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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (71182)	3/5/2009 1:35:18 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

GE is indeed looking questionable. Debt piled on debt, puffed up like a puff ball - that was New Zealand on steroids in the early to mid 1980s, going down the gurgler in a very big way in the 1987 implosion. The very big difference now compared with then is that New Zealand was tiny compared with the rest of the world, whereas the rest of the world now has no externality on which to depend. New Zealand could go right on producing agricultural products, tourism and some bits and pieces in the late 1980s and recover quite well [though all the puff ball entities went bust, along with all the shareholders' money]. But the whole world has no "outside world" on which to depend so it's a lot harder way out. This is starting to look quite serious. So far, I'm still fairly well positioned with Zenbu growing fast, profits growing faster, Qualcomm growing quickly, profits growing fast, dividends just increased again, NZ$ going down the gurgler versus US$ as expected and more to go even as the US$ is trying to fall faster than NZ$ but can't. A broker phoned me today saying "Why not grab some GE while it's a bargain?" I took a look at the graph [very long term one] and it looks ugly. The fall over the last couple of years has been getting steeper and there hasn't even been a preliminary dead cat bounce. It doesn't look like a bottom to me. In terms of "rescues" I don't see why bond holders should be rescued, let alone shareholders. If GE goes belly up, the assets can be all knocked down and somebody will keep them in business with the debts all written off. Heck, I'd love to buy the assets if unencumbered. Warren Buffett seems to have been premature in his "buying the bottom" of Wells Fargo, General Electric etc. 18 months turning to 18 days in 18 hours is financial relativity theory at non-Newtonian speeds. There must be an event horizon somewhere nearby. Mqurice

To: TobagoJack who wrote (71182)	3/10/2009 4:29:07 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Respond to of 74559

M-110 on the way down! Q 35 on the way up. The great financial panic of 2007 and 2008 and 2009 is starting to become tedious. Pretty soon everyone will forget about it and do what they have always done which is forget about it and get on with life, get a job, make and do things people want to buy. There is no law [other than taxation and other government hindrance such as "stimulus" laws] against getting on with it. Nearly everyone is still gainfully employed [government departments notwithstanding though they do distort the statistics heavily against "gainfully"]. Dow 16,000 is starting to look doable again. They won't ring a bell at the bottom. Now that "Everyone" knows there is a financial catastrophe going on and they all know it's going to get worse, it's the old Heisenberg problem of getting hold of one variable throwing the other off course. The act of preparing for the financial implosion stops it. So all those selling out to stay in cash and gold to buy the bottom might find the expected terrible crash doesn't happen. Americans have started saving gobs of cash, canceled spending mania, are working hard at the jobs they have, have sold out or been sold out of houses they couldn't afford, ditched the SUV and are riding a bicycle [okay, it's true not in the numbers I have seen in Japan and China but probably partly true]. Mq