Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elpolvo who wrote (55558)	10/15/2002 3:37:12 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Peace is Bullish, War is Bearish Memo on the Margin October 15, 2002 Memo To: Wall Street retail and institutional investors From: Jude Wanniski Re: The Saddam Stock Market The chief reason Polyconomics has been so popular with institutional investors over the last 25 years is our successes in forecasting compared to our competitors. A big reason we are so successful is that we are willing to be politically incorrect in our financial advice. We cannot be financial advisors and at the same time be team players, either on behalf of a political team or an economic agenda advanced by one political party or another. In the last several weeks, we have been telling our clients and subscribers that the biggest risk to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ is the possibility that President Bush will pull the trigger on Iraq. When there is news about peace reaching the market, these market indices will improve. When the news all points in the direction of war, the markets head south in a hurry. Our calls have been clearly correct, but if you are not a client of Polyconomics you are totally unaware of the Saddam Stock Market. You may hear Iraq mentioned in news reports as a reason for “market uncertainty,” with commentators saying that once the decision is made, and it is either war or peace, the market will recover because the uncertainty will be over. This is nonsensical, but almost all the financial commentary we read about in the major media – or hear about on all the major network and cable financial programs - makes little sense. If analysts must ignore the tidal waves, they are forced to concentrate on the rain drops. Why is this? It is because the financial press is not free to report “news” if it appears to be “opinion.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page editorial page, for example, is totally conflicted. It is philosophically committed to having a “regime change” in Baghdad, even if it takes another 88,000 tons of bombs dropped on the 5 million people of Baghdad, several hundred thousand casualties, and several hundred billion dollars of taxpayer money. I can only sympathize with my old colleagues at the WSJ, because I know they are conflicted. They want a regime change in Baghdad and they want the American economy to improve and the stock market to rise, not fall. They have to then pretend that the declining stock market has to do with “bubbles” that were initiated back in the days of the bad old Clinton administration. The WSJ editors cannot even examine the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, because they got into bed with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan several years ago, and now they are stuck with him. I feel sorry for the Journal editors, because they do not have the luxury I have. I can say nice things about Greenspan on Monday and say awful things about him on Tuesday. The Poly team cannot be embarrassed in telling its Wall Street clients that the dollar value of equities will rise if the Pentagon is losing in its ongoing struggle with the State Department over Iraq, and vice versa. I’m not going to bother you with all the ups and downs of the market with the variations of peace and war in Iraq. If you would like to become a client, of course we will inundate you with proof of our perspicacity. It is only enough for me to point out that when Wall Street had its monster rally on the last two days of last week, climbing 600 points, there was only one voice noting the coincidence of a rally among the forces of peace. We sent this flash e-mail report to our institutional clients on Friday: There is no doubt this is a Saddam rally. In order to win over the Senate doves, the administration has agreed to let diplomacy prevail over a unilateral pre-emptive strike. The tough talk from the administration on how they are already planning the post-Saddam regime masks the fact that there are now enough assurances given to the Senate that weapons inspectors will return to Iraq, unfettered. This dramatically reduces chances of military action after the November elections, or next year for that matter. We cited Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s statement of support, which listed four points covering his agreement with the White House in the wording. The most relevant were the second and third points. The second says the President “should continue to work through the United Nations Security Council in order to secure Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions. Unfettered inspections may or may not lead to Iraqi disarmament. But whether they succeed or fail, the effort we expend in seeking inspections will make it easier for the President to assemble a global coalition against Saddam, should military action eventually be needed.” Point three says the resolution makes it clear that, “before the President can use force in Iraq, he must certify to the Congress that diplomacy has failed.” As long as the President agrees to get the UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq, and that is what happens, the threat of war dramatically recedes. We noted in our Friday report: “It seems most unlikely this will now unravel as the Pentagon hawks have pushed every possible button to head off the inspectors and still have been outflanked by Colin Powell.” * * * * * The financial market is much wiser than the financial commentators. It quickly sees the reduction of risks to war as a reduction of risks to commerce. Many financial commentators still remember learning from their Nobel Prizewinning economics professors that war is good for the economy because it puts people to work and puts money in their pockets. When it finally becomes clear to the news media that there will be no war with Iraq, the peace rally will be over. * * * * * polyconomics.com

To: elpolvo who wrote (55558)	10/18/2002 11:09:08 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? > >GEORGE W. BUSH . . . I don't think I should have to answer that question. > > AL GORE . . . I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people. > > RALPH NADER . . . The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV. > > PAT BUCHANAN . . . To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American. > > RUSH LIMBAUGH . . . I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real American take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross. > > MARTHA STEWART . . . No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information. > > JERRY FALWELL . . . Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side". That's what they call it - the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." > > DR. SEUSS . . . Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The chicken crossed the road, But why it crossed, I've not been told! > > ERNEST HEMINGWAY . . . To die. In the rain. Alone. > > MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR . . . I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question. > > GRANDPA . . . In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us. > > BARBARA WALTERS . . . Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it a survived a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road. > > JOHN LENNON . . . Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace. > > ARISTOTLE . . . It is the nature of chickens to cross the road. > > KARL MARX . . . It was a historical inevitability. > > SADDAM HUSSEIN . . . This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. > > VOLTAIRE . . . I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it. > > CAPTAIN KIRK . . . To boldly go where no chicken had gone before. > > SIGMUND FREUD . . . The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity. > > BILL GATES . . . I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken. > > ALBERT EINSTEIN . . . Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken? > > BILL CLINTON . . . I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken please? > > THE BIBLE . . . And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.