curious cat

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    • Wed May 7th 23:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Chance This Is The Bottom? Zero.
      stkinvestor, it is called a graduated income tax, because the more you make, the greater the percentage they take. in fact, the middle class would not be complaining if they were not being pushed into higher tax brackets, would they?

      user 173580, you make an excellent point regarding the republicans not managing to live up to their campaign promises of spending less. they decided to spend on our freedom and the freedom of the enslaved iraquis. it could have been worse though. they might have given all those displaced new orleans katrina victims a lot of money to make up for the fact that they did not buy flood insurance. oh, wait, they did do that. too. idiots....

      user, it does take a lot to raise a family and if i were poor, which i was, i would not have a lot of kids, because they might starve and i would not want that. if i were poor, which i was, i would bother to read and work hard and save, instead of spending every dime i made, and learn to invest for the future. gee, i wish this were america, where everyone were free to work hard and learn and save. stop blaming the government for not doing what you should do. stop watching tv. stop buying five dollar cups of coffee, stop going to the movies, buying michael jordan's underwear and shoes, pay tv, lottery tickets, doing your hair and nails, drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, doing drugs. exercise a little restraint. try telling your neighbors that you appreciate them and tell your kids that they need to listen to their teachers. wash behind your ears while you're at it, ok?
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    • Wed May 7th 23:17 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Warren Buffett on the Dollar, the Recession, Subprime and Bear Stearns
      user 190263, you are exactly right about that kid. he doesn't fool me for a minute, acting like he never played the game before, drinking cokes and eating candy bars. he is talking his book every chance he gets, trying to get everyone to panic, so he can pick up the pieces on his life size monopoly board. he had the insurance company, they sold him the railroads cheap and pretty soon, he'll have all the property and charge whatever he wants. heck, i knew it was all over when he picked the hat....
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    • Wed May 7th 13:34 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Better To Be Lucky Than Smart: The Bear Market is Over
      i sold in may and went away, but now i'm wondering if i can come back and play. hmmm, is this sellers remorse? will the market explode to new highs? no, my friends, the oil market will not allow this to happen. the dollar fake move to the upside will collapse again and commodities will be off to the races. my money is on goldman sachs and that house never loses.
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    • Sun May 4th 18:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Housing Data: Crybabies and Deceivers
      well. i can't understand it. i keep getting credit card offers and loan offers in the mail. i tear them up and recycle the paper, but it seems that they could save a lot of money by taking me off the list.

      i have a new theory. it has something to do with space and time, maybe wakeup can help me with this one. could i be reading all these posts coming from the future? you guys out there in the west sound like the world is ending. things look pretty good here in the south. southern company's ceo was just in forbe's talking about the large number of people moving down here. he's thinking 40% of u.s. population will end up between texas and the east coast in a decade or so. maybe by then the housing problem and credit problem will be over in the rest of the country. sure is nice down here.

      oh, sure, we have the most obese people in the nation, but that just means there's more of us to love. that just means we still have dairy queens and eat pie. so, if you want to open a big and tall or are just passing through until you can afford passage to south america,... welcome to the future.
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    • Sun May 4th 14:06 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is the Commodity Bull Market Over?
      dear tom,

      what happens when they give a boom and no one comes? people in every country have to eat, but after that, they will buy only if the price is right. our buyers are fast disappearing and we have a lot of wealth in this country. it's possible that other countries will subsidize their buyers, the way china does, but eventually people cut back and prices go down. this commodity boom is a bubble, wait until you see the unemployment rates go up and your relatives start begging for loans. at that point, they won't be able to give copper away. you can buy some then. when bushels of corn are $2.00 again, you can buy corn, when rice is being thrown at weddings, ....
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    • Sun May 4th 13:49 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Fact or Fiction: Sell in May and Go Away?
      i have a brother who doesn't gamble during lent. that's forty days during which he buys no lottery tickets, bets no horses and plays no cards. so, ironically, his friends can borrow money from him during lent. i'm sure he's better off for his sacrifice, but hey, one in every family, right? no need for me to stop trading.
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    • Sun May 4th 13:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Economic Report Summary: Consumer Confidence Still Low as Full-Time Employment Falls
      let me get this straight. housing prices down, jobs down, spending down, manufacturing orders down, income down, home depot closing stores, pawn shops doing well, but somehow, you think that inflation is rising. wouldn't it make more sense that greenspan was actually commenting on the narrowly focused consumers? they are simply focused on gas and milk prices and expecting those to continue going higher. consumers do not buy houses and cars every day, they put off these larger purchases, delay buying appliances and services too.

      there is no conspiracy to reduce inflationary numbers. when billions of people in india and china work like magic elves for a nickle a day, the cobbler and his wife can wake up and find new shoes for years. they can sell those shoes and make a lot of money. if times are tough, the cobbler and his wife will have to charge less because people can put paper in the shoes they already have.
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    • Sun May 4th 13:06 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What Goes Around Comes Around in the Equity Market
      ok, bill, that's one theory. another is that people who saw that particular conspiracy cloud gathering ran into people who thought that oil had reached peak oil and they ran into people who believed that ethanol laws were misguided and counter productive and they ran into gold bugs. they all began buying commodities and easily bid the prices higher because the markets there were much smaller than in other markets. they caused spikes in the prices of those commodities which summoned the demon herds of traders who follow spikes.

      this inflation you fear is nonexistent. if buyers do not go to stores, stores drop prices. that's the way it works in my area of the country. the only places they have pricing power is food and gas, because people have to eat and take their fat asses to the grocery stores. the power to price homes, cars, clothing, appliances, etc is gone (see wal-mart prices). we have been importing deflationary forces for some time now.

      what bernanke and the talking heads do to encourage a rational market is provide liquidity. if there is no liquidity, that means no one is sure that the price the sellers want is fair. that means no bidders and no bidders means no pricing power. wow, no inflation!

      now, the dollar may become weaker, as the pound became weaker when the u.s. took over the top dog role in the financial world. so, what became of the pound after that? did it disappear? did it become worthless? no, the brits simply stopped buying stuff until it became stronger. they paid the queen, james bond and their dentists fewer pounds, until they all started working harder. that's my theory and i'm sticking to it.

      let me know when that penny pushing doctor comes back though. maybe we can all get together then. lol

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    • Sun May 4th 01:32 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      $200 Oil, $2000 Gold?
      what a great idea, if only the government had given me a rebate,... well, i guess they knew i would only invest it, so they decided to keep my share. thank god we have such smart people making decisions for the rest of us. man, if i had to figure out what i would do with all the extra money, i would go mad. mad, i tell you!
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    • Sat May 3rd 14:20 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Barry Ritholtz Wants Investors to Stay Cautious
      gale
      industry can absorb the higher price of oil, until it moves back down some. they have not passed along the increase costs because they cannot. the competition gets greater as cheaper goods are continually imported to us. at some point, you might think, the price of goods being imported cannot keep coming down, but they do, because we have had huge deflationary forces at work. how can wal-mart continue to sell at lower prices? answer: they are the largest and strongest negotiators. if japan cannot sell to them at a lower price, they start buying from china. once china starts asking for too much, they move to india, then africa etc. europe has been handling higher oil prices and competing with us for a long time now.

      of course, employing alternate energy and investing in research are excellent options and create additional industry here too. i'm just saying that the long awaited collapse will not happen any time soon. the markets will vaccilate in a range until they recognize this. many quarters of earnings and govt numbers will be reviewed and eventually calm will return and the liquidity will be squeezed out of the financial system through the constant deflationary forces being imported.

      sure, lots of people who should not have been in the housing market are going to be evicted, but they will become renters. some assets will be cheaper than they used to be, like housing and cars. that's called deflation. maybe america can start buying back our currency now that it is cheaper. that's what a ceo of a large corporation would do with their stock, right?

      when the tech stocks crashed and took down the rest of the market, lots of people were suddenly worth less money, they managed to continue running their businesses, going to work everyday, and looking to the future. that's what people who have to pay off their mortgages do.
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    • Mon Apr 28th 14:21 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Market Bulls: Everything's Coming Up Roses?
      you really know how to start a conversation, herb. the last time i joined in was, oh, let me see, oh yeah, the big whoosh! i'm always happy to see a lot of people on your side, too. keep expecting that big whoosh. keep betting against the market and the dollar.

      one of the reasons that things do not repeat themselves exactly is that people are involved and they are all trying to game the system (see above comments). it's like going to the race track and trying to see how this race will end, based on the previous races. just doesn't work that way, even though there are still a given number of horses and jockeys riding a given length of turf. sometimes, the one horse wins and sometimes it doesn't, even though it has the same post position! in fact, you can consider the horse's lifetime earnings, age, sex, driver weight, stable wins, diet, drugs, bathroom habits, the weather, track conditions and lots of other things and still not get it right.

      i spent a few years betting on them and i'm probably one of the few people who ever left the track a winner, paid off my student loans that way. you see, just one thing can change and it will affect the race. a horse can come down from canada, where he's been losing but he's become accustomed to the colder weather, so he runs better. a horse can get the inside post but, previously, he's always run from the outside. another stable decides to run their horse as a front runner, instead of as a closer and he burns out the other horses trying to take the lead. a new single shaft sulky can be introduced and it might shave a second off a horse's time. a horse can break in front of your horse.

      whatever in the world can happen, probably will and that's in a relatively contained environment. one night, ten of the horses i picked in ten consecutive races broke stride. i still went to the airport and boarded my plane.

      the stock market is not self contained. the unlimited factors to consider are themselves changing over time and in relation to one another. the single most important factor is the one you want to watch because it will decide your fate most of the time. the single most important factor is not history. it is usually the fed moving or the iron curtain coming down or a discovery in some field that is a game changer.

      but, the most amazing thing about the stock market is this. the bettors change the odds, just like at the race track, but they also decide the winners. that's right, the bettors decide the winners. think about that. if you are at odds with the bettors, you will be losing most of the time. you can try to get in front of them. you should never be way behind them and it is safest in the middle of them. this herd mentality is difficult to swallow if you are raised in america as an individualist, but much easier to accept in foreign countries that celebrate conformity.

      so, when the market turns up, and it has, turn with it, don't fight it. don't fight the fed. don't fight all those asians who want the market to be higher, either. when they want it to go down, don't fight them in that direction, either. the borg say that resistance is futile. i wasn't convinced until i saw seven of nine.

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    • Fri Apr 25th 10:32 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Money Flows Into the Market: What They're Telling Us
      i don't know, but my wife keeps buying things and planning another vacation. does that mean anything? yup, some people do not read the business news. they do not care where the dow is and just keep doing what they've been trained to do. they consume. thank god for superman, i mean market, and the american way.
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    • Fri Apr 25th 01:10 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Impending Mortgage Crisis
      a little more than a year ago, a nice family sold their highly appreciated northwest home and moved in next door to me, here in sunny montgomery, alabama. they bought a nice three bedroom for about $130k. their new house hasn't appreciated or depreciated that i can tell, but they pay far less taxes here, less for insurance,and utilities, too. most of the time, they don't have to pay to park their car or use the roads either.

      of course, at first, they were having a little trouble communicating with some of the locals because of their accents, but you can adjust to a lot when you live in a nice, reasonably priced house with good neighbors, in a warm climate, where the economy is supported by industry, military bases and a tax payer/ family friendly political machine.

      the newer part of montgomery is still building houses and a nice 3000 sq ft home can still be purchased for ~ $300K, more if you want to feel exclusive. that still strikes most people around here as a tad high though. so, my question is this: how come so many people in other states felt the need to keep buying tulips? did they smell good? did they look pretty? what?

      years ago, when my wife and i finished our education in new york, we immediately searched the almanacs (there was no google or apple). we wanted a nice place to raise a family, with no earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, nuclear waste and a good economy. we ended up here in 1983 and have made a lot of friends since then. funny thing too, after about a year, we could hardly hear any differences in our accents.
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    • Fri Apr 25th 00:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What Does the President Know, and When Did He Know It: "We're not in a recession..."
      you guys are a little bit too hard on g.w. after all, he was way ahead of the grain shortage problem. he's been sending rice to other countries for years. pu, rum, pum!
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    • Thu Apr 24th 00:55 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Impending Mortgage Crisis
      stop hoarding rice, eat a few potatos, bread or tortillas or maybe give up starch altogether. americans are obese anyway. let's give other countries a chance to have a little diabetes and high cholesterol. that way, we can sell them some of our pharmaceuticals before we kill them with our tobacco. hey, i have an idea. let's stop investing in oil, gold and other commodities. that will do more than the fed can do to drop prices and restore world order. it could be the first time that investors acted as a unit to save their world, instead of individuals to destroy it. let's eliminate the borrowing of stock without the stock owner's approval. let's eliminate margin to hedge funds. let's make a law that requires banks to lend their money, instead of hoarding it. i don't care who they lend it to, just do it. let's invite the heads of tech companies to come up with ideas for alternative energy investments and then, actually do it. let's reduce to zero the taxes on retired people, so our families don't have to move to costa rica. let's mandate i.q. tests for people who enter the political arena and let's make sure someone watches them while they take them. let's make economics a basic course in grade school and high school. ok,... i've vented, but i've got a lot more.
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