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I had a study done in the early 1970′ comparing market and political cycles. It was called ‘Political Economics, Phase One’.

The data went back to the creation of the Fed through 1971. It showed what we all now take for granted that in the first 2 years of any administration, the market makes a low. Obviously then the market tends to peak during the second 2 years.

It does not appear to be working this cycle probably because the Fed and Federable Gummit are out of control. However, I would not rule out the possibility that the low in the markets come in 2009. The next Pres might even be hailed as the new FDR, mores the pity.

The bursting financial bubble will have some serious sociological consequences that we have not thought about yet.

Any bets on the level of margin calls in the morning?

1) I managed to scrape up a little more cash .. about 2.7% of my total portfolio and put it to work today. Gifts like today need to be taken advantage of. It went to mid cap international.

2) Re the cartoon … Nothing could be worse than the past 7 years with GWB. A chimp with a drooling problem or a barbie doll could do a superior job.

The politicians are always the last to know.

I like to think of the current administration as Pinky and the Brain. They tried to take over the world too…

The ISM number certainly was weaker than expected, but could the market’s weakness today be Wall Street’s angst over an Obama victory…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I guess cinefoz is now the longest guy in the room. Dont forget to write.

I propose a new contrarian indicator know as the ‘foz indicator. When the ‘foz goes negative, buy the house! As long as the ‘foz points positive, look for chances to unload.

Y’know, cinefoz was a bear in the 2Q last year. You would never know it, though….

When the Dems win, the economy will magically get better (almost overnight). Anyone who debates the main street media isn’t completely in the bag for Obama or Clinton are out of touch.

That is why as a lifelong R I am not even bothering to vote this year. If that is what will make the “perception” of the economy rosie, I’ll swallow my medicine and go along with my kids getting taught about princes marrying other princes in 2nd grade.

On second thought, if being a lifelong R means you voted for Bush/Cheney – twice – perhaps you should sit this one out.

LFC,

You forgot to add: Sheesh.

I’m backing “Mad” Vlad Putin. This country needs a good Czar.

Damn lazy tovarisch!

Troy, it must be tough for a lifelong Republican to remember what it is they’re supposed to be supporting. They (“we” actually, back when I was registered Republican) were supposed to be fiscal conservatives. Now this poll by Pew Research shows that barely half are interested in reducing the budget deficit. Dems lead them in this by 12 percentage points!

And remember the “Contract with America”? I guess that’s down the toidy. Looking back out their complete and total lack of oversight (more like burial of oversight), can you imagine them actually favoring this little beauty?

SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;

The Republican Obstructionist Congress. Everybody knows it. You own it.

LFC,
I agree the Repubs, in my opinion have screwed themselves over the past 8-12 years. I still adhere to the principles of the party, but all I see from any of the “leaders” is lip-service, unfortunately the Dems aren’t any better. Billary is about as dirty as they come, Whitewater anyone? If McCain wins the nominee, the repubs have lost my support for a long time-they are not conservative in my book anymore. They are both the same, two sides of the same coin. How many here think if Gore had won we would be in Iraq (me raises hand) and the Rs would be against it. Dems, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti . . . . Repub, Iraq . . .
It’s all SSDD.

I’m a Democrat and I think that Harry Reid is the most comically flaccid, impotent, and inept Majority Leader either party has fielded since 1950. My opinion of Pelosi isn’t much better. All Republicans should rejoice that they’ve been in place, as they’ve been amazingly easy to push around. If the Dems solidify their majority in November I can only hope that both will step aside in favor of others who actually have the ability and more importantly the will to exercise power in Congress.

I voted republican in the past.

I, too, am ashamed at how things turned out. So much for personal responsibility. I had great faith in certain people, faith that will never be restored in my lifetime.

The current lineup leaves much to be desired. I would switch to Dem. if Obama were to win the nomination… which looks to be unlikely. Without a question, I would never vote for Hillary Clinton. It’s truly a shame that Ron Paul won’t be running. He’s the only one that I would not conscientiously object to.

Bob Chapman of the International Forcaster wrote about an executive of a sub-prime mortgage outfit that failed. He shot his wife dead and commited suicide by jumping off a bridge in New Jersey.
When society teaches no responsibility at the bottom and no accountability at the top, this is what happens.

Shane,

I think it’s utterly uunbelievable that the American people spent $26 million investigating the Clintons and came up with a sexual “crime” (and the resulting theatre of the absurd). Again – please dish the dirt on the Clinton’s criminality if you have it. Innuendo is what got Bush elected (twice). Innuendo without basis is called a lie.

On a related note, the Bush campaign wasted the reputations two decorated veterans (McCain and Kerry). Despite overwhelming evidence that the slanders against them were false, their reputations will always be soiled.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t particularly like Hillary, but she’s competent, and we need competence (I also think we need to break the Bush/Clinton cycle). Obama is charismatic and very smart, but he’s black, and that’s going to set the rednecks off. Edwards understands what’s going on, but couldn’t get traction.

Bottom line: the Republican meme of the past 25 years is a failure. The electorate needs to send that message so that we can start rebuilding, socially and economically.

Asia is circling the toidy bowl tonight…. tomorrow’s going to be most interesting…

Marcus,
(my apologies Barry to the rest of this post, I don’t want to hijack your excellent blog-so delete away if you feel the need to)

Where did I mention the Clinton impeachment, where did I imply that?? While I find his actions, morally repugnant, and I believe that presidents should hopefully live their personal lives above that muck, and while I personally believe that if someone is cheating in their marriage that it casts a shadow and a question on their “professional” lives (b/c in my opinion, there is no real separation b/c profession and personal).

However, I completely agree that it is not a crime, and no one should be removed from office-or investigated for it-(minor technical note-he was impeached for lying under oath-not the act).

You want dirt on Clinton, fine . . .
1978 Commodities trading, she was a novice invested with a firm who made her several 100k. COMEX reports indicate the investment company helped swap trades on her behalf (i.e. gave her the winning trades, other clients the losing trades).

” At the very end of his presidential term, Bill Clinton pardoned a number of people, including financier and convicted tax evader Marc Rich. It’s on Hillary’s scandal page because a few months earlier, Rich’s former wife Denise gave substantial donations to Hillary’s senatorial campaign and the Clinton library. While any wife or husband of a politician should be free to run for office, running while the spouse is still in power creates an immediate conflict of interest, and Bill had no trouble repaying the favor to his wife’s contributor.

The interesting part of this story is who else was urging Clinton to pardon Marc Rich. The request was delivered to Hillary personally by none other than Scooter Libby, who was Rich’s lawyer and has since been convicted of perjury in the Bush administration’s leaking of the identity of arms control spy Valerie Plame. And Rich’s application was supported by Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The final twist is that Rich was a suspected middleman in smuggling of Iraqi oil despite the trade embargo. His pardon required him to pay a $100 MILLION FINE before he could return to the U.S. That should give conspiracy folks something to chew on.”

And let’s not forget the xx million dollar fundraiser put on but a hollywood elite a couple of years ago.

Whitewater . . . plus as First Lady she got a front row seat to all of Bill Clinton.

Hmm, let’s see that pretty much just about as much dirt-probably more than Bush. Look I’m not extolling Bush, I dislike him just as much as the next guy, but to think the Ds will radically reverse things and change it, is to put vulgarly “pissing in the wind”

As far as indictments/criminal stuff, that’s why they call it DIRT, if they were charged, they would be criminals, not politicians :-).

Bringing this back to economics, before you get all lovey dovey over Clinton the savior in the deficits, take a look at the following US gov. link-plug in dates from 1992-2000. It shows that for every single year the public/federal deficit went UP. But I thought we had surpluses??? Hey, I don’t know what happened to that, but the bottom line is that total debt grew during the Clinton regime, it didn’t shrink!

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway

Marcus,
You are completely ignoring my point. Yes, the Rs have screwed up the country, but so do the Dems.

Not to get tin-foil hatish (b/c I don’t believe in that junk), but most of the major candidates run in the same circles, are members of the same groups, clubs, etc.
They protest each other simply b/c one is a D and the other is an R . . . not b/c of any real idealogical split. Some are further on one side vs. the other, but there is no real change.

The next president. R or D. will give us the following: 1) more government programs, to “help us”, 2) more government spending, 3) Promises and platitudes to cut spending, 4) will cut in some small areas, and then put it on a banner and hail the end of big government. 5) Pressure agencies to screw with government reports to make the #s seem better than they are 6) Continue or get us involved in a new war to “promote” freedom-maybe Darfur for the Dems?? 7) More freedoms will be taken away 8) America moves more towards a European, socialists style government and 9) Americans lose.

We either get A) higher taxes to pay for bloated government spending or B) more inflation to pay for latter part of B, or C) combo of both. That’s like choosing between eating dog crap, bird crap, or cat poop, hmm which one do I like. Wow, yummy I like cat poop, I think I’ll eat that. No thanks, I’d rather starve or go hunt for my own food.

This cycle has been happening for a long time, R or D . . . go back to Reagan, Carter, etc, etc. Sometimes it’s a little less and sometimes a little more, but the trend is there, and as they say “the trend is your friend”.

The real fallacy is clinging to idealogical BS that the mass media promotes of . . Me R, you D, you bad!! and Me D, you R, you bad!!

Like I’ve said before with politics it’s SSDD.

The “both parties are the same” meme has the same truth value as the “all stocks are the same” meme …

Yeah right Shane, the Republicans aren’t the party that has been undoing all the regulations put in place to protect us from another Great Depression. I used to be of the ‘Democrats are the slightly lesser of two evils’ POV, but that slight difference has now become a chasm. BTW, why is it wrong for ‘Hollywood elite’ to hold fundraisers for a candidate? Can you give me example of any quid pro quo on behalf of Hollywood? That is if you’ve properly recovered from seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple that is. BTW, those Hollywood liberals? 100% f@cking right about Iraq weren’t they?

Doug,
Oh no, I think they have disagreements, but fundamentally what they do there isn’t much difference, what they preach is 100% different but what they do . . . not so much.

Foreign Policy:
R-let’s invade Iraq b/c there are terrorists/oil/ etc.
D-let’s get involved in Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti to promote democracy and to prevent tragedy.

In Common-we have a right/duty as the big bad kid on the block to force our way into other countries business when we deem appropriate.

Difference: R-our freedoms are threatened, D-we must save others from oppression. Difference is in only when it should be used vs. should we even try and enforce our will on other countries.

Real discussion: What the !@#$ are we doing mucking around in other countries getting our men and women killed, when we haven’t been attacked.

Economy:
R-We need to cut taxes to boost the economy so we can get more revenue, yet we still maintaining deficits.
D-We need to raise taxes to offset the increase in spending.

Difference: raise/cut taxes to generate revenue for the budget

In Common: We still run MASSIVE deficits, and we still pump the economy like pimps.

Real Discussion: Hey, let’s actually not spend more than we have and let people decide where it’s best to put their money.

Personal Liberty:

R-We need to protect you from terrorists, so we are implementing more surveillance

D-We need to protect you from yourself, so we are implementing more surveillance/government regulation.

Common: You the american people can not take care of yourselves so we the government will help you.

Diff: One defends from terrorists, the other defends from other americans who “discriminate”

Real Discussion: Hey buddy, I can take care of myself well enough, and I don’t need a someone else to do it for me. If you want to discriminate against me, fine, I’ll go somewhere else, where they won’t.

Entitlements:

R-We need to ensure that businesses have the means to hire more people, thus generating more growth (corporate welfare)

D-We need to ensure people have more means, so they can spend more, so that everyone is treated fairly (personal welfare)

Common: We the government need to help you b/c if we help you, we can make it better

Diff: One believes in helping companies-which they believe will help people, the other peoples in helping people directly.

Real Discussion: Here’s a novel idea, let the free market decide. Businesses can take care of themselves. People are generally caring individuals and many, not all, but many rich individuals will give to charities. Without welfare, you’d see a lot more Hollywood stars adopt children from the backwoods of Georgia, Alabama, etc, instead of flying halfway across the world to do charity work.

So yes, they are different, but what they do . . not really, it all leads to “the government will help us/save us” from xyz.

I’m talking about fundamental changes, if you look at stocks vs. commodities, yeap all stocks look the same.

Shane, huge difference in the budgets under the R and D administrations. Look at the dollar performance during Reagan/Bush 1 and Clinton and Bush 2.

Dollar took a dump during the Reagan/Bush 1 time period, rallied considerably during Clinton, and took a titanic megacrap during Bush 2.

I gotta find the link to this, but I’m telling the truth.

Anyway, by the end of Clinton’s administration we were running a surplus. Since then, the total govt. debt has increased from roughly $5 trillion to about $9 trillion under Bush. So 45% of the total debt for the US Govt. for all time has been incurred under the Bush admin.

BTW, what do we know about a weak dollar????

One thing for sure, it is good for domestic oil producers. It is a complicated calculus (e.g., strong dollar tends to lead to offshoring jobs), but there is no controversy that a weak dollar benefits US oil industry interests.

Coincidence?????

Also — Bush 1 — war in Iraq. Bush 2 — war in Iraq. Coincidence??????

You have a point about Somalia/Kosovo, etc. Last I checked we didn’t drop a friggin pantload of money in those places, nor 4000 American lives, nor > 20,000 casualties, nor mass death among Iraqi civilians.

“No difference between the 2 parties??? SSDD???” Not really. Although I sympathize with some of what you’re saying, there are real differences.

If Al Gore was president, there is no way on this earth that things would be anywhere close to as screwed up as they are now.

Liberty University graduates in the Justice Department???

As Marcus Aurelius would encourage me to say: Sheesh.

Whanmmer, did you even go to the link I put up that goes to the US gov. website? I’m taking that as a no. It clearly shows, US gov. stats, that the total debt ROSE during Clinton’s years. Another link, at least go to this one, come on man do some hw.
http://www.letxa.com/articles/16

It’s classic Inflation-Ex-Inflation but Budget-Ex-Budget . . . goodness if you’ve been reading Barry’s blog for long, you most likely distrust government numbers. Does that distrust simply turn-off b/c there is a D in the WH???

You think Bush was the only one who wanted to go after Saddam? Clinton had a bombing campaign, in 1998 Congres with WH backing approved measures which called for Regime Change in Iraq. The seeds of invading Iraq were sown before Bush 2 came in.

Yes before Clinton’s: Somalia, Bosnia, there was Reagons: Grenada, Lebanon, before that was Vietnam.

And sorry to say but a President has less power over economies than everyone makes them out to be. Congress has more power than Presidents over economies.

Come on, use your brain, we don’t have a dictatorship (not yet anyways), Presidents don’t act in a vacuum. You can’t blame Bush for everything that has gone wrong or right and you can’t blame clinton for everything that went right/wrong. It’s a combination of both President/Congress.

For a while, Clinton had to deal with an opposing party, Bush except for the last two hasn’t.

I’m of the opinion (I have no facts to back it up), that the best combo is a D-WH/R-Congress. The D actually forces the Rs in Congress to actually be somewhat conservative. Congress in reality holds a lot more power than the President, but that is slower eroding away.

Anyways, I’ve enjoyed the political banter on the econo. blog-my apologies to Barry, I will not do so again, unless its on a specific political thread.

“Max, I find the Jackson comment unnecessary, but since you went there, I’ll go full quid pro quo. Did I strike a nerve about cheating on your spouse? hard to live a double life lie huh? b/c they are in essence one life not two?”

Lets see if we can find the logical thread between Janet Jackson exposing her nipple and someone cheating on their spouse? Well, I can’t…anyone?

So, you’re not a Republican…but you obsess on Hillary Clinton’s supposed indiscretions(though you can offer no proof…only smoke as you say) riiiiiiggghht.

“That’s what made this country great, you can go buy as much p0rn as you want, and have as many mistresses as you want. Just don’t expect me to condone your actions as I find it disgusting.”

Well, based on psychological research into the conservative mind…you are obsessed w/ porn and probably are cheating on your wife. See Shane, I made no mention of porn or mistresses but you went right to it didn’t ya? Very, very telling indeed.

It clearly shows, US gov. stats, that the total debt ROSE during Clinton’s years

Thing is, the total debt is counting the SSTF, which was DESIGNED by Greenspan to go into surplus in the 90s and the feds are REQUIRED to buy treasuries with this surplus.

The US Treasury’s webpage doesn’t have the breakout numbers for the net debt held by the public (and foreigners) for FY93-97, but FY98 started at:

09/30/1997 3,789,667,546,849.60

Clinton ended his budget authority with:

09/28/2001 3,339,310,176,094.74

So we can see the budget debt owed to the public declined $450B over his second term.

Bush’s record of net public debt (not counting SSTF etc):

09/28/2001 3,339,310,176,094.74
02/04/2008 5,130,446,607,910.31

Almost $2T. At 5% average interest, that’s going to be $100B/yr, every year, forever.

Thanks, Ralph.

a completely contained threat

I wasn’t in favor of the invasion but I disagree with that. There’s no such thing as complete containment when state actors are concerned.

Part of the reason I was against the invasion was that I thought we were over-personalizing the Iraq-US conflict and over-emphasizing Saddam (& Sons), while not being sufficiently cognizant of the difficulties involved with establishing a friendlier replacement regime/authority.

IOW, Saddam was an effect, not a root cause.

Max,
Love the attacks, considering you went there first. You “Can you give me example of any quid pro quo on behalf of Hollywood? That is if you’ve properly recovered from seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple that is.”

If you read through my previous posts, no where did I “obsess” about Clinton’s personal life, I said I find it repulsive.

A common “liberal” tactic is to pull out the old you’re conservative so you want to “regulate” morality- i.e. prosecute Clinton for being immoral-.

You are the one who connected Clinton, cheating, and Jackson, together-I just tied it in a neat little bow for you :-).

Regardless of what I say, now that the pyscological banter has begun, I can’t convince you otherwise. I couldn’t care less, my heart, my hands, and my conscience are clean on those issues.

All you Ds, slamming me about your poor, poor baby Clinton from attacks. I think Bush is corrupt, I think Huckabee is corrupt, Guiliani and McCain also! Just like I think Clinton is corrupt. There is plenty of dirt to go around.

Like I said, meaningless crap, banter between R and D. You’re a D so your bad, while not realizing the faults in your own R candidates, and the D not wanting to admit the corruptness in their own candidates. The vast majority of them are all corrupt and the bottom line is americans lose.

Max, one last thing. Right is right and wrong is wrong no matter who it is. If I tell lies everyday to my boss, fake work reports, lie to my wife every day, get drunk 5 times a week, watch porn, and smoke marijuana, it is all still wrong and morally repugnant and disgusting to me.

No matter what I do (b/c we are all human all slip up from time to time and do something that is morally wrong and repugnant-whether its lying on small things or cheating our work or cheating spouses), right is right and wrong is wrong, and I will always, always defend the right and hammer the wrong.

We are all hypocrites to some extent, it’s just a matter of whether we are defending right even at the cost of our own faults, and acknowledging our faults at the same time. I don’t do porn, or cheat on my wife, but sure I do plenty of other things that I find completely morally repugnant, and I work every day to correct those mistakes in my life while at the same time condemning my own faults. I recognize I am human, but I can work to become better.

People that don’t defend the right (b/c in essence when we defend the right we condemn ourselves) IMO are either cowards or have no morals.

Shane, Troy did the work. Thanks Troy. Total debt did rise during Clinton’s admin, but he started in a hole and ended up much improved.

GWB? Not so much.

Reagan/Bush 1? Not so much