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"...U.S. Dictatorship"
Sly, you're a moron.
Unfortunately, the fundies control the Palesinian Authority and every terrorist organization in the region. To them,fair borders = no Israel.
The current dis-unity within the U.N. security counsel makes peace in the Israel/Palestine region even more unlikely. With the lack of backbone exhibited by the French, Germans and Russian, do you think Israel will ever trust their security to an international body? Hell no.
Sly doesn't want to reason with them, he already agrees with them.
Don't worry about a nuclear holocaust. Bill Clinton made a deal with the North Koreans. We're completely safe!
Sarai, I agree with you that the words "Never Again" have become meaningless drivel because most western democracies are unwilling to anything to help. I don't believe the Christian Right is to blame.
Sarai - Because you don't see a lot of media coverage of the "Christian Right" voicing opposition to these regimes, it doesn't mean they're not doing so. Thousands of conservative Christians do a great deal to help the victims of these regimes. Remember the missionaries held by the Taliban? Remember the missionaries murdered in Yemen?
Did any of you watch George S. (on ABC's This Week) question the French ambassador to the U.N.?
Summary.
Inspectors find WMD = Inspections are working
Inspectors don't find WMD = Inspections are working
"We consider that war is always, always, the worst solution*," Mr Chirac said.
*except when our country was under Nazi occupation
I bet you voted for Robert Byrd. <:-0
"Says who? Bush? Israel? A bunch of racist murdering criminals?" - Sly
Ummmm, I vote for Sly.
Great analysis. Thanks for posting!
Where can I send my donation?
Pull your head out of the sand people. Iraq IS a threat.
Dr. Richard Spertzel, who served as an UNSCOM biological warfare specialist, described for the committee (U.S. House Armed Services Committee 9/11/02)the breadth of Iraq's efforts to both develop and conceal its toxic biological agents.
Briefly describing the various toxins Iraq is known to have developed and their various types of delivery systems, Spertzel said Iraq's biological weapons program "from the very beginning on, included both a military portion and what appeared to be a terrorist application."
"Iraq still maintains and retains the necessary personnel, equipment and supplies to have an expanded capability. Even after the destruction in 1996 of its major bacterial production facility at Al Hakam complex … It is my opinion that Iraq's greatest threat to the U.S., and certainly the U.S. homeland, is in the production of agents, bacterial agents, to be used by terrorists," Spertzel concluded.
Spertzel alluded to scenarios whereby terrorist could kill thousands by dispersing biological weapons through HVAC systems of large office buildings.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! Saddam doesn't need an ICBM with a nuclear warhead to pose a threat to the U.S.
2 more rules for being a Democrat
1) You believe people who don't pay taxes deserve a tax cut
2) You believe people are inheritly stupid, unable to achieve financial self-sufficence without government assistance.
5 Rules for Being a Democrat
1) You have to believe that the nation's economic growth in the 90's was a result of policies promoted by Bill Clinton (while he was getting blow jobs from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office)
2) You have to believe that war is bad for the economy, but good for business.
3) You have to believe Social Security is a fiscally sound program.
4) You have to believe pregnant woman have two hearts, two brains, four eyes, and two digestive systems.
5) You have to believe that religion begins and ends at the church/synagogue/mosque steps.
How will SoxFan and jBennett53 ever see the Powell presentation with their heads buried so deep in the sand?
"Please don't tell me you are only looking at our government expenditures. If that's the case then all our wars are a financial drain."
DUH!!!!!!! Of course I'm looking at government expenditures! Why doesn't that count???
If your so damn smart, why don't to tell everyone on this board which companies that will benefit from this war? C'mon, let's hear it. We'll look at their stock prices at the end of 2003. Deal?
"To me imminent danger is not a fuzzy and meaningless term because someone issued a surprise attack on us."
HUH??? In every case I mentioned, we were in imminent danger -we just failed to RECOGNIZE IT. What you mean by "imminent danger" is an obivious aggressive act. In every case I mentioned, there was neither an obvious or aggressive act BEFORE we were attacked, but there was imminent danger.
"While I personally was not aware that we were in danger I'm not as dismissive that an investigation would not prove that others entrusted with our protection were not aware."
Of course they were not aware. Of course they didn't recognize the imminent threat. I doesn't mean imminent danger didn't exist! In my opinion, Iminent danger exists if an adversary has the following:
- The means to do us harm
- The desire to do us harm
- The belief that they can get away with it
Saddam qualifies on all three counts.
"It worries me that America has now embarked on a new course of pre-emption."
It worries me that so many can't recognize the imminent danger and are so willing to roll the dice with our lives.
I don't think the current crew is that intelligent to assess unintended consequences do you?
I believe this administration has the best and brightest we've seen in Washington D.C. in a long time. That idiotic left-wing stereotype that they're just a bunch of dumb, blood thirsty cowboys is ridiculous.
"Heck it was the same crew Chaney - Rumsfeld that thought Saddam was such a nice guy and did not do or say anything negative when he gassed his own ..."
That's total BS and you know it. Go to your local library and read the news from the day. Nobody ever thought Saddam was a nice guy. Our policy was to make sure nobody won. We never tried to help Saddam WIN the war.
"If you are so worried by Saddam you must really be worried about Pakistan, N. Korea, Russia, India, et al because they have nuclear capabilities."
Read my imminent danger criteria above. None of these countries meet the criteria (although N. Korea is the closest because they're willing to sell weapons to anybody who has cash in hand)
"Saddam has been contained for 12 years"
Saddam has been retooling his arsenal for 12 years.
"and his little army is not nearly the strength it was in the Gulf War."
Dude, stop thinking so conventionally. I'm not worried about the Iraqi army, I'm worried about surrogates - terrorists.
"Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11."
Hitler had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. So what?
"We are Nation building and want Iraq's oil and we will get it."
Another total BS statement. I'll bet my life savings that the U.S. won't benefit finacially from a conflict with Iraq. Look at our track record pal. We've been net loosers (financially) through every military conflict we've been engaged in the past century.
WWI
WWII
Korea
Vietnam
Panama
Grenada
Persian Gulf War
Somalia
Kosovo
Name one instance were we benefited financially.
As for the Gulf War - I don't think our trade was threatened. Saddam wanted Kuwait to stop slant drilling oil in Iraq.
OHHHH, COME ON!!!! GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!! Saddam wanted to stop slant drilling so he marched in and took over the country! Geez, I suppose we should take over Mexico because they can control their border!
"At the time Saddam was our buddy so why would he stop selling oil to us?"
Please stop the revisionist history. Saddam was never "our buddy".
"your last comment - Actually you would see me there but I seriously doubt you would be there unless your government said it was OK."
Just as I guessed. You would carry a placard that would have no meaning after you were done carrying it.
McCain was tortured by the communist government of North Vietnam. Are you saying that our citizens are more brutal than theirs? I'll remind you that Richard Reid survived his "citizen arrest" after trying to kill all on board.
Ever since 9/11, "imminent danger" has become a fuzzy, meaningless term. Did you believe we were in imminent danger before 9/11? No? That was a pretty serious mis-calculation, wouldn't you say?
What about Pearl Harbor? The takeover of our Embassy in Iran? The attack on the U.S.S. Cole? The U.S. Embassasies in Nairobi and Dar es Saleem? I'm sorry SoxFan, our enemies don't stand up and announce "we are putting you on notice United States, you are now in imminent danger." It worries me that so many of our politicians and leaders are so cock-sure that Saddam or his surrogates can't or won't hurt us - that we'll have fair warning and be able to successfully defend ourselves without great loss of life.
In regards to part 2 of your doctrine, I suppose you supported the 1990 Persian Gulf War since you say the Military should be used to "protect the flow of trade"? I suppose I won't ever hear of you carrying a "Never Again" placard outside of the National Holocaust Mueseum.
http://mccain.senate.gov/vietnam.htm
"BTW - do you think the war in Iraq will help sweeps week on TV?" Of course!
Explain
Augieboo, you need to get an art rep for that one. Bet you could sell it at auction.
"Saddam would be dead 16-18 years by now if the US government had stayed out of the Iran-Iraq war."
Is that suppose to give me a warm and fuzzy? Let me sit back and visualize how cool it would be to see the radicals in Iran in control of Iraqi oil reserves.
Please explain "SoxFan doctrine". When should military force be used, if ever?
As for Vietnam, my views are similar to John McCann's. I'm sure you approved of their human rights policy, democratic principles, and tolerance of political debate.
"The military I want is one that can defend the USA and not be the policemen of the world"
I suppose we should have told our European friends to "get screwed" in the 1940s?
"Does it cost more to "defend" a larger economy?"
Good question, but I think the answer is yes. Here are three reasons off the top of my head:
1. As our economy grows, it is increasing dependant on global factors (unfettered transportation of goods, political stability, regional conflicts, terrorism, etc.). The military cost needed to address economic threats on a global basis would naturally grow in proportion to GDP growth.
2. Terrorism is a low cost proposition with the potential to inflict major economic damage. The old concept of defense spending equillibrium has been thrown out the window. Example 1: A simple shoulder fired rocket costing thousands can easily bring down an aircraft costing millions. Example 2: Seven suicidal terrorist with airline tickets can kill thousands and cost billions.
3. Technology is expensive. As the size of our military shrinks in terms of total headcount, the expense of training and equipment grows exponentially. The old days of gaining military advantage through headcount are long gone.
SoxFan, what would you propose as the appropriate level of defense spending? Given the erosion to our military preparedness during the nineties and the hightened threat of terrorism, the Bush budget doesn't seem all that extravagant.
More testimony:
"Concerning defects, I think the administration's defense budget contains relatively few.
It has corrected shortfalls in military pay and benefits, raised funding for readiness accounts, covered the Pentagon's share of the cost for the war on terrorism, and increased research and development funding for transformational technologies.
The one area where the budget is deficient is procurement -- the replacement of aging weapons. The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimate that $105 billion in procurement funding is needed each year to prevent the existing force structure from shrinking or aging.
The administration's proposed budget for 2003 only funds two-thirds of that amount, and thus assures that an increasingly decrepit arsenal will continue aging.
The shortfall in procurement is not new: the Clinton years were the only period during the last half century when procurement spending was consistently less than 20% of the defense budget.
One consequence was that the average age of Air Force aircraft rose from 13 years in 1990 to 22 years today. The average Navy plane today, for the first time in history, is older than the average warship.
Some Army and Marine helicopters have become so aged that they pose a danger to both the readiness and the safety of U.S. forces."
A little more perspective...
"Just the proposed increase between 2002 and 2003 -- $48 billion -- is as much as the entire military budget of Russia or China."
"However, as a share of national wealth, the proposed budget is much lower than the norm over the last two generations -- despite the fact that we have embarked on a global campaign to counter terrorism. Between 1950 and the year 2000, defense spending averaged about 7% of gross domestic product annually. If GDP in 2003 surpasses $11 trillion as expected, then the administration's defense budget would represent about 3.3% of the economy -- less than half the average of the last 50 years."
"Of course, the economy has grown considerably during that period. But if we consider the overall scale of the economy today, the proposed level of defense spending is relatively modest. For example, it has been estimated that Americans devote 6% of GDP to gambling. At that rate, the Navy's proposed $6 billion shipbuilding budget for 2003 would be about equal to what is spent on gambling each weekend."
Testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, February 28, 2002
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer / Lexington Institute
Adjunct Professor / Georgetown University
Hi JimBob,
When you say "system", I assume you mean my timing model(s). I've developed two models, one for the NASDAQ Composite and another for the NYSE Composite. Both have outperformed the market since I began out-of-sample testing last summer - I am very satisfied with the results so far
My strategy is based on several concepts demonstrated in the book "The Research Driven Investor" by Tim Hayes of Ned Davis Research (The best stock market book I've read since Market Logic by Norman Fosback). I highly recommend it.
In addition to my market indice models, I have models that help me determine favorable style, capitalization, sectors, and industry groups. My favorite investment vehicles are sector funds and ETFs.
It ain't sexy - I don't have any hot stock tips, but I grind out excess returns by avoiding high risk junctures and get fully exposed when profit potential is high.
Hello all,
I'm new to this board, so please bear with me. I've just started to experiment with using Bollinger Bands as a timing tool. If I understand it correctly, X_Dev works similarly - Identifying extreme deviations from a moving average or mean of a particular security and "averaging in" (or out)as signals are generated.
Was wondering if any of you have had experience using Bollinger Bands as a market indicator, particularly the NASDAQ Composite. I've noticed that a Bollinger Band 40,2 combo helps to identify excellent intermediate term entry/exit points, HOWEVER, it also generates many false signals. I'm exploring filters to help eliminate the false signal. One technique seems promising so far: Only act on BB signals that correspond with BPI or Summation Index overbought/oversold levels. Thoughts?
Below is a link to my current NASDAQ Model if you're interested. Thanks!
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=ID368318
Backtesting Moving Averages
Moon,
Read this article:
http://www.basicsoftrading.com/journal/2001-1/2001-1-09/
Here's his conclusion:
"We have performed computer analysis of various trading strategies using moving averages. the results for trading the Dow Jones Industrial Averages for the period form 1975 to 2001 show that there is no strategy using moving averages which is better than the buy and hold strategy."
So, do we chuck Moving Averages? I don't think so. Moving
Average Systems are extremely valuable trend indicators. That said, you must understand the weaknesses of moving averages and compensate for them by using other indicators. Moving Average system are always late; so, use reliable contra-trend, sentiment, or thrust indicators to compensate for this flaw. Moving averages are subseptible to whipsaws, especially in trendless markets. So, develop a model of several other indicators - eliminate the noise, avoid frequent whipsaws.
Word of advice: don't waste a ton of time trying to find the "best" combination. Optimized parameters almost guarantee that the results won't hold up in real time use. Choose your moving averages based on the cycle length you are interested in trading, not by the best back-tested results.
There they go again!
Did anyone else get a good laugh out of Gov. Gary Locke's Democratic response. My favorite line:
"We believe every American should get a tax cut."
What the Dems want you to believe is that every American pays income taxes. What he should have said is "We'll give a very small tax cut to those who pay taxes, and give a handout to everyone else."
I feel your pain.
There are ONLY 86 DJ Industry sub-groups, but still very time-consuming to set up this list.
I hope I won't have to re-build the list, but I'm taking your advice of duplicating lists in case this ever happens again. Caution to all - be careful when using the replace and merge list boxes on the scan results page. I wasn't sure exactly how they worked but I found out the hard way.
HELP!!!
Is there any way to recover a favorites list???
I created a favorites list with every DJ US Industry index in it (imagine how long that took), and while trying to run a scan against it (unsuccessfully I might add) I somehow deleted the list.
Please, don't tell me the list is gone!
Strategic Stock Scanning
I've never used TA for picking stocks before - always used TA to determine market direction and pure fundamentals for choosing stocks. I'd like to start using TA in my stock selection process.
Just so you know, I've been focusing on the intermediate term cycles - I'm not a short term trader.
Okay, here's a scenario for ya. The market is bottoming and you see several of your market indicators generating buy signals. Great. So you drill down and use TA to find the best candidates for the presumed advance. One thought is to find stocks that have oversold but improving RSIs. You might also want to know which of these stocks have the best longer term momentum too (maybe by scanning for the stocks with the best 50 or 100 day ROC). Does this make sense?
Do any of you have STRATEGIC scanning techniques that you use? If so, have any of your techniques been backtested, or have you used them long enough to know that they hold water? Any good books on the subject of STRATEGIC stock screening - using pure TA?
I prefer to use a 10 MA of VIX with Bollinger Bands - for two reasons: 1) The daily readings are too volatile for my taste and 2) There are many more good signals too be had even when the daily readings don't go to such lofty levels as 48. Look at both charts and I think you'll agree.
>
Bear Market Bounces Are Often Just Blips
Interesting article from July. Scroll down to the table and compare the past three days to other bear markets "blips".
http://www.thestreet.com/markets/taleofthetape/10034186.html
Amazed at the disbelief on this board
Last week, we had rampant pessimism, a selling climax, followed buy a burst in the A/D ratio. I don't know why everyone's so sure this rally won't play out for a while longer. I'm not a day trader, but the intermediate term reversal indicators are pretty sweet right now.
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=ID350373
Positiontrader
I began taking aggressive long positions in late July as my contra-trend indicators fired numerous bullish signals - see charts. The way my model is constructed, the contra-trend indicators lose points (an average of one point every two weeks) as time passes. By late August, my trend indicators never turned bullish. My model is constructed in such a way that the trend indicators usually takeover (turn bullish) as the contra-trend indicators fade to neutral. By September, my model was mildly bearish and my exposure to stocks was down to 50%. Last Wednesday, my contra-trend indicators started to fire bullish signals again.
As you can see, my model never goes from 100% long to 100% cash (or short) in a day, or even a week. The last intermediate cycle was fast, but not unusual for a bear market. I'm not a short term trader, but I listen to my model. Right now, I'm 100% long. That may seem to be a bit ballsy, but I trust the reliability of my indicators - I've spent a lot of time developing them.
In the end, I believe it pays to be aggressive at bottoms but to ease off rapidly if trend indicators don't follow suit. I'll be watching Big Trend and the NH/NL Ratio closely during the next few weeks. If they don't turn bullish soon, I'll be selling off chunks of my portfolio again.