The Government can’t run anything…

The notion that the government can’t run anything is a lie told by the companies and corporate shills that don’t want to compete on a level playing field.  Look at the times when companies and people say this, and the times when they don’t.  This is an easy way to throw arrows at the programs that companies don’t want us to implement.  What are the specific agencies that the government doesn’t run well?  The military? That’s the one we hear the most.  Always in the context of $1000 hammers, not that we can’t fight…  that should tell you something.  Do you think that the pharmaceutical companies are worried that if the government get’s involved, we’ll over pay for pills and drugs?  Anyway, these government agencies are staffed by people.  People just like you and me.  The secret is all in how we structure and regulate the agencies.  Give me examples of agencies that are wasteful and bureaucratic and let’s figure out how to fix them.  And start calling them out for specific examples when you hear the clowns complain that government is the problem.  The FDIC is a great example of what the government can do.  When banks fail and the FDIC takes over, they do an excellent job of an orderly wind-down.  Plus, we have recourse when things go badly… that’s what elections are for.

Things we’d like to see go away

Things we’d like to see go away…

• Dick Cheney.  Evil! Enough said.
• The notion that welfare for the rich will trickle down to the rest of us.  Hasn’t worked yet, never will.
• All of the reporters on CNBC.  What, there aren’t tens of thousands of functionally literate adults in the country that wouldn’t do at least as good a job as Erin Burnett for $50,000/year?  Please.
• All CEOs of Banks, finance companies, insurance companies, and the auto companies.  Ford says they don’t need the money, but they’ve been losing money for years.   I vote we just pick someone off the line at GM and Ford and say ‘Ok, you’re going to get $200,000 a year to run this company… couldn’t do worse for the shareholders.
• Fox News ladies in miniskirts and lip gloss.  Much as we like the frequent upskirts and cleavage shots, it’s become impossible to stomach the hateful, nasty, and disingenuous crap that Fox News has been pimping.
• Pat Buchanan.  This man in dangerous.

Morning Spew

Scarborough is a total clown. The notion that President Obama’s plan to rescure the economy is just more of the same Bush Policies is just dumb.

It’s time to get more people like Jon Stewart out there calling these fools out.

Finding a moving middle

I find it interesting that people seem to think that there’s only one magical theory which can be used to explain and a single policy can be developed to manage something as complex as an economy.  The notion that one policy is correct and all others are wrong is ridiculous.  One needs simply to run any single policy out to an extreme, over time, to see its flaws.

Tarun Khanna touches on this a bit in his comments on the Davos Diary post, but there still seems to be the element of change over time missing.  Sure, there’s middle ground between unmonitored and unregulated capitalism and a soviet-style planned economy.  Tarun’s apparent search for a blockbuster theory misses the point.   Even within the middle-ground, the changing nature of the economy requires adjustments to economic policy.   Its these changes that economists and politicians have the most trouble admitting to.

Still… I like the film analogy.

Isn’t it time for Larry Kudlow to sit down?

Tonight he’s whining about the deficits that we’re going to run up with the stimulus package. Dude, wasn’t it your guy that said ‘deficits don’t matter’? Besides, if it weren’t for dumb economic ideas like yours, we wouldn’t need the stimulus in the first place. So, just apologize to America, and go away…

Don’t Be Fooled

Wow, long time since I posted.  Good call on the shorts for Wamu, huh?  So don’t be fooled by the up 400 today.  Friday is going to be down, down, down. 

Credit 2.0

To be clear, I’m not saying that a bailout is a bad thing.  In fact, someone should get a bailout – that’s what a democratic government is for!    The real question is will the government do what it should, and do what’s best for the people of the country as a whole?   This post is a different thread since I’m struggling with the larger political questions around the current credit situation.  It’s an interesting dilemma to try to sort out.   Changes the basic question somewhat.  Here the question is: ”How will I make money off of what’s happening, going to happen, and how does that make me feel about what’s happening, and what I think should be done about it?”   Friends tell me that the government shouldn’t help out people who were greedy and used their homes as piggybanks.  Maybe, but if the government makes good on those mortgages, won’t that bail out both the greedy homeowners who were over their heads AND the greedy bankers who took big fees to look the other way and give them risky loans?  Again, if you’re going to bailout someone, why not everyone?

Credit Crunch

There’s a lot of talk about the current “Credit Crunch”, and what will happen to the market, the economy, and the country as a result.  I know there’s some larger macro economic reasons why having the Fed provide some liquidity will help keep major banks and mortgage operators solvent.   But I think the small investor should just look at this in really simple terms.   “How can I make money from this?”  I know that this is simplified, but after the amount of dumb, ill-conceived, over-simplified crap I’ve seen passed off as news in the last decade, I’m the least bit concerned how I compare to the ‘news’. 

Last week, the play seemed pretty simple: short the banks.  This week it’s not going to be quite as simple because there are longer term issues here.  The question I ask myself is, “who’s going to get bailed out here, and when?”  That’s the trick I think because it’s clear that someone will get the bailout.  I want to be on the right side of the market, in the right instruments, at that time.   Friday the banks where back up.  I’d covered my shorts with some stop limits.  Monday, I’m afraid that the banks are going to lose a couple of percentage points again.  Not much to go on for that, just that I think the big money folks are appeased by the Fed’s move, so now it’s time for the little investors to come in and say “fine, but I still don’t like my money in Citibank, Wells Fargo, and WaMu.”  At this point, I think I’m going short again on Monday. 

I figured it out

A friend and somewhat of a mentor of mine called today.  I’ll call him ‘Jim’ (because that’s his name)

‘Good Afternoon’ he said, ‘what side of town are you on today?’

 

‘Hi, just here having breakfast…I figured it out!’ 

‘What?  Breakfast? Figured what out?’   

He still can get me and my bizarre schedule.   He’s been spending a few years working from home, helping fix broken companies, and tilting at various windmills that strike his fancy.

 

‘I know what a CEO does, I’ve figured it out!’ 

‘Sure, that’s easy. The CEO goes into the office, sits at his desk, and opens the Wall Street Journal.  Has coffee.  Goes to take a dump… maybe he brings the Journal, maybe not.  Has lunch, fools around with the secretary, takes a nap, has another dump, and goes home.’ 

‘Right, that’s what he does about 95-99% of the time.’ 

‘Yup, so what did I miss?’ 

‘Well, the CEO is the captain of the ship, right?’ 

‘Right.’ 

‘And the captain has a really great crew, folks to set the sails, rig the rigging, swab the decks, and do all that, right?’ 

‘Go on…’ 

‘But every so often, the Captain has to step up, grab the wheel, and keep the ship off the rocks, direct the crew to where the fish are biting, avoid the squall…’ 

‘Exactly!  Don’t forget there’s a ton of stress in that’ 

‘Sure, because 99% of the time, there’s nothing to do; but then there’s that 1% of the time when the stakes are highest, that’s when the CEO earns their money.  The captain is the responsible for saving lives, the only one who can step in take ultimate responsibility.  The rest of the time, the only thing they should do is to hire the best crew, and keep out of the way.’ 

‘You have figured it out.  I’m glad you added the point about staying out of the way.  The secret is that that’s 50% of the CEO’s job.’ 

I don’t know what this means yet, but I’ll figure that out too.

Where am I?

I created this site.  Actually another one at www.play20in30.com to chronicle my exploits at doing this.  Not really.  I just needed a place to vent after working way too many hours, way too many days, for way too many years.  The course seemed like a good place to vent.