These prices are insane!!!!

Welcome my friends to the bear market that never ends. Today, Pakistan and Iceland are on the verge of bankruptcy as per the wires. The Nikkei fell close to ten percent. Interesting fact: even though money is cheap for banks to lend, the yield curve is too flat for the banks to make money. So the banks are all dressed up and no place to go. It is almost heads you lose, tails, I don't win.

Maybe we should swap Xmas and Halloween, because retail sales are going to be scary. Rio-the stock not the company-is down in the teens from the forties just since Feb; and they are a hard asset company.Who owns the Trojan brand? People are not going to stop humping, and can't afford a kid in this economy, so I see a play there. Their vibrating condom is also a winner...or so I hear.

It is telling that oil is down below 90, yet we are still significantly over $3 a gallon for gas. And they are still selling those bullshit 1.5L containers of ice cream for the price of a half gallon. I like BJ's-no you perverts the warehouse store-because you can hedge toilet paper and tuna fish. Oh well, looks like I will be spendingmore money in BJ's than on...

Good morning suckers...

My name is Maurice; and I am a sucker. I pay my bills, and when I had a mortgage, I paid it on time. But now I see that our government never valued people like me; instead, it values "risk takers". And now, by adding another $700 billion to "buy bad loans", they are showing me that good guys do indeed finish last.

Let's see, my jackass neighbor will get to stay in his house, despite the fact that he never pays his bills, and put down nothing for his house. Of course, my taxes will go up, because my income comes from work, not from dividends. Oh yeah, I also get screwed, because the money I have managed to save, has just been devalued by the government printing money (anyone see the rise in the price of oil and the price of the Euro lately?)

Guess what? The talking heads are now saying we cannot afford a "middle class tax cut"; yet they are not pulling back on ending the Bush tax cuts.

I am going to take my twelve step program for economic suckerism. The first step is acknowledging that I am a sucker. The second is acknowledging that there are things the government will now do to me that I cannot control. My third is accepting that I am a peon in the larger economic scheme...Oh screw it, I am going to buy a bigger HDTV and get "No Money Down, No Payments Till 2012" financing. My days of being a sucker are over.

How to ruin governments and eviscerate people

When an entity truly hates people, one should not be surprised at the extent said entity will go to cause mayhem. We have seen it before, in examples as small as the jilted lover who says "If I can't have him/her nobody will", to Sadaam Hussein setting the Kuwaiti oilwells on fire in GW1. What we are seeing now in our society is an organized hated of a segment of our population, and the attempt to ruin it, regardless of the collateral damage. And if you do not believe that the folks behind this will not create collateral damage, just ask the families of the 4000+ dead, and the thousands of injured and raped soldiers of the current war.

The problem with a democracy, if you are part of the organized effort, is that it is democratic. In a sense, anyone with a vote, no matter how stupid, or radical thinking, pretty much cancels your vote. And now, knowledge is not monopolized, making the old saw "knowledge is power" a little different. So how do you control a government? You cripple its ability to function. And a government cannot function without money or resources. Of course, you gotta protect your "base". How do you do that? You decrease the amount that they have to render unto Caesar. Once that is done, you ruin the economy. Now your boys have gotten out with enough to keep them comfortable, and they are able to keep more of what they plundered, and you mop up the idiot sons who did not have enough sense to get out with "bridge loans".

But wait, what about the little guy and gal, who like a squirrel, was just trying to get a nut. SCREW THEM!!!! They did not buy into the system of government we tried to feed them, so let them suffer. Hey we never cared about them before now, so we will not lose any sleep going forward. Just to show you how ruthless we can be, we will have the First Chick wear $300, 000 worth of swag to the coronation just to make a point. You guys are little people, and as the dearly departed Leona Hemsley said before she willed $12 million to her dog, "The little people pay taxes".

Poor you. You expect to have good schools and clean water and safe streets. Well we can't afford it now. We need to protect ourselves from the "terrorist threat" and "shore up our economy". We all have to make sacrifices; Muffy and I are using the jet to get to the yatch less and less. Just think about how we are suffering.

And so it starts. Now that your pension fund is screwed, we should privatize Social Security to give you a better chance of getting even. And funding for schools will have to go down. And the potholes on the Interstate? Well you can't afford gas for the SUV you can't sell, so don't worry about it. For those of you who read my "Big Trends of 2008" letter, you know what I am talking about. The transfer from people to government and from domestic to foreign has begun. The desire to create a smaller government has started in earnest, and we may not have a way back, because even if we vote the bums out, the mess is neutron bomb like.

You have to hand it to them; their plan worked perfectly.

Halloween comes early this year

I bet the big sellers for masks this year will be those of Hank Paulson, Dick Fuld, and Ben Bernanke. And people will decorate their houses with bonds of Fannie and Lehman.

Folks sit down if you are reading this: this fiasco will cost our government at least $1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS to correct. Do the math: $200 billion for Fannie and Freddie as a start; $85 billion for AIG as a start; $30+billion for Bear; at least $75 billion for Citibank in two to three weeks: and about $125 billion for the lesser known banks like bumfuck trust in Media, Pa. And that is for starters.

But do not despair, there is some hedge fund guy out there getting his knob polished because he made a tremendous contraian bet. I think it was Paul Tudor Jones who made about $2 billion dollars in one year betting against subprime. There is a guy out there who had a huge bet against Fannie and Freddie months ago. I find it interesting that folks can not be both negative and positive about stocks, i.e. both go short and go long, depending on the situation. Did anyone think that oil could stay over $130-140? Goldman did, but when little old ladies who only drive on Sundays bitch about gas prices, they have gotten too high. When Google goes to $650, yet advertisers are pulling back ad dollars in tv, radio, and print, can it still go to $750? If Dell is selling computers on Ubid and Ebay, can their business really be that good( the drop in share price from $26 to $16 in the last three months says NO).

Remember my friends, be like David Carradine in Kung Fu: maintain balance depending on the circumstance. Or be like Marcellus Wallace and go medieval on a mofo when you get f''ed in the butt by the market. Just don't let your candy get taken and your house egged...

Dear President McCain

Okay, you win. I did not think it would happen, but someone once said you'll never go broke underestimating Americans. I thought that issues which threaten our very way of life would be important, since our health care system sucks, the baby boomers are about to decimate the economy, and our infrastructure is about to need major upgrades. But it looks like I was wrong, and I am a big enough person to admit it.

I really thought Obama had a chance. But I forgot the Democrats are famous for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. They have never learned that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. The true conservative wing of the Republican party hates you, but they hate mamby pamby Democrats even more. Your party is even letting the American people pay for your campaign, while the national party has raised more to help take back the Congress. Oh, and how is it that you take crap from someone for months, then humiliate them, put them in debt, yet basically give them YOUR convention? WTF is that? Oh yeah, that's the Democratic party way. Oh, and a note to perpetual Senator Obama, if you are going to a DEBATE at a church, have a Goddamn decent answer to the abortion question that you know is going to come up.

President McCain, I know it's your world, and I am just a squirrel trying to get a nut, but I hope you will listen to a few suggestions. One, despite your win, Americans are still by and large, idiots. Just look at the poll of folks who think their houses have INCREASED in value over the past three years. Optimism is one thing, stupidity is another. Two, a country cannot be both free and enslaved at the same time. This is a corollary to my first point. Our educational system is in shambles, despite No Child Left Behind. Even the kids coming from "good" schools are lacking. We have gone from gentleman's C's to gentleman's A's in colleges, in order for these schools to say they have high GPA's. If we do not educate our population, get off oil or at least provide additional alterantives, and provide true health care for everyone, we will be beholden to the highest bidder, and will make Hedda Nusbaum look like Laura Croft-(Sorry if you do not get either reference, but that's sort of my point.)

Listen, I can not wait for the parties, I think your suggestion that your wife would make a good "Miss Sturgess" biker chick is rad, and I pretty much enjoy seventy-five degree weather in DC in January, so I am breathlessly awaiting your reign. Please remember to take you Ginko and to wear your sunblock, and if InBev tries to screw with Budweiser and your wife's company's earnings, I am sure that you will be able to find some good old boys to invade France and show them who is boss...or is it a Belgium company? I forget.

Anyway, good luck, God Bless, you rock!!!!

Yours truly,
A Democrat whose butt is sore

Wanted: Someone Oblivious To What's Going On Around Them

Can you imagine taking on a job in which most of your customers either hate you or distrust you, your budget is totally screwed, and those who support your endeavor are in such bad shape that they may not survive? Welcome to the next President of the United States nightmare.

There are so many places to begin, but I will pick a few:

1) The economy. Oil prices will be back up as the Xmas price cut goes away(got to help the retailers lure the lemmings into the stores one last time), and the resurgence of the Chinese demand comes back on line. There will be the end of the availability to borrow from the Fed, and the housing crisis will be entering the FOURTH INNING.

2) The budget. $481 billion dollars? Ha!!! That does not include the war, rising Medicare costs, decrease tax revenues, and increased demands from states and retirees. Will we be able to get out of Iraq, or will we be going into Afghanistan/Iran? Oh yeah, in order to borrow more money, interest rates will be so high, that Tony Soprano would blush at the vig.

3) Inflation, also known as they want what we got. There are more Indian school kids than there are American citizens. DC should be called flan city as opposed to chocolate city. And 60,000 cars a month come on line in China every month means the demand for goods goes way up. Good for Cisco; bad for the rest of us.

4) Energy. This one is tough, because I see little old ladies freezing to death, and families dying in fires because they cannot afford heating oil or to pay their gas and electric bills. Gasoline will be back up, and no significant change in energy policy is forthcoming from the current Congress. While everyone will be talking a good game, we will still be lusting after Alaskan oil, clean coal, spent nuclear fuel storage, and unicorn based biofuels. Oh yeah, ethanol actually decreases fuel economy while increasing food costs. That's supply side economics for you.

I am surprised that any sane person would want to be POTUS. Then again, how many of the previous POTUSes did not have something a little off kilter? An actor, a redneck, and a C student who thinks he is a cowboy? Maybe it is us who are a little off kilter...

Terrorism comes in all flavors.

In my current life, I deal in the medical industry. One of the ironic things in medicine is how practitioners disproportionately value thwarting one type of death versus another. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent trying to save one premie, yet Medicaid shortchanges funding for vaccines. Millions, if not billions are spent on the last days of elderly patients' lives, which many feel is futile, while healthy seniors can not get blood pressure monitors covered.

I say this because our government also values certain lives more than others. My heart goes out to the over 3000 victims of the 9/11 attacks. I lost people I knew from college in the attacks. Millions have been paid to compensate their survivors. And close to a trillion dollars have been spent "trying" to fight the supposed perps of the attacks.

Yet we devalue the over 4000 who have lost their lives fighting the war. Whether it was shipping the bodies back home like so many Ipods without honor or fanfare initially, or lying to their parents about the nature of their deaths, as in the case of Pat Tillman, our soldiers, who are put on a pedestal by false patriots, are given short shrift. In fact, soldiers for a time, were only given less than $100,000 in death benefits until a few Senators became outraged.

And even this is not the most outrageous sin to me. The fact that women are becoming sacrificial lambs to satisfy the bloodlust of soldiers who can't rape and kill enough Iraqis, and the fact that our military addresses the issue by telling the families of such victims that they "committed suicide" is abominable.

I have read stories of soldiers and female contractors being raped and told to be silent, and of raped soldiers being killed to cover up the attacks. But this story in Alternet:http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/93071/, turned my stomach in a way no other story has. Was it that she was a woman, or a Black woman, that she was treated worse than a dog?

And yet, we have a President and Vice President who both have daughters, and a Secretary of State, who is a woman, who have been relatively silent on this issue. A friend of mine works as a social worker at a VA. She tells me that to a woman, all the female soldiers have a history of sexual abuse. The unlucky ones, it seems, are the ones who survived.

It seems that in order to hunt down certain terrorists, we only have to look at our neighbors, or in the mirror...

I Call Bullshit!

Senator Obama in his trip to Europe and the Middle East, looked a little like the character in the movie "Hancock"; no matter what he did, there was always a little damage left behind. His biggest faux pas seems to be his non visit to the wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Should he have said damn the torpedoes and gone anyway? I do not know. Maube the troops do not need candidates visiting the base; maybe they would appreciate a visit from the Commander in Chief who sent them there.That would be a brave stroke by our President, and one that would make a lot of Americans feel that their valiant troops sacrifices had not been unappreciated.

Ah but this is America, where no one seems to want to call BS anymore when people go on tirades. I Googled "President Bush and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center", and you know what I got? A lot of links to Obama NOT going. I then Googled "Presidents" and "Senator McCain" with Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, and guess what? There was Obama.

As many of you know, I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about this election, even more so than in 1980, when I went to Quaker meeting to pray for our country when Reagan was elected. But this hypocrasy over one candidate not going while there is not a lot of evidence that OUR PRESIDENT NOR THE OTHER CANDIDATE ever having gone just takes me over the edge. Please, please prove me wrong. Send me links, pictures, or statements that Bush or McCain has ever been to the Medical Center, even if to use the bathroom. Please tell me that the American people are not so numb from the price of gas, and whether Mylie Cyrus has nude pictures on the internet or not, that they are not questioning this silliness.

Oh well, when life gives you BS, plant flowers...

To those who own a home, I salute you!

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080722/home_prices_government_index.html


Here is a link to a report on the recent price declines for the month of May. Home prices fell about 5% from last year. So all my friends with million dollar homes just lost their kids' yearly tuition. Not to fret, if you sell now, you will avoid the bigger price drop to come.


Why? house foreclosures have not caught up with the layoffs. Congress is working on the crappy loans; we will soon see the loans that were made in good faith with good numbers soon go bad, due to increasing costs, increasing layoffs, and stagnant wages.



And once the baby boomers decide that they do not need-or cannnot afford- a five bedroom house with granite countertops, a wine cellar, and an outdoor kitchen, the value of YOUR house WILL be affected. A bright spot could be the fact that the boomers' adult children may not be able to afford their own houses, so they will move back in with their kids to mom and dad's.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

I am back. New Jersey is beautiful this time of year; my crappy hotel room overlooked the "atrium", where the management did not seem to understand that guests may not appreciate the "Noriega" suites, with music playing 24 hous a day outside your balcony. At least I have a job.

Too bad that about 4000 Wachovia employees will not be able to eat at the free breakfast bar. And Grandma's dividend check will be a little lighter. I hear the six-hundred calorie/day diet has been shown to extend life; good thing now that Grammy will be eating a lot less.

Correct me if I am wrong, but were not the write downs suppose to end two quarters ago? Can we not stop the madness? They put down dogs; is it not time to put down these banks? Look, how much capital does Wachovia need to raise to get even? And where are they going to get it from?

Citibank? I went into a Citibank on Saturday and the ratio was 4:1; four EMPLOYEES to one CUSTOMER. I went to my local B of A, where they cater to Hispanic customers, and at 8:45 in the morning it looked like a Tijuana whorehouse on Cinco De Mayo.

Dead cats do bounce...

Tick, tock...

In January, I wrote a letter to several of my friends entitled, "Big Trends of 2008", in which I postulated on a few economic trends. One was that the price of oil would go to $150/barrel, and that the Burl Ives trade-buying silver and gold -would be profitable. I promise to post the letter soon; real life requires me to be in NJ trying to figure out where to turn around, and why a sandwich in a hotel cost $28.

In the meantime, a few thoughts. Oil is at $145/ barrel, despite everything we in America try to do to get it lower; drill in the LaBrea tarpits, recycle used French Fry-excuse me Freedom Fry-oil in our diesel cars, and get our fat asses up and walk the 1/4 block to the Quickie Mart for a Twinkie. We have not had a major hurricane, blowup in Nigeria, or shutdown in the Strait of Hormuz to push prices forward, yet upward they go, or in the words of Buzz Lightyear, "To infinity and beyond..." My prediction; the price of gas will drop in mid to late August due to the "Walmart Effect". That is, back to school time is coming, and little Janie can't go back to school with last year's rags on. So what to do? Walmart "talks" to Exxon and BP and voila, cheaper gas for all!!!

If you can afford it, feed grandma fried chicken and buttered rolls; a fatal stroke or a massive heart attack will be better than what she will have to suffer if she has to go into the health care system in this country. Doctors are screwed, insurance companies are screwed, and pharmaceutical companies are screwed. No one is willing to cut costs seriously, so quality of care will pummet. In all seriousness, if you have a loved one who has to be admitted, you must stay with them 24/7 to make sure they get out alive. Who knew that the movie "The Hospital" with George C. Scott would be so prescient?

And finally, the silver and gold trades are on. Expect gold to go to $1065 and silver to $23. Learn to bake bread, plant vegetables, and get a goat for the milk. No matter what Robert Di Nero may think, you can't milk a cat...

Did anyone go to the movies this weekend?

The reason I ask is because if you did, you could have alternatively bought a share of GM. How in the world does a company like GM get to a market cap of 6 billion dollars? To put that into perspective, at least four people who have worked for Microsoft could buy GM. Oprah can buy 1/3 of GM. GM almost would do better if they stooped making cars for a month. I bet they wish they still had that $30 billion they gave to the union.

Oh yeah, I know how they got to a market cap of $6 billion. They hired Rick Wagonner. Check out his statement: "We have no plans to get rid of any other brands beside Hummer". WTF? I would not know a Saturn, a Volvo, or a Pontiac if it came and bit me on the butt, because NO ONE is buying them. Avis is renting Hyundais in addition to GMs. So Rickie, how do you propose to cut costs? Cut health benefits? Oh sorry, you don't have that tool in your kit anymore. Layoffs? Can't, due to that contract you just negotiated. How about cutting YOUR salary, to zero...douchebag. Sorry about the douchebag comment; at least douchebags serve a purpose...

Hell has frozen over

Do hard core Republicans really dislike John McCain? I could not believe my ears when I heard Pat Buchanan diss John McCain and PRAISE Obama! I think this says more about McCain than feelings about Obama. What does this say to me? These folks have hunkered down and prepared for the apocalypse. They are willing to let a newbie take control rather than have McCain in the White House, and if things get F'ed up, they will be in a position to ride out the storm.

Let's look at some facts. Where do you see more Priuses, in rich neighborhoods, or poor ones? Where are the Costcos being built, in rich neighborhoods or poor ones? Need a private jet at $25 million dollars? Good luck, there is a two year waiting list for new orders.Think gas prices are going down soon? Tata Motors, India's biggest car company just bought Jag and Range Rover, and are about to produce the next peoples' car for the Indian and Chinese markets. This at a time when Indians use 1 barrel of oil a year, the Chinese use 2 barrels of oil a year, and Americans use 25 barrels a year.

So how does this play out for the fatcats? One word: assets. Asset prices will be driven down and cash will be king. Even rich folks who are leveraged will have to sell their stuff. Examples include Sam Zell selling the Chicago Tribune building and the Cubs, and the recent sale of the GM building. Oh, do not forget Ted Kopple trying to sell his $4 million dollar house in Potomac for $1.9 million, and Ed McMahon's $5 million dollar no sale. Guess what businesses are booming? Pawnbrokers and repo agencies.

Let's hope the strength we believe we see I Obama is truly there...

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Heard a talking head on CNBC moan about the current economic status, and how everyone else overpriced their houses and businesses. I am always amazed how lucky I am to always be around the best and the brightest, the exceptions to the rules.

For example, my alter ego spends alot of time around doctors. Now studies will show that 60% of the doctors don't follow guidelines; yet in a room of twenty doctors, everyone does. Boy am I lucky. Unfortunately, the 100k people who DIE each year from gross medical negligence are not as lucky. And forget about the hundreds of thousands who are undertreated but survive in spite of their doctors. For example, how many patients are on an aspirin a day, and on Lipitor 80mg versus 10-20mg?

My point: make sure whatever endeavor you find yourself in, that you surround yourself with the folks who are the exceptions, or learn how to read statistics...

Don't believe the hype

In my job, I get to watch a lot of financial news. My conclusion: we are being robbed blind by so called "experts" in financial markets. I have NO access to info that is not available to anyone else. Yet in the fall of 2006, I called for a decline in the housing market. Why? A little story is in order.


A friend of mine who calls herself an entrepreneur sent me an email announcing her new job as a mortgage broker. She said to call her, because she could get me a mortgage. This was about the time I was struggling to pay alimony, child support, and my rent. "No problem", she said. Flashback to the time when my ex and I bought our dreamhouse with a documented combined income over $250k, and another house and stock in our portfolio. My first colonoscopy will be less painful than the scrutiny I got from the loan officer. First alarm went off.

Next was article in local rag about the poor fellow who was losing his $500k house. he was a carpenter, and his wife was a maid. He had tears in his eyes because he was losing his slice of the "American Dream". What? How does a carpenter and a maid afford $500k? Answer: they could not. Second alarm went off.

Next were all the talking heads talking percentages versus hard numbers. Of course only 2% of the loans were going bad. However, that translated into 2 million homes that were being lost. Good luck maintaining your home price when you have an empty house-or two or ten-in your development. As I drove to see my girls, the "For Sale" signs bloomed -first like dandelions, then like rhodedendrons(reference being evergreens). Yet Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and many talking heads were signing "Don't Worry, Be Happy"

And that, boys and girls, was when I knew the economy was in trouble.

Best laid plans

Sorry, new to posting, and will have to learn to proof read. The title of my paper is, "Big Trends of 2008"

That will be a little more timely...

Ready, set, go!!!

This will be my first post. My friends will be glad I have started a blog, so that I can stop clogging up their email boxes.

What will this be about? What is on my mind. I love medicine, politics, and economics, so the next few months will be fun.

In January of this year, I wrote a paper called "Big Trends of 2000" on the economy. I sent it to a few of my friends in the financial world. Six months later, hopefully someone made a little money from my suggestions.

Economics and the markets are not difficult if you study human nature. For example, last year, Circuit City was selling in the teens. Yet the housing crisis was in full swing. In addition, if you were not lazy, and checked the prices of big ticket items online, you could get almost anything cheaper-including S&H-than you could at Circuit City. Fast forward to today, and Circuit City is down to $3.32. Bear Sterns was at $120+ when the story broke that not only did two of their hedge funds go down, but another fund was being run by a guy who fancied drugs and young girls. Can you say no due diligence, and a stock that dropped to $10?

What does the future hold?

Stay tuned...