carey_jim

Preview from Europe: Fed Steps in with Guns Blazing

United States government spending as a percentage of GDP is about 40%. www.usgovernmentspendi...

Government spending as a percentage of GDP of several other major countries:

Sweden: 55% www.heritage.org/index...

France: 53% www.heritage.org/index...

Great Britain: 45% www.heritage.org/Index...

Japan: 36% www.heritage.org/index...

China: 30% www.heritage.org/index...

Russia: 30% www.heritage.org/index...

No other country spends as much for defense as the United States. If you subtract defense spending, the percentage of U.S. government spending is closer to that of Japan, Russia and China.

Preview from Europe: Stocks Go Cliff Diving Again

Am I, or the ordinary Joe the plumber, supposed to trust someone like you? After giving me minus 70 points by randomly going through my posts and giving them minus one point until my positive rankings dropped from from 97 to 20.

Or did you rely on the 'social contract' you have with your friends?

You aren't even pathetic. You don't rise to that level.

Are you trying to protect the common man from his own financial folly by demonstrating your own lack of principles?




On Mar 06 03:44 PM Thadeus Thornton III wrote:

> I guess I would be a little more broad minded here. Not ALL of the
> people you label here fall into this category. Like I said, some
> people need to depend on the "social" contract" of the people advising
> them. And they should be able to. After all, most employers won't
> offer a defined pension anymore. So an employee is left plunking
> his/her money into whatever 401K plans that are offered. They have
> no choice. If a person is a machinist, a nurse, a trash collector,
> factory worker, etc: they have no choice and somehow are supposed
> "bone up" on financial terms and the socio-political things that
> affect the markets? Besides, I didn't triple or quadruple my gains
> in any of my investments. And neither did anyone else I know. Most
> people lost any gains of "irrational exuberance" in the stock market
> "raid" of 1999 - 2001. It took me almost six yeas to get back to
> even.
>
> -----> These 'trusting' people doubled and tripled their real 401k
> wealth without doing anything except signing a few pieces of paper
>
>
> If they were too dumb to know that there is no free lunch and just
> sat on their hands while their 401k's melted like snow on the backs
> of their brokers' neck, why feel sorry for them? <------
>
>
> ---->
> The only fear I have is that these fat, lazy, greedy people will
> try to stage a socialist revolution of some kind to take their property
> out of foreclosure, and then find a way for government socialist
> bureaucrats to save their moribund companies while forcing stock
> prices to go back up so their 401k's will regain their value. < -----
>
>
> That term socialist gets thrown around a lot lately. To many, it
> conjures up a Hitler like government and Fascism. They are two very
> different things. Hitler was a fraud and used socialism as a label
> to get his public to "buy into" his dictatorship. He was a fascist.
> We came very close to this right after 911 and still have lingering
> effects with "Homeland Security" issues. Socialism should and would
> work for everyone including business. It is supposed to be a way
> of fairness and leveling the playing field. At the same time, I am
> not advocating it, just clearing up a common misunderstanding. Not
> many people realize it, but the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin was
> governed by socialist mayors from the 1930's and even going into
> the early 50's I believe [google mayor Zeidler ]. It worked. The
> city did well in business and employment improvements during those
> hard years of depression and going into WWII.

Preview from Europe: Stocks Go Cliff Diving Again

These 'trusting' people doubled and tripled their real 401k wealth without doing anything except signing a few pieces of paper

If they were too dumb to know that there is no free lunch and just sat on their hands while their 401k's melted like snow on the backs of their brokers' neck, why feel sorry for them?

People are still trying to sue tobacco companies for their lung cancers but most people hold back their tears and just suppress a laugh or two.

The DOW climbed from around 2000 to around 14000 and a lot of people got rich doing nothing but putting their retirement money in stocks.

Ditto for real estate which climbed, in California, during the period of about 1976-2008, from about $40,000 per house to close to $800,000 per house or about 20 times in value and speculators leveraged themselves into huge profits by leveraging their purchase anywhere from 20% down to 5% down depending on their friends in the banking business.

No one felt sorry for them on the way up and no one should feel sorry for them on the way down.

The only fear I have is that these greedy people will try to stage a socialist revolution of some kind to take their property out of foreclosure, and then find a way for government socialist bureaucrats to save their moribund companies while forcing stock prices to go back up so their 401k's will regain their value.

I'm not shedding any tears, I'm watching my back.

Preview from Europe: Stocks Go Cliff Diving Again

The clear solution to these problems, in the U.S. at least, (since we welcome immigrants here with open arms) is to print slightly fewer visas than dollars and call the Arabs in to the rescue.

The Arabs have the money to buy GM, Citibank, GE and all our other soon to be penny stocks and take control of the United States economy.

They could also bring in their poor, huddled up and veiled masses to buy the foreclosed property.

Don't laugh. It's against their religion.

Preview from Europe: Another Rollercoaster Day on the Markets

In capitalist countries, which are convinced that governments are evil, government run banks are called BAD banks and in communist countries, which are convinced that capitalism is evil, free markets are called BLACK.

Silver lining or our economic woes: We could call state run banks, BLACK banks, and communist free markets, BAD markets. This would have a huge effect on the world economy because names are important. If we had mostly black banks we could solve their problems with huge white downs and all bad markets would be improved by chasing out bad money with good.

Don't laugh, Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson proposed the idea two hundred years ago. It might work.

White Mondays and good markets would be guaranteed by the economic law of reversal.

The Antidote to Economic Malaise: A Culture of Collective Mindfulness

I don't think it's a coincidence that Muhammed Yunus is a Muslim.

His approach is, basically religious, whatever name you give it.

Communism was a religion too, even though it was atheistic. It was a scientific religion, if you will, complete with hagiography, theology and devils and the French Revolution was its progenitor.

Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Catholicism have all aspired to to control every aspect of life, including economic and political activity.

Social progress should move away from these failed ideolgies not back to them.

We should take the lessons of history. After all, we are only a few generations from the horrors of Stalin and Hitler who were both idealists.

The Bottom's Within Sight - Barron's

Henarl: I can't argue with that except by saying what Groucho Marx used to say:

"I would never join a club that would have a guy like me as a member."

Sometimes the elite and the slobs are difficult to tell apart :)

The Bottom's Within Sight - Barron's

henarl: That is, in essence, what Benedict Arnold and his friends said to George Washington and the other rebels before and during the American Revolution.

No system is "inevitable" and sometimes the former elites are either metaphorically or literally hung by their necks (if there is no Canada to escape to :) by the former slobs.

No offense meant. Just saying.

The Bottom's Within Sight - Barron's

Some people confuse advertising with truth.

Many people do, in fact.

"If history is any guide U.S. stocks are likely to bottom within the next few months."

Clears throat but can't think of anything to say.

Five Challenges Ahead as the Corporate Soup Lines Grow

I hate black humor but it's hard to resist sometimes: Why not let Russia and China buy these threatened institutions?

(It puts a little perspective into the interface between politics and economics.)