Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Earnings Season

I cannot give specific trading advice in this forum. I can say that we have had one hell of a rally, earnings season is here, and the economies of the West continue to contract.

Yes, markets tend to bottom before the economy does. "Tend" is not a bl**dy guarantee. The U.S. equity market P/E is nowhere near past ratios at market bottoms. That does not mean all sectors will bottom at the same time, and that some might be close. I am not long much in the way of equities at the moment, though I am not nearly as gloomy about them as I was a couple weeks ago.

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We all know the 3 kinds of lies: Mine, yours, and statistics. Well, the government statisticians are among the best when it come deception.

Since they must come clean at some point, it seems to be that they simply understate a problem in the current month news cycles, and then use revisions for months past to bring the data into sync. I do not know the wisdom of this course of action - maybe it serves a purpose of confidence - but it does mean one cannot depend on the data in order to make decisions. This is a big problem, in my opinion, as there is no other entity which compiles the data.

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There is no better propagandist than the N.E.A. Your local P.B.A. (police) might not be too far behind, but they PALE in comparison to the MASTER (second only to religion in the false claims and exaggerated promises department) - the National Education Association.

You can't get through a newspaper article it seems without some reference to teachers pay and how they have the most important job in America Blah, Blah, Blah... (BS! PARENTING is the most important job.) Don't pity the poor teachers. Nobody held a gun to their head, and they have more time off than anybody I know. The sad fact is that the Teacher's lobby, the NEA, has held education BACK in America AND extorted one hell of a pension deal in the process.

A pension deal that WILL absolutely, positively be defaulted upon. BUT, not until attempts by our local and state governments to continue this &%^!! mess lead to tax revolts and foreclosures for PROPERTY TAXES. Think about that... putting people OUT OF THEIR HOMES in an attempt to keep the NEA, PBA, etc... happy by continuing an outrageously stupid system of public employee pensions.

AGHAGHGAHGHAGHHH!!!!

I get peptic just thinking and writing about it.

Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

ETA Bureacrat response- 15 seconds.

kathy said...

All you will get from me is a thumbs up on that post. Teachers work a total of 181 days in Massachusetts. They retire with nearly full medical benefits and 80% pay and they can do this at 55 years old after 20 years of service. Not only this but with all of the specialists who take kids, PE, art, music, there is seldom a day that a teacher has kids for a full day. What is really annoying is then seeing teachers retire and return as subs, collecting a salary plus retirement. It's nuts. No. Im not a misanthrope who hates kids. I have 7 of the little dears (adopted for the most part)and I am the child of a teacher. I also have enough sense to see the obvious. The math doesn't add up. Ther is no way to continue this without bankrupting our communities.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Kathy:

See how you felt the need to defend yourself? That is a result of the excellent job the PR firms of the NEA have done their job!

ALL of our municipal workers are going to have to come back to reality, as the UAW has just done.

THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH.

Dan said...

There is no doubt that the NEA is a big problem, but it isn’t the only problem. My boys’ school district gets a little over 10K per student, per annum; roughly 250K per classroom yet it is never enough. It’s not enough because very little of that money finds its way to the classroom. It goes to support a massive bureaucracy that never sees a classroom and contributes little if anything. Then we have all the luxury goods that the bureaucrats buy that also contribute nothing.

How does an enormous swimming pool contribute to learning math, science, or grammar? My PE class was mostly calisthenics and it worked just fine. There is very little difference between a 1940’s physics book that costs next to nothing and a $150 modern one, mainly the illustrations have became color photos, yet the schools buy new books every few years. Why does a literature anthology composed primarily of works in the public domain cost $50. While the school administration has plenty of loot for this it can’t seem to afford paper, glue, staples etc. The place is just poorly managed.

On teacher pay, is it just teacher pay or is it first year teacher pay? My state legislature’s pay is based on an average of first year teacher pay across the state. Seems we have a brain drain crisis that mandates raises to attract talent every other year; go figure.

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing.......

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Sharon
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