User 86999

Don’t Blame Wall Street - At Least Not Completely

Stop the propaganda. The Level 3 assets with opaque books unable to explain the true value of assets and a whole lot of junk used to bloat the books to make the hefty incomes and bonuses does not fall in line with legitimate reasonable business practices. You cannot convince anyone who understands the accounting books, but good luck with some simpletons who may buy illogical random thoughts. Ron Paul has it right, once you are able to grasp the knowledge!

The Two-Ton Wall Street Conflict of Interest Few Dare To Talk About

Matt, your article on sformag is well written, but your thesis starts breaking down once you start using the numbers, such as $362B, $600B, $510B, which do not fit well together. Regardless, the profits sitting overseas waiting for a money-laundry opportunity like the 5.25% tax is a taxation loophole anyway. The Code needs be tightened, so that a corporation cannot keep the profits stashed away waiting for such an opportunity and instead pays the dues every year.

The following is a quote from your conclusion:

''Punish corporations for engaging in business overseas while raising the taxes they pay to the highest in the industrialized world, and they will do one of two things: either do less global business (which then will go to non-U.S. competitors) and become less profitable in the process (which means they will be able to hire fewer Americans); or these companies will simply move away, with a similar impact on U.S. workers.''

Well ... in the first case, the higher domestic hiring is a distorted myth, so it is very unlikely to happen because the corporate greed will prevail, and in the second case, we can live without those patriots and they are free to move out of this country - just make sure to surrender the passport when deciding to move elsewhere. Bon Voyage!

I was going to comment on the article on its relevant site, but I didn't find a place where I could comment, so sorry about ranting on this forum, but I just wanted to provide my feedback from a different perspective. I'm sure you mean well, but I think we need to weigh our priorities a little more closely. The economy is way out of control because of the corporate/bourgeois greed already - a few more mistakes and we're doomed. We need to spread the wealth not concentrate it in the upper echelons.

The Two-Ton Wall Street Conflict of Interest Few Dare To Talk About

This is so strange that our wages have not moved up since 2000, incidentally matching the dubya years, and prices have sky rocketed in this period; life has been sucked out of the middle and aspiring middle class, but we still fail to see that the republican policies are not in the interest of the common citizen - unless of course you are one of those making more than a million bucks a year, which is not quite rich but not exactly middle class either. I cannot see how a middle class person will consider more taxes on the corporate to be anti-corporate, if those taxes can be used to pay for your health and education, which in fact returns those benefits back to the corporate, while making sure that the employees get paid enough instead of that big fat cat sitting at the top.

Just How Correlated Are Oil and Equities?

The stats can be deceptive because of the market inefficiencies. When the oil goes up, your local gas stations are raising the prices immediately, but are they reducing it as fast and proportionately when oil goes down? No. So, the net effect is that the future holder speculators are making the money, but the broader economy is not highly correlated to the benefits. So, the stats will be skewed in one direction.

An Oil-Driven Paradigm Shift?

Interesting article and the long series of comments; shows how much the issue is touching on the soft spot. Some people think the pricey oil is because of the weak dollar, well ... that's just partly true. Oil has gone up by 38% in the last 6 months, if measured in gold (the time-tested currency). And don't worry about the next winter and lack of heating oil. Bern-anke-Bern is printing tons of money, we should be able to burn lots of that paper to keep us warm!

CPI: Respite or Reversal?

I would be a rich man, if I could place bets on a guaranteed upward correction by the gov in a few weeks. It's a pacifier number to prevent panic. They're getting used to handing out some convenient number and then keep correcting the numbers. Fool them once, fool them twice, fool them thrice ... and counting.

Dow's Latest Move Raises Serious Indexing Questions

You're absolutely right, and the good news is that more and more consumers are getting educated about the gap between dj30 & sp500. As a journalist, you can actually help spread the education by including a few sparker words (such as 'more diverse, or widely based' etc.) in your articles. As for those who're already educated, they just quietly research what they know is better for them!

“A Whiff of Panic...”

" ... free lunch crowd (a/k/a Long & Wrong) ..."

There is a reason why shorts are called derivatives. Think about it! What a moron.

It's Ugly Out There. What's Washington Waiting For?

Ever since those damned day traders entered the market, it's been a mess. It gets artificially high and low because of the auto pilot programs trading. Some of us who actually want to use fundamentals to pick long positions and occasionally hedge some really risky positions with a judicious use of shorts, get manipulated. Free markets, yeah, really; free to wipe out people's savings, I suppose!

ETF Fees Are Largely Irrelevant

This is just psychological manipulation. The fees should not be correlated with the returns; they should be correlated with the effort involved in maintaining a fund. The more work required, the higher the fee. Correlation is not causation, as a statistician would say; just because the returns are higher, doesn't grant a license to rob people; "earn" the money, don't just collect a premium because some area is a goldmine right now. Those returns are based on very high risk investments and ultimately the investors will pay the price when the downturn sets in.