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The Real Crisis: "People Have Lost Trust In The Government And The Market"
The death of the 'cult of equities' was a popular topic this year among both fringe blogs and the best-known institutional asset managers and sell-side strategists. As AP discusses in this excellent article, ordinary Americans - defying decades of investment history - are selling stocks for a fifth year in a row. It's the first time ordinary folks have sold during a sustained bull market since relevant records were first kept during World War II. The answer is both complex and simple but summed up best by a former stock analyst's comment that in order to buy stocks "You have to trust your government. You have to trust other governments. You have to trust Wall Street, and I don't trust any of these." With Fed policy trying to force investors back into stocks (at any cost), a former fund manager notes, presciently that, "When this policy fails, as it will, baby boomers will pay the cost in their 401(k)s." Are we the new 'Depression Babies'? We suspect so.
Investors, as you well know, are leaving the equity markets in droves...
Based on AP's calculations, individuals accounted for 40 percent to 50 percent of money going to U.S. stock ETFs in recent years.
If you assume 50 percent, individual investors have put $194 billion into U.S. stock ETFs since April 2007. But they've also pulled out much more from mutual funds - $580 billion. The difference is $386 billion, the amount individuals have pulled out of stock funds in all.
If you include the sale of stocks by individuals from brokerage accounts, which is not included in the fund data, the outflow could be much higher.
But why are investors not buying the propaganda this time and jumping in with both hands and feet...
"You have to trust your government. You have to trust other governments. You have to trust Wall Street," says Neitlich, 47. "And I don't trust any of these."
Defying decades of investment history, ordinary Americans are selling stocks for a fifth year in a row. The selling has not let up despite unprecedented measures by the Federal Reserve to persuade people to buy and the come-hither allure of a levitating market. Stock prices have doubled from March 2009, their low point during the Great Recession.
It's the first time ordinary folks have sold during a sustained bull market since relevant records were first kept during World War II, an examination by The Associated Press has found.
and...
"People don't trust the market anymore," says financial historian Charles Geisst of Manhattan College. He says a "crisis of confidence" similar to one after the Crash of 1929 will keep people away from stocks for a generation or more.
What is at the core of this mistrust or doubt?
People who think the market will snap back to normal are underestimating how much the Great Recession scared investors, says Ulrike Malmendier, an economist who has studied the effect of the Great Depression on attitudes toward stocks.
She says people are ignoring something called the "experience effect," or the tendency to place great weight on what you most recently went through in deciding how much financial risk to take, even if it runs counter to logic. Extrapolating from her research on "Depression Babies," the title of a 2010 paper (embedded below) she co-wrote, she says many young investors won't fully embrace stocks again for another two decades.
"The Great Recession will have a lasting impact beyond what a standard economic model would predict,"
But it's not just ordinary folks, its professional investors too...
Public pension funds have cut stocks from 71 percent of their holdings before the recession to 66 percent last year, breaking at least 40 years of generally rising stock allocations
as old 'lessons' or myths are dismissed...
And old assumptions about stocks are being tested. One investing gospel is that because stocks generally rise in price, companies don't need to raise their quarterly cash dividends much to attract buyers. But companies are increasing them lately.
Dividends in the S&P 500 rose 11 percent in the 12 months through September, and the number of companies choosing to raise them is the highest in at least 20 years, according to FactSet, a financial data provider. Stocks now throw off more cash in dividends than U.S. government bonds do in interest.
Many on Wall Street think this is an unnatural state that cannot last.
As it seems, for once, a positive lesson is being learned...
"People aren't looking to swing for the fences anymore," says Gary Goldstein, an executive recruiter on Wall Street, referring to the bankers and traders he helps get jobs. "They're getting less greedy."
The lack of greed is remarkable given how much official U.S. policy is designed to stoke it.
But the powers that be are not happy about it...
"Fed policy is trying to suck people into risky assets when they shouldn't be there," says Michael Harrington, 58, a former investment fund manager who says he is largely out of stocks. "When this policy fails, as it will, baby boomers will pay the cost in their 401(k)s."
So, what are 'smart' retail investors doing with their money?
Instead of using extra cash to buy stocks, he is buying houses near his home in Sarasota, Fla., and renting them. He says he prefers real estate because it's local and is something he can "control." He says stocks make up 12 percent his $800,000 investment portfolio, down from nearly 100 percent a few years ago.
After the dot-com crash, it seemed as if "things would turn around. Now, I don't know," Neitlich says. "The risks are bigger than before."
Source: AP
Depression Babies paper embedded below:
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When social security was passed as law, the death age was under 70. In no way do I want to pay for old people anymore, even my own relatives. No more social security, medicaid, medicare, food stamps, unemployment. Get rid of it all and let people take care of theirs and the churches the rest. Some politicians will balk, wanting to promise something for nothing and a global power grab. Those need to be dealt with expediently.
Its actually easy to explain. Their whole being and wealth depends on the system being intact. They cant see outside of the box, because they feel there is nothing outside of it for them.
They are "all in."
Most people here, while invested in the system, will be damned if they go down with the ship.
Why do people defend unjust, inept, and corrupt systems?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/afps-wdp121211.php
Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in—a government, company, or marriage—even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust? A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we're motivated to defend the status quo—a process called "system justification."
System justification isn't the same as acquiescence, explains Aaron C. Kay, a psychologist at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, who co-authored the paper with University of Waterloo graduate student Justin Friesen. "It's pro-active. When someone comes to justify the status quo, they also come to see it as what should be."
Reviewing laboratory and cross-national studies, the paper illuminates four situations that foster system justification: system threat, system dependence, system inescapability, and low personal control.
When we're threatened we defend ourselves—and our systems. Before 9/11, for instance, President George W. Bush was sinking in the polls. But as soon as the planes hit the World Trade Center, the president's approval ratings soared. So did support for Congress and the police. During Hurricane Katrina, America witnessed FEMA's spectacular failure to rescue the hurricane's victims. Yet many people blamed those victims for their fate rather than admitting the agency flunked and supporting ideas for fixing it. In times of crisis, say the authors, we want to believe the system works.
We also defend systems we rely on. In one experiment, students made to feel dependent on their university defended a school funding policy—but disapproved of the same policy if it came from the government, which they didn't perceive as affecting them closely. However, if they felt dependent on the government, they liked the policy originating from it, but not from the school.
When we feel we can't escape a system, we adapt. That includes feeling okay about things we might otherwise consider undesirable. The authors note one study in which participants were told that men's salaries in their country are 20% higher than women's. Rather than implicate an unfair system, those who felt they couldn't emigrate chalked up the wage gap to innate differences between the sexes. "You'd think that when people are stuck with a system, they'd want to change it more," says Kay. But in fact, the more stuck they are, the more likely are they to explain away its shortcomings. Finally, a related phenomenon: The less control people feel over their own lives, the more they endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order.
The research on system justification can enlighten those who are frustrated when people don't rise up in what would seem their own best interests. Says Kay: "If you want to understand how to get social change to happen, you need to understand the conditions that make people resist change and what makes them open to acknowledging that change might be a necessity."
"The less control people feel over their own lives, the more they endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order."
Precisely... thanks for the post.
MSM et al have done a great job of portraying government as the sheriff and corporations as wild west outlaws. Corruption is ascribed solely to corporations. Very few realize the facts of the matter, which are very grim. The supposed regulatory mechanisms, in actuality, engender corruption. Moral hazard is ubiquitous.
its not the government that is the problem its the OWNERSHIP of the government that is the problem- MIC and Wall Street
I think this is a good development. Governments own, control and manipulate all markets, currencies, terms of trade, labor and most everything else. How do you trade that?
The first step is not to trust government. The second step is get government out of markets and trade freely. Give up the illusion of benificent, omniscient, omnipotent governments. We are better off on our own.
I'd love to buy the S&P 500 at 300 or 400. That would be a great investment. But at 1400? Not so much.
If the S&P is at 400 and we still have a 17 trillion dollar debt the market is still overpriced.
S&P at 400 will destroy a lot of debt by the collapse of swaps.
I will hold the line that S&P 400 equals the end of the stock market as we know it. Goodbye whatever shred of capitalism existed and hello government sponsered retirement plan.
Oh I remember.
Well, I see 600 as fair value. At 400 is just below fair value.
Gov sponsored retirement plan, just minimal, just minimal and extended at age 70 it won't be the end of capitalism
People are not jumping into stocks for the same reason that businesses are plowing their profits into stock buybacks and dividends instead of expanding production ... it is common knowledge that the only thing holding the economy up is government debt. Therefore, it is not sustainable and when it ends there will be a massive reset. Common sense.
What if they threw a rally and nobody came?
What if they threw a rally and nobody came?
Silly boy... Bennie would buy it all!
What if they threw an inauguration and nobody came?
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/12/25/dc-hotels-less-busy-for-obamas-2nd-inauguration/
It's part of the grand plan.
Make people hold fiat and then hyperinflate.
Good one! I've been waiting for this article since the 1990's
I lost trust in the gov't then, when culprits Rubin and Summers got rid of Glass-Steagall with the approval of prez Clinton. From then on, Wall St ran the country with Gaitner as the go-between.
Buy physical gold and silver!
I started losing trust of govt in 1994 with NAFTA, then completely lost trust of it in 2003/2004. Nothing has changed my sentiment since and every 'action' govt has engaged in since then has reinforced that lack of trust.
June 2013 low in gold
http://change-in-trend.com/
Ahh this was so refreshing.. from usual (deified) market fundamentalism, gold-buggery and reactionary shenanigans.
It restores my faith in ZH as place worth revisiting.
New Rule: you are not an Asset Manager unless you actually control an asset. A fluffed up title if ever there was one, Asset Manager.
If they would prosecute some fraud, stop picking winners and losers, and let this market correct they might be able to bring people back into the market. Who the hell wants to put money to work in a market that the fed is propping up? Most people think that the moment they do then the fed will pull the rug out from under them.
Exactly. The trouble with these papers is that the writer feels constrained from speaking openly about every aspect of the problem, especially manipulation and lies from official and/or influential agencies. BREAKDOWN IN RULE OF LAW STARTS AT THE TOP. Moneyprinting and meddling in other people's affairs is no substitute for throwing psychopaths in jail. We are so far from that that it really gives you some perspective as to how long we have to wait before some semblance of REAL markets is finally permitted to surface.
As they say in Sicily, the fish rots from the head.
This is one rotten sonofabitch then!
Good Doctor,
I doubt its really about getting people back in the markets or really even fixing tem at this point.
This is political fighting in a burning house.
"Winning" is all that matters, and their normalcy bias does not see the flames around them. People in charge have as little in common with you, than you have with a giraffe.
The irony is everyone thinks that a vote towards the bond market equals a vote against the stock market. The bond market collapse will dwarf an equity crash at this point. Then where will the sheep run?
They will finally run to the one place they haven't, the only place left ..... Gold
The insurrection will be over gold and silver confiscation.
Let them eat default-bait bonds.
There has never been a major bear market that ended before the S&P500 hit a minimum yield of 5%. It went over 10% in the 1930s. Mean reversion is a bitch.
http://www.comstockfunds.com/files/NLPP00000/383h.pdf
lost me at...working papers.
Trust is being lost of the government, but almost everybody is forgetting to ask the simplest of questions:
What is money?
The people are not holding stocks in exchange for holding...cash. Little do they know, it's cash, bonds, and dollar denominated debt that will be wiped out. All while they rush to sell their broken jewelry at "Cash for Gold." What people need to do is move out of cash, not rush into it.
Much less than knowing we're on QE4, the majority don't even know what QE is. Once again, the sheeple get fleeced.
Oh, and if you think there's going to be some sort of epic market crash here, think again. Maybe there's a dip in the very short term, but there's not going to be much of anything that will be crashing faster than the dollar. QE5 is right around the corner, Bernanke explicitly said on the QE4 announcement on 12/12/12 that if the fiscal cliff drags the economy down he would increase QE a bit. How long after that until QE6, then? A month?
This is not 2008. The dollar and bonds are no savior this time. This is the end, my friend, this is the end.
Fiat money is debt so the money supply is measured by total debt. Even with all the monetizing, M3 (total debt) is barely growing. There is a whole lot of deleveraging going on. I think we're turning Japanese.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply-charts
The deleveraging can go on only until the malinvestments being exposed crash the banks and at that point, the choice will have to be made to print more or to let the monetary system collapse. The more we print, the more malinvestments are created and therefore the more printing is needed in order to keep the malinvestments from becoming exposed.
We would be lucky to be turning Japanese. Japan was a huge exporting nation, which they are now no longer. The US, on the other hand, has been running trade deficits for decades and is now racking up a trade deficit at a pace of $40B+ every month. This is not a good formula and since the dollar is the world's reserve currency, when the dollar crashes, it will be all fiat coming down.
The FED can only print so much before confidence is lost and yields start to rise. If yields rise, then the USG will not be able to service the debt. If the USG defaults then the game is over and the bond market crashes. The only way out is for the debt to be destroyed. The same fate awaits Japan. They are holding on a lot longer then most ever thought they could. Perhaps the USG has at least few more years left in the game.
Maybe, I'm giving it sometime between 3 months and 3 years. The only reason yields are so low is because of how much is being printed. But the FED can and will print enough to keep rates low straight into hyperinflation.
So the real warning is when prices start to rise rapidly. By far, oil is the largest commodity, so the price of oil is a key. Gold and silver as well because they are real money, so it literally represents how much wealth is flowing out of the counterfeits and into the real thing. Maybe watch a few other essential commodities like corn, wheat, and copper to complete the gauge. $200 oil, $5,000 gold, $500 silver won't go over so well. Who knows what wheat, copper and corn are, but $10 milk and $10 bread won't go over very well.
So we're doomed. DOOMED! I get that. Dogs sleeping with cats, the apocalypse, etc.
The question is: so what to do? While I would very much like to count stacks of PMs in some beautiful offshore haven, that's not likely to happen for most of us. Any suggestions other than stack PM, bitchez?
Set SMART objectives for yourself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria
Consider what others have done and are doing now. There are oodles of resources. You need only look. Ask questions.
Be organized. Be diligent. Be discrete. Be careful. Know your limits. Know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_begins_with_a_single_step
You're taking career exploration to the next level. It should be fun. Don't neglect the spiritual side. Remember what really matters. Respect serendipity.
Best for 2013.
Good stuff Lore. Don't focus on government, service sector, construction, or financials because they will all do horrible. You may want to move out of major cities. Do focus on real goods that people need like food, energy, real resources, making things that Asia likes. Thrift stores and repair shops may flourish. Maybe start a business tearing down abandoned houses. Or start an agency helping people to move out of the country.
I agree. I think increasingly people have to start getting used to the idea of providing/servicing/producing for others without necessarily getting paid for it exante. I was talking with my brother inlaw about this exact thing last night....about education and how students and graduates have this expectation that "if i just get this education, then I can get a job." This is the wrong perspective, and the government keeps shoving it down their throats. The right perspective is to say "if I just get this education, then I can help people solve problems. They confuse getting a job, with something of a lottery, rather than as an opportunity to make somebodyelse better off. They are not taught to solve problems - just memorize and regurgitate. Somewheres, we have forgotten about ownership and responsibility in the cirriculum and what it means to be accountable to and for the final propduct. So, I say go with your gut. Aim to make others become more self reiiant. Become part of the change that needs to happen, rather than waiting for it to happen. If I sound preachy, I apologize. Its only because I've asked myself the same questions too and this is the road that seems to make sense to me. cheers
You want to do what makes the most money in an honest way. Profit is literally the measure of the value you provide to others minus your costs. As long as it's honest, maximize that profit. Get that silver. Every dollar of profit stored in silver now is like making $30 in profit if held until currency collapse.
yup. work and stackety stackety stack!
+1. Yes, good stuff and thanks for posting it.
Learn how to grow your own food and learn how to defend it and yourself.
"The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed… Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union."
- German chancellor Otto von Bismarck
This is interesting. So where is all the cash going? The bank of posturpedic? The alternative economy?
It's trickling down.
...Ben's leg.
The cash is going into cash. That's why the Fed is so busy printing it.
Once burned twice shy. It should come as no surprise to anyone who labors for their money but our overlords live under a different construct, they wield power over their domain, snap their fingers and make it so. Its difficult for them to understand fly over country. They really hate us for our lack respect and these feelings are mutual. Fuck em.
ya know... the ol sayin-- blood in the streets is the bottom. but? this time it could be a low tide blood in da streets, when da high red-tide shows up with a full blue-moon!
Ps. my parents never let us kids ever forget about how bad the great depression was on everyday folks! just sayin
My grandfather, bless his soul, described almost being hit by a jumper and seeing a few people take the plunge. He made a point to tell us. He knew the gov was fucking us when they took the PMs outta money. He LOVED showing us his gold ounces. I am sad I only knew him as a youngin and we could not speak of policy and economics. I know he is with me. He was an economic pimp and hope I get some of his ability.
My cousin, a doctor, grew up in a wealthy family in Florida. She said when she was a little girl they used to go hang out on the yachts with the wealthy friends of her parents in Ft Lauderdale in the 60's, she said they were always talking about gold. These were movie stars, various celebrities and wealthy business people, my 2 oldest brothers met some of them as they would go down to florida for summer jobs at the swimming hall of fame which was founded by my cousin's biological father. Her stepfather, who was a criminal sociopath, loved hanging out with the movie stars from the 40's thru 60's and wrote some published books about it. Just a little tidbit from the past.
>>>>People who think the market will snap back to normal are underestimating how much the Great Recession scared investors, says Ulrike Malmendier, an economist who has studied the effect of the Great Depression on attitudes toward stocks.
Couldn't have anything to do with algo's, theft, etc. ad nauseum.
Not only are people avoiding stocks, they are avoiding and paying down debt (as evidenced by the collapse in the velocity of money). The USG is the only game in town to prime the pump.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V
1. Average government employee makes more ! ................................................2. Average ILWU thug makes more !
1) Yes, .gov worker bees now make MORE, that is a big change.
2) East Coast dockworkers: ILA. ILA?
I'm a
Lazy
Asshole!
And they make about $115,000 each, pre-strike...
West Coast ILA makes a lot more than that. Probably $150,000 to $175,000. It is obscene.
This aint just a "crisis of confidence". That's way too optimistic. Because it implies that when sleeping beauty gets kissed by prince charming then everybody will be buying stocks hand over fist using Jim Cramer's advice.
But reality is that there's a depression going on, and it's biflationary because of Fed policy, which means that individual buying power is getting pulverized. The burn rate of cash reserves is spiraling. INdividuals and families are liquidating equity holdings, savings and retirement nest eggs including 401ks. They have debts yes, but worse: their net income is declining in real terms and has been on a relentless trend down for 3 decades, and at the same time costs are spiraling. There's no cash on the sidelines this time
There's no cash on the sidelines this time. Just traders (no offense), algos, and Benny. Your observation is spot on. There is a depression going on. And its biflationary as consumers get pummeled on the buy side for purchases of even the most basic necessities and then turn around and get hammered on negative real rates of return on what little they might try to save. Damned if you do and well, damned if you do. How did we let government and the corporate welfare state get so big to the extent that there are now more takers then makers? How the fuck was this even possible? Now, nobody's got a pot to piss in and everybody is looking to somebody somehwheres to blame, or bail them out. For me, I keep it simple. There is only one elephant in the room, government.
I don't trust government either. I don't trust it because its a model that is destined to fail. A coercive entity that can only destroy wealth, in my opinion, isn't anything you want to rely on.....for anything. Won't work because of its basic properties, it cannot work because there is no ownership or incentive for it to work, therefore, it simply can't be trusted. Get rid of the elephant. Until then, its just a casino with Benny as pit boss.
"their net income is declining in real terms".
That is so true and it is scary as shit to observe. Especially when you are looking in the mirror observing it.
I feel your pain. There's plenty of it to go around. 20 years ago today the cost of nearly everything was half. Except food and energy which have tripled and quadrupled. So we're looking at 5% core inflation yearly and about 7.5% total. Has your income kept that pace? lol
the good news is i am hangin in okay. the bad news is i will work till i'm dead. but im cool with it. it could be worse.
Unfortunately( or fortunately depending on your perspective ) Fonz our jobs will be antiquated long before our working years are over.
yeah that is a reality i try to hide from. people are going to be displaced and it is going to be very difficult.
Same here. That's why we need the system to collapse. This slow bleed controlled collapse is agonizing for the country and in the end will probably do more damage than if the system just fell apart.
yeah, but the problem is Billy Ayers is gonna kill 30 million of us after the collapse.
Billy is one of the top 10 all-time visitors to the White Mosque. Tell me they are not "planning."
exactly. Iceland is the only country that had the sense to boot the moneychangers out of power and into jail. Hanky panky Paulson committed felony extortion against the state and walks free.
I'm guessing a big piece of the selling is that people need the money.
In America Today, There Is An All-Out Attack On The Values That This Country Was Founded Upon.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/in-america-today-there-is-an-all-out-attack-on-the-values-that-this-country-was-founded-upon/
And the author of that article is spot on. What he's describing extremely well is exactly how the cancer known as 'socialism' operates.
It's instructive that he includes a photo of 'democratic socialists of America' on the march, because that is the root of the evil cancer that is destroying America through its crony capitalism and growing police-statism. The socialists are obviously becoming more bold, which means that they've sufficiently infiltrated and embedded themselves in the American system to come out of hiding, thanks to four+four years of Obama and the 47%. What they sidestep admitting is that Hitler was also a socialist and was elected via the democratic process. His thugs soon put on their jackboots and abolished freedom. The rest is history.
America needs to wake up and bring this drive to fascism to an end before it's too late.
“[The] abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holdings illegal, as was done in the case of gold.... The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.... [This] is the shabby secret of the welfare statist's tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.”
- Alan Greenspan in an article he wrote in 1966.
Indeed.
And yet paradoxically, in later years it was Greenspin who switched on the printing press big time and carries huge responsibility for starting the giant credit bubble thru cheap credit. This leads me to say that many millions of ordinary people are wrong to think that anybody associated with 'capitalism' and 'markets' is on the Right of politics. Because socialists who hanker after total government love getting their grubby hands on the levers of financial power (exactly as we saw in Britain under Gordon 'Jonah' Brown). The problem is they're mostly innumerate and do not understand markets, so they end up wrecking them.
The Other Guys- Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv7CtLrQ3hU
I now find CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox etc increasingly difficult to stomach. Getting so tired of the pseudo-reality swill, crime & violence Crap, meaningless sports by overpaid, pampered jocks who needed handholding to get through high school math and science, boring and pointless Sci-Fi that continuously violates basic laws of science.
Doing something with the kids or low tech work is far more meaningful and satisfying. And rewarding for all.
Corporate governance has sunk so low, that it deserves the backlash it is getting. And it probably has become too diseased to self-heal.
Get better news and analysis from ZH and other blogs, than MSM.
started wearing out the mute button more than a decade ago, couldn't stomach the commercials..
Up til about 2yrs ago, House re-runs was all that was left for me on the tube, as I finally kicked the cnn habit...
And now,nothing, except the occasional flik (Lord of Rings, the other nite)...Not even a hockey game (if there ever is one) sways me... Good for you Bro.
In my business of actually producing product and attempting to sell to consumers through mass publicly traded retail, I find nobody actually wants to do it anymore.
Every one of my father's friends has either sold or shut down their business. The ones that are left have attached themselves to a public monster like Reebok, Under Armour, or Nike. The funny thing is that these public brands don't actually make anything themselves anymore. They source all their product from other companies and just slap a logo on the product and then charge an extra 30%.
I've tried to help six small business owners break into the market this past year. None of them knew what they were getting into. They don't realize that to even think about doing business with a major retailer, you need to spend $30k on inventory software just to accept an order.
The only chance you have is if you get picked to go public. Then you'll see $20 million in opening orders, even if there is no hope to sell 5% of that. However you better have a source in China to produce your product for less than 10% of your expected MSRP. Even if your sellthrough is less than 3%, you'll keep seeing the orders come in with the IPO on the horizon. All the while you sell off private stock to proxies of the retail boards. You get to make a couple million so they can make a couple billion off the bullshitted IPO.
To call our entire economic system a fraud is being unfair to fraud. Our system goes beyond fraud and far past crime. It is genocide to freedom.
Genocide - or the modern nicey word: globalism, the rule of the Trilateral Commission, as adhered to by 'Democrats', and 'Republicans'...both traitors to the country. Both hate the Republic of the USA, but schmooze it in order to get their pay, perks and indexed linked pensions. They talk BS: words like multicultural.
Say what? There is only one culture of the USA: the Republic, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
We have been cheated, bamboozled, conned by the career politicians and their central bankster puppet masters.
again this "globalism". it seems to escape some that there is no such thing
(besides the fact that this word is only used in the US)
there is globalization - which describes the increase in interconnectedness of economic activity on the planet (in fact this is the "second great wave of globalization", the first ended with WWI)
and then there is the old and more correct word: imperialism
what you are trying to describe is the fact that the US is more and more treated the same way as any other country
i.e. it's losing it's preeminence as the core of an empire, the same way as England before
and this is an effect of globalization, particularly in the realm of finance, but also of politics
ghordius, stop with your bs, globalization is just ok..no it is the destruction of liberty itself. treason by the .gov's of the western world toward one unelected elite in control, much like the EU today.
"The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."
- Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down by the Soviets
for some reason you cant be up arrowed..you may be being monitored
If you start with italics it removes the up/down option.
Really? So it is possibly to post with impunity against judgment by ZH peers. Not sure I like this bug at all.
"Maybe its quotes?"
"Maybe non-italic quote and then italics?"
I give up, it must be the NSA.
yep, can't uptick the comment either ... the 'Vanger Group' must be in control of things in Sweden
FUCK WASHINGTON AND WALL STREET.
NO TRUST HERE BITCHEZ!!!
Whether people wish to acknowledge it or not - some people have to actually work. You cannot have an entire economy based upon rentiers. When folks were promised (and believed) risk free 8-12% annual returns - be it on their homes or their stocks - the nation crossed a Rubicon. Our nation's so called elite led the way - and the people followed. It is the nature of most people to follow those that are "set above them" - most people are followers.
From high to low - most everyone - believes in getting something for nothing - or trying to get something while offering as little as possible in return. I laugh nearly everyday when I read some of the posters on this site writing about their "hard work" as if they have ever performed a physical/hazardous job.
Everywhere I look - people talk about offering "value" and then spend millions with advertising agencies/commercials trying to convince the public of that value. What's wrong with this picture? Shouldn't value be immediately discernable?
Let's hope we get back to a time in which work of all kinds is valued by all/
think about it...work is an outdated concept..it supports a system that has clearly failed..your assets are worth just the confidence of a fiat system and your liabilities can suffer from the same fate..why support a system that is rotten by paying taxes or receiving benefits that beggar you are your neighbor and support an empire of armed bases globally..change what you term "work" to "living well with others" and you will be fine..mental danger is the new hazard..ask the drug companies...
It's really quite simple.
If you are willing to trade your money for the product, then you agree to the value placed on it.
To me, $200 jeans have no inherent value over a $20 pair of Wranglers. Others feel differently. The advertising component is worth the expense to alter your 'perceived value' of a good. The young and low self esteem types are particularly susceptible to this form of marketing.
Don't fall for the rentier argument because capital does, and should, have a time value placed on it. Savers and investors are getting crushed in an artificial, manipulated ZIRP and NIRP environment where the only winners are Govt. and Banks that get first use.
"But why are investors not buying the propaganda this time and jumping in with both hands and feet..."
The bulk Middle Class investing demographic is aging and simply wants to goof off with what remains of their lives and capital. Cash, or secure, liquid, assets are their [perceived] security, and being in the market is too god damn much to think about anymore.
Public Doubt. Geeze that's putting it mildly. They're preparing to F'n kill us.
Good people trust their family, their neighbor, their community, the Republic under the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Politicans and central banksters are carpet baggers; money grubbing ne'er do wells. They have proved this by their actions. Their words are worthless. That is why they want a nation of debt slaves, and want to disarm the people; leave the people defenseless, while they wage endless war at home and abroad.
i don't know 'bout all this. i spent the night
looking for a a dog that ran away. she was a good
dog. found a way out and took off, she may return?
we fed the bitch, loved her and watered her every day.
she found a way out and now it is up to her to move
on or find her way home. we looked for her in the
vicinity where she had been walked and become familiar.
not there, not here.
it is up to her what comes next. it is shocking this
free will, unpredictible. dogs,
we called this one 'ella blue'. gone for now
I have no faith, confidence or trust in government since the 80’s when they realized that social security was a rapidly failing Ponzi scheme. I have no faith, confidence or trust in the stock market after watching the events from the 90’s (Enron), the 00’s, (Internet Bubble, the ridiculous rise in home values), and then the crash of 2008 through now. Particularly after reading postings and comments on Zero Hedge by people way brighter than I ever wished I could be.
I’ve said this before, I suffer from debt aversion. I can’t stand owing money, to anyone, and over my life have pretty much lived on a cash based system. Yes, I’ve financed cars, and then ran them until they physically fell apart. (I’ve got a 48 F-3 in the yard that I’ve got to replace a clutch in and the 63 Pontiac actually ran until the A-plates holding the wheels simultaneously fractured…an interesting sensation is scraping down a road at about 30 mph as four tires roll ahead of you. Yes, I literally drove the wheels off the Pontiac). I’ve bought exactly two new cars in my life. I have a mortgage that I have been paying off as fast as I can without seriously impacting my beer budget. An extra hundred dollars or so on the principal payment per month makes an enormous difference on the length of payment; as does an extra fifty or so on a car payment.
I’m nobody special, just a simple bean counter but I now feel that putting money into the market, in any fashion, is the equivalent to rolling fixed dice, on a slanted table, in a crooked casino, while the Pit Boss is picking my pocket. I ceased all contributions to my 401-k in 2010 and attempted to pull out as much as I could only to be blocked by plan rules. My 401-k savings is less than modest after 2008 losses and piss-poor investment options. Current year to date my earnings have been just below four percent. It represents my cash savings (other than the silver and gold I lost on a previous congealed quicksand incident in one of our local dry lakes).
I simply do not understand the logic that the stock market drives our economy. Most of the businesses are private entities. Even if they were, once the initial stock is sold into the market, the rest is driven by the brokers, traders and investors. As to the investors, we have had a significant percentage of the population that can’t even invest in a toothbrush, let alone the stock market. Do EBT cards have an embedded brokerage account?
Nor do I understand the push to spend money that I do not have. Those that live on credit mystify me as much as the kids did back in 2005 that had big trucks filled with the various toys, hauling a travel trailer with ATV’s and motorcycles. How on earth could anyone afford that sort of stuff, particularly at their age. When I was their age I was skipping meals to buy diapers and milk while working two to four jobs (for a while five) back in the 70’s/80’s. After the collapse, the current depression, and the obvious corruption of our financial markets and government, what sane person would participate in any activity that profits a fuckin’ bank or financial outfit? Why would anyone participate in any activity that invites the corruption of government into their home?
I realized in the early 80’s that I will never retire as my parents were able to. In fact, I realized that I would be working until I drop dead or be pushed aside to ultimately die on the street. I’m fifty two and I have an extremely clear vision of being a dried up corpse on the side of a seldom traveled desert road in the relatively near future, victim of a drone while trying to evade a roadblock/checkpoint.
Now I’m realizing that my future, (and, hopefully, very soon, if my oldest would get the fuck out of Afghanistan after ten years and concentrate on porking his wife regularly) grandchildren may not live to know or see their own grandchildren. In fact I’m looking at kids ten years old or less realizing that the vast majority will be brutally killed by our so-called government leaders. That to me is the ultimate tragedy of what we’ve been doing financially.
have faith .. all is not lost..you have a healthy mind, a family and the ability to stand on your own two feet..HOLD FAST
Exactly
Ha! Wished you lived next to me.
Peas ina pod.
yep. I'm rowing in a similar boat with similar sentiments at the same age. I see a slew of folks who have all these toys by the truckload and, though I can afford to pay cash for such things, I cannot cost justify them for the minimal ROI in personal enjoyment, I don't have sufficient extra time to extract that that personal ROI. I have no interest in the debt obligation as everything I own is paid for except a humble home in a rural area and rent a room in the 'big city' for work to minimize commute time/gas and housing costs. It is amusing to go buy a vehicle when I need to replace one and see how they seem to freak when I pay cash for it. As for 401k, I emptied as much out as they would f'g "allow" and stacked even though I dodged the 2008 engineered collapse ... I complained about the horrible dozen or so 'options' available in my minimal input to the 401k to the 'retirement specialists' ... they even removed the fund that preserved what I had in there that enabled me to dodge the 2008 thing.
Just replaced a toilet seat the other day with one that said "Proudly Assembled in the USA" ... a f'g toilet seat. It said it all about this nation and where it is continuing to head straight into.
All this started for you since your parents were drunk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leohcvmf8kM
Then they sobered up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ2yXWi0ppw
And you realize life is hard work and now it's time to do just that.
John Prine Diamonds in the rough.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PReQYv8544I
.
John Prine's Bruised Orange
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E62RfsYwCU
.
good luck and keep u eyes open. or ..
cheers !
..
.. " it ain't such a long drop..."
oh hell , u deserve the whole damned thing ..
.
(Chain of Sorrow)
My heart's in the ice house come hill or come valley
Like a long ago Sunday when I walked through the alley
On a cold winter's morning to a church house
just to shovel some snow.
I heard sirens on the train track howl naked gettin' nuder,
An altar boy's been hit by a local commuter
just from walking with his back turned
to the train that was coming so slow.
You can gaze out the window get mad and get madder,
throw your hands in the air, say "What does it matter?"
but it don't do no good to get angry,
so help me I know
For a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter.
You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there
wrapped up in a trap of your very own
chain of sorrow.
I been brought down to zero, pulled out and put back there.
I sat on a park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair
and my head shouted down to my heart
"You better look out below!"
.
Hey, it ain't such a long drop don't stammer don't stutter
from the diamonds in the sidewalk to the dirt in the gutter
and you carry those bruises to remind you wherever you go.
.
you can gaze out the window .....
Thanks for that link. The root is what matters.
JP is one of the best.
Gets to the nubliness of things and is pretty durned clever with a turn of a phrase.
Cuz it's a big ol' goofy world.
Fuck the government, bunch of socialist assholes who sit around and steal what doesn't belong to them, just to give it to people who already have too much or people who don't deserve it.
Then ontop of it, they want to disarm the entire public so that anarchy and police brutality takes over.
Then ontop of it, the banks have free reign to rob pillage plunder and rape
Then ontop of it, the people in office don't even understand the problems they are "trying to solve" and when they fail to produce a solution they go on extended vacation.
Why would any informed individual voluntarily enroll in a program designed to utilize robotics to fleece all the customers?
Seriously, none of the people who design these programs bother going to investor meetings sponsored by CLSA for example. They actually scoff at the idea thar fundamentals mean anything intrinsically in terms of the value of what is traded. It's all a giant video game circle jerk.
Who Needs that? And they are busy polluting all the global markets with the same, we enhance liquidity, bullshit.
Let them suck each other dry.
Itsa coming little brother. On the side we shall meet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBE2D6aY8Fg
It does not appear that Wall Street has the collective intelligence to save itself from a very painful self-inflicted destruction. And with it most of the ecomony WILL destruct. I think that is the plan ... but when?
The question is whether there will be the will to drive past Wall Street to the root cause and purge it.
LOL,
Because these guys graduated from Call of Duty and HALO.
Killing real people instead of pixels is much more entertaining and renumerative.
Same for the Drone Alone crowd. We've bred a generation of cyber slayers.
People trust gold. They need to see gold going up to a believable value before they'll trust seeing stock prices going up.
Based on what I saw tonight on television it appears that "the powers that be" are going to sacrifice banks/bankers (or some visible banks) as the evil that has wrecked this country.
I virtually never watch prime time, but my wife does. On the show "Elementary', Holmes went on a major rant against Wall Street bankers. If this is how the majority of people form their opinions then a steady diet of "Bankers are evil" will give the powers that be the cover to set up banking scape-goats.
It is no wonder that the few higher level "bankers" I know are leaving the business. Will Lloyd take one for his satanic god?
Just read history : THe french king, big boss of Europe in that age; circa 1307; destroyed the Knight Templars; the biggest private Oligarchy enterprise of that age who were both warrior elites; they had just LOST the Holy Land (failed expansionist MIC disaster for ethnic cleansers fighting in name of "God wills it" in foreign lands); AND had got extremely rich as bankers via Trusts, "WMD" product of of that age : the rich gave their wealth at their death to the Templars to WIN salvation with God!
The Templars went laughing to their own banks, richer in their EUropean networks than all the kings of that age, who were LOADED with debts to fight their internecine feudal wars. It is estimated that the Templar constructions of churches/shrines RUN by them involved more stone cutting than what the Pharoaohs used to build their pyramids. So the Templars had their own financial derivative scams as they got paid directly at their own shrines where people came and donated all over europe.
Ain't that vaguely familiar?
The bankrupt King just emprisoned them all, charged them with heresy and sodomy and took all their wealth away. Game over...It could repeat if the US loses its control of world OIL pipeline, as collateral damage to financial crisis and King dollar biting the dust. So Potus may have to take dire action to find scapegoats to install central planning bigtime of 'new order globalisation'. You may have noticed that the China-US connection has now created a universal factory controlled by 8 families who own 1600 billion nominal wealth of China via their networks. The Templar type private Oligarchy elites exist on both fronts; hiding behind the Statist curtain of "we the people".
So bringing down this global ponzi now gone viral will not be easy. And, it will take "cojones" to do!
Line up the Usual suspects!
PS : The demise of the Templars and the Crusades, allowed the Italian city republics, partners in commercial and naval activites of the Crusaders, to take over their european networks as the kings of commerce and finance. The age of Venice/Florence/Luccan and Genoese bankers who created modern capitalism!
The beat goes on. Maybe the Internet Age just beginning and 3D printing will be tomorrow's capitalist rage.
Interesting coincidence that the demise of the Templars marked the reestablishment of the gold standard in Medieval Europe.
And as an additional coincidence, theorists of the enlightenment liked to see the (Levantine) Crusades not only as a misguided religious exercise but as a massive outflow of silver bullion, as Monsieur Voltaire did.
Absolutely, Just like in Roman days, Europe had NO gold mines but had silver mines. To pay for silk and spices, emeralds and diamonds or lapiz lazuli...a tradition that went back to Rome, Medieval Constantinople, hub of East-west commerce had to pay in silver from its own mines (Mostly in Bosnia and Romania controlled by Venice) or from African gold from land of Punt.
Europe bled its silver mines as it had a several centuries trade deficit with the Orient; whence the wars in Holy land and eventual latin capture of COnstantinople that weakened it fatally for the Turks to take over subsequently.
The COnquistadors then found gold/silver in New World, whence the rush of Euro Bankers (mostly Italian, working for Charles and Philip, to move their shops from Venice/Florence/Antwerp to Amsterdam) to start the great rush to American assets from Low countries belonging to Spanish Empire thus financing their colonies. North Europe banking took over from South around 1600.
The amazing thing about human nature : ten years from now if this crisis blows over; everything will be forgotten. If its a deep depression crisis and prolonged civilisation reset; people will only have one thing in mind fifty years from now: just forget it; like we did the lessons of 1929 and maybe WW2...
WE NEVER LEARN FROM HISTORY.
Of course they learn. most of it is wrong.
Hehe,
Just had a little fantasy of Blankfein, Dimon et al. getting the Jacques DeMolay treatment...
Cheered me right up.
Thanks
The paper is very interesting and I think that what it assumes is correct. Grim future awaits all US citizens. What is good that this wrecking machine is still backed up by a powerful military apparatus, so it can just deny to pay any debts or care about the outside world. This is why I would never put any money into US bonds.
I´m happy to live in Canada which is still in a better shape than US (according to The 2011 Census Results). Even our baby boomer generation is very strong, we are at least able to maintain the population growth necessary to be able to feed the future generations while not destroying the foundations of our market and political system.
Canada is in good shape because western Canada is a major exporter of mining products, fossil fuels and timber. Otherwise, it would have folded long ago.
In this grim future, you should be concerned with both the Canadian housing market bubble and the US MIC. Canada has nothing to defend her commodities from the US juggernaut if the SHTF.
4 of every 5 financiers will be laid off and their spending habits will change dramatically. So if your business' customers are financiers you should expect hard landing
They hate us for our freedums ...................
--
--
Can some one tell me the difference between a 'Govt' and a fucking low-life pervert peeping-Tom?? Damn! I seem to have completely forgotten how to differentiate them again. But at least we all know without any doubt why 'smart' phones have a high-res camera and a high-quality microphone. There was a time when it was considered height of rank paranoia to even suggest that the 'authorities' might be doing such a thing with phones, but actually, they always were.
"Smile! You're on candid camera!"
The difference is that a peeping Tom will run away when caught instead of shoot you in the face.
Its terrible - all these baby boomers crying about their savings being devalued by inflation.
BUT THERE IS ANOTHER PERSPECITVE:
For all use Gen-X and younger, all the Baby Boomer debts "generously taken out in our name" for their pleasure are being devalued also. I simply can't say I am unhappy about this.
The game of higher and higher housing costs benefiting the chosen Boomer group with their over-inflated pension plans which are unaffordable, while able to spend in Walmart/Tesco on ultra cheap Chinese goods and overseing offshoring of jobs to "over paid young people" who can barely afford basic rental in shabby accommodation is coming to an end.
WHAT YOU NEVER EARNED YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO
You did not think of us in your debt grab, so don't expect us to cry for you when inflation burns you.
Gvt, you can't trust um, you can't love um!
I am guessing thera are a lot of people in government who answered horse.
zh?lùwéim?
It literally means "call a stag a horse."
The Story:
During the Qin Dynasty, prime minister Zhao Gao set about a plan to take over the throne. Since he feared the other ministers would oppose him, he devised a way of testing them. One day, he gave a deer to the emperor, saying "This is a horse." The emperor laughed at him, and said, "You must be joking; this is clearly a deer." Zhao Gao asked the ministers present, and some kept silent while others said it was a deer. A few ministers agreed with Zhao Gao that it was indeed a horse. Later, Zhao Gao had all the ministers who had not said the deer was a horse to be killed.
I created STOCKMARKETCADDIE.com, for those people who are fed up with the pols, wealth managers and the rest, and want to take control of their own financial destinies,,,check it out..............http://www.stockmarketcaddie.com/
also economic patriotism will be a buzz word 2013 , along with molon labe bunper stickers
Fast way to neuter an opposition; give it a bumper sticker.
Like, Wer doin sumpin Now!
Butt hay! Occifer, I can take it off if you want ...
In Gold We Trust
It hasn't happened yet. The last Presidential election is proof of that. There are a MAJORITY of voting people that have faith in government, even if that faith is misplaced.
The thread is incorrectly titled. It should be about investors, not the people. The people is generally used for the generally population which is a different group. In fact if one were to look into those Obama voters, many are not investors of themselves or the future of America. They are about the here and now, regardless of who pays for it. (Failure of socialism 101).
I suspect that might occur with the fiscal cliff and the raised tax rates for everyone. Critical thinkers don't seem to see the effects of certain situations until it slaps them in the face. A reduced paycheck might do the trick, but I won't hold my breathe.
I, like many others, lost faith in the Government a long time ago. But that doesn't mean that opinion represents the majority. As I said, the last election would indicate that an opposing view is the majority. Maybe to many people are in such dire straits, they have given up and are hoping, depending on government to save them financially.
Nailed it. This is the most important thing that is different this time. As expected, Wall Street is too arrogant and short-sighted to see it. In fact, we the investor are more powerful than they are. We have the power to walk away. Without our money, they become nothing, and acquire the status they have always deserved alongside carnival side show hucksters.
Since most of the government, many big banks, as well as numerous institutions are now in the hands of die hard socialists and Communists, what is there to trust? In and out is the only safe way to make money. Putting it into long term investments only makes sense when we have a free economy and a much less tax hungry government that is willing to spend with little or no debt. As long as the welfare state grows at a monstrous pace, the future of wealth creation and the retainment of said wealth is in dire jeopardy.
Bush’s tax cuts and wars greatly increased deficit spending, resulting increased borrowing.
Clinton had created large budge surpluses, eliminated the need for government borrowing, starting to pay-down the national debt, scared the life out of the Federal Reserve that creates currency as the principal of loans. For money is created as the principal of loans, but it is destroyed as those loans are repaid, draining currency from the economy and revealing the fraud at the heart of fractional reserve currency systems. Clinton’s surpluses were a profound threat to the reserve monetary system, because less debt reduces the number and size of new loan contracts, that are needed to replace currency destroyed as older loans were repaid. For if there is no debt in the system; there is no money in the economy.
I used to parrot the Clinton surplus myth as well. He paid down the public debt (not national debt) by borrowing far more money in the form of intragovernmental holdings (mostly Social Security). http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/
Clinton may have a run a budget surplus, but the national debt increased from roughly $4 trillion to $6 trillion during his two terms in office. But he's not alone--the national debt has increased under EVERY president after Jimmy Carter...
I'm not sure if this is the place, but what if the Government really got out of control. Other than what the Interwebs tells us.. Passed laws worse than the Patriot Act? Passed gun control and all that jazz. (I'm almost laughing trying to bring up the 1st Admendment.)
I have the solution. Fear not sheep.
Take retribution on the local folks that support the Government.
The Sheriff of the county is elected to uphold the Constitution,That's his/her sole duty. To uphold the Constitution.
If they don't, then dispose of the them. Whatever means that is , well, that 's up to that county folks.
The Founding Fathers were smart. They gave a lot of lee way, but they also gave a lot of ,hey I'll cut your fking head off if you go against the Constitution.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse.
Violence on a local level they can deal with.
A govt. only retains it's legitimacy if the people comply with it's edicts. Mass non-compliance ala Gandhi would be the most effective way to paralyze and break down the system.
If everyone (who pays taxes) simply filed tax exempt status and removed themselves from the banking system so they couldn't freeze and confiscate assets at the Federal level, what could they do? Physically send millions of IRS agents to every home, workplace, corner store?
Try to shift the burden of compliance to local enforcement? Good luck with that. It might work in large cities to a small extent but in flyover country it will never happen. Local enforcement gets paid locally and nobody is going to lock up their paymasters. Notice the groundswell of States resistant to Federal overreach yet? It's there and growing and will get bigger when Uncle Sugar turns down the money taps and looks for more revenue at the States expense.
They can print money and create debt to pay the bills so that's not the issue. What is important is that they lose legitimacy by losing your obedience to their laws. They simply cease to matter.
Tough to place 350 million people under house arrest.
Then it's game on and they have no recourse but to re-negotiate and re-establish rule of law. The Emperor truly has no clothes if the people choose to open their eyes and act accordingly.
And there lies the rub.
"They gave a lot of lee way, but they also gave a lot of ,hey I'll cut your fking head off if you go against the Constitution."
LOL...well put...
.... and "real" hurt has'nt even started yet. all hearts know the fall must come.
"The death of the 'cult of equities' was a popular topic this year..."
"The death of equities" was a headline in August, 1982. The end of the 16 year secular bear market was at hand.
this might be of interest to some here. it's about an hour long (audio) and post-election. the best part from 18:00 on.
http://www.trunews.com/Audio/11_9_12_friday_trunews2.mp3