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Investors Fear More Than Just a 'Fiscal Cliff'
The Dow plunged 313 points yesterday, but don’t believe news media reports that it was the nearness of the “fiscal cliff” that caused the selloff. What spooked investors is a bigger picture that recognizes the economically catastrophic implications of a second Obama term. To be clear, there is nothing Romney could have done to avoid the deflationary Depression that lies ahead. However, a Romney presidency might have at least served as a reality check on malfeasant fiscal practices, delaying the onslaught of hard times for perhaps long enough to allow Americans to put their financial houses in better order before austerity is imposed on us with the force of an earthquake, as it has been on Europe.
We’re not going to dwell on the choice Americans made on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, the election has substantiated conservatives’ worst fear – that, sooner or later, Big Government’s clients would come to outnumber those of us who pay for the criminal extravagances of their voracious welfare state. Actually, it turns out they needn’t have outnumbered us, since the quirks of the electoral college have enabled them to execute a coup even though they lacked a statistically significant majority.
Bread and Circuses
Now, with a $16+ trillion federal deficit that is growing by more than a trillion dollars per year, the nation’s descent toward insolvency can only accelerate, further widening the gap between tax revenues and outlays. Soaking the rich, even by taxing them at 100%, would not begin to arrest the decline, but just try to tell that to those who voted for Obama. Bread and circuses will be their reward, and far be it from us to predict that they will feel unsatisfied. Rather, the opposite should hold true, since it will not have cost the 47% a dime.
As far as the stock market is concerned, we were quite surprised to find some bullish opportunities in the dozen or so charts reviewed in real time during a “Hidden Pivot Analysis” session held Wednesday morning at Rick’s Picks. Amazon, Priceline and Facebook, among others, look promising, suggesting these companies, and presumably a few others, may be able to buck a depressionary tide, perhaps by focusing on nickel-and-dime sources of revenue. If you’re interested in the details, as well as the reasons for our bearish outlook on the broad averages, a recording of the session is publicly available.
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Consider the possibility that the sell-off was done to lock in profits before tax rates increase. If this is true, selling should continue through the end of this year. If Romney had won, investors might have assumed that tax rates would not rise next year. Under Obama, with Reid still in charge in the Senate, tax rates are almost guaranteed to rise starting January 1. Further, it is possible that anyone having losers in the market will defer selling until next year, when investment losses may have a greater role in reducing tax liabilities.
Just a thought. The DOW is up big over the last three years, so why sell next year when tax rates will be higher?
The Republic is betrayed by fake democrats: newcomers who want to take more than they give. Notice who supports the Obama message most..plus the 'educated fools' and 'useful idiots' as Lenin described them.
Foward! To dystopia.
I will not shed one tear for these thieves, and their fancy cheerleaders. I hope they get what they voted for - the sooner, the better.
Keep physical gold, silver, and stay close to family, friends and community. Let the storm pass.
A proposal: votes should only be given to people who have a proven track record of giving to the Republic, eg military service, job creation, tax or irrefutable charitable service in the local community.
PS
And you can only vote if you can read English, the common language of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. If you can't do that, then you are incapable of comprehending the values of the USA which gifts you more than your despotic homeland.
Bravo! Right on.
Obvious, based on your junks, we have at least 9 government trolls and socialist stooges here.
At the inception of the American Republic, voting rights were intended for landowners and those with a tangible stake in the nation. That was most folk at the time as 99% were farmers.
IMHO, everyone over the age of eligibility should have to attain a passing grade in a basic civics exam in order to gain the privilege to vote. We had millions voting who didn't know squat about the party platforms: garbage in garbage out.
Of course, now that the political process has been totally coopted by the corporatists-bankster overlords, elections are meaningless.
Heinlein wrote of this option in Starship Troopers
He was labeled a fascist for proposing it
because it's giving like putting a heavy price (military service) for something that is seen as a human right (to vote)? My understanding is that Heinlein was trying to square the circle backwards
the historically sound, conservative and pacifist way is to have the draft
military service for everyone and no, you can't be a politician if your kids are not in the combat troops as you were too...
result: no frivolous or undeclared wars
So...the right to life equals the "right" to be forced into serving the state?
That certainly was not Heinlein's idea. Perhaps it is Ghordius's.
Heinlein was big on one earning one's position in society, including earning citizenship/voting rights via service. Perhaps it was most simply stated by his use of TANSTAAFL - "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". He wrote many books and explored many possibilites about political cultures, and I enjoyed his books greatly when young. I kept hoping we'd colonize the moon and see if the theme in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ever came about.
At one point, the Constitution mandated that you had to be a property owner in order to vote. It was presumed that property owners had skin in the game, and that non-property owners, if allowed to vote, would simply elect people whose agenda would be to redistribute wealth.
Doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it?
it's anyway conservative. which means that in the history of republics this was the norm. both the citizenship-according-to-wealth and the draft as "signs of skin-in-the-game".
the ancient Greeks and Romans had it. the first Free Cities in europe had it. most continental european countries had the draft until very lately.
the Swiss still have the (militia) draft.
You will shed a tear when these moral deviants come to take what you have by entitled force. Other than that, I am with your schadenfreude sensibilities. You will know them by the blood and hate and fear in their eyes and the weapons in their hands. Got Glock?
What Republic? and "what betrayal?"
Are you talking about fake Cherokees?
'cuz democratz := "newcommers who want to take more than they give" = .TRUE. .FOREVEAH.
don't cha' know.
- Ned
Fuck em.
Now comes the rumblings of "compromise" from "progressives". There was no "compromise" when they crammed 400 billion worth of omnibus spending through within months of assuming power. There was no "compromise" when 780 billion in "shovel ready" horseshit was spread across the countryside. There certainly was no "compromise" when they rammed ObamaCare through in the dead of night just because they could.
And there was no "compromise" when they unleashed the power of regulators to FORCE religious institutions to provide things they find morally repugnant. Whether ones religious or not...you can see the dictatorial power madness they have in that issue alone.
Let it burn...with them in charge of it.
"Now comes the rumblings of "compromise" from "progressives"."
No "compromise" will be necessary. The Republicans are just as big on big government as the Progs. They're all now completely free to deprive us of what little liberty we retain. It'll be the most "productive" legislature in our history.
From a libertarian/conservative perspective, Boehner is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I figured you would be packing to move to Colorado.
Their idealogical progenitor's economics suck, but he had a valid tactical point when he said:
“If You Want to Make an Omelet, You Must Be Willing to Break a Few Eggs.”
"...you are incapable of comprehending the values of the USA which gifts you more than your despotic homeland."
LOLOLOLOLOL...the "values of the USA" are theft, deceit and murder. Always have been, always will be. And believe me, you don't need to understand English to understand that. Pathetic...
Vooter: "Pathetic..." Yes, YOU ARE!
America does have positive values which in the past were respected more often than not. So you are being a bit trollish there.
But the blowhard original poster is pushing the original right-wing con that brown-skinned immigrants are the problem and the threat to American values. Simply opening your eyes to empirical evidence shows you that con is a con. For example:
-- Who runs all the greed games and frauds on Wall Street which have drained so much of the blood out of our economy? Wetbacks? Or Gucci-loafered frat boys with ancestry back to the Mayflower?
-- Who has led the assault on our constitutional rights and created the national security state? Wetbacks? Be real. Wetbacks had nothing to do with it. It was all well-connected white neo-cons in billionaire-funded Washington think tanks, and their wealthy cronies in the defense / security industry.
On average, new immigrants understand and appreciate true American values better than those nose-buried-in-smartphone native born who take it all for granted. Blaming the brown people is a con to distract attention from the people really at fault.
Well said, sir, well said!
You reference the Declaration of Independence in your PS.
That document states "...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
But earlier in your post, you advocate voting rights only for those who meet your standards (track record).
Seems a bit contradictory.
The authors of the DoI didn't view blacks to be equal to white men.
Neither did Lincoln. But slavery wasn't (and to this day isn't) about the color of skin, it was about the ownership of human beings as property (term versus perpetual indenture but was also a significant issue way back when). Freemen came in all colors, and so did slaves (although within the 13 colonies and the United States the vast majority had darker skin).
Because the suppliers of slaves only had darker skin product.
From History News network.
In Ghana, politician and educator Samuel Sulemana Fuseini has acknowledged that his Asante ancestors accumulated their great wealth by abducting, capturing, and kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves. Likewise, Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Awoonor has written: “I believe there is a great psychic shadow over Africa, and it has much to do with our guilt and denial of our role in the slave trade. We too are blameworthy in what was essentially one of the most heinous crimes in human history.”5
In 2000, at an observance attended by delegates from several European countries and the United States, officials from Benin publicized President Mathieu Kerekou’s apology for his country’s role in “selling fellow Africans by the millions to white slave traders.” “We cry for forgiveness and reconciliation,” said Luc Gnacadja, Benin’s minister of environment and housing. Cyrille Oguin, Benin’s ambassador to the United States, acknowledged, “We share in the responsibility for this terrible human tragedy.” 6
A year later, Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade, “himself the descendant of generations of slave-owning [and slave-trading] African kings,” urged Europeans, Americans, and Africans to acknowledge publicly and teach openly about their shared responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade. 7 Wade’s remarks came months after the release of Adanggaman, by Ivory Coast director Roger Gnoan M’bala, “the first African film to look at African involvement in the slave trade with the West.” “It’s up to us,” M’Bala insisted, “to talk about slavery, open the wounds of what we’ve always hidden and stop being puerile when we put responsibility on others . . . . In our own oral tradition, slavery is left out purposefully because Africans are ashamed when we confront slavery.
Full link
http://hnn.us/articles/41431.html
"We too are blameworthy in what was essentially one of the most heinous crimes in human history.”
Geez why do they feel so bad about themselves. The uncomfortable fact is, slavery has been a widespread and continuous feature of the human condition for the entirety of recorded history. Only in the last 150 years has it been diminished (but NOT eradicated).
That happened coincident with the discovery of oil, which allowed machines to take the place of slaves.
When the oil runs out, slavery will be taken off the shelf and rehabilitated.
In the interim, we have the modern version of slavery: DEBT.
In the interim, we have the modern version of slavery: DEBT.
Are you sure you didn't msispell EBT? /sarc
In theory, blacks were made human and "equal" under the 14th Amendment.
except when it came to consuming them in bed; they were equal to whites, as Jefferson himself proved with his preferred hand maiden. She gave him children.
GW had slaves and when Lafayette admonished him on that issue, saying "remember our human rights bill", he replied : "We'll leave that to future generations". In fact he freed all his slaves on his death bed at Mount Vernon, and kept his word to Lafayette, his spiritual son.
It's called a "Meritocracy." It was described nicely in Nevill Shute's "In the Wet."
BRAVO!!!
i think this is a very well articulated article that gets right to point of "America's dilemma." How exactly does one go about paying for a trillion dollar deficit without raising prices? There are truly very few ways of course. One way is to "default to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and blame that." An expedient solution for sure...but one that doesn't deal with the problem of "how to finance the current liabilities of the Federal Government"...which truly are enormous right now. Another way...what i believe to be the current methodology...is in fact to do the exact opposite: "drive the cost of doing Government to at or below zero." It has the added value of being something the market desires...or "front runs" as they say. Moreover...this process is actually being done. The only other way i can think of is to "slug it out over time." For example in exchange for Amazon.com and E-bay taking over the bulk of on-line retail a "national sales tax" could be imposed at the Federal level and applied perhaps at the State level...thus lifting from the Federal Government the burden of having to "pay for all that"....meaning school teachers, firemen, policemen, etc...etc. I no of no plan on the table so forgive me if this sounds "out there." (It does have the added value of being transparent to our foreign bond holders as well i might add thus saying "yes, the USA is serious about repaying its obligations.") I'm really not sure how much "kicking the can down the road" this nation...let alone New York City...can endure. This is not about putting Social Security on a stable footing as was done in the Reagan Administration...successfully i might add...BUT THE ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ITSELF. I think therefore that this is big deal. My personal view is the Sandy has put "the End" on the whole cowboy and wilding going in the financial sector FOREVER...insofar as it "pays for anything other than a big bonus." Unfortunately NO ONE in the financial sector which has the largest stake in how our "fiscal cliff" is resolved has truly spoken out in terms that the American people for sure...but certainly the world at large...can understand. I FIRMLY believe now is not the time to say silent...i have been speaking out. I recommend that anyone else who cares about the current condition of their country and their family do the same. Simply put having Mayor Bloomberg for whom it was just reported "was worth in excess of 35 billion dollars" asking the American people to "send money" to the victims of Sandy is the wrong answer. I firmly believe the American people know...as certainly our soldiers do for they have been doing so going on a decade now...that sacrifices are in order and that We the People must pay them. As it says on the greenback "in God we Trust"...and indeed it is so. We do not want our Kingdom to collapse for want of a single US dollar since obviously "no one is coming up with a trillion dollars anytime soon." I apologized for those who i have offended with my satire...but i do wish it to be noted...here, NOW...that "this deficit is NOT a joke"...and hence what i hope has been a SPIRITED defense of simple financial sanity rather than as the totality now seem to believe the "exploration of the new normal." Those are real people going hungry, tired and cold in and around the Greater New York City area...the time to act is NOW.
ever heard of paragraphs?
It was really a great country once. I'm sorry more of you never had the chance to come to know America instead of the Liberal Progressive caricature. People took pride in building their own lives and families. Now, citizens take pride in how much they can legally steal. We are a nation of kleptomaniacs.
So, you're advocating that we should pay for drones killing brown people on the other side of the planet, which we never condoned? Pound sand there, buddy!
Mom? Is that you? Have you been watching too much CNN again?
Hello....?
Hello...????
Is anybody in there...????
my thoughts exactly...
Ditto, ditto.
If you are standing at a house of a Republican with a sign hanging outside saying "Common-sense Lives here", then no. Nobody's home.
If you are at the home of a Democrat, they're partying too hard to hear you.