Hopefull

Increasing Taxes in the U.S.: Accepting the Inevitable

I believe we have to insure our personal and financial survival by facing up to drastically cutting programs to people in need, social security, medicare, medicaid, aid to schools, aid to states, subsidies to renewable energy, unemployment aid, block grants to states, flood insurance, earmarks, the list is endless. Only those who give up the fight want to raise taxes. I believe sensible want to survive, not surrender to ever more powerful and corrupting government.

The Free Market Votes: Still No Change We Can Believe In

What messed things up is the policy change at Fannie and Freddie which allowed them to buy or insure subprime mortgages. That lit the fire.Then Greenspan's low inrterest rates threw gas on the fire.


On Mar 05 04:45 PM akapital wrote:

> Wait, so we need more de-regulation so we can give Wall St. carte
> blanche and yet another chance to screw things up?
>
> Wasn't it deregulation that screwed things up so badly in the first
> place? I'm sure you don't think so...
>
> You don't offer a viable alternative solution...more of the same.

Why Is Consumer Staples Underperforming?

Not many bought consumer staples when told they were safe because they were also going down with the market. What caused the recent slide is a combination of trade down and the US dollat strengthing which cause international sales to translate into fewer dollars. The trade down is under close watch by the food consumer staples for instance the price of Planters peanuts was adjusted to lower the price spread. In every recession some people turn more to private label, but when beter times return people go back to the brands because they work better or in the case of food taste better.Compare the taste of Fritos or Planters to any other comparable product,the brands are better. As to currency as long as your foreign sales in local currency don't fall signifigantly you are in good shape as the currency alignment changes all the time. How long before the dollar depreciates because we are printing too many? The key is to buy the consumer staples at a discount to long term value.

A.F.L.-C.I.O, a lobby powerhouse that represents 10M workers, will call today on Pres. Obama to speed nationalization of U.S. banks. "We believe the debate over nationalization is delaying the inevitable bank restructuring, which is something our economy cannot afford."

Rather than nationalize the banks reverse the national law that supports unions, the Wagner Act. These hacks figure if the banks are nationalized they can drive them permanently into the ground by unionizing them.

Cummins Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

Really comes through that they are going all out to preserve a positive cash flow and they are not suffering from any allusions about the economy.

Four Stocks Whose Nationalization Won’t Affect Stock Indexes Too Much

Instead of the banks' stock being subject to who are we going to short today, all banks will be subject to who are we going to nationalize today. Under government control won't government figure why not eventually take over all banks so the good can offset the bad and how much simpler for them to mismanage.

Proceeding with Nationalization: Where to Begin

No.What is needed is a valuation of CITI assets on a discounted cash flow hold to maturity value.This will determine the real value of C.Nationalization is just a way to have an unthinking sale of the mortgage backed securities at firesale prices.The government wouldn't care what price they sold them off for as they are dealing with our money and they would get political credit for cleaning up the banks. Why should the shareholders of C put up with this? It is the buyers of these assets probably with purchase financing from the government that will make out like bandits.

Time Not for a Bailout, But for Nationalization

The main thing here is to have a intelligent reliable group under the auspices of the Federal Reserve value these mortgages using discounted cash flow and updating these values weekly. After these values are established then let us see what the landscape looks like. After all, JPMorgan Chase valued the WAMU mortgages,etc.

Home Prices Have Stopped Falling: The Statistics Are Skewed

The contractor is saying all the decrease in price is forclosures as a decent house is selling at last years price or better. For instance 3 houses sell at last years price of 100 and 7 sell at last years price less 40%, or 60. The 30% comes from multiplying 3 times 100 and adding the product of 7 times 60, dividing the total by 10 which leaves 70, which is 30% less than last years price of 100.