Financial topics

[John]

You forgot the math course, that teaches how to do simple math
computations for the real world. For example, if a stock's share
price is $18, and earnings per share is $1, then the price/earnings
ratio is 12.

[Higgenbotham]

John, I looked through our complete catalog of courses and this may be the one.

Distortional financial computations and data massage 206. This is a mid level course that builds upon the balance sheet distortions and Ponzi finance covered in the 100 level courses. This course is especially valuable for those in the financial media or anyone in a financial institution who interfaces with the media. It is not necessary to understand financial computations in order to master this course, but only to convincingly discuss numbers that are pretty much randomly generated.

[gerald]

government shut down ------
Some interesting comments from --- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-0 ... ark?page=1

Bureau Of Economic Analysis, USDA Websites Go Dark
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tue, 10/01/2013 - 09:41 | 4009455proLiberty
proLiberty's picture
Had government employees not done a thing, the servers used for these web sites would have continued to run until some failure took them off line. It is clear that the last bit of "work" done by the furloughed bureaucrat minions was to "work" at putting up a shutdown message. This is along the lines of closing the national parks. Make the public feel the pain of a shutdown in as direct a manner as possible. But what else would we expect from the Governing Class?


Tue, 10/01/2013 - 09:47 | 4009485Zer0head
Zer0head's picture
that's a pretty cool trick

with the tens of thousands of pages on USDA.gov

they have it all re routed to the funding lapse page

I wonder how many thousands of hours were spent getting this dark site set up

with a bit of work you can get to a cached page but they have turned off all of the images and css

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... JIJ:www.us...

good work .gov instead of leaving a site up you sabotage it for political gain


Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:09 | 4009596SIOP
SIOP's picture
"...good work .gov instead of leaving a site up you sabotage it for political gain"

As a web programmer I couldn't agree more.


Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:03 | 4009571Hindsight2020
Hindsight2020's picture
It took more effort to put this page up than it would have for them to let the existing site to continue as it was last night. This is going to turn into a spectacle if they're already making it this big of a deal.

[gerald]

Economist Karl Denninger has gone John Galt. http://www.silverdoctors.com/karl-denni ... john-galt/

"I refuse to continue to silently accede to, and actively fund through my drive to acquire that measured in and rewarded by “wealth”, the rampant theft and fraud that has and continues to take place in the economic sector, especially in the banking and health care areas of our economy. None of this could ever exist except through the insertion of the guns of government up the noses of the American people.
I can no longer live with being one of the better sources of funding for these abuses. This decision did not come lightly, easily or quickly. But I’m convinced it’s the right choice as things stand today.
In short, if you want it in two words, it’s this: I’m done."

"I therefore choose to reduce the ability of our government to tax my income to as close to an effective zero as I can reasonably achieve in keeping with what I enjoy doing,


The whole post is an interesting read
from the comment section ------------

AGXIIK says:
October 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM
On a small note, I know exactly what Karl is talking about. Recent actions speak to what Karl’s made abundantly clear.
My business footprint is down well over 80%, largely by intention with taxable income reduced by same; now at the SCREW YOU UNCLE SAM LEVEL OR LOWER. Zero income taxes paid in 2013.

hmm --- how much of this kind of action has impacted the general economy?
Pump priming by the government has accomplished what? How many commentators have asked the question, Why has the economy been so anemic and for so long? -------- Is the above a major contributor? hmmmmmm?

[aedens]

http://suntzuart.com/sun-tzu-art-of-war/chapter-01

by 2020. They are:

1) Russian Federation (1992)
2) European Union (1994)
3) African Union (2002)
4) North American Union (future)
5) South American Union (future)
6) Mediterranean Union (future)
7) East Asian Union (future)
8) Central Asian Union (future)
9) South Asian Union (future)
10) Pacific Union (future)

[John]

What political party does Barack Obama belong to?

[Higgenbotham]

Obama, who earlier in the day said he was "exasperated" by the shutdown, "made clear to the leaders that he is not going to negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit to pay the bills Congress has already incurred," said the White House.

If an individual owes more on his credit card than he can pay, he can call up the bank and demand that his credit limit be raised, and that his demand is not negotiable? I mean, he can ask the bank to raise his credit limit. Obama can ask Congress to raise the debt limit. That doesn't mean they have to. If Congress doesn't, Obama can work with them to cut expenses and balance the budget. It's pretty simple. What gives Obama the right to demand unlimited debt?

The problem in my mind boils down to the same problem many of the Boomers and X'ers have. Obama doesn't want to do his job and doesn't know how to do his job. If Congress doesn't raise the debt limit, his job is to balance the budget and he doesn't know how to balance a budget. Obama has admitted on national television that he can't help his daughter with 7th grade math. How would he ever be able to balance the federal budget?

So instead he stomps his feet like a petulant child and makes demands that he has no right to make.

Even as President Obama insists that he would be powerless to save the economy from catastrophe should Congress fail to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, some law professors say he does have options.

There's no catastrophe here except for the fact that we have national leadership that doesn't know how to do their jobs. That's what has created the catastrophe. And they are not going to learn how to do their jobs anytime soon, we can be assured of that.

Really, the best way to end this is to shut 'er down and not bring it (the part that can't be paid for) back up. That would result in the least amount of pain in the long run.

The circled area on the chart shows what has happened to the dollar since Bernanke announced the "no taper" on September 18. Given where the economy is, the continuation of the "no taper" policy will, I believe, cause the dollar to collapse for real this time around vs the false scare that happened in early 2011. There may be some more inflation due to this but I believe the economy will seize up before it gets to the point of hyperinflation, whether that is triggered now by the debt ceiling impasse or more likely is due to some other trigger in the near future. From there, it will be necessary for the leaderhip to restructure the system in order to save it and we know they are incapable of that, so the political system will have to change too.

history.jpg (30.12 KiB) Viewed 6439 times

As far as the stock market goes, if the high was put in on September 19, history shows a test of the high in most cases after 10-20 trading days. Below is a list of some of the important highs since 2007 with the number of trading days after the high where the failed test of the high occurred.

July 2007 all time high (at the time) 14
October 2007 all time high (which held until 2013) 14
May 2008 12
April 2010 5 (flash crash occurred 8 trading days after the high)
May 2011 20
July 2011 10 (this was followed by the August panic)
April 2012 20
September 2012 15
May 2013 18

Currently, the stock market (S&P 500) made a low 10 trading days after the September 19 high and then rebounded on day 11 (Friday). If past patterns hold, there could be a continued rebound next week to trading day 12-15 after the high. The market seems nervous and jerky like it did before the flash crash of May 2010. I suspect if there is going to be a crash it may start out big and unexpected like the May 2010 crash did, and not too long after any rebound high that occurs next week. That would fit in with the debt ceiling timeline.

It seems like everyone has been put to sleep by the continuous and temporarily successful can kicking that has taken place over the past 4 1/2 years. That may only serve to make the crisis more violent when it erupts, which I think it going to do soon.

[Marc]

I do agree that there is plenty of blame to go around with both the Republicans and Democrats in regards to the extreme difficulty that the United States is experiencing in finding political consensus. However, based upon what I am discerning, I feel that even if Obama were willing to pony up very deep cuts to non-Obamacare Federal programs in order to save Obamacare, that there would still be the libertarian/individualist/paleoconservative contingent in the US House of Representatives which would not be willing to strike a Federal funding deal with Obama. I can understand Obama's position on this: if he were willing to eviscerate Obamacare, there might be quite a while before any US President could pass a near-universal healthcare program. (Yes, I know that Obamacare was designed to fail and is full of flaws, but the reader likely knows that.)

I do respectfully feel that the Fed can come to the rescue for at least a few years more, almost regardless of whatever happens — but that eventually the Fed's tools will produce an overly-spooked market or overly-serious inflation if a certain threshold is passed. At that juncture, we may see the Federal Government deciding to "manage" the nation's pension money as a stopgap measure. A fractious Congress and public will become even more so.

Thanks, Higgie and all, for the cogent insights. —Regards, Marc

[Higgenbotham]

However, based upon what I am discerning, I feel that even if Obama were willing to pony up very deep cuts to non-Obamacare Federal programs in order to save Obamacare, that there would still be the libertarian/individualist/paleoconservative contingent in the US House of Representatives which would not be willing to strike a Federal funding deal with Obama.

I agree with this. In order to break this impasse Obama is going to have to be willing to defund Obamacare and he is not going to do that. It reminds me of the slavery impasse in the 1800's. Neither side is going to be satisfied with anything less than 100% of their demands being met. Reading the message boards in the past week, I'm surprised at how vehement the rhetoric has become on both sides.

[Marc]

However, based upon what I am discerning, I feel that even if Obama were willing to pony up very deep cuts to non-Obamacare Federal programs in order to save Obamacare, that there would still be the libertarian/individualist/paleoconservative contingent in the US House of Representatives which would not be willing to strike a Federal funding deal with Obama.

I agree with this. In order to break this impasse Obama is going to have to be willing to defund Obamacare and he is not going to do that. It reminds me of the slavery impasse in the 1800's. Neither side is going to be satisfied with anything less than 100% of their demands being met. Reading the message boards in the past week, I'm surprised at how vehement the rhetoric has become on both sides.

As a way around the impasse, I do wonder what would happen if Obama decided to "mint that platinum coin" (Fourth Turning Regeneracy, maybe?!?) —Regards/Peace, Marc