fabijo's account talk

[Birchtree]

It's now all about confidence and not fundamentals - I'm still holding.

 

[fabijo]

It's now all about confidence and not fundamentals - I'm still holding.

I'm still buying!

 

[McDuck]

Oh, market, you disappoint me. Couldn't you go any lower? I know you got more gravity than that. Only 6% down??? C'mon! Make it at least 10% tomorrow, then you'll give us the shock and awe we want. To make it extra special, go down 15 to 20% tomorrow.

You've been 100% C-fund since 9/24/08, right?

 

[fabijo]

You've been 100% C-fund since 9/24/08, right?

Yup. And still 100% C fund. I'm not leaving.

 

[fabijo]

What are we going to do when we figure that the currency system isn't going to work anymore? Ron Paul asked Bernanke this yesterday:



I have no idea.

 

[fabijo]

From Zogby.com
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642

Survey finds most Obama voters remembered negative coverage of McCain/Palin statements but struggled to correctly answer questions about coverage associated with Obama/Biden

The 12-question, multiple-choice survey found questions regarding statements linked to Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice-presidential running-mate Sarah Palin were far more likely to be answered correctly by Obama voters than questions about statements associated with Obama and Vice-President–Elect Joe Biden. The telephone survey of 512 Obama voters nationwide was conducted Nov. 13-15, 2008, and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points.

A video sample:



All of this was conducted for a forthcoming documentary on how the news media impacted the 2008 election.
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

 

[dannyboy]

From Zogby.com
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642

Survey finds most Obama voters remembered negative coverage of McCain/Palin statements but struggled to correctly answer questions about coverage associated with Obama/Biden



A video sample:



All of this was conducted for a forthcoming documentary on how the news media impacted the 2008 election.
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

:worried:
The elections over, Let's keep moving forward.

 

[fabijo]

:worried:
The elections over, Let's keep moving forward.

My interest in this has nothing to do with who won or lost. I meant to post something relating to how people get their info; I'm sure similar results would come from McCain voters. I'm more interested in seeing how television/magazines/newspapers play a huge role in shaping the public's opinions, while keeping everyone feeling as though they are making informed choices in their lives.

 

[fabijo]

Besides, I'd say to move forward you need to study the past.

 

[fabijo]

Bernanke May Find Deflation Is Back as Fed Concern
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=awlaebKn1pSQ

Five years after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke helped stamp out the risk of deflation, the threat is returning as the financial crisis and a worsening economic slump pull inflation lower.

Fed policy makers now predict the U.S. economy will contract until the middle of next year, according to minutes of their Oct. 28-29 meeting released yesterday in Washington. Government figures showed that consumer prices excluding food and fuel costs fell for the first time since 1982 last month.

So, it's perfectly fine for prices to keep moving up and to skyrocket, but it's a huge concern when prices go down.

 

[fabijo]

Woohoo! What a ride!

 

[fabijo]

Nationwide CEO to Get $24 Million as Customers Pay Merger Tab
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asCQzPSMMM_g

William ``Jerry'' Jurgensen, chief executive officer of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., is in line for a $23.5 million payout when his firm buys out shareholders of its retirement-savings subsidiary.

Nationwide's customers, who own the company, are picking up the tab.

The nation's fourth-biggest home insurer agreed in August to pay almost $2.5 billion, or $52.25 a share, for the 34 percent of the Nationwide Financial Services Inc. unit that it doesn't own. Jimmy Bhullar, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, calls the price ``excessive.''

The higher the price, the more the 57-year-old Jurgensen gets, because he is CEO of both companies and holds almost 1 million stock options in Nationwide Financial that convert to cash if a merger goes through.

 

[fabijo]

Are Pentagon Nerds Developing Packs of Man-Hunting Killer Robots?
http://www.alternet.org/mediacultur...cks_of_man-hunting_killer_robots/?page=entire

The Pentagon's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program recently sent out a call for contractors to design a pack of robots whose main purpose would be to track down what the SBIR ominously referred to as "noncooperative human subject."

According to the SBIR offer, the "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" would need "a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment." The robots would be led by a human commander using "semiautonomous map-based control." For good measure, the offer added that there "has also been significant research in the game-theory community involving pursuit/evasion scenarios." According to the offer, the robots should weight a little over 200 pounds apiece, and there should be three to five of them assigned to their human overlord.

 

[fabijo]

Now here is a speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on November 21, 1979. Exactly 29 years ago. Congress was considering bailing out Chrysler and here is some of what Congressman Ron Paul had to say back then:

The Chrysler Bailout
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul492.html

One of the things that bothers me most about this entire discussion is that it centers around only what is obvious. Saving 100,000 jobs at Chrysler is obvious; losing 100,000 jobs, one by one around the country is not obvious, but they will nonetheless be lost, should aid to Chrysler pass.

The average industrial worker earns half of what the average Chrysler workers earns, and under the UAW contract, the Chrysler workers will be receiving a $500 million pay and benefits rise over the next three years. I have always thought that businesses in trouble cut costs; the Chrysler workers will receive far more in wage increases alone over the next ten years than this bailout amounts to. That (and other facts) would indicate to me that the Chrysler workers have not made any sacrifices and that they hope, through federal aid, to maintain their relatively high wages at the expense of the lower-paid workers in this country. We are being asked to shift the burden from the relatively well-off workers at Chrysler to the relatively worse-off workers throughout America. A Chrysler bailout will be a shifting of burdens that should be borne by those involved.

It is our responsibility to diagnose the Chrysler disease accurately. Instead, we are acting like political quacks, prescribing potions to treat symptoms, while the cause of those symptoms rages on unabated. Chrysler is not unique; it is merely the prototype, the harbinger, of crises to come. Dr. Greenspan testified that the most likely sequence of events, in his view, would be federal loan guarantees followed by a Chrysler failure anyway. Unless the disease is correctly diagnosed, the potions we prescribe will kill the patient.

Last year there were 200,000 bankruptcies in this country, according to U.S. News & World Report. Yet we have selected only the largest for our aid. This is discrimination of the crassest sort. We ignore the smaller victims of this government’s policies simply because they are small. Only the largest, those with the most clout, the most pull, get our attention. This aristocracy of pull is morally indefensible. What answer can be given to the small businessman driven into bankruptcy by government regulations when he asks: "You bailed out Chrysler, why not me?" No justification can be given for this discrimination between the powerful and the powerless, the big and the small.

It is an axiom of our legal system that all citizens are to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. That axiom is violated daily by our tax laws, and now by this proposed corporate welfare plan for Chrysler. Apparently some citizens are more equal than others. That is a notion I reject, and I hope you do, too. I urge you to reject this proposal for all the reasons I have stated.

 

[presskh]

Now here is a speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on November 21, 1979. Exactly 29 years ago. Congress was considering bailing out Chrysler and here is some of what Congressman Ron Paul had to say back then:

The Chrysler Bailout
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul492.html

I like his reasoning. Unfortunately, we don't have enough people in Congress like him.

 

[ATCJeff]

I like his reasoning. Unfortunately, we don't have enough people in Congress like him.

Be careful, sometimes he can be way out there.

 

[fabijo]

Here he is in 1988, getting bombarded by Morton Downey Jr and crowd because he wanted to legalize drugs. I believe there was conversation on this board about legalizing marijuana.

 

[fabijo]

I just got this in an email today. The original S.U.V.

 

[fabijo]

You've all heard the news. The government is bailing out Citigroup. I honestly don't think this will hold up the market. Here are some of the terms of the bailout according to CNN Money:

Government will guarantee losses on more than $300 billion in troubled assets and make a fresh $20 billion injection.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/23/news/companies/citigroup/index.htm?postversion=2008112406

In return for the latest intervention, the government will receive an additional batch of preferred shares - $20 billion for its direct investment and $7 billion as compensation for the loan guarantees. Citigroup will pay an 8% dividend rate on those shares.

So, with Citigroup suffering lossses right now, they still have to worry about paying an 8% rate on these shares.

Citigroup will be prohibited from paying out a dividend of more than a penny per share for the next three years and will face limits on executive compensation.

So, nobody is going to want to purchase their common stock since the dividend is nothing. That should bring their shares down significantly. The huge surge this morning is just noise. Executives are going to find better paying jobs since they won't get the huge bonuses they are used to.

Citigroup will be expected to adjust mortgages for troubled borrowers

Further write downs.

Under the terms of the Citigroup rescue package, the bank would be on the hook for the first $29 billion in losses on the covered assets, which includes mostly loans backed by residential and commercial mortgages. It would cover 10% of losses above that amount, with the government shouldering the rest.

They will still suffer losses, all the while paying an 8% dividend rate. Soon, the government will own Citigroup.

 

[fabijo]

Awesome! Amidst this crisis, I got a 0% APR credit card offer in the mail this weekend. 0% apr on balance transfers and purchases for 15 months for a credit limit of $7,500! Woohoo! Free money for the next year!