The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

20 thoughts on “The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight”

1. It is a basic rule, don't get yourself into something in the first place that you can't win.

   The US can't compete with crap countries like China who have horrible human rights records and still kill and jail people to this day who talk against communism.

   Free Trade works both ways, a point American exceptionalists ignore. Which means China does indeed become a little more like the US, but the US becomes a little more like China as well.

   The only way to compete with China is to either throw human rights out the window along with other important labor victories for the common working man such as 8 hour days, overtime, weekends off, child labor--- or to put tariffs on Chinese imports in the name of human rights penalties.

   You might as well throw out EPA laws as well because that's also how China makes things cheaper, they destroy their environment, and ours to, in the process.

   Also, you need to throw out intellectual copyright law if you want to bring costs down as well because the Chinese rip off popular products and have no respect for copyrights or trademarks.

   It is a mistake for you to teach your daughter, we should be more like the Chinese because they are going to be the next superpower. I think she'll come to the realization herself that China is a good foreign exchange program to teach Americans how crappy Communism is and how what NOT to do to your own country.

   China will not be the next superpower. In fact, China will never rise to the status of superpower under communist rule.

   China is a very unsafe place that I would never send my own daughter. Further, I would never teach my daughter that China is somehow good because it's out competing the US and therefore is going to be the next superpower. Good is not defined simply by the ability to produce something cheaper than anyone else.

   There are tens of thousands of mass incidents, as they are known, in China every year. Some of the highest-profile recent protests have been in Guangdong province, whose factories turn out about a third of China's exports. One often-heard complaint is that corrupt officials collude with developers to sell off farmland without giving farmers the proper compensation. In any event, protests are on the rise in China.

   China is like a giant cinder box that can go at any moment.

   So it's simple. Most Americans, myself included and others in this very thread, would be willing to pay more for US goods made by American workers. So a massive campaign of American protectionism against the Chinese for not respecting human rights and honest wages for an honest day's work. We need massive tariffs on all Chinese goods.

   I find it odd that you attack organized labor as if somehow teachers, policemen, firemen, unionized factory workers, and the like, are to blame for the US's current economic situation.

   The guy working in a GM plant is not your enemy man, put down the remote and turn off Fox News. The problem is America trying to compete with countries like China that it can NEVER beat unless Chinese workers revolt and demand wages and treatment similar to our own workers. The answer is to raise the standards of China, not destroy the standards of our own working class.

   That's a media induced thought process and not one based on the reality of Wall Street. You have golden parachutes and huge $20 million dollar bonuses going to CEOs at the expense of workers. You completely ignore the greed on Wall Street that has caused the worst man-made Recession since the Great Depression. What do you think billions of dollars in fines against Wall Street financial firms has been about? What do you think the testimony in front of Congress has been about? What do you think the Occupy protests around this country are all about? Oh wait, if you listen to Fox News then the sum total of your opinion is: "They all need to just go home."

   Reality check: the average American with a union job is your brother, not your enemy. If you want enemy, try looking at the greedy bankers that created this economic climate all along.

   I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. - Thomas Jefferson

2. @Lance
   I enjoy your comments on the workings of the markets, but disagree strongly with your opinion that good old-fashioned tariffs are how to deal with the Chinese. It is good old-fashioned protectionism that got the US into this predicament in the first place.

   Take the steel industry as an example: The industry was dominated by the US for 100 years. But when factories attempted to modernize or close down because they were uneconomical, it became a political issue, rather than the financial issue it should've been. As a result, inefficient US steel mills were propped up for 25 years by import duties, politicians, and unions attempting to preserve out-dated jobs.

   Meanwhile, the world of steel making continued to advance everywhere but in the US. Furthermore, there was no decrease in US steel capacity because politicians and unions refused to allow steel mills to go under, which led to drastic steel price declines, making even economic steel mills uneconomic, and unable to find the capital to modernize.

   But steel mills in other countries continued to advance. Finally, as the abilities of foreign steel makers to make higher quality steel cheaper exceeded the ability of antiquated US mills to undercut them with import duties, the dam burst. The US steel industry, artificially propped up by subsidies for decades, was obliterated. And, of course, they blamed the foreigners, when in fact, it was 20 years of being stuck in a technological time warp through government and union protectionism.

   Now the Chinese make 75% of the world's steel products, and they have the US to thank for it.

   I spend a lot of time in China. Labor standards have improved immensely in just the last five years. For example, Audi now has more plants in China than in Germany, and their Chinese workers have the same safety requirements, training, and benefits as their German workers. Furthermore, as the Chinese economy is infinitely more capitalist than the North American economies, workers are free to market their skills to the highest bidder. As a result, factories are now offering housing, food, recreation areas, expanded vacation time and enhanced medical benefits to attract the best workers.

   To summarize, it's a funny thing about capitalism: it always finds the most efficient way to deploy itself. The North American fantasy that a factory worker should receive $55,000/year, a new vehicle every two years, and a plasma TV for pushing a button is over.

   It's not the Chinese who are underpaid (most are earning a good living in China); it's that North American workers are overpaid and waiting for government to secure their entitlements. Unfortunately for all of us in North America, the jig is up; the money's gone, and the age of de-leveraging is upon us.

   History tells us that the ruling superpower is the country with the money (Greece, Rome, Britain, US). Now, China has the money, while the US is the largest debtor nation in history and can never repay what it has borrowed. In an ironic twist, the interest on the US debt to China is now enough to pay all the expenses of the world's largest single employer: the Chinese military.

   With this background, next year my daughter heads to China for university to further work on her Mandarin and her cultural understanding of the world's next superpower. We all might want to consider taking similar steps.

   Cheers

3. Wow, what a precise market.

   It closed the S&P 500 at exactly the 61.8% retracement and BAC at precisely the 100% retracement. The bear market pump and dump is going great, 30% of stocks are above the 50-day MA presently, down from 45% last week.

4. JPM downgrades all commodities, especially silver, which they have naked shorts on to the tune of tens of thousands of tonnes.

5. Too strong and without merit. This doesn't help any investor o trader.

6. Lance, your being too complacent.....the stock market hasn't been around all that long, these times are unprecedented and a very short period of civilization. Try and think outside the box for a change from the likes of Wall Street, Central Banks and Fiat Currencies.

7. JP Morgan downgrades all commodities. Full report:

   http://www.scribd.com/doc/73569264/JPM-Phase-Shift

8. A lesson I learned long ago about being a SHORT seller. Never bet against your fellow humans over the long term. Notice how the stock market always goes up when you go back long enough. The stock market is in a bull market 70% of the time, and a bear market 30% of the time. People always work things out in the long run, they always have and they always will. Human ingenuity has led to technological developments through applied science, but can also be seen in the development of new social organizations, institutions and relationships. Ingenuity involves the most complex human thought processes, bringing together our thinking and acting both individually and collectively to take advantage of opportunities or to overcome problems.

   The ingenuity gap denotes the space between a challenge and a solution. Yes Europe represents an ingenuity gap at the moment and we can profit from this short term by being SHORT this market. But over the long haul, human ingenuity ALWAYS wins out and eventually, it will win out in Europe as well. Planning for exactly WHEN it will work out is a fools game. Instead, just focus on not getting caught with your pants down when it eventually DOES work out.

   Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - George S. Patton

9. The ECB will monetize the debt by lending to the IMF which in return will buy up Italian and Spanish bonds. There is no other way out of this mess, aside from global collapse and depression.

10. There is a general decline in morals and manners which in America's case began to develop around 1958. It showed up in the Fair Play for Cuba committees which went to Cuba to support communism and was brought to fruition during the Viet Nam war. The courts, cesspools of demonic anti-Christ influence, did immense damage and that was continued by elected officials who reflected the moral corruption and confusion of their populations - who became Robin Hoods robbing the people and not the government (as with the original story). Starting with Clinton we got into porno nakedism and with the Naked Marxist emperor we have in office now we are in a pre-dictatorship European phase. Take your pick: Germany in 1933, Russia in 1918, Rome after Christ. Now we have people who (a) can't realize it's happening and who are (b) lacking in intelligence to believe it if told and (c) are lying whore moral criminals as regard government and money (name any high Federal level Democrat at this point). The unions aligned with these people and moral factors are a mob of Marxists who, like the rags-covered rabble in a medieval movie starring Errol Flynn, will go through the alleys with instructions to start rumors that, "Richard is dead and prince so-and-so is his choice to assume the throne". The evil prince uses Boris Karloff (the torturer) to issue the instructions.

    PFE is dealing with an allegation of bribery to influence selling drugs in Europe. This is likely going to cost a fine. The other problem is their big Cadillac of products, Lipitor, is exhausting its patent and will become, in their new strategy, a branded near-generic drug promoted as a commercial option like first place Coke to second place Pepsi. Thus the brand big name(s)will become generics against non-brand generics where price may not now be an issue but rather quality and the old long time recognition. Pfizer should come out of this OK but good management and marketing may come to aught in the larger economy of tax and regulatory persecution. I am somewhat inclined to invest in assorted drug and medical service businesses as with wars and plagues, etc, there will be a market for those products as long as there are functioning markets. "Functioning" also considers wars, earthquakes, comet strikes, The Big One in California or the northwest, etc.

11. @Michael - Actually, it's more difficult than that according to the Department Of Labor. All the salaried employees at the corporation I work for can not legally work more than 8 hours per day, at the salaried rate, because they are non-exempt salaried employees; so, even being on a salary, if you don't have people underneath you that you supervise/boss, you must be paid overtime for working more than 8 hours per day. To be classified as a exempt salaried employee, you must have people that you control/boss, in which case you can work more than 8 hours per day without being paid overtime. So there are two types of salaried workers and whether you get overtime is based upon if you control/direct/boss other people who work under you. There may be even more types of salaried workers than that.

    In any event, I don't think any salaried employee should be called a bum based on if they work 8 hours per day or more. I work about 16 hours per day because I have two jobs, yet I get no overtime. Friends work 10 hours per day and do get overtime because they are salaried but don't have workers under them. Some I know work 12 hours per day, do have employees under them, but get no overtime. I wouldn't classify any of these friends/groups as bums.

12. I guess I should find a union job. All us salaried bums work more than 8 hours per day with no overtime

13. I would pay more to buy Made In USA...in Australia, it would be a lot more... Quallity of goods were never the same after China took over! I have a GE dryer.. 20 Years old... I replace Chinese white goods about every three years...in the end the dryer is almost free!

14. With the deregulation of financial firms like MF Global, the co-mingling of investors funds with MF Global's funds is an issue that we as a society are going to have to deal with: government regulation versus free market. The dial has been swinging back but the SEC still lacks on the job. Wall Street rip offs like MF Global will continue to make the news every few months until the regulation versus free market stand-off between republicans and democrats is resolved.

    I don't believe that our goal should be to better compete with China. We can't. China doesn't have the same standards of basic human rights that we do. I've never understood the desire to better compete with China because that's a losers game. Until workers and labor movements can form in China and demand basic human rights and wages, China will always be able to build something, anything, cheaper than the U.S. I wouldn't count on Chinese workers demanding fair wages and winning anytime soon: i.e. Communism. Until then, Chinese workers will have to continue to jump off buildings to their deaths in protest and even that probably won't be enough until the current communist leaders die off.

    Good old fashion tariffs on Chinese goods, and American business protectionism is the best defense against the Chinese, even if that means higher prices on consumer goods in the U.S. because, again, the U.S. won't be able to compete with Chinese workers and really, our goal shouldn't be to do that, unless you want to roll back a century worth of labor victories by the American worker such as minimum wage, 8 hour working days and anything more is overtime, 5 working days a week, no child labor, etc.

15. The checks and balances in the US government, which we learned about in high school back in the mid-20th century, no longer exist. Massive and utter corruption, along with rigid ideology, rampant militarism, an uniformed electorate and leadership, have all combined to eliminate them. The system is well and truly broken, and all except the blind can now see it, even from afar.

    Let us hope we manage to reinvent ourselves into a democratic republic. But honestly, does it appear to be going in this direction?

16. @ Steve...just read a good list of things to keep in mind at Barry Ritholz site http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/richard-rhodes-12-trading-rules/

    "Richard Rhodes passes along these “ridiculously simple” trading rules, given to him by “a great trader some 15 years ago.”

    Follow these rules, breaking them infrequently, and you will make money year in and year out.

    The rules are simple. Sticking to them is what’s difficult." I think the trade triangles will concur with these simple rules!

17. "Everybody gets so much information all
    day long that they lose their common sense."
    - Gertrude Stein

18. @Nikitas...don't worry Adam let's US politicians have it too! Besides, all politicians are sociopaths in my opinion...so what can we expect! Dr Hare who compiles the PCL-R ( Psychopathy Check List used by prisons and HR departments say it best...data shows 1% of the population are psychopaths, with 4% being represented among politicians and CEO's...book worth a read: Without Conscience,D. Robert Hare....or if you want a bit more readable study for lay person: The Psychopathy Test by Ronson...both cover CEO and Politicians ...very interesting studies...both books will change the way you see the world.

19. Adam. I'm a simple person, with KIS thinking. I would have thought that the Super Committee would have, at least, made initial cuts. They don't need to have every last dollar accounted for. The tough cuts would come in a second round. Acclimatize the public to what will be and then do the final dirty work.

20. Hey Adam,
    Your too busy baging Europe but you yanks are the biggest crooks out.Say no more

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