Quaker

The Recovery Was Too Expensive

GDP is really a money flow number. It really bears little resemblence to the economic activity going on in the country or to earnings power. This is why GDP went down so little yet personal income tax reciepts to the government went down 35%, the biggest drop in history.

Corporate taxes right now are about 8% of total spending. Personal income taxes are about 35% of spending. The rest is mostly borrowed.

Given baseline budgeting for entitlements, there's little question that Bernanke didn't really do anything other than kick the can down the road. The fact that he considers this a victory shows how shallow and bureaucratic his thinking really is.

The fact is, all we really did was hasten the collapse of the federal government. The key flaw in peoples thinking is the perception that things that change gradually will always change gradually. When this thing stops, it's going to stop like a june bug stops when it hits your windshield.

There's Just No Need For A Fed Cut

people who rely on government statistics to tell them what the economy is doing deserve to lose their money.

The View From Friday's GDP Report

When was the last time GDP was revised up? IMO, GDP will start to really fall in the fourth quarter. This is when contagion from the mortgage markets makes it's way into credit cards and financing for boats, Harley's, motor homes and cottages.

Economics is the science of deception. 2 and 10 average to 6. So does 5 and 7. Add hedonic adjustments and seasonal adjustments and you have worthless blather.

Almost all of my elderly clients (accounting firm) have multiple homes and virtually ALL are selling one. Either a Florida or a NY. Almost all have leveraged motor homes and multiple cars. All the "home value" statistics tell you is that as sales fall, prices are being concentrated around the national average for mortgage loan approval based on wages. (As if we needed analysis to see that was going to happen. This has nothing to do with actual price.

The cottage industry is going to get DEMOLISHED. Cottages are the ultimate Alt-A, subprime. Nobody... and i mean NOBODY can even imagine summer home prices will fall. Not owners, not bankers.

But simultaneoulsy, we are going to get a bloodbath in sales of motor homes, harleys, ski-doo's.

When marina's are stuffed with unsellable fishing traulers and banks are repoing lake front property by the neighborhood, BEA will still be saying GDP is going up 3.4%.

John Hussman: Global Liquidity or Domestic Stupidity

I agree, it is a bit loonie. Utilities are up 100% in three years and they're still considered strong buys.

It's seems like nobody can even imagine the prospect that interest rates could rise!

Strong Earnings Season (So Far) Has Pushed Markets Higher

What possible difference does it make what the earnings are? No shareholder is ever going to touch the money.

The average investor is a 401-K holder that doesn't even know he's in the stock market.

Strong Earnings Season (So Far) Has Pushed Markets Higher

The numbers" are a shell game. If you listen to conference calls, you hear a continuous litany of "ex items" and "operating earnings". The fact is, corporate earnings suck. the only thing keeping them up is massive buy backs and accounting shell games.

Look at telecom. Verizon took me from being a land line user to a cell phone user. Before I had one line and it cost me $125 a month. Now I have 4 lines and it costs $125 a month. Verizon calls me a new customer. My phone and internet bill for my business has fallen from $7,000 a year to $2,800. Find that on Verizons FS's.

Never in my 20 years as an accountant have I seen so much economic idiocy passing as business. Companies are actually punished for spending money on Capex.

Companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year retiring options that go to a half dozen people and pay their shareholders a dividend that wouldn't cover a reasonable lunch tab.

You have to be a complete idiot to buy this market.