byrnemm

Why Did Bernanke Say What He Said?

Like AIG, America is too big and too interconnected to fail... for now. Patterns such as China's new treasury bill shift foreshadow that this wont always be the case. As we treat our wounded economy with gauze for band aids, will there be enough gauze left when we finally realize we need to surgery?

The Treasury is spending astronomical sums trying to avoid sending the economy into a flat spin, but they were not the ones who placed us on our shaky pedestal of debt. It was Congress who acted to satisfy the want of entitlements their consitutancy demanded. Now we realize the hole they dug to satisfy their voters came from right underneath our feet.

The Founding Fathers must be given credit for creating a government that truly is a reflection of its people; individuals cannot control their spending and neither can the government. Sure, debt is necessarily a bad thing. Mortgages are good debt (usually). Credit cards aren't (usually). The government has used debt for good purpose before, but the effect of financing has been experience diminishing returns on the GDP since the 50s, and those dimishing returns are getting much worse.

I've heard many people talk about the Chinese having funded the War on Terror. Perhaps this is true, and if so it's probably one of the better uses of debt we've seen in the last few decades. When people leverage themselves to buy flat screen TVs it is an indicator of culture, and we have developed a culture of poor use of leverage. Unlike China, where the very few in power make the decisions (like long term, low risk investment), our political system demanded the vast system of entitlements it created. Just like an individual leverages to afford flat screens we dont need, the government leverages to keep failing companies afloat. Rather than saving money or buying a smaller, older TV; rather than letting a fundamentally flawed company fail and letting smaller company take its place with a new business model. Yet we criticize a lack of innovation while we bail out those least likely to change.

If every old man has learned one lesson in his life, it is this: life goes on. From the grade school humiliation we thought we could never live through, from the financial woes we thought we could never dig ourselves out of, to the despairs from which we doubted our ability to recover, life goes on. "Tomorrow is another day," "Time heals all wounds," are the lessons we took from our experiences. Right now, no one wants to listen to suggestions to let these institutions and entitlements be razed to the ground. The prospect of going through the painful task of rebuilding our economy and job market is just as daunting as it was to face our parents with that bad report card we got in 3rd grade. But if we really want to heal the economic woes of the country we've got to start using our gauze for surgery and not just bandaids.

What Are Some of the Best Hedge Fund Managers Doing?

"Simons" has one m

A Buy & Hold Forever Dividend Stock Portfolio

backtesting please.

Apple Could Crush Competitors With a $99 iPhone

xwallster has it pegged.

"total cost of ownership" is what is keeping the next tier of consumers (i.e. me) away from an iphone purchase.

"If you REALLY want iPhone sales to explode, get multiple carriers in a market to offer it and have them drop the cost of their service. "
Probably won't happen, but YES.

Video Game Stocks: Beyond the Economic Slowdown

IMO:

Great pick
ATVI - WotLK comes out in 3 weeks, CoD was/is awesome.

Good picl
TTWO - GTA IV shows they have the ability to create quality games

Not so good picks
THQI - unless they have something good up their sleeve
ERTS - thank god they have Rockband

It's not public, but Bethesda Studio Games is gonna be a winner of the video game world after Fallout 3 is released.

Earnings Preview: The New York Times Company

"Revenues have fallen for major newspaper and media companies recently as readers move to the Internet."

Living in Tennessee I have never subscribed to the NYT newspaper, but as of lately I have been a reading the NYT website like a fanatic.

With the election and the economic crisis I think that there have been many like me, searching for the most informed, best reporting up-to-the-minute news and have found the NYT to have the best coverage of the political and economic spheres.

Is there any anticipation of a jump in online traffic, and if so, how does increased web traffic revenue compare to the drop in advertising revenue?

Why Short Sellers Are the Heroes of Wall Street

China's main Index is down, what? 66%? And they just now started allowing short selling. Why? Because short-selling is creates natural correction of the market by mitigatigating the over-inflation of value in an equity, usually caused by emotion reasons and not prudent ones.

i.e. - Google releases a solid earnings report and becoems such a popular company that everyone wants a piece and everyone starts buying, even to the point where its value is above where it should be. Short sellers are the intelligent people that are able to see this discrepancy and capitalize off it. I say intelligent because if they screw up and the stock goes way up the losses are limited only by margin calls.

everyone agrees naked short selling is bad. it violates nearly all economic principles. get over it - there is a difference.

Sub-$300 Laptops: Where the Action Will Be

Nice. Sounds like consumers are finally realizing that it doesnt take a $1K notebook to use internet explorer, microsoft word, itunes, AIM, and illegally downloaded episodes of the office.

China's Shrewd Long-Term Oil Plan: What America Can Learn

"well, they paid the war with USTB, so they deserve the rewards "

There is an unfortunate amount of truth in that comment, phdinsuntanning.

Can we go ahead and start building our alternative energy infrastructure so when we start running low on oil we will not be involved and we can sit back while China and the Middle East blow each other to hell?

Warnings from the Shops and Shippers

Trader Mark -- Do you think Volkswagen warrants an article? Drastic increase in price in the last month with little explanation, possible deal with Porsche, and its relationship with hedge fund momentum plays -- is this a short opportunity?

'High Volatility', 'Systemic Risk', 'Inconsistent Alpha': The New Vocabulary Of Long-Only Investing

please seperate your rant into paragraphs if you expect anyone to read it...

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

i do all my apocalyptic economic prophesizing at the gym too.

something about sweat and yoga pants really gets me going on the spider-over-flame Jonathan Edwards imagery.

Nation's Debt: It's Not Being Rescued, It's Being Moved Around

thanks to wally and ChrisB for actually proposing ideas - you cant find a solution if you dont start off with an idea.

American society today does not tolerate imperfection. Whether its lackluster short term results in the executive financial world, an 18 year old not doing well on his SATs and being looked down upon (not everyone who changes the world in great ways goes to a top 50 college... there are many paths to the goal!), or a Presidential candidate proposing an economic platform that may not help America in the next 4 years but will eventually lead our economy to a normal, sustainable level. We have come to see non-perfect results as failures.

Many people out there think that the American economy is not "where it should be" in the marketplace. We don't think that it's worth it to try to artificially engineering our economy back to to its supposed pinnacle - worth it in terms of the debt that our children will be assuming, in terms of the short term high's grounded on nothing but air.

To me, $700 billion for a bank bailout sounds like an effort by the government, on behalf of the people, to reestablish Amerca's former role in the world-wide economy. But the people are worried that this is another artificial inflation of our economy's value to cover up for the losses caused by what we now know was an artificial inflation of value in the market.

I love this country but I dont want to be back on top if that means we are going to fall even harder the next time around. Like a lot of Americans out there I want the corporations that made bad choices to pay for those choices and we can wait it out till the results correct themselves. In the meantime all I ask of my government is that they protect those who cannot protect themselves, specifically people who will need to live off their investmetns within the next 5-8 years (retirees and those close to retirement).

Opinions?

A Giveaway Oil Market

I need ultra-laymens terms to figure this one out. What is the author trying to say?

Consumers and the Economy Are Down and Out

I cant say I completely understand the level of shock this news brings.

You simply cannot expect people to spend and save at the same time.

Let me repeat: You cannot spend and save at the same time.

Obvious right? One takes away from the other? Well for almost a decade now middle America has been bombarded with marketing - not just from retailers but from its own government and the economic elite -telling us that spending our money is good for America. Now it turns out that saving our money would have been better for us and better for America. Compounded interest in a Roth IRA or a home that we have to stretch to afford? Save money for a downpayment or go on a family vacation? Buy a used car or lease a new one? Buy the amazing commodity with the credit card or buy the decent commodity with the debit? These are the kinds of decisions that middle America has faced in the last decade.

The worst part of it all is that middle America is NOT taught personal finance in highschool, we do NOT hold MBAs, and we do NOT maintain an overview of the macroeconomic health of our nation - yet were told by those that DO have MBAs and PhDs and hold the highest positions in the economic world, those who have the responsibility to oversee our economic health - that our spending would bolster the economy and strengthen the nation. GOOD CALL. The American consumer has lost a great deal of purchasing power and has found themselves in a position where he or she is beyond their means and must now retreat to the piggy bank.

Sorry for any anger. I am not trying to put off the blame from the American consumer, BUT those in positions of trust regarding the economic health of the country emphasized the need of the American consumer to spend his money, so how can we be surprised to find out that they did?