Michael Snyder makes arguments appealing to both right and left against our free trade relationship with China. Some of these arguments are better than others, but as a whole, he makes good points on each side. - Ilene
There are very few things that the top politicians in both political parties agree on these days, but one of the things that that they do agree on is that free trade with China is a good thing. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have all fully supported our trade relationship with China. In this day and age, virtually anyone who even dares to question how fair our "free trade" is with China is immediately labeled as a "protectionist" and is dismissed as a loon. But when you sit down and really analyze it, there are a whole lot of very good reasons why both conservatives and liberals should be fundamentally against our unfair trade relationship with China. But you won’t hear these reasons being talked about on CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. You won’t hear many members of Congress get up and give speeches about how trade with China is bleeding our economy dry. Both major political parties have completely and totally bought into "the benefits" of globalism and free trade and there isn’t even much of a national debate about our trade policies anymore.
But there should be a national debate. Unfortunately, most conservatives are just going to accept whatever their leaders tell them to believe. Conservatives have been convinced that to be against unfair trade is to be "anti-business" and no conservative ever wants to be anti-business.
Similarly, most liberals blindly follow whatever Obama, Pelosi and Reid tell them to believe. Millions of hard working Democrat voters have lost their jobs due to our nightmarish trade relationship with China, but they are still convinced that Obama is their savior and that they must not ever say anything that he does is wrong.…
One of my favorite outfits is Sprott Asset Management, located in Toronto Canada, because their analyses tend to be quite data-rich and "reality-based" as well.
In this excellent, short-and-sweet report, the case is made that a 3.5% boost to GDP from government stimulus spending alone will hit in the third quarter of 2009.
This means that whatever reading is turned in, you should mentally subtract 3.5% from it, because "growth" resulting from government deficit spending is not real growth at all, it is merely consumption borrowed from the future.
Are you stimulated yet? We hope you are, because we’ve just witnessed the largest economic stimulus in the history of the world. Never before have so many government dollars been thrown at the economy to prevent a depression. When added together, the combined financial, monetary and fiscal stimuli in the US are more than the cost of the two World Wars and “The New Deal” combined.
Stimulus spending worldwide has taken the form of a combination of tax cuts, transfer payments (free money) and infrastructure investments on roads, schools, railroads etc. In the US, the financial and stimulus contributions have been especially impressive in scale.
According to CNN’s bailout tracker, the various US government departments have committed to stimuli worth $11 trillion dollars and have issued cheques totaling $2.8 trillion dollars thus far in 2009.
Neil Barofsky, the Special Investigator General for the TARP program, has estimated that the total cost to the US taxpayer could be as high as $23 trillion.
The vast majority of this stimulus has been directed at the financial sector – a complete waste of money in our opinion, supporting a segment of the economy that never deserved to be bailed out.
Nonetheless, the US taxpayer has spent massive sums, committed to promises worth even more and may ultimately owe debt in the double-digit trillions when all is said and done. Nice of them to spend so generously, wouldn’t you say?
Although the stimulus has been fantastic for the stock market, it has generated very little benefit for “Main Street”. To make matters worse, the effects of the stimulus packages have already started to wear off.
To explain why, we must mention the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Note from dshort: In response to a special request and in light of the strong market performance in the S&P 500 and meteoric rise in the Nikkei 225, I've updated my Mega-Bear weekly chart series through Friday's close.
It's time again for an update of our "Real" Mega-Bears, an inflation-adjusted overlay of three secular bear markets. It aligns the current S&P 500 from the top of the Tech Bubble in March 2000, the Dow in of 1929, and the Nikkei 225 from its 1989 bubble high.
The chart below is consistent with my preference for real (inflation-adjusted) analysis of long-term market behavior. The nominal all-time high in the index occurred in October 2007, but when we adjust for inflation, the "real" all-time high for the S&P 500 occurred in March 2000.
The Local, a website with German news in English reports Economists warn against German euro exit. “Even a believable rumour that Germany would exit the euro would result in a massive capital flight from the countries of southern Europe to Germany.”
The southern European banking system would then collapse, bringing down entire economies with them, Schmieding said.
The consequences for Germany would be severe. The crisis countries could no longer pay back their debt and Germany’s important export markets would drop off. On top of that German taxpayers would be burdened with immense costs, he said.
On the other hand if you add up the expected growth advantages of euro membership between 2013 and 2025 there would b...
Submitted by Mark Grant, author of Out of the Box,
“Now, witness the power of this fully operational battle station.”
-Star Wars
We are all embarked upon a grand new adventure. It just hasn't been announced yet. It will never be officially announced but we will all get to play this brand new game in any event. Originally I and others had provided the name, "Currency Wars," to our new game but recent comments and subtle indications have invalidated the title.
The new title is, "Global Thermonuclear Devaluation."
Japan leads off in first position. It will devalue against the Euro and the Dollar in a significant fashion. All approve...
Global X, the New York-based ETF sponsor known for its unique lineup of commodities and emerging markets funds, announced six of its ETFs will be reverse split, including three gold mining-related funds.
The $29.4 million Global X Gold Explorers ETF (NYSE: GLDX) will undergo a 1-for-4 reverse split while the $2.78 million Global X Junior Miners ETF (NYSE: JUNR) will see a 1-for-3 reverse split. The Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: ...
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
It seems that every Tuesday in 2013 since January 8 has been positive on the Dow. And this past Tuesday was no exception. Now that sounds like a trend to put money on -- buy the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) at the close each Monday and close out the position late on Tuesday.
The Dow and S&P 500 both hit new all-time highs once again on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq hit its highest level since November 2000. The “risk on” allocation of new investment capital into cyclicals continues, although Wednesday saw leadership from defensive sectors Consumer Staples, Utilities, and Telecom, along with Financials. Nevertheless, ConvergEx reports that the average correlation of the ten S&P business sectors to the overall index averaged 82% last month. While that is below the 86% averag...
BMY - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. – Shares in drug maker, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., are ripping higher today, up 6.5% at $44.94, the highest level in more than a decade, ahead of the release of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2013 Annual Meeting abstracts tonight. The ASCO Annual Meeting begins on May 31st in Chicago. Options on BMY are far more active than usual today, with overall volume topping 64,000 contracts by 12:25 p.m. ET, versus average daily volume of around 11,400 c...
We are starting to see some very extreme readings on our monthly and weekly index charts since there has been no correction this year. I posted below first the monthly chart of the S&P 500 going back 15 years showing bollinger bands – rarely do we get above the upper one, and never have we been this far above. Then below that I posted (with 4 charts of 4 years each) the weekly data and you can see we are at a rare time we are above the weekly bollinger band as well. This non stop rally is getting very historical.
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Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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One of my favorite outfits is Sprott Asset Management, located in Toronto Canada, because their analyses tend to be quite data-rich and "reality-based" as well.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(
