My review of Michael Moore’s new film looks to appear in The Daily Reckoning tomorrow….should reach a few people!

How else I can I phrase a commercial that tells investors to not think and follow the green line?

For the guy who posted today lamenting just about everything…this is not the kind of opportunity I was talking about. Bailing out newspapers is the kind of act that literally kills opportunity. Maybe America really does want the direction of Michael Moore’s new film.

I came across the following comment by a film critic who had viewed the trailer for Broke, but who had not yet seen my film:

Investment issues are to me the way science fiction is to some people: alien concepts spoken of in an alien language concerning things that I will never, ever have any stake in. Obviously the crashing economy affects me, too, but I don’t understand why things should be this way: How did we let a few greedy speculators ruin things for everyone? Can’t we wall these guys up in their own little multiplayer game, give them some Monopoly dollars, and let them play to their hearts’ content someplace where they can’t hurt anyone else?

Why do people assume only Wall Street was the problem? This speculation is “evil” view reminded me of Francisco d’Anconia’s famous speech on money. The comment continued:

Why should I have to play their game — by investing in real estate or stocks or whatever — just to ensure that I’m not eating cat food when I’m 85? Isn’t that like demanding that everyone become a major league ball player?

So how should the government guarantee that no one is eating cat food at 85? Legislate it? How is that done exactly? For example, how would we actually implement this?

Feedback in tonight:

Michael, I just wanted to say thanks for all you do. My brother read your book back in 2005 and gave it to me to read. It changed our trading and, I believe, our lives. Please indulge a little background. My brother is 8 years my senior. He’s in the construction business and I’m in the insurance business. Pretty different professionally, but not philosophically. What we had most in common was a fascination of the financial markets and figuring out a way to profit from them. He and I have both spent most of our adult lives educating ourselves on economic and financial issues and continue to do so on a daily basis. We would categorize ourselves as followers of Austrian economic thought and free market libertarians. We had been dabbling in the futures markets for over a decade and could never find an approach that would work for us.  Unfortunately, we followed various gurus on our way to losing money year after year and depleted several different trading accounts. We had always focused on systematic approaches to trading because we both felt that we couldn’t trust ourselves to maintain any trading consistency with soft rules or instinct. Our problem was that we lacked any understanding of trading systems and all of their component parts. As a result, we chose to follow the complicated black box systems designed by others. These systems all focused on picking tops/bottoms or otherwise predicting market direction in some way. We didn’t realize it at the time, but in retrospect, the one thing positive we took away from these experiences was the understanding that our greatest attribute as traders was our discipline. We took every single trading signal from every guru we ever followed, come hell or high water. The better educated we became, the more we realized that NOBODY really knows anything about the direction of markets. To design or follow a systematic approach to trading based on the premise that market direction was predictable was a ticket to the poor house. We’d heard about trend following methods but only in a disparaging light. We quit trading for 5 years. Then we both read Trend Following. It was the proverbial “ah ha” moment that we had spent 20 years looking for. Sometimes the truth is so hard to see because it’s right in front of your face. To make a long story a little shorter, my brother purchased your course in late 2005 and we starting our little trading company in Feb 2006 with $100,000 in seed money. We trade a basket of 10 futures markets using the rules in your course (although with a lower risk %). We never deviate and we take every signal, subject to the our risk management rules. We spend no more that 1/2 hour a day on our trading business. We have tripled our account balance to $300,000 in the intervening 3.5 years without ever adding any more capital. We have not had a losing year yet, although I’m sure we will eventually. We made just under 100% return in 2008, which would have been much greater had our capital base been larger or if we had been comfortable with a greater per trade risk %. We had to beg off some trades that were immensely profitable in fall 2008 due to our position limits and % risk rules. Unfortunate, sure, but we slept great and still doubled our money in the greatest financial debacle of our lifetimes. 2008 was only the beginning. Government interference in markets always makes for great trend trading opportunities. The size and scope of government today simply means that trends are only going to be bigger and will occur with more frequency. We’re ready and waiting. We can’t thank you enough for sharing the wisdom of trend following with us. We truly believe that significant trading wealth is simply a matter of time for us thanks to the education you provided…mixed in with a big helping of discipline! Thanks again Michael!
xxx, IL USA

More.

Moore’s film ends with recently uncovered video of FDR saying this on January 11, 1944:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

• The right of every family to a decent home;

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

• The right to a good education. All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

A roomful of college kids last night stood and cheered wildly at this proposal. My question: How do you legislate words like “enough”, “adequate”, “decent”, and “good”?

I am going to a screening for Michael Moore’s new film tonight in LA. Q&A after the film with Huffington moderating. I hope I can get a question in!

I still find that voice mail bizarre. Forget her not showing up, who cares. But her rationalization of why she canceled is the interesting story. It sure puts one in the psyche of a major media player doesn’t it?

A year ago Ben says Depression is on the doorstep. Now he says:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that the worst recession since the 1930s is probably over. Bernanke said the economy likely is growing now, but it won’t be sufficient to prevent the unemployment rate, now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, from rising. “The recession is very likely over at this point,” Bernanke said in responding to questions at the Brookings Institution.

Ben-d over!

From Yahoo & James Galbraith:

A rising deficit “played a constructive role” in stabilizing the economy and was “inevitable” after the private sector collapse last year, he says. “We absolutely had to have government playing that role constructively, energetically, and on a sustained basis.” Those who say a sharp decrease in government spending (or higher taxes) would resolve or materially reduce the deficit simply don’t understand the mechanics of what created the deficit in the first place, Galbraith says: In sum, the credit crisis caused a collapse in government revenue (i.e. lower tax receipts) and a simultaneous rise in government expenditures for unemployment benefits, and other “automatic stabilizers,” the professor explains. Either a big cut in spending or big tax hike would not solve the deficit because “the private sector would collapse further,” he says.

That’s not a pleasant thought. The video:

More from the professor:

“If the government is no longer providing the impetus for economic stabilization, where is it going to come from?” That’s the question University of Texas professor James Galbraith asks of those advocating for the government to reduce spending and start eliminating programs supporting various parts of the economy. “I’m in favor of thinking about exit strategies [but] I’m not in favor of implementing them,” Galbraith says. “It’s way, way too early. Government spending – that is absolutely the reason why this has not turned into the [second] great depression.” As with his views on Wall Street reform, Galbraith believes we need to do more to revive the economy than just revert to the status quo. “What’s the strategic direction of economic growth going forward?,” he asks. Answering his own question, Galbraith says the U.S. “could use a decade of public capital investment to rebuilt common infrastructure.” Furthermore, we need to “mobilize and direct resources” to tackle the twin challenges of energy independence and global climate change, he says.

How come I can watch the Discovery Channel and see that over millions of years the polar ice caps have come and gone and that oceans covered Kansas at one time, but some how we humans are going to stop/delay/whatever “global warming”? One viewing of the Discovery Channel sure seems to say the earth will go as the earth will go and we will all be gone some day! So in the short term knock off the baloney that building new roads or creating “green” jobs will do anything except create a bigger welfare state!