lavalamp

What Bernanke's Comments All Mean

The Fed does not have a mandate to protect the PPP of the us$, only in so far as it negatively effects price stability or jobs or both. Ben knows the obama and bush would rather devalue to pay off debts than to create wealth (which would require flushing a bunch of debt where it belongs).

The Global Oil Scam: 50 Times Bigger than Madoff

" Round-trip” trades occur when one firm sells energy to another and then the second firm simultaneously sells the same amount of energy back to the first company at exactly the same price."

Firstly, this is an open public market - no entity knows who they are buying or selling from. Bids and Offers are placed into a public exchange. Even if true, I have no idea what a round trip trade can do other than cost the speculators commissions. If an entity has the ability to move a market (manipulate) through nefarious means then that should be illegal. The author makes no case for this though

Google's Android vs. Apple: History Repeats Itself

It's not just about SW openness. It's about the usability of software within constrained hardware. Apple's vertical integration of a SW and HW stack together makes a compelling user experience, can Andriod be morphed into many many form factors and create such a user compelling experience. I think its unlikely, but we will see.

Dollar Strength and Stability Is in the National Interest

The idiots in DC and NY do not believe that the US can create wealth through innovation and compete globally, they would rather re-inflate assets and repay record debts by devaluing the dollar and stoking inflation. I'm with you the sooner these elites stop paying lip service to a strong dollar policy and start attracting rather then repelling foreign investment the sooner we will regain a leadership position. Oh and while I'm at it, the sooner our leaders address the fact that China et al are cheating by pegging their currency to ours the sooner we as a nation will recover.

Weak Dollar Will Jeopardize the U.S. Economic Recovery

It does not matter how far the dollar falls, it will not restore the balance of trade, that is, so long as the Asian countries artificially peg their currencies to the $. If they continue to peg to their currency to the dollar the imbalance will continue until the cost to manufacture and cost to transport a widget equals the cost to manufacture it locally.


On Oct 22 06:57 AM socrateaz wrote:

> The negative balance of trade could not continue. The dollar needs
> to fall to where the balance in trade is about equal. I truely believe
> many of the current problems will eventually be traced back to the
> US running deficits in trade balance for too long. If you have gotten
> in trouble with a loan in the past, You will know the feeling of
> being controled by the need to repay. It is probably like indentured
> slavery. You have to repay but you feel like there is no real way
> out! The US has borrowed its way toward a similar situation. Do
> you think the US could declare bankruptcy when things get too bad?
> Or will the citizens feel like slaves to countries it borrowed wealth
> from? The devaluing of the dollar is acting as relief toward that
> obligation so not as much wealth should go toward borrowing. more.
> Payback will not seem as nice as the original borrowing for the future
> provides.

Why Android Is Gaining Ground on Apple

Not sure why this thread is on this site, as I do not see how it relates to seeking alpha!

BTW: Google is investing $10sm in Android because it wishes to sell contextual ads that are relevant to the time of day, location and presence of the user.

Falling Dollar: Finally Front-Page News

I think you make some valid points, however I'm not sure the Fed is targeting saving the rich at the expense of the middle class. Rather the Fed is trying to re-inflate both equities owned in all our 401Ks and the most valuable of our assets our homes. Of course the smart and wealthy see all this and position themselves to ride these bubbles to take advantage of the lunacy, so the net effect is the rich get richer and the rest of us bail them out when it goes wrong.


On Oct 08 12:47 PM User 353732 wrote:

> The dollar is falling because it is no longer real money but fiat
> scrip.
> This scrip serves the interests of the entrenched ruling class in
> 2 ways
> 1. It allows them to effortlessly bribe the lower class with money
> illusion: increasing nominal transfer payments that have steadily
> decreasing purchasing power. The lower class focuses on the nominal
> transfers and does not comprehend that the material quality of life
> depends on real purchasing power, not scrip. An expanding lower class,
> caused by increased unemployment/underempl... does not trouble the
> upper class which can simply issue more scrip to enlarge the fraudulent
> bribe.
> 2. It allows them to inflate the price of financial assets and selected
> commodities which increases their net worth, since a majority of
> financial and commodity assets are, directly or indirectly, owned
> and controlled by a very small fraction of households. When vast
> liquidity is selectively and deliberately concentrated on a few
> asset classes, these assets will inflate. At the same time, coerced
> liquidity starvation for the remaining asset classes will cause these
> assets to deflate in value: hence simultaneous inflation and deflation.
>
> Assets and organizations that hugely benefit the net worth and income
> of the tiny upper class are inflated. Assets and organizations that
> comprise the primary wealth and jobs base of the middle class are
> deflated. Bigger bonuses for the bosses; income and wage reductions
> for the middle class.
>
> The debasing dollar primarily damages the middle class, which will
> experience a steady increase in the cost of essential goods and services
> while experiencing a notable decline in its aggregate, after tax,
> discretionary income and its tangible net worth. This will occur
> even as Wash DC and Wall St claim there is "no inflation". There
> is ,for the Middle Class, as the exchange rate of the scrip declines
> versus the material goods and services needed to sustain a middle
> class life. As the dollar declines so declines the middle class in
> terms of both its real material quality of life and its total share
> of US households: a smaller, poorer middle class.
>
> The upper class has made and is making a vastly profitable and massively
> criminal trade: use the dollar to sacrifice the middle class and
> America's global stature, bribe the lower class and aggrandize and
> enrich the upper class. This trade is increasingly transparent to
> the rest of the world. It is the ordinary American who cannot or
> will not see it.

Tracking the Bear Market Rally

A small positive GDP number is likely, however in normal recoveries or should I say recoveries in recent history, we typically see robust gains in GDP. This time a small statistical increase in GDP will feel like we are still in the downward leg. Technically the recession will have ended. The data I find most useful, is the export shipping data from Japan and China, these are not yet doing anything which supports the notion that the consumer here and in Europe are saving and paying down debts. The government can spend future tax revenues and the fed can reflate by expanding their balance sheet and enabling investment banks to stoke equity market reflation with almost free loans, but at present US bank consumer credit is being destroyed at about 1% / month. This is why we will stumble along until real wealth is created in this country once more.


On Sep 17 05:05 PM thiazole wrote:

> Perhaps you define "uptick" differently than I do, but we've already
> had an "uptick" in economic activity and next month's GDP data will
> prove it. Are you saying it will still be negative?
>

Overbought Stocks

If an instrument is over bought or over sold and you wish to make a counter trend trade (which you hope may result in a full reversal trend the other way). Simply place a stop entry order under (short entry) or over (long entry) the market high or low. Keep adjusting the entry value following the market up or down current trend continues and eventually the market will tell you that the OB or OS condition has ended by hitting your entry order. With a few tweaks this can become a high percentage winning system.

Capitalism, Socialism and 10-Year Returns of Country ETFs

A better label would be "average annual rate of return", "annualized" infers using compounding which is clearly not the case here.

Why the U.S. Dollar Drop Might Be Significant

The dollar is just replacing the yen as the carry trade source, given it's zero interest rate. Just look at the AusUsd on tear today, even with the Chinese in the process of popping their latest bubble. However this trend could turn on a dime, given we are in a short deflationary environment, watch the risk bid return as we enter into second leg down later in the fall.

EUR / USD Parked in Neutral and Going Nowhere

There is always a calm before the storm.

Auditing the Fed Is Economic Suicide

I have no doubt that America's finest days are ahead of it, when you see patriots such as Ron Paul and many like minded followers making excellent points above. The only trick in reclaiming our own money, is to ensure we keep control of it, out of the hands of grubby politicians.

Are Financial Stocks Preparing for 'The Fall'?

This site has been hacked. I note from the authors reply above that he also run into this issue but was fooled by the hacker, "it triggered a scan by my security software". This is the hack, the web page is made to look like a security scan and then downloads a malicious program. I have had this occur 4 times on this site while using google chrome.

Why Today's Stock Markets Are All About Confidence and Gullibility

I'm looking forward to Mr. Kim providing an actionable call to go short.