Stockcharts has a serious ISP problem--their statement makes them look like some retail customer with a couple of PCs in the garage. Don't they have their own setup?
Discussion of retail sales this morning on CNBC, I have a lot of respect for Richard Hoey of Dreyfus, but the WSJ guy and Marci don't quite get it. Big focus on tremendous auto sales numbers for October, where the Big Three borrowed heavily in the bond market to finance their very expensive zero financing programs. Hoey made the point that the automakers just dragged demand forward AND creamed the value of used autos. Result: going forward they've made it tougher on themselves to sell new cars since recent used cars are even more of a bargain AND the selling of used cars does pretty much zippo for the economy (although it may be good for used car lots). This last point was completely beyond CNBC's resident economist. Oh well, plus ca change . . .
Speaking of stupidity, how about the reporter who implied that it wouldn't be quite cricket or The American Way to attack retreating Taliban forces? Rumsy gave the right answer but I would have stated it more plainly (I've missed my calling: Sec'y of Defense): military targets (soldiers, materiel, bunkers) are military targets forever. The only way a enemy soldiers can stop being targets is to throw down their arms and stand there, like the Iraqis did, in their underwear in the desert and beg for mercy. It doesn't matter whether the soldiers are moving backwards (regrouping), sideways, forwards or at an oblique angle. Until they stop being enemy soldiers (which, see, underwear in the desert statement above) put them in the crosshairs and squeeze. |
