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Watch the video, you’ll understand.

This is really more depressing than I’m playing it.  I’m ticked off about this.  Really.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

The Congress is about to approve a bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  This is bad.  Really, really bad.  Here’s the lowdown:

a)  Bail out FNM and FRE.  Protect the assets of a large pool of billionaires who invested in FNM and FRE.  Interest rates go to 10% on mortgages.  Home values plummet.  Average Americans take it in the short two ways:  first, declining home values; and second, we foot the bill for somewhere north of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in bailout money.  That’s an increase in our national debt of around 10%.  Great Depression II follows.

b)  Let Freddie and Fannie fail.  Lots of billionaires lose lots and lots of money.  Nobody gets a mortgage for many, many months.  Lots of banks go under.  Banks that behaved responsibility totally mop up on the market and make tons of money.  Average taxpayer loses nothing.  Home values stop declining.  No Great Depression II.

Can you guess which way I’m leaning?

How the stock market works [General] - MarketTicker Forums
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the
villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out
to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands
at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped
their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20.
This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going
back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply
of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a
monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However,
since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would
now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. “Look
at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I
will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city,
you can sell them to him for $50 each.”

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the
monkeys. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant again!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

List of Physics Games » Fun-Motion

Don’t go to this site unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

Try the Powder Game or Magic Pen for bonus fun!

Market Ticker: The 5-Month Checkup For 2008 - Memorial Weekend

Karl Denninger has his finger on our country’s economic pulse.  He’s also got the guts to dig up his past predictions, and give himself a scorecard.  He’s eerily accurate.

Want to protect your assets?  Read and understand what Karl is saying.

Mish has this one pegged - right on:
I do not believe the current system can remain if the bankers make the profits and the taxpayers share the losses.

It’s okay to be outraged.  What Wall Street and the Bankers have done is outrageous.  But the solution is NOT to socialize our financial sector.

The solution is to let the Bankers lose all the money they’ve taken out of our pockets over the last five years.

Want to profit on the Bankers’ losses?  Invest against them.  Short JPM and LEH.  If you can’t short ‘em, buy an ETF that shorts them.  My current favority is SKF - buy it today at 117, sell it in a couple of months for 150.

Take back what they stole.  It’s your duty.

Unusual to get timely economic lessons from your mother, but it happens.  This came from Mom this morning:

There was a professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘ Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.

The young man said this was no joke’ You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in th e woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare,  medicine, drugs, free medical, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

One should always remember ‘There is no such thing as a free Lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

‘A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.’ ……. Thomas Jefferson

You may think that the Fed and JP Morgan just bailed out Bear Stearns, saving it from bankruptcy.

Not so.

YOU just bailed out Bear Stearns.

Working together, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, backed by George Bush, and via The Fed’s Ben Bernanke, a “bribe” was given to JP Morgan to buy out the troubled Bear Stearns. A $30 Billion bribe. All three know that this bribe (actually, a loan which need never be repaid — where can I get one of those?) will result in a bill flowing back to the taxpayers, you and I, to the tune of $300 for every taxpayer in America.

I’m pissed off about that.

This is a clear violation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Fed simply *CAN’T* do this.

It’s also, not incidentally, clearly in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. I have been taxed, at the Federal level, and Congress was nowhere to be found.

Congress isn’t moving on this. The President is (as always) completely oblivious. Time to send a well-deserved wake-up. If you’re as pissed off as I am, please consider reading (and signing) this petition .

Thank you.

And, God Bless the United States of America

Market Ticker: The Most Important Ticker You Will Read This Year

Talking with my uncle Leo yesterday, started talking about metals - he’s (physically) long silver, and I commented that the appreciation might be almost over.  We’re approaching the point, I said, when we’ll see the tipping point toward inflation or severe deflation.

The Fed has played their hand.  Deflation is coming.

Be prepared.

Bear Stearns just upgraded banks.  Seriously.   They need to unload some shares, and would really like the price to go up so it’s less painful for them.

There was a SNL skit that presaged this:

Peter Burke: [ acknowledging a raised hand ] Yes?

Investor #1: We’re entering the fourth year of a down stock market. Is it time to sell yet?

Investor #2: Have we hit bottom yet?

Investor #3: What can you tell small investors who are really starting to worry?

[ cut to Peter Burke ]

[ SUPER: “Peter Burke, CEO Global Century Investments” ]

Peter Burke: Just this: Relax. The market goes up, the market goes down. But, over the long haul, the market goes up. [ a hand is raised ] Yes?

Investor #4: Is there any chance the stocks might rebound this year?

Peter Burke: I’m really the wrong guy to ask. I got completely out of stocks in late ‘99, and I haven’t followed the market since.

Investor #5: You got out of the market three years ago?

Peter Burke: Yes. You see.. around that time, we at Global Century became convinced that stocks were headed for a crash, and that bonds were the safer bet. And, we were right. My own bond portfolio is up nearly 30%.

Investor #5: But, if you were moving out of stocks and into bonds three years ago, why were your brokers telling people like me to do the exact opposite.

Peter Burke: Well, obviously, if you think, as we did, that stocks are heading down, and you want to unload them before a crash, you have to convince somebody out there to buy them. That’s just common sense. [ a hand is raised ] Yes?

Investor #6: Back in the summer of 2001, I wanted to move money into some defense-related and home security stocks, but your brokers talked me out of it. Is that because you and your friends were buying those stocks and wanted to keep the price down?

Peter Burke: Exactly! We felt that, with the 9/11 terror attacks coming up later in the summer, that sector of the market would probabyl triple in value. And, once again, we were right.

Investor #7: [ amazed ] You knew in advance about 9/11?

Peter Burke: Basically. [ a hand is raised ] Yes?

Investor #8: So, earlier, when you said you don’t own any stocks, that was a lie, right?

Peter Burke: Correct. That was a lie. [ a hand is raised ] Yes?

Investor #9: Hi. Like a lot of us here, I followed your broker’s advice, and, over the last few years, I lost 80% of my life savings.

Peter Burke: That does not surprise me at all.

Investor #9: I’d just like to say, that even though I think you’re an evil person, and even though I came here intending to kill you, I’ve been really impressed with your honesty.

[ everyone claps ]

You’re kind of straight talk is rare in today’s business world.

Peter Burke: Thank you. At Global Century, we like to be completely upfront with our clients. That’s why, in our prospectus, we clearly state that our investment advice is often self-interested or deceitful, and may work to our client’s disadvantage. We think.. you deserve to know that.

[ everyone claps ]

Voiceover: For straight answers to your investment questions, stop by our offices for a free consultation.

Peter Burke: Yes?

Investor #10: It doesn’t say that in your prospectus.

Peter Burke: Sure it does.

Investor #10: No, it doesn’t.

Peter Burke: Yes. It’s in there. You have to read it.

Investor #10: I read it. It’s not in there.

Peter Burke: You’re right. It’s not in there. I just assumed you hadn’t read it.

Investor #10: I appreciate your honesty.

Peter Burke: You bet.

Voiceover: Global Century Investments. Hard questions, straight answers.