To All, Barron's Review. Not much meat in this issue, but what there is is cherce. Apologies to Spencer Tracy. <g>
1. Abelson seems to be back on his acerbic feed-bag. First, he quotes Marc Faber to the effect that the Chinese will pay lip service to open markets and keep them as closed as always. Marc believes, and I totally agree, that the moronic run-up in Chinese shares because of the WTO deal may be a huge opportunity for put buyers and short sellers. Abelson then notes that MORE THAN ALL of Hewlett-Packard's measely eps gain over the same quarter last year came from a lower tax rate. Gert in a Skirt has certainly learned how to manipulate the maroons. <g> Of course, for the more discerning investor, Bill Fleckenstein beat Abelson to the punch on this one by a couple of days with his comments in The Daily Rap. My opinion is that it makes no difference. The eps were horrible with or without the tax scam. And the stock went up because the ignorant will act ignorantly. That's their job. <g> And don't invite Abelson and Louis Rukeyser (is this guy really a man, or just Barbara Bush in drag?) to the same party. He took Lou to task for dumping Gail Dudack for being wrong in her forecasts and disagreeing with Lou's own pollyanna view of the market and the economy. My comment would be, how can anyone know that the elves are saying what they really think when they have to worry about being dumped for disagreeing with the diva who runs the show? After all, inclusion in the Elves' List is not only an ego trip for the height-challenged critter, but worth a lot of advertising good vibes for his or her firm. You have to be a brave pixy to risk your firm's access to millions of feeble minds.
2. A nice piece on the decline of liquidity, though, in all honesty, I don't see it right now. We are still running just below all-time silly rates of liquidity expansion. However, since this bubble requires an ever-expanding supply of hot air to keep inflating, it could be worrisome over time.
3. Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust, often quoted on this thread, engages in a debate with a New Airhead. Unfortunately, he doesn't do that well. The other guy is a maroon, but Kasriel lets several opportunities to skewer him slip by. Most notable, in my opinion, is when he allows the geek to quote economic growth and productivity without even a mention of chained dollar sales. But Kasriel states he is a recent convert to the Austrian School, so maybe he is not yet aware of that particlar bit of fake accounting. The most telling point is when the other guy, named Wesbury, states that tens of millions of investors believe that this is not an investment bubble and he will not disagree with them. ROTFLMAO! The great majority of investors thought tulips were fairly priced, too, Frankenberry.
4. The Market Watch was 5 raging bulls and one bear plus one chip bear. Gotta love it.
5. Plugged In talks about the SEC "cracking down" on Internut accounting lies. The most important, IMHO, is the bartering scam, and the SEC is just looking at it with its Mr. Magoo eyes.
6. A great letter from Stanley Nugit making a fool of the idgit head who wrote about Amazon being a value stock last week. Mostly "We Wuv Microsoft" letters from the jackasses who rallied to the company's weepy call. |
