Shutters Are Closed Up and Down Main Street but Wall Street is in the Money

By D H Smith, on January 12th, 2010

Shutters are closed up and down Main Street but Wall Street is in the money. How could that be? The bull market in stocks has gone farther for longer than I thought possible.

Just surveying the salient points of the economic situation in 2009 led me to a more bearish view. The anti-business party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress, and they are turning the bad US fiscal situation disastrous. They are in love with budget-busting, price-increasing government solutions: stimulus programs that are really giveaways to Democrat constituencies, universal health care, a cap-and-trade energy regime. But in the hard-pressed profit-seeking sector, labor faces an employment outlook as bad as any time in the last twenty-five years, and the government’s response is make-work schemes that waste money and; management is unable to plan in the rapidly changing tax and regulatory environment.

So again, what possible reason is there for the stock market to rally this hard? It must be discounting a much better day ahead, a day that according to a strict economic accounting is not easy to see. I said in July:

Some of this bounce is almost certainly due to the business and investment interests of this country re-assessing President Obama’s grand and ambitious schemes and concluding that they represent impossible over-reach. Rightly or wrongly, they came around to the view that most of this stuff will never come to pass. On this view, Obama has expressed extreme initial positions just as a negotiating tactic to get more than he could with conventional bipartisanship, but less than he asks. Republicans and responsible Democrats in Congress will push back on the crazier ideas. The American people will not go along, will resist with mute passive aggressiveness and loud argumentation, once the full implications are clear. And if it is not just a tactic, if Obama really insists on every bit of what he says, Republicans will gain enough seats in 2010 to apply the brakes, if not an outright majority. One way or another, the entire Obama agenda can and will be resisted.

As the popularity of Barack Obama, congressional Democrats, their radical leftist economic schemes and unconstitutional power grabs plumb new depths, this is seeming more and more likely. They have mounted a counter-revolution to the American Revolution, and Americans are not standing for it.

Without doing anything to deserve it, the nominally pro-business, nominally loyal opposition Republicans stand to benefit from the ass-whipping American voters are fixing to administer to Democrats in November. To really capitalize, the Republican leadership needs to learn from the Tea Party movement, which has emerged over their heads as the true opposition to the schemes of the left. If the leadership gets smart and understands that the American people demand a response to fiscal sanity, national security, and constitutional government, their recovery can be remarkable and enduring.

Of course the poet WB Yeats used the language better than I can when he told his political opponents in the Seanad Éireann:

You victory will be short, and your defeat final, and when it comes this country will be transformed.

Ardently to be wished.



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Starving The Vampire Squids

By Trace Mayer, on November 16th, 2009

The vampire squids of Wall Street and Washington DC are parasitic organisms and you are locked in mortal combat with them.  They desire to suck all the value they can from you and then toss your carcass aside.  As with most parasites they prefer subtle tactics that do not attract attention.

But now the spotlight is being directed towards them and individual humans are becoming increasingly aware of their status as human livestock to be feasted upon and slaughtered by these parasitic vampire squids.  Increasing numbers are declaring their independence from these nefarious parasites.  There are a few simple things you can do to defend yourselves from these repulsive psychopathic parasitic vampire squids and assert your sovereignty.

IMPROVE YOUR INFORMATION DIET

If an individual sustains life by eating low quality junk food then they are more susceptible to disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, inflammation and a host of other health problems.  A few small changes in one’s physical diet can have a tremendous effect on one’s health and general feeling wellbeing.

So likewise your time and attention is extremely valuable.  Most Americans watch 5-10 hours of television per week.  A significant problem with television and corporate media is the degree of misinformation and subliminal programming.

A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, belief systems and value systems.

Because of the consensual nature of watching television you let your intellectual guard down and are more susceptible to the lies, misinformation and subtle tactics of programming that are engaged in by the archaic media.  In most cases, their corporate profits are in a direct conflict of interest to your happiness.  A blatant example would be the tobacco industry.

By removing TV and corporate media from your daily information diet you can reallocate a large amount of your time to more productive uses, start a new hobby, develop additional skills or a host of other things.  By purifying your information diet and purging the toxic and harmful influences the probability for having a happier and more fulfilled life increases.  As many people have been doing this the newspapers have been evaporating at rapid speeds.

CEASE RELATIONSHIPS WITH CORRUPT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS

Banks, brokerages, insurance companies, cable operators, credit card issuers, etc. are almost completely corrupt.  You cannot afford to have contact or business relationships with this infestation of parasitic vampire squids.  You cannot afford to allow these liars, thieves and murders to handle your money and data.

Whenever you do business or transact with a corporation who has access to your data then your privacy is greatly diminished or removed through the use of transactional databases.  Because of the highly invasive nature of these tools I think it is extremely important that you think seriously about who you reveal data to and who you will allow to access your data.

Dr. Colin Ross, a psychologist with CCHR International, a mental health watchdog, reveals findings from 15,000+ pages of documents disclosed under the Freedom Of Information Act in his book Military Mind Control about inhumane treatment by psychologists employed by the CIA and major pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly which first manufactured LSD under government contract.

Although there are some laws in place regarding privacy we see how well the traitorous vampire squids of Washington DC behave when executing their oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution’.  So assume there is no privacy and work actively to protect it and learn how to vanish.

IMPECCABLE COMPLIANCE WITH COSTUMED CRIMINAL GANGS

The traitorous vampire squids strut around in their costumes extorting your hard earned wealth while they regularly flaunt the law and like Tim ‘tax cheat’ Geithner they willingly evade the taxes levied on themselves.  Of course, there is a massive industry that derives revenue from involuntary incarceration.  Your freedom is in conflict with their profits.  This is a reason why America has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world with over 7.2 million adults on probation, parole or in either jail or prison.

While Americans like to sing that they are the ‘land of the free’ it is really the home of the incarcerated.  To avoid being engulfed by this massive police state you should be properly trained on how to interact with the psychologically damaged and intellectually retarded criminal gangs that masquerade in costumes as peace officers.

For example, in 1999 in Jordan v. City of New London Robert Jordan of Waterford, CT, a corrections officer, received worldwide attention when his application to the New London, CT Police Department was rejected on the grounds that candidates scoring too high on intelligence tests become bored with police work and often quit. Jordan scored a 33 on the Wonderlic intelligence test, a feat equivalent to having an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of 125. New London’s policy is limited to interviewing candidates with scores between 20 and 27.

Consequently, it is extremely wise when one is unjustifiably subject to these presidents, kings, rulers or magistrates to be impeccably compliant with their extortions and threats.  This compliance is recommended not because of some faux moral duty like Hitler’s perverted interpretation of Romans 13 but instead because if a robber sticks a loaded gun to your head and says ‘Your wallet or your life.’ then it is usually a better outcome to lose only your wallet.

But make no mistake; the robber’s demand is immoral and therefore you are under no moral duty to obey and under most state’s self-defense statutes you would be justified in using lethal force against the aggressor.  America is the largest police state in the history of the world with highly complex rules and very little privacy protection.  Therefore it is wise to never violate the various gang rules.

REPOSITION ASSETS

We live in economic warfare and as with any game there is a goal:  equity and control.

Most people underinvest in their health and knowledge with poor physical and information diets.  With malnourished human intellectual capital it is very difficult to be successful.  To reposition your assets you will need your health, knowledge, intelligence and the ability to think and act.

We currently live in an illusory economy but because The Great Credit Contraction has begun we are transitioning to a real economy where individuals want hard assets.  The Chinese are on hunting trips for real assets.  They are exchanging their illusory Federal Reserve Note for farmland, oil, gas, water, etc.  So it is wise to shift out of financial assets and into tangible assets or securities that have solid economics behind them.

LONG TERM TRENDS

The trend is your friend.  The vampire squids of Wall Street, with shills like Jim Cramer, attempt to goad you into playing follow the vampire squid.  This results in a lot of people being so busy trading they are unable to fundamentally analyze what they own.  The more fractionalized your mind is from rabid trading the easier it is for the vampire squids to harvest you.

Precious metals are in a long-term secular bull market and fiat currencies are in a long-term secular bear market.  Certificates of confiscation will evaporate your wealth.  High quality farmland, food and clean water are becoming increasingly scarce and important.  Jim Rogers analyzes and discusses the reasons in Hot Commodities.  The old saying is, ‘The trend is your friend’.

REVOLUTION

Sure, you can buy gold hoping to make a profit or even protect your purchasing power.  There are plenty of objective reasons for doing so.   For example, those who followed the advice on RunToGold would have significantly more purchasing power given platinum has risen from $1,118 to $1,375.  So likewise the analysis has been provided with silver’s slight backwardation and the fundatmentals for buying platinum.

But there are more important reasons for buying the precious metals.  When you own the monetary metals you own sovereign wealth.  In effect, you have declared independence and are fighting all the central banks and vampire squids in the world.

There are two ways to fight a revolution and assert your sovereignty against immoral criminal gangs costumed in government regalia:  guns and currency.  The use of fiat currency allows for confiscation through inflation which is a form of taxation without representation and without due process of law.

Are you upset about Congress passing the health car bill?  Does the cash for clunkers program of destroying working vehicles annoy you?  What about privatizing the gains and socializing the losses to the tune of trillions of dollars that is used to bailout the vampire squids of Wall Street?  Does the closed-source software and the murky voting process cause you to doubt the veracity of the political system?

One method of peaceful protest is buying gold or some other commodity currency such as silver or platinum.  Doing so is a vote of no confidence in the current system.

As a peacemaker I hate to observe the other method which involves violence and will only result in undesirable consequences and darker days.  There is a big difference between starving parasitic vampire squids and terminating them.  We all know the golden rule : He who has the gold makes the rules. One of the reasons the vampire squids are able to harvest the American people so efficiently is because the American people have no gold.

As Mark Dice found out they would not even buy a 1 ounce gold coin for $50!  Perhaps that is the most bullish aspect of this secular bull market in the precious metals.

CONCLUSION

Parasitic vampire squids are swarming around trying to harvest both the wealth you produce and you.  To protect yourself take control of your information diet, cease relationships with corrupt people and institutions, maintain impeccable compliance with the arbitrary rules and regulations of the costumed criminal gangs, understand the long-term trends, reposition your assets, implement provident living principles in your ordinary daily activities, and establish your independence from these parasitic vampire squids.  Declare your independence!

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Stabilizing Wall Street: Are We There Yet?

By Cheryl Grey, on October 3rd, 2008

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s original proposal called for $700 billion to purchase toxic mortgage-backed assets from troubled banks. Other than quarterly reports to various Congressional committees, the proposal specifically allowed no oversight to any actions taken by the Secretary of the Treasury; he asked that the government hand over $700 billion and let him get on with the job of salvaging the U.S. economy before the financial system collapsed.

Not surprisingly, Paulson’s initial proposal was termed “unacceptable,” and Congress met to discuss alternatives. The next proposed solution, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA), was much more cautious, awarding the Secretary merely $250 billion, with the remainder of the requested funds withheld until it was proven they would be needed. The EESA prohibited golden parachutes for officers of troubled corporations, instead allowing clawbacks and lowering tax deduction limits on compensation above $500,000. It established a bipartisan oversight committee and options for recovering funds should it appear the program is losing money five years down the road.

The vote in the House of Representatives was tight, but the EESA failed 228–205. Despite being prepared by members of both parties, it proved much more acceptable to Democrats, who voted 140 to 95 in favor of the bill, than to Republicans, who voted 133 to 65 against it.

Undaunted, the Senate added two more provisions to the bill—to temporarily raise the FDIC insurance limit to $250,000 and to allow the SEC to suspend “fair value” accounting rules—and then attached it to several other bills: one for alternative energy production tax credits, one to give insurance parity to mental health disorders and one extending a series of tax reductions for various special interest groups. The Senate passed the swollen bill 74–25, with Democrats voting 40 to 10 in its favor and Republicans voting the same, 34 to 15.

Meanwhile, everybody else is asking, do we really need a bill?

Crunch, Crunch

As to the credit crunch’s effect on the U.S. business climate, the current evidence is mixed. The September results of the Institute for Supply Management’s monthly survey of Chicago’s purchasing managers indicated no disruption in their usual financial management. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve’s most recent (July 2008) survey of senior lending officers reported that more than 65% of domestic banks have raised their lending standards for personal and business loans in all categories, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Meanwhile, the indications of the U.S. economy sliding into a true recession are mounting. Advance orders for durable goods by businesses fell 4.5% by $9.9 billion between July and August, while new orders of all manufactured goods fell 4.0% and new home sales fell 11.5% over the same time frame. Considering how far the real estate market has already fallen, this is not good news. Home prices in Phoenix and Las Vegas have fallen over 29% between July 2008 and July 2007, and do we really want to know what Friday’s September unemployment rate will be?

Economic Sneezes

Here’s a bit of historical perspective. A financial crisis exploded in Scandinavian Europe in the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed and, therefore, quit importing Finland’s and Sweden’s goods. The crash had been preceded by some years of deregulation leading to loose lending criteria and under-capitalization among banks, which sounds ominously familiar. During the four years in question, real GDP in Finland contracted by 12% and unemployment skyrocketed to 16%.

With the decoupling theory laid to rest, four similar years for the U.S. economy would lead to a worldwide recession.

Stock markets around the world are whipsawing, the yield on U.S. short-term government bonds fell so low it was briefly negative and commercial paper markets froze, with U.S. commercial debt falling by $94.9 billion in just the past week. The TED spread, the difference between what the U.S. Treasury pays to borrow money for three months and what everybody else pays, which is usually well below 100 basis points and which is a great indicator of financial market instability, rose to over 360 basis points in an historical first.

These are not merely the assets of Wall Street fat cats. Commercial paper represents short-term funding and working capital for more than 1,700 major U.S. corporations, which directly impacts unemployment across most industrial sectors, while stock market and bond losses hit many average Americans’ retirement accounts.

So who’s going to give first?



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