The Housing Bubble

Which bubble will pop faster, harder and farther: Bitcoin or gold?

Comment by Bill, just South of Irvine, CA
2013-12-20 21:36:54
HA. Thanks. You get a feel for it. Greed is good to some degree.

gekko was wrong. greed is never good. he lacked a better word. ambition.

take the evil out of greed and you have ambition.

greed-evil=ambition

Is today the day?

The regime leader is off on another taxpayer financed trip to Hawaii. It must be nice living the 1%er life.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/13/obama-and-family-holiday-hawaii-again/

realtors are liars

Who Owns Your Congressman?

Politics is big business, with millions spent each year trying to sway the electoral process. Which industries, businesses and outside interests have donated the most to which candidates?

How Much Money Are We Talking About?

In short, lots. Here’s a look at what candidates in 2013-2014 have raised for this election cycle:
House
Total $289,091,174*
Democrats $125,189,570
Republicans $163,856,570

Senate
Total $152,410,147*
Democrats $81,976,934
Republicans $70,387,430
* Independents not included in party breakdowns
Their combined fundraising is $441,501,321. That’s enough to …
… pay the average heating bills of every resident of the District of Columbia
… pay the average co-pays for 22 million doctor visits
… pay the average grocery bill for 400,000 four-person families

Following the Money
Where does all this cash come from? Here’s a look at which industries have given the most to which parties:

Industry Amount D R
Retired $38,883,345 47% 46%
Securities & investment $32,988,928 31% 55%
Lawyers& law firms $24,522,332 68% 28%
Real estate $18,005,439 41% 53%
Health professionals $16,335,505 39% 55%
Candidate committees $16,214,155 45% 55%
Insurance $11,989,733 38% 62%
Leadership PACs $11,491,828 43% 57%
Oil & gas $9,895,507 12% 86%
Business services $8,482,996 48% 44%
TV/movies/music $8,374,264 63% 34%
Lobbyists $8,016,021 49% 50%
Pharmaceutical/health $7,875,015 40% 60%
Public sector unions $7,647,169 52% 5%
Manufacturing/distribution $7,298,056 30% 68%
Building trade unions $6,976,125 57% 11%
Commercial banks $6,887,181 30% 70%
Computers/Internet $6,821,386 53% 36%
Electric utilities $6,631,879 36% 64%

Here’s a look at the 20 businesses and organizations that contributed the most for lobbying efforts in 2013:
Business/organization Lobbying total

U.S. Chamber of Commerce $51,955,000
National Assn. of Realtors $25,943,435
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $17,076,780
American Hospital Assn. $14,106,478
Comcast Corp. $13,950,000
General Electric $13,840,000
Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $13,802,500
American Medical Assn. $13,775,000
National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. $13,270,000
Northrop Grumman $13,200,000
AT&T Inc. $12,300,000
Boeing Co. $11,460,000
Google Inc. $11,460,000
Lockheed Martin $11,117,466
National Assn. of Broadcasters $10,650,000
Exxon Mobil $10,630,000
Verizon Communications $10,143,000
United Technologies $9,980,373
American Chemistry Council $9,490,000
Grocery Manufacturers Assn. $9,350,000

SOURCES:
http://www.opensecrets.org/
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/
http://crp.org

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/owns-congressman.html - 57k -

Manipulations Rule The Markets

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
December 21, 2013

The Federal Reserve’s announcement on December 18 that beginning in January its monthly purchases of mortgage-backed financial instruments and US Treasury bonds would each be cut by $5 billion is puzzling, as is the financial press’s account of the market’s response.

The Federal Reserve conveys a contradictory message. The Fed says that improvements in employment and the economy justify cutting back on bond purchases. Yet the Fed emphasizes that it is maintaining its commitment to record low interest rates “well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5 percent, especially if projected inflation continues to run below the [Open Market] Committee’s 2 percent longer-run goal. When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent.”

The last sentence in the quote states that the Fed does not regard its announced reduction in bond purchases as less accommodation or as a move toward tightening. In other words, the Fed is saying that tapering does not mean less accommodation.

To put it another way, the Fed is saying that the economy is doing well enough not to require the same amount of monthly bond purchases, but is not doing well enough to stand any change in the near zero nominal federal funds rate. The implication is that the Fed either does not think that a reduction in purchases will result in a rise in long-term interest rates or that such a rise will not derail the economy as long as the Fed keeps short-term rates at or near zero. If the $10 billion decrease in monthly bond demand results in higher long-term interest rates, what good does it do to keep the federal funds rate at zero? If the $10 billion monthly bond purchases were not needed as part of the accommodation policy, why was the Fed purchasing them?

Possibly the Fed thinks that Congress has taken steps to reduce the federal deficit, which would result in a reduced supply of bonds to match the Fed’s reduced demand for bonds, but the Fed’s statement makes no reference to federal deficit reduction, which is probably a smoke and mirrors change instead of a real one.

Moreover, the Fed’s outlook for the economy is mixed. The Fed says that “recovery in the housing sector slowed somewhat in recent months,” so why reduce purchases of mortgage-backed financial instruments? And surely the Fed is aware that the U3 unemployment rate has declined because discouraged workers who cannot find a job are not counted among the unemployed. As all measures show, real median family income and real per capita income are lower today than in 2007, and real consumer credit is not growing except for student loans. Without rising aggregate demand to drive the economy, why does the Fed see a recovery instead of faulty statistical measures that do not accurately portray economic reality?

The financial media’s reporting on the stock market’s response to the Fed’s announcement has its own puzzles. I have not seen the entirety of the news reports, but what I have seen says that the equity market rose because investors interpreted the reduction in bond purchases as signaling the Fed’s vote of confidence in the economy.

Previously when the Fed announced that it might cut back its bond purchases, the markets dropped sharply, and the Fed quickly back-tracked. Everyone knows that the high prices in the bond and equity markets are the result of the liquidity pouring out of the Fed and that a curtailment of this liquidity will adversely affect prices. So why this time did prices go up instead of down?

Pam Martens points out that there is evidence of manipulation. http://wallstreetonparade.com

As market data indicates, the initial response to the Fed’s announcement was a sharp move down as market participants sold stocks on the Fed’s announcement (see the chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in Pam Martens’ article). But within a few minutes the market changed course and rose on panic short-covering just as sharply as it had fallen.

The question is: who provided the upward push that panicked the shorts and sent the market up 292 points? Was it the plunge protection team and the NY Fed’s trading floor? Was it the large banks acting in concert with the Fed? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this was an orchestrated event that forestalled a market decline.

Short selling in the paper gold futures market has been used to protect the US dollar’s value from being knocked down by the Fed’s Quantitative Easing. Following the Fed’s December 18 announcement, another big takedown of gold was launched.

William Kaye had predicted the takedown in advance. He noticed that the ETF gold trust GLD experienced a sudden loss in gold holdings as shares were redeemed for gold. Only the large Fed-dependent bullion banks can redeem shares for gold. Possession of physical gold allows the short-selling that drives down the gold price to be covered.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/12/17_Absolutely_Shocking_Developments_In_The_War_On_Gold.html

Bloomberg reports that gold is exiting the West. It has been shipped out to Asia. You explain, dear reader, how the price of gold can fall so much in the West while the supply of gold dries up.http://www.bloomberg.com/video/what-s-happening-to-all-the-gold-d33u1c23SDqA0p0e~9_INw.html

In a few days prior to the Fed’s tapering announcement, GLD was drained of 25 tonnes of gold by primary bullion banks, JP MorganChase, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Citicorp. As Dave Kranzler pointed out to me, these banks happen to be the biggest players in the OTC derivatives market for precious metals. HSBC is the custodian of the GLD gold and JPM is the custodian of SLV silver. HSBC and JPM are two of the three primary custodial and market-making banks for Comex gold and silver.

The conclusion is obvious. QE helps the big banks, and manipulation of the gold price downward protects the US dollar from its dilution by QE.

The Fed’s reduced bond purchasing announced for the New Year still leaves the Fed purchasing $900 billion worth of bonds annually, so obviously the Fed does not think that everything is OK. Moreover, the Fed has other ways to make up for the $120 billion annual reduction, assuming the reduction actually occurs. The prospect for tapering is dependent on the US economy not sinking deeper into depression. Massaged “success indicators” such as the unemployment rate, which is understated by not counting discouraged workers, and the GDP growth rate, which is overstated with an understated measure of inflation, do not a recovery make. No other economic indicator shows recovery.

Until a whistleblower speaks, we cannot know for certain, but my conclusion is that the Fed understands that it must protect the dollar from being driven down by QE and that the orchestrated takedowns of gold are part of protecting the dollar’s value, and perhaps also the cutback in QE is a part of the protection by signaling an end of money creation. The Fed also understands that it cannot forever drive down the gold price and that it cannot forever pour liquidity into stock and bond markets. To retreat from this policy without crashing the edifice requires successful orchestrations. Therefore, we are likely to experience more of them in the days to come.

Allegedly, the US has free capital markets, and globalism is bringing free capital markets to the world. In actual fact, US capital markets are so manipulated–and now by the authorities themselves–that manipulation cannot stop without a crash.

What American “democratic capitalism” has brought to the world is manipulated financial markets and the absence of democracy. How long this game can play depends on the outside world.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

This article was posted: Saturday, December 21, 2013 at 4:43 am

Tags: economics

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

Harry Reid: Government Needs to Steal More from the Middle Class

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
December 20, 2013

Corporatists and banksters controlling government and the money supply is the problem. Illustration: David Dees
Senate Majority Leader, Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, wants the government to steal more money from the middle class and dole it out to the victims of the Federal Reserve created economic depression.

“Even as the economy creates jobs, too many Americans find themselves on the sidelines watching as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class are getting squeezed and squeezed,” Reid said on Thursday.

“There is no greater challenge this country has than income inequality. And we must do something about it.”

Reid’s solution to income inequality is to tax and borrow more and give money to the unemployed. Democrats like to tell you this money will come from the super rich. But they know the super rich don’t pay taxes. From offshore tax havens to shell games, foundations and equity swaps, the rich rarely if ever pay taxes. Large multinational corporations with teams of lawyers don’t pay taxes either. GE, for instance, avoided paying taxes by socking $108 billion overseas.

So when Harry Reid talks about redistributing more money to the unemployed, he’s talking about taxing the middle class. He’s also talking about taxing the small businessman who can’t afford fancy tax lawyers and does not have the option to move money to the Cayman Islands or Lichtenstein.

Come on Obama, cancel Obamacare; I dare ya!

‘It’s hard to come up with new ways to describe the Obama administration’s improvisational approach to the Affordable Care Act’s troubled health insurance exchanges. But last night, the White House made its most consequential announcement yet.’

‘Obama Repeals ObamaCare’

It’s not even 2014 yet. Was this the fastest policy fail in history?

‘A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.’

“It was, ‘Huh, hello? What are we doing here?’” said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, in an interview with NBC News. “The results were very thin.”

‘While Stone said the mass collection of telephone call records was a “logical program” from the NSA’s perspective, one question the White House panel was seeking to answer was whether it had actually stopped “any [terror attacks] that might have been really big.”

“We found none,” said Stone.’

Of course it didn’t stop any attacks. That’s not what it was designed for.

Hope and Change

“Massachusetts State Police seized 1,250 bags of heroin Friday morning, many labeled “Obamacare.”

Two troopers found the bags during a traffic stop in Hatfield, Mass., according to a post on the agency’s Facebook page.

Troopers Joe Petty and Dave Stucenski, assisted by a K9 named Frankie, took four people into custody. They have been charged with narcotics violations.”

http://www.denverpost.com/obamacare/ci_24766798/somebody-decided-stamp-obamacare-1-250-bags-heroin

“We are a nation of laws and not of men.” John Adams.

“Remember… a house is a depreciating asset and loss, ALWAYS.”

Exactly.

When you see a house, it represents debt and loss.

Hope and Change

“The Senate may be drenched in dysfunction, but it still just gave President Barack Obama a much-appreciated Christmas present: a whole bunch of freshly confirmed agency appointees.

Thanks to Harry Reid’s filibuster changes, a spate of Obama appointees are headed to many of the vital departments involved in implementing the regulations, policy and executive functions that Congress won’t be touching next year — and they won’t have to worry about Senate Republicans anymore.

New people headed into their jobs for the new year will handle everything from Middle East diplomacy to immigration, taxes, homeland security, housing and military sexual assault. With Congress unlikely to move much of the president’s domestic agenda, the appointees will play a big part in Obama’s 2014 executive and regulatory actions aimed at helping him build out a domestic and foreign policy legacy.

And that has Republicans worried that Obama will circumvent Congress and allow his new choices to be essentially unaccountable to Capitol Hill now that the GOP has even less leverage during the confirmation process.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/obama-appointees-2014-policy-101397.html?hp=t1

When hope and change meets reality….

‘Almost Orwellian’ — why Judge Leon is right about massive NSA spying program
FoxNews | December 19, 2013 | Andrew P. Napolitano

“Almost Orwellian” — that’s the description a federal judge gave earlier this week to the massive spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on virtually all 380 million cellphones in the United States.

In the first meaningful and jurisdictionally grounded judicial review of the NSA cellphone spying program, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee sitting in Washington, D.C., ruled that the scheme of asking a secret judge on a secret court for a general warrant to spy on all American cellphone users without providing evidence of probable cause of criminal behavior against any of them is unconstitutional because it directly violates the Fourth Amendment.

The most transparent administration in history

“President Barack Obama defended the National Security Agency’s call-tracking database Friday, but didn’t offer any specific examples of terrorist attacks the massive collection of telephone data had averted either in the U.S. or elsewhere.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/nsa-call-tracking-database-obama-101394.html?hp=l3

Hope and Change

“President Barack Obama dismissed his falling poll numbers on Friday and defended his administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act as he spoke at a year-end White House news conference.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/president-obama-press-conference-2013-101391.html?hp=l7

Forward

“Obama on Friday urged the House to back the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, describing it as a settled matter that the legislation would benefit the country and is politically popular — without mentioning the option of slicing the measure into a series of smaller provisions.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/barack-obama-senate-comprehensive-immigration-reform-bill-101401.html?hp=l4

I can’t believe New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, California and Illinois didn’t make the list

Top ten states for year-over-year job growth
Conservative Intel | 12/20/13 | David Freddoso

Bet you can’t guess what the top five have in common…

1. North Dakota (energy)
2. Texas (everything)
3. Florida (Construction, trade, business services)
4. Idaho (doesn’t say)
5. Georgia (construction)
6. Oregon (construction)
7. Utah (manufacturing, financial services, and trade/transportation/utilities)
8. Indiana (right to work manufacturing)
9. Delaware (financial services)
10.Colorado (fracking energy)

Realtor Arrested For Rigging Foreclosure Auctions

http://www.ajc.com/videos/news/dekalb-real-estate-agent-charged-with-bid-rigging/vCFHQ7/

realtors are frauds

Realtors charged with fraud

http://mortgagefraudblog.com/2-real-estate-agents-charged-with-short-sale-fraud/

Guest Post: 8 Ways The Taper Is Going To Affect You And Your Family
Michael Snyder - The Economic Collapse blog - 12/20/2013

The unelected central planners at the Federal Reserve have decided that the time has come to slightly taper the amount of quantitative easing that it has been doing. On Wednesday, the Fed announced that monthly purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds will be reduced from $45 billion to $40 billion, and monthly purchases of mortgage-backed securities will be reduced from $35 billion to $30 billion. When this news came out, it sent shockwaves through financial markets all over the planet. But the truth is that not that much has really changed. The Federal Reserve will still be recklessly creating gigantic mountains of new money out of thin air and massively intervening in the financial marketplace. It will just be slightly less than before. However, this very well could represent a very important psychological turning point for investors. It is a signal that “the party is starting to end” and that the great bull market of the past four years is drawing to a close. So what is all of this going to mean for average Americans? The following are 8 ways that “the taper” is going to affect you and your family…

1. Interest Rates Are Going To Go Up

2. Home Sales Are Likely Going To Go Down

Mortgage rates are heavily influenced by the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries. Because the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is now substantially higher than it was earlier this year, mortgage rates have also gone up. That is one of the reasons why the number of mortgage applications just hit a new 13 year low. And now if rates go even higher that is going to tighten things up even more. If your job is related to the housing industry in any way, you should be extremely concerned about what is coming in 2014.

3. Your Stocks Are Going To Go Down

In any event, what we do know is that when QE1 ended stocks fell dramatically and the same thing happened when QE2 ended. If you doubt this, just check out this chart.

4. The Money In Your Bank Account Is Constantly Being Devalued

When a new dollar is created, the value of each existing dollar that you hold goes down. And thanks to the Federal Reserve, the pace of money creation in this country has gone exponential in recent years. Just check out what has been happening to M1. It has nearly doubled since the financial crisis of 2008…

The Federal Reserve has been behaving like the Weimar Republic, and this tapering does not change that very much. Even with this tapering, the Fed is still going to be creating money out of thin air at an absolutely insane rate.

And for those that insist that what the Federal Reserve is doing is “working”, it is important to remember that the crazy money printing that the Weimar Republic did worked for them for a little while too before ending in complete and utter disaster.

5. Quantitative Easing Has Been Causing The Cost Of Living To Rise

The Federal Reserve insists that we are in a time of “low inflation”, but anyone that goes to the grocery store or that pays bills on a regular basis knows what a lie that is. The truth is that if the inflation rate was still calculated the same way that it was back when Jimmy Carter was president, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere between 8 and 10 percent today.

Most of the new money created by quantitative easing has ended up in the hands of the very wealthy, and it is in the things that the very wealthy buy that we are seeing the most inflation. As one CNBC article recently stated, we are seeing absolutely rampant inflation in “stocks and bonds and art and Ferraris and farmland”.

6. Quantitative Easing Did Not Reduce Unemployment And Tapering Won’t Either

The Federal Reserve actually first began engaging in quantitative easing back in late 2008. As you can see from the chart below, the percentage of Americans that are actually working is lower today than it was back then…

7. The Rest Of The World Is Going To Continue To Lose Faith In Our Financial System

Everyone else around the world has been watching the Federal Reserve recklessly create hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air and use it to monetize staggering amounts of government debt. They have been warning us to stop doing this, but the Fed has been slow to listen.

We desperately need the rest of the world to keep playing our game, because we have become very dependent on getting super cheap exports from them and we have become very dependent on them lending us trillions of our own dollars back to us.

If the rest of the world decides to move away from the U.S. dollar and U.S. debt because of the incredibly reckless behavior of the Federal Reserve, we are going to be in a massive amount of trouble. Our current economic prosperity greatly depends upon everyone else using our dollars as the reserve currency of the world and lending trillions of dollars back to us at ultra-low interest rates.

8. The Economy As A Whole Is Going To Continue To Get Even Worse

But the truth is that you don’t have to travel far to see evidence of our economic demise for yourself. All you have to do is to go down to the local shopping mall. Sears has experienced sales declines for 27 quarters in a row, and at this point Sears is a dead man walking. The following is from a recent article by Wolf Richter…

Quantitative easing did not “rescue the economy”, but it sure has made our long-term problems a whole lot worse.

If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.

“Debt is bondage.”~Suze Orman, May 11, 2013

In other words, don’t buy housing at these massively inflated prices. Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®

“Buying a house is an adventure in depreciation discovery and slavery.”

It’s a very painful adventure. Just asked the millions of joe 6 paks who throw good money after bad on a rapidly depreciating house, month after month after month.

hope and Change

“Bay Area home sales continued their divergent trajectories in November, with median prices rising while sales volume dipped, according to a real estate report released on Tuesday.

Buyers in the nine-county region paid a median of $550,000 in November, up 25.6 percent from a year earlier, said San Diego’s DataQuick, a real estate information service. The rise was driven by several factors: more high-end homes changing hands, bargain-priced distress sales continuing to dwindle and tight supplies encouraging competitive bids.”

http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Bay-Area-home-prices-up-but-fewer-sold-5073034.php

“When is housing massively overpriced? It’s quite simple. When the price of the house is in excess of the cost to build (lot, materials, labor and profit), less depreciation for a used house.”

Exactly. No need to confuse it. Our cost to build a SFR is right around $55/sq ft, with profit.

Hope and Change

“British and American intelligence agencies had a comprehensive list of surveillance targets that included the EU’s competition commissioner, German government buildings in Berlin and overseas, and the heads of institutions that provide humanitarian and financial help to Africa, top-secret documents reveal.

The papers show GCHQ, in collaboration with America’s National Security Agency (NSA), was targeting organisations such as the United Nations development programme, the UN’s children’s charity Unicef and Médecins du Monde, a French organisation that provides doctors and medical volunteers to conflict zones. The head of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) also appears in the documents, along with text messages he sent to colleagues.

The latest disclosures will add to Washington’s embarrassment after the heavy criticism of the NSA when it emerged that it had been tapping the mobile phone of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

One GCHQ document, drafted in January 2009, makes clear that the agencies were targeting an email address listed as belonging to another important American ally – the “Israeli prime minister”. Ehud Olmert was in office at the time.”

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq-targeted-aid-agencies-german-government-eu-commissioner

The deflationary spiral accelerated in 2008 and the scope has widened and deepened as have the personal financial risks.

Don’t be taken advantage of. DO NOT borrow… especially for a depreciating asset like a house….. and continue stockpiling cash. You’re going to need every penny you can get your hands on.

Paid for by Koch and publicized by Drudge

“Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.

The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found.”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/20/conservative-groups-1bn-against-climate-change

albuquerqueDan says “Regression to the Mean” rules the asset classes. And Dan, that is the best way to put it. People keep ignoring that to their peril by getting too greedy.

Today I saw this and on the same line of reasoning. Could have been written by me:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1903701-your-own-worst-enemy-how-to-prevent-ego-from-destroying-your-portfolio?source=email_mac_mar_out_6_7&ifp=0

I don’t expect to be right all the time. I expect to fail sometimes. I failed in the past and i will fail in the future. But along the way i keep learning and fine tuning to be mostly successful, to listen and learn from others. since 2001 I had a string of Good decisions on Series I Bonds, purchases of precious metals, dollar cost averaging into stock mutual funds, staying out of real estate, and buying my former company stock (now selling off excess). It is part luck (mostly luck on my former company). But it is keeping in mind “regression to the mean.” these are diverse asset classes so I am more confident of my personal investment style.

Most of the media and peanut gallery hate precious metals now. And most of the same say nothing bad about stocks. I like two asset classes the most right now, and they are both opposite of each other: precious metals and T-Bills. I am underinvested in each and over invested in stocks.

I have decided to change my screen name so as to gain power over others. All I have to do is flash my name and I will end up getting everything that I want.

Those who dare oppose me will be crushed.

California Most Impoverish State In The US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate

(geography adjusted)

DC actually tops the list but that particular nest of corruption isn’t a state…. thank God.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/business/new-health-law-frustrates-many-in-middle-class.html

Obamacare and lump of coal for the middle class but a great president for Republicans running for office.

Obama attacks traditional marriage with drones:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/world/middleeast/yemen-deaths-raise-questions-on-new-drone-policy.html

Isn’t it a strange world where only two media outlets on the planet (Jones and Hanson) tell the truth and discuss the truth about housing?

Today is the birthday of the late Frank Zappa. He is missed and remembered. It’s good to bring up the subject of Frank Zappa in the mix of big government spying agencies, which Zappa would oppose.

WBBR had a guest on yesterday and discussed sales and marketing for half hour. Dude was a real pro who develops marketing techniques for….. drum roll please……. realturds!

And guess what his number one sales technique is? ”

“You want the buyer as uninformed as possible. The balance of knowledge of the item you’re marketing has to be such that it weights overwhelmingly in favor of the salesman.”

How do you do that? Publicly and deliberately misrepresent the fundamentals of the item.

Here’s a funny one. True too. I called the airline rep. US Airways flights between John Wayne Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor have just gone up in price (drum roll) 320%! I just checked January flights. I’m used to paying $100 each way plus the tax for coach non refundable. Now the flights are $426 each way.

I checked the end of January into February too.

What’s going on US Airways? You are merging with American Airlines.

Guess I now have to switch to Southwest. I liked Southwest whenever I flew on that, but chose AWA because AWA was based in Phoenix.

Hi everyone. I’m not gonna buy health insurance until they let me have a catastrophic plan. That’s the only type of insurance that makes any sense. What about the rest of you?

Basic Allowance for Housing paid to service members living off base in the United States will rise an average of 5 percent in January to keep pace with rental cost increases over the past year.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/12/21/2959055/basic-housing-allowances-to-jump.html

With Fed out of the way, what’s next on Wall Street?
By Angela Moon
NEW YORK Sat Dec 21, 2013 6:02am EST

(Reuters) - With the U.S. Federal Reserve finally announcing it will start tapering its stimulus, removing a big uncertainty in the market, can Wall Street expect a stronger finish to the year? Not really.

The “Santa Claus rally” is a seasonal anomaly that describes a rise in stock prices in December, generally over the final week of trading prior to the new year.

The benchmark S&P 500’s average gain during the last five days of December and the first two of January is about 1.5 percent since 1950, according to Stock Trader’s Almanac. The equities market has gone up in December about 80 percent of the time for the past 20 years.

Although the S&P 500 is up just about 1 percent so far this month, the index is up about 27 percent for the year and is on track for its biggest gain since 1997.

“It’s been a strong year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if investors closed out their year today,” said Doug Foreman, co-chief investment officer of Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management.

“There isn’t much room or news to move higher from here until next year.”
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