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The Stock Room page 67
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(Continued from page 66) NOTHING! SQUAT! ZERO! NADA! ZIP! Right after that we almost drove the world off a cliff – again – through the horrid shorting of Greece. Not until only after the Greek government screamed at the financial community to stop the manipulation and speculation have things calmed down. Instead of blaming the banks that afforded Greece (among other things) to throw a fabulous Summer Olympics in 2004; Greece is throwing that blame right back where it belongs – onto speculators and bond short-sellers. Now, as I said would happen, Greece seems to be getting time to resolve whatever their internal issues maybe; and they are NOT being forced into bankruptcy over a weekend… remember Lehman’s, Bear… as we had forced many of our financial institutions in to just so some shorties could garner bigger profits. On the home-front, unemployment numbers this week seemed tolerable, manufacturing #’s are improving, and consumer spending appears to be regaining traction. This is all well and good, but it just doesn’t feel right! Why? My main peeve is that business is still being scared to death about Armageddon II, and there are way too many out there still hell bent determined to bring it on… and I’m not talking about a cheerleader movie, either. Our Prez seems determined to force down everyone’s throat a health care bill that accomplishes little except to increase costs and to give his bruised ego a boost. The SEC supposedly had meetings on putting back a watered down ‘uptick rule’, but it seems that even that won’t get done. In the meantime, horrid media channels promote their version of short-term trading, one has even been moved up to a prime time spot. I refuse to mention it! Deplorable! Just deplorable! I thought that when the CEO of Citi went to Washington and actually screamed that shorts caused this mess, something would happen. Pandit: Short sellers contributed to Citi's woes - MarketWatch Guess not! Best I seemed to garner was a brief comment from a CNBS commentator on that horrid FastAsswipe show. Listen to the “20 second” trading comment made at around 3 minutes into the video.
What really wanted to make me vomit was the reaction by those jerk-head traders/traitors on the show. “What me worry!”
So, now I say and not ask the question: “What have we learned!” _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/19/2010 @6:30 pm EST:
What we allowed a few shorties to do to our financial system; we are now allowing them to do the same thing to Countries as a whole. A few months back we had that Dubai incident where supposedly they were going to default and everything was going to crash. Well, basically it turned out to be a ploy by Abu Dhabi to gain control of a good part of Dubai’s finances and real estate. Now we have a situation with Greece, where a few bond players have been messing around with a sovereign Nation’s finances. John Paulson, Hedgies at Center of Greece Woes? - Stocks To Watch Today - Barrons.com Please don’t blame John Paulson alone. The biggest terrorist of all is lurking behind his bonds out in California while he preaches his ‘New Normal’ crappola. I’m not sure why Greece is taking this! They should rise up and tell all those financial terrorist where to place it.
Back to our stupidity. In 1 month we have gone from looking at a time of reasonable growth >>> to almost entering Armageddon II >>> and now to what appears to be a stable period of stagnancy, or should I say lunacy!
All in all just a ridiculous amount of hysteria and angst, and again for no better reason then to allow some short-term traders/traitors a bigger profit. The media hasn’t helped. Even when someone tries to show a positive take – so-called reporters like Maria Bartiroma lean over the desk shouting in her own guests face, basically calling them an idiot. I’m not sure whether Squeaky Fromme from Morgan Stanley was all that happy with her! And, as a side note: SEC Votes on Uptick Rule Next Week; Have You Voiced Your Opinion? Barons.com The 4 Golden Rules 1. Immediately, reinstate the Up-Tick Rule. 2. Crack down on naked short selling. Require stock certificate #'s when a short sale needs to be covered, including ETF’s. 3. Institute some rules on how the media ’reports’ news in order to prevent rumor-boarding. Not censorship… just sensibility & responsibility. 4. Pass a Wind-Fall Capital Gains Tax of 65% on ALL short sales! _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/16/2010 @8:30 am EST:
The Smoking Gun
Well, this smoking gun isn’t so smoking – it’s right out there! I have screamed that the short-term mentality of option traders/traitors controlled by SkyNet is causing most, if not the entire current crisis. I have complained that what all these guys were doing was just gambling and even though no one was stopping it, NO ONE even was trying to tax them at the same rates a compulsive gambler has to pay. Why the heck do the rest of us have to pay for their compulsive behavior? This morning a guest on CNBS came right out and said it. I will paraphrase, but listen to the guy from ‘The Schork report’ towards the end: “These traders are using the SAME computer programs that POKER players use to determine the next card. Nothing is based on fundamentals anymore, it’s all just gambling!” Why do we continue to subsidize this kind of behavior? I also have to ask why the people of Greece, who are currently getting screwed over are allowing their entire Nation to be destroyed for bond trader/traitors short-term greed? Again, I stress that we may not be able to stop or even control this kind of behavior! “Greed is good!” What we should do is to promote long-term investing at the same time we try to limit the scope of this short-term mentality WHILE we get much needed revenue to help pay for the mess!
STOP THE INSANITY NOW! Revised Tax Rules: 1. Capital gains under <6 months - 55% tax on capital gains 2. Capital gains 6 > 12 months - 45% tax on capital gains 3. Capital gains 1 > 2 years - 35% tax on capital gains 4. Capital gains 2 > 5 years - 18% tax on capital gains 5. Capital gains 5+ years - 5% tax on capital gains 6. Most critical of all — Institute a capital gains tax of 55% on ALL short sales not directly tied to a long buy by a licensed hedge fund. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/14/2010 @4:00 pm EST:
The Financial Times has another one of those articles calling, like me, for us all to just move on and stop the blaming process. FT.com - Scapegoating will not stop another crisis. I TOTALLY AGREE! However, towards the end the author has to put this in: In other words it’s OK to continue to blame the entire financial structure as a whole and not specific individuals? What hypocrisy! Firstly, you all know how I feel on the subject, and if there is any blaming to be placed it should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the few shorts who drove us off a cliff to satisfy their personal narcissistic greed. Altruism has no place here! Secondly, it wasn’t that our banks were too big too fail, but rather nothing can survive changing the rules in the middle; and then expecting any entity to withdraw 60% of their equity overnight and not have consequences. Thirdly, and most importantly, NONE of this would matter if we stopped the short-term mentality that creates these bubbles and extremes before they can even get started. At least we should get these traders/traitors to pay for the damage they are causing. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/13/2010 @9:00 am EST:
Have we learned nothing? When are we going to recognize what this ‘Trader/Traitor Mentality’ is doing to us? More importantly, when are going to recognize the role the media has played in all of this? Do any of you remember last year at this time, when that horrid Dylan Rattigan of CNBS would walk across the floor of the NYSE shouting in our faces the ‘N’ word, while he called for the mass destruction of our entire financial system? You really think that week after week of that didn’t have a negative impact on our collective psyche? There are even websites dedicated to these media, narcissistic Type ‘A’ jerks, Jim Cramer of MadMoney is just one. The Cramer Effect tracks what that pompous media-hog says, and advises people on how to trade on his every word! Deplorable! There was even a time when he would say something on his show and a stock would pop 10 points or tank 20 points, depending on how loud he would shout his moronic booyah! You may ask as to why I am picking on CNBS? Basically because through hype and self-promotion, that cable station has become the poster child for horrific, so-called financial reporting. FINANCIAL REPORTING? More like hysteria hype and rumorboarding that would put TMZ and Gossip Girl to shame! NOW next week I understand that CNBS is going to broadcast the most deplorable show of them all… Fast Money (a.k.a. FastAsswipes) in the middle of the day, because the Olympics will take their normal 5:00 pm spot. Great idea guys, let’s put the biggest purveyor of short-term thinking and trading, based on hysteria and fear right in the middle of the day so that volatility and insanity can really reign supreme! So what have we learned? Obviously not a damn thing!
STOP THE INSANITY NOW! Revised Tax Rules: 1. Capital gains under <6 months - 55% tax on capital gains 2. Capital gains 6 > 12 months - 45% tax on capital gains 3. Capital gains 1 > 2 years - 35% tax on capital gains 4. Capital gains 2 > 5 years - 18% tax on capital gains 5. Capital gains 5+ years - 5% tax on capital gains 6. Most critical of all — Institute a capital gains tax of 55% on ALL short sales not directly tied to a long buy by a licensed hedge fund.
If any of you out there have any possibility of getting them to change, PLEASE do so immediately. I have screamed my lungs out and have written to everyone, with no avail. Just as another experienced investor wrote: "After writing to my congressmen, with no replies, and reporting to the SEC by the means they make available on the internet, with no response nor any action, I have continued to invest, because I prefer stocks to other investments." Maybe Comcast will see the light since they have bought NBC. And please don’t tell me that the only reason they are so successful is because people are watching! That my dear friend is exactly my point and the problem! _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/11/2010 @6:00 pm EST:
I was sent a link to this video about a bank that went belly-up during the 2008 insanity. Really worth the watch, that is if you want to piss yourself off.
The Indy Mac Slap in our Face. While the video is totally spot on, what it TOTALLY misses is that the same guys who bought the bank it references were the VERY SAME ones that helped to short it and its’ mortgages into the toilet in the 1st place. I blogged about this over 1 year ago and no one listened. apppro’s take for 03/23/2009 @ 8:30 am EST: (Page 12) So they shorted the bank's mortgages into the toilet made a fortune on that and then got the FDIC (US) to sell them the bank and the mortgages at almost nada. As I said before, what these shorties kept screaming were ‘worthless’, now that they got the FDIC to sell the mortgages to them, NOW the mortgages were just actually >>> worth_less! What a joke! It all goes back to ‘The Shorting of America’. Anyway, I was just a little upset that they had used my Shakespearean analogy: Meanwhile, narrator sent me this: "Stock Shock" Movie About Wall Street Wins Spot At International Film Festival All in all, until we do something about this Trader/Traitor Mentality – nothing good will happen. STOP THE INSANITY NOW! Revised Tax Rules: 1. Capital gains under <6 months - 55% tax on capital gains 2. Capital gains 6 > 12 months - 45% tax on capital gains 3. Capital gains 1 > 2 years - 35% tax on capital gains (Continued on page 68) |
