I was out this morning in San Diego breaking a sweat running stairs at the San Diego Convention Center (which does get you in great shape, but might kill me!). I could not help but notice that the NEA has a big convention in town. 17,000 public education folks from around the country in to enjoy fun and sun. Didn’t the State of California just hand out IOUs for the first time since the Great Depression, but 17,000 people on the public dime come to do exactly what that could not be done via phone and internet? Eat, it appears. I digress. Then I get back and see Tom Raum from the wires writing today:
The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
Let me get this straight. We just bailed out everyone under the sun with massive new DEBT and today Tom Raum writes with a straight face that “economists” warn it will be a problem? Tom, seriously, and I mean no offense as you are probably a fine family guy and all that, but you are an absolute idiot. Think about his one sentence:
1. The debt problem is not yet here from his perspective.
2. Economists, the same ones who predicted nothing, now “warn”?
3. The government can fix it? Really. Explain that to me!
At least we get fireworks today! Happy 4th!
July 4th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
When 80 trillion in debt isn’t enough….(11+t in federal debt, 55+t in Social Security and Medicare A&D and 13 in wars and stimulus and misc)
You get it, I think a lot of smart economists miss the fact that we are as insolvent as Enron and have as much crap hidden off balance sheet.
Happy 4th Michael, thanks for you posts and your fantastic books.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
“We write GAAP like an abstract artist. Hell, you stare at liability long enough, it might just become an asset.”
The whole financial system is a joke, more and more people are starting to realize this.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Michael-
Aloha from Hawaii.Happy 4th to you and yours. You nailed it (like always)…
The fact that ‘very intelligent people’ with ‘very important pieces of paper’ hanging on their walls believe that these debt problems and other financial-crisis related issues are “not here yet” and COULD potentially show their ugly heads unless Washington comes to the ‘rescue’ (whatever that means), is just as silly and unintelligent as these people’s perspectives on why fundamentals mean “this” or mean “that”. They are out of touch and have been for quite a while. They are lagging contrarian indicators in and of themselves, and perhaps they are beginning to realize just as Taleb has said for years: thinking that your own shi* smells like roses (Long Term Capital Management, “guaranteed” risk models) does not do ANYTHING to protect people from the unstoppable effects of risk, probability, chance, mathematical expectation, and the whole idea of “Accuracy vs. Expectation”. These same types of people who write things such as what you have pointed out above, seem inevitably and eternally bound to the idea that they CAN predict and therefore whatever has happened automatically has an easily prescribed and premeditated fix (they knew it would happen all along, and were ‘prepared’) The last thing that anyone caught up in this current mess can say about their status PRE-CRISIS, is that they were “prepared” and “knew what to do”. As always, if one was trend following, none of anything I just wrote would matter in the slightest. The 20 and 5 periods would have crossed, and you would have been short. Done.
Regard,
and keep up the great work!
July 8th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Watch this…. everything becomes very clear….. What a joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etheobamafile%2Ecom%2FObamaLatest%2Ehtm&feature=player_embedded