Found this over in Misc.invest.stocks

Posted by dirt bag.


"lubow" wrote in message
newsJyAj.3322$e52.2052@trndny01...

These are my top ten reasons for the current mess in the US
financial contagion. What are yours?

0. It is rare that we find a politician who can significantly change
people's lives for better or worse. The usual politician in this
category is in one form or another a genius. You know the names;
some were great, some were diabolical, e.g., Washington, Lincoln,
Roosevelt, LBJ, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. For the first time a complete
incompetent enters this illustrious group for the crime of criminal
stupidity, Pres. George W. Bush.

1. GOP congress' passing and Clinton's signing the bill to repeal
Glass-Steagall

2. Six years of incompetent Treasury secretaries (Hank Paulson seems
to know what he's doing -- too little too late).

3. Seven years of out-of-control deficit spending

4. A demoralizing war that seems to have no end and even less
support

5. Failure to continue Bob Rubin's policy of paying down the
national debt

6. A Federal administration that lacks credibility from the vast
majority of Americans

7. An out of control banking system in an era of "deregulation" (see
(1) above).

8. A corporate culture based on quarterly results having priority
over long term investment.

9. Surrender of the United States' lead in technology, research and
development to cheaper offshore labor for the purpose of better
quarterly and ephemeral results.

10.. A Fed chairman who never worked in the private sector


Item (10) may require a little more explanation. Look at some of
the people who graduated high school with you. Is the wealthiest
fellow graduate also the class valedictorian? In my case, Brooklyn
Technical High School, our wealthiest graduate was a C- student who
made his fortune building a grocery store empire in Manhattan. Our
valedictorian drove a cab for awhile and now sells real estate for
another fellow graduate who was a C student.

Dr. Bernanke was a high school valedictorian who got a job at
Stanford, then Princeton after getting his PhD at MIT (ok, going to
MIT is one thing he got right). But where does the skill set that
enables one to succeed in academics, i.e., good at test taking and
writing about seemingly incomprehensible theory, translate into
running the largest bank in the history of the world? You now see
the results of another bad political appointment along with all
those losers appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.

Where does it end? History of economic turbulence shows that as in
a physical system, economic systems strive to achieve equilibrium.
The difference is that physical systems, like a weight hanging off a
network of pulleys, achieves equilibrium almost instantaneously (in
calculus, they call it dt). Economic systems are different. It
took twenty years, which included a 20% prime rate and the good
fortune to have Bob Rubin at Treasury, to correct the imbalances
caused by Vietnam. IMO, the past seven years has been just as much
a disaster and accomplished just as little as the Vietnam War and it
will take another generation and another Paul Volcker to correct it.

Comments are welcomed.


Do you think the market would move up or down if our dear moron
"decider"President 'bush' (note the all lower case letters in "bush"
the little Wyatt-Twerp) were to kick the bucket? ( I phrased this
gingerly btw to keep my scrawny ass out trouble)

Perhaps we vote... Then hand him over to the terrorists.. to devoured
as they see fit. After all this is the little puke who is the
'decider'. .. Seems fit he goes down with the ship...We can lay much
of this at his administrations feet.

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA