A MarketPlace of Ideas                        

A friend just passed these video URL’s to me.   For the gullible out there you should watch this.

What happened to Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac / AIG  was more a direct result of easy money low interest FED policy than anything else.  Factoring in inflation our interest rates have been either %0 or even negative.  See my article about the Rolling Liquidity Bubble.

We had 3 rapid succession booms.  Internet / Real Estate / Oil.  How does one explain this? unDemocrats have a neurotic hatred of oil so there’s probably a surfeit of regulation in that area.  Yet oil boomed and is still relatively high at 100 US dollar per barrel.

What explains events?  I think its effective 0% interest rates.  When interest rates are too low people can afford to go lightly into them without the due diligence of intense worry.  Money got slung around in excess.  Momentum patterns set up in internet, housing and then oil.  When the speculators see a momentum pattern if they have sufficient liquidity they buy in and reinforce that pattern.  When you have excessive money supply a momentum pattern is bound to set up somewhere as people search for a way to increase their wealth.   People have survival instincts.  They do this naturally!  You want people to be suicidal ??? 

Speculators speculate.  That is what they do. Oh yes and you too are a speculator if you have ever bought anything for any reason.  Thus it makes no sense  to point fingers and say "Dirty low down speculators".   It only makes you look like an IQ challenged liberal.  It makes no sense to point your fingers at Barnie Frank and the unDemocrats.  unDemocrats do what unDemocrats do and that is skim off the casino like the mobsters they are.     There is only one form of regulation that prevents these speculative momentum patterns:  Meaningful interest rates !    You want to stop the skimmers?  Shut down the casino with meaningful interest rates.   No politician is going to go for that option.  It has to be forced upon them.   The 70’s only gave way to the 80’s after interest rates shot up and put the game to an end.    You can be assured that the current era of easy money will only end after the same sort of sequence.

Thus we play with fire if the terms of any of these gargantuan bailouts are too easy.  Unfortunately Its not realistic for me to ask that the offending entities be left to go out of business as no one asks my opinion.   If it were up to me their assets would be auctioned off to people with money.  The people with money right now are the last men standing.  They avoided the mistakes.   Who better to entrust?  The government? Please.  That’s crazy talk.

In the mean time we are hamstringing our financial sensing apparatus by banning short selling.  Most stock holders do not study companies intently.  They buy the stock on the advice of someone they know.   The options traders do us great favors by studying intently these companies.  For if you are an options trader and do not do your homework you soon have a new profession.

Reference this arty: Detroit’s sputtering Big Three turn to Washington for help

The car makers want some federally guaranteed loans to help them cope with tough times and more importantly raised CAFE standards that bring fleet averages up to 35 miles per gallon.

Nice. So rather than just let this CAFE thing die a slow death we are going to make huge loans to the car companies.  Never mind that we could just be the slightest bit patient and wait for the Chevy Volt et al come out in 2010.  With the advent of practical electric car solutions CAFE standards should be rendered obsolete in their current forms.  Yet we the tax payer are going to be on the hook for guarantees.

CONCLUSION:   The politicians probably just want to loan a bunch of money to the car companies because there are a ton of union thugs that work for them. 

I hope that these car companies do not become the Conrail of the 21st century.  We all know how helpful that little bit of socialism was.

Likely you have heard this old adage about security and liberty.  The security they talk about is economic.  Things are likely to get tougher in the near future.   We are shipping too much money out of the country for oil.   We are too dainty to allow it to be drilled on our coasts and in ANWR.   Thus things will deteriorate more until the pain threshold is found. 

Many people will want to vote for the politician that says it will be ok if we only regulate this or tax that.  These are the unDemocrats who will say anything to get elected.  Say anything to get the power.  I would like to think you as an electorate will have the sense not to listen.  But I’m doubtful about this.  You listened in the past and you likely will in the future.   The problem is this sort of thing never helps economically and in fact damages something much more precious than your temporary economic circumstances and that would be your liberty.  I know this is true.  My favorite home away from home country is Brazil.   As currently constituted Brazil has a fully implemented form of government that the unDemocrats want to have here.  The people know their government and changing it is hopeless.  Nothing will ever change in that area and the Brazilians know it.   With liberty you can improve your economic circumstances.   With economic wellbeing you can not necessarily do diddly squat about your liberty.  I know its tough to be a good soldier.  You have to be brave.  And clearly about 50% of the population lacks any impulse toward liberty. Quite the opposite.  They lick their chops at the thought of another round of incremental carving up of liberty for the sake of financial gain. 

Remember losing a job is temporary.  Living in a land of curtailed liberty is pretty much for your entire lifetime.    So don’t be dour Gus Halls who secretly long for a beer, a recliner and a black and white television.   For an inspired life you have to dream of liberty.

Imagine that….there is a political party called the "Government Party".   That’s what unDemocrats are here in the USA but they do not have the courage to actually call themselves that.  Things are so bad in some places of the world that a political party can actually call themselves "The Government Party" and get away with it !  

Below is their symbol.

Very similar to the swastika.  

I really dislike middle eastern governments by and large.   We really need to stop shipping so much oil money to that part of the world.