Archive for the Stock Market Category

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Hold ‘em?  Fold ‘em? Who knows? (June 13, 2022)

Posted in Economy, Song Reference, Stock Market on June 13, 2022 by e-commentary.org

[DuckDuckGo is completely blocking www.e-commentary.org.]

. . .

K          “Fold ‘em?”

J          “Hold ‘em?”

. . .

K          “Uncertain times.”

J          “Certainement.”

. . .

K        “Every measurement, every metric, every benchmark, every instinct, every impulse, every pulse screams that the financial system should have exploded and imploded years ago.”

J          “The only thing the little person in the American criminal enterprise system can do is buy and hold in and for the long term.  The system is otherwise rigged to plunder the little person and protect the big person.”

. . . 

[See the e-commentary at The Great Checkmate And The Great Seesaw: Interesting Rates (April 11, 2022), Careening Toward A Global Totalitarian Authoritarian Behemoth?  And Then There Is The Fed’s Self-Inflicted Great Checkmate. (January 3, 2022) and “Bitcoin”, “Ethereum” . . . “Blockchain Technology” Say What? (July 3, 2017).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Hold ‘em?  Fold ‘em?

A day late and a Bitcoin short.

“You’ve got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em,  Know when to walk away, know when to run.  You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table, There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.”  “The Gambler” written by Don Schlitz and sung by Kenny Rogers.

Hard come, easy go.

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Stagflation?!?  Hands Down Or Hands Up? (January 14, 2019)

Posted in Deflation, Economics, Inflation, Price, Stagflation, Stock Market on January 14, 2019 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The way I see the economy unfolding and unfurling in the near future, everything in or on your hands right now (stocks, bonds, lands, rides, gloves, etc.) will drop precipitously in price and everything you need to get your hands on to live (grub, aqua, tent, bike, threads, etc.) will rise staggeringly in price . . . and in value.”

J          “The old ‘lose-lose’ situation.  So many people are living a hand-to-mouth existence without much in or at or on hand to use or to lose and not much in their pockets to hand over for daily necessities.”

K          “One’s assets will halve, one’s expenses will at least double.”

. . . 

K          “For those who rode the rise, the taxes that were assessed on the assets as they rose in price will not be rebated when the assets retreat in price.”

J          “And as the assets rose in price but not in real economic value, the ‘wealth effect’ induced and seduced the owners of the assets to spend more and to incur more debt because they thought they were effectively wealthier.  Those spent monies are gone and those debts are still here and naggingly awaiting discharge.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “The Fed: Deal with ‘Stag’; Deal with ‘Flation’? August 7, 2006)”, “Stagflation And The Fed (September 17, 2007)”and “Going Forward With The ‘Reverse Stock Split’ (February 5, 2018)” proposing to double or even triple or even quadruple the Dow overnight just for fun.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Hard come, easy go

stocks/2 + bonds/2 + lands/2 + rides/2 + gloves/2 + etc./2 = Net Worth;  

grub x 2 + aqua x 2 + tent x 2 + bike x 2 + threads x 2 + etc. x 2 = Recurring Expenses

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Going Forward With The “Reverse Stock Split” (February 5, 2018)

Posted in Crime/Punishment, Dow Jones, Federal Reserve, Kleptocracy, Rackets, Rule of Law, Stock Market on February 5, 2018 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The Federal Reserve has purposely pursued a policy to punish citizens, including millions of hard working and God fearing Americans in their retirement, who merely seek a predictable and reasonable rate of return on their money.  If citizens want any real return on their money, the Fed forced them into the stock market racket.”

J          “Which is a crime and really should be punished as a crime.”

K          “Except we subsist in a country without the rule of law.”

. . .

K          “The Dow was at about 26,000 last week before today’s collapse, yet the real value of the underlying stocks measured by realistic price/earnings ratios is only about 13,000 to perhaps 15,000.”

J          “But that type of thinking undermines the consensus that all Americans are financial geniuses.”

K          “The ‘Wealth Effect’ is surreptitiously impoverishing many of those financial geniuses.  Too many investors/speculators are spending more money or, even worse, incurring more debt without realizing that their faux wealth will soon vaporize.”

J          “The ‘Poverty Effect’ will be a bodacious and stupendous bummer.”

. . .

K          “Check this out.  In a typical stock split, one share at $100 per share is split into two shares at $50 per share.  That thinking is so outmoded and outdated.  Everything in the stock market is hocus pocus.  I propose a reverse stock split where one share at $100 per share is split into two shares at $100 per share.  We need to create wealth.”

J          “Count me in.  The Dow at 52,000.  Just like that.  Twice as rich.  But with the absurdity, the insanity, the depravity and the irrationality that defines our reality, why not a three for one split and thus a Dow of 76,000.  Thrice as rich.  Just like that.  We need to concoct wealth.”

K          “Pocus hocus.  Count me in.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “The Dow Is The Canary (April 26, 2010)”.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The Dow at 104,000!!!!!!!!!!!

Or not.

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A Second Party:  Trump or Sanders? (March 14, 2016)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Democrats, Elections, Federal Courts, Freedom / Liberty, Republicans, Stock Market, Supreme Court, Tea Party, Voting, Wall Street, War, War and Wall Street Party on March 14, 2016 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “Do political ideas proceed along a line/continuum or around a circle?”

K          “The ACLU card-carrying citizen turns around and bumps into a ‘Who is John Galt?’ hat-wearing libertarian sporting an ‘Ayn Rand Paul’ button.  Each should wonder whether they have something in common.”

. . .

K          “Trump supporters yearn for someone who speaks his mind – right or wrong – rather than a politician who only lies and lies and lies and lies to them.”

J          “Can you blame them.  But it is still a message of hate and fear.  I can blame them.”

K          “Disturbing message and tone, I agree.  And then Sanders notes that socialism/crony capitalism has made the wealthy even wealthier and thus socialism without crony capitalism may offer some promise for the non-wealthy.”

J          “Two strains of populist messages at a strained time in the Republic.  Yet Trump’s authoritarian message is disturbing and threatening.  The message is no longer conveyed with dog whistles.”

. . .

J          “The two-ring circus to select the ‘D’ representative and the ‘R’ representative of the ‘War and Wall Street’ Party grinds forward.”

K          “Sanders is not the War candidate and not the Wall Street candidate, so he is doomed.”

J          “In the FIRE (‘Finance, Insurance, Real Estate’) World, Trump is more of a ‘Real Estate’ person than a Wall Street/‘Finance’ person, yet he is not interested in or even able to reign in the systematic criminal activities on Wall Street.  He is belligerent and he is bellicose, yet he does not fit in with the Neo-Cons who seek war everywhere all the time.”

K          “‘Belli’ means ‘war’.”

J          “Trump is mean and Trump means war on some groups.”

K          “So he is the Quasi-War and Quasi-Wall Street Party candidate.”

. . .

K          “The real war is over the Supreme Court.  In past years, the Democrats tended to appoint slightly less dishonest federal appellate and district court judges, although recent Democratic appointments are as dishonest as the Republican appointments.”

J          “They vitiated the last remaining tie breaker.  Now who do you vote for?”

. . .

J          “The Owners own Clinton, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Romney and their ilk.  Sanders and Trump are speaking too freely.”

K          “Hillary Cruz, Ted Rubio, Marco Bush, Jeb Romney and Mittens Clinton.  No matter how you mix it up, it is all the same.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Tea Party And Innocence Project Form ‘Liberty Alliance’ (September 9, 2013) and The “War and Wall [Street] Party” On The War Path (February 1, 2016).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Nihilism as a response to the deeply-entrenched Kleptocrary is not always irrational.

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The Stock Market Racket (August 24, 2015)

Posted in Pensions, Stock Market on August 24, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

I1          “The stock market is not a market, it is a racket.  The Stock Racket, I call it.  The Racket does not provide much financial security.”

I2          “And I too am a hostage to that Racket.  I am now at a stage and an age when I am told to avoid risky investments and to move toward less risky instruments, yet those who make the economic rules eliminated that time-honored option.  I receive nothing to put my money in the bank and take less risk.  I have faith that I will receive nothing at the end of the day to take huge risk in the Racket.  I am forced to keep one foot in the Racket in a desperate bid to obtain some upside yet now see the decline that I expect.”

I1          “I don’t call that traditional financial security.”

. . .

I2          “Those who run the defined benefit pension plans are playing the Racket.  When the Racket collapses, I will be forced by the courts to fund the short fall while living with little or no pension.”

I1          “I don’t call that traditional financial security either.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Party Like It’s 16,919.99 (May 19, 2014) and “Titters” v. “Self-Unemployed” (September 1, 2014).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

The Stock Racket

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Interest Rates ‘risin’? (March 30, 2015)

Posted in Bail In, Banks and Banking System, Credit Unions, Debt/Deficits, Federal Reserve, Stock Market on March 30, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “Can they.”

2          “May they.”

1          “Could they.”

2          “Should they.”

. . .

1          “The Federal Reserve cannot allow interest rates to rise because the Federal Government would be obligated to pay staggeringly more interest to service the ever metastasizing National Debt.”

2          “Someone in the Bureaucracy must be sober enough to realize that a rise in rates will trigger profound and devastating economic and financial consequences.  Everyone will need to look up the word ‘derivatives’ in the dictionary.”

1          “I could see the Federal Reserve raising rates by ‘25 basis points,’ as they say, to show that they cannot do nothing.  If they appear effete, they are effete.” 

2          “Even a quarter percent rise may be enough to tip over the economic and financial game.  Perhaps in desperation the Fed can generate real inflation then the Federal Government can pay the interest on the National Debt with deflated dollars . . . which reduces the real cost to the Government.”

1          “The Federal Reserve does what it wants to do, but its primary mandate is to maintain price stability.  Inducing gross price instability is directly contrary to its raison d’etre.  But then, do they care?”

. . .

2          “The dollars may not be worth anything in a few years, yet I will not pay money to store my money in a bank and also risk having my money confiscated by the bank to pay the debts of the bank.”

1          “When they slither from the ZIRP – zero interest rate policy – to the NIRP – negative interest rate policy – and start charging me to keep my deposits in their failing financial institutions, I am tucking all of my money in the Sealy Posturepedic Credit Union.”

. . .  

[See the e-commentary at Money “In The Bank” Or “Under The Mattress” (October 8, 2012).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Compound interest is described as the greatest invention of the 20th Century, yet it may be the most vexing challenge confronting governments in the 21st Century.

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war.  Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin.  But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”  Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War:  A Serious Topical Letter,” Esquire, September 1935

What goes down must go up?

ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) = Official National Policy . . . for all time?

NIRP (Negative Interest Rate Policy) = the straw that breaks

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Don’t Fight The Fed; Fight The Fed (August 4, 2014)

Posted in Federal Reserve, Society, Stock Market on August 4, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “As an investor, ‘Don’t Fight the Fed.’  The Fed is creating and flooding the market with digital dollars and spawning an otherwise unfounded rise in the price of stocks.  Surf the collective delusion, but gauge when the Fed has played its hand and then beat the flood of funds out of the market.”

J          “Ya gotta know when to fold ‘em.”

. . .

K          “As a citizen, ‘Fight the Fed.’  The Fed is the banker’s private club that profoundly and often negatively impacts the economy and lives of every ordinary American with desperately little public input.”

J          “Ya gotta know when to hold ‘em.  Accountable.”

. . .

J          “So just when do I fold ‘em?”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Don’t End The Fed, Do Mend The Fed

The Fed:  Lifting the yachts but not the tugboats and rowboats.  Since 1913.

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Party Like It’s 16,919.99 (May 19, 2014)

Posted in Stock Market on May 19, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “It looks like it may hit 17,000.”

2          “It looks like it is heading to 36,000.  Again.”

1          “Remember the good old days when Merryle Ruykeyser’s kid Louis was the most celebrated financial entertainer at a time before every Tom, Dick and Mary went into financial huckstering.”

2          “Remember when Lou sat around on December 31, 1999 partying like it’s 1999 with four characters who were as unrestrained in their enthusiasm for unbounded growth in 2000.”

1          “The lack of earnings always felt surreal, yet not earning money was described as the new real.  Who knew it was unreal except those who knew it was not real.”

2          “You did not even know what the company purported to do when it made an initial offering.”

1          “You could not go wrong until it went wrong.”

2          “Kind of a bummer . . . you know . . . the inevitable and predictable collapse and all.”

1          “I am sure that it will be different this time.  I’m pretty sure.”

. . .

[See the December 31, 1999 episode of “Wall Street Week” with Louis Ruykeyser at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5R0j75BZ0U and party like it’s 1999.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Always follow the smart money

Party like it’s 2014

Party on

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The Fed at 100 (December 23, 2013)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Banks and Banking System, Bernanke, Federal Reserve, Kleptocracy, Stock Market on December 23, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “We celebrate the birthday of our financial savior today and of our spiritual savior on Wednesday.”

B          “Birthday cards and candles are flying off the shelf.” 

A          “Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913 a few seconds before heading home for the holidays and a few minutes before President Wilson signed the legislation.  You wonder if they had a clue.”

B          “Most folks don’t have a clue, but what do you do.  Most folks look uncomfortably bewildered if you even allude to the Fed.  Someone who is uncomfortable with a topic does not readily come around.”

A          “They are more comfortable talking about the Football League than about the Federal Reserve.”

B          “The great debate on a national bank was lost a hundred years ago.  We need a great debate today.”

A          “The Fed is really out of control, but the wealthy are getting wealthier, so no one cares.”

B          “Congress provided some policy direction when it required to Fed to consider the level of employment in its calculus.  The Fed’s policies and decisions over the last decade have done nothing to improve employment, yet there is no sanction or penalty in the Congressional legislation.”

A          “The Fed has done more to promote the greatest transfer of wealth to the already wealthy than at any other time or in any other place in history.”

B          “The money is collecting in the Swiss bank accounts of the wealthy.  When and as the money slips from the virtual into the real economy, measured inflation will go up.”

A          “Seems to me that inflation will be exacerbated by a reduction in the supply of goods brought about by a breakdown in production and distribution.”

. . .

A          “The Fed is not the fourth branch of government, it is the first branch.”

B          “The To-Big-To-Fail-Or-Jail Banks are the first branch of government and they own the Fed and the government.”

. . .

A/B       “What will blow out the candles?”

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” collected in the Category “Federal Reserve” at https://e-commentary.org/category/federal-reserve/.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Now that the banks have privatized the government, the government will never nationalize the banks.

If one person amassed 99.999999999999999999999999 percent of the income and wealth in America, would anyone notice?

Capitalize the gains; socialize the losses.

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Kleptocracy, Inc.: Rebranding America (November 18, 2013)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Bailout/Bribe, Banks and Banking System, Bernanke, Economics, Economics Nobel, Federal Reserve, Kleptocracy, Stock Market on November 18, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “‘Go Kleptocracy, Inc. Go’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘Go U.S.A. Go.’”

B          “You could replace the stars with dollar signs and the stripes with universal product codes to reflect the monetization of America.  Rally ‘round the ‘Dollar Signs and Bar Codes’ does not alliterate the way rally ‘round the ‘Stars and Stripes’ does.”

A          “And doesn’t sound right, does it.”

B          “To say that everything is a lie and a fraud is an understatement.”

A          “Almost everything is a lie.”

B          “That may be closer to the truth.”

. . .

B          “A kleptocracy is an oligarchy that no longer is even vaguely concerned about even the pretense of evenhandedness or equality.”

A          “That’s it; that’s us.”

. . .

B          “And yet so many commentators point to the Dow that topped 16 Grand for a time today.”

A          “It’s over the top.  The rise is so tightly correlated with the monthly eighty-five billion dollar ($85,000,000,000.00) bribe paid by the Federal Reserve to the Big Banks.”

B          “What if they doubled the bribe to one hundred and seventy billion dollars ($170,000,000,000.00) each month paid to the Big Banks.  Why not.  Everything is a fraud and a lie and a fraud.”

A          “The crash will be even more epic.”

. . .

A          “One of the former Federal Reserve officials confessed and apologized for the program known as ‘quantitative easing’ as the ‘greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time’ with little real economic expansion.  Bernanke* is a nice guy who has really done little more than dispense bribes to Big Banks.”

B          “Like Bernanke*, Jellen may be the best this talent-starved kleptocracy can produce.  She will continue the official Federal Reserve policy of dispensing bribes to Big Banks.”

A          “In her testimony, she assured Wall Street and the Big Banks that she will maintain their primacy and hegemony.”

B          “Congress charged the Federal Reserve with considering employment.”

A          “The Fed is mindful of the impact of its bribes on employment on Wall Street.”

. . .

A          “What if he went out like former President Eisenhower and delivered a warning about the perniciousness of the financial industrial complex?”

. . .

A          “The answer is so obvious and so easy.  Preclude any bank from holding more than one hundred billion dollars ($100,000,000,000.00) in assets.”

B          “The Big Banks will never approve that action by the Federal Reserve.”

. . .

A          “The Norwegians do not help when they dispense their trophy to the cheer leaders who put a cheery façade on the fraud.”

B          “And the e-con-omics departments oblige by providing a steady pipeline of obedient sycophants.”

. . .

[See the article titled “Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer” at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303763804579183680751473884.].

[See the “e-ssays” titled Greenspan’s Legacy – Apres moi, Le Meltdown (January 30, 2006), The Dow Jones (the Murdoch ?) Hits 14 K In A Hollow Economy (July 23, 2007), A Bleak Day: The Trillion Dollar Tragedy (October 6, 2008), The TARP Is A Trap (January 19, 2009), The Bush Grand Slam (February 14, 2011) and (M)End The Fed (July 11, 2011) concluding with a draft Federal Reserve Enforcement Order that Janet Jellen could issue in her first few weeks on the job.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

In Greed We Trust

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