6th Street

Politics on a message board aren't the problem. People that can't communicate like adults are the problem.

This.is.nails....

"The tragedy of the Obama Presidency is that it ignored the supply side: the producers, the risk-takers, the salary earners who put in 50 and 60 hours a week to get ahead. They have been battered by Washington, and no matter how much government tries to conjure growth with more spending and easier monetary policy, businesses won't produce and workers won't work if government threatens to confiscate returns.

Banks aren't lending as much as they might in no small part because of Dodd-Frank's penalties and regulations. Investors aren't investing or are sending their money abroad because the President is promising to wallop them with huge tax increases on January 1. Businesses aren't purchasing as much new equipment, or hiring as many workers, because they don't know what the real costs will be from new regulation and ObamaCare.

A new report by the Progressive Policy Institute—run by Democrats—finds that if business investment had tracked the normal trend rate during this recovery, investment would be $1.4 trillion higher. The report fingers regulation on business and American investors finding better returns abroad. Yet Mr. Obama's solution is to raise the capital gains and dividend tax rates.

In this policy environment, the miracle is that the U.S. economy is still growing as much as it is. That is a tribute to the natural desire of Americans to better themselves, to create the next Apple, or to discover the next technique for pulling natural gas out of shale rock.

Added to the record of the last four years, the 1.5% second quarter should solidify in the public mind that President Obama has failed on the economy."

Until we rid ourselves of the Federal Reserve, every president's economic policy is the same. No sense talking about anything else unless we're willing to start there. This is all part of the plan though. Sit back and enjoy the ride or as George Carlin was famous for saying..."when you're born into this world you are given a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America you're given a front row seat"

hardly faux news. Supply side works but not when you have people creating an uncertain and unfriendly environment in which to make it possible to work. Any type of revolution as you suggest would be driven more by the revolutionaries believing the misinformation being thrown their way. Its not difficult to convince people they have somehow been treated unfairly because they aren't millionaires living the high life and they deserve or have a right to live that way. I have had money, lost money and made it back off my own sweat and hard work. I have hired people and had to let them go as a result. My success is their success because I pass it along.

You're too busy trying to make a complicated issue a one sided one when in reality it is probably somewhere in the middle. Many that do not have disposable income/wealth probably spent most of their adult life collecting toys they couldn't afford, houses they couldn't afford or taking vacations they couldn't afford. Or more likely they could afford it as long as there was no hiccup along the way and in life there are hiccups. I have clients that are middle class income earners with 7 figure portfolios and I have some that would be considered rich by todays definition because of their income who have very little in their portfolio. In the end, it was how they chose to spend their money or save their money that created their situation. In fact, I have one couple who have a combined income that is middle class and they chose to save everything one of them makes and live off what the other makes. Lifes is about choices and the outcome of those choices. Always pointing the finger and saying its not fair is the easy out. Hell I listened to that from one of my siblings for many years until he figured out he was responsible for his lot in life and now he does very well and is extremely happy. But before he did that he was always saying its not fair, blah blah blah....

Thats part of it but at the same time there is a huge chunk of cash sitting this one out so its not all about liquidity in the markets. Reality is we have been range bound for the past 4 months so the gains of the past few days have only reversed the losses of the previous week. There a many things at play here but it also comes down to investor belief. When you look at earnings they are actually good and that combined with reasonable stock valuations make stocks attractive to investors. Stocks typiclly following earnings. if historically the stock market p/e is 16 and it is currently 12 then one could assume it would rise by 33% to hit its historically average. GDP is not pretty but it is still positive and thats not a bad thing. The concern is will it continue to reverse itself.

headline news, particularly out of Europe is having a dramatic effect too. Will austerity measures pass, will they not pass. Will struggling countries get the funds they need to shore up their balance sheets etc etc....it impacts investor sentiment and how they react. You also have more investors trying to day trade the sharp abrupt moves and that has some effect.

Bigger picture and the question to ask though is are we coming out of a recession and headed into a brighter future in the market. Again, different schools of thought. Is what we are experiencing more like market corrections of 87-88, 91-92 or 2000-03 which were brief and the recovery quick or are they more similar to 1900-19, 29-49, 66-82 which were deeper and lasted longer? If the former then one would look at this as a correction that started in 07-08 and began to reverse itself in 09 plus. However, bigger picture one could reasonable say its more like the latter with the correction actually beginning in 2000 (after the huge run up in the mid to late 90's) and is still in place about 13 years later. If thats the case then in the more severe cases you typically average about 4 recessions and corrections in the market. To date we have had 2 so its possible we get a couple more and the problems will continue until roughly 2020 using historical timeframes for severe corrections/recessions (about 20 years per).

But you also need to factor in what has transpired over the past few years as well. Jobs still are not being created and the deficit is out of control as is the deficit spending and revenues cannot keep up. How will that play in?

The other thing to keep in mind when look at those two scenarios is in the shorter quicker recessions/corrections the markets typically moved up so losses recovered whereas in the longer more severe recessions/corrections the markets did little but move in a range. If you look at where the markets were as they peaked in 2000 the s&p broke through 1500 and finished the year just over 1300 (1320). Yesterday the market closed at 1385. So in 13 years the market has essentially done nothing. Basically the shorter less severe markets looked more like a man walking up the stair while bouncing a yo yo while the more severe ones look like a man walking down a flight of stairs bouncing a yo yo.

Bottom line is its still scary out there but you can make money. Just have to be smart about it.

It's not a matter of confidence for your average American, it's a matter of necessity. Most Americans simple have to spend every dollar they make/have. That's why I favor putting a few more dollars in their pockets first. Their quality of life will improve and they will spend the extra money dollar for doallar directly back into the overall economy........As far as your wife's company relocating, it was exactly what you talked about, greed

One of my favorite Churchill quotes and it still holds true today.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

Daniel Yergin's book "The Commanding Heights : The Battle for the World Economy" was a great history of the economic failure of Keynesianism and Socialism" during the 20th century. We had a full century of a controlled experiment comparing the economic outcomes of American and Thatcher style capitalism vs. the Keynesian experiment of Europe. It was a decisive victory for capitalism; but in less that ten year, the lessons seem to have to be forgotten.

It is really hard for me not to contribute to this discussion with some Earl's Pearls. I will say that some of you have posted logical thoughts and I hope that each of you will vote your conviction. I know I will.

But Europe is no healthier than it was a year ago. Actually, the demise of the Euro is closer if anything. France electing a socialist , whose response to their debt crisis is to roll back the retirment age to 60 was the final blow for me. Now Europe only has one adult paying for the party; and the Germans are going to tell the rest of Europe to go fu,, themselves at some point, perhaps as early as their next election. . The markets are simply grasping at straws when the ECB president comes out and says that he will do everything needed to save the Euro.
We aren't dealing with the debt ceiling yet; but it will come just after the elections[it probably will actually hit before the elections, but the government economists will play games to delay it until Dec.]. Washington isn't any closer to dealing with the issue than it was then. I guess people think that the lame duck will come to an agreement. Maybe they are right, but count me skeptical. The economy looks worse at this point than it did last year. There were piles of cash sitting on the sideline then. Bernacke is running out of arrows. His Twist had much less effect on the economy than Q.E. II did. He's completely loaded the fiscal system with new money; but it's only gone back into the markets and probably has created the fourth bubble that the fed. has created in the past decade and a half.

This is not correct. Go look at Marquez, or Kossee, or center, Crockett, and tell me why all the new motels, cafes, RV Parks, etc are now where pastures were 3 years ago.

I'm still trying to figure out how Obama gets even one vote in 2012. His ideas are not working.

I've come to the realization that I will never understand how a person born in this country would rather have hand outs than economic freedom.