The Republican Thread

[Cknolls]

I love it. We have a president who's been lying out his ears, and a treasury secretary who doesn't pay his own taxes but wants to go after the rich who don't pay taxes. Well, the later isn't bad except for the fact he's a hypocrite and wants to raise taxes on the rich so they can "spread the wealth."

 

Also, does the later mean he'll go after Rahm Emanuel for all the property taxes he has not paid? Oh wait, his home is the center of his charitable organization where he and his wife donate 25 thousand a year to some school where their children go for free, where ironically the tuition would be 25 thousand anyway.

 

I hate politicians with a passion, all of them are garbage, democrats and republicans alike.

 

 

Emanuel is scum. How much money did he make at UBS(?) after he left the previous admin.? 18 million?

[southsider2k5]

Oh, and you shouldn't sell Bear Stearns stock. There's no problem with Bear.

 

An interesting write up, but I thought you would be interested in the bolded part.

 

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinv...-stewart?page=1

 

Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart

By Jim Cramer

 

Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama's economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the "liberal" media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans.

 

I'm uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy, and I find the embrace of Rush Limbaugh most certainly strange if not antithetical to many of my viewpoints.

 

So, why after toiling in the cable wilderness for four years with Mad Money am I the target of the wrath of the Obama clan, and the darling, albeit surely momentary, of the Obama-critics? After all, my criticism of Obama's handling of the economic crisis is a lot less pointed than my withering August 2007 "They Know Nothing" meltdown against the previous regime's handling of the economic crisis. Then, I advocated a swift slashing of interest rates by the Federal Reserve and a concomitant policy for potential widespread banking failures that were sure to come because of the Republican administration's pernicious laissez-faire attitude toward Wall Street.

 

The answer lies in the way the two administrations handled criticism.

 

The Bush administration, I believed, simply chose to ignore my warnings, perhaps because of a brutal combination of ideology, fecklessness and complacency. Publicly, it was easy to ignore a carping Democrat, even as most of my insight came from apolitical people who ran many of the major trading desks and were simply worried about the sure-to-come tsunami spawned by subprime mortgages. The Bush administration's endless "fundamentals are sound" observations seemed ridiculous in the face of what most chief executive officers from Main Street companies and all executives of the top investment banks knew to be the case. Ben Bernanke didn't seem to understand the urgency, perhaps because of his academic background. Tim Geithner, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the most important regulator of Wall Street, didn't seem to get the importance of a consistent policy in the face of frightened and confused participants in the capital markets. Hank Paulson confused me the most. He ran Goldman Sachs (Stock Quote: GS), for heaven's sake. He had to know better, but he didn't.

 

When Paulson and Geithner wrongly euthanized Lehman Brothers, the consequences pretty much spelled the end of finance as we know it. Saving Lehman was well within their capacity, even though they refuse to admit it or say it was even a mistake. The markets have never recovered.

 

Their hands-off policies ended after Lehman. Two days later, when worries about moral hazard went out the window, they did a total about-face and began what is now an endless bailout of AIG (Stock Quote: AIG).

 

Nevertheless, they never questioned their beliefs and therefore never answered to anyone -- Congress, the press or the pundits -- so sure were they that everything was fine and things would work out well in the end.

 

President Obama's team, unlike Bush's team, demonstrates a thinness of skin that shocks me. When I somewhat obviously and empirically judged that the populist Obama administration is exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies, as evidenced by the incredible decline in the averages since his inauguration, I was met immediately with condescension and ridicule rather than constructive debate or even just benign dismissal. I said to myself, "What the heck? Are they really that blind to the Great Wealth Destruction they are causing with their decisions to demonize the bankers, raise taxes for the wealthy, advocate draconian cap-and-trade policies and upend the health care system? Do they really believe that only the rich own stocks? What do they think we have our retirement accounts in, CDs? Where did they think that the money saved for college went, our mattresses? Do they think the great middle class banks at the First National Bank of Sealy and only the wealthiest traffic in the Standard & Poor's 500?"

 

They exacerbated their insensitivity when President Obama proclaimed that he wasn't worried about the averages, dismissing them as traffic polls that go up and down in the short term. Ah, if only they went up occasionally and not down endlessly then I would believe the President's logic.

 

Don't get me wrong, Obama was dealt a terrible hand by the previous croupier. But this administration's handling of the banking crisis, something that has brought Citigroup (Stock Quote: C), Bank of America (Stock Quote: BAC), Wells Fargo (Stock Quote: WFC) and even JPMorgan Chase (Stock Quote: JPM) to their knees, has been devastating. The indecision of Geithner, who has floated to the media every single idea in his head, only to announce none orally, has created a vacuum that has allowed short-sellers to dictate policy.

 

As someone who just wants to help people preserve capital and help it appreciate when the time comes when it is not too risky to do so, I am appalled at the attack and badly want to engage in the issues and tone down the rhetoric. What's the point? The country's in crisis. We need to stop the lurching nationalization of banks, something that's come about because the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have not been able to regain control of the banking system from the short-sellers who seek to wipe out the common equity and "win" by placing all banks in receivership.

 

The pundits won't engage in the merits of, say, favoring Tier 1 capital for the banks vs. common equity, or forbearing on the banks to work the situation out over time because the banks can be profitable if we have some patience. They just attack me.

 

Take Frank Rich and Jon Stewart. Both seize on the urban legend that I recommended Bear Stearns the week before it collapsed, even though I was saying that I thought it could be worthless as soon as the following week. I did tell an emailer that his deposit in his account at Bear Stearns was safe, but through a clever sound bite, Stewart, and subsequently Rich -- neither of whom have bothered to listen to the context of the pulled quote -- pass off the notion of account safety as an out-and-out buy recommendation. The absurdity astounds me. If you called Mad Money and asked me about Citigroup, I would tell you that the common stock might be worthless, but I would never tell you to pull your money out of the bank because I was worried about its solvency. Your money is safe in Citi as I said it was in Bear. The fact that I was right rankles me even more. I never said the same thing about Lehman, where your accounts weren't safe. I expect a skewering from the comedian Stewart. I was shocked, however, that the rigorous Rich wouldn't investigate further and relied on the show's truncation of the truth. After all, how many times were the pull quotes from reviews by Rich used against him when he may have been panning a play in his former role as entertainment critic?

 

Rich also chastises me for endorsing Wachovia's stock after then-CEO Bob Steel came on Mad Money and spoke positively about the bank. Was I taken in? Yes, and I made a mistake. I apologized both on Mad Money and on the Today Show for believing in Steel. But others say I have been too hard on myself given that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Steel's appearance on my show for truthfulness. I chalk it up to something different: Sometimes you just get had.

 

After the White House briefing, Rush Limbaugh defended me as a wayward leftist who has seen the light. I am always glad to have any allies and defenders, but I do favor almost all of Obama's agenda, right down to having the rich pay more of their freight in this great country. It's just not the right time. We need to declare a war on unemployment and solve it before we let it get out of hand. We need to stop house-price depreciation. Neither the pork-laden stimulus plan nor the confusing mortgage proposal put forward by Obama will defeat either enemy. When Obama trounces both unemployment and house-price depreciation, he will have the power to enact anything he wants. But all the initiatives he wants to rush, like tax hikes, changes in health care, tinkering with the mortgage deduction -- good grief, right now in the midst of the worst housing downturn ever -- and the tough cap-and-trade rules, will derail any chance we have of turning this economy around. Instead, they put the Second Great Depression smack on the nation's table. The markets thought he could stop it; hence the giant relief rally when he was elected. But in fewer than 50 days of his ascendancy, the markets' hopes were totally dashed and the averages are now forecasting the worst decline since the Great Depression. As someone who listens to what the averages are screaming, I think they are accurately predicting the future.

 

I welcome any serious exchange with the administration on the issues that are not beyond my ken: fixing house price depreciation, stopping the destruction of wealth as demonstrated by the stock market's plunge, and solving the banking crisis before we nationalize every bank.

 

(Oh, and memo to Bill Maher: Stop insulting my faux great-great-uncle Vlad Lenin. I am using him to dramatize the point of a failed nationalization and confiscation of the banks at the hands of the people. It is funny how the right is certainly very civil as my old friends and new allies as of last week, Fred Barnes and Sean Hannity, don't hold my left wing social view against me when they talk about my criticism of the president! I always love anyone from Fox on the team because they are fierce in their defense with much less gratuitous slamming.)

 

It's time to get serious. It's time to take the issue from the pundits and from the left and right, and put it where it belongs: serious non-ideological debate to put out the real firestorm, the collapse of the economy from Wall Street to Main Street and the ensuing Great Wealth Destruction for all.

 

But if it stays ad hominem, we will all be betrayed and the train wreck will become inevitable.

[Balta1701]

Mouse sees cheese...mouse takes cheese...

Take Frank Rich and Jon Stewart. Both seize on the urban legend that I recommended Bear Stearns the week before it collapsed, even though I was saying that I thought it could be worthless as soon as the following week. I did tell an emailer that his deposit in his account at Bear Stearns was safe, but through a clever sound bite, Stewart, and subsequently Rich -- neither of whom have bothered to listen to the context of the pulled quote -- pass off the notion of account safety as an out-and-out buy recommendation. The absurdity astounds me. If you called Mad Money and asked me about Citigroup, I would tell you that the common stock might be worthless, but I would never tell you to pull your money out of the bank because I was worried about its solvency. Your money is safe in Citi as I said it was in Bear. The fact that I was right rankles me even more. I never said the same thing about Lehman, where your accounts weren't safe. I expect a skewering from the comedian Stewart. I was shocked, however, that the rigorous Rich wouldn't investigate further and relied on the show's truncation of the truth. After all, how many times were the pull quotes from reviews by Rich used against him when he may have been panning a play in his former role as entertainment critic?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes

Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor

Economic Crisis

You are 100% correct. Jon Stewart was wrong that Jim Cramer recommended buying Bear Stears stock the week before he collapsed, and he apologizes in that video.

 

He then provides you the video from 5 days beforehand where he directly says to BUY BEAR STEARNS STOCK. And where a few weeks beforehand, he virtually begs people to buy Bear's stock.

[Cknolls]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/10...itary-aircraft/

 

 

Somebody get her a pacifier, PLEASE!

[kapkomet]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/10...itary-aircraft/

 

 

Somebody get her a pacifier, PLEASE!

I've heard of this before, from back in 2006 even. She is the stupidest, dumbest b**** I have ever seen on Capital Hill. And as I've said numberous time, so I'm not a sexist, so is her PIC Harry Reid.

 

[Y2HH]

You are 100% correct. Jon Stewart was wrong that Jim Cramer recommended buying Bear Stears stock the week before he collapsed, and he apologizes in that video.

 

He then provides you the video from 5 days beforehand where he directly says to BUY BEAR STEARNS STOCK. And where a few weeks beforehand, he virtually begs people to buy Bear's stock.

 

I was going to post that myself, I watched Cramer on numerous occasions recommend BUYING BEAR STERNS STOCK. I'm happy Stewart exposed him on that. Cramer, like the rest of these experts, is a f***tard. He got rich in an era of market uprising because he had enough money to put it there, and no fault to him, he was very successful in that era. But let's face facts, he was in the right place at the right time and that time is over. Him and his kind try to pretend they can keep recreating that success over and over, when in fact, they cannot so instead they sell books and weasel their way into TV shows to keep getting richer, rather than actually following their own advice. There are a few studies on the net about Cramer, and if you had followed his investment advice over the past 10 years you would have UNDERPERFORMED the S&P500. In short, if you had just bought shares in any S&P500 index, you would have outperformed the expert that is Cramer, and now...given how far everything has fallen, you would have decimated him.

 

I don't want to downplay Cramer's education level nor his savvy investing back in the 80's, but back in the 80's, if you had the money, you could have bought just about...well...ANYTHING and if you held onto it, you'd have been a millionaire, too. It's like Buffett, who doesn't make solid investments anymore, he merely uses his power/leverage/billions to strong arm companies into giving him deals that the common investor couldn't possibly get. Again, not to downplay his past success, but what he did then and what he does now aren't remotely the same thing.

 

For a personal example, in my personal portfolio, I decimated Cramer HANDILY over the past 8 years, and I'm not even an expert.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Y2HH

[EvilMonkey]

I seem to recall Dems being all up in arms about Bush and his 'signing statements'. How will those same people react to this? Obama says he will do it, but smarter, and slightly different.

"It's like a presidential signing statement except it's not the president and it's not a signing statement," said Robert Gibbs, when asked about the letter from Tim Geithner by Jake Tapper.

Obama is pretty much saying 'hey, go ahead and vote for this bill, I'll just tell my peeps to disregard that little portion that bothers you'. Anything to get a vote, I guess.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...-will-igno.html

[southsider2k5]

Mouse sees cheese...mouse takes cheese...

 

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes

Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor

Economic Crisis

You are 100% correct. Jon Stewart was wrong that Jim Cramer recommended buying Bear Stears stock the week before he collapsed, and he apologizes in that video.

 

He then provides you the video from 5 days beforehand where he directly says to BUY BEAR STEARNS STOCK. And where a few weeks beforehand, he virtually begs people to buy Bear's stock.

 

So who put a sell recommendation on Bear Stearns before they knew they were collapsing?

 

[Y2HH]

So who put a sell recommendation on Bear Stearns before they knew they were collapsing?

 

Was already too late.

[southsider2k5]

Was already too late.

 

That is pretty much my point. Without insider information or hindsight, there wasn't a single person alive who wasn't recommending Bear. Digging up pieces from before their collapse is disingenious.

[Balta1701]

That is pretty much my point. Without insider information or hindsight, there wasn't a single person alive who wasn't recommending Bear. Digging up pieces from before their collapse is disingenious.

So is trying to say that you weren't telling people to buy their stock.

[bmags]

Is there a person in here who likes Cramer and takes his advice?

[Y2HH]

So is trying to say that you weren't telling people to buy their stock.

 

Bingo.

 

I'm also not the one recommending stocks to people, having them not only go down, but WAY down and then claiming I never recommended it. Also, I'm not the one being paid, on a tv show, to recommend stocks. Isn't Cramer's big slogan something along the lines of, "Helping people make money?"

 

Well...he failed.

[Balta1701]

Is there a person in here who likes Cramer and takes his advice?

If there is...I'm sorry about your investments.

[southsider2k5]

So is trying to say that you weren't telling people to buy their stock.

 

He claimed that the quote they took was out of context. It was.

[Y2HH]

He claimed that the quote they took was out of context. It was.

 

That quote may have been taken out of context, but the other two were not, where he recommended buying Bear Sterns at like 60. Mere weeks before it was worth 2. I think more than anything, this simply prooves that these experts aren't all they're cracked up to be...and maybe now people will be a little more weary of blindly following their expert advice.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Y2HH

[kapkomet]

NO ONE saw what was coming. NO ONE. It's easy to b**** and pick nits after the fact.

 

I love how the messengers of Barack's failures are now a part of the mainstream to assassinate the s*** out of them.

 

Yea, this is a different breed of politics that we were promised all right. I think it's worse.

[bmags]

NO ONE saw what was coming. NO ONE. It's easy to b**** and pick nits after the fact.

 

I love how the messengers of Barack's failures are now a part of the mainstream to assassinate the s*** out of them.

 

Yea, this is a different breed of politics that we were promised all right. I think it's worse.

 

Jesus Christ, this is not about assassinating the "messengers of Barack's failures" this is about media irresponsibility. You usually love this stuff. You don't even like Jim Cramer. You are defending him for really just argument sake. He's terrible at his job. CNBC is awful at analysis, and makes up for it with bells and whistles, unfortunately, this is LITERALLY BELLS AND WHISTLES. They report to a less educated financial crowd in a way that is not educational, but irrational, mob like and irresponsible.

Is anyone here after Crain's?

Is anyone out here after Bloomberg news? No, we all love them. They are just miles and miles above CNBC. Bloomberg dominates CNBC in Europe, in wire services and in business subscriptions.

 

But CNBC has TV, and they got there with sensationalism. They have more shallow coverage than headline news, except they are dealing with people's money. They just parade CEOs up there and the CEOs all just say "we're doing great" and they say "oh that's excellent" and then BUY BUY BUY, or now SELL SELL SELL WE'RE F*****.

 

Meanwhile, poor bloomberg news tried to make a network based off of no frills, all content. Bloomberg must not have researched broadcast news, people don't want quality information with context! They want a screaming man giving out information, good or bad.

 

Okay, I'll give poor poor Jim Cramer a break on Bear Stearns. How about his nationwide lectures telling people to buy Sears when they were like triple their value, or to buy google at the height of their value. He's. Not. Good. At. His. Job. And its worst for him, because he's causing people to lose money.

Edited March 11, 2009 by bmags

[kapkomet]

It's not the point. At all.

 

But that's fine... I will step out of this argument.

 

[bmags]

How is that not the point kap.

 

Y2hh, you talking about someone besides Jim Cramer? Balta? SS2K5?

 

You are defending someone you don't even like. You want to talk about fairness in media, fine...well then how about Jon Stewart, with a comedy show on comedy central, calls out a news station, CNBC, and specifically Jim Cramer. Jim Cramer then gets on 3 major news networks, NBC(Today Show), MSNBC (Morning JOe), and there is the entire network in question CNBC. Together, I'd imagine, they net a way, way, way higher % of televisions than Jon Stewarts, and allow Jim Cramer to stand up for himself, and convince people that at least he wasn't wrong about everything! And he can continue to sell his bad info for profit while his audience suffers. And NBC keeps their audience. Now that's good television. That's good synergy.

[KipWellsFan]

I seem to recall Dems being all up in arms about Bush and his 'signing statements'. How will those same people react to this? Obama says he will do it, but smarter, and slightly different.

 

Obama is pretty much saying 'hey, go ahead and vote for this bill, I'll just tell my peeps to disregard that little portion that bothers you'. Anything to get a vote, I guess.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...-will-igno.html

 

Actions will speak louder then words on this issue. Signing statements can be appropriate when small parts of very large bills are deemed unconstitutional by the President. So instead of a very large bill being vetoed, only a small portion will be. We'll have to see how often Obama decides to do this though...

 

Bush used this more often than anyone ever has, particularly because of the bizarre constitutional views of his administration.

[EvilMonkey]

Actions will speak louder then words on this issue. Signing statements can be appropriate when small parts of very large bills are deemed unconstitutional by the President. So instead of a very large bill being vetoed, only a small portion will be. We'll have to see how often Obama decides to do this though...

 

Bush used this more often than anyone ever has, particularly because of the bizarre constitutional views of his administration.

So, if he does it just a little bit, as long as it's less than W, and as long as it is for the good of the people, that's ok. Yeah, It's always different. Pretty much the response I expected.

[StrangeSox]

So, if he does it just a little bit, as long as it's less than W, and as long as it is for the good of the people, that's ok. Yeah, It's always different. Pretty much the response I expected.

 

What other response could be given? It isn't a dichotomy of "all signing statements" or "no signing statements." It's an issue of abusing them or not.

[southsider2k5]

That quote may have been taken out of context, but the other two were not, where he recommended buying Bear Sterns at like 60. Mere weeks before it was worth 2. I think more than anything, this simply prooves that these experts aren't all they're cracked up to be...and maybe now people will be a little more weary of blindly following their expert advice.

 

Like I said, tell me one single person who was putting a sell rating out before the public information was out there.

 

Its more than just Jim Cramer that pisses me off about this whole thing. Its another piece of the stated White House effort to take individuals, demonize them, and make them responsibile for all that is evil in the world. Once they do that, then they get to stand up and say they have the solution. Personally I don't see how the "politics of divisiveness" is getting left behind when the stated White House strategy is to personally pick individuals out and try to paint and entire party of people like that one person. To me it sounds like the last eight years, just like I said it would. The funny part is that everyone who makes fun of Rush Limbaugh is taking the Rush of the left wing's infotainment show and using it just like the right wing uses Rush to advance their cause. No one really seems to get that.

 

In reality you can take any stock picker and find some glaring errors. Its an near impossible science, which is why the SP outpreforms the vast majority of stock pickers on an annual basis. Its not different than the experts in any other field. Tell me one scientist who can tell me exactly what the weather is going to be like in a week. Find me one who can tell me exactly when the next great quake is going to strike in the world and where. How about one who knows how big the universe is. You can keep going on with this, but you get my point.

 

The fact that Rush Stewart and the rest of the left wing is after Cramer is because of one simple fact. He questioned Barack Obama, and has the respect of enough people to potentially change some minds about him. For a party that a few years ago was claiming it was patriotic to question the President, they sure seem to like to turn everything into a personal battle very quickly.

[Y2HH]

Like I said, tell me one single person who was putting a sell rating out before the public information was out there.

 

Its more than just Jim Cramer that pisses me off about this whole thing. Its another piece of the stated White House effort to take individuals, demonize them, and make them responsibile for all that is evil in the world. Once they do that, then they get to stand up and say they have the solution. Personally I don't see how the "politics of divisiveness" is getting left behind when the stated White House strategy is to personally pick individuals out and try to paint and entire party of people like that one person. To me it sounds like the last eight years, just like I said it would. The funny part is that everyone who makes fun of Rush Limbaugh is taking the Rush of the left wing's infotainment show and using it just like the right wing uses Rush to advance their cause. No one really seems to get that.

 

In reality you can take any stock picker and find some glaring errors. Its an near impossible science, which is why the SP outpreforms the vast majority of stock pickers on an annual basis. Its not different than the experts in any other field. Tell me one scientist who can tell me exactly what the weather is going to be like in a week. Find me one who can tell me exactly when the next great quake is going to strike in the world and where. How about one who knows how big the universe is. You can keep going on with this, but you get my point.

 

The fact that Rush Stewart and the rest of the left wing is after Cramer is because of one simple fact. He questioned Barack Obama, and has the respect of enough people to potentially change some minds about him. For a party that a few years ago was claiming it was patriotic to question the President, they sure seem to like to turn everything into a personal battle very quickly.

 

I agree. I think all of these experts are frauds. And I agree with your assessment of the current situation with the White House suddenly having very thin skin.