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Indicator Update for January 5
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion
seamusobannion@yahoo.c...
The Economic Meltdown: Dismantling, Yes; Doom, No
"Whilst I support the Iraq War on a moral ground I agree with your financial analysis. America's far too overstreched providing safety for almost the whole globe..."
You support the war on MORAL GROUND? I beg you to tell me what that moral ground might be. To be rid of Sadam Hussein? I hate to put words into your mouth, but that's absurd. The US never met a right wing dictator it didn't like, from Samoza in Nicaragua to the Arena party in El Salvador to Joseph Mobutu in the Congo to Suharto in Indonesia to Pinochet in Chile to the Duvalier family in Haiti - and please note that the leader of the FRAP retired not to Russia or Cuba, but to Queens NY after that CIA sponsored farce ended. And of course the reams of papers retrieved in Port au Prince were never either returned to the Haitian government or made public. Never in recent history has there been a more effective cooperation between the networks & the government as in what took place in Haiti to keep Bertrand Aristied out of office for over three years.
And saying that the US provides safety for the globe is like saying that Billy the Kid provided safety to the old west. Who provided safety to Panama from us? Somewhere between two and four thousand civilians were killed to ... arrest a drug dealer?! (Did you understand that "war" on moral ground too?) That nut case was a drug dealer when the CIA hired him to be their guy. We invaded Panama to teach him not to mess with Uncle Sam, the Godfather to the world. To show the world that we were a loose cannon & not to mess w/ us. To showcase the stealth line of aircraft & boost sales. To show that we didn't spend more on our war machine than the next - what, 104 countries combined? - for nothing. With that huge investment in arms, Washington has to be known to the rest of the world as DANGEROUS & unpredictable or why spend the money?
If you underestimate the cynicism of Washington DC, you'll always be having problems reconciling modern history w/ the absurdities broadcast over the propaganda machine commonly referred to as the "free press."
On Dec 27 07:09 AM Yamu wrote:
> Whilst I support the Iraq War on a moral ground I agree with your
> financial analysis. America's far too overstreched providing safety
> for almost the whole globe, rather than the Middle East and Pacific
> it should concentrate on still being the no1 influence in Latin America
> as that's far more cost effective, not to mention that it will stop
> pissing off Russia, China and the Arabs...
Save the Bailout Drama
Please let's stop using terms of the propaganda art. The essence of democracy is that political power resides in the people NOT IN THE VOTE!
How powerful are YOU feeling today?
This from MSNBC this AM:
"But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty [to top execs] would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.
Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives."
How can you have a democracy when the only power the people have is to "vote the bums out" and vote another bunch of bums in? All the bums are professional politicians. All have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get elected. And all are in the pockets of Big Money & Big Business.
Enjoyed your article.
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion.
Asian and Latin American Markets: Where the Economic Upswing Could Start
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion.
Vanishing Jobs and the Rising Bailout Costs
And check Obama's in-coming crew. Once past Volcker & Geithner and a few others, we run into the same professional political flacks that stood by Clinton in his glory days of re-tooling the democrat party to make a snugger fit with globalization & reaganomics.
And since business & government have been made partners again since Reagan, is it any wonder that no one - neither republican not democrat - is talking about helpiing municipalities? After all, most of THAT money would only go to teachers, police, & fireman.
One last point: I'm, astonished at all the anti-union talk. The American worker has lost ground versus inflation since the sixties, while the "geniuses" in the executive suites of this country have been making themselves billionaires, swallowing all the increased productivity that resulted from the new technologies - as if they invented them! Leo Bjong, an engineer (see "Who's Who in American Engineering" & "Who's Who Among Finnish Americans"), was one of the pioneers of aviation & his team at Bendix developed the automatic pilot which remained in use for years. Did Bjong & his team get rich? Of course not, the executives & shareholders did. And what did the workers get out of it? Squat!
And now all we hear is "socialism for the rich." Socialism for the rich is fascism. Did we forget so soon? Or is the word too bitter for the north american mouth?
Seamus O'Bannion.
Offshore Troubles, Domestic Fears
Global Market Performance: Nowhere to Hide
Your EWZ has a good chance of bouncing here, as it just tagged its 200 day moving average. Target might be the fifty day MA, about 10 pints up. Then probably down again. Big inflation in Brazil & rest of SA, with increasing interest rates - never propitious for stocks. EWZ has also been underperforming the DJ Wilshire 5000 since late may.
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion.
Investing for Retirement - Cramer's Mad Money (7/3/08)
SOB.
What Was Left Out of the Jobs Report
Given what's been happening to bond interest for hospitals, schools, & municipalities, combined w/ the shrinking tax base resulting from the downward reassessment of property values, I think we can count on solid dis-employment beginning in the present quarter & continuing into the end of the year from that extremely large service sector. US Gov Incorporated will have to be very creative to mask that one.
I hope any of your readers who might still be clinging to the hope of "short & shallow" will rethink any positions they might have in retail as well as in medical equipment tech stocks. There are great companies in those fields, but they face declining economic demand.
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion.
(Like the new photo, by the way; I'd submit one, but my face keeps breaking cameras.)
SOB.
Will the Nasdaq Take a Mean Bounce?
Reminds me of the Big Bang. Of course, you weren't born yet, but I remember it well. Boy, was it noisy! And, now, 13.5 billion years later, the universe is still expanding. Like the Big Bang, the NASDAQ small fry are still collapsing, 6 years after the bubble burst, or 6 yrs BBBB (after the Big Bang of the Bursting Bubble).
By the way, if you have the time to respond - what kind of software do you need in order to derive that kind of data? Not the Big Bang, the Naz 4% stuff.
Best,
SOB.
Dollar Destruction: My Wealth Inequality Manifesto
Best,
SOB.
Dollar Destruction: My Wealth Inequality Manifesto
"World's best democracy?" In an alternative universe, maybe. In the 1940's, Republican politicians had no problem pounding a fist on the lectern and proclaiming in loud voices "This is not a democracy! This is a republic!"
Of course, in those days, motivational research was limited to the OSS trying to figure out how best to undermine German & Japanese morale. After 60 years of the boob tube & the best propaganda system ever devised (thanks to MR & the need to create material needs for an endless array of new products), no one would dare insinuate that the US is not a democracy.
But in a democracy, power resides with the people, not with the vote. If the latter were the case, Peru would be the world's greatest democracy because the fine is about a hundred soles for failing to vote. (When my wife was working 65 hours a wk for her sisters, selling baby clothes, they paid her 200 soles - PER MONTH!) But, hey, this is just a "fledgling democracy", right? Peru has a lot to learn. (Although, I suspect that Washington has been learning more from Latin America these last several years than the other way around.)
The point is that, according to Washington, the vote is our power: "Vote the bums out!" they yell. But what gets left unsaid is that to vote one bum out, you have to vote another bum in. If both parties are in the pockets of Big Business & that 4% Phil is talking about, how does your vote change anything? I don't care who gets elected, the wiggle room that the best-meaning Prez has is very small, particularly when you consider how many promises he has to make to get the three hundred million dollars it will cost him to get elected.
Best,
Seamus O'Bannion.
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A Closer Look at the CSX/TCI & Bear Stearns Cases
Volatility Going Nowhere
Sure. Clean energy might work. Broadwind Technologies (BWEN) & Canadian Solar (CSIQ) are two possibilities. The brave of heart might try a micro-cap like Acorn Energy (ACFN). Ocean drillers like Pride International might also be good.
(Positions in the first three above.)