Respirate's Comments Stream Stats
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- Total Comment Stream rating - = 10
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Madoff Scandal: Where Was the SEC?
Government cannot perform its function to safeguard ordinary citizens when it is circumvented by the executive branch in favor of institutions. Cox is only one more complicit minion.
Market Not Out of Woods Yet
And the Understatement of the Year award goes to ..."
Relaxing over my Sunday paper (WSJ 'Getting Going' feature), the absolute dumbest article of all time tells us poor schmucks at home to 'fight fear', and go out and 'splurge' a little. Gotta do your part for the sick economy, you understand.
Uhhh ... ok. My IRA's down 55%, three local companies announce extended layoffs in a single week, and the largest employer is filing for bankruptcy. The article's author, a president of FiLife.com, is simply clueless. It's not up to the individual consumer to generate confidence.
Steinhilber said it well: "Trust and confidence are the keys to our financial markets and economy. Both have been badly damaged, and there is no way of knowing when confidence will return. " "In truth, it is impossible to project with any confidence how bad this recession will be, since so much depends on confidence ...".
Econ 102: A monetary economy rests on the participants' faith in the sovereign government.
Only the federal government has the resources to repair the damage and restore confidence caused by its own negligence.
Time to Fill Up on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Same is true your your modest tax propopsal. Tax phobes will scream about it ( and about anything else that has a "public good" ring to it), but the private sector hasn't addressed the problem of developing viable alternatives foreign oil dependence since, maybe 1973. I think that's the first time I remember sitting line for gasoline, under thumb of foreign suppliers. The effort could use a push. Or maybe some would argue that cheap oil is here to stay. Uhh ... ok. Until next time.
As you suggest, energy companies are incredibly cheap now. Every so often we get it in our heads that oil investing is obsolete. I'd like to publicly thank all who think that and are dumping their shares. The majors you mention are superb investments. You didn't mention the best deep drillers that are also out of style -- I've been steadily buying Noble (NE), most recently for $26 and change. Just in case we again decide that we need a little more oil someday.
Is the DJIA Heading Towards Zero?
The Topsoil Crisis: Dirt Isn't Cheap Anymore
discl: long Cresud
Not Likely to Be a Merry Xmas for Microsoft - RBC
Time Not for a Bailout, But for Nationalization
The Test of Wills at Boeing
Boeing, doing what is in their best interest as a wealth-generating entity, won't be satisfied until the workers at the US plants earn wages closer to the globalized average, or they'll continue to send work where wages are lower. The machinists, doing what is in their interest, are saying that hurts the people who live here, and it's not necessary.
Who's Going to Bailout the U.S. Government?
Or is it the failure of the American people to demand a responsible government?
These quasi-elected people have financed an invasion / and costly occupation with bonds largely sold to foreign governments, and don't have the moral fortitude to raise taxes to pay the bills? Talk about a welfare state. They pacify the citizens by not even telling them the bills will come due, in some form -- either through taxes (are we grown up enough to handle that?), inflation, lower growth accompanied by lower real wages ... economic forces will extract the cost whether we like it or not.
Our government has chosen to let hundreds of billions fly out the door each year to flood the coffers of other governments, mostly unfriendly ones. That's real wealth leaving out country. We're thirty years behind in heading off that mess, which could have been solved by now with intelligent use of resources and responsible actions, along with foresight and real leadership.
The Roman state lasted much longer before it collapsed under its own weight. We stilll have choices. The American people could still learn to act like grown-up responsible people. Instead we demand our leaders treat us like soft, spoiled brats. Will we continue the slide?
NBC Refuses Pickens Plan Ad
I wholeheartedly recommend Pick's plan to unite Americans in the worthy fight to unshackle our economy from foreign energy suppliers, something "we" as a complacemt and selfish nation failed to initiate between 1973 and the present.
And yet Pick played a sleazy and substantive role in 'electing' the ultimately ineffective and unimaginative chief executive. Pick pertetrated the swiftboating of our nation into additional years of retrograde action on the energy independence front.
Now he tries to assume the role of uniter and energy dependence savior? A sudden change in values and purpose? I don't buy it. Pick earned his stripes as a divider and as perpetrator of the lowest common denominator of disinformation in public discourse.
The mantle of leader and motivator doesn't fit the man.
Boeing Drags Its Heels on Air Force Bid
Alas, that's wishful thinking. Corporations run the government, and because Boeing knows that, they can afford to sulk.
Russia's Too Risky - Barron's
The harsh reality is that it was just a time out during which Russia regrouped and rearmed. Round 3 began while we were still taking bows for winning Round 1.
More Correlations: Oil and the Dollar (and Gold)
Your work seems to show that while Oil vs. USD are more strongly correlated than Oil vs. Equities, the relationship is relatively weak over time. This clearly refutes the news headline writers and business show talking heads who blindly claim a strong correlation, or even a direct causal relationship.
Headlines commonly implying that a rising dollar causes a corresponding drop in the price of crude are convenient and certainly sound authoritative, but are misleading. As you've shown, the market relationships aren't that simple, especially over time.
Just How Correlated Are Oil and Equities?
How about a similar look at the relationship between the USD and crude oil? The talking heads constantly insist that there's a causal effect between dollar relative movement and crude. (It makes them sound smart to repeat something they've heard.)
I think it could just as well be argued that the higher price of oil negatively affects the US economy, which in turn influences the currency. In any case, it's certainly not a proportional relationship.
Oil Will Only Fall So Far
The larger problem is that since at least 1973 we have failed to take steps required to defend ourselves against dependency on unfriendly foreign governments for energy. We Americans have become too fat, dumb, and happy to do the hard work required to free ourselves of dependency.