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ARCHIVES — AUGUST 2010

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AUGUST 16, 2010 -- AUGUST 29, 2010

IS THE HINDENBURG OMEN NOTHING BUT HOT AIR?

This technical stuff is BUNK. If it’s not the “death cross” it’s the 50 DMA and 200 DMA, or the Hindenburg. You can’t use just one indicator…during the last 25 years that is one thing I’ve learned for sure.

For every time a technical indicator works, it fails in another market. I’ve back tested virtually every technical indicator measure that exists and find very little if any predictive value in this stuff. Earnings are strong, valuations are fair to good, this fear stuff is good because I will make money from your emotions. Be cautiously bullish.

As Buffett has said, “When others are fearful I become greedy and when others are greedy I become fearful” (this little advice has been used for over 100 years by some of the best investors of all time).

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Yes, folks, Hindenberg omen tripped again

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This “Hindenburg Omen” is a bunch of rubbish, and it’s already been outed as the obvious half-baked stratagem it is.

While mathematical models may appear valid, in the hands of greedy bankers and brokers these are non-lethal weapons designed to confuse and take out soft targets…us. These new weapons of war forged in the bathhouses and underground rooms of think-tanks, are wielded by clueless hubristic people bent on deceiving us all in order to divide the spoil among themselves.

Would you like to know the real reason why the markets are going to crash? I’ll tell you, but many won’t like it. Oh golly, where to start. It’s because decision makers are making poor decisions, touching stuff that they shouldn’t be touching and now it’s time to settle up.

You’re a decision maker, don’t buy products from American companies made in oppressive communist countries. Don’t vote for a candidate who has a career record of lying and defrauding their constituency. Don’t do business with a bank or brokerage house that has ties to other banks that tries to manipulate the market. And for God’s sake, please don’t fall for nonsense like the “Hindenburg Omen”.

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Yes, folks, Hindenberg omen tripped again

EXISTING HOME SALES TAKE A DIVE IN JULY

The gov't needs to make a decision as to whether they want the housing market to rebalance on it's own if they are going to try to revive it with subsidies. If an $8,000 credit (subsidy) is going to keep the housing market moving then keep it in as the economic activity associated with buying and selling r/e is huge. Some of the people that get paid are (mortgage co.'s, r/e agents, movers, furniture co.'s, retail stores like home depot, lowes, bed bathlocal contractors, etc.)

This activity should allow the gov't to recoup some of the credit in the form of add'l taxes and the states get the sales staxes from some of that action. But you cannot put it in and take it out. All you do with that formula is front load the activity and then the housin market dies and everyone says the economy is tanking. Either leave it in or take it out but all of these band-aids do not repair the patient and actuall may do more damage!

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Existing home sales plunged in July

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This can be spun and twisted any which way, but the bottom line is with nearly 1 in 5 Americans unemployed or underemployed neither housing nor the economy will recover anytime soon. Congress and this administration can continue to spend us into oblivion and blame the GOP for blocking more handouts, but without deep, meaningful, structural changes in the way this nation operates the severed artery will eventually blow the butterfly bandage down the drain along right along with the hemorrhage.

The system of vote buying entitlements that keeps career politicians in office and power needs to be abolished, or the US as we once knew it will be forever lost.

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Existing home sales plunged in July

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The news that home sales are at an all-time low is not entirely unwelcome news. This country needs to stop using home sales as the foundation of its economy. Additionally, the mortgage interest deduction should be repealed in an effort to move away from the incentization of home sales. We do NOT need any more new housing in this country as the market is extremely oversaturated.

People need to stop whining and retrain themselves to earn a living in a different way than developing raw land, building new homes and serving as suppliers for those industries. The economy is far too flexible for people to remain entrenched in antiquated industries and ways of thinking. The only way out of this economic malaise is innovation, not building unneeded homes. Wake up America.

Read the article NPR/Existing home sales hit 15-year low

HOW THE VIRUS OF UNEMPLOYMENT SPREAD

TIME-LAPSE GRAPH

I have to say for as painful a map as this is, because I do not believe anyone wants to be unemployed, it makes for a very insightful piece of time based art. It speaks volumes.

Not only does it track how unemployment has spread it represents the pain, angst, frustration, loss of pride, anger, emotional torment and dis-empowerment the unemployed must face or have to deal with. It means that everyone probably knows someone who is unemployed, or under employed. It represents the weakness of our country economically.

It represents the inability we have has a nation to come together and help each other out working from the understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. It represents the fact that we, as a nation, have some major issues to confront and solve and that they need to be solved with a rational exchange of ideas not destructive, biting and pointed nah saying.

It makes for a great time based art piece because as the map moves closer and closer to being black I can not help but to think that in the optic world black is a product of the lack of light. In the pigment world black is the product of all colors being combined, the neutralization of all uniqueness.

Just a few thoughts on a very thought provoking time based art piece.

Thanks a million for creating this.

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/How the unemployment crisis has swept across America

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Everybody, I realize this may be difficult, but for just a few minutes, forget about thinking of yourself as a "liberal" or "conservative," most of all, quit thinking of yourself as "correct" and just think of yourself as "an American." We aren't going to get over this rough patch by lynching rich people, while at the same time, enabling rich people to become richer will probably only make things worse. We aren't going to survive as a superpower belittling one another, nor by championing the status quo or the activities of our elected officials. It really is becoming the time when we are all going to have to put on our big boy pants and work together, side by side, "liberal" hand in "conservative" hand, to make this country work again.

The acceptable time for anger is coming to a close. It's time to start sorting things out and doing what works, not what is ideologically pure. We've done it before, and we'll do it again, or we'll all be steeped in the same putrid leavings of a failed monster state, all of us, and then none of your precious ideals will matter, ever again.

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/How the unemployment crisis has swept across America

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For the umpteenth time here are some basics for the delusional in our midst:

#1. Correlations does NOT prove causation
#2. NAFTA= North American Free Trade Agreement....brokered by George H. Bush. Has NOTHING to do with trade with China and India or jobs going overseas.
#3. CAUSE and EFFECT is rarely if EVER short term in nature and usually takes a LONG time to come to fruition. I.E. if one spends a lifetime smoking they will probably have long term health effects as a CAUSE of the decision YEARS before!
#4. THERE is NO easy solution to the economic mess we are in! It will take YEARS if not decades IF ever to bring back to the "old days"
#5. THE old days are probably NOT coming back in our lifetime.
#6. This is a DEPRESSION, just because it does NOT look like it did in 1935, that is because is NO LONGER 1935! Yikes.

Is there any intelligent life on these threads?

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/How the unemployment crisis has swept across America

CHINA SURPASSES JAPAN AS WORLD'S 2ND LARGEST ECONOMY

It's a amazing to witness how strong American exceptionalism runs here. Importantly, it gives us a dose of prevailing US attitudes -- what's out there.

Everyone is an expert on China: the sound bytes and headlines they absorb from American news media make them authorities on this eastern country. More disturbing, however, is the tone of indignation for any country -- China or otherwise -- that begins to approach America's dominance.

These folks bathe in hubris and self-interest while ignoring important aspects of China's history.

But maybe more so, American's are spoiled. They've been told they're #1 all their lives and now have come to expect it -- rather they want it served to them on a silver platter.

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/China passes Japan as second-largest economy

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It's really misleading to see random factory workers assembling crappy plastic widgets posted next to the headline of every article about China's economy.

China is outsourcing more and more of those jobs to Vietnam and other countries. It's dangerous for us to keep assuming that all they make are cracker-jack-box junk. They've got a ferrous fuel-cell sedan coming out soon and in 2012 they'll be selling cars right here in the USA. They own Volvo now. China is rapidly catching up to Korea and Japan in terms of quality AND swamping them in quantity.

Maybe if we start seeing images of their serious heavy industry and high-tech sectors at work, we'll snap out of this dated image we have of Chinese people being backward and simple. They're cosmopolitan, consumerist and very, very like "us" in many ways.

Read "China Wakes," "Big Dragon," "Red China Blues," and "The Changing Face of China" if you want some real information.

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“China passed Germany while Germany was still doing fine. If Japan's economy had not been in the tank it might have taken an extra year or two.

If you look at history over the long term - 5000 years, China has had the largest economy for all but the last 150 years. China missed the industrial revolution, battled colonialism and had an unfortunate experiment with Communism. It is rapidly on its way to its historic place. But political changes could destabilize it, although destabilizing changes seem more likely in the US than in China right now.”

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/China passes Japan as second-largest economy

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You are dreaming if you think that political instability is more pressing in the U.S. than in China. The U.S. does not spend $100 billion annually trying to quell "mass incidents." It does not distrust citizens so much that it heavily censors media. It does not fix its currency or force out private entrepreneurs.

The "China had the largest economy for [x] years" is a durable myth. Really? Larger than Rome, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the British, or the Mongols? America did not even exist the last time China allegedly had the "largest" economy. The idea that China will "return to its historic place" is an interesting exercise in historical contradiction: on the one hand, it embraces the idea that China has rapidly changed, while on the other hand, holding on to the notion that the overall world has not changed in the past few centuries.

Blaming China's troubles on foreign intrusion is a weak excuse. China lagged behind the West for centuries because it was not innovative enough and clung to stubborn ideals

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/China passes Japan as second-largest economy

FISHING FOR FORTUNES -- HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE SCAM?

I was surprised at the amount of fishing boats that suddenly started popping up down here. I saw one guy pulling a boat down the Venice that looked like it had been sitting in his backyard for years, clearly covered front to back in stains from being parked under a tree.

I hate that there are people like that in this country.

I work offshore about 20 miles south of the rig that blew up. since the event happened I've seen oil slicks twice and they were very small. The oil just isn't out here.

It's Good for BP to step up to the plate on fixing their issues though. Kinda wish Obama would just stay out of it.

Read the article DAILY MAIL/How BP may be paying out millions in oil spill compensation to fraudsters

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Quote from article...."The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) has sold 2,200 licenses since the spill, Lt Col Jeff Mayne of the LDWF Law Enforcement Division told the BBC today"

More fool them. Given that for 3 months they have done nothing but bleat about the disaster for fishing, tourism and the wildlife, and the potential threat for contaminated food stuffs , I would have thought the first thing would have been to suspend any new licences for fishing in the area.

So the State seems to have been partially responsible for allowing the potential for fraud to occur.

I'll wait without hope for Obama to start criticising his fellow countrymen who jumped on the bandwagon to make a fast (fraudulent ) buck at the expense of British Petroleum as he likes to call it.

Hypocrites the lot of them

Read the article DAILY MAIL/How BP may be paying out millions in oil spill compensation to fraudsters

HOME GROAN -- FORECLOSURES GET MIXED REPORT

As things keep getting worse here in Arizona, more and more people are realizing that a "strategic default" is their best option. I live in an HOA where 5 families that I know of are just walking away from their homes. They're not bad people.

It's just that the housing market here has taken another downturn and they can't see keeping something that is just going to continue to lose money. They can rent a similar home for much less than their current payment. The banks will sell these homes for MUCH less than the current owners owe on them and will NOT work with the present owners.

It's ridiculous. Why should someone stay in a home with a $225,000 mortgage when the bank will take the home and sell it to someone else for $140,00 or less? If the present owners walk away, they take a hit to their credit for a few years, but owe nothing more. Arizona is a "non-recourse" state

Read the article NPR/The good and the bad in July's foreclosure report

LOOKING FOR JOBS IN A SPUTTERING ECONOMY

We are going to be stuck in this rut unless we can develop new industries. As mentioned here, our established industries are either tapping into overseas workforces, investing in ways to prevent more hiring, or turning their money over to the stock market. The fact is these are plateaued markets

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I work in staffing for electronic and embedded controls (the little computers that control everything from fuel use in cars to your DVD player). There's a ton of need for people in this field but not a home grown work force to support it. And what does most of this need revolve around? Energy.

From what I can see, energy technologies are our best bet to creating whole new areas of work with wages competitive to what we had during better industrial times. It has the potential to doing to the American workforce what Henry Ford did when he created the modern blue collar workforce.

Of course, to do that we'd need to invest money in training people and bringing the technologies to a point where they made commercial sense. I just don't see the commitment to doing that out there.

Read the article TIME/CURIOUSCAPITALIST/The sideways economy

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The jobless rate will not improve until the cause of the recession is recognized. It is not the banks or the financial system which initiated the failure. The root cause of our problems is the excessive imports, especially from China.

These goods represent exported jobs. From computers to cookware, from tools to textiles, the consumer market is flooded with imported goods to the exclusion of American made product. The prices are irresistible. But the job loss and the consequent diminished requirement for capital spells economic malaise for our future.

The People and the Congress must recognize this and take steps to control the situation. Without such action our economy is doomed.

Read the article NPR/Lackluster private hiring reflects economy's struggles

AUGUST 2 , 2010 -- AUGUST 15, 2010

GETTING CHARGED UP OVER THE VOLT

The Nissan Leaf already has a range of 100 miles between chargings. The cost of this car is relatively good, much cheaper than the Volt which has less range. And costs will of course go down as the vehicles are made more practical and more are sold. Not that this is a precise analogy but my first Gateway computer, top of the line in 1996 cost $3000 with a printer and any computer on the market at any price is almost infinitely better now.

We need to get away from depending on oil from the Middle East and its political instabilities, a nonrenewable resource for which there is increasing demand and a finite and decreasing supply, and most of all we are reaching the limits of reducing the emissions of internal combustion engines which are polluting some of our cities to death such as where I live.

Read the article NPR/Plugging in the electric car

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The best available batteries have an energy density 1/100 that of gasoline or diesel. Until that changes dramatically - something that is not on the horizon - electric cars are nothing but status symbols for upper middle class environmentalists.

The Volt itself is a $41,000 underpowered, limited space (those batteries use a lot) version of the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze. It will appear in the suburban garages (you need some place to charge it) of wealthy suburbanites, shown to their friends as an environmental fashion statement.

Someday it may be possible to get close to as much energy out of 10 pounds of batteries as from 10 pounds of gasoline, but so long as there is a 100::1 disparity, electric is DOA.

Read the article WASHINGTON POST/Low voltage

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When reading this, I kept thinking about NetBooks: laptops that didn't have the umpf to do *everything* a traditional laptop could do, and were a smaller form factor, but had "just enough" capacity to meet 80% of the needs of 80% of the consumers. They were systems to augment a desktop or full laptop, but not necessarily replace them. The expectations were lower, so the price went down.  
 
The core problem is that an automobile is such an expense, and work-arounds so limited, that it can't do just 80% of what you need it to do, it needs to do 99%. I think of all the folks who commute alone in big SUVs because once in a while they need to tow a boat or carry five kids in car seats.  
 
For an electric car to work, either it needs to be a drop in replacement that everyone can afford (i.e. great range, lots of space, lowish cost), or the model needs to change (i.e. make it practical to have something to cover just the special cases).

Read the article SLATE/President Obama's electric car subsidies are snobby and foolish

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My problem with the electric vehicle tax credit isn't so much that it's more likely to go to high-income individuals (most of our tax credits and deductions benefit the wealthier cross-sections of America), but rather that it's distortionary and favors one technology over others. I'd rather have a tax credit for any vehicle that reduces life-cycle emissions by a certain amount. That would allow purchasers electric vehicles, very efficient internal-combustion engine vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles to benefit from the credit. And then the best technology "wins."  
 
The current administration favors electric vehicles and battery technologies and has devoted far too many resources to these technologies, in my opinion, without acknowledging the potential of other vehicle technologies. Just like with electricity, the real solution to reducing vehicle emissions lies with a portfolio of technologies, some better suited for urban transportation, some for long-distance and heavy-duty, and others for non-automotive transport. All the focus on electric vehicles is misleading, because it's not, and will never be, the solution to everything.

Read the article SLATE/President Obama's electric car subsidies are snobby and foolish

ON THE "DEMONIZATION" OF B.P.'S TONY HAYWARD

People here seem to be forgetting that Hayward was a geologist who worked on oil rigs. He gradually rose up the ranks of BPs oil exploration arm not by sitting in an office but by working in the field - just the sort of manual work that some of them posters here seem to like. He's the rare example of an engineer or scientist ending up as the CEO of the company, something that should be lauded.

Instead people seem to be comparing him with fat cat bankers like Fred Goodwin and holding Hayward personally responsible when all the emerging evidence is that the accident had little to do with BP beyond the fact they are legally responsible, and that BP has been the victim of negligent contractors.

You can make a good argument that executive compensation is OTT in general, but Hayward spent decades working his way through BP from spending months at a time posted on windy oil rigs in the North Sea (you try it and see if you can handle it), and although he may be senior management now he is one of the leading geologists in his field so might not be the best example around. Why do people think he was able to personally take charge of the spill? This is in total contrast to Goodwin who had no qualifications in banking or accountancy and when RBS was on the ropes proceeded with another ill-advised take over.

Speaking as a shareholder of BP I have no issue with his payout and think BP has made the best of a bad situation - the company isn't bankrupt, it's taken a one-off hit and will claw rather a lot of that money back over time as it sues the crap out of the contractors who caused the mess. If we are going to have CEOs they should be more like him having spent their lives with the company they worked their way up through it. It's a real shame when the Haywards of the world get compared to the Goodwins

Read the article GUARDIAN/BP makes record loss as Tony Hayward quits

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Quite understand the shock-at-the-massive-payoff horror, but not sure how the more excitable class warriors among you manage to turn this into such a major 'toffs grinding down ("screwing", sorry) worthy salt-of-the-earth proles" thing.

Quite apart from the question of legal / contractual entitlements pointed out passim (we workers mostly have those - don't we?), take a look at Hayward's (sorry, "tosser's") Wiki entry (no, no, please don't divert to Wiki conspiracy theories). Born Slough. One of 7 children. Local state grammar school (that was allowed). 1st class degree from Aston (so, not an envy-inducing Oxbridge product). PhD from Edinburgh (whoops - 1st mistake?). No actual mention of a silver spoon (unless there is a coded reference to Eton in there somewhere).

I'm sensing a clever and hard-working non-toff here, one who would very likely do extremely well in his specialist field and doubtless make a lot of money - more than you, probably.

So whatever trenchant criticisms can be levelled at Hayward's shortcomings as CEO of BP and his handling of this disaster, and however much anger there may rightly be about the consequences of the spill - human, ecological and financial ('my pension woe') - maybe best not to weaken them by getting incoherent with rage about the wrong issue

Read the article GUARDIAN/BP makes record loss as Tony Hayward quits

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What you gonna do eh? It's a publicly listed company, he's worked for the them for 30 years and risen up through.

The company haven't been bailed out with money from the public and the company hasn't caused a global depression the likes of which we've not really seen before. They are providing compensation promptly to the victims, plugging the well and cleaning up their mess, which now transpires was likely the result of safety failures by TransOcean and there's no giant lake of "heavier than water oil" at the bottom of the Gulf waiting to explode.

Makes no difference to my day how much the man takes home, especially when you consider he's been the CEO of a FTSE 100 company, some bankers take home similar amounts and are apparently accountable to no one, manage no one and gamble with the economy.

Read the article GUARDIAN/BP makes record loss as Tony Hayward quits

How do most Americans feel about Tony Hayward and BP? Very different from what is in the news! This morning a poll was taken by one of the news stations here and to the great shock of the moderator over half of those who responded thought Tony Hayward should continue as CEO. I was sorry to see him go and don't begrudge him his pension.

Emotionally this spill is affecting the US the way 9/11 did (but in slow motion) It is a great wound to a precious part of the country and the people in that region. Most of us do not see this as damage done by a "British" company. Actually, BP is really seen more like a joint venture between the UK and the US--about 40% of the shares are owned in the UK and 40% in the US and the same is true of employees and assets. This disaster was a terrible accident not an international incident.

I do think Obama misspoke when he said Hayward should be fired--and Congressional hearings are becoming an embarrassing joke. Congressmen posture and make comments that reflect little knowledge but they seem to believe rude behavior will get them more votes. Those who testify say little of substance because that is what their lawyers advise them to do. Bottom line, most of us just ignore the whole ugly process;Congress is less popular than BP!

It makes no sense to me that Tony Hayward has become a sacrificial lamb and focal point for the lunatic fringe's hatred--this was a horrible accident and so far the facts suggest multiple mechanical and human failures were involved and certainly it was not entirely BP's fault--Transocean, Halliburton,Cameron et al will all have their day in court. The lawsuits will go on for years and maybe the causes will be sorted out. At this point, BP is responsible for 65% of the cost of the clean up and they have promised to take care of that. I think we all need to calm down and focus on the fact that we have a lot of work to do to clean up the mess and rehabilitate the region.

Read the article BBC/HAVE YOUR SAY- What next for BP?

Hayward did not cause the oil spill. He was in London, try his best to run a multi-billion dollar company, employing tens of thousands of people, when a couple of low-level, local employees, without Hayward's knowledge, made some bad decisions and [literally] blew it. Following the spill Hayward had BP step forward and accept full responsibility for the spill, despite the fact that the law limited BP's liability for same.

Hayward's "want my life back" comment has been totally taken out of context. Hayward was only trying to explain that his interests where aligned with those of the people on the Gulf, their lives had been disrupted, his had to, he wanted all our lives back.

So far as Hayward's "yachting", I fail to see what is so wrong about a man spending a week-end with his kids. Our president golfs many weekend, just took a vacation to Maine. So what? In our anger over "yachting" I see jealous and anger, because Hayward makes a lot of money. If he had taken his kids fishing from a dock, in Vermillion Bay, we would have thought nothing . . . but "yachting" . . . "he's one of those rich guys, that we hate, because he is rich". Be ashamed.

In fact, most "hate" stories about Hayward mention his "compensation". How UGLY. Whether Hayward makes ten cents or ten million a year has nothing to do with anything . . . he did not cause the oil spill . . . had BP accept responsibility for it . . . it is WE, not Hayward, who are whining about his supposed whining . . . and I don't care what kind of boat he drives . . . none of anybody's business.

WE should be ashamed for hating a man . . . mostly because he make a large salary.

Read the article NOLA-TIMES PICAYUNE/Good-bye and good riddance to Tony Hayward

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