Financial topics

[aedens]

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/saul-david-alinsky

1. Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people
2. Poverty - Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3. Debt - Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4. Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5. Welfare - Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)
6. Education - Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school
7. Religion - Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
8. Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take Tax the wealthy with the support of the poor.

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... sci#p16074

Stalins view moving forward. 'perestroika' meant 're-shoeing' - as of a horse: that is to say, not of the regime itself, but of the system's means to consolidate its power. Mastery of human consciousness should be a paramount political objective. As Richard Pipes has pointed out [in 'Survival is Not Enough', Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984, page 80], 'such mastery is secured, in the first place, by control of the organs of information'. The objective is 'to control thought at the source - that is, in the mind that absorbs and processes the information - and the best way of accomplishing this is by shaping words and phrases in the desired manner'.

[Higgenbotham]

Still, many of the critics expect they will be proved right when, as they predict, the Fed's policies lose their power. When that happens, a big loss of confidence will occur, which will roil the markets and the economy, they forecast. "They've gotten themselves boxed into a corner," Mr. Gundlach said. Mr. Grantham said that he thought the Fed's largess would drive stocks so high that they will become vulnerable to even the slightest nudge.

"We all feel like old-fashioned gramophone records," he said. "It is the same old game and we keep saying the same old things."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101434634

[Higgenbotham]

This post isn't about how I was right because I wasn't. On the rebound from the early month low, the Dow made its high close on February 14, and all last week it couldn't close any higher. Awhile back, I had calculated the 45 year cycles that have occurred in the past few decades and noted the window as being: "December 3, 1968 (high) plus 16,500 to 16,518 days = February 5-23, 2014". February 14 is the middle of that window and it looks like the stock market may be doing its thing in line with this cycle. Or it may all be random gibberish. As much gibberish as I have posted, I could point back to almost anything and say it worked. However, I have moved to my largest short in over 3 months now and I've always thought it's where people lay their money down that counts, and this area does look as good as anything I've seen for a high. This a very extreme and difficult market. Never seen anything like it. In my opinion, Bernanke and those following him blindly have got to be completely out of their minds. "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."

A few years back, people here were criticizing Lazlo Biryini for saying the S&P 500 would get to 1500 or something like that. Recently, Lazlo gloated that, "Short sellers have learned their lesson." By and large, he may be right, but not this one.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-1 ... -1900-june

I plan to increase from 50% to 100% short next week if it still looks like a high is being put in. I haven't been 100% short since the market was about 20% lower a year ago.

The bears probably need to see a collapse in the S&P 500 to below 1800 by month end to be comfortable. I'll be keeping a close eye on the big picture this week.

The 12 month moving average on this chart hasn't been touched in 15 months.

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[John]

> A few years back, people here were criticizing Lazlo Biryini for
> saying the S&P 500 would get to 1500 or something like that.
> Recently, Lazlo gloated that, "Short sellers have learned their
> lesson." By and large, he may be right, but not this one.

> http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-1 ... -1900-june

I criticized Laszlo Birinyi because he was lying about price/earnings
ratios, based on some bizarre psychological model. And I wrote about
it because the Wall Street Journal was republishing his nonsense.

** Laszlo Birinyi provides insight on his fantasy price/earnings computations
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e090522

Joining everyone else in riding a bubble doesn't make him a genius.
As the ZeroHedge story shows, he's still pretty much of an idiot.

[Higgenbotham]

...
I understand that you are espousing the viewpoint that there is nothing left of the US economy or the dollar system besides confidence and the confidence is rapidly eroding. Very little productive capacity, no ability to support the military, very little ability to tax, and not enough to maintain the dollar as international reserve currency. Therefore, in your view, a little bit of confidence is all that remains. That will soon evaporate and the dollar will become worthless very quickly.

My opinion is that the US is just not to the point yet where you believe it is. There is more left than just confidence. It is mostly a problem of corruption, which you've also discussed, and it's not known yet whether that can be turned around in time to save the country and the currency. Obviously, everyone is very nervous about this. It does seem unbelievable that the Congress and executive branch of the US could be so derelict in their duties.

Perfect conclusion.
That is exactly the point.
And that was the reason that I was confused reading your discussions... Sometimes, it looks that your explanations perfectly fit, but sometimes I could not understand what you are talking about.
Simply, the "timing" of events in your and my model are not "in phase" jet.
OK.
Lets see what happened.

Thanks for good discussion.

Best regards

Interesting thread from May 22, 2009 on page 142.

Malleni is gone now, but 5 years later I would have to agree with him that we are there. The corruption was not turned around and all that is left now is confidence, and a lot of misplaced confidence.

[Higgenbotham]

> A few years back, people here were criticizing Lazlo Biryini for
> saying the S&P 500 would get to 1500 or something like that.
> Recently, Lazlo gloated that, "Short sellers have learned their
> lesson." By and large, he may be right, but not this one.

> http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-1 ... -1900-june

I criticized Laszlo Birinyi because he was lying about price/earnings
ratios, based on some bizarre psychological model. And I wrote about
it because the Wall Street Journal was republishing his nonsense.

** Laszlo Birinyi provides insight on his fantasy price/earnings computations
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e090522

Joining everyone else in riding a bubble doesn't make him a genius.
As the ZeroHedge story shows, he's still pretty much of an idiot.

I went back and reviewed those comments and they are pretty funny.

Basically, Biryini said you can't use technical measures to predict where the stock market is going. He then talked about technical measures and predicted the S&P 500 would be going to 1500-1700.

[Higgenbotham]

I was the one who criticized Biryini for this (predicting that the S&P 500 would be going to 1500-1700). I knew somebody had but couldn't remember who.

First, but not in this particular quote, Biryini says that all fundamental information is irrelevant.

Second, Biryini says that technical measures do provide some information, but they should not be used to predict things.

Third, after some discussion of technical measures, Biryini goes on to predict that the S&P will go to 1500-1700 over the next 2 or 3 years. He even calls it a prediction. The only conclusion I can draw is that his prediction must be based solely on the fact that he feels pretty good about where things are headed.

Then why not pull somebody in off the street to have this discussion?

[Higgenbotham]

But here's what I would say about productivity and the service economy. We know that as the accounting stands today, Americans import about 5% more than they export (as a percentage of GDP). That can easily be turned around. The first step is for Americans to consume about 10% less, maybe 15% less. That can easily be done. In my observation, Americans could easily consume 50% less. Most could eat 50% less. The second step is for Americans to produce more. Once most Americans are eating 50% less and can bend over to pull weeds and use a hoe, etc., then they can probably grow 50% of their own food if they need to. If they don't need to, it will be because they are too busy producing something else of value. A lot of this is already happening at the grass roots level, but Washington and the rest of the world haven't caught on yet. The media doesn't run any stories like "10,000 Americans Worked Hard Today Cutting Consumption in Bangor, Maine" because that doesn't sell very well.
_________________________________________________________________________

Here's a link to the monthly trade numbers:

http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

It looks like the monthly trade deficit has been cut in about half in the past 3 or 4 months. The change has occurred very quickly and I was asleep at the switch on this one. I changed what I wrote above to "Cutting Consumption" because that's the first step in the process of reducing the trade deficit. The second step will be to produce and sell more of our own products. While harder than cutting consumption, that shouldn't be too difficult once the deflationary jolt hits and the cost structure comes down. In the not too distant past, Americans were very good at producing high quality goods, much better than the junk we import from overseas nowadays. Once the cost structure comes down, producing in America and buying American will be a no brainer.

Yes, I really did write this. In 2009. But now it's too late. In 5 years, the country has been destroyed.

[Higgenbotham]

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0004.html
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/sta ... ports.html

[aedens]

This window we assimilated was middle of the first week of March so the botniks know this also H just as jevons did on released data sets to intent.

nominal value represents from .gov is an accepted condition which is a goal or an approximation as opposed to the real value, which is always present.
Often a "nominal" value is "de facto" rather than an exact, typical, or average measurement.

As they state "the two series cross in 2009, reflecting the fact that the real dollar series is based on 2009 prices"

And before the corrosive effect of inflation and recessionary policies of design, not to control but to destroy others
as FDR told us no accidents.

The planed liquidation rate of taxpayers sums it better. Business will automate until they leave or go bankrupt.
I have watched real time for over three decades. The relentless focus on maintaining margins continues, even though profit and
revenue have never been higher.

BLS : Unit labor costs in nonfarm businesses decreased 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, as the 3.2 percent increase in productivity
was larger than a 1.5 percent increase in hourly compensation. Unit labor costs fell 1.3 percent over the last four quarters.

The public so so far behind they will never understand what is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5uFGQk2H04