Voice of Reason

The Worst Is Over ... Again ... And Again ...

I'm blaming Baji for causing me to spill my beverage all over my keyboard reading his "caculations" logic. As far as the article itself baseball analogies trying to judge what inning we're in is equally dim-witted. Maybe these guys never heard of a 9th inning ralley where the home team was six runs behind with two outs but won the game in spite of it at the last minute. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Market forecasters are about as useful as used toilet paper and no more accurate than rolling the dice repeatedly.

Oh look... companies keep reporting better than expected earnnings, according to the offical formula we haven't even had a single quarter of negative growth let alone the called for two in a row.

Now Baji, I don't know what you're smoking but it must be high quality something. You claim 2 million subprime loans outstanding at an average of 300,000 / loan yields a total of 600 billion dollars at risk. I don't know where you got your figures or if that's the total outstanding subprime or just was is expected to go sour. If the former you didn't say so. I would hope you're not that gloomy if you think everyone will stop paying their mortgage which obviously would be crazy to think.

Memo to Seeking Alpha, maybe you should consider requiring drug testing before letting anyboy spew their poison with the usual undocumented garbage. I mean I'm a season old crusty investor that pays no attention to yahoos like seen here but somebody new to investing may take the short sellers seriously.

UBS Plan Could Be the Road Map for Financials

As a past AUDITOR (I'm now retired) I have one word for all you wannabe accountants. Enron.

For years Kenny Boy and a few other guys with sharp pencils at Enron pulled the wool over the eyes of almost everybody... including regulators and the auditors from Aurthur Andersen that signed off on the financial statements and NEVER followed through where all the money was suppose to be coming from. It was just a shell game.

Either they knew what was going on and looking the other way or they bought the flim flam meaning they were just plain stupid, lazy or both (my choice).

Right now too many are writing down perfectly good paper just because a small portion is bad. Its the old throw the baby out with the wash water panic.

While I don't have figures handy I think I read the total subprime loan balance is multiple trillion. To suggest most of that is bad is a fairy tale and would make the 1929 stock market crash look like a picnic.

The feds did what they did with Bears exactly to avoid panic and start a run on all the banks. The big sharks on swimming around because they smell blood in the water. As usual Joe know nothing plays right into their hands and helps them drive down the stock prices so the big fish can grab it at fire sales prices. THAT is what the Feds should look into. Its just another varation on insider trading. I thought that was suppose to illegal. Don't even get me started on short selling or hedge funds.

Big Banks: Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Bail

Tie D should have stopped while he was ahead. He starting out saying "The FRB are idiots" No kidding. Uncle Ben and company are ALWAYS chasing the curve and accordingly behind it doing what they could have and should have done too little, too late.

Of course much of today's problems you can put squarely on the lap of my all time favorite FRB dummy, none other than goofy Greenspan, aka Mr. Mumbles who as yet can't utter a single sentence in public that makes any sense at all, yet you have presidents, Congress and of course the Bozos on Wall Street kissing the ground that silly old fart walks on. Go figure.

I'm a successful investor. Very. I've been doing it more years than Cramer (yes it is my full time "job" now and I listen to only ONE person for financial advise. MYSELF. Period. Others should try that. They would be a lot richer. Really.

So as long as I'm tooting my own horn, I'll share what I learned several decades ago thereby violating my own rule asking you to do what I have done. Investing, smartly boils down to being a GAME. The biggest game on the planet, anyone can play, few know the rules as simple as they are.

Rule #1 Markets go up on GREED. You can profit on that.

Rule #2 Markets go down on FEAR. You can profit on that too!

Rule #3 Don't fight the tape.

Rule #4 Have a plan and stick to it except when you need to break it which you will over and over. <wink> Read again till in sinks in.

Rule #5 Don't try to pick tops or bottoms, but DO pay attention.

Rule #6 If most people are buying you should probably be selling.

Rule #7 If most people are selling you should probably be buying.

Rule #8 There is no such thing as a "sure thing".

Rule #9 Yes, stocks can fall to zero value, thankfully not below.

Rule #10 Your best teacher is experience. Learn from your mistakes.