TomF75

The Deflation Scam

ATW you are a complete Jackoff!! My wife happens to be a 3rd grade teacher, and as much as I razz her about summers off/vacations etc....give me a break with all the Bureacratic B.S. she has to deal with from the principals, school board, NEA, and the Every Child Left Behind Act she is well worth the money ($46K). Plus moron..teachers write their OWN lesson plans they are not, given some massive book that tells them what they should be doing every waking minute of the day. Not too mention grading papers and creating lessons to keep today's ADD generations attention span for more than 5 secs she works at home almost every night.

If you think teachers are underpaid good luck finding someone to teach your mongrel, rat-ba$tard children for less than that, b/c I wouldn't do my wife's job for $75k, let alone what she gets paid.


On Dec 20 08:06 AM ATWshop wrote:

> Gold...bah, humbug. This is the same insanity that the uninformed
> run to every time things get tough. There is No logical reason for
> gold to increase in value as it is Not tied to anything aside from
> trinkets. Only the uninformed buying it make the price rise. You
> want a real inflation or deflation hedge?... buy "canned soup" if
> you really think the world is near an end. Then you will have something
> to barter with when times get as bad as gold worshipers think they
> will. People can't eat gold!
> There are so many areas that we waste money - even on a local level.
> In my area, the 3rd Grade teacher earns $64,000 per year plus benefits.
> Now, be realistic here... how smart do you really have to be to follow
> a lesson plan and teach a 3rd grader? Maybe when the Fed is done
> downgrading the wages and unfair contractual conditions of the UAW
> they should take on the Teacher's Union and rid it of some of the
> obscene wages and work rules. Isn't the Teacher's Union clause regarding
> "Tenure" akin to the UAW's rules on "Job Banks"? We should be able
> to save Billion$ with just this one area.
> Don't even get me started on the local governments waste of money
> with Book Mobiles, city parks, etc.

Great Depression Not Imminent, But Inevitable

Rants about the impending end of the world by aarc and other on SA make me confident the bottom is in sight. Even if the USA is going to hell in a hand basket, there are plenty of lucrative places to invest during the Chinese-Indian-Brazili... Century

Is Cheap Oil Compatible with Growth?

I agree Fitzman, here are some stats that both disturb me & boggle my mind:

Canada 24.98 bbl per capita/year
USA 24.82 bbl per capita/year
Korea 16.12 bbl per capita/year
Australia 15.31 bbl per capita/year
Japan 15.30 bbl per capita/year
Germany 11.63 bbl per capita/year
Britain 10.86 bbl per capita/year

I just cannot fathom how the US & Canadian economies can be so vastly innefficient that they consume nearly DOUBLE per capita the oil the rest of the industrialized world does (including the Australians who love big fast cars as much as we do). Granted these stats are based on 2005 consumption, and hopefully the gap has closed somewhat, but something tells me it is probably bigger!

Is the Second Great Depression Imminent?

I have to agree Chris B, when did the religious looneys begin fostering this Judeo-Christian heritage BS on us. Our libertys are based more on English/Dutch traditions of personal freedom than ANYTHING. Last time I looked:

Israel didn't exist as a country until 1948
Germany & Italy were dictatorships until 1945
France was in & out of dictatorships until 1870
Spain was a Fascist state until 1975
Russia is STILL a dictatorship

I also love the term "Judeo-Christian" that was all of a sudden inveneted by these nudnicks when after 200 years of burning crosses and books someone finally reveled to them Jesus was in fact a Jew.


On Dec 16 10:58 AM Chris B wrote:

>

Cramer's Stop Trading! Goldman Has Nothing Better to Do (12/15/08)

Gotta admit it takes alot of Cajones for any one of these losers (GS, MS, WB, MER et. al.) to downgrade anyone!!! I love it best when they downgrade each other...thats beyond hilarious (or sad) depending on your perspective. Ultimate case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Are Index Funds the Only Rational Choice?

BobHank,

I think the biggest problem w/O'Shaugnessy's Funds were the timing. Fundamentals & Quantatative analysis didn't matter in the late 90's! When I first got into the investing game (1997) I tried to utilize these methods, got P.O.'d that the NASDAQ kept making everybody rich. So wanting my fair share I threw in the towel and joined the madness just in time (Feb 2000) to lose 40% of my portfolio (which thankfully was pretty small, but the loss still stung).

I'd love to see a study or something showing on how a portfolio using his method picked in 1995 would've held up. I'd not be surprised to find that the 1995-2008 returns probably would've been comprable to the S&P, DJIA, QQQQ with a lower Beta over the period.

Remeber when you buy SPY for every DELL, MSFT, and other star performer you also get stuck with overleveraged stinking corpses like AIG, F, GM, Enron, and WorldCom.


On Dec 15 01:11 PM BobHank wrote:

> One of the best sources on backtesting stocks is O'Shaugnessy's "What
> Works on Wall Street". He wrote this in 1995. He analyzed and came
> up with different portfolios, that he then went on to backtest. He
> came up with 5 different portfolios that were built on a risk tolerance.
>
> He started a fund company and offered these funds.
>
> His funds massively underperformed, even before 2000. He closed the
> funds.
>
> His analysis is superb in the book. To this day, i don't have a rational
> explanation for why it failed Others will use their 20/20 hindsight
> to tell me why O'Shaughnessy's analysis and portfolios didn't work.
> But his approach is the same presented by Mr. Considine.
> The book is well worth your time.

The Fall of Index Funds

"So, actively managed funds should produce the high returns of the 90’s? No, but actively managed funds should hold up better in a slower growth environment that requires flexibility...They also typically lose less than index funds during bear markets and thrive during moderate growth periods."....


Would these be the same actively managed funds that are down 40% just like the indexes they mimic? Plus charge a 1.44% (or higher) Plus charge a sales load.

Thanks, but I'll stick to picking my own stocks, and using SPY or similar ETF's when I don't feel comfrotable picking them on my own (e.g. small-caps, Emerging Markets, Commodities)

Consensus Crude Oil Estimates

Weren't these the same "experts" who were guaranteeing us $200 oil by the end of the year. I believe these people know what they're talking about as much as I believed them when we were told over and over the "sub-prime crisis is contained" and we're going thru a "soft patch".

U.S. Debt Is Staggering, But Not Unprecedented

Kudos Optionsgirl, I 100% agree. I made a comment similar to this on a previous post related in topic. In the 1940's marginal tax rates were much higher (topping out around 80%) but the average worker was paying much less (probably mid to high single digits) so the Feds were able to tax down the debt. Today top marginal rates might be lower, but b/c rates are flatter most people are paying closer to the max then they were in the 1940's. That's not even including the local income & property taxes ($7400 on a $350K house, thanks NJ). Face folks Uncle Sam & his local cousins are teetering dangerously on the brink of BK, and only massive printing pressess (e.g. Germany 1920's) or massive cuts to our social welfare progams (sayonara Soc Sec, Welfare etc.) are going to be the only answer if we don't change course sooner rather than later.

Friday Market Preview: Was Dow 8,000 the Bottom?

CLH,

I'm afraid the problem with that is marginal tax rates were WWAAAYYY lower in the 1940's. When the average Federal Tax rate is 3% (granted I think the top rate was 80% or so) its easy to double even triple the tax rate to grow revenue. When the top tax rate is 35% not much room for growth w/o the rate becoming punitive. I just saw some left-wing German wants to raise the top rate to 80% on incomes over $750k, its a bit much in my mind.

On Nov 14 05:51 AM CLH wrote:

> Where did the money come from in the 1940s war? Our debt was 5 times
> larger then today (%of GDP). We soon paid it off with no inflation.
> This is what ended the depression. Spend--spend spend.

Currency ETFs: Consider the Commissions

Thanks for the info. I'm looking at various ways to diversify my cash out of the American Peso, and didn't think one could open a FOREX account w/o the desire to trade the currency on a regular basis.