Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
"They wanna legalize gay marrige, but touching someones foot makes one lose the senate job and get arested............LOL"
hunh? the "they" that are playing footsie and prowling for sex in public bathrooms are the ones who are opposed to gay marriage. this deeply disturbed and yet comical behavior is a product of the demonizaton of everything gay. fortnately, gay marrage is a done deal as the boomer generation diminishes.
why does your comparison begin only at 2002?
perhaps related to this:
Bush Plans Loan Relief on Housing
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/business/31home.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
market seems to like it when the clueless become clueful. on the other hand, the proposed remedies hardly seem adequate.
re "Big Source of Clinton ..."
wow, looks like rupert murdoch already has his influence felt on the wsj. a story where the newsy part is only in what it insinuates ...
> TJ - Yes, that a better way of putting it.
well, its actually a contradiction of what you said. those who act according to the efficient market will say that it is impossible to time the market (because of efficiency ...).
> The funny thing is that these same rich people that are saying
> the market can't be timed are actually using hedge funds to
> make money. Many hedge funds use quant (mathematical models) to
> enter and exit positions, thus, timing the market.
hedge funds don't attempt to time the market. they employ different strategies, of course - statistical arbitrage or other - but usually attempt to exploit market inefficiencies. just like many of the daytraders do.
hmm. odd. money flows into equity funds have increased throughout this decline. everyone is bottom fishing? i thought there was fear ...
http://www.amgdata.com/reports-cash-track.php
"The masters of doom and gloom for sure but where is the cheerleader Softie ..."
oh come on. softie is *anything* but a cheerleader, and his "TIMBER!" calls have been uncannily good during these last few years (as tongue-in-cheek calls of a bottom, of course). as i recall, that's about all he's posted over the last few years too ...
"Cramer is no idiot."
perhaps he just plays one on TV.
> Guess that tells us the dollar is in for a major collapse.
hm. but dollars, like treasuries, have been rising with falling stocks.
BOJ : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aTAquN_7j0z0&refer=japan
i don't know why they rose, but the indices sprinted into the close on wed and rose 0.3-0.4+% by 4:15.
> Not alot of program buying today. Anybody see any 1000+ tick readings today?
no, i didn't see ticks more than 800+. and yes, there's always lots of program buying. especially when the indices move up and down in unison by the same amount.
> I have no idea why the market rose so much today.
first thing to understand is "why did the market rise so much between 4:00 and 4:15 on wednesday afternoon?"
second thing to observe is what the BOJ did.
and lets not forget: dollar flirting with all time lows ...
the selling on msft became real a short while ago.
c'mon canny, capitulate.
your capitulation will be more significant than statistics of price vs calendar or stars or what have u.
Rent is currently going up as first-time home buyers are facing tighter lending standards.
actually, according to friday's CPI, rents are under pressure.
To the extent that social security has destroyed the saving habit in America, the New Deal was the problem, not a solution.
dang, i thought it was electricity and the rise of the horseless carriage.
duster, i don't know where you're getting your data. here's a graph of the published numbers for AAII bulls vs bears. kinda flat, except for march.
http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/streetools/market_tools/inv_intel.aspx
heh. well i think i'm the ultimate bear (at least when it comes to the economy as stewarded by this administration and this fed), and even i've been bullish throughout these last months. i take myself as my best contrary indicator
so i have no clue why traders persit in trying to bully the markets on the SS side, it's just suicide if you ask me ...
what evidence is there that traders persist in bullying the market on the short side? maybe everyone is on your side? meager volume on the 2% rise of the last two days would suggest no thunderous short covering ... and, of course, this a.m.'s numbers are no surprise ...
Yeah,if ya exclude food & energy then sure,there is no inflation.
sure, because these components are "volitile", where we define "volitile" to mean "persistently high".
"Seems ridiculous imo. U.S. economy is strong and our market has been slow & steady unlike theirs which has gone from 1000 to 4000+ in 6 months. Buy the open imo."
while some of that can be diputed, this can not be: the #1 issue is the state of the carry trade. what was unwound in february was rewound in april and may.
the spice must flow.
OT
that's silly. the media has been trailing public opinion since 2001, not leading it. and public opinion began to swing after the disgraceful government conduct following katerina. a strong leader or a petulant bully ... public opinion changes fast. but losing the city of new orleans isn't quite balanced by saving us from something that didn't happen.
good luck in your fight, zeev.
tj
aww. u stole that from a critique of tom paine, i suspect.
Fed's Stern sees no reason to end tightening- paper
Mon Jun 20, 2005 04:36 AM ET
TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern sees no reason for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates now as the economy expands at a desirable pace, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday.
The Fed's target for the federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend overnight money to each other, remained low despite a year-long credit-tightening campaign that has brought it up to 3.0 percent from 1.0 percent, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun quoted Stern as saying in an interview.
"We do not see any factors at this point to stop monetary tightening," the Japanese-language newspaper quoted the regional Fed chief as saying. "It's appropriate to raise rates at a measured pace, although we can't say to what level."
The newspaper said Stern's comments underscored expectations that the U.S. central bank would raise interest rates by another quarter percentage point when its Federal Open Market Committee meets next week.
Stern said oil prices had risen more than he had expected but added that their economic impact was smaller than two or three decades ago.
oil hits 60 ...
Growing fears credit boom may implode
By Dan Roberts and David Wighton in New York and Peter Thal Larsen in London
Published: March 13 2005 21:42 / Last updated: March 13 2005 21:42
Financial Times
global economyBankruptcy advisers are hiring extra staff amid fears that an end to the global credit boom could spark a surge in business failures in the US and Europe.
ADVERTISEMENT
Unusually loose lending conditions have encouraged record borrowing by speculative-grade companies, with leveraged buy-outs and debt refinancing on both sides of the Atlantic generating more than $100bn of deals in the past eight months.
But last week's fall in the price of US Treasury bonds, coinciding with signs that bankers are struggling to complete riskier corporate bond issues, has added to a sense of nervousness in some quarters.
Although corporate default rates remain low, some fear the legacy of recent private equity buy-outs and hedge fund investments in distressed debt will be a swath of over-leveraged companies ill-equipped to survive in less benign conditions.
PwC, the largest corporate recovery adviser, said it was hiring insolvency specialists in sectors such as retailing, utilities and telecommunications in preparation for the expected fall-out.
Scott Bok, president of Greenhill & Co, an investment bank specialising in merger advice and restructuring, also predicts the cycle will end with a lot of companies in trouble. “In many of the deals being done today you can foresee the debt restructurings to come in a year or two,” he said.
Last week, the Financial Stability Forum, a group of national and international central banks and regulators, pointed to the levels of liquidity as one of the main risks to the stability of the global financial system.
Following a meeting in Tokyo, the FSF said that, according to some of its members, tight credit spreads and low long-term interest rates suggested some in the market might be underpricing risks. It urged banks and investors to monitor their exposures by stress-testing what would happen in the event of a market shock. Chuck Prince, chief executive of Citigroup, said: “The possibility of a liquidity bubble around the world concerns me. A very cautionary thing is that it feels like the world is changing and traditional indices may not give a complete picture.” Some say markets are becoming more nervous. Paul Hsi, a senior analyst at Moody's, said: “There is a little bit more caution in the market right now as some of the weaker credits come up with ‘me-too' offerings and investors take a harder look.”
Ian Powell, head of European business recovery for PWC, added: “You only need one of these really big financing deals to go sour and confidence will evaporate very quickly.”
However, investors say the market is more aware of the risks than in previous credit cycles and that funds are managing their exposure accordingly.
“People are on ‘bubblewatch' since almost every market got burnt in the last five years,” said Stephen Peacher, head of high-yield investment at Putnam, the fund manager.
“We know that bond prices are certainly not cheap but, given that default rates are so very low, we feel comfortable that spreads are in a fair value range.”
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/5b00c6ae-93fc-11d9-9d6e-00000e2511c8.html
bizarre exchange:
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you something about the Thrift Savings Plan. This is a Thrift Savings Plan that has a mix of stocks and bonds?
MS. WEBSTER: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, how hard was that to learn how to do that?
MS. WEBSTER: And I chose the safe plan, government bonds. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: That's all right. Well, not so safe, unless we fix the deficit. But other than that --
(laughter).
We're fixing the deficit.
(Applause.)
anyone have insight into why the trin has been so high all day?
Fed's Gramlich-US may need to look at forced saving
Tue Mar 1, 2005 01:51 PM ET
WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich said on Tuesday the United States may need to examine the idea of forced savings at some point because of low savings levels.
When asked during a panel discussion at the Urban Institute in Washington his view of mandating savings for Social Security, Gramlich said he had put forward the idea when on a retirement task force in the mid-1990s but found it had little political support.
"I think at some point we're going to have to think seriously about that issue because it may be that we're just not, as a society and as individuals, putting aside enough," Gramlich said adding, "It's certainly an issue that ought to be discussed."
the "Asian Bellagio Group"
BANGKOK (Dow Jones)--Asian central bank and finance officials met quietly here this week to discuss ways to stabilize foreign exchange markets as currencies around the region surged against the U.S. dollar, some to multi-year highs.
Officials of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China, Japan and South Korea, agreed at Tuesday's closed-door meeting to set up the "Asian Bellagio Group", which will help coordinate policies and ideas among central banks, finance ministries and academics, a Thai finance ministry official told Dow Jones Newswires.
The group is unlikely to produce concerted monetary action by Asian authorities any time soon - but the decision to establish it does suggest the region's governments are increasingly concerned by global financial imbalances and the shaky U.S. dollar. LINK
gutenberg is great. (i've been a big open source fan forever.) that, and wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ) can really take over their niches. (on a side note: there's been some grumbling about google offering free hosting to wikipedia, with folks suggesting that goog wants to get its hands on that, while others just thinking that goog wants to assure it has good bandwidth so it can link to it. i think we're getting to the point where, at least in the techie community, goog has to demonstrate what 'do no evil' means, when shareholder interest and techie/nerd-consumer interests clash.)
re goog: google print beta is online (search book texts): http://print.google.com/
re flat tax: "Politically correct or not, it's an idea that has a history of appealing to voters. When magazine publisher Steve Forbes ran for president on the issue, the idea polled better than he did."
but of course, he was also talking about a 17% flat tax, which is just about at the point where 50% of all taxpayers would come out even or positive (effective tax rate >= ~16% for upper 50% of taxpayers).
re maps.google.com
although i posted something here the other day about how cool google maps are (and they are, technically), others on mefi.com point out that map24 (http://www.map24.com ) probably does a better job overall. i don't think there's any way that goog captures the lead in this space: the laggard will acquire map24.
someone finally gets it!
Bush's Social Security Plan Assumes Much From Stocks
By Jonathan Weisman and Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page E01
To conclude that Social Security is careening toward a crisis in 2042, President Bush is relying on projections that an aging society will drag down economic growth. Yet his proposal to establish personal accounts is counting on strong investment gains in financial markets that would be coping with the same demographic head wind.
That seeming contradiction has become fodder for a heated debate among economists, who divide sharply between those who believe the stock market cannot meet the president's expectations and those who say investor demand from a faster-growing developing world will keep stock prices rising.
"If economic growth is slow enough that we've got a problem with Social Security, then we are also going to have problems with the stock market. It's as simple as that," said Douglas Fore, director of investment analytics for TIAA-CREF Investment Management Group. A spokeswoman said the company has not taken a position on the Social Security debate.
In the next two decades, as elderly populations swell throughout the developed world, retirees will begin withdrawing their savings, selling their financial holdings to raise cash and potentially glutting the world with stocks and bonds. Richard Jackson, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' global aging initiative, called it "the great depreciation scenario." Germany's Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging dubs it the "asset meltdown hypothesis."
That would not be an auspicious environment for young investors opening personal accounts to replace a portion of their traditional Social Security benefits.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9090-2005Feb8.html
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/globalmacro/
February 07, 2005
Bush Damned Budget Lies and Voodoo Budget Magic: it will be a $600b deficit, not $233b by 2009...and over $1,100b by 2015!
by Noriel Roubini
Associate Professor Economics, NYU
The dishonesty of the administration about budget deficits has reached levels unheard of. These folks have absolutely no shame. Bush presented today a budget that claims that he will achieve his goal of reducing the deficit by half by 2008 (from a false 2004 baseline of $521 billion rather than the actual 2004 deficit of $412b) and will achieve a deficit of "only" $233b by 2009. Even better news, the administration claims today: the "halving" of the deficit will be reached by 2008, a year earlier than original 2009 target for it.
Who are these accounting scam artists trying to deceive? Do they think everyone in America and around the world is a mathematically challenged total idiot or an accounting moron?
The reality is, that based on realistic scenarios outlined last week by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the deficit by 2009 will be close to $600b (or 4.0% of GDP) rather than falling to $233b; and the deficit will reach over $1,100b (or 5.5% of GDP) by 2015.
How do they create the false $233b deficit by 2009?
1. They assume spending cuts that are, by any historical and political standard, impossible to achieve.
2. They assume revenue growth that is altogether wishful thinking and false based on current trends. And they do not consider the long-run costs of making all the Bush tax cuts permanent.
3. They do not count the ongoing costs of the continued defense and homeland security spending and of future military and homeland security build-ups.
4. They phase-in a budget busting social security privatization (that will cost alone $4.5 trillion in the next 20 years) only starting in 2009.
This is worse than dishonesty; it is the most squalid manipulation of budgets ever seen aimed at pretending to achieve a budget figure that is utterly unrealistic and false in every possible dimension.
What would be a more realistic and honest scenario for the 2009 and 2015 budget deficits, given the administration tax goals and the likely path of spending?
Realistic and sensible assumptions imply that the 2009 deficit will be close to $600b (or 4.0% of GDP), even excluding social security reform; and the deficit will reach over $1,100b (or about 5.5.% of GDP) by 2015, including the effects of social security reform.
So, how do we get the difference between the administration lies and the true figures?
First, note that the administration baseline assumes that all discretionary spending - apart from military and domestic security - will be frozen for the next five years. That is even more draconian than the CBO baseline where total discretionary spending was assumed to grow by the modest rate of inflation. Note that, since defense and homeland security have grown much faster than inflation and have grown and are likely to grow even faster than nominal GDP for the foreseeable future, in the administration baseline the growth of non-defense discretionary spending would be negative in real terms for the next decades. How likely is it that such draconian spending cuts in non-defense discretionary spending will be passed even by a Republican Congress? Zero likelihood, as it would imply starving basic public services, i.e. reducing them in real terms over time by amounts never seen before.
Note that historically, discretionary spending has grown close to nominal GDP (i.e. by a rate equal to the inflation rate plus real GDP growth): that is why government spending remains constant over the long run as a share of GDP. Discretionary spending growing even at the CBO baseline of the rate of inflation - let alone the zero% growth in the administration proposal - implies that, in the long run, such spending will become 0% of GDP and that in the short and medium term it will fall in real terms in ways that have never been seen in US history.
Even assuming there is some pork fat in current discretionary spending, the proposed cuts imply chopping fat, flesh, meat, vital organs, bones and blood out of basic public services. And everyone, including every Republican in Congress (down to the most hawkish ones) knows that such draconian butchery - utter outright murder - of public services will never ever happen. It is utterly pathetic and dishonest posturing for the administration to even pretend that they will be able to propose and pass such cuts or even a fraction of them.
A more realistic scenario is to assume that discretionary spending will grow by the rate of nominal GDP, as it has historically. Even if one were to want to be more conservative and believe that some non-defense spending can be sharply reduced, a reasonable inference would be that spending will grow faster than the inflation rate (the CBO baseline) but less than nominal GDP. The difference between the two extremes, inflation rate growth or nominal GDP growth is only $106b in 2009, $359 by 2015 and $1,705 over the 2006-2015 decade.
Second, note that the official objective of the administration is to make all the 2001-2003 tax cuts permanent, i.e. to cut permanently the dividends tax, the capital gains tax, the estate tax and the income tax rates. CBO gives a benchmark for the effects of such permanent tax cuts; by 2015 their cost would be $422 billion for that year alone including the additional debt service costs, $49b in 2009 (and $1,856b cumulative for the 2006-2015 decade). Add to those costs, the cost of fixing the AMT: $56 billion in 2009, $70b by 2015 and $503b over the 2006-2015 decade. Note also that the costs of making the tax cuts permanent are already high until 2009 but they become massive from 2010 on when the expiring income tax cuts would become permanent. So, the administration proposal, that already overestimates revenues until 2009, does not consider at all the post-2009 costs of making the tax cuts permanent.
And the overestimation of revenues is another farce in the current budget plan. The administration originally estimated that revenues would grow by $200b in fiscal 2005 alone and that the deficit in 2005 would fall from $412b to about $350b. Then, we got news from CBO and administration sources that revenue growth is slower than expected and that the 2005 deficit will be, at $427b, even larger than the 2004 level. Then, instead of correcting the 2006-2009 revenue forecasts, the administration put into its new budget revenue growth that does not make any sense and that is altogether inconsistent, based on CBO scenarios, with the effects of keeping the tax cuts and making them permanent. What a pathetic arrogance and dishonesty! Who they think they are fooling with their voodoo economics plus black magic supply side revenues forecasts...these are not forecasts: they are worse then black magic wishful delusional dreams...only a delirious mind could make such far-fetched forecasts...
Third, add sensible assumptions about the costs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other military spending. The budget announced by administration does not include any of these costs. Even their 2006 budget showing a deficit falling from the high $427 in the current $2005 to $390b in fiscal 2006 does not include any of the supplemental costs for this defense spending next year, a supplemental that in 2005 alone was over $80b. And on top of this add sensible assumptions, as the CBO does, about the "Continued Spending for the Global War on Terrorism". That last item alone will cost - according to the CBO - $59b in 2009, $57b in 2015 and $590b between now and 2015.
Fourth, consider the transition costs of Social Security privatization based on the tentative proposal of the administration. Again, to optically minimize the effects on the budget deficit of this proposal, the administration decided to phase-in such privatization in 2009. What a cheap shot: start privatization after Bush is out of power so that the next Prez had to deal with the budget mess and bankruptcy created by such privatization. Even using such a pathetic political trick, the transition costs would be over $754b in the 2009-2015 period, about $1 trillion in the first decade and another $3.5 trillion in the second decade (plus more later, as you got to have all the 55-plus aged folks to die before you see any savings in the very long run). So, privatization would cost over $4.5 trillion in the first two decade since its start. And by 2015, it annual cost would already be over $150b. A sure path to the complete bankruptcy of the US government in the next decade: no exaggeration as you can look at Argentina for what a botched debt-financed social security privatization brings.
So, now make the following realistic - not voodoo magic false - assumptions about the budget: all the tax cuts are made permanent (as strongly desired by Bush), the AMT is fixed (as planned by the administration and as not doing so would sharply increase the tax burden of an additional 30 million middle class households), discretionary spending grows at the rate of nominal GDP and the extra costs of national security and homeland security are fully counted in.
Then, using the most recent CBO figures one gets a budget deficit of about $600b (or 4.0% of GDP) by 2009, well above the 2004 level of $412 (3.5% of GDP), well above the fake administration target of $233b (1.5% of GDP) for 2009. Moreover, using again these realistic scenarios, by 2015 - counting the effects of the permanent tax cuts and of the phase-in of Social Security privatization - you get an explosive budget deficit of over $1,100b or 5.5% of GDP.
Then, if you do not like this realistic scenario make even the heroic assumption that discretionary spending is sharply reduced and is contained to grow well below the rate of nominal GDP (i.e. well below the historical experience). So, assume that is grows somewhat above the unrealistic CBO scenario of inflation-rate growth of discretionary spending but below the rate of growth of nominal GDP: say, discretionary spending grows exactly in between nominal GDP and inflation rate. Note that even this scenario implies very sharp reductions for non-defense/non-homeland security discretionary spending, cuts that would be very difficult to achieve even in a Republican congress; but let us royally assume that, by some miracle, such spending controls are somehow achieved.
Then, under these most conservative assumptions about spending (the most conservative assumption any honest analyst could make unless you want to just shut down the government), the budget deficit would still be $547b in 2009 (or 3.6% of GDP) and $921b (or 4.7% of GDP) by 2015.
So, expect deficits at most as low as $547b (and as high as $600b) by 2006 and deficits at most as low as $921b (and as high as $1,100b) by 2015. This is honest budget accounting...Instead, the 2009 figure of $233b, shown by the administration today is a LIE, LIE, LIE, LIE, as many lies as 233 billion of them...
They may think that they can fool everyone, the taxpayers, the American people, the media, the bond markets, Wall Street and the disappearing bond vigilantes, the world, the central bankers of the world that have financed 90% of our budget deficits in the last four years and who would have to finance 100% of these ballooning budget deficits in the next decade. But they are only fooling themselves. No one is so dumb and idiotic to believe half of the damned lies they have been peddling in their budget. As a Bloomberg headline put it today, in the most understated terms: "Bush Fiscal Projections Questioned on Capitol Hill, Wall Street". Or, as the headline of the sharp Andrews article in the New York Times put it today: "Trim Deficit? Only if Bush Uses Magic"...Voodoo magic indeed!
Put it less politiely, this is not a budget, it is a multi-trillion dollar decade-long scam, a voodoo black magic to the power of two, the biggest Ponzi game in the financial history of humanity that would lead the US to certain bankruptcy by the next decade.
blogging is so overrated .... um, i mean, its good for what it is, but it not journalism. no accountability anywhere. an internet-wide pissing contest. (one of the earliest journalist/bloggers - andrew sullivan - has just stopped ...)
the latest from the boyz at goog:
http://www.google.com/help/maps/tour/
not sure if you get the full effect in every browser. very cool with firefox. adios mapquest a.k.a. maps.yahoo.com.
this is really really well done, technically at least.
By the way, any news on the bu$$ apart of the fact their technology is used with the "Cell" processor? That information has been known for quite some time, but the bu$$ is printing $18.20 here.
from slashdot.org:
Hack Jandy writes "Anand Shimpi has some details about the upcoming Cell processor (PS3) in his personal blog. According to Anand, "Rambus announced that the new Cell processor uses both Rambus XDR memory and their FlexIO processor bus. Because Rambus designed the interface for both the memory controller(s) and the processor interface, the vast majority of signaling pins are using Rambus interfaces - a total of 90% according to Rambus." Hasn't Rambus been showing up a lot again recently? The fact that Cell uses XDR has been widely speculated, but the fact that it will also use the Rambus bus signalling is something completely new."