This'n'That; December 31st[Quotes;Bailout/GiveAway;FedPayRaise]

See, Nobody Knows Whatta Hell Is Goin' On! [I found this among the several email newsletters I get daily] Dear Small-Cap Investor, Here's a fun read from today's "Daily Profit," an e-letter published by my boss, Ian Wyatt, Chief Investment Strategist for SmallCapInvestor.com and several paid subscription investing newsletters published by Business Financial Publishing. Ian writes: Two more days and we'll put 2008 behind us. 2008 set a number of stock market records, none of them good. I came across a Business Week article highlighting some of the worst predictions for 2008. Among the gems: *****"I expect there will be some failures. I don't anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system." -- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, Feb. 28, 2008 Helicopter Ben missed that one by a mile. But it may not be so simple. Wall Street's investment banks depended on faith. Once investors and account holders started pulling their money out, they were doomed. Aside from the now-obvious problems at Lehman, it wasn't until rumors of bad debt prompted investors to pull out of certain investments that the bank's asset ratio forced it into bankruptcy. We can certainly excuse Ben's optimism in that he didn't want to start a bank run. And after-the-fact reporting has showed that the Fed was in constant contact with Wall Street's investment banks as their leveraged businesses started unraveling. *****"I think you'll see (oil prices at) $150 a barrel by the end of the year" -- T. Boone Pickens, June 20, 2008 By all accounts, Pickens' whiff on his prediction of $150 a barrel oil prices cost him a billion dollars personally. Come to think of it, I haven't heard much about the Pickens Plan for wind farms lately, either. *****AIG "could have huge gains in the second quarter." -- Bijan Moazami, analyst, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, May 9, 2008. The article goes on to note that AIG lost $5 billion in the 2nd quarter and another $25 billion in the 3rd quarter. This prediction makes the analyst seem pretty out of touch. But it should go to illustrate that many analysts were completely surprised by the depths of the problems Wall Street investment banks had created. It's probably not fair to pick on the analysts who made the wrong call, but it sure feels kind of good. *****This one has to be my favorite, from TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer: "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble." -- Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008 Five days after Cramer said this, JP Morgan acquired Bear Stearns with the help of the Fed. As an aside, the fact that the Fed was involved makes me think the earlier quote I provided really was an attempt by Bernanke to calm the financial markets. --Ian Wyatt Has The Entire System Gone Mad? The country has gone through this kinda thing before; the Great Depression, leading into American involvement in World War II. FDR's "make work" projects along with his "give away" programs prolonged the Depression-WWII brought America out of it!! American manufacturers ramped up production for the ongoing necessity of war materiel. It's right about here that we need a definition: GDP-[Gross Domestic Product] The total market value of all the goods and services produced within the borders of a nation during a specified period. The size and growth of any and/or all governmental units can be expressed as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. At the close of World War II [1945] America had a GDP of$233.1Billion and total government [Federal, State and Local] spending of $118.2Billion or 52.98% of GDP [Unemployment rate: 1.9%]. The elevated percentage is due to the vast amounts of materiel required for victory in the war. Let's fast-forward to the upcoming administration: Economic pundits have guessed the eventual total of the "give-away" disguised a the bailout, will total $9TRILLION. If obama is true to his word and doesn't leave the repayment to my grandchildren-he'll have to pay it off during his current administration; I don't see him EVER getting re-elected!! The projected 2009 government spending is $5.5524TRILLION. Now we have to add 25% of the bailout money to this number [25% each year in office], which will bring the annual total 2009 spending to nearly $7.81TRILLION. Whereta Hell does obama think this money's gonna come from?!?! I live in the Socialist Union of New York-WE'RE NEARLY TAXED OUT OF EXISTENCE NOW!! The "Testicular Fortitude" of Mental Midgets The American congress's gotta be one of the very few "companies" on the planet where "employees" can determine their own pay raises. They've given themselves a $4,700 increase to $174,000!!! nancy pelosi, because of the artful way she "mucks up" the legislative system, gets $223,500. Is this mental midget worth nearly a quarter-million dollars?? Let'em all know whatcha think!! I think the entire congress should be subjected to "testicular suspension [hung by those hangie-down things!!]" Til Nex'Time...............