dilettantedude

The Global Oil Scam: 50 Times Bigger than Madoff

I'm always skeptical of conspiracy theories, which this seems to be in spades. One has to compare conclusions arrived at via conspiracy theory with other informed actors such as the DOE's EIA and knowledgeable individuals such as Harold Hamm.

Billionaire Harold Hamm, head of Continental Resources, is cranking up capital spending in the hugely productive Bakken in North Dakota because he sees a shortage of oil. I'll take his deep, practical knowledge of world oil markets over conspiracy theory accounts based on hazy trading data any day.

The EIA obtains its data not from traders, but from actual measures of oil production and estimated reserves. They disagree totally with you, and have for several years now. There are some great charts on their website to show their summary of the data.

I'm assuming you aren't crazy enough to claim Hamm and the EIA (plus many others in academia, business and government) are part of your conspiracy, so I'd have to see a compelling explanation of where they are missing something huge before I'd take your conspiracy theory seriously over their data, on the ground savvy, and money.

First Read of House Health Care Reform Act (H.R. 3200)

it's refreshing to see someone who doesn't indulge in the hypocrisy of claiming any of the higher human virtues like mercy or compassion for those less fortunate than you are. just keep the money and to hell with everyone else. god forbid we should pay for better schools or healthcare if it doesn't benefit us personally. much better to spend that money on ourselves for granite kitchen countertops and another 500 square feet of 'bonus room.'


On Jul 17 01:03 PM jackooo wrote:

> Where does it say that the average or richer person has to subsidize
> other people or their children?
> I do not get the dependent tax write off. I did not have the pleasure
> of conceiving them.
> So what do I get? I get to pay for their schooling. Pay for their
> incarceration. Pay for their welfare. Pay for their medical care.
> Pay for their housing. Anddd now pay for their health insurance?
>
> Wise up democratic congress & Obama. I would like to keep some
> of the change you promised in MY pocket!!

First Read of House Health Care Reform Act (H.R. 3200)

this is simply ignorant. overhead expense in medicare is a bit above 3%, compared with 20% - 25% for private plans. i suppose if it actually is in terrible shape (evidence, please?), then our private pay scheme is far worse. we could easily pay for an expansion of the medicare program for all citizens with far lower overhead by using the huge private healthcare premiums we all pay today anyway.

the us is the only industrialized country in the world that would rather use its money to maintain a huge offensive standing invasion force and kill foreigners for oil, than to pay for health care and a decent education for its citizens.

next time please do try to use some facts and an intelligent rationale.


On Jul 16 11:39 AM SPOTS wrote:

> As a medicare and health care insider, I have said for 3 years that
> it was absolutely certain that Congress would create a national insurance
> plan. The reason that it assuredly will happen is that medicare
> is in impossibly terrible shape. Much worse than the people understand.
> The numbers say it will fold in 2017. But even that near date paints
> it much better than it is.
>
> So the only way out is to bury the disastrous numbers in a national
> health plan. The plan is in 2 basic stages: 1) create a national
> insurance plan funded by taxpayers 2) merge it with medicare, probably
> under the guise of saving overhead costs. 3) Use the tax increases
> to prop up medicare.
>
> To summarize: much less medical care for much more tax, for everyone.

Why Economic Dogma Threatens Our Future Prosperity

Great article, thanks! There are those so deeply ignorant of recent economic history and innocent of simple compassion - the greed-off-the-leash crowd - who keep trying to justify keeping more and more of their money while the poor don't have decent health care outside the emergency room, and justify it with extreme right wing ideologies. Such people cannot have any credibility until they explain one single period in American history - the late 1940s through the 1960s.

We had marginal federal tax rates then between 80% - 94%. They were 70% until Reagan, and we had a low, stable national debt. After Reagan cut taxes the national debt exploded. Not a debatable point except among the ignorant.

Yet we had the greatest rise in living standards in American history. We had the largest expansion of the middle class in human history. We had the greatest period of entrepreneurial capital and business formation in human history. We had the most fertile period of technological innovation in human history. On top of that, we built the institutional and physical infrastructure that we've been allowing to run down ever since Reagan, because we can't afford to keep it up.

The greed-mongers who think that if we pay higher taxes it will cause the decline of American business are simple, ignoramuses. They should just admit that they'd rather spend their money on SUVs and granite kitchen countertops than provide health care for the poor, and stop pretending to be human beings.

Flash Is Still Not Alive on the iPhone

They also don't have a 64 bit version of Flash for IE 60 bit. This isn't some rare thing, these are some of the most popular computers you can pick up at Best Buy for heaven's sake.

My Reconsideration: Why Share Buybacks Are Pointless

There's another, huge reason companies buy back shares: to increase the bonuses of senior management. For most public companies, these bonuses are based at least in major part on EPS & stock price. Buying back shares increases both, even if the company hasn't improved its performance economically. Next time you see a company announcing a big buyback program, go look at the shareholder proxy for how incentive stock and bonuses are calculated. If they'll tell you, that is.

Deflation Changes the Rules

debt and asset destruction are inherently deflationary. i don't think all the new debt is about to be monetized yet. the government is simply creating debt, selling it, and buying other debt with the cash. it isn't buying goods and services or employing lots of people or raising wages, so i don't see how it can be inflationary until it starts increasing demand relative to capacity. good luck on that. it's a problem i wish we had.

Cash Flows, Earnings Quality, & Stock Returns

first of all, anyone who values a stock based on quarterly, instead of estimated annual, FCF is an idiot. accruals vary greatly from quarter to quarter, and more so in seasonal companies. quarterly numbers contain a great deal of noise and little information, other than maybe being positive.

the FCF methodology makes sense from another viewpoint, also. wall street, and most other analysts, focus on EPS. because they do, that's what public companies manage. wall street does not focus on FCF, so it's a fairer representation of the true profitability of a company. all you have to do to see this is to graph FCF and EPS over several years. you can lay a ruler along the EPS bars, while the FCF bars jump all over the place.

nevertheless, a company with FCF/share consistently higher than EPS is almost by definiton being undervalued. it doesn't necessarily mean it's cheap, but clearly if real money/share is greater than manipulated EPS, and real money thus gets a lower multiple than "wall street money," something's wrong somewhere.

The World's Revenge

for the wingnuts who are bound by ignorance to bleat about how high taxes will wreck the us economy, let me point out that the greatest flowering of entreprenurial spirit and technological genius was in the US in the 1950s and 1960s when marginal income tax rates were between 80% and 94%. you know, putting a man on the moon? xerox, polaroid, antibiotics, the first real computers, the internet? it was a period when we paid for the enormous infrastructure this country required after ww ii - hospitals, schools, water and sewage treatment plants, roads, bridges, government buildings, etc. etc. etc. it was paid for up front, using high taxes, with a constant, low level of government debt throughout the period, no borrowing from the chinese or our grandchildren to have our goodies today. it was a more moral, more responsible generation than today's wingnuts, one that understood that a citizen paid his own way up front for his own benefits with his own taxes, and paid for his children's benefits as well to leave them better off, instead of stealing from them like the republiban has done through the scam of taxes that are too low to even maintain our childrens' living standards, never mind improve them. sheesh! ignorance of history is no excuse for selfishness and greed.

2 Reasons to Hold a U.S. Stocks-Dominated Portfolio

This is simply ignorance of history. The Roman REPUBLIC declined because they spent too much on war, and allowed their favorite sons to begin evading the historic obligation of every political leader to serve his country in the army. They were able to pay the poor to serve in their place, and thus began the internal social and moral rot that within little more than 50 years ended the Republic. Discussing the fall of the Empire is irrelevant to where the US is today. You should stick to at least remotely comparable periods, and read some history instead of just assuming everyone who disagrees with you does so because they read Gibbon. You should also try reading Jane Jacobs on Cities and the Wealth of Nations, among many others, and educate yourself about the source of wealth creation before you start pontificating about how the US can thrive regardless of other circumstances. Then try some objective thinking instead of just being a brainless cheerleader.

'Index Speculators' Hoarding Commodities

I'm always baffled by anyone who thinks instutions and other speculators can 'hoard' futures contracts. Do these people believe the hedgers and university endowments and union pension funds are actually taking delivery of tons of wheat or ships full of oil???

Look, they buy 6 month futures contracts. A month before expiration they sell them and buy more 6 months (or whatever) contracts. There is no hoarding. There is no net buying. The futures buys and sells exactly cancel each other out. This means that futures prices must converge to cash prices in the spot market each day.

Next time you hear someone blame rising commodities prices on futures speculation, ask them to explain that.

The WSJ Is Wrong on the Housing Crisis

anyone who would rely on the wsj editorial page for objective information would walk into a village of cannibals and ask "what's for dinner?"

Tinkering with Inflation Calculations: The “Pollyanna Creep” Phenomenon

The Romans debased their hard currency because they didn't have statistics to debase.

Tinkering with Inflation Calculations: The “Pollyanna Creep” Phenomenon

The Romans debased their hard currency because they didn't have statistics to debase.

Get Out of Commodities - Barron's

This article seems to deny the reality that the BRICs really are building out their infrastructure. It's an enormous build-out, and it takes huge amounts of natural resources and it will go on for decades. It's just getting started. Sure, there will be ups and downs around the trend line, but this is NOT like the dot.com or the real estate bubble. It's productive demand exceeding available resources and with a long term tail wind.