Old Rick

Expecting a Sell-Off: 35 Ways to Protect for Less

Wouldn't the simplest strategy be to purchase slightly in the money puts on SPY or QQQ or (if you feel real lucky) QLD puts for say October09? It eliminates a lot of commissions and note that individual stocks can still go up even if "The Market" declines.

10 Notes on the Current Markets

Sorry to keep posting, but as part of watching the mises link to youtube, I watched the "Peter Schiff was right" video. (www.youtube.com/watch?...). In the course of watching, I saw that Arthur Laffer and Ben Stein (not that they mattered) were also incredibly wrong. Peter Schiff sounded in 06-07 as if he were reading the front page of the WSJ for the last year.

10 Notes on the Current Markets

Further point on #8 and on whoisjohngalt discussion on clunkers: What is happening is the cannibalization of the auto market for the next year or so coupled with the utter waste of the destruction of mostly good and functional cars thereby raising prices in the used market. There was an article on SA about 4-5 days ago concerning the marginal sales increase over what could be the "normal" sales level and attributing the $1B of subsidy to only the marginal increase thus the cost of the program was something like $45K per marginal sale.

10 Notes on the Current Markets

re: #6 Paul Volker?? Not a chance as he is a) too old and b) more importantly to BHO & Co. he is not a lapdog like Ben and Larry and Timmy and ........

5 Perverse Bailout Consequences

I hope your "-14" rating tells you something about your understanding of the bank "rescues". Back to school drbob!!


On Apr 14 07:50 PM drbob66 wrote:

> This sounds like a nonsensical rant to me.

The New Compensation Bill: What Would the Founding Fathers Say?

Ahh, yes. Turn compensation decisions over to Wesley Mouch.

Executive Compensation: Don't Whine, You'll Still Be Rich

Not only CEOs, but well connected "consultants" like Bob Rubin, now a part of the Obama economic team. Rubin used his political connections to rake in over $100M from Citi in the last 8 years. in 1999, he and Alan Greenspan convinced congress that the CFTC should not be empowered to regulate derivatives. I believe he took in $17M from Citi in the last year while Citi was sinking fast. Good work Bob!!! "Change we can believe in"

What to Buy and Why: Barron's 2009 Roundtable, Part II

Last years picks were in Barron's online last week. Pretty dismal showing except for Fred Hickey with a couple good shorts.


On Jan 20 09:00 AM dawase wrote:


> 2. they decided not to revisit last years picks and assess performance.
>
>
> Not the standard I've come to expect from Barron's.

The Right Kind of Bailout

Good article Felix. The automaker bailouts are not for the automakers but for the UAW. Note that Ford has a large payment to the UAW coming up for its pension and healthcare "obligations". If Ford gets TARP $$$, guess where it goes. I agree that a pre-packaged government supported bankruptcy accompanied by UAW wage mitigation and work rule relaxation is the way to go, but with an incoming labor union supported Democratic administration, this is unlikely. Note that the biggest noise-makers for a Detroit bailout are Pelosi and Reid.

I would sure like to see an accounting for the $$$ spent so far on Wall Street and would especially like to see Paulson's rationale for forcing banks that did NOT want a bailout (WFC for one) to take a piece of the action.