds him".

nothing is ever sure. They might as well throw dice as the dice are more predictable.

Could be under Clinton/Obama it is uncovered war was far more expensive than stated & USD keeps going down for several years. Could be under McCain it is not uncovered and people just assume this & USD keeps going down for several years. Could start going up too. Will global currency reserves go below 50% on the USD? Unlikely. If so I'd expect proportional devaluation of USD, and correct for it by estimating shifting distribution in my currency basket.

"so funny-money debt can be repaid with funny-money. " yep.

"if central banks ALL inflate their currencies thus lowering their values, how can we measure any value." IMHO relative to one another via shifting global currency reserve ratios

"Huge "off the books" funding for Iraq and Afghanistan" yep.

"If you wanna protect, just buy another currency." yep. or currency basket at ratio like central bank global reserves such as 60% USD, 30% EUR, 5%GBP, 5%CHF.

"The US Dollar needs to get back on the Gold standard" gee, why not just peg it to the price of a barrel of crude? *sigh*

America's Middle Class: Living Large

you've "won first prize in the lottery of life."

slow down you nationalistic cheerleader, it's not like at the age of 20 I can do as the swiss do and say social security is not something for me to pay into and build up and then take payments at 65, it's money society owes me for being a citizen. So I can cash it out as a lump sum at 20 even if I haven't paid into the system, oh right and If I get cancer I don't have to sell a house to pay for the treatment. And the minimum wage at around $16/hour with 1 bedroom apartments renting for $500/month. From an economic standpoint I wish such parallels were available to me here.

Picking Apart the WSJ's Manipulative Gold Reporting

the biggest + to physical gold is it can be easily transported on one's person, & liquidated easily in most countries. It's paranoid money.

in the meantime, it is (at the least) holding its value.

Gold Stocks and the 1934 World Series: Swing!

yeah this article SUCKS. ESPECIALLY the 'pay me subscriber money and I'll let you in on the big secret of which gold stock will go up...'

So without asking for a subscription I'll say for those who care to own gold a (relatively) safe way is FSAGX, a gold mutual fund who's performance knocks the socks off physical ownership or individual gold stocks. After all ... if they pay you for a stock ticker off a 1-day unlabeled graph they're naive investors and probably shouldn't be in such a volatile sector.

caveat emptor: tiny foreign gold companies are notorious for salting their fields to make it seem they have value.

I am not against gambling a bit: 60% of my portfolio for last year was when I bought into GLD January 07 when Gold briefly touched 603.50/oz. Made a helluva lot more sense to me than buying into a gold company that might or might not have a good gold mine.
I sold in late Nov 07, figured it was up enough of a % to pull out completely. unfortunately it kept going up and I felt bad at not taking it to 900 but felt spot price moved to far too fast and wanted out before a correction. My future moves in this sector will be a. GLD following a $250 correction i expect in next year or b. FSAGX

hey! no subscription for those ticker symbols.

Shorting ETFs - Goodbye To The Old Risks

sorry for the last 2 sentences regret leaving them in. and maybe you did write a decent book not that i bothered to read it. it's just when i looked at proshares it was because they were highly ranked on the fund evaluator at bloomberg.com but the ultrashares and proshares are in many sectors so thinly traded i immediately refused to put my money into them. hey, if you like this section of the beach, i won't dissuade you but i'm not getting into /these waters/

Shorting ETFs - Goodbye To The Old Risks

Many ETFs shorting the indexed sectors are lightly capitalized and thinly traded. why bash mutual funds (it is not hard to find one that is not 'corrupt'! )

when you lose money shorting indexes NOBODY has any sympathy for you

How-to books for Starting Hedge Funds, in 2008, are not so different from How-to Flip that House with no money down! books published in early 2007.

Rebate Checks Will Do Little to Spur Economic Growth

i suppose giving out $600 index fund ira's instead of rebate checks is a bit too close to 'privatizing social security'

So Much for the Decoupling...

because of decoupling BRIC investments won't plummet faster than domestic equities