patio

The Payroll Plunge

This may be whistling through the graveyard, but it occurs to me everything is happening at warp speed. I rather doubt the recessions of '73 and '82-84 unfolded so rapidly, information flow was so much slower then.
Is it not possible that anyone who needed to reduce the workforce has done so, and other contractions as well? We might be approaching a leveling off.
Of course, one other alternative ( there are many possible paths ) is that we are indeed in a global deflationary spiral that will just keep gathering momentum like an avalanche. We can hope for the former.

An Explanation for Monetary Inflation - And a New Low

I'm no gold bug, but why rag on this guy's metric? If you are so inclined, it is one more tool to gauge and track on-going events.
I am more in the camp that gold's recent price increases have more to do with a pure flight to perceived safety ( same for dollar ), than as an inflation hedge, but everyone has their own conceptions and act accordingly.
I think the graph is useful.

Wall Street Is Short Barack Obama

Bravo, well played.


On Mar 06 11:11 AM moronicsocialistidiot wrote:

> Who you calling socialist?

Wall Street Is Short Barack Obama

This guy spells it out better
online.wsj.com/article...

Wall Street Is Short Barack Obama

Hardly. Fear is just an emotion. This adminstation is fostering facts:
- porkulus bill wasting billions of dollars to buy votes, read it yourselves. But you 'll see insane expenditures to ACORN, unions, mob museums, 9000 earmarks in all
- a multi-year budget, cutting nothing by way of wasteful spending( Obama claims otherwise of course )
- raisning the marginal tax code on the "rich"; you know, those horrible people who start businesses, creat jobs, god I hate them
- but of course, the rich aren't rich because they are dumb, they just won't expand or create businesses, in fact they will lay more peopl e off
- net result is a worse problem, no net increase in tax revenues, and more sheeple beholding to the government
- expanded central government control of more and more industries; if you like the service you get at the US post office, or the DMV, or whatever gov agency you are unlucky enough to have to go to now, you'll love the future
- especially health care. Wow, I'm sure you'll cherish you 5 minutes with the gov doctor. X-rays, MRI's careful investigations?? Please, get serious I have 100 people waiting. Rack 'em and crack 'em. Who in theie right mind will become a doctor in the future?
- With such new services, you won't paying increasing taxes your whole life, will you? Anyway, Big Brother knows how to spend your money way better than you do, its a win-win

Bearishness at 20 Year High: Big Bounce in the Waiting?

Sometimes pessimism is pessimism, sometimes its reality. Sure, a few days will be up, nothing goes straight up or down, but you have to crazy to think the world economy is anything other than on a downward spiral for some time.
Chill, walk the dog, shut down the computer (s). Nothing to see here folks, move along.

The Free Market Votes: Still No Change We Can Believe In

"What you're now seeing is profit-and-earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," Obama said Tuesday."

It's price to earnings ratio, Idiot Obama. This is the clown we have at the wheel of the clown car, driving his band of finacial illiterates around. Ah, but that it were only true- bad, but not calamitous.

Joel, you summarize perfectly:
"Our country is ruled by a caste of lawyers who are almost to a man (or woman) economically illiterate. The know how to write laws to redistribute wealth but don’t understand how that wealth is produced. They also write laws that make it easier for lawyers to extort money from productive members of society, and centralizing power to lawyer-politicians who use that power to stay in power."
One quibble- some perhaps many lawyers are not socialists, they want to keep the money they earn. This particular lot of politicians however are as far left as Marx or Lenin. They are bent on the destruction of achievers, and the acquisition of power, no how many lives are ruined in the process.
Great article.

The Road to Economic Hell

One more comment. I realize very few people's minds can be changed by blog chatter, I think most of us are just venting.
BUT, I would ask you this- keep your eyes open on one piece of proposed legislation, the unbelievably named " Employee Free Choice Amendment".
If passed, this will remove the right to provate ballots, when choosing yea or nay on joining a union. This is by far the scariest idea the Dems have, to take away freedom of secret voting. This is Chicago thuggery at it's most craven.

The Road to Economic Hell

There are planes leaving hourly, pick one and knock yourself out.
Funny though, how we have immigrants from every corner of the globe trying to get here. Funny also how we were the ones to put a man on the moon; invented chps, computers, software ( not just USA, of course, the free world, our partners ), curing many diseases, more to come, extended life expectancy by decades, promoted progress across every sector, all the while keeping and expanding personal freedoms.
But at the first sign of crisis, many of you pussies want to cut and run, let's go socialist.
This country was built by pioneers, people with guts,and they overcame many challenges for over 200 years. They didn't whine, they didn't throw out the Constitution and say let's start over, they fixed the problems and moved on.
Like I said, if you see a nanny country you like, go there.


On Mar 05 11:03 AM plumstupid wrote:

> Patio:
>
> I've lived in socialist countries. Everyone seemed to be doing quite
> well. Good jobs, nice homes or apartments, good free health care,
> good free education thru PhD if ability and interest was there, clean
> streets, well maintained infrastructure, one month paid vacation
> every year.....
>
> Looked pretty good to me!

The Road to Economic Hell

Actually, you bring up a very interesting point. To answer your question, I would say, no, the covert agenda is more frightening. I am very hopeful that Obama and crew have over-reached, gone too far too fast, and the overtness of their intentions are now obvious to anyone paying attention.
Whether the country will react ( the stock market surely has reacted ), and have the same sort of mid-term Congress seachange like when Clinton tried to socailize health care, we shall see.
Look, if you naysayers want to actually experience socialism in your lives, instead of lookig around the world to see how it has ruined countries and other lives, you may unfortunately get your way. Ask your Canadian friends how their health care system is going. Compare N. Korea to S. Korea, East Berlin vs. West Berlin, etc.
The problems we face have complex, multifaceted genesis, but they are not due because capitilism is a worse system than any of the alternatives. Free enteprise, duly regulated, is still the best way to live.
I myself will fight against the creation of a nanny state, that oppresses achievemnet, untill I die.


On Mar 05 10:27 AM plumstupid wrote:

> Is an overt socialist agenda worse than a covert socialist agenda?
>
>
> Is it socialism to privatize profits and socialize losses?

The Road to Economic Hell

Bush was indeed a very poor president. We haven't had a true leader in quite a while. I'm just saying the current power grab, the move toward massive socialism, is 100x worse than all Bush's mistakes.
Anyone who wishes to work themselves, and not be reliant on a nanny state, should be alarmed.
Free enterprise is the only thing that creates lasting jobs, true wealth, the government is an unproductive bloated bureaucracy staffed with career politicians that never produced anything in their lives.
We have severe problems to fix, but have handed stewardship to folks with a now overt socialist agenda.




On Mar 05 09:15 AM Herbert Hoover wrote:

> "If we don't have a conservative uprising in 2010, we are doomed."
>
>
> LOL - that's what we were supposed to have from 2000 - 2008. No one
> watched that fool so now we have a natural reaction to that excess.
> Obama is no more a socialist than Bush was a fascist. Bitch and moan
> all you want, Your lack of concern over that moron in the White House
> caused the current administration
>

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

My day now starts with two cups of coffee, ground myself, and David Fry.
It's unfortunate, because then most of the other SA articles fail to inspire or amuse.

Fighting the Wrong War

I too applaud the author, fine job.
If only our politiicians had the smarts and guts to articulate this to the populous. Americans are tough, we can handle the truth, but our "leaders" on both sides of the aisle won't do it. But we can right our own houses, as many have mentioned.

No Bottom in Sight

The Manchurian candidate does care about equities, he would love to see them continue downward. His policies indicate he will continue to use the financial crisis to implement as much socialism as he feels he can get away with, as quickly as possible. The more wealth the sheeple lose, the more dependent they believe they become on the nanny state.
For the life of me, I cannot get my arms wrapped around the "why"? Why do these people want to crush our economy, crush achievement, crush our freedoms? Merely for power, can they be that evil?
Before it's over, this guy will make Jimmy Carter look like John Galt.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

How timely, from ABC news article, "upper income earners seek to avoid Obama's tax hike'. Well, duh. An excerpt...


Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama's plan.

"I've put thought into how to get under $250,000," said Poczatek. "It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off."

"Generally it means being less productive," she said.

"The motivation for a lot of people like me – dentists, entrepreneurs, lawyers – is that the more you work the more money you make," said Poczatek. "But if I'm going to be working just to give it back to the government -- it's de-motivating and demoralizing."