Mafeking

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    • Mon Nov 17th 16:09 PM
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      Commented on:
      UltraShort ETFs: At a Tipping Point?
      SO let me get this right. There is a 50 percent chance that it goes up and a 50% chance that is goes down. Wow this is exciting. Using these odds I'll soon be rich. If I bet one direction all the time I am going to be right about 50 percent of the time. Rich I tell you, rich.
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    • Mon Nov 17th 08:15 AM
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      Can a Global Economy Be Managed One Nation at a Time?
      What a dumb article. So this is the level of naive thinking that a Wharton MBA gets you! We have a problem so let's regulate. Come on Fred, there is a living breathing example of the incompetence of 'global' organizations just down the road from you called the UN.

      Following on from the Libyan representative being the head of the Human Rights Commission at the UN perhaps the finance minister from Zimbabwe can be in charge of the global financial situation.
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    • Thu Nov 6th 07:35 AM
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      Rating: +1 -1
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      A Few Guiding Principles for President-Elect Obama
      "Barack Obama's historic victory has given many in this country, and across the world, hope for a brighter future"

      WTF does this mean? It is just this type of flatulent thinking that has got us into this mess. Obama, like all politicians, has done the old bait and switch promises trick, but like all politicians in this mess will be constrained by reality.

      Obama is lucky. He will ride the climb out of the recession / depression, claim responsibility and get the second term.

      Bright future my a**
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    • Mon Nov 3rd 08:40 AM
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      Rating: +5 0
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      A Buy & Hold Forever Dividend Stock Portfolio
      Why not buy a few of the dividend ETFs instead - there is no evidence that your ability to pick dividend payers is any better than the approach used by SDY and DVY
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    • Fri Oct 31st 13:49 PM
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      Personal Income and Spending: Saving is the New Trend (Again)
      This is not a sea change, this is concern and fear. As soon as the fear subsides Americans will be back to their old ways: new cars even though the old ones are fine, McMansions with granite counter tops, absurdly overpriced coffee.... the list goes on and on.
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    • Fri Oct 31st 12:14 PM
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      Is It Finally Time to Buy?
      As a public service I will let you all know when I buy. I have found the moment I buy the market senses it and plunges. I don't plan to buy for a few more days.
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    • Tue Oct 14th 18:57 PM
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      How Bad Are Housing Price Declines Worldwide?
      The data is rather misleading. Since it is only the first half of 2008 it gives misleading impressions.

      Canada for example has not declined as much as the US yet the graph covering a specific time period indicates otherwise. Canada's house prices only began to soften in mid 2008 whereas the US decline has been going on for 18 months or so.
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    • Sun Oct 5th 12:30 PM
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      America Needs a Turnaround Plan
      Fred, good that you want to repeal the tax cuts. But it is not necessary. There is good news. The tax forms have already a provision to enable people to volunteer additional tax to the Federal government.

      I look forward to you announcing in SA come April 09 that you have contributed extra tax - but please don't speak for me. I do want the government effectively wasting my money. We have seen only to clearly how addtional legislation and coercion (Barney Frank and Fannie Mae etc.) have screwed things up.

      I have put a note in my calendar next May to enquire whether you have volunteered more tax than required.
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    • Mon Sep 29th 16:45 PM
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      Fear Goes Hand in Hand with Drama
      As Bespoke pointed out - they did not commit the $700 billion - oh great, but in the meantime the stock market lost around $750 billion today. Since most of us have 401Ks and stock, we lost the value anyway.

      The other way we would have more chance of it coming back.
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    • Sat Sep 27th 15:51 PM
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      Golden Arches Safer Than Uncle Sam?
      Be very clear if the bailout does not go through it will affect each and every one of us - not only the rich, or the fat cats, or the CEOs.

      Without credit businesses will not be able to function and begin to collapse. As business collapses and workers are out of work this will affect other business and so on. A vicious circle will ensue and all the smug "no bailout for the rich" guys will be standing in the soup kitchen queues like the rest of us.

      Maybe these guys are on the wrong web site. Maybe they should be reading the "Workers International" or "International Socialism" where knowledge about how markets work is not uppermost in their minds.
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    • Thu Sep 25th 09:06 AM
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      Bush's Speech: Surprisingly Coherent
      For all those impassioned Bush haters - never forget that it was under the PC Clinton administration that the seeds of this crisis was born.

      Fannie and Freddie became political instruments for providing housing loans to anybody who wanted them regardless of race color or creed or, more importantly, their ability to repay the loan. The NINJA loan - No Income, No Job loans was improbably born because we could not discriminate (that is, refuse a loan to anyone)
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    • Sat Sep 13th 09:59 AM
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      Some Housing Schadenfreude
      Garth Turner is a larger than life character on the Canadian scene having served both as a conservative and liberal member of parliament and as a financial advisor who famously urged people in the late 1990s to use equity in their homes to buy stock. Turner has an ability to articulate the 'perceived economic wisdom' zeitgeist and publish a book on it. Of course, the perceived economic wisdom is almost always wrong.

      Here is why Turner's latest book overstates the situation: Even at the peak of the housing boom here home buyers were never as extended as in the US; houses prices have not risen as much as in the 'hot' markets in the US.

      The market with the most dramatic increase was Calgary which is also the headquarters of the Canadian oil boom. So house price increases there were fueled by the 'tar sands' boom rather than a general run up in housing. Calgary house prices have more to do with oil prices than a general housing malaise.

      Also Canadian house price increases were the lowest in the Anglo-Saxon world: UK, US, Australia and NZ have all increased a lot more than Canada.

      Also as far boomers downsizing is concerned the huge immigration boom Canada is experiencing (percentage wise the largest in the OECD - the country will have an Asian majority by 2034) should more than offset any downsizing effect.

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    • Sun Aug 24th 20:50 PM
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      Obama Is Bad for the Economy - Barron's
      Regardless I hope they tax the s**** out of Buffet. I find it so offensive that the 3rd richest man in the world is all for raising taxes. A preferable approach for Buffet is to voluntarily handing over say an extra 10 percent of his profits to the Feds - he, of course, would not notice it though the share holders would no doubt complain.

      Then at his next meeting he could explain ti was for the common good. I am sure his shareholders would be happy.
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    • Wed Aug 13th 13:58 PM
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      The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex
      From an insular American view of course the article is correct. But thinking more broadly the US is the world policeman that through military might keeps a modicum of stability in the world.

      Any fool can point out that war is bad and that spending money on military might is a waste of money. And of course there is the pubertal reactions of dumb American government and so on. And blaming the previous generation. (The problem is that most Americans have grown in a time of peace and cannot conceive that things could be otherwise. Travel a bit you man to less stable parts of the world and consider than most of the world would be like that without Pax Americana. Before that there was pax Britannia)

      What is the alternative - and before you answer consider how difficult it would be to do business and earn a decent living in a world without stability.

      The pie chart is also misleading in that China has a much lower cost structure than the US and that is applicable to the military as much as manufacturing. China has a larger army - head count wise - than the US
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    • Sun Aug 10th 10:57 AM
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      12 Great Investment Strategies
      I read Mauldin's often intelligent weekly e-letter letter, but have avoided Just One Thing like the plague having scanned through it at the local bookstore and been surprised by the inclusion of semi - charlatans such as Bonner, Gilder and Masterson.

      Bonner is not even remotely an investment guru. He makes his money out of the plethora of newsletters he sells. Gilder is quite simply a fool - more in love with technology than whether it is viable from an investing point of view. Masterson more appropriately should be in a book on marketing 'guru's.

      Some of the other pundits in the book have, of course, more credibility, but it occurred to me that Mauldin himself with his shaky choices of authors was, morphing into a great marketeer. Which is sad, but perhaps it does tell you there is more money in marketing than in investing.
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