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Oil price surges after Midwest pipeline shuts down
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Oil-price-surges-after-apf-2718020735.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
Oil prices surged Friday after a pipeline that delivered oil to Midwest refineries was shut down, raising questions about how long the supply may be disrupted.
Benchmark oil for October delivery rose $2.20 to settle at $76.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Enbridge Energy Partners LP closed the pipeline Thursday afternoon after it began leaking in suburban Chicago. Spokeswoman Terri Larson said there is no time frame yet on when it will reopen.
She said the site is contained and crews hope to begin excavation around the pipe later Friday.
The pipe carried about 670,000 barrels per day from Superior, Wis., to Griffith, Ind.
Although oil and gasoline inventories are plentiful, traders are concerned that Midwest supplies could tighten if the pipeline stays closed for some time, analysts said. In turn, that could send retail gasoline prices up in the Midwest.
Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, speculated that Chicago-area motorists will see prices of $3 a gallon or higher. Much of that depends on how long the pipeline is shut down. A gallon of unleaded averages $2.86 in Chicago now, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In the aftermath of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Enbridge Energy officials likely will be "very, very deliberate" in making the repairs, Kloza said.
Enbridge Energy Partners is an affiliate of Enbridge Inc., headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
Oil prices also got an early boost from China trade figures, which showed an increase in crude imports, Tradition Energy analyst Addison Armstrong said.
The gains mirrored an increase in U.S. equities as investor concerns about slowing growth have been quieted at least partially by recent, more positive economic news.
At the pump, the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was little changed at $2.685 a gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That's 0.4 cent higher than a week ago and 10.9 cents above a year ago.
In other Nymex trading in October contracts, heating oil rose 3.60 cents to settle at $2.1044 a gallon, gasoline added 3.77 cents to settle at $1.9731 a gallon. Natural gas gained 11.5 cents to settle at $3.883 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude rose 69 cents to settle at $78.16 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Associated Press writer Pablo Gorondi in Hungary contributed to this report.
hey ombo, why not not turn the board back over to gfp?
he started it, he should be able to to post whatever he likes without be hounded by a zelot.
a real christain would step down and move on, but like most zelot's i have know/observed over the years, you are likely by now loving the feeling of power you have. surround yourself by a few more like minded, and soon you will start thinking, wait, shouldn't women be kept under our thumb. Just make sure that you pick others that are of the same color as yourself, wouldn't want any of those "outsiders" on here.
i mean after all, you are doing god's work, how could you be wrong? oh, i don't know, let's ask the witches that were burned at the stake for their "sins." Oh, that's right we can't, those fine stepping christains already judged, juried, and burned em.
gfp, bigworld, if you guys start posting elsewhere, I'm so there, I'll even start a board for you when i get back.
backwoods zelot's need not apply.
hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.
ombo, you may want to consider using your mod powers to delete your post on pumping.
it is pretty much a given that i-hub is watched every day by those that can bring a great deal of misery into your life for trying to get someone to pump a stock for you.
the "founder" of i-hub has plead guilty to felony charges related to stocks being pumped, and is now awaiting sentencing.
even though most here know, or hope, you are kidding, the sec may not. just to suggest such a thing is a crime.
There are still old homes around the country with guns hidden in the walls.
There are web sites that sell long waterproof tubes so you can bury your firearms out back for if/when the gov. comes calling. (they looked like painted pieces of pvc pipe, for 200 dollars, and who said innovation is dead?)
I wonder how many held onto their gold back then?
Doesn't ole Jim Rogers live in Thailand now, moved his family somewhere overseas, I think?
I remember him screaming for listeners to get into commodities years and years ago when he was still a contributing "guest" on cnbc. He used to kind of look down towards his chest and go, "Well, I'm telling ya," then laugh a little, while looking at the moderator like they were morons.
Long before the commodity runs we have seen today.
Saw him on Bloomberg, or somewhere, recently and he seemed happy enough.......
Soaring Teen Unemployment Could Have Lifetime Effects
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/soaringteenunemploymentcouldhavelifetimeeffects
Soaring Teen Unemployment Could Have Lifetime Effects
livescience.com – Sun Aug 22, 7:30 am ET
The summer job used to be a staple of teenage life. Paper routes and ice cream parlors provided work experience, paychecks, and a psychological boost in the form of independence and self-esteem.
The worst recession since the Great Depression has changed all that.
Today, teenage unemployment is at an all-time high, hitting 26.1 percent in July. According to economists at Northeastern University, 4 million fewer teens are working today than would have if employment was at 2000 levels. Meanwhile, family financial stress hits teens, too. It's a combination that could have long-term effects on both their earning power and their mental health.
"Whenever there is fear and uncertainty and doubt, you're going to get a fair amount of anxiety about oneself, one's future and one's options for the future," said Laura Kastner, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington in Seattle and author of several books on parenting teens and young adults. "Anything that disempowers you in your expectations and attitudes about the future is not necessarily going to put you on the best path."
Teens need not apply
Summer and after-school jobs have been in decline for the past decade, said Andrew Sum, an economist and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. In June 2000, according to Sum's research, 51 percent of teenagers had jobs. In June 2010, that number fell to 28.6 percent. July's official unemployment number ? which only includes teenagers who are still looking for work, not those who have given up searching ? was higher than for any other age group in the country.
"The size of these declines in employment [is] overwhelming," Sum told LiveScience. "I've been working on youth issues now for 40 years and never has anything ever been this bad."
The downward trend is largely due to economic forces outside teens' control, Sum said. The recession of the early 2000s hit teen jobs hard, and they never fully recovered. Even before the current recession, the teen work rate was below 40 percent.
Now, adults are accepting low-paying, low-skill jobs once filled by teens. The problem is further exacerbated by a trend toward downsizing, outsourcing and the use of undocumented immigrant labor in jobs once held by teens, Sum said. Kids who are already bad off are the most affected: Teens with families that make less than $20,000 a year have only a 20-percent chance of finding employment, compared with 38 percent for teens with families in the $75,000-$100,000 income range.
The jobs that teens can get are also less likely to prepare them for the real world. Construction and manufacturing jobs have dried up, forcing teens to scramble for less-skilled, lower-wage work like food service and retail.
It may seem fair that teenagers are the first to lose employment opportunities in a recession. After all, they don't usually have families of their own to feed. But unemployment during the teen years follows a person throughout life, Sum said. Work experience now brings higher wages later. The more job experience a person has, the more likely employers are to invest in job training. Plus, teens who work are less likely to drop out of school, get involved in crime, or get pregnant.
Once you get off to a bad start, Sum said, "you cannot make up for what you lost. It's gone forever."
Parents just don't understand
Making matters worse, parents often don't understand what their kids are up against in the job market.
"Kids look a little bit, then they get disheartened," University of Washington's Kastner said. "Parents get mad at them for not fighting harder, and you get more fighting, more stress. ... Parents want kids to be more tenacious and have 20 job rejections. The average kid can handle a few rejections, but it doesn't keep parents from preaching at their kid."
Family stress is a hallmark of tough economic times, but parents may not realize the effects of stress on their teenage children.
A poll conducted by the American Psychological Association and Harris Interactive in July and August 2009 found that one-fifth of the teens in the nationally representative survey reported worrying a great deal or a lot about their grades, their college options and their family's finances. But only 3 percent of parents rated their children's stress levels as extreme. Parents also didn't realize how much financial worries hit kids. Only 18 percent of parents thought their kids worried about the family's money. In reality, almost a third of kids were concerned.
Financial tensions only increase as kids near college age, Kastner said. With student debt loads at astronomical highs, college choice can be a minefield. In her practice, Kastner sees parents who fail to set realistic expectations for kids before the admissions letters roll in. When a pricey private school acceptance letter lands in the mailbox, she said, teens are "dazzled," and may not realize the financial strain that could come with enrollment. If a parent tries to intercede with financial realities at that point, fights erupt.
"You see parents say, 'We'll just see where we get admitted,'" Kastner said. "It's way too late. ... Parents should have ongoing conversations about what the family is willing to support."
Stressed adolescents
All of this stress can have pernicious effects. A 2008 study in the journal Child Development found that for teens, family stress affects school performance, and school stress affects family relationships. After a family fight, for example, kids were more likely to skip classes and have trouble learning the next day at school. And after a bad day at school, family stress peaked for two days.
The cycle can be long-running: The study also found that higher levels of stress at the beginning of 9th grade correlated with lower academic performance in 12th grade.
Low-income teenagers are also more likely to face health problems like migraines, according to a 2007 study in the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, in part because of the stress of their circumstances. Teens in families with annual incomes under $22,500 had a 4.4-percent chance of migraine, compared with 2.9 percent in teens with families earning over $90,000 a year. Sick days caused by stress-related health problems can lead to poor academic performance, the researchers wrote.
How these effects will play out over the next decades is unknown. Much depends on individual circumstance. Kids of authoritative parents who set clear boundaries will probably fare better, particularly if parents have business networks that can help the child secure a job, Kastner said. Low-income kids with unemployed or overwhelmed parents are in more trouble.
All of this may seem like good reason for teen angst. But if you can help it, a sunny outlook is probably more beneficial, Kastner said.
"People who are optimistic, emotionally resilient and socially and emotionally competent are going to weather this better for sure," she said. "But if they're anxious, pessimistic, they're going to take the hard knocks in a worse way, which is just going to set them back."
"Enron Accounting" Has Bankrupted America: U.S. Deficit Really $202 Trillion, Kotlikoff Says
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/%22enron-accounting%22-has-bankrupted-america-u.s.-deficit-really-202-trillion-kotlikoff-says-535354.html?tickers=udn,tlt,tbt,uup,TIP,%5Egspc,GLD&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
"Enron Accounting" Has Bankrupted America: U.S. Deficit Really $202 Trillion, Kotlikoff Says
Posted Aug 23, 2010 07:30am EDT by Peter Gorenstein in Investing, Recession, Politics
EmailPrint.The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.3 trillion this year. An astronomical figure, to be sure, but that’s lower than was projected in March. It’s also less than last year’s record $1.41 trillion deficit, which was close to 10% of GDP.
And, that's the good news.
As the deficit grows so does the national debt, which is currently more than $13.3 trillion, according to official figures.
But the situation is actually much, much worse, according to Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff.
“Forget the official debt,” he tells Aaron in this clip. The “real” deficit - including non-budgetary items like unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the defense budget - is actually $202 trillion, the professor and author calculates; or 15 times the “official" numbers.
“Congress has engaged in Enron accounting,” says Kotlikoff, who recently penned an op-ed for Bloomberg entitled: The U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It.
Yet, the debt market continues to have an insatiable appetite for U.S. Treasuries; heading into Monday's session, the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond (which moves in opposition to its price) was at its lowest level since April 2009.
Kotlikoff says that's because the market is focused on the "mole hill" of official debt. In time, the U.S. will have a major inflation problem to rival that of Germany's post World War I Weimar Republic, he predicts. “We have to think about the fact that unless the government gets its fiscal act in order we’re going to have the government printing lots and lots money to pay these enormous bills that are coming due over time.”
America is in need of major reform of the health-care, retirement, tax and financial system, Kotlikoff continues. “We need (to perform) heart surgery on this economy, not putting on more band-aids which is what we’ve been doing.”
Barring that, your hard-earned dollars will soon be worthless, he declares.
That is true, but would it make you feel any better if i told you I was once stabbed by the brother of a Hell's Angel?
True story, minor wound, teenagers, and friends.
'Hindenburg Omen' Flashes
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110355/hindenburg-omen-flashes?mod=bb-budgeting
'Hindenburg Omen' Flashes
by Steven Russolillo and Tomi Kilgore
Monday, August 16, 2010
Technical Gauge and Its Creator Sense Stock Gloom; 'Good Conspiracy Theories'?
Forget about Friday the 13th. Many on Wall Street took to whispering about an even scarier phenomenon -- the "Hindenburg Omen."
The Omen, named after the famous German airship in 1937 that crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., is a technical indicator that foreshadows not just a bear market but a stock-market crash. Its creator, a blind mathematician named Jim Miekka, said his indicator is now predicting a market meltdown in September.
More from WSJ.com:
• 'Junk' Bonds Hit Record
• Rare Opportunity for China
• Can a Bum Ticker Kill A Portfolio?
Wall Street has been abuzz about whether the Hindenburg Omen will come to bear, with some traders cautioning clients about the indicator and blogs pondering all the doom and gloom. But Andrew Brenner, managing director at Guggenheim Securities, told his clients: "Personally, it sounds like [people] are starting their weekend drinking early."
Technical indicators, with names like "The Death Cross" and "The Bearish Abandoned Baby" have been attracting mainstream attention in recent months. Amid an increasingly volatile market, investors have been searching for any clues about stocks' direction, especially this past week where major indexes fell more than 3%.
"We always love good conspiracy theories," said Joseph Battipaglia, chief market strategist of the private-client group at Stifel Nicolaus. But he noted that market watchers sometimes make too much of what could be mere coincidences. "I for one dismiss all these things because they usually erupt most numerously during bear markets."
Mr. Miekka came up with the Omen in 1995 as a way to predict big market downturns, developing a formula that parses data like 52-week stock levels and the moving averages of the New York Stock Exchange. He said the Hindenburg Omen's name was coined by a fellow market technician, Kennedy Gammage, when they found out the name "Titanic" already had been taken.
The Omen's Criteria
• The daily number of new NYSE 52-week highs and the daily number of new 52-week lows must both be greater than 2.5% of the total issues traded that day.
• The smaller of the 52-week highs and lows must be greater than or equal to 79 (or 2.5% of 3,168 issues).
• The NYSE's 10-week moving average must be rising.
• The McClellan Oscillator, a measure of market fluctuations, must be negative.
• New 52-week highs can't be more than twice the new 52-week lows. (However, it is acceptable for the new 52-week lows to be more than double the 52-week highs.)
The confluence of data used by the Omen was officially tripped this week. There were 92 companies that hit new 52-week highs on Thursday, or 2.9% of all companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. There were also 81 new lows, or 2.6% of the total. Each number must exceed 2.5% for the Omen to occur, according to Mr. Miekka.
Other criteria include a rising 10-week moving average for NYSE and a negative McClellan Oscillator, a technical indicator that measures market fluctuations. Mr. Miekka said the appearance of one signal is usually an indication of a market top, but the Omen becomes more accurate when there are two or more close together.
The Omen was behind every market crash since 1987, but also has occurred many other times without an ensuing significant downturn. Market analysts said only about 25% of Omen appearances have led to stock-market declines that can be considered crashes.
"The Hindenburg Omen does show some deteriorating internals, which signals some major concerns," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "But it isn't a reason to move to 100% in cash. We're taking a wait-and-see approach, but considering its recent history, we're considering it more than other indicators."
Mr. Miekka, who writes a Wall Street newsletter called "Sudbury Bull & Bear Report" out of his homes in Maine and Florida, wasn't even aware that his own Hindenburg Omen indicator was activated. The 50-year-old former physics teacher, who is an avid target shooter, said he was "taken by surprise" after he plugged the data into his model.
He didn't say whether it is a good time to bail out of the market, but he isn't exactly in a bullish mood when it comes to stocks. "I'll be dancing close to the door," he said.
==for several years===
Ha, Leave it to me to be current in the bio world.
Lost most of my interest in the sector when the finance picture changed, and when Dr. T. was telling us how that guy almost begged to present at that bio conference, hat in hand.
Thanks for the update, I marked a couple boards to keep an eye on them.
Take Care.
Hello Surf, There is an article in the September 2010 issue of Popular Science mag, page 35, that mentions this company several times.
I can't find a link to it on their site as they may not put latest issue stuff on there.
Title of article is "An Rx for every disease." Subtitle: "A protein killer could treat all cancers and possibly all illnesses."
Talks about small study of 19 liver cancer patients whose tumors did not respond to chemo, but an experimental RNAi drug cut off blood flow to 62% of their tumors.
Says conventional drugs stop disease-causing proteins, and the cited drug uses RNAi therapy to stop cells from making bad proteins in the first place, a tatic that could work for "hundreds of diseases." (pop sci's words)
Quotes company: Alnylam CEO saying, "Imagine that your kitchen floods, today's medicines mop it up. RNAi tech turns off the faucet."
Hope you are doing well.
Hello gfp,
I was wondering if you had ever heard of RNAi ?
Popular Science has an article about it in their September 2010 issue, but I can't link as I can't find it on their site yet.
Title of article is "An Rx for every disease." Subtitle: "A protein killer could treat all cancers and possibly all illnesses."
Talks about small study of 19 liver cancer patients whose tumors did not respond to chemo, but an experimental RNAi drug cut off blood flow to 62% of their tumors.
Says conventional drugs stop disease-causing proteins, and the cited drug uses RNAi therapy to stop cells from making bad proteins in the first place, a tatic that could work for "hundreds of diseases." (pop sci's words)
Quotes company: Alnylam CEO saying, "Imagine that your kitchen floods, today's medicines mop it up. RNAi tech turns off the faucet."
Anyway, I am tired tonight, but wanted to see if you had ever heard of it.
Pop Sci has always had attention getting headlines, but you never know......
Quick public msg search of ihub brought up:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=17838
That stock is a double plus since march.
And now I see that surf is an assistant on the cited company's, Alnylam, board up on ihub, nearly by himself. That stock has dropped from around 18 to 14 since March:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=9754
Hope you are doing well.
I guess I had not thought about the possibility that it could be health related. I sure hope it is not, as everything takes a back seat to hearing some bad health news.
Take Care.
Hello gfp, I am not current on what is the "norm" in the bio world, but if I read that right, he put in that he was leaving on the 9th, and left on the 10th.
The only thing that would say "take this job and shove it," any clearer to me, would be if he had left on the 9th, and then pulled the airliner emergency inflatable ramp, and had a nice slide down
What ever happened to giving a little notice?
Is a Crash Coming? Ten Reasons to Be Cautious
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703723504575425723973560744.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_personalfinance
AUGUST 13, 2010.Is a Crash Coming? Ten Reasons to Be Cautious By BRETT ARENDS
Text Could Wall Street be about to crash again?
This week's bone-rattlers may be making you wonder.
I don't make predictions. That's a sucker's game. And I'm certainly not doing so now.
But way too many people are way too complacent this summer. Here are 10 reasons to watch out.
1. The market is already expensive. Stocks are about 20 times cyclically-adjusted earnings, according to data compiled by Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller. That's well above average, which, historically, has been about 16. This ratio has been a powerful predictor of long-term returns. Valuation is by far the most important issue for investors. If you're getting paid well to take risks, they may make sense. But what if you're not?
The Big Interview with David Rosenberg
.2. The Fed is getting nervous. This week it warned that the economy had weakened, and it unveiled its latest weapon in the war against deflation: using the proceeds from the sale of mortgages to buy Treasury bonds. That should drive down long-term interest rates. Great news for mortgage borrowers. But hardly something one wants to hear when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is already north of 10000.
3. Too many people are too bullish. Active money managers are expecting the market to go higher, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Active Investment Managers. So are financial advisers, reports the weekly survey by Investors Intelligence. And that's reason to be cautious. The time to buy is when everyone else is gloomy. The reverse may also be true.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Crowds panic on Wall Street on Oct. 24, 1929.
.4. Deflation is already here. Consumer prices have fallen for three months in a row. And, most ominously, it's affecting wages too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, last quarter, workers earned 0.7% less in real terms per hour than they did a year ago. No wonder the Fed is worried. In deflation, wages, company revenues, and the value of your home and your investments may shrink in dollar terms. But your debts stay the same size. That makes deflation a vicious trap, especially if people owe way too much money.
5. People still owe way too much money. Households, corporations, states, local governments and, of course, Uncle Sam. It's the debt, stupid. According to the Federal Reserve, total U.S. debt—even excluding the financial sector—is basically twice what it was 10 years ago: $35 trillion compared to $18 trillion. Households have barely made a dent in their debt burden; it's fallen a mere 3% from last year's all-time peak, leaving it twice the level of a decade ago.
6. The jobs picture is much worse than they're telling you. Forget the "official" unemployment rate of 9.5%. Alternative measures? Try this: Just 61% of the adult population, age 20 or over, has any kind of job right now. That's the lowest since the early 1980s—when many women stayed at home through choice, driving the numbers down. Among men today, it's 66.9%. Back in the '50s, incidentally, that figure was around 85%, though allowances should be made for the higher number of elderly people alive today. And many of those still working right now can only find part-time work, so just 59% of men age 20 or over currently have a full-time job. This is bullish?
(Today's bonus question: If a laid-off contractor with two kids, a mortgage and a car loan is working three night shifts a week at his local gas station, how many iPads can he buy for Christmas?)
7. Housing remains a disaster. Foreclosures rose again last month. Banks took over another 93,000 homes in July, says foreclosure specialist RealtyTrac. That's a rise of 9% from June and just shy of May's record. We're heading for 1 million foreclosures this year, RealtyTrac says. And naturally the ripple effects hurt all those homeowners not in foreclosure, by driving down prices. See deflation (No. 4) above.
8. Labor Day is approaching. Ouch. It always seems to be in September-October when the wheels come off Wall Street. Think 2008. Think 1987. Think 1929. Statistically, there actually is a "September effect." The market, on average, has done worse in that month than any other. No one really knows why. Some have even blamed the psychological effect of shortening days. But it becomes self-reinforcing: People fear it, so they sell.
9. We're looking at gridlock in Washington. Election season has already begun. And the Democrats are expected to lose seats in both houses in November. (Betting at InTrade, a bookmaker in Dublin, Ireland, gives the GOP a 62% chance of taking control of the House.) As our political dialogue seems to have collapsed beyond all possible hope of repair, let's not hope for any "bipartisan" agreements on anything of substance. Do you think this is a good thing? As Davis Rosenberg at investment firm Gluskin Sheff pointed out this week, gridlock is only a good thing for investors "when nothing needs fixing." Today, he notes, we need strong leadership. Not gonna happen.
10. All sorts of other indicators are flashing amber. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index, while still positive, weakened again in July. So did ISM's new-orders indicator. The trade deficit has widened, and second-quarter GDP growth was much lower than first thought. ECRI's Weekly Leading Index has been flashing warning lights for weeks (though the most recent signals have looked somewhat better). Europe's industrial production in June turned out considerably worse than expected. Even China's steamroller economy is slowing down. Tech bellwether Cisco Systems has signaled caution ahead. Individually, each of these might mean little. Collectively, they make me wonder. In this environment, I might be happy to buy shares if they were cheap. But not so much if they're expensive. See No. 1 above.
Thanks for the update. I was a little surprised the stock didn't take a bigger hit today.
I was not really surprised that the earnings were off. I don't know what gas prices are like where you are, but here they have trended around .50 more per gallon, as compared to the wholesale price I have tracked on Bloomberg.com, for years.
That .50 has been more like .30-.35 for the last several months here and I have found myself wondering if profits at the refiners were being further squeezed.
Anyway, hope your trading is still going well. I am still mostly out of the market, but long on this one, wishing it paid a dividend.
Take Care.
Quote on Ihub incorrect. Price at 10:48am is 5.37 +.07. (yahoo)
Ihub quote showing .40.
I sent them a pm to see if they could reset.
gfp, no time to watch now, have 10-15 coming to the pool, (that i lovingly call the pool that cor helped build
but i have read about the planned labor camps b4 and have no doubt that there are plans in some dark hideaway now that call for rounding us up, if needed, as defined by, when ready......
we did round up legal residents with "different" colored skin around the time of pearl harbor, if memory serves.
chruch used to burn "witches" at the stake,
lots of bloody hands to go around this planet.
take care.
ha, good one ombo, and just what is your reason for taking over as mod?
ahh, it would be YOUR standards, even if they agree with others on this board. how about you shoving your Christian adgenda down all our throats? Oh, but that is ok, because YOU think it is ok. What a joke.
wish you could have met some of my father's war buddies. they would have slapped that liberal crap right out of you, even as they fought to keep you from speaking german as a first language.
haywaw, you are absolutley correct in my mind, no place for comparing our current commander and chief with hitler, shameful as well.
OK, Let's sit down with a group of WWII vets, few that are now, and discuss just how RR compares to Hitler. Shameful.
There are well thought out posts, as many of yours are, and then there is hateful crap. There are plenty of unmodded websites out there for that, but when agreeing to the ihub user agreement, you are allowing yourself to be checked in the mind of the random mod who may disagree with you. That is just the way it is here.
I prefer a site with mods, that occasionally filters out the hate, the teen angst, posters who repeat themselves a thousand times over, the posters who ask the same questions time and time agian, just to get a rise out of posters trying to contribute, there are non registered promoters, there are sales people, scammers, all that and more, that's why i stay with ihub, to hopefully spare me from some of the yahoo board garbage. It is not perfect, it ticks people off, but there are other places to go, as well as an appeal process right here to get your deleted posts put back up.
The only reason I ever started modding this board in the first place was to try and keep what I thought was a good board, from getting taken over by a "team" of i hub scammers promoting penny stocks. There are plenty on ihub. Only takes 3 to 5 of them posting 150 times each, every day, to ruin a great board.
Ombo do your own research, if you are interested in the teams of scammers, please don't ask bigworld, in 10 different ways, to show how clever you are, to do it for you.
Anyway, good luck to you traders out there today
Actually, They weren't threats, they were promises.
This has always been GFP's board in my mind, so his wishes outweighted my own strong feelings not to let this board generate into a yahoo free for all, complete with the new mod's Christian ranting. Opp's, maybe this will get censored
gfp, thanks for the post, I had already removed the bookmark, but I get an increase in my mail account here when someone posts to me directly. I have always enjoyed your posting.
Take Care.
Even though I still show up as moderator at the top of the board page, if you click on my name, you will see that I currently moderate 0 boards. Guess there is a lag time in getting my name off of there.
Have at it and GLTU.
Would you like the board back?
I have wondered why you gave this board up gfp, and i would be happy to ask i-hub to turn it back over to you should you want it.
My father was one of the first, "liberators" on to arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. He described seeing little dots in the snow in the horizon as they approached, the dots would move forward, then kind of stagger around, and then stop in the snow.
What he didn't know was that the German gaurds had deserted the camp, and those were inmates dying where they fell.
He carried shapshots of what they found there with him throughout the war, and sat me down as a boy and showed them to me so I would understand what unchecked power could do to a people.
In those pictures there are bodies stacked liked firewood, bodies in ovens, you name it. In 2008, I finally passed down reproductions to future generations of our extended family so they too could see first hand, not by some right wing, or left wing, nut job trying to rewrite history, but pictures passed down by family blood.
Disparaging one of our former presidents to compare to Hitler will get deleted here, as long as I am moderator, and as long as there is breath in my body.
Ombo, Frankly I find your comparing any of our former presidents with Hitler offensive.
I try to allow a lot of room on this board as it is not stock specific, and as long as there are not personal attacks, but any more of that and I will delete your, or anyone else's posts, until I am replaced by I-Hub management.
===The dollar isn't going to collapse.===
We all hope you are right, but keeping an eye on our Nation's debt level compared to our Gross National Product might prove really helpful some day.
At what point has a family gone into debt to deeply? Can they keep taking out loans forever? Will lenders keep lending to them? Will lenders increase the amount of interest they charge this family as they continue taking on debt?
The world is littered with countries that went into debt to deeply, and it has never been pretty. Most Americans can not imagine it happening here. Most have very little financial training/education.
MF4, Now here is a poster that smelled that BP trade on June 9th:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=51090192
Hope they made a bundle on it. I just wanted to be done with it. We have extended "family" with property in Daphne, AL. We always loved eating on the causeway to Mobile when we visited, now we don't know what to expect, and are hating it for the people down there. 2009 Daphne reminded me of Myrtle Beach in the 80's, growing, but still REALLY friendly.
I don't track the options on GS or BP, but it does seem like there is SO MUCH big money/flash trading moving the market on slower days, that it does seemed stacked against the average investor.
GLTU
+++Obviously, you can't just believe what you read because there are so many contradictory opinions. +++
Hello Ombow,
I often try to see what the motive is behind an article I am interested in. Are they trying to sell subs to their website? Are they trying to sell subs to a newsletter? Are they trying to sell anything? Do they always seem to be a bear or bull?
The thing I liked about that guy, was that he had reportedly predicted both runs and pullbacks.
I look around and see empty shops, friends cutting back, almost no new construction, and all this even with Myrtle Beach picking up some Gulf Coast business.
I am in "Hope for the best," "prepare for the worst," mode.
GLTU
Get Out While You Can! Dow Headed to 5000, Charles Nenner Says
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/get-out-while-you-can!-dow-headed-to-5000-charles-nenner-says-520577.html?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,spy,%5Eixic,qqqq,dia,iwm&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
Posted Jul 15, 2010 07:30am EDT by Peter Gorenstein in Investing
Enjoy the recent stock market rally while it lasts. Market forecaster Charles Nenner tells Tech Ticker stocks will peak in about a month and then head south for the year.
“After late August I expect the market to go down again,” and eventually test the March 2009 lows in the next few years, he says on the phone from Israel. Therefore, long-term investors would be wise to use this rally as an opportunity to get out of stocks. “I see this as a bear market rally,” he says comparing the U.S. market to Japan – a prolonged bear market with wild fluctuations.
Until the end of August, stocks will trade in a tight range, he predicts. His near term upside target is 1155 on the S&P 500, but that’s only if it first breaks 1100. If the market finds resistance and closes below 1085, it could spell trouble.
It’s worth paying attention to Nenner's warning. As Seeking Alpha contributor Cliff Wachtel points out, Nenner has a pretty good track record with his recent calls:
• In early 2009, when markets appeared on the brink of collapse, Nenner said the S&P 500 was going from 660 to over 1000 within the coming year.
• In early 2009, he foretold gold’s 6-month run from June in the low $900s to $1220, within mere dollars of its ultimate peak at $1225.
• More recently, in December 2009 he called the top in U.S. stocks within 4 days.
His advice for the average investor: “You don't want to get in the market,” he says. “For the next couple of years, just be happy if you don’t lose money.”
When will it be safe to go back in the water? Not until the market experiences a lot more pain, he forecasts. Don’t bet on stocks for the long haul, “until you get below 7000. And preferably if you wait till 5000, which is my downside target on the Dow Jones.”
Bigworld, That is a tough one. I was able to get a used 550 gallon diesel tank, paint it white, and placed it out back so it was easy.
Gas does not store as well, it is more volatile, has a shorter usable life span, and separates into water/gas easily. I have used a diesel fill for 14 months.
I have read some people who will kind of "join" together and get a tank to store on property off site that one "member" owns. Gas cans may be the only option for a lot of people who might be interested in storing fuel.
As far as food storage, I use:
http://sorbentsystems.com/longtermfoodstorage.html
They have food grade mylar bags and 5mm food grade sealers, put in a gallon or so of wheat/beans to a bag, squeeze out the air, seal, open a couple inches of seal, put in oxygen obsorber, reseal those two inches, place in food bucket, and you are good for long time, and you don't have to open an entire 5 gallon bucket. I wrote ours off in my mind as a loss, but it gives me 20-30 year piece of mind, and was not much money.
As far as actual bulk foods, I use:
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/hardwhitewheat50lb.aspx
They only charge 4.49 for unlimited shipping and prices are better than most that charge 30 or 40 dollars to ship a 50 pound bag.
"Prepping" has been taking off since march 09, I just haven't figured out how to make money off it via investing. The WSJ has written about it.
A couple interesting reading sites:
http://livingprepared.blogspot.com/2010/05/mylar-bags-and-sealing-for-long-term.html
http://www.chrismartenson.com/forum/successful-food-storage-day-9-familes-4-tons-5-hours-lessons-learned-recommendations/27519?#comment-50740
http://www.chrismartenson.com/forum/food-storage-lessons-learned-and-recomendations/19518
http://www.katadyn.com/usen/katadyn-products/products/katadynshopconnect/katadyn-water-filters-endurance-series-products/katadyn-pocket-usa/
Why This Isn't Like 1938-At Least Not Yet
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110022/why-this-isnt-like-1938-at-least-not-yet?mod=bb-budgeting
by Donald L. Luskin
Thursday, July 1, 2010
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Stock prices show we've dodged another depression, but toxic, antibusiness rhetoric and policy errors like the Dodd-Frank bill are hurting the still-fragile recovery.
The stock market tells us that last year we avoided a new Great Depression—barely. It was a close call, but we're not headed for 1932. Now, as stocks correct from their April highs and fears of a "double dip" recession mount, should we be worried about an economic relapse like 1938?
First, the good news. An important milestone was passed last week for stocks. Friday, July 2, was the 997th day since the all-time high in October 2007. That's how many days the bear market in the Great Depression lasted, starting at the high several weeks before the Great Crash of 1929 and ending on June 1, 1932, one month before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated to run for president.
At the bottom in 1932, stocks (as measured by the S&P 500) had lost 86.2% from the 1929 top. Last Friday, stocks were only off 34.7% from the 2007 top. "Only"? To be sure, losing 34.7% is no buggy-ride. But to match the devastation in the Great Depression, the S&P 500 would have to fall 806 points from Friday's level, or 78.8%.
This comparison is no idle thought experiment. In 2008 and 2009, based on what the stock market was indicating, we really were headed for a new Great Depression. At two crucial junctures in 2008 and 2009, stocks had fallen further than they did in the Great Depression the same number of days after the 1929 top.
The climax came in early March 2009. Then, with the banking system still feared to be insolvent, the hasty passage of a massive deficit-busting "stimulus" bill sent the message that an all-powerful new president and Congress would just as quickly enact their strident antibusiness agenda. At the worst, stocks plunged to show a loss of 56.8% from the 2007 highs. At the comparable point in the Great Depression, stocks were off only 49%.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the new Great Depression. Chairman Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve announced a massive program to buy Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to pump liquidity into the banking system. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner deftly executed "stress tests" enabling the largest banks to be recapitalized in public markets. And one agenda item at a time—socialized health-care, cap-and-trade energy tax, unionization "card check," mortgage "cramdown"—got diluted, slowed down or stopped.
From there, as the economy embarked on recovery, instead of following the path of history to massive further losses, stocks embarked on an upside run. In 14 months, the S&P 500 surged 79.9%. That still leaves us 34.7% from the 2007 highs. But consider the alternative. After the June 1, 1932, bottom in the Great Depression, stocks rallied more than twice that, 177.3%, over a similar period—for all that, they were still down 61.7% from the 1929 peak.
In fact, it took 25 years before stocks clawed their way back. We probably don't have to be quite that patient today, because in the recent bear market we simply didn't lose as much. But we shouldn't have illusions about how easy it is for stocks to recover from severe bear markets, especially those associated with systemic credit crises. After the bear market in the banking panic of 1907—which was very similar to the recent bear market in magnitude and duration—it took 10.5 years for stocks to get back to the old highs.
The most worrisome analogue is the great bear market that began in March 1937. From the top stocks lost 60% of their value, making it the second worst bear market in history. Not ending until April 1942, it was the longest ever.
That's worrisome because, as the nearby chart demonstrates, over the last year the stock market has followed a path eerily similar to 1937. First, a strong, rapid run to a recovery high—same pace, same magnitude. Then a correction—again, the same. Will we continue on the path that led the correction of 1937 into a collapse in 1938? This question would be nothing more than a technical curiosity for chartists if it weren't for alarmingly similar economic backdrops between the two periods.
In 1937 the economy was in a strong recovery from a severe crisis, and there was complacency that the worst was over—much like the exuberance about a "V-shaped' recovery this April. But after 1937 the economy relapsed into what historians call "the recession within the Depression," a downturn so severe that in any other context it would qualify as a depression itself.
It was triggered by a set of very specific policy mistakes. The Fed tightened by raising reserve requirements. Consumers were hit with new taxes to pay for the then-new Social Security program. Worried about excessive deficits, Roosevelt cut government spending. At the same time, his administration accelerated antibusiness rhetoric and regulation.
Sound familiar? We're repeating some of the same mistakes right now, even as fears of a "double dip" recession mount. Antibusiness rhetoric from the Obama administration is at toxic levels, and the pending Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is the harshest regulatory initiative in a generation. Taxes are set to rise, to support new social spending such as health-care reform, and if for no other reason because no one will stop the expiration at the end of this year of the 2003 Bush tax cuts.
It's not clear whether cutting government spending at this point would help or hurt—most debates about that are political, not economic. We'll find out soon enough. For now, half of last year's $862 billion stimulus package has yet to be spent, but there won't likely be much more after that.
At least there's not the slightest sign that the Fed is going to tighten any time soon. Dodd-Frank would effectively raise reserve requirements, but Chairman Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression and has learned its lessons, even if no one else has.
The stock market, that great self-organizing supercomputer that weighs all possible futures, is telling us to be very careful here. Pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that encourage business confidence and job creation can keep our fragile recovery alive. But make no mistake about it, stocks are warning that we're still in a fragile state. We avoided 1932. Now let's avoid 1938.
Mr. Luskin is chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC.
.1.3 million unemployed won't get benefits restored
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/13-million-unemployed-wont-apf-23988520.html?x=0
1.3 million unemployed won't get benefits restored after Senate fails to overcome filibuster
Thursday July 1, 2010, 7:22 am
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 1.3 million laid-off workers won't get their unemployment benefits reinstated before Congress goes on a weeklong vacation for Independence Day.
An additional 200,000 people who have been without a job for at least six months stand to lose their benefits each week, unless Congress acts.
For the third time in as many weeks, Republicans in the Senate successfully filibustered a bill Wednesday night to continue providing unemployment checks to people who been laid off for long stretches. The House is slated to vote on a similar measure Thursday, though the Senate's action renders the vote a futile gesture as Congress prepares to depart Washington for its holiday recess.
A little more than 1.3 million people have already lost benefits since the last extension ran out at the end of May.
"It is beyond disappointing that Republicans continue to stand almost lockstep against assistance for out-of-work Americans," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The measure, however, stands a better chance of passing after a replacement is seated for Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who died Monday. The measure fell two votes short of the 60 needed to advance Wednesday night, but only because Reid, a supporter of the bill, voted "nay" to take a procedural step that would allow for a revote.
"We will vote on this measure again once there is a replacement named for the late Sen. Byrd," Reid said.
Byrd's successor will be named by West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat.
Unable to deliver more stimulus spending for President Barack Obama, Democrats in Congress had hoped to at least restore the jobless benefits. Obama has urged lawmakers to spend about $50 billion to help states pay for Medicaid programs and to avoid teacher layoffs, but Democrats in Congress have been unable to come up with the votes.
Many Democrats see state aid and unemployment benefits as insurance against the economy sliding back into recession. However, many Republicans and some Democrats worry about adding to the growing national debt.
Some Republicans offered to support the unemployment bill if it was paid for with unspent money from last year's massive economic recovery package. Democrats rejected the offer, saying the money was needed for jobs programs.
"The only reason the unemployment extension hasn't passed is because Democrats simply refuse to pass a bill that doesn't add to the debt," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said, "My concern is that the Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension."
The unemployment bill would have provided up to a total of 99 weekly unemployment checks averaging $335 to people whose 26 weeks of state-paid benefits have run out. The benefits would be available through the end of November, at a cost of $33.9 billion. The money would be borrowed, adding to the budget deficit.
'Double Dip'? Or Did the 'Great Recession' Really Never End?
Posted Jun 28, 2010 12:54pm EDT by Aaron Task
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/double-dip-or-did-the-great-recession-really-never-end-yftt_510021.html
Monday's weak consumer spending data is the latest in a string of reports that has many Americans worried about a "double-dip" recession.
Then again, considering the unemployment rate has remained elevated, many Americans would be forgiven for thinking the recession that began in December 2007 still hasn't ended. Notably, that's the view of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the nation's official arbiter of economic expansion and contraction.
Among the signs suggesting the NBER is right to hold off in declaring the recession over:
Housing Rolling Over: Last week's housing numbers were horrific, especially the steep drop in new home sales. Still, Coldwell Banker CEO Jim Gillespie tried to put some lipstick on the proverbial pig on Tech Ticker last week.
Jobs Still Hard to Come By: Despite signs of recent progress, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession," a notably candid Vice President Joe Biden said Monday. Friday's jobs report is expected to show overall payrolls declined by 115,000 in June.
'Hair-Shirts' in Fashion, Worldwide: As discussed here, this weekend's G20 meeting shows that policymakers believe the time for fiscal austerity is at hand. From an economic point of view, the G20 confirms that the appeal of government spending (i.e. Keynesian economics) to combat the downturn is on the wane, replaced by a view that it's better to take the pain now and cut spending (i.e. Austrian economics).
Financial Market Distress: While the stock market's recent struggles grab most of the headlines, the real pain of late has been felt in the bond market. Excluding the panic levels of late 2008, the yield on the 10-year Treasury hit its lowest levels since 1962, last week. Meanwhile, the price of default insurance for Greece and other sovereign credits spiked higher and Bloomberg reports the percentage of corporate bonds considered in distress is at the highest in six months.
The Downside of Falling Rates
Of course, the market is not always right but the bond market is signaling that policymakers like Ben Bernanke are right to be much more worried about deflation and economic slowdown vs. inflation and the economy overheating.
A big concern for many is that the economy is sputtering despite the Fed's historically easy policies and the government's huge spending binge. The idea we've spent all this money with little (or nothing) to show for it has some observers worried America is heading down the same path as Japan, which is about to complete its second-straight "lost decade."
Of course, it was unrealistic to expect the economy to indefinitely continue its V-shaped rise from the depths of last year. Most recoveries are uneven so it's premature to say what's happening lately is proof positive the economy is rolling over, as Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video.
In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs
http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/109867/in-budget-crisis-states-take-aim-at-pension-costs?mod=fidelity-livingretirement
by Mary Williams Walsh
Monday, June 21, 2010
Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits.
Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.
"We can't afford to deny reality or delay action any longer," said Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, adding that his state's pension cuts, enacted in March, will save some $300 million in the first year alone.
(Seth Perlman/Associated Press)
Gov. Pat Quinn said an overhaul would save Illinois's pension system $300 million in its first year. But the fund is weakened.
But there is a catch: Nearly all of the cuts so far apply only to workers not yet hired. Though heralded as breakthrough reforms by state officials, the cuts phase in so slowly they are unlikely to save the weakest funds and keep them from running out of money. Some new rules may even hasten the demise of the funds they were meant to protect.
Lawmakers wanted to avoid legal battles or fights with unions, whose members can be influential voters. So they are allowing most public workers across the country to keep building up their pensions at the same rate as ever. The tens of thousands of workers now on Illinois's payrolls, for instance, will still get to retire at 60 -- and some will as young as 55.
One striking exception is Colorado, which has imposed cuts on its current workers, not just future hires, and even on people who have already retired. The retirees have sued to block the reduction.
Other states with shrinking funds and deep fiscal distress may be pushed in this direction and tempted to follow Colorado's example in the coming years. Though most state officials believe they are legally bound to shield current workers from pension cuts, a Colorado victory could embolden them to be more aggressive.
Colorado pruned a 3.5 percent annual pension increase to 2 percent, concluding that was the fastest way to revive its pension fund, which was projected to run out of money by 2029. The cut may sound small, but it produces big results because it goes into effect immediately. State plans vary widely, but many have other costly features, like subsidized early-retirement benefits, which could likewise be trimmed for existing workers.
Despite its pension reform, Illinois is still in deep trouble. That vaunted $300 million in immediate savings? The state produced it by giving itself credit now for the much smaller checks it will send retirees many years in the future -- people who must first be hired and then, for full benefits, work until age 67.
By recognizing those far-off savings right away, Illinois is letting itself put less money into its pension fund now, starting with $300 million this year.
That saves the state money, but it also weakens the pension fund, actually a family of funds, raising the risk of a collapse long before the real savings start to materialize.
"We're within a few years of having some of the pension funds run out of money," said R. Eden Martin, president of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a business group that has been warning of a "financial implosion" for several years. "Funding for the schools is going to be cut radically. Funding for Medicaid. As these things all mount up, there's going to be a lot of outrage."
Joshua D. Rauh, an associate professor of finance at Northwestern University who studies public pension funds, predicts that at the current rate, Illinois's pension system could run out of money by 2018. He believes the funds of other troubled states -- including New Jersey, Indiana and Connecticut -- are also on track to run out of money in less than a decade, unless they make meaningful changes.
If a state pension fund ran out of money, the state would be legally bound to make good on retirees' benefits. But paying public pensions straight out of general revenue would be ruinous. In Illinois's case, it would consume about half the state's cash every year, bringing other vital state services to a standstill.
Mr. Rauh said he thinks any state caught in that trap would have little choice but to seek a federal bailout. Bigger pension contributions and higher taxes can go only so far.
Many state officials, hoping for a huge recovery in the markets, say that such projections are too pessimistic, and that cutting benefits for future workers must suffice, given laws and provisions in state constitutions that make membership in a state pension fund a contractual relationship that cannot be breached.
Lawyers, though, are raising the possibility that those laws are being misinterpreted.
"It makes no sense to suggest that an employee who works for the state for a single day has acquired a right to have future pension benefits calculated for the next 20 to 40 years under whatever method was in effect on that single first day of service," states a legal memorandum prepared for the Commercial Club of Chicago, which is concerned that a public pension collapse would badly damage the city's business climate.
The club's members include senior executives of big companies, like Boeing, Aon, Kraft, Motorola and I.B.M., that have frozen pensions or slowed the rates at which their workers build up benefits.
Some of those cuts set off titanic battles. The most famous was at I.B.M., which changed its pension plan just when many of its older workers were about to earn sharply higher retirement benefits. Aggrieved workers sued, but after a long battle, a federal appellate court found that the cuts were legal.
"An employer is free to move from one legal plan to another legal plan, provided that it does not diminish vested interests," or the benefits workers have already earned, wrote Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. He did not distinguish between corporate employers and states.
Colorado is basing its legal defense, in part, on a 1961 state supreme court ruling that said pension cuts for current workers were allowed if "actuarially necessary," and will argue that it applies to retirees as well. Other states may not have such legal tools.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone a different route, bargaining with the 12 unions that represent public employees. Last week four of them agreed to let the state cut its own contributions by requiring current workers to pay sharply more for the same pensions. The workers will contribute 10 percent of their pay, in some cases double the previous rate, to the state pension fund. Some other states are raising employee contributions as well, though less sharply.
In New Jersey, the administration of Gov. Christopher J. Christie recently imposed pension cuts on future hires, but has been quietly looking into whether it could also reduce the benefits that current employees expect to accumulate in the coming years.
"Can they change the benefit formula going forward? Sure. It's not etched in stone," said Edward Thomson III, an actuary and trustee of the New Jersey pension system who was asked to offer an opinion on whether New Jersey could adopt the federal pension law -- the one that covers companies -- as its governing statute.
A state assemblyman, Declan J. O'Scanlon Jr., recently introduced a bill to ratchet back a 9 percent pension increase that the state gave most workers in 2001.
"I think this will pass constitutional muster," Mr. O'Scanlon said. "Otherwise, I fear the whole system will fall apart. Nine years -- we're out of money."
-- Amy Schoenfeld contributed reporting.
"Pink pill" to boost female libido eludes pharma
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Pink-pill-to-boost-female-apf-64639581.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=
"Pink pill" to boost female libido eludes pharma
Big pharma still empty handed after decade plus search for 'female Viagra'
Matthew Perrone, AP Business Writer, On Friday June 18, 2010, 5:03 pm EDT
GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) -- A "pink pill" to boost women's sex drive remains elusive after a decade of searching by some of the world's biggest drugmakers.
A panel of health experts on Friday rejected the latest offering submitted for federal approval: an antidepressant drug that failed to increase sexual desire in two studies.
The Food and Drug Administration's panel of reproductive advisers voted unanimously that the benefits of the pill from Boehringer Ingelheim did not outweigh side effects, including fatigue, depression and fainting spells.
"I am convinced that women's sexual health is important and that many women suffer from sexual dysfunction, but I'm not convinced of a clinically meaningful benefit for this drug," said panelist Paula Hillard, a gynecologist from Stanford University School of Medicine.
The FDA will make its own decision on the drug in coming months, though it usually follows the advice of its panelists.
The drug flibanerin, which acts on serotonin and other brain chemicals, was originally studied as a depression therapy, but then repurposed as a libido pill after women reported unusually high levels of sexual satisfaction.
Despite a modest uptick in sexually satisfying events reported in the studies, panelists said the drug's benefits were not strong enough to warrant approval as a daily pill for women.
The attempt to trigger sexual interest through brain chemistry is the drug industry's latest approach to find a female equivalent to the blockbuster success of Pfizer's erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra.
Since that drug's 1998 launch, more than two dozen experimental therapies have been studied for so-called "female sexual dysfunction," a market worth an estimated $2 billion.
Initially, Pfizer tested Viagra on women, hoping that the drug's ability to increase blood flow to the genitals would increase libido. When that didn't work, drugmakers turned to hormones, including testosterone.
In 2004, an FDA panel rejected Procter & Gamble's testosterone patch, Intrinsa, due to unknown risks from long-term use. Two years earlier a massive government study found that hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women increased heart disease and breast cancer, raising concerns about the safety of all hormones.
Decision Resources analyst Alasdair Milton says that after years of disappointing results, the search for "female Viagra" may be winding down.
"In this day and age, are you really going to spend a significant amount of money developing these compounds if you're not going to get a return on your investment?" Milton asked.
But experts who have watched the drug industry's dogged pursuit of a female dysfunction drug are not convinced the end is in sight.
Dr. Leonore Tiefer, a psychiatry professor at New York University who runs a private sex therapy practice, said drug companies may target narrower groups of women to find an effective therapy, but won't give up the search anytime soon.
"I don't see that there's any incentive for the companies to stop, the market is just too big," said Tiefer.
Drug companies frequently cite a 1999 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found 43 percent of U.S. women had some type of sexual dysfunction, though more rigorous, in-depth surveys have put the figure closer to 10 percent.
The field of potential competitors in the market has narrowed considerably over the years. Currently the only company with a drug in late-stage development is BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc., a small specialty drugmaker developing a testosterone gel called LibiGel.
According to company executives, more than 1.8 million women received prescriptions for men's testosterone gel last year, suggesting a significant market. While currently marketed testosterone gels are designed to treat low hormone levels in men, doctors are free to prescribe them for alternate uses.
"That shows you doctors are willing to write prescriptions for testosterone off-label and women are willing to take it," said BioSante Chief Financial Officer Phil Donenberg.
But FDA approval of the company's LibiGel is far from certain. After lengthy discussions with the agency, the company has agreed to track over 3,000 women for more than a year to detect potential side effects.
Even if the gel turns out to be safe, Emory University Professor Kim Wallen said it's unlikely to prove effective.
"There have probably now been 50 studies on different kinds of testosterone regimens, and they all produce minimal or no effect" on sexual desire, according to Wallen. "This is a case where the pharmaceutical industry is looking in the wrong place."
Wallen still believes there could be pharmaceutical solutions to low sexual desire, possibly with other hormones like estrogen.
But he says the industry's search for a magic pill oversimplifies the problem. Sexuality is influenced by so many factors -- including physical health, quality of relationships and lifestyle -- that it's unrealistic to assume a drug could address millions of different cases of low libido.
"There are lots of reasons that people, both men and women, experience low sexual desire," Wallen said. "And to lump every individual into this group as potentially being amenable to drug therapy seems ill-advised."
Welcome Holycow, I have kept up with the cyto board from a distance. Interesting stuff.
As this isn't a stock specific board, so I think the admins will allow a lot more room here as "General Stock Ideas," in my mind covers a broad range.
Both positive and negative views can help form the basis for investing in any stocks.
Take Care and welcome again.
"The disparity [between public and private sector benefits] is so large and so unfair, a day of reckoning is coming."
Bigworld, this process has been going on since what, the 1960's, 70's for sure? Used to be you could work for, say IBM, and be "taken care of" for life.
Then came outsourcing, overseas manufacturing, reduced private pensions, and downsizing, just about everywhere except government/education. It is the nature of capitalism to search out the cheapest labor, and find the competitive advantage. Our government holds themselves above those natural tendencies, and keeps handing out more to their own. How many dollars is it now that each member of congress is allowed to mail us, on our dime? Funny how I only see those mailings at voting time. ugg.
Here we have married couples working, (if they can find work,) their tales off as wait staff making 40-60k a year combined. I have teacher friends making 106+ combined, for 9 or 10 months of work, plus decent retirement packages waiting for them if they can last that long.
The husband knows how lucky they are, the wife, not so much.
It's all changed, it can not continue as there will just not be enough worker bees coming along to pay those retirements.
Just hard to be a bull in this market, at least for me.
GLTU
Suddenly, Gary Shilling's Bearishness Doesn't Seem So Nutty
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/suddenly-gary-shilling%27s-bearishness-doesn%27t-seem-so-nutty-505006.html?tickers=%5EDJI,%5EGSPC,UUP,TLT,FXE,FXI,XLF&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
Suddenly, Gary Shilling's Bearishness Doesn't Seem So Nutty
Posted Jun 16, 2010 02:14pm EDT by Aaron Task in Investing, Newsmakers
Related: ^DJI, ^GSPC, UUP, TLT, FXE, FXI, XLF
In case you hadn't noticed, Gary Shilling is here to let you know what's become apparent to just about everybody: "It's difficult to make a lot of money in this environment from a long only portfolio, especially from a long only stock portfolio."
The best bet for most investors right now is probably a highly diversified portfolio with uncorrelated assets that can profit (or at least preserve capital) as the market seesaws back and forth between the "risk-on" reflation trade and the "risk-off" deflation trade.
But Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., is a charter member of the risk-off deflation camp and is positioned accordingly:
Short Stocks: Never a believer in the recovery, Shilling says stocks "have gotten way ahead of themselves" and says there's a 30% chance the devilish lows of March 2009 (S&P 666) will be retested before this secular bear market ends.
Long Treasuries: Treasuries are "THE safe haven," Shilling says, predicting the yield on the 30-year bond will go to 3%; that would be an over 30% appreciation from current levels and about 55% for his old favorite, zero coupon bonds. "That not a bad return when you look at the alternatives," he says. "I don't think we'll get anything close to that from stocks."
Long the Dollar, Short Commodities: Shilling is long the dollar vs. the euro, British sterling and Aussie dollar, the latter of which is a bet on a slowdown in China. Australia "has become a Chinese colony," Shilling quips. But it's no joke that a China slowdown will, by definition, hurt demand for commodities, most notably copper.
Broken Clock or Crazy Like a Fox?
Anyone familiar with his work and writings knows these are time-tested themes for Shilling. In December 2008, he put a 2009 target of 600 on the S&P 500, which nearly came true. But instead of declaring victory, Shilling reiterated that forecast here in March 2009, and stuck by the bearish guns in May 2009 and again in February 2010.
Back in February, Shilling was starting to look stubborn at best, and out of touch at worst. Now, however, his bearishness doesn't seem so crazy, what with:
The U.S. housing market downshifting, unemployment still high and consumers cutting back again.
The euro zone teetering on collapse about about to trigger another global financial crisis or "just" heading for a steep drop in growth amid all the austerity measures. (For more on why Europe matters, see: No Escape from Europe's Rubble)
China trying to tamp-down inflation.
Japan still a basketcase.
Sovereign debt looking like the new subprime.
The dollar benefiting from its "best house in a bad neighborhood" status, which is lulling policymakers into a false sense of security about America's ability to continue its profilgate spending.
U.S. stocks expensive on a long-term cyclically adjusted P/E basis.
"Trying to time this is tough -- it always is," Shilling tells Henry in the accompanying clip. "Deleveraging is difficult to predict [and] it's happening in discreet pieces. That affects investor sentiment and market behavior. "
Check the accompanying for more on why Shiling isn't worried about inflation (hyper or otherwise) and doesn't think you should be either
scstocks here, it seems so easy for out of touch, overspending, "all about getting reelected on your dime," politicians to do this: they are so entrenched, and so used to getting pork for their voters......the musical chairs just keep plugging along......
"The dollar benefiting from its "best house in a bad neighborhood" status, which is lulling policymakers into a false sense of security about America's ability to continue its profilgate spending."
Thanks gfp, I had thought about firearms stocks last year, but didn't bite.
Prices are coming off of their highs now, for ammo too.
We stocked up on guns and ammo for
.40 cal handgun home defense,
5.56 NATO, .223, ar built for both
.22 cal handgun and rifle, practice, pests, small game,
30-30, just liked the lever action, seems very accurate,
Shotgun
Not done yet as I love the hobby, but it's a start, I don't even want to think of how many rounds we have. Wanted good hunting rifle, but 30-30 will have to do for now. Should we ever find ourselves in a collapsed economy, ammo could prove to be a valuable barter tool.
Thanks for the info, I will check it out.
Take Care.
gfp, thanks for the post, you actually helped me with a gun question last year, maybe the year before, and i checked out freeze dried foods back then as well, at your suggestion.
As far as a cabin in the woods goes, oh well, like most, we will just have to make do.
Really though, we are in getting in great shape, (it's a process for us.) We have been blessed with a small parcel of old farm land that our home is on, and have access to hundreds of acres of farm ready family land should we ever need it, like many in fact did, after the depression.
I know over the last couple years i have hammered away at having some extra water/food on hand, but being in hurricane country, i can tell you first hand how fast everyday supplies at stores can disappear once the masses are stressed. Water and fuel are always the first to go. It just seems like such a no brainer to have some, just in case, with almost no effort, and there is no waste. 400 dollars bought us a 550 gallon used diesel tank that i use for everyday driving, and we always have hundreds of gallons left for emergencies. To date none has been wasted.
Since "just in time inventory" told hold in this country, there are usually no longer huge stockpiles of supplies behind local store walls. Should a national, not regional, emergency ever strike, well, filling the pipelines could prove difficult in the short term. Why put ourselves, or our families at risk, when some simple steps now, might make a huge difference later?
There is also the feeling of relief knowing that one can take care of their own for a while should the need arise, and not be as dependent on a government response. I know i feel it.
I tend to lean toward, what is in my opinion, an unsustainable economic model of spending more than we take in, year after year, decade after decade. The genie is out of the bottle, and i just don't seeing usa citizens suddenly getting, "enlightenment."
My favorite ihub quote of the year comes from bigworld:
I'll bet over 90% of our population could not carry on an informed discussion about the state of the economy or what is going on in world affairs. But they can talk about "American Idol" for hours.
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