This'n'That; October 10th[Fluffy/Nobel;Reactions;Investing]

Does Fluffy's Prize Award Have Positive Side?? I'm thinkin'........No. Those folks in Stockholm have done obama no favors; awarding one of the most coveted prizes in history to someone who has relatively no work experience with any relevance to the constrictions of the committee's considerations!!

• Now that Fluffy will be officially considered a pacifist~~
• How will he effectively conduct the nation's defense? How will he effectively conduct operations in Iraq? How will he effectively conduct negotiations with Iran? How will he effectively conduct negotiations with Russia and the rest of the communist bloc? How will he effectively conduct his "auto company" businesses? How will he effectively conduct his "banking" businesses? How will he effectively conduct his "insurance" businesses?

The Michael Savage Take On obama Selection Michael Savage is as astonished at obama's being awarded the "Nobel Peace Prize" as are you and I. "Is he moving us towards world peace?" he wonders. "Last I checked Ahmadinejad is speeding along with his bomb. If obama is an antiwar president, why hasn't he pulled us out of Afghanistan?"Savage's real ire isn't directed at obama, but at the Nobel committee. Like Rush Limbaugh earlier today, he argues that the prize tells us more about the prize givers than it does about obama. "We all know what the Nobel Prize committee is ever since Yasir Arafat won. It's a radical leftist front group that hijacked Alfred Nobel's prize."Nobel created dynamite, and felt really guilty about it, Savage reminds us. But obama, he says, has moved us toward world peace about as much as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did by appeasing the Nazis. "For a brief moment, there was world peace, and then in the blink of an eye it was over." Other Reactions To The Award: Joe Carter [Web Editor- www.firstthings.com ]: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama today for ending the tensions between Professor Henry Louis Gates and Office James Crowley during his Beer Summit. Only kidding, of course. That was an actual accomplishment and according to the Nobel citation, he won because of efforts. The comittee was only following the lead of the American people. They may have given him the Nobel Prize despite doing nothing to deserve it—but we gave him the Presidency based on even fewer accomplishments. My favorite part of the announcement, though, is finding that he was nominated for the Peace Prize before he had been in office two weeks.

• Washington Post: “Though obama’s name surfaced early among contenders, the announcement astonished observers—drawing gasps from the audience in Oslo — in part because obama assumed office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 deadline for nominations.” The Times of London: “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world. Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.”
• Mark Halperin: “obama has been in office less than a year, and has few tangible accomplishments deriving from the speeches he has given or the preliminary talks his young government has engaged in. And the award comes at a time in which obama’s role as a war president—in Afghanistan—is front and center. It isn’t quite as inexplicable as Marisa Tomei’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but it seems pretty close.”
• Vox Day: “What on Earth can they possibly be thinking? The man hasn’t even ended the two military occupations he promised to end!”
• Fred Thompson: “Shouldn’t the Nobel Peace Prize have a higher bar than high expectations?”
• Peter Beinart: “I like BarackStar obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize. Sure, he’s given some lovely speeches and launched some initiatives—on Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, climate change and nuclear disarmament—that might, if he’s really lucky and really good, make the world a more safe, more just, more peaceful world. But there’s absolutely no way to know if he’ll succeed, and by giving him the Nobel Prize as a kind of “atta boy,” the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between obamamania as global hype and obama’s actual accomplishments.”
• Andrew Sullivan: “If any person has done more to advance some measure of calm, reason and peace in this troubled word lately, it’s president obama. I think the Cairo speech and the Wright speech alone merited this both bridging ancient rifts even while they remain, of course, deep and intractable.”
• Nicholas Kristof: “I admire his efforts toward Middle East peace, but the prize still seems very premature. What has he done? . . . [I]t seems to me that it might have made sense to wait and give obama the Nobel Peace Prize in his eighth year in office, after he has actually made peace somewhere.”
• Emanuele Ottolenghi: “If President obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize less than one year into his presidency, what can he aspire to by the time he leaves office? If fate allows it, the seat of St Peter will be vacant — and if not, we are sure the pope will graciously resign. Short of that, one can always count on the UN secretary-general’s post to be on offer.”
• Daniel Pipes: “My prediction: The absurdity of the prize decision will harm obama politically in the United States, contrasting his role as international celebrity with his record devoid of accomplishments”
• Frank J: “And for the record, this makes a mockery of the prize. There is no way obama has had time to accomplish as much peace as Arafat did.”
• Democratic National Committee spokesman: “”The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”

Those Who Made obama "The 'Clown' Prince" Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (as of October, 2009)

• Thorbjørn Jagland (chair, born 1950), member of Parliament, President of the Storting and former Prime Minister for the Labour Party, current Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Member and chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 2009.
• Kaci Kullmann Five (deputy chair, born 1951), former member of Parliament and cabinet minister for the Conservative Party. Member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 2003, deputy chair since 2009.
• Sissel Rønbeck (born 1950), deputy director, Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Riksantikvaren), former member of parliament and cabinet minister for the Labour Party. Member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1994.
• Inger-Marie Ytterhorn (born 1941), former member of Parliament for the Progress Party. Member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 2000.
• Ågot Valle (born 1945), member of parliament for the Socialist Left Party. Member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 2009.

Investing Advice:

I found some cogent and timely adivice from America's investing gurus in the November, 2009 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine [ http://www.kiplinger.com/ ]:

• WARREN BUFFETT; Chairman, Berkshire-Hathaway: I have no idea what the stock market's going to do tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next hear. But over a ten-year period you will do considerably better owning a group of equities than you will owning Treasuries. In fighting the economic war, we've taken action that sows the seeds of substantial inflation down the road. Not in the next six months or year, but ten years from now the dollar will buy a lot less than it buys today.
• BOB RODRIGUEZ; Chief Executive Officer-Frist Pacific Advisors: Don't run with the herd. Being surrounded by people who are doing the same thing as you offers a false sense of protection. Being a loner is extremely uncomfortable, but it's far better. Today, being a loner means owning short-maturity, high-quality debt on the bond side. And if the U.S. government continues to blow up the nation's balance sheet through massive deficits, you should probably move at least 20% to 40% of your assets out of the U.S.
• JEREMY GRANTHAM; Chief Investment Strategist-Grantham, Mayo, VanOtterloo: The recent rally has been very speculative, favoring risky assets over the past few months. I'm sorry if you missed investion at the market's March lows, but dont' compound the damage to your portfolio by chasing gains in risky assets. We're at the beginning of a seven-year period of lean returns. You should only be buying the highest-quality blue-chip companies, where valuations are most attractive.
• BILL GROSS; Co-Chief Investment Offier-Pacific Investment Management Co: The biggest danger right now is that you'll earn 0% on mattress money, or virtually 0% in a money-market account or at the bank. Yes, that money is safe, but the economy and inflation may come roaring past you at higher levels. You also have to consider diversifying outside of he U.S. The dollar is a weak currency, and as it devalues against other currencies, our standard of living will suffer. Higher returns relative to risk lie in Asia and Brazil.
• MARTY WHITMAN; Co-Chief Investment Officer-Third Avenue Management: Do what we do: Find extremely well-financed companies that do not rely on continuous access to the bond or stock markets for refinancing, that are run by competent management teams and that have favorable prospects for growth. Buy these companies' stocks when they are available at a meaningful discount. All other systems of investing are concerned with predicting stocks' near-term price movements.
• JIM ROGERS; Chairman-Rogers Holdings: Diversification is garbage-it's someting brokers invented to avoid getting sued. You only need four or five good ideas in your life to get really rich if you avoid mistakes. And the one way to avoid mistakes is to stick with what you know, whether it's clothes or cars or commodies. Then, when you see a major development in your area of expertise, you'll know better than Wall Street when to buy or sell. Otherwise, you should put your money in the bank.

Til Nex'Time....