OK, we have to give this months “Big Fat Fibber” award to the Feds for pegging inflation at only 4.7%. Have you been into the grocery store lately? Have you filled up your tank lately? Has it only gone up 4.7% in the past three months?
Have you purchased dryer sheets or clothes softener?
How about the 50 cents or 25% more but you get 10 sheets less or $2.00 more for a bottle that used to cost $4.99 just a month ago that is now $6.99? Is that 4.7%. Not hardly.
In my unscientific but very accurate poll, I would say “REAL” inflation is running in at least 14% or more.
With the Floods in Iowa, you could see food prices double or triple by the Fall. Beef, Pork, and Chicken will hit record highs.
Unfortunately it is a perfect storm. You have no energy plan other than to stop any real plan that makes sense You have subsidies for a made up crisis that pushes Ethanol from corn which is perhaps the most inefficient way to make it, which is already raising food prices by 20-30%, and now you have a natural disaster.
So, when you are thinking about your investments, keep this in mind.
I am looking more and more at the overseas market and at local provider of consumable goods as shipping is going to wipe out a lot of profits from companies that have to ship things in to a market from far away.
Also, I am looking in States that are friendly to businesses. Wyoming, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Nevada. These States are going to be sucking in huge amounts of businesses that are looking for anyway to survive and get out from under the taxes in States that use businesses to fund every scheme they can think up.
Capital always goes where it is welcome. I think it is now time for yours to start looking for a new home. Oh yea, we can’t leave out the devalued dollar either.
Coming up Dumb And Dumber - The Two presidential Candidates Economic Plans.
Find out why Obama’s plan will push Gas prices above $7.50 a gallon. Find out what McCain is not going to do about oil production in the US.
Then I will give you a few repellents to take the bite out what each one will do to you.
I had to laugh today as I’ve seen several headlines that say homes sales unexpectedly jumped in April. I guess that only caught the people by surprise who live in a cave or who are totally clueless about the real estate market.
Hello! It’s Spring! Duhhhhh! So people are more apt to buy houses in the Spring rather than in the Winter time sportsfans? Wow, how totally unexpected!
I just thought I’d point that out. Anytime I ever see than an expert is caught off guard or their subject does something that it’s unexpected, then you can immediately writ off that individual as an expert
So anyway, just a point of amusement for me and hopefully you too. Remember, the News Media is not your friend unless you know that and make use of that fact.
So, we’ll talk to you soon and you can look forward to having the first installment of how to do covered calls the Monkey Way here shortly.
Andrew Anderson signing off and remember to have fun out there!
I doubt that you are going to hear what really happened with the current loan debacle on the boob tube or in too many other places for that matter.
So, I thought I would bring this to you so that you have a better understanding of how the Loan Crisis became a Crisis.
Informative and good for a laugh and there might be a play or two in there.
Do not let the intro or the name fool you. I am going to post two of them today and post the rest of the series over the next few days. Enjoy and let me know what you think.
Let me repeat that. Global Temperatures Dropped Around 1 Degree Fahrenheit in the past 12 months On All Four Major Indicators. What does this mean to your portfolio?
OK, first off I am not enthusiastic about writing this article. Why?
Because it means I have to discuss Politics and Global Warming both of which bore me and piss me off at the same time. Although I have to admit, it does provide a certain Machiavellian sort of humor. You know the kind where you are listening to someone and you know that they everything they say is a lie and you know that they know it too?
This all stems from the fact that I do not like stupid people or people that perpetuate fraud on unsuspecting people who do not know any better.
You get two for one when talking about Politicians and Global Warming….. Yippeeee.
I am not talking about people not knowing the facts out of ignorance or making honest mistakes as we all make those. Well you might not, but I know I sure do.
But on the other hand, think about it. Both Politicians and the Global Warming crowd have to lie or tell half-truths and commit fraud everyday (or be so misinformed they should not be out in public) in order to do what they do. Guess that is the part I can’t stand.
Nevertheless, I need to tell you about this as I would venture that you have not heard about it anywhere else have you? If you have heard that the overall mean temperature dropped by over 1 degree please post a comment.
If you have, you are well informed and go to the top of the class and you can skip to the bottom, for the rest of you, read on.
If you have not heard about this, do not feel bad, it is not your fault.
Most of the news media that has a vested interest in Global Warming is not going to trot this information out until they figure out how to spin this and spin this they will.
Truth be told, I do not like to go political and truly, these days my only interest in what the idiots (politicians) are doing is what affect they will have on economies and markets and our portfolios.
This includes the whole Global Warming debacle, as this is a politically motivated movement with zero basis in fact for anyone that cares to look at the data. Actually, you have to ignore the data in order to be part of the Global Warming Agenda.
Just for those of you that do not have a life and death reason to pay attention to the weather like me, (well technically I guess we all do) I am a pilot so therefore if you want live, you need to have a good understanding of weather and climatology in order to have the chance at being able to get you an your passengers to your destination.
I have been actively flying for about three decades now and got my glider permit back in the early 70‘s. So in order to do this safely, most smart pilots that I know (i.e. ones that are still alive) become very interested in weather and many have as much or more practical knowledge as many of the talking bubble head forecasters that you see reading the Teleprompters on the Telly.
That being said, here is a quick lesson for anyone that actually wants to know hard-core facts on the subject of Global Temperatures.
There are four references that are accepted and used by all climatologists and scientists with any real credentials for global temperatures.
They are the NASA Goddard Institute Number, which puts out the GISS number, The Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature Anomaly or HadCRUT, The University of Alabama, Huntsville Number or UAH, and finally the Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA or RSS number.
Guess what? All four of them show a significant decrease in temperatures over the last 12 months. One of them even shows a decrease of 1.8 degrees! This is a big, big number that blows away what the Global Warming Loons have been saying.
We have seen a a bigger drop Temperatures in the past 12 months than what the Kyoto Treaty was supposed to produce in the next 40 years if fully adopted and implemented at the cost of several Trillion dollars. We just got it for FREE!
What does this mean? Well it means that the theory that temperatures are related to Sun Spots and other factors such as magnetics is probably correct and the Carbon Dioxide has little if anything at all to do with Global Temperatures since it actually rose a bit last year while the temperature went down a degree. It also is the death knell of doom for the whole Global Warming Fraud Group…… Whoops…darn facts….
How Does This Affect Our Portfolios?
Well, the whole Global Warming initiative right now is costing your about 75 cents per gallon at the pump, and about 10% across the board for all of the food and everything else that you buy.
It is also helped contribute to the current 10 -11% real inflation that we are seeing right now this very minute for this year. …Ouch. The most recent Wholesale Pricing Index was up 1.1% in just the last month reported. Let us see that is 1.1 x 12 = 13.2% inflation.
The big question is will the Politicians stop the new Carbon Bills that could add another $1 dollar to the price of gas, and heating oil, and a lot more than that percentage wise to coal for something that has proven to be wrong? Oh and I forgot to add that it will probably raise the cost of everything else that you buy by another 10% within the year.
There is a lot of momentum going into keeping the Global Warming farce alive and hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into politicians worldwide to continue it, so we will have to see.
I am almost certain you have not heard this good news about the huge temperature drop on the front page of the New York Time or on the Weather Channel, or on any other major news source. But then again that is a guess since I do not partake in them.
The Bad or Good News depending on how you look at it is that the results are from the very same sources that all of the goobers in the Global Warming movement have used in the past for the dire predictions, even if they did pick and choose which years to use to make it look really bad for you.
Therefore, it is only a matter of time before even they cannot ignore it, right? Well, I hope so at least.
What Does This Mean For Us As Intelligent Investors?
The Opportunity And The Conundrum
The kicker is that right now using domestic coal we can make a barrel of Oil for around $55. Less than half of what oil is it going for now.
Right here in the good old US of A in Montana, we can profitably make Oil from coal and sell the gas for around $1.74 per gallon.
Guess what else?
“At the present rate of consumption without finding any new sources of coal or improving the process, we have enough coal to produce synthetic Oil to totally and completely replace all of the Oil we import right now this very minute and it will last for the next 200 years.”
How is that for you?
The only reason I bring this up is to look at how the whole Global Warming phenomenon affects your portfolio.
So, unless they can figure a way to squelch the data, and even then this data cannot be ignored forever, the whole Global Warming apparatus is going to unravel.
It will take awhile as you have some very powerful and entrenched people and institutions with a vested interest in keeping the fraud going as long as possible so it won’t go away for several years in spite of the temperature drops.
Actually, I am waiting for them to jump sides and start telling us now that Carbon Dioxide is going to cause the next ice age. I am only half kidding here. They did exactly that in the 70’s.
The point is that I would be very careful investing in the whole Green phenomenon as the bottom is about ready to fall out of it and start looking at coal and Oil Shale companies or hard core practical present day solutions that can be implemented right now.
Unfortunately, the profitability of both ventures depends not on the economics of the process but on the economics of what both the Republicans and Democrats are going to do with the Carbon Bills in the house.
Both versions of the proposed bill could kill off coal and Oil Shale and cause gas to hit $5 a gallon very soon if they pass. So, we will have to wait and see what they do before we can tell if the Global Warming money that is being pumped into the politicians by the millions will end up kicking us right in the teeth.
Any bets? Thanks to Anthony Watt for the data! Keep up the good work Anthony! Here is a link to his site for anyone that wants unbiased info on weather. - AA
I have mentioned in the past that the Government and specifically politicians should not get involved in Economics but it does give them a huge club in which to garner favors and redistribute wealth which all leads to power. This is always at the expense of the consumer and investors.
As Investors we need to be aware of the back door deals that are done and take advantage of them. The following will give you a reason why not to short Oil at the moment and just how truly crooked many of our Senators are, and points out how big of liars they are as well. They can do more to harm the US economy in two paragraphs than any market changes ever can.
Read on and you will see what I am talking about. Why this is not the largest news story in the media is beyond me. My Dad actually alerted me about this.
This is from Fox News and Steven Malloy who has one of the sharpest scientific and economic minds around. You will have to dig to find this story but it is there. Here is a link to his column and story.
This one is almost beyond belief. But what is done is done. And you think our politicians really care about our economy. It also points out the real anti-technology and capitalism agenda of most environMentalists.
Junk Science: Candidates Fail Energy Independence Test
All the presidential candidates say they’re for energy independence. So why didn’t they do something about it when they had the chance?
Hillary Clinton rails on her Web site about Americans sending “billions of dollars to the Middle East for their oil.” Barack Obama warns that Middle East oil is the “lifeline of Al Qaeda.” Republican hopeful John McCain says that, if elected, his energy policy will “amount to a declaration of independence from our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics.”
But Clinton and Obama recently voted for a bill that can only promote dependency on oil from the Middle East. And John McCain went AWOL, not voting on the bill at all.
A little-noticed provision of the ironically named “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007″ that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush last December bars the federal government from purchasing fuels whose life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than those from fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources.
Before we get into the energy independence implications of this provision, it’s worth appreciating the obscurity of the provision and the fact that the media doesn’t seem to understand its import.
I only learned of the provision while thumbing through the Feb. 15 Financial Times, serendipitously noticing the egregiously mis-titled article, “U.S. risks trade dispute with Canada on fuel.” A bit of research turned up no other media reports relating to this particular section of the bill.
The Financial Times article reported on how section 526 of the energy bill prohibits the federal government from buying oil that was produced from Canadian tar sands, a reserve that holds about two-thirds the amount of recoverable oil as compared to reserves in Saudi Arabia.
Because it takes greenhouse gas-producing energy to extract oil from the tar sands, the article focused on the fact that the law could affect billions of dollars of trade in oil, particularly since the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest single buyer of light refined petroleum.
But while I give the Financial Times credit for reporting this story, it really dropped the ball with respect to understanding it — this is yet another effort by environmentalists and their congressional henchmen to cause chaos in our energy supply.
Sure enough, it turns out that Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., already are pressing the Department of Defense to comply with the provision. In a recent letter to the secretary of defense, Waxman and Davis asked how the DOD will ensure that the fuel it buys doesn’t come from Canadian tar sands or from domestic coal-to-liquid processing.
Waxman and Davis apparently expect the military to expend the Herculean effort of tracing the source of the fuel it purchases and then to refuse North American oil from unconventional sources apparently in favor of oil from OPEC sources such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. How’s that for energy independence and security?
It gets worse if you’re one of those who believe that biofuels are the path to energy independence.
The plain language of section 526 also would seem to ban the federal government from purchasing biofuels like ethanol, since their life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than that of conventional petroleum.
“Turning native ecosystems into ‘farms’ for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate,” researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy reported in Science (Feb. 7). Another study in the same issue of Science projected that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emission from ethanol over 30 years is twice as high as from regular gasoline.
Interestingly, Waxman and Davis specifically excluded biofuels from their letter to the DOD. Not to worry, though, biofuels likely soon will become fuel-non-grata as the environmentalists have already started to demonize them.
Similar to the case of compact fluorescent lightbulbs discussed in this column last week, The New York Times editorial page this week signaled that biofuels soon will become as politically incorrect as the Canadian tar sands and domestic coal-to-liquid fuels.
The Times opined that, “Done right, ethanol could help wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil while reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. Done wrong, ethanol could wreak havoc on the environment while increasing greenhouse gases.”
“Done right” for the Times is what’s required in the energy bill — a 20 percent reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gases as compared to gasoline. But, of course, this is a next-to-impossible goal since the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for ethanol are projected to be 100 percent greater than for gasoline.
It likely will require nothing short of a technological miracle for ethanol to achieve the energy bill’s standards in the near or even distant future.
Now, if the federal government is barred from bio-, tar sand, coal-to-liquid fuels, how long will it be before such a ban spreads to contractors that do business with the federal government, to states and their contractors, and then, by default, to the nation as a whole?
It’s hard to take the presidential candidates, President Bush and Congress too seriously on the energy independence issue when none of them opposed a bill that actually makes us more dependent on OPEC.
U.S. Senate Plans to Consider “Foreclosure Rescue Scam“
Legislation
·Legislation Expected to be Introduced Soon.
·Measure Likely to be Modeled After Minnesota Law,
·But May Contain Additional Restrictions Harmful to Investors Nationwide
February 22, 2008 (U. S. Senate)
Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl (D) has announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at curbing the rise of ‘foreclosure rescue scams’ - using a model which may include restrictions that could be harmful to all real estate investors. The measure is likely to contain some or all of the following provisions:
·Ban on leasebacks-to-owners
·Ban on upfront foreclosure consultant fees
·Ban on all “subject to” transactions
·Limitations on an investor’s ability to purchase or take an equity interest in a home in default
·Ban on all advertising related to “Saving Homes from Foreclosure”
·Restrictions on real estate seminars, which could even apply to Real Estate Investor Association meetings
The measure is likely to be modeled after a 2004 Minnesota law that governs real estate investors. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has proposed the Minnesota law as an acceptable model for the entire United States. However, it should be noted, the members of NAR are exempt from this law. (Also noteworthy - in the Minneapolis / HennepinCounty area alone, foreclosures have increased more than five-fold since the 2004 passage of the Minnesota statute.)
On behalf of real estate investors at the national level, the National Association of Responsible Home Rebuilders & Investors (NARHRI) is already tracking this legislation. NARHRI Executive Director John Grant says that NARHRI will offer alternative legislation from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which has the support of the local realtors, lenders, consumer groups, and which recently passed the House unanimously.
NARHRI expects to see intense political pressure for passage of the legislation before members of Congress leave in the fall. NARHRI indicates it will be providing updates on this effort as circumstances warrant.
This is yet another case of political socialism (in this case) mostly by Democrats and special interests (National Association of Realtors) getting ready to really hurt the consumers and the economy on a massive scale if passed.
The National Association of Realtors is miffed because they are fast losing market share as people bypass paying 6% for someone to put a sign in their front yard.
As noted in my previous stories, nearly 75% of all properties are first noticed by the eventual buyer by the sign in the front yard and it does not matter if it is a For Sale By Owner or an Agent’s sign.
As noted by the 500% increase in foreclosures since the bill was passed in Minnesota, this bill if passed could make the current issue with foreclosures look like a light drizzle compared to a Hurricane.(more…)
While if you have watched any of the Media coverage on the Housing Market by the so called “Experts” or even the Stock Market, or Analysts of certain stocks, have you ever wondered why if they were such experts, how come the changes in markets always seem to take them by surprise?
Why do you think that possibly, when a company misses the numbers as it were and the numbers themselves being a product of the Experts it is the company at fault and not the idiot that got the numbers wrong in the first place? Doesn’t that make the expert not such an expert?
What surprises me is that these Experts are given the airtime repeatedly. Be it in the housing market, the stock market, etc.
I have found that the average man or woman on the street if they have just a bit of horse sense are far better at predicting market trends than a whole room of experts.
The tanking of the Real Estate market in Florida could be seen two years before it happened by anyone that bothered to look. The same goes with Oil prices and most commodities as well.
In the US when you have over 85% of the Oil, Gas, and Coal reserves placed off limits by state and federal government edicts do you, think that is going to effect prices? When you have a growing world population that all wants to improve their way of life and rightly so, do you think that demand might continue to grow?
When you have radical environmentalists fomenting hysteria in anyway they can with their goal of sending us all back into the stone age and we have governments and other special interest groups giving the ludicrous accusations credence as facts and passing legislation to drive up energy costs, do you really see a huge drop in energy costs in the near future?
This with all of these artificial pricing forces and that of the Monopoly called OPEC seeing no need to drop their profits, is there really a scenario in which prices are going to ever really significantly drop anytime soon?
If there is, I do not see it. So, my suggestion is not to listen to the pundits and the “Experts” and to start doing just a little bit of research on your own and use some common sense and you will beat the experts every time no matter what market you are in.
Looks like there is going to be another banana peel on the floor of the market again today. The US Dollar looks to be going higher and hopefully we will see it plateau here for a while.
I did run across something that I found rip roaringly funny today. It is from the American Sugar Allianceand it says that the United States Sugar Subsidy does not cost the tax payer a dime, Click Here to read the propaganda. Perhaps they meant to say, no it does not cost them a dime, it costs them about $500 a year (it could be higher or lower but in any case it is a lot…LOL) With the current World Market price at about 12 cents a pound, the US price is right at 21 cents per pound. Who do you think is paying the extra 9 cents per pound if not the US Taxpayer?
This affects what US consumers pay for everything from Cereal to what they par for Gasoline because of the Ethanol that is now mixed in with most fuel. Ethanol prices in the US are much higher because we are using corn instead of sugar for ethanol production. Sugar Cane is 8 times as efficient as Corn for Ethanol Production but because of the cost we pay in the US,well, you figure it out. This in turn has caused all all food prices to rise for the most part. For this, I am awarding them the very first, I Am An Investor “Big Fat Fibber” Award. This is one of the biggest whoppers I have actually seen in writing in quite some time!
OK, we have to give this months “Big Fat Fibber” award to the Feds for pegging inflation at only 4.7%. Have you been into the grocery store lately? Have you filled up your tank lately? Has it only gone up 4.7% in the past three months?
I had to laugh today as I’ve seen several headlines that say homes sales unexpectedly jumped in April. I guess that only caught the people by surprise who live in a cave or who are totally clueless about the real estate market.
The Experts
Looks like there is going to be another banana peel on the floor of the market again today. The US Dollar looks to be going higher and hopefully we will see it plateau here for a while.
