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well, not too surprising: the fed move has pushed the dollar down and hence the yen up. never good for japanese exports.
To show how hard SS reform is....One of the obvious partial solutions is to apply a means test in order to receive benefits.
Ick. Means-testing would be so complex, and would turn Social Security into a sort of welfare for the elderly. A more equitable solution would be to raise the retirement age. That doesn't necessarily mean you must retire later; merely that you don't start collecting payments until later. This too is consistent with the original goals of the plan, adjusted for changes in health care, and could easily save more than a means-test.
Social Security is the easy problem. Medicare is tough.
"why are you wasting your time on this silly thread?"
well, as you may note, i don't waste much time here
i used to check on zeev's thread and LG's thread regularly because they had some good insights. cannabis and softechie seem to be good at recognizing extremes. most of the other prognostications here don't seem to work.
when did elliot waves become so popular? i really can not understand why trying to label a random walk makes any sense at all. its not even a falsifiable theory: you try to label it and, if you're wrong, oh well, you got the labelling wrong. why doesn't the failure of a labelling disprove the theory?
you don't have to answer, i know: cuz its a random walk and you can always find some labelling after the fact.
i just don't get it.
viacom made a big issue of having their video reposted on youtube, so its probably not there. all daily show episodes eventually end up on their web site,
http://www.thedailyshow.com/index.jhtml
"On several occasions, Jon re-focused the conversation stating 'it wasn't about Cramer'. He also said that it was unfortunate that Cramer became the 'face' of what Jon viewed as a larger systemic problem in business news reporting."
I think what really got under his skin was CNBC's and Cramer's attempt to capitalize on the publicity, putting Cramer on CBS shows to defend himself. If they hadn't done that, it would have been over after the first day. But when you get Scarborough and The View girls all trying to be sympathetic and supportive, you're just asking for a rebuttal.
"I love the show as well, but was actually a little disappointed in Stewart. He's had far worse people on his program where he basically did nothing. I've never seen him act that way before w/a guest."
Then you should check out Jon Stewart with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, where he called them both political hacks and effectively killed the long-running show Crossfire.
"Our state and county gov't is just now starting to lay off people and said there will a lot more starting with the new budget year."
of course employment is a lagging indicator ...
selling 3% of your BRK.A is considered "dumping"?
moo!
hi guys.
yes, u know this was going through my mind last week. it was feeling more like accumulation than distribution. i've been picking up stuff along the way and, as i mentioned earlier, took 2 positions in jpm on friday's dump. that last one is the one i'm least confident of, but, well, its only fiat money.
if i had noticed the dump in brk/b, i would have jumped there as well. sigh.
thats what jim rogers says (on cnbc site).
"i need to figure out how to get in the way of some of that money"
probably easier to wait for the next round of money. stock up on beans and plan to have urself reclassified as a methane production facility.
ah yes, but aid is expected from the federal government.
we're gonna get a lesson here why markets always do well under deficit spending by democrats. and the spending will be world-war-two enormous.
"I'm not sure how they will adjust their projected spending and tax policies. It's unlikely that state and local agencies will be able to raise the kind of monies needed to fund some of the long term spending plans on roads, schools, hospitals and prisons under these circumstances."
i'm not sure what you mean. its not state and local agencies, its federal. and at the federal level, you do this: you scream "deflation" and all the idiots want to buy treasuries at a 0% yield. where did i see this before? hmm. oh yeah, last week's newspapers.
"Although this article does not mention the chief architect, Sanford Weil and another member of the supporting cast Larry Summers, it does pay tribute to Robert Rubin who ..."
This is unfair. Larry Summers was not involved with Citigroup. He has been working as a managing director at one of the top hedge funds in NYC ... one that is in very good shape financially, and still hiring!
duplicate
wow. that exceeds world war 2 as a percentage of GDP. taking the lesson of the great depressions serously.
"Looks like we are pricing in a 25% unemployment rate."
looks like we are pricing in liquidation sale of the U.S. msft at $17? intc at $12 with a 5% dividend?
$500B in infrastructure and new energy money and everyone is going to be repositioning to get a piece of it, just as everyone and his mother now wants to be a bank. GE at $13, that had to be a giveaway.
count me among the fools who think that stocks are ridiculously cheap, for now.
well there's a reason for naked shorting to be in the news: the SEC is holding an emergency international meeting on monday to discuss short selling. seems rather low profile in the news. perhaps they're toothless and nobody cares. or perhaps they want some shock and awe.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSfjA_7s0X2XguPbCoyz4nXMvO0g
this video analysis, re the renminbi, is interest:
http://www.ft.com/cms/bfba2c48-5588-11dc-b971-0000779fd2ac.html
"Yen still bearish for stocks"
what relationship are you positing between yen and stocks? are you suggesting a resumption of the carry trade? i would think that is out of the picture at this point.
moo
i'll probably get scroomed but i bought me some jpm on friday. several times. my toe in the financials. well more than a toe. sigh. my gamble that shitigroup (C) is a non-event. toes crossed.
but you know, if your implication is correct, that the rally would have happened even without the announcement, then you have to hand it to the obama team: thinking criminally, they chose exactly the right time to make the announcement, guaranteeing that the weekend news will be talking about geithner and how he inspires confidence on wall street.
or it could be serendipity. but everything suggests that the new administration leaves nothing to chance.
hmm but since that spike in the trinq, it has been very very low.
obama certainly has a flair for the theatrics of politics.
"I've never been able to trust insider buying. There were insiders buying many of these stocks that are trading under $10 at 5 to 10 times the current value."
true, although in this case it was the founder, who had been selling continuously all the way down ... but still, it didn't ring a bell for me at the time either.
woo! i stand corrected. i stopped watching that after it hit $5.
my biggest mistake of the last bear was watching AKAM fall from $300 to $3, and noticing that the founders were buying big at $3, and yet waiting for it to fall further before i bought in. that and wondering whether AAPL was cheap enough at $12.
"the one which allows each individual to decide what is best as an independent economic actor [...] or the one in which the lord tells the serfs what's best for them and tries to enforce everything through fiat only to find the serfs cheat on him when he's not looking."
the former is more crass while free markets are great, everyone acting in his or her own best interest, competitively. but we're in the vicious cycle here: everyone acting in his or her own best interests means everyone trying to throw each other into the abyss so that they themselves can be the last standing. if government has a role, it is to step in now and do whats best for the common good, perhaps at the expense of what is best for fair the various players.
"serfs cheat on him when he's not looking" perfectly describes the bubble as well as its aftermath. that is the universal constant, in both your scenarios, in good times and bad.
that said, even government has to try to be efficient and effective. just throwing money at the automakers isn't a solution unless they are willing to recognize this as a unique opportunity and take advantage of it to restructure. the latter isn't gonna happen until all the players recognize that failure is catastrophic: maybe it is, but congress isn't the only one that should be panicked into action by that; the UAW and the automakers should also.
"Some of these stocks have gone from $150 to like $10....."
last bear, JDSU went from $150 to $2. where it remains.
wow, 60B traded in SKF today. seems like a lot of money on financials derivatives. now there's a bubble looking for a pin. no wonder the banks keep going to the SEC; if i'd seen that volume, i would have picked up some jpm today.
a $50 opening gap down on that instrument would make for a nice explosive opex day. thinkin like a crimean. um, criminal.
"But Schiff has a few suggestions."
his suggestions would be good, if his recommendations were followed. but mass bankruptcy and foreclosure ain't gonna happen. not easily, at least.
i'm amazed by all these bears, who were as bearish as i have been over the years, who now have nothing constructive to say beyond sticking to their principles and throwing up their hands and saying "this is how economics works, give up".
that's not acceptable fiscal policy. it can't happen. at least not in so crass a way.
"I think too many are overly optimistic about the auto bail out - not sure its a done deal and even if it happens, how long before it wears off."
if these things bother you, wait until you hear the price tag on the upcoming stimulus package. i'll bet ya its upwards of half a trillion.
Re "More Hedge Fund Selling Down The Road?"
i'd take this with a big grain of salt. smart hedge funds have delevereged and are sitting on massive amounts of cash. stupid hedge funds don't have access to credit, so they've already been forced to deleverage.
Moo?...Is that what a gay bull says? Not that there is anything wrong with that!! A bulls sexual preference is nobodies business than their own!
yup!
I think the 2010 election has a stronger showing by Republicans, and they re-take the oval office in 2012.
the GOP needs serious remaking. ironically, the party of Lincoln now wins only in the former conferate states. no representation in the northeast at all. the uneasy and unlikely marriage of social conservative and libertarian strains has unravelled.
parker the bull sez: moo!
thanks, brainlessone, i'd appreciate that. that's something i know nothing about.
"Absolutely not. If it were up to me, the Treasury Bills should be defaulted, so nobody will ever dare to lend to the government ever again. Sovereign debt is fraud. It is no different from if I took out a loan on your house, and you have no say in it, and we don't even know each other. High unemployment is the result of labor laws and regulations; if the labor price can freely fluctuate, the market should clear at some point, whatever it is. Sure, the nominal income may be lower, but the cost of living (i.e. hiring someone else to do things for your in return) would also be lower. Widows and orphans being reduced to eating catfood is usually the result of robbery by the government through hyperinflation (in order to bail out the fat cat fractinal reserve bankers driving Maseratis). Government can print money, but it can not print food."
well, tearing it all apart and starting again from scratch is also, i think, not an option. this is an interesting time. less because of what they'll all be doing now to patch things good enough to get through the immediate crisis. but there will be significant change afterwards.
of course, LG always used to say "think like a criminal". if i were thinking like a james bond villian i'd think this is an ideal time for a large scale terrorist attack. if that were to happen, you may indeed get the chance to rebuild the financial system from the rubble.
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anyway, thanks for the vigorous debate, brighness! you keep me on my toes and it was fun. i'm gonna go dancing now
g'nite.