U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
Kevin, I beg to differ with your perspective that you get nothing in return. If you have started your own business in this country and have been successful there are many benefits to being in the U.S. that you apparently take for granted that are not free to administer and maintain. Knowing how much it money it takes to run your company, imagine how much money that it takes to run a Federal Government of a country as large and populous as the U.S. You apparently take for granted when you or a family member needs to be treated for a chronic illness how those advanced therapies most likely came about. When you go out to a restaurant and eat and drink with little thought about what bacteria or disease you might be ingesting, those systems and inspectors cost a lot of money. When you talk on your cell phone or watch television or enjoy the convenience of knowing what tommorow's weather will be, you apparently think that all of those satellites were put in orbit with a slingshot and the systems that were built to manage the satellites was an off the shelve software package. If you have done well in your business congratulations and thank you for taking risk and creating a business, but you should be thankful that you were born in a country with a system of government and laws that made that possible.
Sirius: Karmazin Killing This Stock [View article]
This article is a pure opinion piece and the author's opinions serve no useful purpose on SA. Inaccuracies and half truths form the foundation of the author's opinions. It is one thing to have the opinion that you dislike a particular corporate CEO, but it is disingenuous to attempt to support that opinion with "facts" that bear very little resemblence to the truth.
Most investors these days cannot think about investing in any other way than a directional time sensitive bet. Buying a call instead of the stock because you get to leverage your investment dollar, involves picking a relatively short-term direction and puts a definitive time line on that bet. That is speculative, not investing. Shorting the Chinese market is simply speculative unless you are an expert on the Chinese economy and policy makers and have information from the source, instead of what is fed to the markets by the Chinese goverment.
It just seems that speculative investing among a large segment of the population has become the norm. I guess that it should not be surprising since most investors do not mentor under experienced investors, but instead learn how to invest by watching Fast Money or Mad Money on CNBC.
Did Bernanke Pull a Fast One Last Night? [View article]
I am going to take the other side of this debate and ignore the fact that most people who are angry at the Fed or Bernanke for many different reasons at the end of the day have no real understanding of how monetary policy works, how the banking system operates or truly what causes inflation.
Bernanke knows that inflation in which they have control over comes down to money supply. Bernanke also knows that money supply is not increased by the Fed, but instead by the banking system creating credit. Bernanke also knows that money supply has not increased in the post crisis period because credit has contracted. Therefore, core inflation has remained undesirably low. By pumping more reserves into the banking system with QE2 at a time when bank lending is finally starting loosen up ever so slightly the Fed hopes to accelerate credit creation and thus stimulate economic growth, job creation and inflation. Bernanke also knows that he has a previously unavailable tool to use to regulate credit creation and that is the ability to pay interest on bank reserves. Should credit creation begin to produce undesirable inflation effects the Fed can increase what they pay banks on reserves which would quickly curtail credit creation. This ability only became available to the Fed as of the Spring of 2009. So the Fed now can curtail an expansion of the money supply without having to use the blunt instrument of raising the Fed Funds Rate.or Discount Rate which can choke off economic growth all together.
The bottom line is that the American Public needs to get better educated on the workings of monetary policy and the banking system before painting the Fed with a broad brush of ignorant and uninformed "opinions".
Emerson Electric CEO: Washington Is Destroying U.S. Manufacturing [View article]
Mr. Farr's comments are a smoke screen to deflect the realities inherent in their industry segment. The fact is that many manufacturing businesses are finding that it makes sense to move the labor component of their costs to lower skilled and lower cost locations outside of the U.S. The reality is that your product must be condusive to being made by less educated and lower skilled workers. That is what happened to the textile industry in this country 40-50 years ago, the toy making industry and virtually every other low value added industry. As long as our country continues to become more highly educated and more prosperous this trend will continue. It has been occuring in less complex electrical components and it should not be surprising that this trend is making its way into Emerson Electric.
It is shameless for a CEO to blame the government for a normal capitalistic trend which has been occurring for almost 100 years in one fashion or another.
Market: Spooked Today, But Panic Attack Is Likely Temporary [View article]
I am frankly very glad that the sentiment on these boards and many others is so negative. This snap back bull market that we have had since March will not end with so many people scared or willing to be scared whenever the market goes through a profit taking period such as we are experiencing recently. I am really not sure what it is that people want at this point in the recovery coming off such a significant downturn. I certainly do not expect robust top line growth and I certainly would expect a significant portion of positive economic activity to have been "stimulated" by the stimulus.
Marc Chandler's Compelling Perspective in 'Making Sense of the Dollar' [View article]
Carneades is onto something and I am glad that he wrote this piece and recommended the book. I manage money for individuals and institutions alike and I continue to be shocked at the stupendous level of pessimism and ignorance of how our economy actually works. People are usually in total disbelief when I tell them how much the U.S. manufactures each year relative to the rest of our trading partners. Our manufacturing sector has evolved over the last 4 decades for the better not worse. However, if someone looks at the label on their shirt or where their child's toy is made and sees a foreign country, they automatically assume that we don't make anything any more.
I am a firm believer that we will not only maintain our manafacturing dominance going forward, but that this dominance will grow even greater as we produce more and more to both enable the developing countries of the world to bring their ballooning middle class the transportation, food and luxuries that we enjoy, as well as putting Apple, Nike, McDonalds, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger product in the hands and on the backs of all of these young "western wannabe" consumers.
On Aug 22 02:15 PM Carneades wrote:
> 1)The United States manufacturing sector is larger than the entire > Chinese economy. > 2)The United States is the largest exporter of goods and services > in the world. > 3)I'm not sure why some of you continue to confirm my point about > iPods. There is an undue amount of focus devoted to where a product > is actually being produced. A company from Cupertino, California > designed that iPod, and profits each time one is sold. Technology > will continue to advance, possibly at an exponential rate, which > will inevitably reduce the number of humans employed in the manufacturing > of that iPod. Eventually, a single person might be able to oversee > an entire iPod manufacturing facility. This trend is extremely obvious; > do we really want to decry our relative lack of dependence on manufacturing > and exports? > > On Aug 22 01:35 PM Suncatcher wrote:
Tesla: Mr. Musk's Wild Ride At Your Expense [View article]
Elon Musk on Friday during his CNBC interview stated that Tesla would have been successful without government support and incentives, however it would have taken much longer. He reminded his interviewers that speeding up the development and adoption of new technologies is exactly what government support of these technologies is designed to do.
House Republicans - including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor - are reportedly overwhelmingly opposed to the fiscal cliff deal approved by the Senate. The House appears poised to amend the deal and send it back to the Senate, setting up a legislative high-wire act. [View news story]
Cantor was instrumental in Boehner's Plan B plan getting defeated.
House Republicans won't bring their "Plan B" tax-cut proposal to a vote tonight, as Speaker John Boehner says he doesn't have the votes; the House will recess until after Christmas. DJIA futures slip 0.2%. Boehner: "Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff." Updated: S&P 500 e-Mini futures dive, limit down. [View news story]
David,
This process started back during the debt ceiling debacle when to get a deal done the President agreed to $1 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years. The $1 trillion, plus his proposed cuts this time around does indeed constitute a ratio of cuts and revenues very close to what the President has been calling for. For some reason Republicans have been pretending that those previous cuts never happened and they think that this negotiation is brand new and not related to the previous deal that was all cuts and no revenues.
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
jtom, you have hit on a huge challenge with any bureaucratic program is very suseptable to fraud and abuse. One of the most abused programs is Medicare, but it is not the "lazy" "dependent" people who abuse this program to the tune of billions of dollars, it is the physicians and hospitals, so this billion dollar problem is not talked about like you talk about welfare fraud and abuse. Why is that?
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
Yes, drinking a driving is illegal, government can impact the prevalence of such behavior. We can and do enforce minimum drinking ages which generally start 5 years after being able to drive and 3 years after being able to vote. Government spends money on PR campaigns to stigmatize drinking and driving in society. Technology will probably be perfected that will not allow a car to be started if one's breath indicates too high of a blood alchohol level. This technology might someday be required like airbags are today. Government can and does play an intregral role in discouraging and preventing distructive behavior. Like it or not.
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
Tomas, I am an avid history buff. There are many things that we can learn from history, however many of those lesson are what not to do. Human history is littered with violence, senseless brutality and suffering. I like to think that we have evolved. Heck, only a couple of hundred years ago in this country we were burning mentally ill women because we thought that they were possessed or were practicing witchcraft. We were enslaving those peoples who we believed were less human than we were. Don't preach about the wisdom of our ancestors. Learn from the past, but don't do it selectively.
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
I don't agree, but tell me if your logic is that if someone acts stupid, drinks too much let's say and drinks and drive and kills a family of four, the government should not try to prevent that? If someone is obese because they are depressed, they are poor and because of that are forced to eat off the McDonald's $1 menu several times per week and then end up having a stroke, that we should just let them die because they maybe don't have health insurance? You might say yes, but I doubt whether you would actually make that decision if faced with the situation in real life. This poor obese person is someone's daughter and possibly someone's mother, you would simply say "your fat, you should have known better and your poor so you will not get care and must suffer and die. Is that the country that your "live free or die" mentality would have us live in?
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
Tomas, I agree with you about individual responsibility. However, it is unrealistic that 100% of a society embrace all of the responsibilities that go along with individual responsibility and that is where a governing body that represents society can play an important role. I believe the most recent healthcare debate is that exact situation. Those people who choose not the adequately insure themselves against healthcare costs which they would not reasonably be able to afford are not taking individual responsibility. This would be acceptable if it represented a very small percentage of the population. However, when the uninsured hits numbers like 40 or 50 million people in a society of 300 million, the impact of that lack of individual responsibility begins the threaten the quality of life of the majority of individuals who do choose to take individual responsibility. It is at this point that a representative government body must intervene to protect society.
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
Sirius: Karmazin Killing This Stock [View article]
A Scarcity Of Alpha [View article]
It just seems that speculative investing among a large segment of the population has become the norm. I guess that it should not be surprising since most investors do not mentor under experienced investors, but instead learn how to invest by watching Fast Money or Mad Money on CNBC.
Did Bernanke Pull a Fast One Last Night? [View article]
Bernanke knows that inflation in which they have control over comes down to money supply. Bernanke also knows that money supply is not increased by the Fed, but instead by the banking system creating credit. Bernanke also knows that money supply has not increased in the post crisis period because credit has contracted. Therefore, core inflation has remained undesirably low. By pumping more reserves into the banking system with QE2 at a time when bank lending is finally starting loosen up ever so slightly the Fed hopes to accelerate credit creation and thus stimulate economic growth, job creation and inflation. Bernanke also knows that he has a previously unavailable tool to use to regulate credit creation and that is the ability to pay interest on bank reserves. Should credit creation begin to produce undesirable inflation effects the Fed can increase what they pay banks on reserves which would quickly curtail credit creation. This ability only became available to the Fed as of the Spring of 2009. So the Fed now can curtail an expansion of the money supply without having to use the blunt instrument of raising the Fed Funds Rate.or Discount Rate which can choke off economic growth all together.
The bottom line is that the American Public needs to get better educated on the workings of monetary policy and the banking system before painting the Fed with a broad brush of ignorant and uninformed "opinions".
Emerson Electric CEO: Washington Is Destroying U.S. Manufacturing [View article]
It is shameless for a CEO to blame the government for a normal capitalistic trend which has been occurring for almost 100 years in one fashion or another.
Market: Spooked Today, But Panic Attack Is Likely Temporary [View article]
Marc Chandler's Compelling Perspective in 'Making Sense of the Dollar' [View article]
I am a firm believer that we will not only maintain our manafacturing dominance going forward, but that this dominance will grow even greater as we produce more and more to both enable the developing countries of the world to bring their ballooning middle class the transportation, food and luxuries that we enjoy, as well as putting Apple, Nike, McDonalds, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger product in the hands and on the backs of all of these young "western wannabe" consumers.
On Aug 22 02:15 PM Carneades wrote:
> 1)The United States manufacturing sector is larger than the entire
> Chinese economy.
> 2)The United States is the largest exporter of goods and services
> in the world.
> 3)I'm not sure why some of you continue to confirm my point about
> iPods. There is an undue amount of focus devoted to where a product
> is actually being produced. A company from Cupertino, California
> designed that iPod, and profits each time one is sold. Technology
> will continue to advance, possibly at an exponential rate, which
> will inevitably reduce the number of humans employed in the manufacturing
> of that iPod. Eventually, a single person might be able to oversee
> an entire iPod manufacturing facility. This trend is extremely obvious;
> do we really want to decry our relative lack of dependence on manufacturing
> and exports?
>
> On Aug 22 01:35 PM Suncatcher wrote:
Tesla: Mr. Musk's Wild Ride At Your Expense [View article]
House Republicans - including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor - are reportedly overwhelmingly opposed to the fiscal cliff deal approved by the Senate. The House appears poised to amend the deal and send it back to the Senate, setting up a legislative high-wire act. [View news story]
House Republicans won't bring their "Plan B" tax-cut proposal to a vote tonight, as Speaker John Boehner says he doesn't have the votes; the House will recess until after Christmas. DJIA futures slip 0.2%. Boehner: "Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff." Updated: S&P 500 e-Mini futures dive, limit down. [View news story]
This process started back during the debt ceiling debacle when to get a deal done the President agreed to $1 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years. The $1 trillion, plus his proposed cuts this time around does indeed constitute a ratio of cuts and revenues very close to what the President has been calling for. For some reason Republicans have been pretending that those previous cuts never happened and they think that this negotiation is brand new and not related to the previous deal that was all cuts and no revenues.
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]
U.S. Taxes: Who Makes And Who Pays - More Than The Rich Will Have To Pay More [View article]