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    • America Needs a Turnaround Plan [view article]
      Fred, good that you want to repeal the tax cuts. But it is not necessary. There is good news. The tax forms have already a provision to enable people to volunteer additional tax to the Federal government.

      I look forward to you announcing in SA come April 09 that you have contributed extra tax - but please don't speak for me. I do want the government effectively wasting my money. We have seen only to clearly how addtional legislation and coercion (Barney Frank and Fannie Mae etc.) have screwed things up.

      I have put a note in my calendar next May to enquire whether you have volunteered more tax than required.       Oct 05 12:30 PM
    • Fear Goes Hand in Hand with Drama [view article]
      As Bespoke pointed out - they did not commit the $700 billion - oh great, but in the meantime the stock market lost around $750 billion today. Since most of us have 401Ks and stock, we lost the value anyway.

      The other way we would have more chance of it coming back.       Sep 29 04:45 PM
    • Golden Arches Safer Than Uncle Sam? [view article]
      Be very clear if the bailout does not go through it will affect each and every one of us - not only the rich, or the fat cats, or the CEOs.

      Without credit businesses will not be able to function and begin to collapse. As business collapses and workers are out of work this will affect other business and so on. A vicious circle will ensue and all the smug "no bailout for the rich" guys will be standing in the soup kitchen queues like the rest of us.

      Maybe these guys are on the wrong web site. Maybe they should be reading the "Workers International" or "International Socialism" where knowledge about how markets work is not uppermost in their minds.       Sep 27 03:51 PM
    • Bush's Speech: Surprisingly Coherent [view article]
      For all those impassioned Bush haters - never forget that it was under the PC Clinton administration that the seeds of this crisis was born.

      Fannie and Freddie became political instruments for providing housing loans to anybody who wanted them regardless of race color or creed or, more importantly, their ability to repay the loan. The NINJA loan - No Income, No Job loans was improbably born because we could not discriminate (that is, refuse a loan to anyone)       Sep 25 09:06 AM
    • Some Housing Schadenfreude [view article]
      Garth Turner is a larger than life character on the Canadian scene having served both as a conservative and liberal member of parliament and as a financial advisor who famously urged people in the late 1990s to use equity in their homes to buy stock. Turner has an ability to articulate the 'perceived economic wisdom' zeitgeist and publish a book on it. Of course, the perceived economic wisdom is almost always wrong.

      Here is why Turner's latest book overstates the situation: Even at the peak of the housing boom here home buyers were never as extended as in the US; houses prices have not risen as much as in the 'hot' markets in the US.

      The market with the most dramatic increase was Calgary which is also the headquarters of the Canadian oil boom. So house price increases there were fueled by the 'tar sands' boom rather than a general run up in housing. Calgary house prices have more to do with oil prices than a general housing malaise.

      Also Canadian house price increases were the lowest in the Anglo-Saxon world: UK, US, Australia and NZ have all increased a lot more than Canada.

      Also as far boomers downsizing is concerned the huge immigration boom Canada is experiencing (percentage wise the largest in the OECD - the country will have an Asian majority by 2034) should more than offset any downsizing effect.

      Sep 13 09:59 AM
    • Obama Is Bad for the Economy - Barron's [view article]
      Regardless I hope they tax the s**** out of Buffet. I find it so offensive that the 3rd richest man in the world is all for raising taxes. A preferable approach for Buffet is to voluntarily handing over say an extra 10 percent of his profits to the Feds - he, of course, would not notice it though the share holders would no doubt complain.

      Then at his next meeting he could explain ti was for the common good. I am sure his shareholders would be happy.       Aug 24 08:50 PM
    • The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex [view article]
      From an insular American view of course the article is correct. But thinking more broadly the US is the world policeman that through military might keeps a modicum of stability in the world.

      Any fool can point out that war is bad and that spending money on military might is a waste of money. And of course there is the pubertal reactions of dumb American government and so on. And blaming the previous generation. (The problem is that most Americans have grown in a time of peace and cannot conceive that things could be otherwise. Travel a bit you man to less stable parts of the world and consider than most of the world would be like that without Pax Americana. Before that there was pax Britannia)

      What is the alternative - and before you answer consider how difficult it would be to do business and earn a decent living in a world without stability.

      The pie chart is also misleading in that China has a much lower cost structure than the US and that is applicable to the military as much as manufacturing. China has a larger army - head count wise - than the US       Aug 13 01:58 PM
    • 12 Great Investment Strategies [view article]
      I read Mauldin's often intelligent weekly e-letter letter, but have avoided Just One Thing like the plague having scanned through it at the local bookstore and been surprised by the inclusion of semi - charlatans such as Bonner, Gilder and Masterson.

      Bonner is not even remotely an investment guru. He makes his money out of the plethora of newsletters he sells. Gilder is quite simply a fool - more in love with technology than whether it is viable from an investing point of view. Masterson more appropriately should be in a book on marketing 'guru's.

      Some of the other pundits in the book have, of course, more credibility, but it occurred to me that Mauldin himself with his shaky choices of authors was, morphing into a great marketeer. Which is sad, but perhaps it does tell you there is more money in marketing than in investing.       Aug 10 10:57 AM
    • Bangalore Blasts Threaten Indian Outsourcing [view article]
      I am not an Indian, but travel to Bangalore regularly. I work in the software sector. IT is certainly not the lifeblood of India, but is does have increasing importance as an important export.

      Given the scale of India I doubt very much that the recent bombings will have any effect on the Indian IT industry. Of course for a few days they'll be all over 'The Times of India' and The Hindu' newspapers, but then the events will fade into the background.

      The fear will be more acute in Sillicon (sillycon) Valley where everyone fears everything: the water, the air, the food, the pesticides, global warming, the US government, traffic accidents, obesity, salt, sugar, and, of course, bombs.

      In India people just smile and go on with their lives free of such neuroses. The many thousands of programmers and business process outsource workers will cheerfully arrive for work the next day whatever happens. The Indian managers will reassure Western companies it will be business as usual. And they'll be right.       Jul 26 04:05 PM
    • Is the Equities Party Over? [view article]
      The problem with EWI is that it functions on the stopped clock principle that is right twice a day. They have been calling for the mother of all collapses since the mid 1990s. Missing the run up in tech and other great opportunities.

      It indeed may now be the end of civilization, but EWI has cried wolf so much we no longer believe them.

      Having said that I do use technical indicators. I find they work well for relatively short time scales - as durations lengthen fundamental and macro analysis comes into their own.       Jun 26 11:17 PM
    • High Likelihood of a Market Crash [view article]
      Obama - right face, right name, right experience for the coming American Obama Republic - sorry I meant American Banana Republic. This is how the US goes down, not with a bang but an Obama.

      A factor mentioned in passing by one or two postings, but not emphasized, is that the market is perhaps reflecting the growing concern that we will soon have a president named Obama with limited experience, a Chicago leftist agenda and a naive do-good worldview like Carter.

      On the global scale gasoline in the US is still cheap at $4 a gallon. Have you traveled to Europe lately and seen the prices there? Oil is only one factor in the decline.       Jun 23 10:31 PM
    • Illustrated Lessons from Financial Cycles and Trends [view article]
      All the complaining about Fisher - surely this is just noise, as is the quasi conspiracy theories that Fisher distributes information after the event to help him enrich himself..

      Sure the salient point is whether following Fisher's advice, assistance, insights or recommendations would be beneficial - that is, produce above average returns. Alas my understanding is that would not be the case.       Jun 22 10:29 AM
    • Financial Fears Sweeping the Globe [view article]
      Sometime over the next month Time magazine will feature the coming melt down on its cover. So will the Economist. That will mark the end of the crisis and the start of the next bull market.

      Things are not good, but they are NOT the end of the world. And this being an election year the media is keen to talk down the economy as much as possible to get the Banana into the White House.

      Think I am crazy - check LexisNexis: during Bush senior's tenure reports on homeless people skyrocketed reaching a crescendo just before the election. Soon as Clinton got in those stories went away.

      This time they have something to build on so they are having a field day.       Jun 21 10:29 AM
    • Compared with Canada, U.S. Economy Looks OK [view article]
      Methinks you guys are a little disconnected from the Canadian situation - I write from Toronto. Firstly, you do know that Canada is a much more socialist state than the US. Top tax rates start kicking in at $60K and at $100k they are 48%.

      That aside, the Canadian economic situation is very regional. Ontario's manufacturing base is being hit severely by the strength of the CDN dollar. The car industry is in bad shape.

      But out west with both oil (Alberta) and fertilizer (Saskatchewan) things are much rosier. Indeed right across the Western states things are much better (and there is oil coming on line on the Atlantic coast too).

      Now as far as fiddling economic numbers - be assured that Canada has its own foibles. Stats Canada pushes things the other way, however, to show how poor everyone is, how many kids are starving and how the poor are getting poorer (not the case in fact) so that the conservative government is pushed in social hand outs.

      Maybe that fiddle the data in the US - rest assured though the Canada (and I suspect Europe) also alters data. It is just that the objectives are different. Socialist do it differently.       May 30 09:26 PM
    • How the Weak Dollar Impacts Earnings [view article]
      The same phenomenon should help the stock market. US stocks are the cheapest they have been in quite a while in non Dollar currencies.


       Apr 16 04:47 PM
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