says it nicely in few words: not harsh, or only as harsh as capitalism itself, from Bridgewater Associates: “There is no easy way out of a debt restructuring. Someone will have to bear the cost of prior bad decisions. The people who should bear the cost are those who made the bad decisions to make […]
Category: Markets
Market reflections January 24, 2009
1. The teaching is good in our new state-of-the-art college building at Fort Leavenworth. Everyday as I walk to the new building I go past the old building which is being demolished. I’ve been watching the wrecking ball taking apart beautiful building and I can’t help but noticing how quickly the heavy ball takes apart […]
The difference a year makes
borrowing from the Fed this year dwarfs all other years. That’s not quite true. It renders all other borrowing combined to irrelevancy
Who owns your country?
Reflecting on unbridled competition: a relic from the Pleistocene?
One of my fellow students posed the following question to me after reviewing some comments I made in the chapter we are co-editting re: socialism and unbridled competition: Ken, Your argument on unbridled competition looks solid, but some may disagree that it is THE cause for disharmony and mutual survival. I not sure if you […]
Interesting twist to prop up markets
Congress and President Bush signed legislation that suspends the rule requiring retirees over 70 ½ to take withdrawals (RMDs) from tax-deferred retirement accounts, such as traditional IRAs and 401(k)s. This suspension currently lasts for one year, 2009. The intention is to give retirement accounts time to rebound from the difficult economy/market conditions. Please note that you […]
Almost 1T in state pension shortfalls
Observed earlier that 5 large states were requesting 1T from Obama for combined medicare and pension shortfalls; Its now up to almost 1T just for the state employee pension funds alone, to say nothing of the medicare costs of an aging population determined to give voice to its feelings of entitlements. I can almost hear […]
Borrow more to get out of debt: all it lacks is an 800 number and an infomercial
In a sequence of CSPAN broadcasts, Washington insiders expressed their shock—Shock! at the state of the budget disaster in Congress. Senator Conrad, has suddenly discovered just how deep the debt hole that Congressional spending, aided and abetted by an unprincipled administration, has put our children in. Because its our children thathave inherited the mess these […]
Tactical trading: maxpain strategy in oil pays off within a week
closed our tactical trade in oil, using the 2x leveraged oil ETF (DXO). we bought at $2.20 with a .2 initial stop, after oil closed below $30/barrel, and closed the tactical portion of the trade today at $3.45. Thats a little over a 6R win in a week. here are some of the supporting slides […]
US government debt and the first rule of holes
when you realize you are in one, stop digging