This has SO little to do with Obama. He's a TOOL.......just like any other politician THEY select for your approval. When Saddam ran "elections" in Iraq he was consistently re-elected with 98-99% of the vote. In November 99% of Americans voted for one of the two clowns SELECTED for them by THEM.

Same shit. Different day.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s[1][id]=LNU01300000

no bounce off a 300+ down day on the Dow?

not really "follow through" either, YET

looks like pretty orderly retreat from any "Romney" stocks, ETFs or general concepts that depended on tax policies and regulatory advantage to VERY specific companies and sectors---------as opposed to any real judgement on the longer term impact of REAL policy change and how that's positive or negative for the EARNINGS of corporate America.

Obviously dividends are going to be taxed at a MUCH higher rate for those in the higher brackets. But the NET impact--------WHERE CAN YOU FIND SAFE RETURN? I can't see selling long term positions here en masse in utilities and other traditional high dividend stocks as a means to lower risk in the portfolio. There's no where to run for multi-billion dollar pension funds, insurance companies and other more conservative players.

Selling stocks to get the capital gains in 2012 before those rates go up is a much more immediate concern here. Then again, where in tarnations does that cash go? Gonna buy a 10-year Treasury Note or maybe a gold bar?

Great point lee.

It's not political issues that affect the economy and the stocks, bonds and options that we trade that needs to be banned from discussion.

It's the F'n cheerleaders with their red or blue pom poms waving in my face that makes me want to...........


Ya tu sabes.

I'll give you that lee.

If you've got $50M-100M Tuesday might matter.

Congratulations to those folks who might have a dog in this fight.

PLEASE zip it. Your partisanship is hanging out. I know how excited you must be living under the delusion that Tuesday makes any F'n difference in the grand scheme of things.


Most of you here are proficient or at least educated enough to comprehend HOW AND WHEN a journalist twists an event to make political hay.

Here's a thought.

Keep your RHETORIC, religious, political, cultural BS to an ABSOLUTE minimum in respect of those who think you are a F'n BOZO.


Fair enough to both sides of the debate?

A derivative is something intangible which is created for financial purposes and then traded for profit/loss that derives it's value from something other than the immediate intrinsic value of the underlying entity. Basically, as you know very well it's a speculative bet on the price or some other specific, measurable outcome of something over a specific time frame.

See, it's really simple.

The only limit to what could be traded or created as a financial derivative seems to be one's imagination-------within the constraints of it's definition though it's worth is always contingent on the primary value from which it is derived.

“Just goes to show you how just one person can have such an outsized impact on the market,” said Eric Hunsader, head of Nanex and the No. 1 detector of trading anomalies watching Wall Street today. “Exchanges are just not monitoring it.”

********************
There isn't even a miniscule chance that this comes from "just one person" nor is there any plausible chance that ALL the big players in the game don't know each other narrowing down the list of suspects who would be capable of such textbook market manipulation.

Obviously this is the work of "He Who Must Not Be Named."

I agree with you and it's a very important point.

So long as you grasp the RELATIVE change in these stats on a month over month/year over year basis and also understand all the mitigating factors like those not included in the data then there's no rational way to dismiss the data as irrelevant.



You're doing a hell of a job, Brownie!

With today's sophisticated computer programs ELIMINATING fraud or at least DOCUMENTING it so concisely as to facilitate easy prosecution seems like child's play. But what do I know?

Before, during or CERTAINLY after the fact any IMBALANCE in order flow, whether it's bid/ask or actual trade execution could easily be protected from those who's goal it is to manipulate these markets.

It's not brain surgery or rocket science. If computers are rigging the market to the advantage of individual brokers/traders/hedge funds then similar computer programs could be designed to slit those PEOPLE'S throats where they stand.

Let the chips fall as the may.

But don't feed me this horse shit that we don't know how to manage and protect the INTEGRITY of our free markets.

hear someone remotely insinuate that ANYTHING about the internet/technology frauds of Y2K, Enron/energy fraud or housing/financial collapse (2003-2008) was innocent error and we can't identify CRIMINAL behavior...................??????

that SOB ought to HANG from the closest light pole

GOD BLESS AMERICA

yes, it's that freaking simple

"I know many of us have been warning that this has become a rigged game, but I am really starting to become discouraged."

I nominate this sentence for Zeev's Year 2000-3000 Understatement of the New Millennium Award.

I've been working construction my whole life-----strictly commercial buildings. Since the economic collapse I've stayed just as busy as always but ALL the projects we do nowadays are either DIRECTLY government funded or they are health care related like nursing homes, clinics, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and so on.

No one else out there in our market is throwing any money into new building or "tenant improvement" that they could otherwise hold onto.

I can tell you it sucks to do what I do with those guys standing over you. No one literally stands over me but nevertheless in both health care related and government work there are LAYERS AND LAYERS of non-essential personnel who WE ONLY WISH would so nothing. No, they have to do SOMETHING to justify their existence so that involves all kinds of interference, paper work, compliance, regulation, inspection, negotiation, explanation...............

I once worked on a military base. It was actually a wonderful circumstance for me. Every other trade was done and gone. That pretty much never happens and we have to bump heads and get things done together, like it or not. Anyways, I had the whole site to my lonesome. It was scoured clean, empty, vacuumed and mopped. But the superintendent was obviously still there. There was also a quality control person and a safety person. So like in that picture there were three people doing nothing all day every day for a couple weeks or so whilst I did my thing. The worst was the QC guy. Nice guy but he literally stood over me all day. Anything I touched he wanted to STAND THERE reading the instructions, specifications and details and quiz me point by point, item by item, one by one. If he wasn't such a pleasant guy I probably would have gone ballistic on him.

James K. Glassman, executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, which assembled the book, said the former president did not want to rehash the past. “This is not a backward-looking book,” Mr. Glassman said. “We hope that the book will be a centerpiece of conversation and debate about economic policy in the campaign and beyond.”
**************************
Translation:

here are some ideas along the same lines and coming from the same people who formed policy for this country for 8 years

don't take into consideration how that all worked out for you folks

let's just think about the future

As government grows larger and assumes more power, each of us become less free.
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hard to argue with the principle

but we're so knee deep in socialized medicine what I see are a long list of bad alternatives to choose from within the constraints of CONTINUED "free" health care for the poor, elderly, virtually ALL city, county, state and federal government employees, including but not limited to military veterans, police, fireman, public utility workers, teachers, nurses, doctors and ALL the staff and administrators in all the buildings.........WAY past the tipping point! Add in on top of that that we also heavily subsidize the universities where many of the top hospitals are located and medical research takes place.........what's for the private market?

in other words we're so far from Libertarian, or free market concepts in health care/medicine it barely makes sense to refer back to them philosophically as any help with pragmatic solutions

I'd like to start with a clean chalk board too but I can't see how that's feasible.

So this Death Panel crap has started. If we don't vote this guy and his criminal cronies out of office this November then we will all die younger than we should as broke paupers as the country goes bankrupt.
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Those SOBs in Washinton DC ought to keep their filthy hands off our Medicare!!!



........seriously?


Well written. Too well written in fact. I call BS.

I don't believe anyone with an IQ in triple digits wouldn't instantly read through the inherent contradictions.

It's typical partisan nonsense aimed at the lowest common denominator. Wonder why there's no link, no name and it's being spammed into people's Email instead of BLASTED widespread on the national media?

"Public companies need to figure out what business the exchanges are in. Is the market supposed to be a platform for companies to raise money for growth and to create liquidity and opportunity for shareholders as it has been in the past? Or is the stock market a laissez-faire platform that evolves however it evolves? The missing link in all the discussions is: What is the purpose of the stock market?"
***************************

Public companies made their decision long ago. On top of that they bought government lock, stock and barrel so they could manage the laws and agencies that superficially regulate their behaviors. The fox is guarding the hen house when it comes to the integrity of global finance.

The missing link is what are we going to do about their decision and how it's playing out on the U.S economy.

Minimum wage laws in this country started in 1933 at a quarter an hour.

The silver content of a 1933 quarter was about .18 Troy ounces

At todays price of silver that's roundabout $5.11

Interesting coincidence that just recently from 1997 through 2007 federal minimum wage was frozen at $5.15 per hour.

Today it's $7.25 per hour.

Thanks lee


I'll Have Another

http://www.google.com/search?q=I%27ll+Have+Another&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

California 1-2-3

Yes, good doctor. I'm with you.

Eventually.

I have two concerns about this trade; timing and counterparty risk.

skono: Do I gotta read all the articles? I'm just looking for one word.
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No, I didn't read those articles either. I just recall the play on words from a few months back.

And it's going to be real hard to manage a hooker as prize. I'm not even allowed to go to the strip joints since I came home with perfume on me.

I SWEAR I'm an honest man. But a month on the couch for perfume. Can you even imagine what the penalty for hookers would be.

I'm thinking Lorena Bobbit

lee, you're a few months late

I think I read two dozen blog/headlines with variations on that theme

http://www.google.com/search?q=the+pain+in+spain&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=the+pain+in+spain+lies+mainly+on+the&oq=the+pain+in+spain+lies+mainly+on+the&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_l=serp.12...0.0.1.965.0.0.0.0.0.0.161.161.0j1.1.0.tshc.1.0.0.eRIJ19SOdfI&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=ee39e6d564b1abcb&biw=1134&bih=616
but my entry in the contest is

the pain in Spain
will burst your main vein

I doubt it matters so much the brand name

In fact, I'm getting suspicious about all the negativity and obsession with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

Let's say we jail a handful of middlemen and drive those corporations into bankruptcy.

The names will change but the game will never change.

Think about Enron and Arthur Anderson. They took down Skilling and Frank Pentangelli ...........er, I mean Ken Lay was decent enough to spare us the drama of a trial.

Wow!

http://www.multpl.com/interest-rate/

That article really puts the whole thing in perspective. I've been trying to articulate to folks that I've been seeing decline in our system for my whole adult, working life. It's really a matter of pulling back, away from anecdotes and exceptions, filtering through the deliberately misleading corporate and government statistics and understanding the larger trends.

"So this John Williams guy can't comprehend that $1T/year of deficit spending might be capable of juicing the economy just a little ?

maybe he should take an economics course."

Chris
*******************************
He doesn't claim the deficit spending couldn't stimulate positive REAL GDP numbers. His objection is to the measures of inflation. What's amazing regardless of where your interpretation of offical CPI and how that plays out on the deflators used to calculate real GDP growth is how LITTLE juice we're getting for all the taxing and spending.

I don't think there was ever a government program that wasn't supposed to "pay for itself" for some fairly convincing justifications. They STILL have the nerve to trot that line out for every new spending concept. So after all the trillions we've "invested" to juice the economy I say those dividends should be fully enough to fund the War Machine, Great Society AND the Bush Tax Cuts all at the same time.

Where's my return on investment?

I agree that it's a virus-like propaganda against environmental protections.

What makes it effective and convincing is it creates the image of an enormous governmental and environmental bureaucracy that obstructs decent, productive Americans at every turn.

What it neglects is the other side of the story. The enormous governmental and environmental bureaucracy EXISTS in the first place because decent, productive American foul the land, air and water behind them ESPECIALLY in the exploration and development of fossil fuels, which is obviously the industry behind this propaganda campaign.

You can't protect the nation's land, air, water and wildlife habitat by asking nicely and then hoping for the best. There's too many HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of humans in the country. It really only takes a few with fairly powerful economic assets and influence to poison the rest of us for their own financial gains. It takes VERY powerful government actions to protect us from those typically GLOBAL corporate interests.

You gotta admit they make a very nice video though.

game over scenarios?

I say not with a bang but a whimper

yeah, eventually the whole shithouse goes up in flames but no reason for it to end so soon as someone with an agenda wants you to fear

before the game is over many, many more hands will be dealt

many, many more shuffles left in the deck that is the U.S.A.

It seems to me they're using the strategy of "hiding in plain sight."

What percentage of the total population's eyes will glaze over before getting two sentences in to an accurate explanation of the financial scandals that led up to the collapse of our economic system?

it's damn near 100%

So there's little to no need to even try to be deceptive.

What percentage of sitting Congress can follow the discussion intelligently beyond reading off a list of prepared questions?

It doesn't matter. They're on the payroll.

that's a new word for me

I had to look it up

thanks

"He added the first defense against new bubbles is at the regulatory and supervisory level."
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Greenspan has nothing to do with that. He doesn't believe in regulation.

Now days lots of keys are also electronically 'keyed' to the car. You can get a key physically made for a few bucks & that will get you in the car, but if chip in the handle of the key wasn't programed ($100 at the dealer), then it's no-go.
*****************************************************

what could possibly go wrong?

Electronic door locks are inoperable if the battery connections are corroded, the cables are failing or the battery is dead.

could there be a stupider design concept?

almost certainly an electrical issue and dead battery is going to be high up on the list of suspects

You don't have AAA?

Their next big product would have to be what finally wrestles TV, telephone and internet into one homogeneous utility. So you've got hardware, software and then the public utility infrastructure all in tune. Currently these products and services are confounding and senselessly segregated to the benefit of certain monopolies and corporations but to the severe detriment of the consumer.

It's an enormous hurdle that may be years off. But the HYPE could start right here right now if a company like AAPL leads the way.

That price range is simply incongruous with anything and everything being discussed in terms of our economic "recovery" from the financial crisis of 2008.

Something has to give...............of course that same line of thinking struck me about a year ago and I posted up here about the oil/ng price ratio. Like Denniger's call on AAPL a few posts back on this board you can much more easily point at aberrations than it is to trade them unless you're inside on the manipulation. Personally I think AAPL hit $1000 before any crash is allowed to happen.

It doesn't really make sense to try to make sense of all this but AAPL around a thousand bucks a share seems like a logical end game.

There's money to be made from failures.



http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1587873049/

May natural gas contract just traded ~$2.05

. US housing isn’t just cheap; it is the cheapest it has been in more than 40 years. And when one considers the possibility that inflation may rear its head soon, housing looks even cheaper still.
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What's driving down housing is the inability of the working class family income to keep up with inflation. I'm sure that would be confusing if you looked at official measures of inflation and took them seriously. Sure looks "modest" and under control on those charts. Just don't gas up, get sick, eat, send the kids to college or pay the utilities and you could "invest" your entire paycheck into the housing market.

It's just amazing that with a twisted set of facts you can arrive at the most absurd conclusions, publish them and millions of %$#@# will nod in agreement.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

There's a great deal of difference between playing in the Major Leagues as a starting pitcher and being 2nd string utility infielder in the Rookie League. Both players are considered professional athletes. Then there are the hundreds and thousands of players who get cut from the teams each season when some other player outshines them. There's no "spot" on the roster for everyone just because they show up with a glove, ball and bat.

Yes, adding up all the players in all the professional and semi-professional baseball leagues can generate statistical average wages, mean and median incomes. Relatively speaking it's quite an athletic accomplishment to sigh a contract to get paid to play baseball. But the lifestyles and pay scales are so extreme it almost seems silly to lump them all in and speak as if they were playing together.


http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/the-two-track-lawyer-market/

"those caring for the elderly are notoriously low-paid jobs"

Not if they're working in a government facility and represented by a union. Those jobs, even janitorial workers in those facilities would be solidly middle class with excellent health care and a decent pension. Even in the private sector there's plenty of money for the executives, doctors and more skilled technical workers. It's only private sector, unskilled or very low skilled workers who's wages hover slightly above minimum wage.

Isn't that pretty much how all our industries are run now, absent any significant power in private sector organized labor?

It's clear that we've got very gross distortions in our market due to the perverse monetary system and political structure.

What's not so clear is what happens to the "price" of property, energy, milk, bread and butter should we crash and burn or otherwise drastically alter the system of currency.

This would be an opportune time for Obama to require all Federal vehicles to run on NG by some future date!
Bet that would bring those NG prices up in a hurry. Heheh!
*********************************
well, that's essentially what I'm expecting-----if not government then industry rushing in with something like the Picken's Plan to spur much higher demand.

either that or some shock to supply based on restrictions to the fracking technology or other exploration and delivery costs issue.