Ciao bella Annamaria,
Thanks for bringing such a unique and interesting perspective to the B,B&R thread. It is so rare and delightful that anyone here relates human well-being to our environment that it is almost shocking to read your delicious and descriptive words. Most here are decidedly ambivalent to the world they actually inhabit, IMNSHO.
Re: a bit more drama on the countryside Thank you for noticing! Superior intellects are so rare.
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On to suggested answers to your questions from one who has seemingly (if not semenly) fully "drunk the kool-aid" of America's criminal version of capitalist exploitation......
Kerry C. writes: Stephen Roach offers a fairly broad and accurate perspective almost daily. Andy Xie offers good coverage of Hong Kong, and most of southeast Asia. Both of these gentlemen write for Morgan Stanley."
Importantly, you need to know that Roach and Xie both work for and must brown-nose to Phillip Purcell, CEO of Morgan, Stanley. When Morgan, Stanley was being faced with criminal prosecutions about 18 months ago for its willfull and complicit participation in the creation of sham loan deals with Enron corporation enabling that company to defraud the American and international "investor" of billions of dollars while other billions filtered it the stock option laden off-shore accounts of CEOs such as Purcell, Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski and a host of other swindlers, Purcell was lobbying the U.S. Congress, and when he failed to successfully bribe enough members there moved his campaign over to Harvey Pitt's SEC and succeeded in bribing his way into destroying their criminal investigation.
What you need to know is that Stephen Roach and Andy Xie are no more than sophisticated sophists for a scandalous swindle. Prostitutes in Bangkok and the Roach and Xie team have much in common. The are front men for fraud.
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Re: Marc Faber is also an excellent source for spotting world trends and matching those trends with specific investments.
False prophets have a real, if transitory, impact on the market. Compare Faber to other purported gurus, such as the crew who four years ago were touting "Dow 36,000" and Jeremy Siegal's "Stocks for the Long Run". Each were selling a dream, an illusion and and a fraud.
You'd be a lot wiser to read the obituaries of Nasdaq IPOs. That is the real story of the stock market. With a death rate of over 90% within the age of five years, if the human race were Nasdaq listings, we'd be an endangered species.
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Re: but Stratfor does have leanings toward the USA perspective.
Yet another highly inaccurate and disingenous bit of "common knowledge" that turns out to be nothing more that sophisticated propaganda that has become accepted by a significant percentage of the reading population of the U.S. Which is, in itself, a small and diminishing minority.
Stratfor is a straight-forward propaganda tool of the Military-Industrial Complex. It doesn't make any bones about its agenda. They are there to help sell military armaments and enrich war profiteers. It is a very honest hustle they are engaged in.
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Re: Regarding market news, Yahoo!, CBSMarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com and Bloomberg all provide excellent factual coverage
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Every one of these corporate media outlets is engaged in pro-fascism, anti-environment and anti-labor propaganda every day. Mussolini correctly identified fascism as the combination of corporations and governments. Predominant corporate powers in the U.S., dominated by the men who run the Business Roundtable, control the U.S. media outlets and the U.S. government. We have, in America, the most perfect example of fascism since Mussolini and Hitler were driven from the stage.
For real market news, you should shun all of the corporate sources cited above and prefer such honest media venues as PR Watch and Democracy NOW!. Here's a couple of salient examples of how to get at the truth about markets:
"Mayhem in Miami"
democracynow.org
Markets in Media:
prwatch.org
See particularly the market that Hollinger makes in market news:
Hollinger's Neoconservative Scandal --
Hollinger International Inc., a newspaper publisher caught up in a widening financial scandal, is looking into an investment the company made to a venture capital fund with links to neoconservative defense adviser Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger, both directors of the company.
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Re: For the straight down analysis of stocks in the USA, Standard & Poors, Value Line and Morningstar all offer coverage and affordable analysis
Nonsense. Try some SI threads for the skinny. Let others digest the glutenous excess of these corporate page spawners.
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If you want real market insights, you need to read people like Richard Medley, who penned such barnburners as:
The American Stock Market as a Financial Risk
A Paper from the Project on Development, Trade, and International Finance
Robert H.Dugger, Robert C.McNally, and Richard Medley
cfr.org
Medley is a consultant to hedge funds. He's not in the promotion business as are Roach and Xie, not matter how they try to disguise their roles.
If you want the truth and some actionable insights into what Roach, Xie and others are saying, Medley will probably be able to offer you a couple hours of his time for $25,000 or so.
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Re: Morningstar also offers excellent coverage of most mutual funds.
Morningstar is of absolutely no value to investors. It is merely a catalogue of past performance. The absolute best guarantee of success in shopping for mutual funds is to only buy them at inception. And then dump them on a bigger fool within a few quarters. The venal managers who run these funds need to build track records so that they eventually look good in rear-view mirror marketing devices such as Morningstar. These track records always deteriorate as family-of-funds managers trade their best ideas into new funds, and screw the unwary "investor" who has become complaisant about owning yesterday's winner and hopes that lightening strikes the same spot twice. As with vestal virgins, so with mutual funds, "it's never as good as the first time". |
