Perception

Real Price of Gas Falls to Five-Year Lows

"Thank the refiners for subsidizing gasoline these past 9 months.
Gasoline should have been over $6 a gallon "

wut? look at the RBOB vs. crude price history. they were in lockstep, as they should be. refiners were by no means subsidizing gas prices.

Who Might Benefit From Detroit's Failings

THEM DARN SLANTY-EYED BASTARDS! HURR HURR HURRR, HOW DARE THEY COMPETE WITH US AMURICANS. THEM THERE ALL OCHTTA BE RUN OUT OF THIS HERE COUNTRY.

omfg, teh lulz are too much too bear in this thread.

1) caps lock is not necessary. we hear you.

2) every korean wanted to kill americans 50 years ago? a clue. buy one. racist remarks show exactly what sort of intellect you are sporting, bubba.

3) manufacturing vehicles in mexico was a decision taken by american execs of an american company. so who's fault is it?

4) thank you "Socailism..." Someone who understands that the government "tit" is a gross distortion of what our government should be.

i could go on for ages, but let me give it a rest, and not derail the thread anymore than i may already have.

Infrastructure Investment Will Be a Slow Economic Stimulus Path

i agree with many of the points made, particularly regarding timeframes, etc.. however, i strongly disagee with the assertion that ultra-large scale project experience, and the personnel to manage such projects, is unavailable domestically. see, e.g., the development of deepwater GOM fields, tension-leg platforms and subsea wells, wellheads, pipelines, etc. by Shell, XOM, and others. These are massive, integrated, cross-discipline projects, drawing on virtually every engineering discipline. projects with price tags > 1 trillion.

The fundamental dilemma is that the talented engineers and project managers who realize these amazingly complex and difficult projects will find ZERO incentive to work for the government at 1/2 the wages, with 10x the red tape and bureaucracy. Talent goes where the money is. Talent also flees idiocy (i.e., anything even tangentially related to the U.S. government).

Lamenting the lack of highly skilled, innovative personnel to handle these projects is simply incorrect. The talent is there. This is analogous to lamenting the lack of highly motivated, qualified teaches. Those folks are out there in abundance. But, in similar fiashion, they go where they will be paid commensurate with their skill and intelligence.

Change the metrics, change the management from government-style waste and bureaucracy to industrial methods (goal and performance oriented), change the rewards to be competitive with industry, and you will recruit and retain the best and brightest.

Automakers: Bailout Arguments, Pro and Con

FACT

"GM cannot build cars that people want at a price people can afford. That is the bottom line."

hehehe, GM makes unattractive cars with abysmal quality relative to japanese automakers. go do a pepsi challenge on the warranties, they tell the stroy. for GM to make cars of comparable quality to those of, for example, honda, the prices of comparable GM models will likey increase substantially.

merely invoking an increase in sales of certain models is specious reasoning at best, and frnakly, i'd like you to cite the source for those numbers...

look around next time you're driving. how many 1990-1995 honda accords or toyota camrys do you see on the road? lots. how many chevy luminas do you see? (caveat: without duct tape holding them together) yeah. hmmm, makes you think.

Iceland: What It's Like to Live in a World Without Money

dixie wrote:

It is equally wrong for the clowns in Congress and the White House to gamble with our nation's $700 billion and more of savings


wait, wut? our nation's $700 billion and more of savings? are you for real?

the government has no savings. it is just more debt. what they are gambling with is the solvency of our nation. imagine the icelandic situation played out with the us dollar. when the "full faith and credit" of the us government loses its intrinsic worth and meaning, the same may happpen to americans.

Reich's Reasons for a New Fiscal Stimulus Bill

I always grind my teeth at the mention of "stimulus." The average american thinks "check" when they stimuls. AHA...free monies!

But wait...OH NOES! I have to pay it back, plus the 30 years worth of interest on the bonds sold to finance it. ANY stimulus package at this point merely digs the hole deeper, whether consumer or infrastructure, corporate bailout, pick your flavor. The net result is a ballooning debt that is unsustainable. Does anyone belive we can continue this insanity?

At some point, we lose our AAA rating as a country. When no one will buy the bonds we must sell to finance our government's follies, what then? Even better, the states are doing this crap too. I'd like to see a compilation of the 50 states' debt, combined with the federal gubmint debt. Bet that one's an eye popper.

Welcome to grim reality. The swan song of the republic. And the combination of a democratic president and congress busily spending away will do wonders to accelerate the decline. Wait for it kiddies, US treasuries getting junk ratings? It's more likely than you think.

All the hand-waving in the world about financial stimulus and fiscal stimulus can not change the fact that the government, like the average consumer, will eventually run out of credit. And when that happens? Best of luck to all of us.

Perhaps a return to a less flashy, superficial lifestyle (that the world despises us for), and a resurgence in the American spirit of industriousness, honesty, and humility. We weren't always a country characterized by greed and shallowness...

Contrarian Investing

The closer sums it up...

[quote]But as we're reminded daily, everything works until it doesn't.[/quote]


Amazing profundity there. What exaclty was the point of this article, other than what appears top be tired posturing and trite remarks like the one i've quoted above? Give it a rest.

Consumers and the Economy Are Down and Out

Pretty much EVERY pundit, oracle, and even level-headed financial "joe regular" has said we are in uncharted territory as far as modelling the markets goes. I have little confidence in Citi financial's market models, evaluations, or for that matter, their observations on whether or not the sun is shining. Their brilliant predictive powers and business acumen are the source, at least in part, of the nightmare we now see unfolding in the economy. This model is meaningless. Putting it forward as a resonable indicator of the direction of the economy is roughly akin to trying to model subatiomic particle behavior with newtonian mechanics. It doesn't work.

Don’t Blame Wall Street - At Least Not Completely

When did seekingalpha become a forum for whining, morality-based diatribes? Please, someone remove this emotion-driven garbage. Replace with something slightly interesting and meaningful.

kthxbai