bindlepete

Buffett's Big Buyout Bets on Buoyancy

Buoyancy ? I would say stagflation and a return to commodity exports ( coal and topsoil), a collapse in high value manufactured items, and dependence on the politically pwerful utility industry and their paper /bong holders the insurance industry.

Sorry to have lost BNI from my portfolio but I retain the best route structure of CNI . Lets wait until Canadian commodity exports swell to contain wheat, petroleum and their abundant coal resources.

It will take time but Kitimat, North America's closest port to Asia, belongs to CNI.

Buffett Takes a Page from the Monopoly Playbook

I agree with the emphasis as I see this as a bet on the fuel shortage due to efficiency of the rail roads and the commodity play rings true. We are losing our manufacturing and have little to sell the world but our topsoil and raw materials. Weapons of course but these are taxpayer subsidized in their entirety.

Further, it is a bet on coal and electricity. Hauling coal from the Powder River Basin is BNI's lifeblood. and the utilities will survive as they are monopolies and regulation will not put them down.

Utility paper/ bonds are what keep the ever powerful insurance industry alive. So Insurance and electricity are combined,an over powering force in Washington.

I have fought them both and know. Hate to sell BNI but I still keep an ever better route structure in CNI. Wait until Canada's coal starts to boom as an export. Right after wheat and petroleum.

Warren Buffett's Bet on Rail and America

I disagree with the emphasis as I see this as a bet on the fuel shortage due to efficiency of the rail roads.

Further, it is a bet on coal and electricity. Hauling coal from the Powder River Basin is BNI's lifeblood. and the utilities will survive as they are monopolies and regulation will not put them down.

Their paper/ bonds are what keep the ever powerful insurance industry alive. So Insurance and electricity are combined,an over powering force in Washington.

I have fought them both and know.

Gold Bug Feeding Frenzy

I wonder how governments will control the rise in equity price for gold miners? This is where I have made my play, for sieze or beg gold they will. The authority is there in the history and now very likely the monitoring of safe deposit boxes.

Melt down your watches and rings? I doubt it but with the Bush/Cheney endorsement of waterboarding you teeth may be at risk?

Look at the questionable nationalistic behavior of the Koreans.

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

Your really don't understand this market. There are not often single elements driving any decision out side of a coin toss and even these can be subject to influence.

Most decision are multifactorial from access to transport, price, currency fluctuations ones own perceived needs and on ad infinitum.

As to the supply side " peak oil' is a reality and inconvenient to acknowledge in our political system. China recognizes it clear and simple but then they have a different pattern of decision making. As to the many bbls you see coming on line it will be more than eaten up by declines in world production. Yes, even at $80 a bbl. with our dollar going down the porcelain pot hole.

Hey, it is finite and difficult to find and produce. The US does not control the world oil market it is a world market and the big locals have little interest in low prices and certainly not cheap as dirt alternative liquid fuels.

China is out there producing auto and diesel fuels from cola in the form of dimethyl ether and methanol. That is not permitted here as it would break the oil companies monopoly on feeding our liquid fuels addiction. Again China has a different decision making procedure.

Oil priceas will continue to bounce about but with a clear upward long term trend. Bet on it. I have and am not ashamed of my comfortable success.

I know you want a simple explanation but sorry all questions do not have human answers. Richard Belman taught me this back in 1970 over looking the Pacific.

ConocoPhillips Facing Tough Talk in Effort to Unload Oil Sands Stake

The open question on the shovel and truck recovery method is:
Can they compete with cleaner and cheaper(?) In situ methods of delivering the bitumen and heavy oils?

PetroBank with it's THAI system could cut the legs out from under these surface mining techniques although it would help PetroBank to have them about to maintain a high marginal price to profit beneath.

Time will tell. A new age may be arriving.

Is FDIC's Sheila Bair Starting to Get It?

Sheila is a toughie and has some sense of integrity. In short, let those that meade the mess clean it up and pay for the damage.

None of this "the bonus boys deserve their swag" for making phony profits on the government's largesse. They deserve to pay.

Time to Move Back into Defensive Stocks Like Utilities?

I see utilities as a good defensive play but their dividends will surely lag the inflation figures. Truth is that the large central generating utilities should go out of business with their megga coal plants of moderate efficiency. The size= efficiency equation is history and a larger number of smaller local plants would encourage co-generation as well as get rid of the expensive, inefficient and fault prone transmission lines.

It would do great damage to the insurance co's , of course, who hold the paper on these antique generators but Hey, what's another bail out. The printing presses are now warmed up.

Non the less the utilities are a reasonable defense for the investor in US securities.

California: Entering Inflationary Depression

True California has it's problems but it is not alone.The State Pension plans are turning into omnivorous beasts which unlike many private pensions plans can not be covered by the, now broke but still liquid, Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. of the Federal Government.

The PBGC can live, by selling capital and then on freshly printed money but can the States meet future generous contracts to their employees? Not without hideous and publicly unacceptable new taxes.

California has a responsible outfit in CALPERS but even here the State Comptroller see it as a huge problem down the road. Most other states do not have well managed pension plans. New York's system is a disaster and who has done an honest review of the rest .

As has been said no one makes it out alive.

The Secret to the Banking Sector's Success

Sell Bonds? To whom? Wellll, print the money and lend the money out at .25%, and borrow it back at 3.5%. Let the intermediary take the risk free profit, pay himself a bonus and sleep on.

Switcheroo!!! and you pay the freight Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer

And then there's the dance with the foreign banks.

This is government?

The Secret to the Banking Sector's Success

Sell Bonds? To whom? Wellll, print the money and lend the money out at .25%, and borrow it back at 3.5%. Let the intermediary take the risk free profit, pay himself a bonus and sleep on.

Switcheroo!!! and you pay the freight Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer

And then there's the dance with the foreign banks.

This is government?

Where's the Outrage at the Banks?

The Banks - big ones are broke - if there was anything near honest accounting. Their Tier 3 Assets, if not sold to the taxpayers for unrealistic prices - the big government give away - would place them in receivership so their bonuses are undeserved. But money talks and Washington will not shut them down nor even curtail the bonus flow.

Now if Washington did get tough they would translate the bonus flow to loans and then forgive them when the heat was off. Remember GS and their little ploy in 2008? This, by the way, defers the taxes on the personal cash flow until the loan is forgiven.

Harvest Energy: East vs. West in Terms of Oil

Our Authore says :"US Treasuries, the largest, the most liquid, and the most transparent investment vehicle in the world."

What a joke. In effect the Federal Reserve is buying all of the extra ( read unsold Treasuries) from the primary dealers and I also hear paying thse dealers a comsission just a vigorish to keep them quiet about the switcheroo from the ever generous taxpayer.

Further, there is a suspicion that the Trerasury is either discounting their paper to foreign banks or having the Fed lend these banks money at a lower rate to buy the Treasuries which can be used to repay the Fed.

Both techniques are a good way to keep the market thinking that our Treasuries continue to sell in an open market at an open price.

Transparency ? Baloney!

Are Coal Stocks Heating Up?

Lot of coal for export piling up in Baltimore when I drove through today. More than I have ever seen before all north of the tunnel. I wonder who is buying? How much in Newport News or Southern Virginian seaports.

Public Passion Drives Pay Czar to Arbitrarily Slash 175 Top Salaries

The bigger scam ?

Lets look for low interest loans in lieu of pay and bonuses which will be forgiven when the heat is off. This defers taxes on the cash until tghe loans are forgiven down the track.

As I REMEMBER GS GAVE THESE LOANS ABOUT A YEAR BACK TO CARRY OVER THEIR BONUS FREE EXECUTIVES. I WONDER IF THEY HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN?