a nice meta-insight from Lew Rockwell, that puts Madoff in perspective as representative of the direction we were heading as a nation. His opinion: the difference between Madoff and the government: a matter of scale Madoff’s scheme played into the belief that wealth was not something to work for, but something to scheme for. It […]
Tag: bailout
“Paying” for bailouts as if they were taxcuts
I am surprised not to see a suggestion from either side of the aisle, that suggests “bailouts” should be paid for in the same way tax cuts: by identifying dollar-for-dollar tradeoffs. By government standards, the Big 3 bailout is a rather modest sum when you stack it up against the Department of Defense budget. Republicans arguing on principle […]
Farmers and automakers; remember the crucial difference…
I am trying to appreciate the difference between paying farmers not to grow crops and to prop up their prices with government subsidies and the outrage expressed by conservatives at paying automakers not to make autos (as canada joins the team in shoveling money at the Big 3) This time its different though, because the […]
Market Health Check, Dec 22, 2008
Upgrade from Intensive Care to Critical market has been hammering out a bottom here. The slope of the 50d MA and the 30d Rline have turned positive. Volatility has dramatically reduced. The large candle days in the last 30 have been up not down; the 20 and 50dMAs are coming together. The next “easy” upside […]
Democratic Party Dilemma: Rock meet hard place
Consider the dilemma of the Democratic Party: Do they support a couple hundred thousand aging UAW workers that vote reliably and are tied economically to the GM retirement and healthcare plan? or do they support the thousands of young voters recently attracted to the party who will be the source of funding for any GM, F […]
Automakers next in line for bailouts
Having relinquished the moral high ground by bailing out preferred insiders in the investment banks, the Goldman Sachs administration and President Paulson now have to decide who shall be the winners and losers in the auto industry next. The functional argument is that if you dont bail us out with public money, we will go […]
Profitable ETF trading strategies: leadership out of the abyss
Jimmy Rogers, trader extraordinaire, agrees with us at Tortoise Capital that it is outrageous that the bailout is designed to try to avert taking our medicine. You must hit bottom, and start over, in the same way that the market has worked for thousands of years. Bailing out 29 year old brokers that are unsound only perpetuates […]
Effect of credit crunch on real assets and the entire business cycle
Credit crunch means available money NOT moving to buy real assets which explains the loss of value even in commodities and basic materials. No one is venturing that even the real assets can be made into products that people with buy , since businesses and investors are hoarding cash and don’t have access to the […]
A Bailout dialogue between two mice: K & M
Let’s listen in on 2 friends: K and M, discussing the bailout plan K: of all the places we jumped to, we chose 850B as the landing pad though? i think all existing mortgages should have been maintained in an escrow acct by the government then all properties auctioned off at a fire sale. then […]
We have the leadership we have earned
It was only a few short days ago as you will recall, that a truly terrible bailout bill was surprisingly defeated in the House of Representatives by a margin of 13 votes. The representatives who voted against the bailout bill were widely regarded as heroic by standing up to the face of social and political […]