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发帖数: 901 | 1 A real increase in wealth certainly isn't responsible for the higher
spending… Unemployment is still more than 9%. And the most recent initial
jobless claims came in at 398,000. (That's below the expected 415,000, but
still 398,000 more people without jobs.)
And companies are still announcing large layoffs. Today, the big medical-
device firm Boston Scientific – in addition to announcing good earnings –
said it will layoff 1,400 people. Credit Suisse said it would cut 2,000. And
HSBC announced today it's considering 10,000 cuts. We've noted the massive
financial-sector layoffs before… The big banks see the writing on the wall.
It's going to be much harder to make money without free-flowing credit (as
we've had for the past 30 years). | s*********8
发帖数: 901 | 2 Komrades Obama and Boehner (the House Speaker) gave dueling presentations
last night. But they started out on surprisingly similar notes…
Both began by blaming someone else for our nation's ills instead of taking
responsibility for them. Had they read each other's speeches instead of
their own, they'd have gained some credibility. Instead, it was just another
juvenile round of finger-pointing.
Right now, they're like celebrities on reality TV shows, prattling on
endlessly about appearances and who said what to whom… who's a jerk and who
's cool… all the while underscoring how miserably they're failing at the
task of living.
Pretentious as it may sound, I must ask, "Where have all the adults gone?"
They're not in Washington. That much we know. My guess is they're too busy
keeping this increasingly crazy world from falling apart to spend time
making speeches on TV. | z****e
发帖数: 54598 | | s*********8
发帖数: 901 | 4 When caterpillar says 44% increase in earnings...people start to laugh
Our favorite indicator of global construction, Caterpillar, missed earnings
estimates today for the first time in 10 quarters. The world's largest maker
of construction and mining equipment announced a 44% increase in earnings
to $1.02 billion. Revenue increased 37% to $14.2 billion. Still, analysts
expected more.
Caterpillar said the earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a sharp drop in
output. More important, Caterpillar noticed "some softening of growth" in
China. Shares plunged more than 5% today. | s*********8
发帖数: 901 | 5 And billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson thinks it's going lower…
Paulson, whose fund recently lost on financials and Chinese reverse merger
Sino Forest, admitted he was "too aggressive" in his positions. Currently,
his net long exposure is around 60%, down from 81%. "Eighty-one percent was
way too high. We cannot operate the fund at that level," Paulson said on a
call to investors. "I'd like to bring the risk down further to about 50%."
In addition to diversifying his financial holdings away from firms with
heavy mortgage exposure, Paulson is also shorting the euro… He, like us,
expects more destruction from the EU debt crisis. | s*********8
发帖数: 901 | 6 This week marks the paper dollar's 150th birthday. In 1861, the U.S.
government introduced paper notes (the first "greenbacks") to help finance
the Civil War.
We'd argue the dollar died shortly thereafter… in 1933. After the Great
Depression, the economy was facing severe deflation. The easiest way out of
deflation is printing money. So Congress and President Roosevelt suspended
the gold standard, banned private ownership of gold bullion, and printed
away. | s*********8
发帖数: 901 | 7 All companies have big earnings, but they want to deal with 08? |
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