speculator Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 All the complex checks and balances built into the US government system have failed to prevent this skewed shift of power into the hands of a very powerful group of people. How did it happen? The age-old trick of greed, fear, and the drums of war have blinded the masses. This could not have happened 30 years ago. The free press has somehow been killed during this long stretch of relative peace and prosperity, rendering the masses weak and impotent. 9/11 2001 then dropped the cage on them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 I've gotta crash as tomorrow is a travelling day for me. I'll see you hopefully, Saturday night or Sunday. Stool on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martialcomp Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 I forgot to emphasize something else about dividends. My belief is that many companies are already way over leveraged. As a result, they will not be able to afford to increase their dividend yield. They will need to use the tax cut to de-leverage and reduce debt. Many companies in the Dow 30 are over leveraged right now. They will only be able to use the cut if it is on the corporate side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Buttugly: re dropping tax to investors on dividends ...yes we've had that for years here and it is a plus if one is an investor. I agree with you that it's not rally material. Also, how many companies in the foreseeable future will be making enough profit to pay a dividend at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 THERAPY FOR MARK I still think mark should go to a bondage mistress once a week. Get all that white guilt beaten out of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 "Another friend tells me there are 3 major credit disasters in the pipeline. He says the next Enron could be very soon." - buttugly Yeah, you can kind of smell it. Otherwise the market would be rallying with more alacrity on all the stimulus. But when you look at the past, all of the big financial crises have marked LOW POINTS in the market. Bush's on-the-spot execution of O'Neill and Lindsey's careers shows that there is ZERO TOLERANCE for further economic weakness. The implication for Uncle Al, who needs to get the ducks lined up in early 2003 for his reappointment, is clear: PUMP ME A RIVER. The fiscal and monetary pedals are already mashed to the floor. Now they're gonna cut in the nitro injection and the supercharger. Under such stress, the life expectancy of the engine is measured in minutes. But we've got a race to win. And with the prize money we can buy new engines ... lots of them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest soup1 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Machinehead: I do not disagree that they have been going full out on all cyclinders trying to reflate out of the after effects of the bubble they created. My question, and I have asked this many times, is why do you think they will succeed? If it was so easy, and all it took was a some edict from the central planners, why hasn;t it worked? WHy is this time different? Why did it not work in Japan? THe system is overflowing with debt and capacity; why would you borrow for cap ex if the system is booged down with overcapacity and undeutilization? 59 fab plants for sale worldwide, untold number of jets parked in the desert. ANyting is possible, but I think this "attack" on deflation is telling us they are scared to death and are out of bullets. NOw anything is possible and perhaps they win, but lok at the cost? Hyperinflation. That is not an enviroment favorable to grossly overpriced pieces of paper. Liquidation must be allowed to run its course. The cleansing of the greatest bubble of all time needs to run its course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest soup1 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 So now the talk is Friedman to the white house. Makes sense from their perspective. Friedman was co head of fixed income w/ bobby rubin ( I was a bond salesman @ goldie at that time) ALso went on to be co head of the firm. THis is looking at the world thru the rear view mirror, linear thinking in a non linear world. Yes they want to relfate, hell they are desperate for higher stock prices. but we dont always get what we want. A strange irony, friedman sent in to take the fall for bobbys reckless, live for the day, policies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregFokker Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Puplava has his weak points and some days are better than others, but this week's broadcast is well worth a listen. We're all staring too closely, losing the forest for the trees. After hearing a recap of this week's news, my only thought is that the future looks dire indeed. Half a trillion dollars added to the national debt and already spent since this summer? We have to be bare seconds from midnight. The markets had no business bouncing on Friday. The rally is in the past tense. There are not enough shorts to support it. The ppt and the fed do not have unlimited bullets. Money cannot be inflated forever. I will continue to buy gold coins and speculate long in metals. I will continue to wait for safe option entries on the indices. Machinehead, your comments on inflation have kept me out of a lot of trouble over the past few months. But, can anyone doubt that the risk to longs vastly surpasses the risk to bears? The only difference in my thinking is that I now think there's a catastrophe coming home to roost- not just a bear decline. Time to go feed my goldfish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorma Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 If they would have cut taxes on dividends when T Boone Pickens started his cult of shareholder value, much damage could have been prevented. Now I am a leftist for all practical purposes and I've always thought this was a good idea. Now it is just far far too late. Other tax policies fueled the bubble as well. Savings have fallen relentlessly since tax cutting came into fashion in the late 70's. 25 years of coincidence suggests maybe one should consider a chain of causation. There is a high correlation between those whose rates dropped the most and their DISsavings. The entire drop in national savings can be attributed to lack of savings by the top 20%. Of course they insist buying stocks and throwing money at hedge funds is savings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 soup1 - I think reliquifaction will work until the dollar collapses and interest rates go boom. Then it stops working. The stimulus doesn't have to be used on fab plants. They'll go back to Thirties paradigms - more roads, bridges, parkways, mass transit - never too much capacity there. Look at the insane white-elephant Skytrain being run down the Van Wyck expressway to JFK airport. Every city needs one. And as Senator 'Red Jon' Corzine (maybe you knew him at goldie) was saying yesterday, "I hope it will be demand-side stimulus, not supply-side." Yes, hyperinflation is a terrible price to pay. I don't approve of it, merely being a pragmatic observer trying to stay out of the path of the senseless rioting mob. Meanwhile I burn candles and channel Ayn Rand, hoping that Total Info Awareness doesn't have a pinhole camera planted in the wall already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStool Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Regarding reflation, if you look at the Feed Index, there's no evidence that the Fed's "reflation" is anything more than hot air and jawboning. Their actual behavior hasn't changed one iota. They have not increased their buying one iota above the trend of the last nine months and they remain below the 18 month trend. Sure that could change, but if it were going to, why aren't we seeing 12% Feed growth, or at least the 10% growth they had been on. Nope, they're still at 8%, and that's not enough to move this train off the downhill track. No way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorma Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Meanwhile I burn candles and channel Ayn Rand, hoping that Total Info Awareness doesn't have a pinhole camera planted in the wall already. But MH. Al was a Rand follower and has built his own perpetual motion machine. The markets have been unbound from any old fashioned limits and absolutes. I am serious about this. Derivatives are the realization of a libertarian ideal. If they crash, so what. That is what markets do. As for the TIA. Nice white boys don't have too much to worry about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 You know the last 24 hours have been calm-serenely calm -the calm before the storm?? www.debka.com reports troops were placed on full alert Wednesday in the gulf and Tommy franks arrived at HQ in Qatar yesterday-why you ask? Go to the link scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on WMD article right hand side. If the article is correct-it really doesn't matter what Saddam says or Blix says! Trade Safe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PileDriver Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 MH, remember that those past financial crisis market lows ALL occurred during a raging bull market. Right now we are in the midst of CONFIRMED raging bear market. Do not confuse up for down. Step back and take a good hard look at a decade-long log chart of the S&P 500 or Whilshire Index...tell me what you see...a raging bear market just finishing up a typical 8 week bear market correction rally. Per Doc and GF, they can attempt reflatuation all they want and its overall net effect is going to be one big fat hairy zero. The debt pile is too huge and there are plenty of other areas where that money will gravitate. Its not going to be equities. The deflationary forces are too strong to be neutralized by man made counter attempts. Nature must and will run its course. Game over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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