Cara's Commentary & Community Chat, Tues., Mar. 17, 2009

I've seen reference to other pictures. Could someone inform me how to access them.

Bill, I have often been favorably impressed by Sen. Shelby while watching C-SPAN committee hearings. I'm sure his questions for Geithner would be enlightening — for us and possibly for Geithner.

I'd like to see something based on the Elizabeth Warren committee findings at year end.

“That’s a shortfall of about $78 billion,” she said, adding that Mr. Paulson “was not entirely candid” in his description of TARP’s bank capital injection program.

http://tiny.cc/E1i2u

Top o' the marn, laddies and lassies.

Upgrades:

ABB - to Buy @ Deutsche Securities
BBY - to Buy @ Jefferies & Co. Price Target Raised from $25 to $37
COST - to Buy @ Jefferies & Co. Price Target Raised from $38.50 to $49
KSS - to Buy @ Jefferies & Co. Price Target Raised from $36 to $44
TGT - to Buy @ Jefferies & Co. Price Target Raised from $29 to $34

New Coverage:

GRMN - Sell @ Morgan Joseph. Price Target = $14
GSK - Outperfrom @ Credit Suisse

Price Target Lowered:

ORCL - from $20 to $18 @ Jefferies & Co. Buy Rating
PBR - from $28 to $26 @ Credit Suisse. Neutral Rating.

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Happy Trading & May The Saints Be With Ye.

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Please join the old Bull Hunter in hoisting a Guinness to the memory of Tommy Makem and the fallen members of the Clancy Clan and singing along with "Wrap The Green Flag Round Me":

http://tinyurl.com/dy37lt

Happy St. Patrick's Day to All! I wear green everyday! It's the colour of money!

My prayers are for St. Patrick's return to lead the snakes off Wall Street.

St. Patrick's day is that big in the US, is it?

Are the markets open?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&si...

“Abusive short-selling is tantamount to fraud and market manipulation and must be stopped -- now,” Kaufman, a Delaware Democrat, said on the Senate floor yesterday, according to a press release posted on his Web site. “The uptick rule should have never been repealed.”

“To permit people to sell shares they don’t have and won’t be able to deliver turns investment into pure speculation,” Kaufman said. “The time has come for this practice to stop.”

They don't seem to understand this has nothing to do with the uptick rule. Naked short selling...but not the uptick rule. The Gang that couldn't shoot straight.

Picture Access

Menu at page top: Site Index -> Community Pictures

"St. Patrick's day is that big in the US, is it? Are the markets open?"

swissrobinson- Try trading on a few pints of green beer- removes the final traces of inhibition and puts you in the 'zone.' Just kidding, of course.

..although I do know of a couple of R&D departments in Silicon Valley where the standard research and development protocol seems to be five pints.

AA Divy cut, down -11% now

Took profits on 1/2 USD @ 14.06

1/3 out of gold miners again,
will look to reload on a move below $900 which gold looks itching to do quite soon.

USD moving up right now, gold looking a bit on the weak side.

no real indication that gold and the shares are ready to move up.

if gold does one of its sudden upward thrusts then we would need to see it move above $930 resistance to support anything.

volume on the shares is very weak, and a simple bar chart of daily volume shows a strong decline as the stocks broke their recent downtrend. but it would be too easy to simply interpret this as bearish action. RSI has not recovered above the 50 line for the GDX.

right now to me its neutral to negative, and today's action will give us a good idea going forward, i suspect a few plunges down in gold to eventually take us below $800. i get the sickening impression they will take gold down tommorow after bernanke's comments. (or at least send it higher for a few minutes to head-fake then send it plunging, which will be incorrectly interpreted as a sign of confidence in the market)

thought you guys might enjoy this: http://www.fixcnbc.com

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit!

>swissrobinson- Try trading on a few pints of green beer- removes the final traces of inhibition and puts you in the 'zone.' Just kidding, of course.

Does whisky count? I enjoy the odd tot of (admittedly Scottish) spirit.

I've never tried trading under the influence...

Sounds dangerous to one's financial health.

Twiggs comments on typical oil/gold price ratio suggesting a pullback and indicated by silver/platinum/palladium....yet oil is rising which should support inflation/gold. ???

Another technical view comes from Dave Landry, Ron Sen turned me onto Landry.
Everyone should sign up for his free "market in a minute" daily newsletter.
It's very informative. At anyrate, he see's the gold chart rolling over, which is hard to argue technically. The fundamentals are wide open depending on fear and how much AIG and the banks are lying to us regarding real losses in the end. More boiled frog to come.

Remember: It can't spread from housing/it's a soft landing/it's a mild recession/it's a slightly deeper recession/goldilocks is fine/where's goldilocks/it's only $700 billion/we need another $750 billion/we need....

Dang this hot tub is warm....

Anybody buying AA at these prices?
Thinking about writing some 5$ puts ... oct5$ going for 1.46

Yeah, I was thinking the reverse, oil/gold simply as the ratio, which usually has some affect on the other commodity/currency. I agree oil isn't going up because of inflation which we don't have, but could be encouraged in order to cause some inflation which the powers that be want, also some price impetus for conservation/alt energy. Not good for regular folks using gas/energy, so not really good for econ, yet they want inflation/to halt deflation....

The unborn, taxed without life? Priceless but not considered...they don't vote and their parents and grandparents are too meek to defend them or themselves.

This is why I'm less than sympathetic to those sensitive to Grassley's suggestions, as outlandish as he knows they are. He did moderate them this AM, but really, aren't these AIG people lucky we're not China? This would end very badly for them, there would be no discussion of keeping bonuses. There would be begging for life.

It might be a tad early to sell any precious metals just yet...

A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.

"It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."

"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."

http://tinyurl.com/dbh3dh

Taking profits on GLD APR 78 short [puts]. Keeping a few APR 83 short puts but net delta negative now with APR 101 and 104 short calls. I think the most likely direction for gold in the next week or so is down.

So far, broad market is absorbing last weeks's rally nicely and I think there is a lot of money getting antsy to go long. Couple that with the possibility the gov announces changes to FASB mark-to-market and a reinstatement of the uptick rule that effectively destroys the leveraged short ETFs.

If so, gold will take a hit. But even if announcements have not been made, they are effectively keeping a rein on gold going much higher from here. You may have noticed that continued negative news re: economy no longer causes selloffs.

In original post, I said, "Taking profits on GLD APR 78 short calls." I should have APR 78 short puts.

Did you guys hear about the AIG bonuses? 42 million went to the top 10 guys.

Somebody get me my bazooka, I'm ready to maim, if not kill.

ALOHA !!

The US TREASURY DAILY STATEMENT for last Friday, March 13th, shows the US government is in the hole by $125bil USD over the past five months of their fiscal year.

Every time I look at that STATEMENT I can see numbers that just do not add up! One of the worst is the line item "OTHER WITHDRAWALS" ... If this is what passes for ACCOUNTING in America then it really does not matter who is in charge at the US TREASURY!

On March 13th, the total OTHER WITHDRAWALS was $16.946 bil USD, yet if you total up the OTHER breakdown for that day they add up to $15.589bil USD. That is $1.357bil unaccounted for last Friday alone. Then if you go to the Year-To-Date(YTD)it is even far worse. There is $419.678bil USD unaccounted for.

Then ... the YTD amount of "UNCLASSIFIED WITHDRAWALS" now adds up to $257.586bil USD. Can you believe we live in a country that has an accounting line item "UNCLASSIFIED"? I doubt even ENRON was that brazen!

So lets add up the missing US TREASURY funds that are either "UNACCOUNTED" for or "UNCLASSIFIED" ... TOTAL = $677.264bil USD!!!

While everyone is in an uproar over AIG bonuses and the US CONgress and Bernanke are telling us all that the recession will be over this year the US TREASURY has a HUGE $677bil hole in its BOOKS!! I have to say if they ADMIT that hole exists in their PUBLIC statements then God only knows what the REAL number is!

I was watching a movie last night ... TOMMY BOY, a comedy with Chris Farley and David Spade. In the movie is a character named Ray Zalinsky, who is played by Dan Akroyd, and is an auto parts mogul. There is a part in the movie where Zalinsky talks about the AMERICAN PUBLIC ... He says, "What the American PUBLIC doesn't know is what makes them the American PUBLIC!" Then he laughs!

Now I am no idiot ... God knows I have sat in on some high powered behind the scenes contractor meetings on some huge multi-billion dollar public works projects and I can tell you that these CEOs and execs at some of the largest US General Contractor offices know exactly what they are doing and they plan it down to the last cent! These CHANGE ORDER negotiations I used to be involved with were nothing but a public rape of the US TAXPAYERS ... PERIOD! I used to have this one lighting(light fixture)supplier salesman come over to our offices every time we were bidding projects and no matter what day it was he eventually got around to saying "The PUBLIC are the last know!" He sold very high-end extruded aluminum lighting fixtures(like you see in museums) and had a racket going with the lighting engineers where he would write the specs in such a way as to exclude his competition, in exchange the engineers could bill the State for work they never did. This is why you end up with expensive museum lighting in kindergarten finger painting classes! Now if that sort of fraud is an every day occurrence on such minuscule levels as light fixtures/specs then what do you think is going on with $700bil worth of TARP? TRANSPARENCY? The US CONgress wouldn't know TRANSPARENCY if it was the nose on their face! Who could possibly decipher whether the US FED was telling the truth or not, even if they announced 100% TRANSPARENCY? Even a CONTRACTOR can "SPIN" a dime to look like a dollar!

The US BANKS are no different than those contractors I used to do business with. The END GAME is to screw the US TAXPAYER and enrich themselves! The only differences between US BANKS and Public Works Contractors is the US BANKS are way more adept at screwing TAXPAYERS and the product the US BANKS produce is virtually useless in application and durability for the masses. While Contractors build roads and schools and prisons the US BANKS build complex derivative "vehicles" on a road they built called "default"!

I have said since DAY ONE to let the US BANKS fail, let GM fail and let any entity, including the US CONgress, fail if they cannot stand on their own two feet like US TAXPAYERS are forced to do ... ITS THAT SIMPLE! What we have now in America is REVERSE DARWINISM where the least fit are the ones surviving. Such a system is doomed to fail ... that's EMPIRE!

The solution to all our problems does not lie over at Geitners office or Bernanke's office or Obama's office or Pelosi's office or even at Jon Stewart's office ... it lies right in the US Declaration Of Independence. We have DECLARED our Independence with this document so when will we as a Nation of WE THE PEOPLE ever claim it? Its NOT un-American for God's sake ... its our RIGHT as citizens to junk the entire system and start over!

It is as plain as the day that those in POWER now will not volunteer to dismantle their thrones, so we Americans ... the PEOPLE ... have but to decide if we want to be ruled or to be FREE ... Which is it? Talk is cheap ... and those in POWER would love to "talk story" and debate about the deceit and corruption and point fingers 25/8, yeah, they have everything to gain by delay tactics!

NOT GOOD MORNING AMERICA ... WAKE UP AMERICA!!

I suspect Liddy has some "knowledge" of the bailout dealings that quite a few on the gov side would rather NEVER come to light.

This will blow over... gov needs it to (which they really should have considered before feigning disgust).

Best thing possible for this country would be for Liddy to say **** it, resign, then turn whistleblower. Never happen, but it's definitely needed.

Hard to destroy what we all want. I want social equity. I want those who profited greatly from bad, questionable,legacy,predatory...whatever you want to call them;...I want those people to lose their jobs, lose their bonus, face criminal charges and be judged according to the laws of this land. Isn't that what Bill meant when he abraided President Obamas words re AIG. No new laws,no new taxes no new deductions no new regulations. Let us do well what we have on the books.
Just one of the sheeple who found this soapbox
peace

Any of you hear of a company called Searchlight? (SRCH)

According to a friend, they are a mining company that Jack Rivkin among others is very hot on. Anyone know anything? Kaimu?

Tried out some new screening ideas last night, found 7 stocks to study further. Lo and behold, it looks like at least half of them are busting-out today. Anyway, it's a nice change from looking at so many dog-charts.

No positions yet.

NYSE:HGG, NYSE:AZO, NYSE:FDO, NASDAQ:CERN, NASDAQ:STAR, NYSE:LFT, NASDAQ:TNDM

Any info would be appreciated as I begin my DD.

All I know, through a friend of his (ok, a former employee, it's different) Jack's that is is really hot on this company. Maybe Bill knows Jack, as Jack used to be a big mining guy prior to doing equities at Neuberger.

vb- OK, thanks. Just put in my first stop in many years.

Does anyone know of a sight that gives ATR for individual equities?

I did a quick perusal of some press releases. Looks like Searchlight is the owner of a large slag pile and are in the process of constructing a mill to begin processing the material. Also sounds like they are (they have) been refurbishing existing equipment on-site. They have about $6m cash at recent filing. Without any existing cash flow, these shares look pretty darn expensive (at a market cap of $230m US). I'll be keeping an eye out for developments.

Stockcharts does. Don't know if it's part of the free service, you might have to subscribe.

4 or 5 years ago? is this guys senile or naive or both?

Helicopter Ben hits the air waves?
Question is Why?

The corrupt government is the largest employer of ex-Goldman banksters?
Question is why?

March Madness in the markets?
Question is Why?

Geithner knew about the AIG bonus's months ago and did nothing?
Question is Why?

No one left in this government that wasn't paid for by Goldman Sacks?
Question is Why?

Government accounting filled with black holes?
Question is Why?

Workers loosing their jobs by the thousands?
Question is why?

Sharkie buying Canadian tar fields and Arkansas chicken factories?
Question is Why?

Congress fails to bring up for vote their automatic pay increases while the country falls deeper into a recession?
Question is Why?

Where are those pothole filling JOBS Mr. Obama?

Those answers are coming shortly! HA

Does anyone else see the double top in the U.S. Dollar? And the Treasury sales by foreign entities in January? I think it might be wise to initiate a dollar short investment. Is there something other than options that gives you more exposure to shorting the dollar than short UUP or long UDN?

I saw that last night also, teamfuego. Studying UUP, for e.g., it's not only a double-top, but a MACD negative divergence. On the other hand, it's heavily oversold right now and parked right above a key support level. Also, you're fighting against the trend that's been in place since last July. Finally, I don't really see the reward/risk in playing it on the short side if it breaks down hard, say below $25.97. Maybe there's better ways to profit on $ weakness? Gold? This Equity rally?

added later: This dip of the last six days also might just be a wee handle on a cup and handle which began early Dec?

Well I'm seeing oil now. I guess I have to wait patiently for metals, and then finally gold. Sigh.

Didn't McHugh just this past weekend say "it could rally 20-30% over the next coming weeks"? LOL... I always get the impression that the guy has both sides covered. It could rally, unless it plunges!

As far as the SP666 goes, what gives you that impression? Personally, I don't see that kind of pull back until the $USD turns around from its trend over the past week.

Sold my DOW for a short-term gain of 12%. I think I'm going to stop single-handedly trying to rescue the dogs of this market and focus on stocks of an entirely different character. No doubt DOW, and others, represent some sort of long-term value potential, but that sort is well-covered in my RRSP(401K) buy-and-hold stuff.

They are strong(especially large cap)...the market(s) are sinking, or so it appears.

Did not check earlier however.

I was watching Meredith Whitney today talking about how credit card limits are being reduced and she explained that for most people, credit cards function as a convenience that enables them to pay for things on the fly without having to check their bank account balance. However, that and Antal Fekete got me thinking. He says that Mother Nature obliges us to first save and then consume, during our 'harvest years', whereas Keysianism (citing Krugman's explanation of the current crisis as a nefarious 'savings glut') turns Mother Nature on her head and requires that we spend first and then instead of having savings, we pay interest on our purchases. Well I agree with Fekete, and I'm going to turn my old habit of buying first and paying almost 30% interest afterwords to saving at 30% interest per annum and buying later. Why didn't I think of that before?

(Ans. Because banks can charge 30% interest on plastic but only pay 1 or 2 % on savings.) We really need to bail those suckers out so they can continue to stand Mother Nature on her head and give them fat bonuses to retain their "talent" :( --the kind of talent that shoots you in the knees if you don't pay.

Haven't the banks already gotten their bailout funds from their usurious rates? Maybe they can pay us 30% on the Taxpayer Anal Rape Program funds we gave them in addition?

jsj- It's like building Legacy Homes on top of polluted/toxic land fill. I've heard of homebuilders warning new owners not to plant trees with roots that extend below a certain number of feet (to avoid ingesting contaminated produce), usually on former military bases rezoned for residential construction. And then, of course, there's Love Canal. Here we are with a 1.7t SuperFund to clean up toxic derivatives. It's almost better to abandon them altogether.

CHK and XTO are zooming while UNG is making new lows. Are people taking notice of our nat gas discussion yesterday (and Bill's comments about nat gas today) and loading up early? I am definitely not chasing the nat gas stocks now, while UNG is making new lows. Chasing them up might be OK when UNG turns around. Once CHK falls to the low of its 6-month range, I'll think about writing puts on it.

Wow, what was that spike? AT&T on the move...who else?

I'm not necessarily concerned about what the dollar will do long term. I'm more concerned with its short term trend.

Last time we saw it start to trend toward correcting, it soon headed below its 50 DMA and stayed there for a while. The start of that correction was late November, and we saw the market trend up from 7500 to 9k.

The USD is touching its 50 DMA now. Whether or not it breaks its support is a tell for me... at least short term.

Here in the $2.45 area.

I am in Boston on business at a IT conference run by one of my largest global clients.

Highlights:
It spending is going to remain flat in 09 for B2B.

The growth is still consumer.

The problem is the majority of the tech innovation is to consumer tech. And we know where the consumer is now.

Virtualization , green it, and cost optimization software, cloud computing are the leading areas for business it. Not hardware.

Companies who can can capture the consumer experience and grow interenationslly will be poised to be the next juggernaut.

I'll take 4%...

Deleted

The higher the elevation, the more passengers this train will take on. I think it's barely gotten started.

Just bought back at $1.05 1/2 of the FAS April $5 put contracts I sold at $1.70. Expecting to sell these puts again at a higher price on a market pullback in the next few days.

LIGHT VOLUME. Seems due for short term correction.
Buy 150 shares FAZ at 36.5 Limit Day

03/17/09 15:52 Filled 150 at 36.5

running SPX vs VIX, NYA against CPC, volume today vs yesterday, RUT vs SPX. None giving me warm fuzzies.

Not exactly my kind of setup, so not taking responsibility :) ... good luck!

FWIW.

http://forbestadvice.com/Money/Definitions/IBD_Fol...

ALOHA !!

What is money worth? I always hear people comment on the value of gold is only what people are willing to pay for it. But yet somehow they never understand that a US Dollar's value exists under the same dictates.

Today RON PAUL was on Bloomberg making sense ... I will repost my US MONEY FLOW CHART ...

US TREASURY >>> US FED >>> WE THE PEOPLE

Whats that entity sucking us dry in the MIDDLE? Its the MIDDLEMAN ...

So what is money worth ultimately? In the worst case scenario this is what paper money is worth ...

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJp6rmUYM

ELIMINATE THE US FED!!

When paper money is finally worthless how will the greedy rich people pay their guest workers to cook for them and clean their McMansions?
Eat or be eaten!

If you are going to follow the IBD model for Rally times then be attentive for the distribution days that IBD watches for also......

I have not looked through those glasses for awhile.

Maybe we shouldn't concern ourselves with the greedy rich ability to pay their guest workers tiny sums, we should concentrate on having the greedy rich pay their fair share of the tax burden! Then maybe they won't be so interested in hiring only guest workers!!

Yeah, its my usual mistake of believing in a coming move but getting the timing wrong. Live and learn :)

Does anyone know the best country for a Canadian citizen to relocate to with the intent of being a tax-smart place to live (such as Bill's paradise - the Bahamas). A suggestion of where to begin to look woudl suffice thus far, but I do not have friends that are tax specialists...

I would not want to renounce my Canadian citizenship, as well. My time-frame for such a move would be in ten years or so, but I would like to begin to plan the best path forwards soon. I call this one of my 40,000 foot level goals and want to make sure all the little things I do today moves in that direction.

Thanks in advance

"Why should any of us be forced into US INCOME TAX slavery in the first place?"

Well we shouldn't have US INCOME TAX slavery and I'd vote for that!!! Sales and consumption tax will just be huge as long as the US remains a welfare state though! Since we must have some form of taxation, Richie Rich should have to pay his fair share instead of getting a free ride.

"XLF trading around $8, investors are buying April 4, 5 and 6 puts. On Monday, the April 5 puts traded more than 60,000 contracts, indicating widespread expectations that XLF could fall some 40% and set a new 52-week low.

Investors have sold more than 70,000 of Citigroup's Sept. 3 call. The contracts essentially bet that Citigroup's $2.33 stock will not trade above $3 by September."

Vinod-

Wondering why your focus is on BUYERS of the April XLF puts, and WRITERS of the September C calls? I don't doubt the high volumes are significant, but is it possible the WRITERS of the April XLF puts and the BUYERS of the September C calls are placing the smarter bets?

That sounds good. No one knows when a breakout (or a breakdown) is going to happen. I just think the odds of a breakout are higher right now.

"I just think the odds of a breakout are higher right now."

Well, the XLF candlestick looks good except the volume is a bit low. The SPY candlestick looks about the same.

Following Bill's theme of the enduring affect of proponents of the market cycles, I would have thought it would be Consumer Discretionaries tommorow, but I'm sensing that it'll be energy(&materials?) wearing the party hat. Aussie markets looking strong overnight, first time in a while. Crude futures siting at $48.57 now, not seen in a long while, and, with other commodities, obviously forming a big-looping rounded bottom:

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/cfutu...

CP- Templeton's maxim, IMO, can be paraphrased and applied not just to bull markets, but in compressed form to any kind of rally (bear or otherwise).

"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria."

Plenty of skepticism right now.

It's probably anticipation of price stability, as fewer pesos make their way into the pockets of tens of thousands of corrupt police.

That's right. All the talk of bottoming while we slid down the "slope of hope" has given way to talk of [intermediate] topping, and it does feel more like a "wall of worry."

TORONTO, March 11 (Reuters) - Cameco Corp's (CCO.TO) chief executive said on Wednesday the company may consider acquisitions in the $2 billion range, and predicted a supply crunch due to industry-wide development cuts and questions about Russian government uranium sales.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idAFN11...

But what was absolutely amazing, 2nd_avenue, was how almost everyone here, who been dabbling in FXP for months before, missed the insane rise of FXP during the Oct-Nov meltdown and then failed to spot the amazing opportunity to short it post the crisis. Methinks, thanks to David, and others, and just the novelty experience of that time, we'll not miss it again, in FXP, and the other Ultras.

Mac- Insane it was. In 5 trading days it shot up to 180 from 90. You had a few seconds to catch 180. The following day it closed at 118, and has basically never looked back at 3 digits since. To be fair, most of us were too shell-shocked by the October market drop to play it anyway.

OK this just came out ..

IMO, this marks the new low of this Treasury Secretary, which doesn't reflect well on the new administration team.

http://tinyurl.com/dgt2zc

CP- Looking at the average After hours volume for TNA for the past 3 months you might be right.

The last day of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/17/seattl...

"In Seattle, the Post Intelligencer's cross-town rival, the Seattle Times, is fighting for its life. Its publisher, Frank Blethen, warned in an email to managers last week that the current quarter "will probably be the all-time bad one in my career/lifetime". Blethen said there was little pleasure in picking up the PI's readers: "We find no joy in the loss of any journalistic voice.""

ALOHA !!

All these Harvard guys ever do is just "shuffle the deck"! They have become so enamored with the "rank and privilege" that they fail to even see the basics ... ITS NOT THEIR MONEY! They like HB&B just spend their entire careers playing MONOPOLY with OPM!

I took heat here way before OBAMA was ever elected for daring to say that he would not bring any "REAL" HOPE or CHANGE ... Its one thing to talk about it on a campaign trail, then it is 1000% tougher to deliver! In essence every President we have ever had excelled at only one thing ... GETTING ELECTED!

The current political and financial problems we are now facing have been building up like a huge tsunami of PROMISES that started many, many decades ago with long forgotten elected leaders back in 1913.

The more we abrogate responsibility for our lives to far off Washington DC the less REAL WEALTH any of us, including the rich, possess! The two party aristocracy is the root cause of our ills and to put them in charge of the "cure" is like putting Jack The Ripper in charge of CSI!

Lao Tzu 6th Century BC ... "The real art of governing consists, so far as possible, in doing nothing."

I would stand up and applaud OBAMA if he followed Lao Tzu's advice, but he won't because he was groomed by Henry Kissinger, the ultimate "meddler" of failed policy!

How many kids in America died for Kissinger's agenda? Some 58,000 ... LBJ in his latter years after his Presidency ended, struggled with that and I believe it finally killed him ... Kissinger though, must be a psychopath, because his failures in Vietnam and the Middle East just seem to roll right off his back!

OBAMA has packed his advisors full of Wall Street thugs and US FED deadbeats! That is not even remotely close to CHANGE or HOPE! But then again who do these Ivy Leaguers in DC work for anyway! It sure as hell isn't WE THE PEOPLE!

Its the MONEY STUPID! Always has been!

http://ronsen.blogspot.com/2009/03/financial-revol...

The Show Trial begins today...but the target rescued (Goldman via The Paulson Identity) doesn't appear on the stand...

"Signed a big contract today. Frankly I'm more happy for my guys than anything else."

Mark- Fantastic!

So let me understand-we give them 40Bil-they give back 165Mil (0.4%) AND the people still keep the bonus's??!! How about just saying no bonus. You didn't earn it and I know there is a contract but you know what-see me in court if you don't like it. When can we get management that can manage?

Betting this train picks up steam...

I know a lot of people here don't care for Spitzer out of disdain for his double standards, but his opinion on the AIG-GS connection holds weight. The Slate link n2s posted is worth reading.

Thanks N2S,

It seems apparent that the bonus fiasco was a smokescreen to draw attention away from the fact that the AIG TARP money is being used to repay GS and others for their participation in the CDO fraud. While all other segments of society and other market participants suffer, HB&B gets a 100 per cent refund!

I was a supporter of Obama but think it's time to draw a line in the sand. His administration must have a complete understanding of what is going on here - the rape and pillage of the US Treasury by the banking elite. Unless Obama walks the talk and takes action to shut down this fraud and put the taxpayer's money back in government coffers to the benefit of the People, I'm afraid there will be blood in the streets. Does the President really think the people will accept the notion that because of the financial crisis there are no dollars left for the social programs he was voted into office to put in place?