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Dow Will Equal Gold in 2009

Somebody please explain to me why these big mining companies let traders on a Futures exchange set the prices they get for their wares?

The airlines don't do it. They set their own prices and see how many seats they sell. Sure, one will try an increase and if the rest don't follow, they may have to cut it back to where it was. They need $ now to pay the bills, just like the miners.

But Freeport McMoRan CEO Richard Adkerson said recently that they are selling all the copper they produce. The only reason they are cutting production is because it's unprofitible to mine at full productoion at these prices.

He seems to accept the idea that it's not up to him to set the price of his goods.I think his company is big enough to put a price on their goods and make the buyers pay it.

Maybe Congress should take a good look at these Futures markets and limit the participants to those who have an interest in production or consumption. I know I got emails from Northwest Airlines last summer asking me to write my congressman about this very issue. It was their opinion that oil prices were being run up by day trading speculators who collectively made a few bucks for themselves while transferring billions or trillions of our $ to the Middle East.

Bond Expert: Monday Wrap

Where does the Fed get the $ to buy treasurys with? They create it. This is the expected 'monotizing' of the debt that will create runaway inflation. Before the Fed starts buying, all this bailout money was financed by others.

But now the party is over. As the Fed prints money, the value of each dollar weakens. It may take awhile before inflation shows up, but markets look ahead, don't they. How long will 10 year bonds be under 3%? When it starts going the other way, the sky is the limit and Uncle Ben will have to run the presses around the clock to buy all the Treasury has to sell to pay the bills.

eBay's Donahoe Has Crow for Thanksgiving

Take for example the DSR ratings of which there are 4:

Item as described
Communication
Shipping time
Shipping and handling charges

To the novice this all seem like a nice thing to impliment. eBay should like to know if the item was as described, right? Wrong. There was already a method for dealing with that and the buyer is not only covered but can easily scam the seller if they want over at paypal.

What about Communication? Does eBay want their sellers to communicate with the buyers? Like how? Thank you very much. Have a nice day?
I don't think they care and I don't think anybody else does either unless there's a problem. And just like the 1st item, there is plenty of remedy if something goes wrong.

What about shipping time? If seller's don't deliver, there is the same remedy as above. Hummm. I try to ship the next day after getting paid. Why would I wait a week? There are of course a lot of Drop-ship sellers on eBay and it's out of their hands when something actually get's shipped. Does eBay want to identify the slow shippers and get rid of them? I kinda doubt it but but maybe.

Item #4: Shipping and handling charges. This is what it's all about. eBay doesn't collect their FV fee on Shipping and handling and it really hacks them off if the seller is making a profit on shipping and handling. It shouldn't matter to the buyer what shipping is because it's right there in the listing. They are not stupid. They are on eBay to save money. They add the cost of the item and the shipping together to see how much it costs them. It doesn't matter to the buyer how much of their money goes to the seller and how much goes to eBay and how much goes to Uncle Sam.

But it matters to eBay because Billionaires Pierre and Meg are gone and Mr. Donahoe is a long way from leaving Dodge with his Billion $. So the buyers are recurited into reporting sellers who they think charged more than actual shipping. And it works. Buyers have got used to free shipping from Amazon and others and of course eBay is encouraging sellers to offer it as well. That means of course the selling price must go up to reflect the shipping costs but that's ok with eBay because they get their 15% of the selling price (Yes, if you list a media item in fixed price, you pay eBay 15% FV fee on a sale. And of course Paypal takes a cut of all the money changing hands, so if you offer free shipping you're getting raked twice.

You know Paypal is owned by eBay, right? I wonder how much control Donahoe has at Papal? It was a going concern when eBay bought it. Does Donahoe have a hands access to making changes over there too? I kinda doubt it, because this whole DRS folly could be avoided and eBay could get a detailed answer to their true concern just by looking at the sellers who use Paypal shipping to print their postage and compare it to how much they collected from the seller.

So there you are, scrap DSR and just get that computer programmer back to look at the data you already possess.

eBay's Donahoe Has Crow for Thanksgiving

About that programmer who quit eBay. Does anybody there work on the small stuff, like fixing the bugs, or are the all inventing new stuff nobody likes. Here's one that has been around since they created the 30 day fixed price listings and nobody ever fixed:

If you relist an item to fixed price, of course you want to have it be 30 days, but most of the time the duration box says 7 days. So occasionally, I forget to change it and then I see my listing is only 7 days, so I edit it and change it to 30 days, right? Wrong. eBay won't let you change it to the 30 days which cost the same amount as 7. Maybe this isn't a bug but a gottcha.

Not only that but I was dumb enought to selced good until cancelled (automatic relist) when this first came out. No, I didn't even imagine that they wouldn't charge me another listing fee each month. But I did think that with a day or so to go, I could back it off to 30 days in case I didn't want to list it any more. NO WAY. You have to kill the auction or pay another listing fee. And if there's 12 hours or less to go, then of course you can't edit it at all and are trapped.
I wonder how many long time sellers like myself would love to see eBay fail? I have since they went public.It's been one thing after another how they squeeze the sellers and lie about the motives for everything they do.

eBay's Donahoe Has Crow for Thanksgiving

Someone said that Listing fees aren't important to eBay compared to FV fees. Does anybody have the #'s? For years I've browsed through the closed items and see 90% unsold. Cha-ching. I always thought listing fees were the main source of eBay income.

Another thing some peeps here don't understand: Auctions are not the best way to sell MOST of the stuff in the world. Auctions are suitable for rare items in demand and for things a buyer want's to liquidate soon at any price.

Other than that, everything else does better with a fixed price on it. Think about it. Would you go to Kroger and bid on a loaf of bread and come back in a week to bid on another loaf if you didn't win? Same thing with a video game of which there are millions available. IF you auction your old game, all week long buyers will be buying immediately and move on.

Now that the facination of auctioning EVERYTHING on eBay has diminished, maybe eBay will change the rules of having an auction end at a specific time. Can you imagine a real-world auction with bids flying in left and right and the audience all excited, and then suddenly the auctioneer hears a bell go off and wont't take any more bids. that's the eBay model. That's how the word sniping got a new definition. It's created less revenue for the sellers of true auctionable items and less revenue for eBay. And it's easy to remedy....just never end an auction until 5 minutes have elapsed since the last bid.

Finally if you read my previous post about getting suspended by eBay last month and then reinstated and then being semi-suspended last week, I have a follow-up: I was allowed to create new auctions 1 day after getting that privilege taken away, why I don't know.

Then today I got an email from eBay saying I created another sin: The wacko who gave me a BAD last week and lied about it in my feedback didn't like that I left him a GOOD feedback (the only kind sellers can now leave) but told the story briefly in the comment field.

So it seems I broke an eBay rule I should have deduced before hand: Sellers are not allowed to say anything negative about a buyer in the buyer's own feedback field.

eBay's Donahoe Has Crow for Thanksgiving

On 11/24 I was flashed a screen while listing something that eBay was having a 50% off listing sale for auctions only (I had been listing Fixed price items only).

So I listed one and it didn't show the reduced charge so I clicked on details and it said if I wasn't using such and such browser not to worry the discount would be reflected in my billing. So I listed a bunch of stuff with minimums I wouldn't ordinarly do because the sell-thru is so bad at eBay these days.

But my fees were not lowered in my biilling so I called today wand was told I was not elegible for the discount because my DSR scores were below 4.5. And they calim this was in the ad.

So last night I attempted to list something and was presented with a screen that said i could no longer list on eBay because My shipping DSR went below 4.3.

I just got back from a 1 month suspension because 2 people left neutrals (one said he thought that was an 'average' transaction rating) and 2 Bads. One was a nitcase who dekanded I reduce shipping and handling to what he figured was actual postage charged AFTER he had already bought the item (he was a newby and is now no longer a registered user). I have been selling on eBay since before eBay was a public company and he got me suspended.
The other bad was a scammer who claimed the item was damaged in shipping and I said ok, wait for UPS to pick it up as they insured it. Instead he filed and won a Paypal claim because 'item was not as described."

Since I've been back on Nov 11, I sold 60 items. 16 of them have given me feedback (don't you assume the rest were satisfied.) I got one bad 6 days ago. It was another nut case. I offered to give a refund immediately but he gave me a bad and didn't opt for the refund. They he added on the feedback saying he's going to file a Paypal claim, which he hasn't done...Why? I offered a refund.

So you see I get a nut case occasionally. Since that Bad I have got 11 straight goods with praise. Yet last night my DSR' average dipped below 4.3 and I can list any more. No email or anything from eBay.

Now today I tried again after getting another good feedback and I can list again.

Do you get the picture Steve 577? This company is no more than an insane asylum run by the inmates

Stocks That Trade Like Binary Options: Speculative Plays Under $10

I was going to say something nice about the article, but after reading the above comment, I'm speechless.

Better Than the Depression? Don't Kid Yourselves

Ben Stein has a great memory for trivia. Very few contestants could beat him on 'Win Ben Stein's Money."

But memory is just one component of intelligence. How you process all that information is another component.

If you read Ben Stein's latest article, he has the humility to confess he didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle anyways, and his conclusions were flawed. At least he believed in himself and now confesses he will have to adapt to a more Spartan lifestyle since he lost his arse in the markets.

Ben's Documentary movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" will confirm to anybody who has high intelligence of the 2nd type I mentioned above, that excelling in retaining millions of bits of Trivia doesn't mean squat.

Why the Dollar Has Rallied During Current Crisis

Has monetization of the National debt already taken place? Many posters here refer to it, but I haven't read anything about that elsewhere.

I think there is a step they are missing. The money isn't 'created' until the Fed buys US Treasury bonds with money it 'prints.'

So far, there has been plenty of buyers around the world buying US Treasury Bonds: So much so that the the dollar has rallied 20% and up against most other currencies because you need US$ to buy US Treasury Bonds.

If you think this can't continue on much longer, I agree. Somewhere down the line, the demand for US Treasurys will stop, yet the Treasury will have to keep issuing them to finance the huge deficits and bailouts. That leaves the FED to buy the bonds with newly printed money.

Talk about a bubble: Inflation goes up, the dollar falls, and the Foreigners who hold our Treasurys see their value heading South both due to the inflation and the exchange rate changes. As they try to head for the exits, the prices of this debt falls farther and interest rates rise farther.

When does all this start? Not until the Fed starts buying US Treasurys. So far they don't have to. Financial panic around the globe is just fueling the biggest bubble of all.

Jim Cramer's Mad Money - Cox Slow on the Uptick (11/21/08)

What was the reason for eliminating the uptick rule? Usually once a law or rule is in place it takes a major issue to get support for change.

Was the abolition of this rule just the whim of one man, Chris Cox? If so why not have a congressional investigation on why.

What was his thinking in changing the status quo? Is it possible he's on the take to short selling hedge funds?

What about all the reports of the shorting or phantom stock? Why is this not being investigated by congress?

Overstock.com's CEO Patrick Byrne is no fool but you would think so if you Google him. Instead read what he has to say about Naked short selling on his DeepCapture.com blog.

5-1/2 Ways to Make the Market Rally

"Reinstating the uptick rule. Probably will not happen given the practical difficulties of doing so."

Please explain what are the practical difficulties?

Should GM Be Saved?

I'm driving a 1996 Chevy Van. It has 190k miles on it and runs like new. Doesn't burn oil. Repairs to date: New Transmission at 100k, new starter motor at 150k.

I travel and rent cars 30 weeks a year. I get full size domestic and foreign cars assigned to me most of the time. My conclusion: I like the Chevy Impala the best.

Amazon, Apple, Google: Buying on the Way Down

I wouldn't mention Henry Blodget if I was writing an article. He has ZERO credibility as one of the DotCom Shills for Merrill Lynch.
From Wikipedia:
"In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget allegedly gave assessments about stocks, which conflicted with what was publicly published.[5] In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[6] He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently banned from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement but kept millions more he earned in fees while promoting investments in stocks which failed.[7]"

Amazon, Apple, Google: Buying on the Way Down

Someonene who tries to pick the market bottom for a stock is guessing. So at some point if you like a stock, you have to pull the trigger.

It seems most of the advice I've read over the years is it wait until an uptrend is established. Why is this better than buying on the way down?

Answer: It isn't. The reason so many advisers want you to wait for an uptrend is because on the surface, it makes them look wiser. If you buy after an uptrend is well established, and the price continues up, they are smart and you are happy. Much later, at the high, they won't be telling you to sell, but after you loose all your gains, they can tell you you got greedy or didn't get hurt.

In reality, this advice guarantees you to not participate in some % of the upswing from the bottom. When does the adviser suggest buying, when the stock is up 20%. or more? And don't forget, there are times when this 20% buy threshold is a bear market rally. Whoops.

If you buy on the way down, you may also miss the bottom by 20% or even more. Or less. Or you may even hit the exact bottom if you're lucky. Or the world may come to an end so what difference does it make that you overpaid? One thing is certain: The uptrend buyers ALWAYS overpay.

Do your Fundamental homework and buy good assets when they are cheap. So what if the next guy gets it cheaper? Market reversals can happen so fast you may miss much of the upside. Look what happened on 11/13. There was an almost 900 point upswing in the Dow after noon and before closing

The Deflation Debate Continues

Here's the link to the story mentioned in this article:
www.itulip.com/forums/...

From that article, comes this punch line:

"Ka-Poom Theory since 1999 occupies a position outside this framework. It asserts that all of the money that the US needs to create monetary inflation that deflates both its external debts and domestic private debts already resides outside the US in the form of more than $13 trillion in gross external debt to the tune of 95% of GDP. Most of that debt is in the form of US treasury bonds. All the US has to do to devalue the dollar is induce its trade partners to sell, perhaps by indicating an intention to monetize debt wothout actually doing so, causing US creditors to sell some dollar denominated securities for assets not priced in dollars, resulting in an increase in the global supply of dollars. The effect is the same as the US printing money but without a corresponding issuance of new debt and the attendant risk of hyperinflation that Roubini refers to."

Someone please explain to me how, as a holder of a US Treasury Bond, I can sell it to someone and take my proceeds in another currency, that that increases the suppy of US$?

I don't see any anything at all being created.