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I believe it was on Friday that CITIGROUP said they exected the Fed to cut a full point. Also, on Friday , or Thursday, S&P said the worst was over with the subprime crisis. And, on Friday, President Bush delivered one of the worst, if not the most horrible speech, ever. Options Expiration is next week - if it goes true to form then the majority of put holders and call holders will be squeezed. How is this possible? They will find a way , e.g. Up a few days to about SPX 1350 then down again to SPX 1270, then close the week at about 1310. Here are NY Times Op-Eds on that Most Happy Fella, 'Plumb Loco' George Bush: Op-Ed Columnist Soft Shoe in Hard Times By MAUREEN DOWD Published: March 16, 2008
WASHINGTON ![]() Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Maureen Dowd Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood. The dollar?s crumpling, the recession?s thundering, the Dow?s bungee-jumping and the world?s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called ?The Most Happy Fella.? ?I?m
coming to you as an optimistic fellow,? he told the Economic Club of New York on Friday. His manner ? chortling and joshing ? was in odd juxtaposition to the Fed?s bailing out the imploding Bear Stearns and his own acknowledgment that ?our economy obviously is going through a tough time,? that gas prices are spiking, and that folks ?are concerned about making their bills.? He began by laughingly calling the latest news on the economic meltdown ?a interesting moment? and ended by saying that ?our energy policy has not been very wise? and that there was ?no quick fix? on gasp-inducing gas prices. ?You know, I guess the best way to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car in a rough patch,? he said. ?If you ever get stuck in a situation like that, you know full well it?s important not to overcorrect, because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch.? Dude, you?re already in the ditch. Boy George
crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy. Yet the more terrified Americans get, the more bizarrely carefree he seems. The former oilman reacted with cocky ignorance a couple of weeks ago when a reporter informed him that gas was barreling toward $4 a gallon. In on-the-record sessions with reporters ? and more candid off-the-record ones ? he has seemed goofily happy in recent weeks, prickly no more but strangely liberated and ebullient. Even though he ordinarily hates being kept waiting, he made light of it while cooling his heels for John McCain, and did a soft shoe for the White House press. Wearing a cowboy hat, he warbled a comic Western ditty at the Gridiron Dinner a week ago ? alluding to Scooter Libby?s conviction, Saudis getting richer from our oil-guzzling, Brownie?s dismal Katrina performance, and Dick Cheney?s winsome habit of withholding documents. At a dinner on Wednesday, the man who is
persona non grata on the campaign trail (except for closed fund-raisers) told morose Republican members of Congress that he was totally confident that ?we can retake the House? and ?hold the White House.? ?I think 2008 is going to be a fabulous year for the Republican Party!? he said, sounding like Rachael Ray sprinkling paprika on goulash. That must have been news to House Republicans, who have no money, just lost the seat held by their former speaker, and are hemorrhaging incumbents as they head into a campaign marked by an incipient recession and an unpopular war. If only they could see things as the president does. Bush, who used his family connections to avoid Vietnam, told troops serving in Afghanistan on Thursday that he is ?a little envious? of their adventure there, saying it was ?in some ways romantic.? Afghanistan is still roiling, as is Iraq, but W. is serene. ?Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my
presidency, it is the right decision now, and it will be the right decision ever,? he said, echoing that great American philosopher Dan Quayle, who once told Samoans, ?Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.? W. bragged to Republicans about his ?considered judgment? in sending more troops to Iraq and again presented himself as an untroubled instrument of divine will. ?I believe there?s an Almighty,? he said, ?and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child is freedom.? Although the president belittled the Democrats for their policy of ?retreat,? his surge has been a temporary and expensive place-holder for what Americans want: a policy to get us out of Iraq. ?Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started?? Michael Kinsley wrote recently. ?The answer is no.? Gen. David Petraeus told The Washington Post last
week that no one in the U.S. and Iraqi governments ?feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.? Maybe the president is just putting on a good face to keep up American morale, the way Herbert Hoover did after the crash of ?29, when he continued to dress in a tuxedo for dinner. Or maybe the old Andover cheerleader really believes his own cheers, and that prosperity will turn up any time now, just like the W.M.D. in Iraq. Or perhaps it?s a Freudian trip. Now that he?s mucked up the world and the country, he can finally stop rebelling against his dad and relax in the certainty that the Bush name will forever be associated with crash-and-burn presidencies. Whatever the explanation, it?s plumb loco. Editorial Through Bush-Colored Glasses Published: March 16, 2008 President Bush admitted on Friday that times are tough. So much for the straight talk. Mr. Bush went on to paint a false picture of the economy. He dismissed virtually every proposal Congress is working on to alleviate the mortgage crisis, sticking to his administration?s inadequate ideas. And despite the rush of serious problems ? frozen credit markets, millions of impending mortgage defaults, solvency issues at banks, a plunging dollar ? he said that a major source of uncertainty today is whether his tax cuts, scheduled to expire
in 2010, would be extended. This was too far afield of reality to be dismissed as simple cheerleading. It points to the pressing need for a coherent plan to steer through what some economists are now predicting could be a severe downturn. Mr. Bush?s denial of the economic truth underscores the need for Congress to push forward with solutions to the mortgage crisis ? especially bankruptcy reform to help defaulting homeowners. Lawmakers also must prepare to execute, in case it is needed, a government rescue of people whose homes are now worth less than they borrowed to buy them. Mr. Bush said he was optimistic because the economy?s ?foundation is solid? as measured by employment, wages, productivity, exports and the federal deficit. He was wrong on every count. On some, he has been wrong for quite a while. Mr. Bush boasted about 52 consecutive months of job growth during his presidency. What matters is the magnitude of growth, not
ticks on a calendar. The economic expansion under Mr. Bush ? which it is safe to assume is now over ? produced job growth of 4.2 percent. That is the worst performance over a business cycle since the government started keeping track in 1945. Mr. Bush also talked approvingly of the recent unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. A low rate is good news when it indicates a robust job market. The unemployment rate ticked down last month because hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the work force altogether. Worse, long-term unemployment, of six months or more, hit 17.5 percent. We?d expect that in the depths of a recession. It is unprecedented at the onset of one. Mr. Bush was wrong to say wages are rising. On Friday morning, the day he spoke, the government reported that wages failed to outpace inflation in February, for the fifth straight month. Productivity growth has also weakened markedly in the past two years, a harbinger of a lower overall
standard of living for Americans. Exports have surged of late, but largely on the back of a falling dollar. The weaker dollar makes American exports cheaper, but it also pushes up oil prices. Potentially far more serious, a weakening dollar also reduces the Federal Reserve?s flexibility to steady the economy. Finally, Mr. Bush?s focus on the size of the federal budget deficit ignores that annual government borrowing comes on top of existing debt. Publicly held federal debt will be up by a stunning 76 percent by the end of his presidency. Paying back the money means less to spend on everything else for a very long time. The fiscal stimulus passed by Congress, and touted by Mr. Bush on Friday, could juice growth for a quarter or two later this year. But the economy?s fundamental weaknesses indicate that Americans are ill-prepared for hard times. That makes the need for clear-eyed policies all the more urgent. We need them from the
president, Congress and the contenders for the White House.
<timothymorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Try reading some books featuring monetarist economic theory and the associated history. Milton Friedman
and George Stigler, for example, both published great works that not only taught the consequences of the policies we are living through right now, but Friedman's best known book deals in detail with the period of WWI through the great Depression and will tell you exactly what to expect and how to deal with it. Ira is correct: Policy makers and the public in general do not want to deal with the truth. Only pain is going to fix this problem. Bear Stearns on Friday? I have first hand knowlege of two other investment firms that will soon be making the same announcements. We are only beginning the first few steps of the journey down this very long and ugly road. Until someone in power steps up and addresses the problems with real medicine, it's only going to get worse. IF the Fed cuts interest rates next week, you better run for cover... Tim Morge www.marketgeometry. com
--- robert pisani
<r.pisani@xxxxcom> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Ira. I just want to figure out what's going
> to happen and
> position myself for it. The history of the Weimar
> Republic may well
> offer some clues, and I'll educate myself about it,
> but that history
> will only provide a model that has to be translated
> into the
> specifics of the world of today, with all its new
> economic and
> political interconnections.
>
> Who in particular is vulnerable? Who will benefit?
> What houses are
> on the precipice? What will be the initial warning
> signs? What
> events might trigger a precipitous collapse? How
> will the Fed
> respond? What will the Chinese do? And so on, the
> kind of analysis
> that Bruce Kovner must be making. I can make my own
> analysis, of
> course, but I would
find it helpful to discuss these
> things with
> others who have perhaps thought about them more
> deeply than I have.
>
> Can anyone suggest a list where details of such
> things are discussed?
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> >I am afraid that we have seen such a free fall
> before. Try the
> >Weimar Republic, Germany, after WWI. They tried to
> devalue the Mark
> >to pay reparations with cheap Marks and it just got
> out of
> >hand. That is what brought Hitler to power. The
> young Turks of
> >today can't seem to learn from history. They
> didn't learn after the
> >multiple foreign loan disasters of the past and
> this time created
> >another loan disaster using mortgages and
> derivatives instead of
> >foreign debt.
> >
> >The government lied again about inflation. They
>
have lied about
> >ethanol. They have lied about oil. What is the
> government doing
> >buying $100 plus oil?
> >Ira
> ><http://www.delta100.com>www.delta100.com
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <mailto:r.pisani@xxxxcom>robert pisani
> >To:
>
<mailto:realtraders@yahoogroups.com>realtraders@yahoogroups.com
> >Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 3:26 PM
> >Subject: [RT] free fallin'
> >
> >The current generation of Fed staff has not
> experienced a crisis like
> >this. Neither have previous generations of Fed
> staff. It is new
> >territory. There is apparently concern that the
> dollar could
go into
> >a free fall -- not the free fall that it is in
> currently, but a
> >precipitous free fall. This would, of course, be
> new territory for
> >everyone, around the world.
> >
> >Naturally any company that has dollar income and
> must make ongoing
> >payments in other currencies and has not hedged
> itself against such
> >an event would be in deep trouble, while Coke might
> do okay. Firms
> >that rely on imports would be adversely affected.
> Fed note holders,
> >like bond funds, like China, and anyone else who
> had relied on the
> >stability of the dollar, would be badly hurt. Food
> prices would
> >rise. Oil would rise far beyond $110 a barrel.
> Perhaps some
> >brokerage firms and the accounts they hold and more
> firms like BSC
> >would be endangered. And so on.
> >
>
>I'd like to see a careful and thoughtful analysis
> of the consequences
> >of such an event. Would someone here direct me to
> such an analysis?
> >
> >
>
>
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