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Post by sinister on Feb 19, 2009 3:25:11 GMT
re: Lunger
Liberalism has nothing to do with the mess we're in. Reckless monetary management by Greenspan (fabled Greenspan Put formenting moral hazard) caused excessive speculation for 19 years.
In order words greedism. A philosophy not subject to party ideology. Focusing on Obama may be an easy way out for you to shift blame, but look in the mirror, look to the your right, look to your left, up down, back, front, across the block, these are the people to blame.
Presidents Mccain, Hillary, Guilani, Romney will more or less being doing the same things. Only my main man, Ron Paul (Hiliary being 2nd in line) would have taken the necessary action to prevent future problems (ie disbanding the Fed).
Obama can do nothing, do everything, follow conservative ideology to a T and nothing in the short or intermediate term would change what would be going on and that is, the US just had a 28 year party, now comes the 10-20 year hangover.
re: Mordecai
Falafel
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Post by tehlung on Feb 19, 2009 4:13:38 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by tehlung on Feb 19, 2009 4:49:54 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by Gromlakh on Feb 20, 2009 3:20:52 GMT
I'd love to see how Al Franken is at fault for the banks, seeing as how he was barely even involved in politics (aside from the occasional political rant) until about 2 years ago.
The auto makers aren't in trouble because they can't keep up with environmental regulations. US automakers are in trouble because they can't build a car worth a shit and nobody wants to buy them. They all gambled on huge SUVs and let their other lines die painful deaths, then gas prices shot up to the moon and the green movement kicked in. Suddenly, nobody wants an overpriced, underproduced, oversized gas hog anymore, and low and behold you have the American car industry.
You'll note that Toyota, Honda, and BMW may be in a down business environment right now, but mysteriously seem to be doing just fine with no talk of government intervention for them.
For the record, bailing out the American auto industry is shit. Their companies suck, let them die.
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Post by tehlung on Feb 20, 2009 12:53:18 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by tehlung on Feb 25, 2009 3:26:23 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by Gromlakh on Feb 25, 2009 3:59:12 GMT
I did not. I don't usually watch political speeches unless there's a compelling reason to do so. However, I've always said that Jindal is a powerhouse who could make a really serious run at the White House. I actually think his target year is 2016 myself, because I don't think he could beat Obama in a straight-up match.
That being said, I think he's making his first national misstep with his approach to the stimulus. Several Republican governors have already broken ranks with him, and while he's publicly saying he's refusing the stimulus money that's not what he's really suggesting. He's only talking about refusing part of the money, and the parts he's wanting to turn down are for unemployment benefits, child health care coverage, etc. You know, all the stuff that could help people in a down economy. I don't think that's going to turn out as well for him as he'd hoped.
But, at least it gets his name out there on the national stage. My prediction is that the Repukes will continue to be idiots and nominate Sarah Palin in 2012, which will guarantee Obama winning by about 80% of the vote. If Jindal keeps his nose clean (no easy task in Louisiana politics) and continues doing a good job as governor, he's going to be a monster in 2016.
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Post by sinister on Feb 25, 2009 4:48:30 GMT
Obama: Ummm ... ok, seriously? Really? .... Flop
Jindal: Really funny story about needing boat insurance but, otherwise ... Flop
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Post by tehlung on Feb 25, 2009 13:02:19 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by Blain20 on Feb 27, 2009 0:30:08 GMT
Jindal is a great man. For that reason, the only way he can make it to presidency is for the rest of the Repubicans in DC to go back to conservative values as he already does. There are quite a few REAL conservatives in D.C. now, of course. We just need more of them on board. The 100% vote NO against the House bill was awesome. But unfortunately, we have at least three moles in the Senate.
All that said... We're at the end of an expected cycle. The only difference between what should be and what is, is Obama's making the crash worse. We were already going to have a crash. That's part of Capitalism.
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Post by sinister on Feb 27, 2009 16:00:53 GMT
Rewrite the Constitution, bring back Bill Clinton for a term.
Like what Bloomberg is doing in NYC.
What we need is a benevolent dictatorship as it beats a democracy, the problem is the benevolent part.
No need don't repond to this stream of consciousness post as I'm just saying I like Bubba.
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Post by sinister on Feb 27, 2009 16:12:16 GMT
All that said... We're at the end of an expected cycle. The only difference between what should be and what is, is Obama's making the crash worse. We were already going to have a crash. That's part of Capitalism. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. The above statement is categorically false and not the Obama part, the other parts, which is we were going to have a crash as that is part of capitalism. We are having a crash because of 18 years of mismanagement by Greenspan (supposed vanguard of Ayn Rand intellectualism)who interjected a amanaged economy philosophy into the free markets instead of letting things fall where they may and allowing capitalism work out. It all started in 1987, when the dow dropped 508 points. Response? cut rates lend freely. Here comes moral hazard time. Continued in 1998 surprise rate cuts to stave off LTCM, whiched made cause the TMT boom to run out of control. As the tech bubble (that he cheerleaded) crashed, cut rates to 1% causing the credit (but what is commonly referred to in the media as the housing) bubble. So each upswing turned into a bubble and got bigger and bigger because the idiot wouldn't let true captialism work out on the downside which would have been minor to what we are facing now. And to put the icing on the cake. In a congressional testimony in 2004, he blathered on about how great ARMs (adjustable rate morgages) were over the last couple of decades and that people would have saved more money using them. Great, he then proceeded to raise rates (about 2 years too late I might add) so that when the resets hit, people would be wiped out. So yes, a crash does happen, when you put a retard on the throne, and 18 years emcompasses Republican and Democratic adminstrations and Congressional control. Ron Paul was my choice for President because he knew the source of the problems was too much influence by the Federal Reserve (an unelected body) and its ability to negate executive and legislative power because of it's power to control the money supply. This is why you hear the jokes about the most powerful person in the world not being the US President, but the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Paul's first objective was to eliminate the Fed. Boom and busts are part of capitalism, not bubbles and crashes. These have to specifically and systematically engineered. So bitching about Obama is a waste of time.
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Post by tehlung on Feb 27, 2009 19:05:10 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by tehlung on Feb 27, 2009 19:10:12 GMT
I love President Obama!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
He's the best president ever! Isn't he grand? He's so awesome at fixing all the problems over the last 200+ years caused by George Bush!!!!!!1 He gives great speeches! I hope he's president for life!
He and his followers stand for timeless American values like helping your lazy neighbor, apologizing for America, spending our kids' money, and encouraging discussion of his ideas exclusively.
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Post by sinister on Mar 1, 2009 19:08:20 GMT
While the stock market can be considered a barometer of corporate America, leaders SHOULD NOT manage the economy or their businesses according to the vagaries of the equity markets. This causes too much short term oriented thinking that will lead to long term harm.
Item (think Mclauglin): For years (15+) GE always been earnings estimates by exactly 1 penny. How could they be so precise? Because they could manage earnings via GE Capital, which started as a small part of the business but soon grew to 40% of profits. This financing unit allowed them to massage results to smooth out earnings so what really would be a a volatile business became a dependable stream of earnings (Madoff like actually). The problem this forced GE to morph from an industrial conglomorate to really, the largest hedge fund in the world (~900 bill in assets @ >15x leverage), until it came crashing down on them. Thanks Jack Welch.
Actually same with Enron (offshort balance sheets had them essentially sold puts @ ~$45) and Worldcom (CEO margined his shares, so needed to keep stock at high prices) for companies a decade ago that went bust due to excessive concentration by their leaders on company stock prices. For companies currently still around Dell, and Intel (via screwing around with receivables) Citigroup, Lehman, Merrill, ... list goes on and on.
Item: We already went through 18 years of of Greenspansian goosification (2 made up words) of the stock market everytime we were underoing a correction . Instead of allowing things to develop naturally and short term pain to be taken, whenever the US stock markets looked dicey, gee, surprise rate cuts....wow right around options expirations too (the mechanics is that it forces a lot of natural expiration pin short covering forcing the markets higher, wiping out short sellers). This happened in sept 1998, jan 2001, Oct 2007 (bernanke) causing wild rallies to the upside followed by more more and pain to the downside (the 1998 wild rally lasted for 1.5 years resulted in 2000 tech meltdown). note: Bill Fleckenstein's Greenspan's Bubbles is an excellent primer whereby he lays the groundwork on how Greenspan formented the worldwide credit bubble in his 18 years of office
Now, why is concentrating on the stock market bad for our poltical leaders? Because ,even ignoring the misallocation of capital that bubbles lead to (US overbuilding leading to empty residential and commercial real estate as a prime example for today) and the horrendous after effects of crashes (U-3 unemployment up to 7.6% and soon to 10%, U-6 underemployment 13.6% and soon to be 20%), the stock market today would be at HIGHER prices NOW than if the bubble and crashed never occurred. So instead of seeing the Dow Jones Industrial Average go from 776 in the bottom of 1982 to 14164 in 2007 to 7000 today, we would see a less parabolic rise to say 8500 today because by definition, a bubble and a crash is worse than not having a bubble and crash This is because a nation always loses more wealth than was made during the bubble.
So while, as an investor, I would appreciate more market friendly news, (Actually this isn't quite true, I am comfortable going short and long, so whatever the politicians say doesn't interest me except for the very short term (1 day or so), I'm just keeping an eye on the fundamentals macroeconomic outlook), as a citizen, let's concentrate on improving the US long term and not keep harping on the short term. That's how Greenspan lead us into this mess, caused us to get loopy and go on a decade long spending spree. I mean, come on, even in the bible it says, you save during the good times so that during the bad times you have a saftey net to draw down. Except in the height of the good times the US had a -3% savings rate. So saving now (up to +3% savings rate), will cause a double whammy on a US GDP contraction , regardless of what politicians will try to do. People simply won't be spending as much, anytime soon (quite possible a decade).
Oh yeah, in a few years we'll have to contend with horrendous inflation too. Oh brother.
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