Every time I think to myself, "Tonite is the night I might actually strangle this bastard with my bare hands," he goes and does something nice like this:
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My friend Barry Ritholtz, author of the excellent Big Picture blog, did a great job last night defending his recession views on Kudlow & Company. The guests were stacked against him, but armed with his good humor and incisive economic analysis, Barry made his case. It was an impressive performance. Barry has been predicting recession for nearly two years. And while he hasn’t been exactly right, he hasn’t been exactly wrong either.
Incidentally, this morning’s drop in industrial production supports his recession case (even while many other indicators run counter to it). But one thing is certain: Barry’s warnings about rising headline inflation have proven most prescient. In fact, a populist election revolt against high food and gasoline prices is occurring right now.
Mr. Ritholtz is a political moderate – probably a moderate Republican when it gets right down to it. He is a capitalist. He is not a supply-sider. But he is a very smart, good-natured, good guy. For those in the political world, interested in following the hot topics debate in the financial world, you can do no better than reading his Big Picture blog. I read it everyday.
–Kudlow’s Money Politic$ http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/2008/05/big-picture-ritholtz.html
Or, if you prefer, the version on National Review Online:
http://kudlow.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmEzMjNmNDhhNDYxYjRjZThlZmMwZjUzZDAwMWU1N2Y=Or on CNBC.com
http://www.cnbc.com/id/24652210
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Thank you for the sentiment, Larry.
The only thing wrong with Kudlow’s remarks is that they make him seem human.
Seriously, I doubt Kudlow wrote that himself. Seems like back-tracking at its finest. Sorry to be so cynical.
Larry starts off calling Barry his friend. Friends should not criticize friends…especially on TV or in blogs. I’m not Larry’s friend so I can say whatever I want. He says he reads the blog…Larry, you said before the Fed started rate cuts last summer that it would cause the dollar to rally. Please explain where you went horribly wrong.
Wow. With friends like this, who needs enemies? Last night was, frankly, an ambush, and Barry held is own quite well.
With all these mixed messages, this is all feeling like a really dysfunctional relationship…
This is sad, but I don’t think there are any “moderate Republicans” left….but maybe after the whipping of ’08 the party will regain its bearings and cast off the loudest, most noxious troglodytes who took over the GOP.
He’s playing nice to mitigate the criticism from the likes of Dealbreaker. Pure spin control.
He is an ass, with a joke of a show.
Methinks someone is reading the comments section in addition to the blog itself.
Barry, Kudlow is an embarrassment
for you.
Of course the dollar is rallying, Steve. Don’t you get it? It’s rallying because we say it is. The goalposts have been moved, victory has been declared. We’ve already won!
Kudblow is a charlatan hack. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together ignores him completely. When his show is cancelled, the world will be a smarter place.
Perhaps LK was not happy to see the thousands of hate emails which poured into his inbox after the ambush on Barry, along with the bad press the show got from the DealBreaker review.
“A public relations nightmare, Kudlow now has.” would be Yoda’s response to this.
Now that you’ve kissed and made up, any chance you could get him to have people speak one at a time?
I like to hear divergent views, but the shouting down of guests often makes the show unwatchable.
I agree with the ambush statements. If the panel is going to be stacked against you, they should at least give you an extra minute to defend yourself. I still watch the show. But that Luskin guy has now taken over from Kneale for the most obnoxious guy on TV. I like the deer in the headlight look you gave when Luskin said to short your company at 100. You were in disbelieve even he was such an ass. Will enjoy revisiting this in 6 months.
O/T, todays tape. Let the bears capitulate on this weak volume, then we have a nice ride down. S/P futs 1425 possible, but 1440ish seems more probable.
I agree with most of the previous posts..spin control of a situation bound to
hurt CNBC’s ratings for the K&C show; I used
to watch the show religiously for years but after hearing Art Laffer telling us there is NO inflation and oil will drop to 40 one too many times I rarely do anymore..for most of 2007 Kudlow was screaming for the FED to lower interest rates and now that they have and the $ has crashed he doesn’t seem to remember what he wished for..I’m done..
Kudlow is a stone cold hater. He – and his merry band of Goldilocks Permabulls – are simply clinging to their views because they’re afraid of being wrong. Unfortunately, it’s a common problem in the market and is probably why most people either lose or don’t win consistently.
The flexible, nimble-minded and somewhat objective traders are the ones who take the money day in and day out. Barry’s a pretty flexible guy. Kudlow & Co. are rigid. Wanna guess who’s making more cash money?
LK needs some editing help, like:
“He is not a supply-sider. But he is a very smart..” should simply be “He is not a supply-sider; he is very smart.”
Further, if LK thinks that the coming electoral devestation to the GOP has its roots in a “populist election revolt against high food prices”, then it’s obvious he has not read a newspaper in the last four years. Lastly, the notion that moderate republicans still exist is amusing ’cause it was ideologues like Kudlow that got rid of ’em all (wither the Percys, Andersons, and Hatfields?)
That was an admirable gesture by Kudlow. I’m glad to see he did the right thing.
I’m sure Luskin will apologize for his immature, inappropriate remarks as soon as the first pig grows wings and flies.
This why CNBC is a waste of time. They are unbalanced and one can make the case that they
are perpetrators of fraud (ie..Charlie Gasparino and the monoline news). I’m sure that ASS Luskin still has ENE, WCOM, & CFC on his buy list. He is so unprofessional and asinine. Your a class act Barry.
Ciao
Whatever his motives, it was a nice gesture by LK — and great PR for you. Way not to take the bait, Barry. You come out of the deal smelling like a rose.
In the distant past here Michigan I’ve voted for Republicans for mayor, U.S. Congress, and Governor. The current crew of bozos busy destroying the Republican brand would have driven the people I voted for — conservative in fiscal and economic issues, conservative-to-moderate in foreign policy, and moderate on social issues — out of the party years ago. Ironically they’d be more comfortable in the Democratic party today.
I can’t help but wonder if you (BR) feel a little bit like Davy Crockett at the Alamo when you go on these shows.
You’re outnumbered and under siege, but you’re fighting for the greater good … fighting in the defense of truth, justice and the American way.
Nice work.
I just wish Larry would let all sides speak. His show appeals to market pros primarily, who are wrestling with the market beast day-in and day-out. I’m not married to the bullish or bearish side. I just want to hear reasoned arguments from both sides. Its not necessary to make his show into some kind of Jerry Springer event about the markets, where all bears are shouted down. Add this to the underlying political tone, which silences any information that may not reflect well on the Republican party. That doesn’t help my investing either. (Both parties lost me long ago, so don’t start).
I still don’t understand why the bull market is pushed so hard on CNBC. I guess financial advisors don’t make any money selling short. I have short positions; am I un-American? When I go to Vegas and play the don’t pass line, and get all these dirty looks, who wins half the time? I thought the market was a two-way street.
Kudos to Kudlow for his professional remarks. And I thought Barry got ambushed, too, and did well.
Barry,
I can’t believe you created this post. Like I said before, To Hell with ’em.
I wish Bloomberg would take some of you guys and make a real Saturday morning Business Block. That would be awesome.
By the way, please take Gary Shilling with you. He has been right about just about every prediction he has made. Larry begrudgenly admits as much and still gives him no respect. Like you, I still can’t get over why Gary puts up with that crap.
Barry,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I don’t know why you waste one second of your life on that bastard’s show. He is just a complete fucking asshole.
Tom F.:
I think I get your comment. Thanks! :)
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Larry Kudlow’s alright (even though I disagree with him more often than not.)
LK wants to make good television. What better than to have a guy (BR) outnumbered – who’s not ‘with’ his target audiance – but gamely defended himself.
After BR’s opening salvo LK said “…I don’t understand what he’s talking about…” was in humor, in the style of the show.
I also commend (LK) for letting people (for a while) comment on his blog, even though most of the comments were against him – yours truly posted once too, but some posters got too nasty.
I’m not a Malpas fan either but he was not pounding anybody, and could have as BR made some pretty in-your-face comments about Bear Sterns to him on Kudlow’s show once… and here at BP.
Donald Luskin was just at the line of civility with the IQ comment, BR defended it and got a little pitch for himself.
It’s a TV show. People know LK’s a GOP partisan, but he lets other views on his show. Ease up.
When you have friends like Kudlow who needs….well you get the idea. Barry we know why you accept invites to appear on this clown’s show and in the same circumstances we would do the same but please don’t try to suggest this guy is in any way serious. He’s a shill for the most extreme brands of Republican economic, foreign and social policies. No matter that those policies all lie in ruins he’s still stacking his show with a bunch of like minded shills who he engages in “debate’ with token realists of one sort and another like yourself. It’s basically kabuki theater aimed at an audience of true believers because I can’t imagine anyone with an ounce of objectivity is still watching this bs. When I said he’s a shill that’s exactly what he is because I’m not even sure he actually believes in the nonsense he’s peddling. For example at one moment he’s screaming for interest rate cuts and the next he’s screaming because the dollars going in the tank. Doesn’t he know there’s a connection. One moment he’s screaming about over regulation of financial markets and that the govt needs to stay out of Wall Street, the next he’s applauding the bail out of BS. In short the guy’s a total phony who will say anything that suits his convenience at the moment and I respectfully suggest that might have been the case with his plaudits to yourself.
Most Americans don’t give a damn about party. They care about resolving problems and making a better world for our children. Doing the right thing. Making sacrifice for the greater good. Treating other people right and being treated right themselves. To politicize everything into red or blue is damn shame.
jJohn:
Excellent comment.
Kudlow and his hand-picked clones like Wesbury and Luskin routinely gang up on dissenters like BR and Reich , unapologetically while on-air. The suck-up that follows on his blog should be recognized for what it is , a headfake.
Kudlow’s propagandizing for Bush/Cheney reaches all varieties of viewers on his nightly show. The goal is to indoctrinate as many of the ‘great unwashed’ as possible. His blog , on the other hand , is read only by his true-blue dittoheads and a few , like those here , who recognize that his perma-bull preaching is perma-BS.
Barry , next time you’re on the show , ask him if he can say the phrase : ” Demand-side Economics”.
I bet he can’t spit it out , but he’d better start practicing , because the demand side is going to be the focus of economists , on his show and everywhere else , for a long time , IMO.
Barry did fine. Larry Kudlow did fine. Discussion is a process of discovery. You won’t learn anything if your response to a different opinion is to smear people.
Mazzolata:
I bet you just lost your privileges on this site. Goodbye.
In regard to Larry’s Blog Site…Never been there and never will.
I mean what’s the use. Could you possibly have any doubt what you will read there?
the question for luskin should have been–you say buy the mortgages and cdos at the bottom with leverage, ok how do you determine that bottom????
“..when Luskin said to short your company at 100. …”
Posted by: B.B. | May 15, 2008 5:13:32 PM
The way I got that statement was that it was directed at Barry, and had nothing to do with his firm.
Without his word play Luskin essentially said “The best score Barry’s IQ can reach is 100” which is a symptom of Luskin’s inferiority complex in my book.
Great job on the show Barry
In view of the nice comments I promise not to have a mean thought about him for…
I WISH THEY WOULD HAVE LET YOU FINISH MORE THAT ONE SENTENCE!!! You are the only one Kudlow didn’t let talk!
Larry is a bit condescending if you asked me … but no one has :)
Barry, tell it like it is, we can take it.
Sometimes it’s better to go with your gut.
Barry has been on Kudlow many times…don’t know why this appearance is getting so much attention.
Anyway, here’s the funny thing about Larry…I bet if Obama becomes President, Free Market Optimistic Larry becomes the biggest pessimist you ever saw.
BG: thanks for the comment. I hardly know why it’s necessary to make the assertions I did because it’s so obvious this guy is an entertainer like Cramer or Limbaugh. There’s a strand of public opinion that represents a market for the twaddle these guys peddle. If you want the flavor just read the letters on the ed page of the WSJ. No serious economist believes in supply side economics for godsake, not even Martin Feldstein, but Kudlow, Laffer and co continue talking as if it’s a valid economic theory. It’s been disproved twice in actuality (on Reagan’s and Bush’s watch) and many more times in theoretical modelling. It will end as it did last time with the next president having to clean up the red ink with tax increases just as it did in the case of Bush pere. I can respect even if I often don’t agree with people like Feldstein and Mankiw because at least they are serious, but people like Kudlow really belong on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. Actually the HSN is a better analogy where glossy pitchmen/women try persuade the gullible to buy flashy little trinkets, kitsch and junk. BR god bless him appears on Kudlow’s kabuki show for sound commercial reasons and so would I in similar circumstances but let’s not kid ourselves it has any serious intellectual underpinnings other than reinforcing the prejudices of a not very well informed audience.
Reminds me of Jay and Silent Bob with Jay going smoochie smoochie with no clue what the hell is going on.
While I criticize Luskin and Bowyer heavily let’s get one thing straight. From my perspective Larry Kudlow and his show is pretty dang good. Too many of you take him way too serious with his goldilocks stuff. Larry himself has said that he may not believe the goldilocks case but he believes it’s his duty to talk good about the economy. Fine, I know where he deals from and that’s him. I know that he really doesn’t buy the stuff he’s shoveling…unlike Bowyer and Luskin who do.
Kudlow and Co. is my only can’t miss show.
Barry, you held your own and that is what matters. Kudlow is a shill for the network. I do like his berating approach to you and some of the other pundits. It is also very good to see how others interpret the market.
Your blog site is fabulous and fantastic. Keep up the excellent work.
Sounds like Kudlow took some heat for crossing the line of blatant shillism, even by his standards.
“The guests were stacked against him”. That’s the issue here. They are always stacked against. Why is that? Not confident enough in his position to allow an evenly matched debate, instead has to stack 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 including himself. By his own admission, guests are stacked in Kudlow’s viewpoint. Yes, it’s his show and he can organize the guests how he sees fit, but if he really is confident in his position, he would allow 2:2, 3:3 and discontinue the “stacking the deck” as that only serves to undermine the credibility of his show. Anytime you see the odds that stacked against, instant and obvious question, is are they that insecure in their positions that they need to reinforce by so many guests in order to make it even. I guess they need 3 stacked guests just to equal 1 Barry. Wasn’t a fair fight IMO. I’m surprised they didn’t bring out 6 to match up with you.
“I read it everyday.”
Considering all that has been said of him on this blog would you read it if you were him? Everyday? I don’t think so.
I finally was able to watch one of those Kudlow clips. Mr. Kudlow’s schtick reminds me of John McLaughlin’s. His first priority is providing an entertaining television segment, which is not easy. He’s basically an entertainer. FWIW, I noted on the show what appeared to be a sincere like betw. Kudlow and Mr. Ritholtz, as if he thinks of Barry as the black sheep Larry secretly wishes he could be.
Since I don’t have any $$$ parked in equities, nor am I involved in the profession, I have little to say on this compared to you folks who do.
Don’t watch Kudlow anymore. Haven’t watched the video. Pretty sure I got the jist of it. Anyone with a TV show knows that ratings = heartbeat of the show’s life. The Kudlow you see on TV is not the Kudlow you’d see over a drink (oops, he’s a 12 stepper) or any off-camera chat, as Barry has stated in so many words in the past. I’d guess that Barry has had to tolerate worse “friends” to accomplish what he has, as have most of us. I’m no mindreader, but my take is that Barry is an ‘A student’ of the ol’ 2 piles theory:
Life is comprised of two piles – one that you can do something about and one that you can’t. Luskin and friends remain in the pile that you can’t do anything about, so Barry doesn’t and accepts and moves on.
Barry appears to take Kudlow’s comments/compliments at face value. I’ll follow his lead.
I only started watching kudlow because you were on it. But the price of having to listen to hacks like luskin is becoming too steep. You did well with the ambush.
Barry,for a $FIN, I’ll strangle him
and pay the travel exjpenses a
pro at it. .. ;) I won’t charge the
$fin if you can have that other phoney supplyside
BUSTER bastard Luskin there at the
same time.. ;) ezz ezzeee
Watching Kudlow & Co. the other night BR one would’ve thought you had the keys to the Playboy mansion and the other four guys hadn’t been laid by a non-farm animal in over 30 years…
And to think you do that show for free!
And Luskin, why do I get the impression he was the kid who used to come home from the playground every day with his underwear stretched over his head (in accordance with the schoolyard justice system)?
Barry,
I love reading your blog every day. In fact, I frequently use your posts as material for my English language students. I have a small company that teaches communication for finance professionals in South Korea. Your recent post about ‘BDI Approching New Highs’ was a big hit with several of my portfolio managers.
Anyways, Kudlow is truly useless. So why bother showing up for his show. What do you get out of it? He never gives you enough time to talk. Bloomberg and other similar media is where you can show your value. Keep up the great work.
Chief Tomahawk,
Hilarious!!…and probably spot on, dude! : ) Good one.
Chief Tomahawk,
I’m a Korean and a financial professional.
I’m also reading this blog regularly.
I’m interested in your lecture.
Would you leave your handphone number or e-mail address here?
If you are reluctant, you can send me a mail.
Oooops.
my e-mail address is
threelegsbird@yahoo.com
Barry,you live in a world of perception – Reality left the house in the 1980’s – you do schmoozing well, You are a great networking person – and last but not least this all has a cost – and is not very pretty – Kudlow is your reward. Reality is the cost.
Barry:
I truly enjoy your site and agree with your insight most of the time. However, your posts are incredibly self-serving. You never miss a chance to conratulate yourself or post when someone compliments you. We get it. You’re smart, widely read and people like you. Please show a little more class in the future.
~~~
BR: After that televised absurdity, you don’t think a bit of self-congratulations is in order?
Barry, I am outside New York and I can tell you there is a recession. In Phoenix, which is so heavily impacted by real estate and immigration issues, I ask all my vendors how their businesses are doing: my hairdresser is having to rent out a room in her house to make her mortgage payments; my real estate friends are cash poor and hanging by their thumbs; one of my friends, a hard money lender, is struggling to keep a 50-year-old business alive as he takes back unfinished projects; the state has a $1b budget shortfall. What difference do the technical definitions make to these people?
BR, I always figured you as a Lieberman DEM, though I am not it is not a bad place to be. You will always be in media demand; you do a nice job of making your case without going over the top
You should still strangle the bastard.
Your self congratulations is extremely excessive. More humility and more class are in order.
Mr. Forette: you doth protest too much.
Cheers.
Jack Forette:
Any person who has a high sense of self-awareness and properly applies themself to their passions will appear, on the surface, as self-indulgent.
True selfishness has little to do with self-indulgence, especially when that indulgence benefits so many other people…
In that regard, Barry is quite UN-selfish.
Seems like pretty typical passive-aggressive behavior to me.
Also, I’m a new reader in the last few months, thanks for your great work.
>Your self congratulations is extremely excessive. More humility and more class are in order.
My 2¢
It’s BR’s blog. If a blog doesn’t exert some of the blog owner’s ego, it isn’t half as interesting. That’s where the personality comes through. It risks rubbing some people intolerably the wrong way, but it also more strongly attracts the readers for which it meshes.
I thought in this instance, especially, BR really pulled back and let the whole thing speak for itself, which is more self control than 99% of bloggers have.
Friends who work there have told me that the admin at CNBC is starting to see Kudlow as a bit of an embarrassment now given everything that’s going on and are thinking about trying to push him out.
This feels like an attempt by Kudlow to try to gather some support.
Barry, I don’t know where you find time to run your business, write your blog and show up on the tube.
But you do a hell of a job. Your blog is must reading for me — it’s sophisticated yet down to earth. That’s a tough line to walk, but you do it well.
Just caught up with the comments on Kudlow, you BR, and the meaning of life. I’m a great fan of your blog Barry, check it every day for little nuggets of info and you also have some very good posters too who bring interesting insights. I’m interested in the view of some here that Kudlow is just an entertainer and therefore, it’s quite ok to watch him. I agree entirely that he’s an entertainer but he’s talking about a very serious subject. This is not Dancing with the stars. It’s about making economic judgements that are in our personal and/or the national interest. There are probably some little old ladies/guys sitting at home watching this claptrap and maybe making making economic decisions which could prove costly to them. You might as well say let’s have an entertainment show about healthcare. How to perform your own amputations. Make your own diabetes medicines. Kudlow needs to be held to a much higher standard that American Idol.
Why hasn’t anyone here asked the obvious question?
When will BR have his own show?
I’m pushing for a Saturday morning Business Block running against Fox.
I don’t watch CNBC or any of this stuff, but I do read a lot of blogs. I watched this video, and I gotta say that out of all the people in that clip you’re the only one I’d listen to in terms of influencing my portfolio. I’m definitely not encouraging you to make this blog a paid service but in all honesty between you and Tim I. I’ve saved/made quite a lot of of dollars I would have otherwise pissed away — just by being a little more grounded in reality and not listening to the cheerleaders.
Anyhow, my retirement funds thank you.
Populist election revolt is right on target:
“After a super-majority of Ron Paul supporters captured control of the Republican state convention [in Nevada] Saturday, state party officials abruptly canceled the event without electing delegates to the national convention.”
“Paul spokesman Jeff Greenspan said the walk out was a first in his 21-year career in politics.
“I’ve seen factions walk out, I’ve never seen a party walk out,” he said. “I’ve never even heard of that.””
http://rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080426/NEWS18/80426047&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com/breakingnews
I’m taking 10:1 odds on Barry in the Octagon vs Krudblow. Takers ?
BR, I thought you might like this. Excellent excerpt from The Cunning Realist.
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Yeah, That Worked Out Well
The latest installment (the first one is here). Some readers are probably familiar with Don Luskin. I rarely watch financial TV, but as I click through the channels he seems to be on fairly frequently. His profile was pretty high a few years ago during the debate over Social Security reform. Luskin holds himself out as someone worth listening to, and he’s not shy about calling others “always wrong.”
I got curious about Luskin’s own record. How’d he do on the subprime crash, one of the most important chapters in the history of financial markets? I took a look at his stuff from the past year to find out (note the dates, which are important). As I explain at the end of the post, there’s a special reason why Luskin’s calls deserve scrutiny:
April 27, 2007: This earnings season is especially sweet for me, and not just because I love to see bloviating blowhard bears on television make fools of themselves. …There virtually can’t be a recession on the horizon. The world is awash in financial liquidity. Anything that goes wrong — like the housing slowdown or the subprime mess — is easily absorbed by the massive amount of money available in the world.
June 29, 2007: Through the end of the year, it’s going to be great for stocks. With no contagion from subprime, and the Fed on the sidelines, there’s nothing to stop the economy from growing a lot faster than “moderately,” which means that corporate earnings are going to keep growing, too. So abstracting from the occasional correction here and there, stock prices should pretty much keep making new all-time highs through the end of the year.
July 6, 2007: …I appear on CNBC about once a week, usually on a panel with other experts. …And in my expert opinion, the bears — permanent and otherwise — are in for another big disappointment here. Consider the facts behind my belief. Earnings are cheap compared to interest rates, which are still low. The economy is re-accelerating and earnings are booming. Liquidity is plentiful. The Fed is on the sidelines.
And the best fact of all is the bears themselves. The very fact that they keep worrying fills me with confidence and optimism. They’re always wrong, it seems. The only calamity they’re going to get is the reputation damage of being wrong, once again.
July 27, 2007: So what words are left to describe a really big down day like Thursday? How about, “Stocks became a better bargain than ever!”
August 3, 2007: While it’s been a turbulent couple of weeks for stocks, the resiliency of the market in the face of rampant panic and pessimism has been very encouraging.
That means two things. First, at these prices, even though stocks are still near all-time highs, they are nevertheless bargain-priced. Second, the credit crisis that has triggered the recent volatility really isn’t all that threatening. …
So it’s a mess to be sure. But it’s not a real mess — it’s just a psychological mess. …
Stocks will have to live with a little uncertainty, while we see just how “brief” this brief period of adjustment is. But the credit markets will repair themselves and stocks will be at new highs before you know it.
August 24, 2007: Everyone’s saying that the financial system is “broken” thanks to losses in subprime mortgages, and the collapse of exotic loan securitization structures like collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. So how come the financial sector of the S&P 500 has performed better than the overall market during this alleged meltdown?
Guys and gals, take a stress pill and count to 10. This is nothing. At least for most investors. …
This is like Hurricane Katrina. If you lived in New Orleans when it hit, then it was a profound personal tragedy. Thousands of such personal tragedies added up to lots of money, call it $100 billion plus. But in the grand scheme of things in the overall economy, it doesn’t even register on the radar.
To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” the troubles of a few thousand little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy economy. …
Bernanke is no politician. He’s an academic, and a serious student of monetary policy. He’s not thinking about the cover of Time. That’s why he hasn’t cut the fed-funds rates, and why he’s not going to. …
So here’s the play: Buy stocks on dips. There will plenty of dips while the panic plays itself out. But the bottom is in, and I think you can buy with confidence now.
August 31, 2007: It’s hard to find any fellow bulls out there anymore. And oddly enough, those few that I encounter all base their bull case on something I totally disagree with. They think that the Fed is going to save the markets by slashing interest rates. I disagree. I don’t think the Fed will cut interest rates at all. …
There will be no rate cut. And stocks will be at new all-time highs by the end of the year.
You heard it here first!
October 26, 2007: Right now everyone thinks the credit markets are dead, dead, dead. …
No one expects Wall Street to get right back up on its feet and start up a new credit cycle, with all the profits — yes, and all the risk and all the foolishness — that such a thing implies.
Yet I think there is a decent chance that some version of that will happen, and quite soon.
November 30, 2007: The bottom is in. Yes, I know I’ve been too early in saying to buy stocks during the correction from the October highs. But all the classic signals of a durable bottom are in place now.
December 7, 2007: On Wall Street, vultures don’t go after dead things. They go after things that are alive and very cheap. And right now, they’re going after troubled financial stocks in a big way, which means it’s time to move in. …
The fact that all these deals are taking place says that the assets that have been thought to be most at risk during the credit crisis of the last six months have finally hit rock bottom. And that, in turn, says some very positive things about the economy and the stock market in general. …
The vultures have come in and set a floor for the value of existing debt. Now the uncertainty has been resolved as to where that floor is, and it’s all upside from there.
December 28, 2007: Bearish expectations that lending will necessarily contract because of damaged bank capital structures suffer from a fallacy of static analysis…
As long as investors, businesses and consumers have good reasons to keep borrowing, I think that the banking system will continue to be fully able to keep lending.
January 18, 2008: I admit that I’ve been very wrong. I’ve been saying to buy stocks all the way down since the October highs. I was wrong. I repeat: I was wrong.
I don’t know if Luskin’s involved in money management these days, but if you don’t know what happened a few years ago, take a look.
By the way, your wallet has an interest in Luskin’s record. He’s an economic advisor to John McCain — the candidate who admits he doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should. Ready for these guys to take a crack at “fixing” Social Security?
BR, I also need to excerpt from The Cunning Realist again on Kudlow. This type of permabull, polyannish pro-USA-regardless-of-the-facts nonsense has to be illustrated.
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2008/04/that-worked-out-well.html
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
That Worked Out Well
Larry Kudlow, National Review, 11/16/04:
With the reelection of President George W. Bush, cowboy capitalism will continue and then some. Pro-growth policies on tax reform, Social Security reform, tort reform, and energy reform will all keep the capital in capitalism. Watch the U.S economy continue to outperform the other large industrial countries by a wide margin, as it has since Reagan.
Which brings us back to the dollar. In order to get a piece of Bush’s ownership-society vision, foreign investors are going to have to buy dollars, not sell them. …
In narrower terms, the current guardian of dollar value is Maestro Alan Greenspan. He has spent a distinguished career at the Fed protecting greenback purchasing power and holding down domestic inflation. For those proliferating dollar bears on Wall Street, including a number of supply-siders who have turned into inflationist worrywarts, do you really think Greenspan is about to reverse his long-held convictions? Only a few years ago the rap against Sir Alan was deflation. Having corrected that mistake, do you really think he’s embarked on a massive inflation? Highly doubtful. …
…the Fed will gradually remove the excess dollars they appropriately created following the dreadful 9/11 attacks on the U.S. As they remove this emergency liquidity and as pro-growth tax cuts are made permanent in Bush’s second-term tax-reform program, the future value of the U.S. dollar is likely to rise, not fall. …
The liberal chattering pundits of the old established media will continue to prattle on about budget deficits, trade deficits, a weak dollar, higher inflation, and a jobless recovery. But America’s economic future is vastly more optimistic than these negativists would have us believe. Both politics and policy are pointing toward non-inflationary prosperity. The U.S. dollar will share in this bounty.
Who is Kudlow ;) ?