Media Appearance: Kudlow & Company (7/10/07)

You in the new set with the jail cell window on the half round table or the old super cool studio?

Does Kudlow ever let you answer a question when he doesnt like your answer?

You can say what you want to, but S&P was the key mover and shaker today.

Man, that Rex Nutting is a ha-a-Rd mAn!:

http://tinyurl.com/3888cj
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Reminds me of “The Searchers”

If you remember in the movie, “The Searchers,” John Wayne’s character becomes the de-facto leader of a posse that’s chasing an indian war party, de-facto in the sense that Ward Bond’s character, the local politico heading up the posse, apparently must’ve fought the Civil War from the opposite side as Wayne, and that tension disturbed their otherwise long friendship.

The indians lured members of the posse away from their homes under the pretense of only stealing and killing their livestock.

The real objective was to raid their homes while they were gone to kill everyone in sight and to destroy the settlement.

Of course the settlement’s posse, having the sense of invincibility often evidenced in emotional over-reactions to circumstances or events, decided to chase off willy nilly after the indians.

After they’d worn out their horses and managed to kill one or two indians, they finally discovered they’d been tricked.
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As an aside: Wayne’s character “Ethan” shot out the dead indian’s eyes to keep it wandering the earth and forever unable to enter the spirit world. The only one to understand this gesture was old Mose, the settlement’s half-idiot who showed in that moment a greater understanding of the indians than did the members of the posse who’d exposed their families to this risk. This is also sometimes the characteristic of overly ambitious people. It shows up routinely in pro-forma EBITDA accountancy.
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Anyway, back to my story:

The trick they’d fallen for was evidenced in the smoke rising in the far distance as they saw the results of their farms burning, and I’m sure visualized in that instant the horror of what was happening under the smoke.

So, they jump to their saddles and take off again, willy nilly nonetheless, but this time with a purpose burning brighter than before. That’s what most of us would’ve done, right?

Only, Ethan didn’t. He’d been fooled too, just like the rest, but in that instant he knew it was worthless to take off hell-bent-for-leather back to the settlement. Why?

Because he’d used up his horse and he knew everyone else had used up theirs as well. The horse was totally exhaused… it needed feed and rest, and he knew all he’d do was kill it in a mad attempt to transit the approximate 50 miles to the settlement (You can drive for miles and miles and miles in many places in the west and still see the communities and cities lined up behind you).

It was just as hard for Ethan to stop then for the sake of the horse because he could all too well imagine the horror in the distance, and if you think I wasn’t paying attention to the movie, then, yes, I did recognize that he loved his brother’s wife, likely not ever consumated, clearly reciprocated by the brother’s wife, and likely not ever expected by the brother himself… but it was there for anybody with eyes, a heart and a brain to see.

If you haven’t seen the movie, or never recognized that in it, just watch it again. If there’s any mistake when Ward Bond’s character (the “constable”) lights his pipe and takes one glance at Ethan watching his brother’s wife, then you come back and tell me what I missed.

Anyway, much as Ethan loved her, your horse is your life in the desert, and he knew it was too late to do anything about it. All that was left was to change tactics and deal with the new situation in a new way.

Rex, you’d better be careful or you’ll shoot out some eyes… and they won’t be able to get into the spirit world.

hardly surprising the financials are getting smoked, the credit markets have been PUKING the last few days. high-yield risk, ABS risk, sellers of bonds and buyers of protection everywhere. amazing how quickly it has moved from pretty much record low credit spreads in the corporate market to where it is now in just one month (CDX Crossover index out from 142 to 220 in a month or so). am amazed that equities have held up, think it’s just a matter of time before the real down move begins. very few equities seem to hold any value, and even if stocks were 20% lower most would still look pretty rich.

Hey BR, if you do Larry’s show for free, he ought to at least fly you to his better remote locales!

Quote: “At the same time small speculators have near record low equity exposure.”

They are also near record levels of debt, record levels of bankruptcies, and record levels of home foreclosures.

I guess you still can’t charge equities on the Visa card.

Once again Larry told the viewers to read Barry’s blog and once again the URL was absent from the screen. I’d complain.

The Investors Intelligence Survey shows a lot more Bulls than Bears. The put/call ratio is also low, indicating relatively low levels of bearishness. Bearish sentiment may be a local phenomena – I don’t see evidence that it has hit the stock market in general.