Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Know when to say when
Working more could ultimately mean thousands of dollars less for you under a quirk in the new health-care law going into effect this fall. This could prompt some people to cut back on their hours to avoid losing money. -- CNBC report on Value Penguin analysis
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Enough Time Has Passed
News Item:
NEW YORK—Claiming that enough time had surely passed since they last caused a global economic meltdown, top executives from the U.S. financial sector told reporters Monday that they are just about ready to completely destroy the world again.
Representatives from all major banking and investment institutions cited recent increases in consumer spending, rebounding home prices, and a stabilizing unemployment rate as confirmation that the time had once again come to inflict another round of catastrophic financial losses on individuals and businesses worldwide.
“It’s been about five or six years since we last crippled every major market on the planet, so it seems like the time is right for us to get back out there and start ruining the lives of billions of people again,” said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. “We gave it some time and let everyone get a little comfortable, and now we’re looking to get back on the old horse, shatter some consumer confidence, and flat-out kill any optimism for a stable global economy for years to come.”
“People are beginning to feel at ease spending money and investing in their futures again,” Blankfein continued. “That’s the perfect time to step in and do what we do best: rip the heart right out of the world’s economy.”
According to sources, the overwhelming majority of investment bankers are “ready to get the ball rolling” by approving a host of complex and poorly understood debt-backed securities that are doomed to quickly default, as well as issuing startlingly high-risk loans certain to drive thousands of companies into insolvency.
Top-level executives also told reporters that when it comes to depleting the life savings of millions of people and sending every major national economy into a tailspin, they feel “refreshed and raring to go.
“The other day I actually overheard someone on the sidewalk utter the words ‘I’m saving up for retirement,’ and right away I thought to myself, ‘Well, time to get down to work,’” said Morgan Stanley chairman James P. Gorman, adding that the increasing number of individuals entertaining ideas of starting their own businesses or buying houses was the financial sector’s cue to set off another devastating global recession. “We’re definitely thinking on a huge scale again, because we all really enjoy toying with the livelihoods of millions of people overseas and forcing them to wonder why reckless, split-second decisions made thousands of miles away dictate their whole country’s socioeconomic future.”
“Plus, it’ll be nice to finally wipe out the Euro once and for all this time,” Gorman added.
While most private equity firms, investment banks, and hedge funds are reportedly still undecided on the precise route to take in order to torpedo the job market and crash all international stock exchanges, sources confirmed they are nearly in position to resume gambling away trillions of dollars belonging to the American populace.
“We’ve got a lot of options on the table; it’s just a matter of picking which one we want to use to paralyze every single sector of the world economy,” said Capital One executive vice president Peter Schnall. “We already burst the dot-com and housing bubbles, so this time we can maybe mix it up by popping the education bubble and shattering the lives of everyone with outstanding student loans. Or maybe we’ll artificially inflate prices of stocks in social media companies and then pull the rug out, bankrupting every investor tied to companies like Facebook and Twitter. Or do both.”
“On second thought, maybe we’ll wipe out the housing market again too, just for the hell of it,” Schnall quickly added. “Might as well, right?”
According to a recent survey of Wall Street officials, 82 percent said they were “excited to shake off the rust” and send the Dow and NASDAQ into another freefall. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents admitted they have been “champing at the bit” for months to wholly undermine the nation’s local banks and money market accounts, leaving Americans too terrified to leave their savings anywhere.
Moreover, the chief financial officers from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo unanimously told reporters that it has been “way too long” since they last saw the utterly dejected faces of American families whose homes had just been foreclosed on due to circumstances totally beyond their control.
“Now that the public’s efforts to curtail questionable Wall Street trading practices have all but ceased, it’s time for us to bring the world to its knees again,” said AIG CEO Robert Benmosche. “There are still plenty of opaque financial derivatives, high-frequency trading operations, and off-balance sheet transactions out there, all with virtually no federal regulation. Trust me, we can definitely work with that. And if anything, we can always just lobby for further concessions and deregulation in Washington—which, by the way, is so, so easy to do—and then we can cause as much damage as we want.”
Added Benmosche, “And while we’re at it, we’ll make sure we once again come away from this whole thing scot-free and far wealthier.”
Reposted from The Onion
NEW YORK—Claiming that enough time had surely passed since they last caused a global economic meltdown, top executives from the U.S. financial sector told reporters Monday that they are just about ready to completely destroy the world again.
Representatives from all major banking and investment institutions cited recent increases in consumer spending, rebounding home prices, and a stabilizing unemployment rate as confirmation that the time had once again come to inflict another round of catastrophic financial losses on individuals and businesses worldwide.
“It’s been about five or six years since we last crippled every major market on the planet, so it seems like the time is right for us to get back out there and start ruining the lives of billions of people again,” said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. “We gave it some time and let everyone get a little comfortable, and now we’re looking to get back on the old horse, shatter some consumer confidence, and flat-out kill any optimism for a stable global economy for years to come.”
“People are beginning to feel at ease spending money and investing in their futures again,” Blankfein continued. “That’s the perfect time to step in and do what we do best: rip the heart right out of the world’s economy.”
According to sources, the overwhelming majority of investment bankers are “ready to get the ball rolling” by approving a host of complex and poorly understood debt-backed securities that are doomed to quickly default, as well as issuing startlingly high-risk loans certain to drive thousands of companies into insolvency.
Top-level executives also told reporters that when it comes to depleting the life savings of millions of people and sending every major national economy into a tailspin, they feel “refreshed and raring to go.
“The other day I actually overheard someone on the sidewalk utter the words ‘I’m saving up for retirement,’ and right away I thought to myself, ‘Well, time to get down to work,’” said Morgan Stanley chairman James P. Gorman, adding that the increasing number of individuals entertaining ideas of starting their own businesses or buying houses was the financial sector’s cue to set off another devastating global recession. “We’re definitely thinking on a huge scale again, because we all really enjoy toying with the livelihoods of millions of people overseas and forcing them to wonder why reckless, split-second decisions made thousands of miles away dictate their whole country’s socioeconomic future.”
“Plus, it’ll be nice to finally wipe out the Euro once and for all this time,” Gorman added.
While most private equity firms, investment banks, and hedge funds are reportedly still undecided on the precise route to take in order to torpedo the job market and crash all international stock exchanges, sources confirmed they are nearly in position to resume gambling away trillions of dollars belonging to the American populace.
“We’ve got a lot of options on the table; it’s just a matter of picking which one we want to use to paralyze every single sector of the world economy,” said Capital One executive vice president Peter Schnall. “We already burst the dot-com and housing bubbles, so this time we can maybe mix it up by popping the education bubble and shattering the lives of everyone with outstanding student loans. Or maybe we’ll artificially inflate prices of stocks in social media companies and then pull the rug out, bankrupting every investor tied to companies like Facebook and Twitter. Or do both.”
“On second thought, maybe we’ll wipe out the housing market again too, just for the hell of it,” Schnall quickly added. “Might as well, right?”
According to a recent survey of Wall Street officials, 82 percent said they were “excited to shake off the rust” and send the Dow and NASDAQ into another freefall. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents admitted they have been “champing at the bit” for months to wholly undermine the nation’s local banks and money market accounts, leaving Americans too terrified to leave their savings anywhere.
Moreover, the chief financial officers from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo unanimously told reporters that it has been “way too long” since they last saw the utterly dejected faces of American families whose homes had just been foreclosed on due to circumstances totally beyond their control.
“Now that the public’s efforts to curtail questionable Wall Street trading practices have all but ceased, it’s time for us to bring the world to its knees again,” said AIG CEO Robert Benmosche. “There are still plenty of opaque financial derivatives, high-frequency trading operations, and off-balance sheet transactions out there, all with virtually no federal regulation. Trust me, we can definitely work with that. And if anything, we can always just lobby for further concessions and deregulation in Washington—which, by the way, is so, so easy to do—and then we can cause as much damage as we want.”
Added Benmosche, “And while we’re at it, we’ll make sure we once again come away from this whole thing scot-free and far wealthier.”
Reposted from The Onion
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Chart of the Day #22
From Allvoices.com
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Chart of the Day #21
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. -- Sir Isaac Newton
From Streettalklive. I'm not a technical trader type, but I do understand the significance of "reversion to mean" and "99% probabilities". What I still don't quite have a handle on is the actual money printed as a percent of what's out there. I know what we've been told; ....85 Billion, or another 3% of the Adjusted Monetary Base. ... every month. That money has to go somewhere. Right now it goes to the market.
The new normal could be a continued bull run. I think the size of the resulting bear ticks up every time, though.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
What still glitters
After seeing the carnage in the gold market, I decided there is something more going on than routine private market price manipulation. Private manipulation can move the market two or three perent at a time, but this kind of massive collapse requires government cooperation. The facts that I have pieced together (some significant, others not as much):
Meanwhile, they are feeding the "ministry of information" the line that:
The economy is improving, and the fear quotient in the gold market is wringing out.
These are part of the disinformation campaign, and are laughable as explanations for yesterday's market moves.
Now, it is possible, on the other hand, that we really are headed for a raging deflation. If that's the case, then everybody should want to be in cash right now. What people fail to realize is that the govenment's reaction to deflation is always going to be even more inflation. So, gold should be the last asset someone should want to turn into cash right now.
People who think that gold is a bubble will feel vindicated (they will say they were right in 2013), but they haven't seen anything yet. The real bubble is the dollar.
- Central banks have been net buyers of gold, the most significant piece of the market right now. China mines more than the rest of us combined, keeps every ounce, and is still the largest buyer on the world market.
- These same central banks have a need to obfuscate the future inflation they've been producing through their unprecedented money printing.
- By owning the lion's share of gold, they will essentially control price. By manipulating the price, they can continue to sweep the early emerging inflation news under the rug.
- The best way to own all the gold is to convince the current holders of gold that there is a looming deflation coming.
- This is an easy argument to make, because the central banks have been printing money all along, and yet the velocity of money remains at historic lows. This money is created, but not yet distributed. It is sitting in reserves waiting for some trigger event.
- By nurturing the myth of deflation, the inflation brew they've concocted stays in the back room, ready to boil over, but not just yet.
- Before that happens, the more gold the governments hold, the better positioned they will be to manipulate economies when inflation does hit.
India's tax on gold is going from 4% to 6%.
Cyprus is selling $400 million dollars worth to pay the bills.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Chart of the Day #19
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.-- H. L. Mencken
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
What the Supreme Court Could Do for us.
If particular precedents have proven to be unworkable, they don't lead to predictable results, they're difficult to apply, that's one factor supporting reconsideration. --John Roberts
In the Wizer's post "Follow the Money", I pointed out that the gay rights advocacy people don't want the rights so much as the rewards they perceive are due them, simply by virtue of their civic unions.
Now it is time to address the real issue: Favorable treatment for married people. This is special rights accorded to married people. There is nothing in the constitution that addresses alimony, child support, insurance coverage for spouses, or the ever popular "married filing jointly". Why are married people given more rights than the unmarried? That is what is wrong with the law.
Okay, fine. The right thing to do now, it seems, is to discontinue any rights ascribed to marriage that would not otherwise covered under contract law. The beauty of such an approach is that people, all people, are free to enter into contracts with each other. It eliminates a big problem with the chief constitutional aspect of this initiative: that is, that there would be any laws that seek to assign rights to special interest groups. The measure would have the side benefit of causing people to be more responsible for the nature of their relationships. An employer, through its employment structure is free to extend additional benefits to spouses as they see fit, but the government would be prevented from extending "rights" to any special interest group...traditional or otherwise. Just simply end favorable treatment for married people.
This way it will prevent an endless parade of special interest groups wanting "rights" extended to them by virtue of one association or another. Freedom of association has long been a hallmark of our government and our constitution. But those associations should not be given free rein to carve out special rights of their own.
Since John Roberts has seen fit to rewrite an argument before, here's one where he could actually fix the real problem, instead of blandly weighing arguments from two wrong sides. That would be a nice precedent for this court to make.
In the Wizer's post "Follow the Money", I pointed out that the gay rights advocacy people don't want the rights so much as the rewards they perceive are due them, simply by virtue of their civic unions.
Now it is time to address the real issue: Favorable treatment for married people. This is special rights accorded to married people. There is nothing in the constitution that addresses alimony, child support, insurance coverage for spouses, or the ever popular "married filing jointly". Why are married people given more rights than the unmarried? That is what is wrong with the law.
Okay, fine. The right thing to do now, it seems, is to discontinue any rights ascribed to marriage that would not otherwise covered under contract law. The beauty of such an approach is that people, all people, are free to enter into contracts with each other. It eliminates a big problem with the chief constitutional aspect of this initiative: that is, that there would be any laws that seek to assign rights to special interest groups. The measure would have the side benefit of causing people to be more responsible for the nature of their relationships. An employer, through its employment structure is free to extend additional benefits to spouses as they see fit, but the government would be prevented from extending "rights" to any special interest group...traditional or otherwise. Just simply end favorable treatment for married people.
This way it will prevent an endless parade of special interest groups wanting "rights" extended to them by virtue of one association or another. Freedom of association has long been a hallmark of our government and our constitution. But those associations should not be given free rein to carve out special rights of their own.
Since John Roberts has seen fit to rewrite an argument before, here's one where he could actually fix the real problem, instead of blandly weighing arguments from two wrong sides. That would be a nice precedent for this court to make.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Navigating The Big Picture
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests.
― Henry Hazlitt, Author of Economics in One Lesson
People make economic decisions every day. From signing a home mortgage on down to buying a candy bar. Economic choices are made by all of us, every day. Each choice is itself a simple one, and properly reasoned. Yet few stop to think of the impact of the choices they make on the overall economy. No, we are not missing anything, because we can't live our daily lives watching the big picture.
As it turns out, the big picture has a disproportionately larger effect on our lives now. For example, did you buy a house in 2006? I did, and because of the big picture, it was worth $35,000 less two years later. Would I have made the same transaction if I was aware of the big picture? No, I'm the Wizer, I would have done something different. You can be sure that I am a more diligent witness of the big picture since then.
What have I learned?
The news by nature gives conflicting viewpoints "equal time". You have to use an evolving filter to sort it out. You need a filter that progressively discredits wrong sources, and favor the ones that tend to be correct. Being discriminatory about the quality of information you get is what will save you. Over time, you will come to understand simple truths that can save you from ruin. One of the most important things I understand better now than before is that a person making economic choices has to develop a philosophy on economics. This would be an overarching thesis on the likely outcome of key decisions.
You can be an optimist or a pessimist, and it would only change slightly. You could be a republican or a democrat, and there might not be any difference at all in philosophy. The biggest danger is if you do not have an economic philosophy.
If there is no philosophy, where you merely try to react to current events, you are the target. People will take advantage of your willingness to abandon one strategy and move towards another. There are people positioned to profit from your many changes. Right now, there are people telling you that the stock market is a big opportunity, and people telling you there is an imminent collapse. What both sides want to do, really, is get you to do anything at all, because nobody profits until you do something, and they don't really care if it is the right thing for you. They are not in position to know if it's the right economic choice for you, so how can it even matter to them whether it is or not?
What you really have to do is imagine the world ten years from now. If you can figure that out, you have it made. Crystal ball, you say? Ouija board? No, but if you look in the right places, the biblical handwriting appears on the wall.
And when it does, that should become your philosophy, at least until the handwriting is no longer legible. You see, because the constant reallocations of economic funds, and the fact that someone is always profiting at your expense from the changes, it is best to develop a philosophy based on the larger trends, and let the nervous nellies pay for the short term changes.
So, what do you think will be there 10 years from now?
Do you think there will be deflation? Read Gary Shilling.
Do you think there will be inflation? Read/Listen to Jim Puplava.
Do you think there will be hyper-inflation? Read Peter Schiff.
Do you think there will be a great depression? Read Harry Dent.
Do you think the stock market will fall? Read Chris Martenson
Do you think the stock market is going to soar? Read Jim Cramer
In fact, read all of these people, if you haven't already, and then pick one economic philosophy. Just one. The magic in doing so is that you will be right in ten years. At least once. Which is more than you will be right if you don't pick one economic philosophy.
― Henry Hazlitt, Author of Economics in One Lesson
People make economic decisions every day. From signing a home mortgage on down to buying a candy bar. Economic choices are made by all of us, every day. Each choice is itself a simple one, and properly reasoned. Yet few stop to think of the impact of the choices they make on the overall economy. No, we are not missing anything, because we can't live our daily lives watching the big picture.
As it turns out, the big picture has a disproportionately larger effect on our lives now. For example, did you buy a house in 2006? I did, and because of the big picture, it was worth $35,000 less two years later. Would I have made the same transaction if I was aware of the big picture? No, I'm the Wizer, I would have done something different. You can be sure that I am a more diligent witness of the big picture since then.
What have I learned?
- That this "Big Picture" aka socioeconomics has an outsized effect on personal economics.
- That those who manipulate the money probably don't have your best interests at heart.
- That our learning what's really going on is not in the best interests of those manipulators.
- There are many theories of what's going on.
- Most of them are wrong.
- Some of them are intentional disinformation.
- We will be negatively impacted by our ignorance.
The news by nature gives conflicting viewpoints "equal time". You have to use an evolving filter to sort it out. You need a filter that progressively discredits wrong sources, and favor the ones that tend to be correct. Being discriminatory about the quality of information you get is what will save you. Over time, you will come to understand simple truths that can save you from ruin. One of the most important things I understand better now than before is that a person making economic choices has to develop a philosophy on economics. This would be an overarching thesis on the likely outcome of key decisions.
You can be an optimist or a pessimist, and it would only change slightly. You could be a republican or a democrat, and there might not be any difference at all in philosophy. The biggest danger is if you do not have an economic philosophy.
If there is no philosophy, where you merely try to react to current events, you are the target. People will take advantage of your willingness to abandon one strategy and move towards another. There are people positioned to profit from your many changes. Right now, there are people telling you that the stock market is a big opportunity, and people telling you there is an imminent collapse. What both sides want to do, really, is get you to do anything at all, because nobody profits until you do something, and they don't really care if it is the right thing for you. They are not in position to know if it's the right economic choice for you, so how can it even matter to them whether it is or not?
What you really have to do is imagine the world ten years from now. If you can figure that out, you have it made. Crystal ball, you say? Ouija board? No, but if you look in the right places, the biblical handwriting appears on the wall.
And when it does, that should become your philosophy, at least until the handwriting is no longer legible. You see, because the constant reallocations of economic funds, and the fact that someone is always profiting at your expense from the changes, it is best to develop a philosophy based on the larger trends, and let the nervous nellies pay for the short term changes.
So, what do you think will be there 10 years from now?
Do you think there will be deflation? Read Gary Shilling.
Do you think there will be inflation? Read/Listen to Jim Puplava.
Do you think there will be hyper-inflation? Read Peter Schiff.
Do you think there will be a great depression? Read Harry Dent.
Do you think the stock market will fall? Read Chris Martenson
Do you think the stock market is going to soar? Read Jim Cramer
In fact, read all of these people, if you haven't already, and then pick one economic philosophy. Just one. The magic in doing so is that you will be right in ten years. At least once. Which is more than you will be right if you don't pick one economic philosophy.
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