Make that Coffee Caffeine Free

6/28 A day or two ago I was traveling to work listening to CNBC. This is far more entertaining than music and for some reason I feel comfortable with the geekspeak they carry on. Everything is in code and decifering the code takes a little sting out of the message for some reason. Anyway, on this day there was a loud pundit screaming (pretty much literally screaming) about how strategic oil reserves were just that, strategic. This person was annoyingly strident as he interupted the guest who I assumed to be someone respresenting the administration. Now as many times as I have  heard financial types demanding that we use the oil reserves to effect the economy and equally stridently complaining when that didn't happen, I thought this guy to be rather humorous except for the annoying grating loudness of his voice. As I listened I gathered that the reason for using the reserves now was in an attempt to ween the economy off of QE2 infusions of money and provide that soft landing we have all been hoping for, rather than that double dip. Further this was an international agreement, and while this guy seemed to be concerned about what the Arabs would think about this, I kind of guessed they might have been consulted at least in secret. The loud guy said the oil reserves were not for getting Presidents reelected. I thought that an odd complaint, because this election more than any before it will probably hinge on how well the economy is doing, and personally, I want it to do well. The pundit also exclaimed (a word I borrow from Hardy Boy's books to point out his continued annoying tone) that the price of oil was much higher a few months ago and why would we use it now when the price was coming down, and besides "strategic" might include other things than war. Not only that but the price of oil was recovering today already. As his argument became more and more self-contradictory I arrived at work. Today, I was listening to CNBC and the folks there were talking about the seeming long term lowering of the prices of commodities, citing gold and, yep, oil. I believe gold speculation was hit by that side maneuver of demanding higher reserves for speculatiing on silver. Silver took a dive and should have been a shot across the bow for anyone speculating in other comodoties. This adminstration was going to wring out speculation. One might doubt that they could, but hey, an international agreement to use everyone's strategic oil reserves is pretty amazing. Can we get that loud guy back and make him pinkie promise not to go to Starbucks before going on the air again?

I Asked for Cheddar, not American

6/26 Gosh, they need to stop changing their news around so much. Last blog, I commented on what is called the "original post" in this artcle:
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/06/22/donald_trump_nbc_deal_network_signs_on_for_two_more_years_of_cel.html?from=rss/&wpisrc=newsletter_slatest

Now I usually trust Slate but I failed here to see that they were quoting from Ruppert Murdoch's Washington Post. Now the Fox News owner's biggest enemy is NBC and of course whoever is the enemy of Ruppert Murdoch is fair game for yellow journalism. Heck as far as that goes everything is fair game for yellow journalism for these guys. But I just could not see... I just could not see.

I feel bitter enough to not trust Slate anymore but..... as I have asked before in my blogs, just who are we to trust? We have nothing but the mainstream media except for a few non-journalistic bloggers and possibly BBC or PBS, but those too seem slanted. At least Slate has corrected their story, and my views of Ruppert Murdoch remain accurate, I guess, because I had prejudged :) him correctly long ago based on David Letterman's assessment that it was all publicity and no substance. David wasn't going to let a racist on the show. Maybe an ex-racist?  At any rate I haven't watched Letterman in months. Maybe that's why I am so sour. :)

I'll Trade You My Green Beans for Your Roll

6/22  http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/06/22/donald_trump_nbc_deal_network_signs_on_for_two_more_years_of_cel.html?from=rss/&wpisrc=newsletter_slatest

Trump would have had to give up this show had he actually run for President. Remember when he told us how proud he was after his racist treatment of our President forcing him to come up with more proof than any other Hawaiian citizen has or will ever have that he was indeed American by birth? Now to cash in on the publicity. Pride indeed. Really, money is just sickening in these large amounts.

6/22 Another humorous moment from CNBC radio. I don't know half the time who is talking because this is the television show broadcast on radio and I can't see the subheadings. And I'll have to paraphrase this as well. The gist of the discussion was that economies were growing but more in the "tradable" area and this area is not known for job creation. "Tradable" here must mean trade that is unlike the trade in which Walmart engages - plenty of jobs there. It was I guess a euphemism for the financial sector, because it rings true that the "financials" are doing quite well, taking bailouts, buying stocks and gold and commodities and then there are still those money making risk spreading derivatives. With all that activity there is still no money for small businesses or job creation. No wonder he wanted to use a euphemism for this crappy area of the economic activity which he himself was a part of. Then this pundit started to talk about jobs but just could not come up with the words to describe what he needed to say. Showing that jobs was obviously not his area of expertise, he bumbled around with the the terms "training" and "skills" sounding incoherent enough that another panelist had to throw out the term "innovation" to help the pundit sound like he had at least a high school education. "Yes, yes, innovation and stuff like that." It was embarrassing to listen to. We still need those job thingies before we can have a recovery and begin stashing away even more "tradable" profits, darn it to heck.

He reminded me a bit of the man who was lacking basic computer skills and while fumbling over saving his resume to his email blurted out in frustration that usually his secretarial staff did this kind of work for him. He realized later just what he had said and thanked me nicely for my help. He was really a very nice gentleman. But I have to admit before he became nice to me I was indeed thinking that his secretarial staff would probably be finding it easier to get new jobs with their skill set and the patience they must have had.  :)

Seriously, We Have Multiple Kinds of Bread, Man.

6/17 The stock market is as confusing as it has ever been, this morning up around 90 (Dow of course), consumers got a bit upset about how disorienting last months plethora of advice was. The Greek thing, it still sits there threatening utter catastrophe. I give up. Give me something to hang my hat on so I can blog.

What Kind of Bread?

6/16 Does the airing of the potential global effects of the Greek default crises make anyone one think that it might, just might not be a good idea to play this USA debt ceiling game any longer?
6/16  http://www.cnbc.com/id/43425158  It's really hard to tell what's happening. The stories go back and forth. "Double Dip" "Soft Landing" "Soft Patch" "Greek Crises" "Good Numbers from China" "China to Rescue Euro at Expense of Dollar"  It's just hard to tell what just anyone is forecasting these days. I say ignore them all. They are now all like media scientists predicting carcinogens and healthy foods, and never correct. They are like perveyers of diets. Did I mentally telepath you thinking "Snake Oil Salesman?" Well I should have. :) I can't come up with all the analogies on my own!
6/16 I'm forgetting about the idea of using Facebook to organize all my blogs. What a piece of crap Facebook is. :)  Yes, I'm halfway joking but... does Facebook remind you of something Microsoft might put together and say "This is easy." Perhaps I don't understand the Facebook ideal but seriously, anyone could come up with a better gui and look and feel. Facebook just feels slimy from the beginning and having no control over the slimier ads just makes me, well.. a little reticent. :) So... up at the top of all my blogs there will now be a list of my other blogs. Organization done.

Crumby Advice

6/14 Stocks up in the end. The world is secure because China had good numbers. This has to be sad on some level. :)
6/14 There seems to be no end to opinions that contradict other opinions in the world of finance. I for one find it much more interesting to just read the analysis of what happened historically to cause this mess from hell. I'm not sure I understand the full implications of current inflation in China with growth rates way over 6 percent. But I'm getting the feeling that the history of the collapse of the America I used to know is just within my grasp. Screw predicting the future, let's understand the relevant past.

Extra Dip

6/7 http://www.cnbc.com/id/43291486  Unlikely double dip? Possibly, but how likely is a huge recovery? I'm not sure here. Devaluation of the dollar is in progress according to China, well duh. However buying gold is a gamble to me really. The downside is tremendous by now and the upside is all fueled by fear. Fear can dissolve quickly, better be ready to sell that gold just as quickly. Pop! Because somewhere in there lies the breaking of another bubble.

We are coming out of quantitative easing and the bump may have been taken here. If so it was a small one.  I'm not sure that we can recoup manufacturing jobs quickly. This has been decades in the making. Dollar devaluation will obviously help.

For all the right wing types who don't have money in the millions, devaluation is the hidden tax because you refused to pay the real tax. And this hidden tax is with interest. Now what did you buy with all that money? Any investments besides the oil fields of Iraq? Sad really.

Print all the money you want to keep the millionaires in yachts but eventually we pay, even if we vote against taxes. Who can afford inflation and dodge it when it hits? Why the people with the money.

George W. Bush doubles the nation's debt and invests none and we head into a deep recession. Let's get these guys back for a double dip of plutocracy.

Plutocracy may be a harsh word but not really, not in Citigroup's high level discussions of the rest of us. There is a leaked Citigroup memo written by Citigroup's researcher Ajay Kapur that starkly confirms the plutocracy and describes how Citigroup should act in order to profit.  It is cold and uncompassionate in the way the American voter is viewed, as talen in by the rich to vote in the way the rich want. This memo has been pulled from a lot of places all over the Internet replaced by "This content was removed at the request of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP "  That took some hard work to track down all the places. But here is a link I found, after a 15 minutes of searching, as long as it too remains active:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzgUudifBc68ZGUyNz...

It hasn't been in the Mainstream Media, I will guess. I first learned about it from Michael Moore's documentary on capitalism.

6/7 Nutritional information on Quizno's Beef Dip Submarine Sandwich:

Brand:  Quiznos Fat Calories: 37% Carbohydrates Calories: 43%   Protein Calories: 21%

Common serving units / Carbs / Protein / Fat / Calories 

1		47	23	18	440
1/2		24	12	9	220
1-1/2		70	34	27	660
1-3/10		61	30	23	572

Horseradish

6/3 "Double dip recession" is the same as "really bad recession that we started to ignore after 2 years." It will be a bitter pill indeed if America's election cycle causes more recession and the people originally responsible for said recession get back into political office. I said earlier, somewhere :), that we were cutting back on the "helicopter money" too quickly with this inane worry about debt during a time when money in the economy is the only way to extract the country out of the crises. The true price of the recession was hidden from voters by the unprecedented secret 3 trillion dollars worth of loans made by the Fed. Most of all that money was sucked back in by the Fed. This was business cycle management. The money isn't in the economy anymore. All the spending that we have done since has helped but now we are cutting back on spending.

The problem is that this recession is a systemic crises (just as I have tried to say clearly before) and cutting back on "helicopter money," or money pumped into the economy, or spending, or whatever you want to call it, will reveal the true crises. It's a major mess that started during Republican days. The crises hit during President George W. Bush. It has never stopped, efforts to change course of tax increases on the rich have basically been blocked by our permanant filibuster in the Senate. A liberal president came in and could manage no more than centrist policies in this new system of government never tried before. Basically it amounts to a veto power for members of the Senate.

The bitter bitter part will be if we turn back to the Republicans, with new tea party values, whose policies look to be akin to what we did wrong during the Great Depression. If the Great Depression seemed bad, wait till we start cutting back on government spending while still letting the rich siphon off the money from the economy.

This is a systemic problem not a business cycle.

No one President is too blame for this, it is years in the making, but logically we can surely place some amount of blame for the catylist on the doubling of the debt by President George W. Bush. Instead of investing in America after 9/11, government spending was redirected towards war with a vengeance. Result: depression. 2 years later Americans forget entirely and vote for Republicans whereever they could. 2 years after this....it will be bitter indeed.