johngonole

Buffett's Betrayal

I can't speak much on Buffet. But he is well connected with the progressives and I have no doubt he traded on good information. If I were a shareholder I would think that was great. As a taxpayer shame shame on Buffet and all the finaciers.

I personally think the large financial institutions are a bunch of fascist pigs. They are basically selling our freedoms in exchange for power and money. How is it possible for a business like Goldman Sachs to make the billions that they make and produce ZERO products. Goldman may be getting richer but the taxpayers are getting hosed. Socialism for the rich and poor. Middle Class is quietly being enslaved. When it comes time to pay off these debts and entitlements it will be the middle class that suddenly finds itself poor.

Truth be told we have it great in this country but the foundation of our destruction has been laid and it is deep. The thought that Americans returning to a moderate savings rate spells doom for the economy (EVEN BEFORE all those entitltements kick in) just shows how misallocated our resources have become. The idea that government is somehow going to get the right mix is just stupid.

I was talking with a friend and told him how much or my companies revenue is related to school construction. He said ohhh well you should benefit from all that stimulus money. That certainly isn't the case. I don't know where all the stimulus money is going but it certainly isn't in construction. I don't even think they are spending it on other infrastructure projects.

Most of stimulus money appears to be in the form of wealth transfers and transfers to political machinery orgainizations.

Kudos to those who have been heckeling our politicians.

Charlie Munger: 'We've Screwed Up'

Two thumbs up for Socialism Can't Competes comments. Regarding Charlie Mungers comments about economist not considering good and evil he was very close. What he should have said was "I would argue that the SOCIALIST/STATIST have not been all that good at working concepts of good and evil into their profession".

After all capitolism (Markets free from monopolies that control supply or price) uses thousands of small successes and failures to check the human condition. Socialism assumes that a one party system can eliminate all evils (the chief one being inequality). The flawed assumption is that this small group of people are somehow immune to all temptations and corruptions.

The truth is that humans are far from perfect and will never be perfect. Capitolism, Free markets, and a government with limited power allows the millions of people to police themselves. This dispersion of power can't stop every rebellion or wrong doing. It can't even right every wrong. The Statist solution assumes the government consolidated power will always be used for good. This of course was never true and as soon as the government is controled by evil doers the power they weild quickly overwhelms the unarmed masses.

I'm not doing a very good articulating the idea. To put it in simpler terms. With power decentralized good and evil both exist. But in a competitive free market system evil tends to fail and collape upon itself do to its inherent costs. For example if you can't trust the person you are doing business with you won't deal with them again. Think EBAY and user ratings (as they once were).

When too much power is centralized it works very well as long as the good guys are in charge. Once evil takes the reigns of power it never relinquishes that power. Evil become what controls the rules of the market place. By its nature the rules are fixed to favor others who have no qualms about taking what they can take. The market place is destroyed. Now the failure will be on a massive scale. The end is always bloody.

History shows that free societies have always been more productive. Our problem right now is that power has been slowly consolidating more and more with the Federal Government. State governments are stripping local governments of their power also. powers is consolidating at the top of the pryamid. Its not surprising to see all the corruption we've seen. The evil doers are bailed out by other evil doers so they can keep evil doing. Our economy is resembling facism more and more.

No disrespect to those who honestly think government can do good without end. Governments do lots and lots of good everyday. Some of the function they provide are priceless. The problem is that who will step in and check the government once it becomes too powerful to stop. Just look at what Chavez is doing in Venezuala. He almost has an iron fist on that country now. If he is so good then why does he need the military at all......think about it.

Too much power is being wielded by our governments. Its time to make the power move back down to the base of the pyramid. For those of you who aren't paying attention that is the people.

Why Is Everybody Selling as Buffett Is Loading Up?

Regarding the bail out Buffet certainly seemed in a panic. I think Buffett is way early here. Markets will continue to tank for next month of so. I think when we are 50% from market peak we could see some stablization. The market might actually be a good value. But we need the crisis to pass. Furthermore I don't expect it to go up fast. Lots of bad future earnings in the way.