richard_nogginn

'The Shallowest Generation': A Rebuttal

FOLKS WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE. This recession was not caused by any one generation or even two generations. It was caused by Republican zeal for deregulation. Had the Republican Party been paying attention to the difficulties Californians faced when the State deregulated the electrical industry, we wouldn't be in this mess. The Republican Congress and administration at the time quickly decided deregulating electricity was a bad idea, but they did not go the extra mile. They should have looked for other lightly regulated industries, bit the bullet and regulated them. This shows a tremendous lack of political will.

What caused the house of cards to collapse was high gas prices. As prices went up it forced other commodity prices up as well. Those prices in turn caused the folks with sub-prime loans to choose between feeding their families, or paying the mortgage. I don't blame them for choosing food.

Now we will watch the pendulum swing to far and all industries will get regulated too much. That will cause future heartaches and the deregulation cycle will start all over again.

The moral of the story we are living through is that a little regulation is a good thing and no oversight can bring the country to its knees.

'Great' Companies That Are, Literally, Good to Go

The book good to great was published in 2001. That was before the 2002 recession, and way before the current one. I'm sure he was spot on at the time. Of course hindsight is 20/20 so after looking back some could say there were hidden problems.

GM: Charging Forward with the Volt?

First of all we cannot loose GM. Detroit Diesel is within the GM family, and is the company currently rebuilding HumVees. From what I've been told by friends that work at DD most rebuilds are due to IEDs.

GM factories were put to work rolling out tanks in WWII, and Ford was rolling out the iconic Jeeps.

As a country we cannot allow the bastions of our manufacturing base to be lost. If we allow it and our country needs them again in time of war, we are pretty screwed.

Landsbanki Debt Settles at 1 Cent on the Dollar

I'm confused. What did Britain have to do with Iceland?

Personal Income and Spending: Saving is the New Trend (Again)

I don't know about anyone else, but I've always been a "saver". Here are the ways I save:

When I found out I had a $100/mo credit card payment, I doubled up on it till it was payed off, then I sent the credit card payment to a savings account. It takes some fortitude not to buy the flat screen LED TV, but when the washing machine broke we had money in savings for a new one.

I hate making car payment. So when I paid my first car off I kept making the payments to myself. I drove that car until the wheels fell off and paid cash for the next one! I have to find out what current payments are when I buy a car in order to make sure I have enough saved for the next one.

I recently paid my small farm off. Guess what? You got it, I'm paying mortgage payments to me. Credit card plus car payments plus mortgage payments now amount to $1200/mo savings. If I can do it anyone else can to. It just takes guts to do it in the first place.

Is the Government's Fannie/Freddie Conservatorship Failing?

I hope you are right about FNM becoming a profit machine again. Every month I'm adding 90-100 shares.

I'm afraid that Freddie will have to get government support next month, when they are forced to sell assets like Fannie was this month.

Corn and Its Industry: The Next Tobacco

Ya know hog feed is a mixture of cracked corn and cracked beans (soybeans for non-farm folks. Cattle are grass and hay fed, then go to the feedlot where they are fed alfalfa, beans, milo, and corn...depending on the lot's owner. Corn isn't the problem when it comes to eating store bought meat. Steroids and/or growth hormones administered to the animal are a problem, and you consume them daily.

I've heard a lot of things like this during my lifetime. First it was butter (which is better than margarine), then eggs (which also have omega 3). Ruining butter production was so that the margarine companies could sell their product. Ruining egg production was misguided, but at least the intent was good.

If you want an eye-opener, go check out the ag departments requirements for "organic" farming. The organic farmer is allowed to use roundup (or others) for weedkiller, and malthion D (or others) for bug killer.

Corporate America Is Inadvertently Helping Obama

Hoover was a bad president. It took 16 years for the republicans to regain the presidency and 20 years for them to regain control of congress. The GOP can expect to be in the minority for an extended time again, since Bush was a worse president than Hoover. The churches and the south that bolted from being conservative democrats really need to look at re-establishing the conservative wing of the democrat party, if they still want their voices heard.

Should I Buy Fannie or Freddie Stock Today?

I bought 1500 shares at $1.02. They way I see it, this stock has already been thrashed, and the treasury pointedly stated that they would not stop people from trading common stock. Both political parties do not want to see Fannie be nationalized, so to me it's as good as gold. I don't foresee it reaching $60/share, but it will reach $10/share...eventually...

Click here to see what mutual funds are doing with it, since they own 95% of common shares. See thebuylist.com/default...

The shortsellers are leaving it alone, because there isn't anything left to short. See www.shortsqueeze.com/?...

The stock isn't being shorted

Can the Banking System Handle Huge New Write-Downs?

A $400,000 house? Holy Cow that is $346,000 more than my small farm! In rural Kansas a home costing that much is considered a mansion. Of course the folks living in them take perfectly good pasture and turn it into acres of yard so big it takes the mowing company two days to cut it all.

Fannie and Freddie Did Not Cause This Crisis

What most people don't realize is that indebtedness is another form of slavery, because the debtor toils day and night to repay his/her debts.


On Oct 05 08:11 PM valueinvesto r888 wrote:

> As everyone casts around looking for the reasons for this crisis,
> everyone seems to ignore the fact that as a nation and on an individual
> citizen basis we are broke. Spending beyond our means for the last
> thirty years has finally caught up to us. Triggers, such as housing
> bubble, etc., are just triggers, not the root cause. Root cause
> is we are broke and deep in debt -as a nation and as consumers.

Fannie and Freddie Did Not Cause This Crisis

Confessions of an Alt-A loan recipient

In 1988 I received an Alt-A loan to purchase my first home. Although the loan was backed by Fannie, I got it through the VA. I paid $500 for closing costs, and moved in. Since then I've sold that house, bought another, and recently paid the mortgage off. So the Alt-A loans aren't all bad and many of the Alt-A's recipients are vets like me. I still believe that our country should provide low cost home mortgages to the men and women who defend us.

Fannie and Freddie: Finally a Light at the End of the Tunnel?

I'm speculating that the stock will rise to about $3.00.

The Fannie and Freddie Apocalypse Trade

I lost my shirt on Fannie and Freddies demise. I got it all back between yesterday and today.

The Fannie and Freddie Apocalypse Trade

I lost my shirt when fannie lost money. I made it all back yesterday and today. Now I'm gonna sit on the sidelines a wait a while.