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White House press secretary Gibbs on Cramer's appearance on The Daily Show: "I enjoyed it thoroughly... and I am not surprised that the video of Mr. Cramer's appearance doesn't appear on CNBC's web site today."

Cramer has been extremely critical of Obama over the past couple of months, including referring to him as a neo-Marxist, a Lenninist and a Bolshevik.

He's also called the Democratic administration the Politburo, and referred to Pelosi as the General Secretary of the Communist Party.

He also made the comment "Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace -- Obama got elected.

No wonder the White House is hostile.

On Mar 14 09:12 PM Ad Orientem wrote:

> I find it odd that the White House is so hostile to Cramer. He did
> everything but wear an Obama campaign button most of last year.
> He was one of the most vocal critics of the Bush Administration on
> CNBC.

Rick Santelli: 21st-century Samuel Adams - or astroturfer?

That would a big change in the Republican party. Since 1980 or so they have been the big government high debt low tax party. That sort of dishonesty is why I abandoned them.

> Hopefully, we will get a small-government low-tax Republican party
> in 2010.

Barron's Takes Down Cramer, Again

Exactly how many people actually beat a passively managed low fee market index ETF anyway? I mean Cramer is entertaining (loved him in Iron Man) but investment advise? Pshaw.

Economy Watch: What if Stocks Were Priced in Gold?

All of this presumes a high inflation rate. Japan had an asset bubble far worse than this in the '80s, and managed to avoid inflation.

Nationalizing Bank Losses

Don't be particularly quick to blame taxpayers except in the sense they elected incompetents..

Most of the mortgages that are in default should have never been offered. Anything that was subprime was subprime because the tried and true criteria could not be met. People were lied to in huge numbers to move these mortgages. Adjusters caved to bank pressure to upscale home values beyond reason. And then there was that disaster in 2004 where the SEC allowed investment banks to double their leverage, which created a big cash infusion into MBS's generating a big market for these subprimes. Right there is the reason subprimes went through the roof in 2004-6. And of course the ratings companies - roll up a bunch of subprimes and voi la you have AAA. Yeesshhh.

The big causes for this were greed on the part of some (not all) banks, and totally stupid regulatory policies.

On Jan 31 08:18 PM TPoise wrote:

> This is probably going to offend many people, but I will go ahead
> and say it since not many are willing to stay it:
>
> You can blame the banks all day, but the people who lied on their
> mortgage applications, speculated, or stopped paying the mortgage
> are mostly also tax payers. I agree it is unfair that the majority
> of Americans are responsible, but the problems of a few are causing
> the assets to become 'toxic' and default. So don't put all the blame
> on "greedy Wall Street", that's an easy cop-out. Someone needs to
> blame the greedy "investor" who used their house as an investment
> vehicle.

We May See Mortgage Rates Fall to 3.5%

The total number of houses is not the issue. The problem is that the price of houses went through a bubble and is still coming down. A lot of people were priced out because of the bubble. Yes 3.5% helps a lot IF you are a new, qualified buyer or are above water and are looking to refi. But if you are a new buyer you have got to be thinking this is not the bottom yet so hold on for a while yet.

But if you are below water 3.5% doesn't help you refinance. To refi you need to come up with 20% equity. THIS is the biggest problem. Underwater owners.

On Jan 13 05:41 PM Socialism cannot compete! wrote:

> Meaningless. What people have got to realize is that there are simply
> TOO MANY houses on the market. We got to a point where people were
> flipping houses, owning investment properties, etc. -- who shouldn't
> have been doing so. They aren't going to reenter that situation.
> Or at least most won't...until prices drop much, much more significantly.
> People have lost too much money and can't afford those nth homes.
> One is now enough. Lowering of rates makes affordability of the
> first mortgage better for the subset that was struggling with that,
> but far too many of these homes were 2nd or 3rd homes...and simply
> aren't going to be bought no matter the interest rate -- because
> no buyers EXIST.
>
> There's a big difference between a deal needing to become attractive
> enough to lure out existing would-be buyers...and needing a buyer
> to exist in the first place. Many of those who do not own homes
> in the U.S. either do not want to, or simply cannot afford to, no
> matter the interest rate!!
>
> I'm predicting an average drop of 30% in home pricing yet to come,
> in the next 2 years.

Quantitative Wheezing: The Difficult Search for Yield

Yawn.

Next week the Eurozone banks will drop their rates and the dollar will regain its losses.

Barclays Recommends Caution, Nasty Surprises Ahead

Gold is useless too. You can't eat it and it is too expensive to shoot. Food and ammo baby!

And don't forget seeds! Seeds are the new gold.

OPEC Pledge: Another Production Cut

China has been keeping demand artificially high by filling their strategic reserve.

Just How Sensitive Is the Economy to the Auto Industry?

OK, so who says these auto workers have to work for GM etc.?

Morgan Stanley: Exploding the Short-Seller Myth

There are a number of problems with the existing shorting structure -

Naked shorts can result in short positions that exceed the number of outstanding number of shares of the equity. There is no long equivalent to balance this, meaning that shorts have power to drive a stock down that is not balanced on the long side.

The disclosure requirements are different for shorting.

Regulators are behind the curve in their ability to enforce rules covering shorting.

Shorting can destroy a company; drive it into BK. Excessive long positions do not carry the death penalty.

And the big one, the real reason that shorts of financials are currently banned is that these companies are inter-connected. Company GS financially sound, but is connect to MS. MS is OK too, but is connected to L. L runs into some hubris, needs to raise capital but the shorties get there first. L goes into BK. This makes MS vulnerable, so the shorties take MS down. Now all that is left is GS. Investors are panicked and look to dump. GS is weakened by its relationships to other companies in the same industry. Shorties having nothing else to do feed on the panic.

At the end of the day GS goes under. MM funds are destabilized and drop under par. Main Street panics and starts $4 trillion run on MM funds. The dollar crashes. Great Depression II.

This inter-connectivity does not exist in other industries. If GM goes under TM is not dragged down with it.

P/E Ratios and Inflation

If the equity premium model is based on 1/(interest rate) instead of inflation the calculation would predict that the S&P 500 is undervalued by a factor of two.

Now I don't necessarily believe that, but I do think that basing this calculation on inflation rate rather than interest rate is likely to be wrong when the two are different by a factor of two or so like they are now. Equities are valued relative to interest bearing vehicles, after all.

So it looks to me that it would be more correct to state that the S&P 500 looks undervalued relative to cash.