ebworthen

PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 policy, pay 2.5% of income, or Go To Jail!!!

Exactly.

Of course they want to keep track of you, and IBM will make a lot of money helping (notice the commercials lately?).

And the new generations will think it's really "cool". Well...until the government uses it against them; tells them they will have to have a "co-pay" for their condition, tell them they can't have kids (bad for the gene pool) or that they can get treatment, they just have to travel 1,200 miles to get it.

And then the system will be manipulated to make certain that anyone who is responsible gets taxed out the colon, Congress gets special treatment, and illegals and un-identifiables get treated "out of compassion".


On Nov 08 07:01 PM optionsgirl wrote:

> I know some of you advocated the push to computerize our records.
> I submit it is the individual doctor's office or the individual who
> is seeking treatment that ought to do this. I do not believe that
> a national database is necessary and it is an assault on individual
> freedom and privacy.

Options Trader Wrong-Way Weekly Wrap-Up: Party Like It's 1999

I love the cartoon with the Guillotine.

What would we use in a modern American revolution; drawn and quartered with four Ford Expeditions?

Options Trader Wrong-Way Weekly Wrap-Up: Party Like It's 1999

Politics is the distraction.

Tyranny and greed have no party or ideology other than self-gain.

They lead you away from the truth by baiting people with politics and the theater that is is our government.


On Nov 09 01:43 AM trader58 wrote:

> Nathaniel, what party do most of the people your talking about belong
> to?

S&P 500 Priced in Gold

This shows a realization by investors that stocks are worth less than they thought and gold is worth more.

They have moved in opposite directions as people have realized that currency and stocks are pieces of paper (or now - digits in a database) while gold is tangible and cannot be wired across the oceans nor monitored and taxed and garnished as the database assets are.

Employment: Neither Quality Nor Quantity

True infrastructure spending was less than 10% of the stimulus bill.

We could have spent 100% on bridges, roads, sewers, water mains, A WALL BETWEEN MEXICO AND THE U.S., but no...it went to buying social programs, office chairs, iMacs, and "programs" to study problems about problems and hold committee meetings to discuss what committees we need to form to save the economy.

Any person living their life this way would be said to be on a road to perdition.


On Nov 08 11:51 AM User 450686 wrote:

> "the Administration is neglecting the capital investments necessary
> to improve our infrastructure and productive capacity"
>
> Really? Isn't that what the whole stimulus thing was about? You can
> argue about how well it's spent (poor), but you can't say that they
> haven't ostensibly targeted infrastructure.

U.S. Employment Picture Remains Ugly

The most illustrative graph is the number of months after peak employment.

Notice that the next worst in duration before our current situation was 2001 - 2005. This points to a shift in jobs of production and in the service economy. We have a macro-trend of unemployment on the whole and working fewer hours or simply not looking for work.

Combine with this the tremendous shift from 1920's to the present of 70% of the population living on a farm to 2% today and you have a societal bubble of historic proportions.

Any true collapse in the economy, employment, and flow of money and food to urban and suburban centers will have a cataclysmic effect on the established order.

This is why you hear people talking about farmland and firearms and canning and food and water storage. Crazy? Just think about it - what if the rail cars and tractor trailers don't have a reason to roll into town with food and medicine?

Chaos, utter chaos.

The Glide Path Option

"We have let the fox set up the rules for running the hen house."

Agreed! Great overall perspective of the trap the FED and all of us are now in.

The problem with the political class is that they make choices based upon current emotion and the desire to be re-elected.

"We want jobs" and "do something for your district" will translate into Stimulus II and more spending.

I can't see our current cohort of politicians making the right choices, or better yet, doing nothing. They will do "something" so they have a headline and a sound bite and 15 seconds in front of the camera for their district saying they have passed bill "X" or "Z" even if it is a bill to create bumper stickers that say "consume".

Friday Roundup: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Perhaps the anticipation of a dollar rally is an anticipation of a big leg down in the markets.

Look at the dollar index July '08 to December '08; an almost perfectly inverse chart to the markets.

The Good, Bad and the Ugly: Australian, U.S. and U.K. Economies

Artificially low rates and a declining dollar value is inflation by proxy.

Trading Week Outlook: November 8 - 13, 2009

There is a tug of war between the real economy and the stimulus and liquidity economy.

The GDP and other data does not illuminate this battle unless it is parsed and analyzed with something other than a headline number.

What will the GDP data from countries enacting huge stimulus programs really tell us? Is it true production or simply make-work bought by public debt?

Is consumer sentiment and purchasing going to be based on ability to purchase prudently or the availability of credit cards and the word of mouth that the economy is recovering?

"Fake it 'till you make it" does not work indefinitely.

"I love the retail broker business because my dad is a broker and my grandfather was a broker and it was the first job I ever had. So if you are really, really good, call JPMorgan (JPM). We'd be happy to hire you," Jamie Dimon (.pdf), on Oct. 27. Friday, he did just that, hiring his dad and his five-man team away from Merrill Lynch (BAC).

Thus we come full circle and arrive at a new nobility and nepotism - sanctioned and supported by the supposed defenders of liberty in government - who sell out the people for the sake of power, money and ego.

While Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein understands that "people are pissed off" with bankers, he says everybody should be happy: "Companies are looking to grow again and raise money. That's where we come in. The financial system may have led us into the crisis but it will lead us out."

Public hangings have always made an impression.

However, I'm certain that the upheld and gaping maw of the severed head - the blood spurting from the corpse at the guillotine - also had an impact on the wicked and the cheering mob alike.

Without blood and death; the somnambulance, equivocation, and tyranny will continue.

Unfortunately.

The Fed and Fannie Mae: Throwing Money Down a Black Hole

HUD housing by proxy.

Global Markets in Review: Is the Risk Trade Back On?

Asian manufacturing in expansion mode - with U.S. Unemployment continuing to go up? Can South America and India buy up all the plastic WalMart stuff we don't?

Also - I hear even Lawyers are out of work and Law Firms not hiring, things must be worse than they look. Don't worry lawyers, the House passed the "health care" bill with absolutely no tort reform yet a trillion of taxes and spending - you can start hiring soon.

Consumer Credit: Dreadful

There are two poles to this argument and a range inbetween:

The credit card consumer who says "Ooops, cut up that credit card and pay it off, times are hard."

Then the credit card consumer who says "Got to have it, need to use it, run it up and worry about it later (isn't that what the banks and government do? Aren't I going to be saved by Hope and Change and the government?).

On the one hand, people being prudent and paying down debt is good for them but bad for sales and revenues and employemnt.

On the other hand, people maxing the card out and snowballing the debt until who knows when contributes to the debt bubble.

Lot's of variations between those two poles - but it all indicates contraction or unhealthy spending (debt).