American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[Member #4112]

Every time the Caramel One opens his mouth the market goes down and so does my 401k.

Moved everything into Cash until we hit the bottom, where ever that is. I thought everything was suppose to turn around once the Caramel One took over.

I don't think you can jump start the market or industry by kicking them in the teeth and then expecting them to react favorably. Looks to me like a "The floggings will cease when moral improves" sort of thing.

Just my 2 cents

[Jackson]

PS--Jackson I hate your editing software. It will not permit me to write what I want to write nor edit in the manner I prefer.

MB,

Here's how to by-pass the text cleanup script: Post some complete gibberish, then edit your post however you wish.

In other words, the text cleanup script is not invoked after editing a post, only after the initial upload.

Thanks,

Jackson

[Jackson]

But you O lovers are in a state of denial. At this early stage, everything O has done so far is an unmitigated disaster! Get your heads out of the sand and get objective! Believe it or not, ever since October, when it appeared O was going to win, the stock market has been discounting the disaster of O! ''The tape doesn't lie!

I agree with you Sid, but you can't reason with those who are entranced by the hypnotic powers of "the Messiah".

[BadMan]

On second thought MB,

Maybe we should keep the thread simply for it's entertainment value. The bickering alone is priceless.

As long as we remember it's just the internet and don't take it too seriously, I think we will be fine.

It's when people start going ape shit that things get ugly.

We should start an " ape shit " prevention program and leave well enough alone.

Regards,

BM

[Miami Bob]

I really hoped the Sid and others might have a conversation about our new president and what he is attempting to do. No one is going to change anyone else world view here. The strangest thing is that many of the people who have the most divergent points of view are actually friends who enjoy each others' company except when discussing politics.

I guess that truths that our grandparents taught us as kids once again hold true:

Don't talk about politics nor religion.

I like Sid and enjoy his company and would rather have his friendship than continue this line of discussion. Might we aggree to disaggree? Apparently.

Dialog is impossible I don't love everything about the big O and some of what is going on now is shocking to me. I voted for him and would do it again.

His policies look like that they will impact my retirement plans and impact my standard of living in the future. You may disaggree, but I honestly believe that.

Neo-con's would have eventually destroyed the republic.

Our politics in the usa tend to follow a dialectical pattern---discused by hegel and then carl marx--they swing back and forth to either tail of the bell curve. I though that in the big O there might have been a pull towards the middle like we saw with Clinton. I haven't made up my mind about him yet. The left wing of the Democratic party, to my point of view, is excercising too much control. This is unfortuate considering the extremist right wing shift in the Republican party since regan. The middle ground seems to have become lost. W.'s grandfather, Prescot, was a moderate and some thought liberal Republican. Today, Nixon would be considerred a liberal by most Republicans.

Maybe I am full of shit and take whatever I say with a grain of salt. The state of this tread mirrors what is going on in the USA today: anger, closemindedness, hate and an absence of dialog.

Sid--I know you and your personal point of view is generally in that middle ground. Why all of this strong emotion? Your postings don't to seem to belong to the man that I know and respect. Maybe we should just stop these political postings?

PS--Jackson I hate your editing software. It will not permit me to write what I want to write nor edit in the manner I prefer.

[QuakHunter]

The Board has many valuable purposes besides 'acquiring chicas'!

I guess the posts about Politics before Obama where every critical item laid out about GWB were all OK.

As Reagan said, "Facts are a stubborn thing". The 12-year lows in the markets are being experienced right now and they are back to the levels during Bubba's presidency. GWB spent like a drunken sailor and deserved to have his ass removed in the exact way the US voters did, but you cannot deny the six or seven years of prosperity and growth under his watch. That "eight-years of failed policies" argument doesn't hold water.

IMHO it is absolutely disingenuous to defend the actions of this administration as anything more than eight years of pent up Democratic rage and class envy.

But Sidney, the best part here is still about acquiring chicas. Your economic and financial insight is a distant second or third.

[Gato Hunter]

I would venture to say that 2600 of those are copy and paste bullshit spam that has zero relevance to acquiring chicas.

Besides lots of the mongers I have met have patted me on the back for sharing that story of the streetwalker for the entertainment value alone. Not to mention the 10 or so newer mongers this trip alone that I personaly have taken and shown around town.

[Tiny12]

You'll leave enough to spoil your kid. The tax changes will not change your life in any way. There is an huge revenue short fall.

There's a huge revenue shortfall because politicians are wasting our money on pork masquerading as stimulus. The tax changes aren't going to increase revenue significantly, compared to the size of the deficits we're running up right now. They're just the Democrats' way of punishing the Republicans' constituencies.

[Gato Hunter]

Sidney,

Post something about putas instead of your cut and paste spam.

Why do we have to talk about politics here? It seems like its a pissing contest that will never end. The worlds problems won't get fixed here.

[Miami Bob]

You'll leave enough to spoil your kid. The tax changes will not change your life in any way. There is an huge revenue short fall. WE all know that you disaggree and hate the president and everything he stands for or dreams of and even hate the lint that is brushed off of his suite. I am sorry that I started this thread--there is no discussion--only sid's hatred and spleen.

JACKSON--PLEASE wipe out the whole thing. Sid has the right to post anything that wants......I just don't want to be part of it.

ps sid thanks for some of the great reataurant suggestions!

[Tiny12]

MB, you didn't ask for anyone else's opinion, but I'll jump in, just in case it's helpful, as a career institutional stockbroker and mutual fund manager.

I think the uptick rule is a good one, and I would like to see it restored. I did not understand what the value of eliminating it was supposed to be.

I've sold short maybe 20 different securities when the uptick rule was in effect, so don't have a lot of experience. But I've never once failed to fill an order on account of the uptick rule. And in several instances I sold fairly illiquid securities short, where on a few days I accounted for a significant % of the trading. Regulation SHO and other prohibitions against naked shorting do have teeth, but the uptick rule seems to me to be meaningless.

Active traders can get around this anyway. A trader might buy 2000 shares of ABC and sell short 2000 shares of ABC. Then when he decides to go short, he just gets rid of their long position and keeps the short position. He doesn't need to wait for an uptick. I believe if you're classified as a professional trader you're violating securities regulations when you do this, but if you have two brokerage accounts nobody is going to find out.

Short sellers may have made life a little more difficult for the banks, by raising the cost of equity capital. But it would be ridiculous to blame this crisis on them. The banks were the ones that became overleveraged, got into positions they didn't understand, and were just plain lazy and greedy (I. E. Giving out mortgages and credit cards to people who would never be able to pay them back)

[Miami Bob]

Would you share a little bit of your experince and knowledge with all of us?

BTG tends to agree with my point of view that some regualtion might help slow the destruction of capital.

I would love to see the SEC to have the funding to investigate some of the financial nonsense and prosecute or refer to the us attorney violators and wall street guys who committed fraud and made tens or hundreds of milllions of dollars. As stan the man, who used to work at the sec told us, the sec under the last president barely had money to buy toner for the photocopiers. If you don't believe in regulation, don't waste money on funding regulators.

Sidney?

[Big Travel Guy]

MB, you didn't ask for anyone else's opinion, but I'll jump in, just in case it's helpful, as a career institutional stockbroker and mutual fund manager.

I think the uptick rule is a good one, and I would like to see it restored. I did not understand what the value of eliminating it was supposed to be.

I am in favor of short selling as a means to maintain orderly, fair, and liquid markets. It does not, in and of itself, mean bad things for market values. Every share of stock that is borrowed and sold short is a share that needs to be bought back at some point. Hence, it is a creator of demand for the stock, at some (uncertain) time in the future.

By having to wait for a stock to trade at a higher price than the last, different previous sales price, (which is what the uptick rule calls for) it assures that only stocks where there is at least some demand for them can be sold short, and it means that you can't easily institute a "bear raid".

The way a bear raid works is that you keep selling the borrowed shares lower, and lower, and lower, without any restaint. When you let people do this, you give them an incentive to do it, and profit in an unseemly manner, because by starting to sell the shares when they are higher, then driving them down very low, they are guaranteed to have an average sales price above where the stock eventually drops. They are thus guaranteed a profit, especially as desperate sellers, perhaps with margin calls, or violation of debt capital covenants or capital requirements, or stunned by just plain fear of the stock going to zero, are forced to sell their own, depressed shares (that they actually own) at rock bottom prices for liquidity. This is NOT an efficient capital market at work, it's a kind of a fear-driven ponzi scheme in reverse. People that wouldn't want to sell at depressed prices are forced to, and the short seller, who is really just a market manipulator, profits.

Anyway, short selling is ok, bear raiding is not ok. I am for the uptick rule.

Hope this is of some value to you, if you agree with it.

BTG

[Miami Bob]

Please get some new spin on your hatred. It is becoming boring. Dick morris? Quoting him again?

Let's turn to some sort of new angle. You are a bright man. But you are repeating yourself. I do respect your right to hate the president. You have the right to repeat your hatred as many ways as you please.

There is a debate beginning on the sec bringing back the up-tick rule. The fed chairman actually spoke about it in his speach today. Sid is a professional securities trader w / lots of savy. This rule was first put in place by Joe Kennedy--JFK's father, when he was FDR's SEC chairman.

Many historians blame the large number of bank failures in the early 1930's on short sellers beating the bank stocks to death. BAD news. Scare the heck out of everyone. Runs on the banks and the bank stock prices get pounded down every day without let-up. So joe kennedy imposes a requirement that you cannot sell short a stock without waiting for the stock to up-tick[go up] before another short sale can be made. This rule remained in place since it started thru all the other presidents including such free market kind of guys like regan and nixon. Our last president--with his harvard mba--let the rule be dropped. The fed president implied that the rule might be re-instated to prevent the dailey punding and manipulation of bank stocks which have enough of their own real fundimental problems.

I am hoping that Sid might comment on something positive about Bush leaving and having some new faces in town and possibly at the SEC.

Sid--I aggree that the new secretary of the treasury has no idea--he is clue- less and scaring the S__T out of everyone. I can't imagine what he is doing or even more interesting--what is his actually intention when this endless barrage of dumb garbage pours out of his mouth.

It would be good to hear from you. You are more knowledgable than most about the stock markets. What role, if any, does the lack of the up-tick rule play in the destruction of capital today?

Sid--do your thing, please!

[El Perro]

Not only that, but I doubt there are many reputable psychologists that would risk their name making a diagnosis on a person (particulary so high-profile) without actually spending time with and interviewing that person, as well as those who know that person.

And here (I think) is his site:

http://samvak.tripod.com/

It looks like the same sort of site that sells all sorts of shit from penile enhancement to weight loss, etc.

And I couldn't read the whole thing. Whatever happened to paragraphing? Very difficult to read at best.

Exactly-no self respecting psychotherapist would be public, particularly with such a diagnosis. And EVEN MORE so if he or she had evaluated the patient. Can you say mega LAWSUIT? This kind of crap is published by people with an axe to grind and / or people desperate for attention, and maybe the money that might come with it. Not to mention that the "diagnosis" is ludicrous to begin with.

Sidney, please exercise some restraint! What incredible rubbish!