Bernanke is a fucking idiot.

So I have read that JP Morgan is going to buy up what’s left of Bear Stearns for just a nominal $2 a share. Meanwhile Bernanke and his dumb fuck cronies have decided to cut another 25 basis points (0.25%) from the interest rates on Palm Sunday of all days…

I am told that the Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, TAIEX, and the Australian bourses are bleeding as a result of this development. The European bourses will get it just as bad and then the DJIA will be fucked even if Bernanke is dumb enough to cut some more basis points or put out more emergency funds. The exchange rates are only going to get worse and I reckon that the Fed will at least another 100 basis points on Tuesday.

Ben Bernanke is someone who loves inflation so much that he would be willing to have non-stop anal sex with it if he could. If George W. Bush says that we are not in a recession one more time, I swear I am going to go campaign for Hillary Clinton and petition for a movement to investigate if John McCain (born in the Panama Canal Zone, which is technically just US territory) is even technically a natural born American.

And yes; both Ron Paul and Jim Rogers were right.

Update: Bush is indeed a fucking idiot. America deserved to get fucked up by their stupidity for first bringing him to power in 2000 and then keeping him in power in 2004 when all signs point that he should have been replaced by John Kerry.

Here is what this fucktard, idiot grandson of a Nazi collaborator had to say about the American economy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7297048.stm

President George Bush has attempted to restore confidence in the US economy, amid the deepening financial crisis.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York the President acknowledged that growth had slowed but said that the economy is basically sound.

He said the economy was “obviously going through a tough time”.

America is now reaping what it sowed. Karma is indeed a bitch. First Iraq and now the entire world is going to pay dearly for 100% American-produced stupidity.

It’s official: The American dollar is garbage

As of this post, the US Dollar is now at parity with the Swiss Franc (CHF) and can buy up to 99 Japanese Yen. On another note the Canadian dollar is once again more valuable than the US dollar, while it will cost $2.02 to buy a British Pound Sterling. Also, the Euro is now equal to $1.56 US dollars.

The Benjamins have gone from heroes to zeros in the 8 years Bush has been in power. This is what happens when you go into a fruitless war in Iraq…

The 500 Euro is what’s happening right now…If it’s good enough for Jay-Z and Giselle Bundchen, then it’s going to be great for the rest of us

People need to understand that the rest of the world is not having stronger economic growth but rather it is the United States ongoing economic decline against the rest of the world that is leading to these exchange rates. At the rate things are going the Chinese Yuan or renminbi is going to be less than 7.00 Yuan to the Dollar by the mid-summer if the Federal Reserve keeps cutting interest rates as I think.

The currency of the 21st century…Will it be all about the Chairman?

Well it is clear that Bernanke may cut interest rates next week anyway regardless of the recent problems. Bear Stearns is just the beginning of many problems for the investment banks and it will only get worse due to the current links between traditional retail and investment banks. I actually thought at one point that Glass-Steagall was a sensible law which kept commercial and investment banks as separate entities, created the FDIC, and other provisions which were designed to curb dangerous speculation. Unfortunately, the provisions which prevented banks from offering financial services was repealed in 1999 when Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

The Glass-Steagall wall was devised to prevent a repeat of the 1920s’ scams, in which banks made speculative investments, turned the debts into securities, and sold them off to unsuspecting investors with the blessing of the bank. With Glass-Steagall, commercial banks were tightly supervised and given access to federal deposit insurance, to keep savings secure and prevent runs on banks. Investment banks, meanwhile, were not government-guaranteed and were free to do more speculative transactions for consenting adult customers. But Roosevelt’s newly created SEC subjected securities markets to much tighter structures against self-dealing and insider conflicts of interest.

If you fast forward to 2000, much of this protective apparatus has been repealed. Regulators who didn’t believe in regulation and a compliant Congress have allowed financial engineers to evade what remains. In the 1980s, regulators began allowing exceptions to Glass-Steagall. In 1999, Congress finally repealed it outright, permitting financial supermarkets like Citigroup to operate any kind of financial business they desired, and profit from multiple conflicts of interest. The scandals that pumped up the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, as well as the most flagrant cases like Enron, and the crash that followed, were the result of the SEC and the bank regulators ceasing to police conflicts of interest. In the scandals of the 1990s, corporate CEOs, their accountants, and stock analysts working for their bankers, all conspired to puff up corporate balance sheets and pump up stock prices on which executive bonuses depended. This is a little harder today, thanks to the honest accounting requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (which the Bush administration hopes to water down). But the same kinds of conflicts and potentials for abuse exist when a mega-bank underwrites a leveraged buyout by an affiliated hedge fund, and then hypes the sale of securities when the fund is ready to sell the company back to the public.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_bubble_economy

It’s time America learned from Japan to deal with their version of the bubble economy and the credit and real estate meltdowns…According to reliable sources America is going to be fucked in in FY2008 for Q1, Q2, Q3, with a slim chance of recovery in Q4 (assuming America is not officially in a recession).

Bernanke hints at more rate cuts

Bernanke hints at more rate cuts
US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke has hinted that the central bank is prepared to cut interest rates further to help ease recession fears.In his semi-annual report to the US Congress, Mr Bernanke said the Fed would continue to “act in a timely manner as needed to support growth”.

Analysts said his comments increased the likelihood of another rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting on 18 March.

US interest rates are currently at 3% after two major reductions in January.

‘Distinctly less favourable’

Despite saying the Fed must continue to keep a close eye on inflation, Mr Bernanke said economic conditions had become “distinctly less favourable” and could get worse.

“The risks include the possibilities that the housing market or labour market may deteriorate more than is currently anticipated and that credit conditions may tighten substantially further,” he said.

Mr Bernanke’s downbeat comments are the latest in a series of warnings he has given this year about the health of the US economy.

Although he said inflation remained a worry, it is expected to go down as high energy and commodity prices recede.

“The key thing is that Bernanke is talking about providing adequate insurance against downside risk,” said analyst Firas Askari, of BM Capital Markets.

“This is a Fed that is poised to react to growth risks and I think they are probably doing the right thing in focusing on sluggish growth more than on inflation.

“They’re willing to inject more juice into the system, and that’s what they need to do.”

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7267393.stm

Bernanke is an idiot.  All he is doing is simply increasing the risks of inflation while delaying an inevitable recession yet again.  The more cuts he makes, the more intense the economic recession will be once the new President takes power in 2008.  Both Jim Rogers and even Ron Paul were right about Bernanke.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles will not be seen tonight

Instead in America, all national networks are subjected to 2 to 3 hours of pointless drivel from George W. Bush in his final State of the Union address.  George Bush has done more than enough damage to the world in his 8 years in power.  Now taking up 2 hours of my valuable TV time is simply pushing it.

Economy go down the hole~!

I remember watching “Tiny Toons” when I was younger and remember what the young Plucky Duck always says when he was playing golf.

“Ball go down the hole~!”

If you don’t remember or unfamiliar with Tiny Toons, Plucky Duck was supposed to be a green, younger, childish and spunkier counterpart to Daffy Duck. One version of Plucky Duck was a 6-year old version who always makes cute catchphrases that involved objects going down the hole.

Some examples include

“Snake go down the hole~!”

“Rabbit go down the hole~!”

And you get the idea.

Well today was the day when the Federal Reserve decided to send the interest rates, and the economy, down the hole, by cutting it at 25 basis points. Instead of creating that short-term surge, Wall Street reacted by dropping 300 points, which nearly wiped the gains made from the week before. Because the Fed has cut the rate, the dollar is again debased and will again lose its value against the Canadian dollar, the Euro and the Japanese Yen. We should all be aware by now that the foreign currencies aren’t gaining strength, but the US dollar is actually loosing value relative to these currencies. Economic weakness in America certainly does not help the US dollar in the case either.

With that said it looks like the “Economy is going down the hole~!” It has been said that the extent of the rate cut is an indication of what investors should expect from the 4th quarter results on Wall St. and it looks like the results are grim to say the least. On the other hand, many investors seem to be selling off in response to the seemingly weak rate cut and expected much more to boost their holdings. Either way, the rate cut did not work towards Wall Street’s expectations and this is one reason the DJIA decided to shave off 300 points from its index.

Debasing the dollar to meet short-term demands from Wall Street certainly have not worked to Ben Bernanke’s expectations and the only people who will suffer from his actions are those poor pensioners who depend on their CDs to maintain their quality of life as their cost of living becomes ever more unsustainable.

Fucking 5.5G iPod

I come home and I try plugging my iPod back into iTunes. The problem is that the damn iPod refuses to load into the iTunes so I decide to eject the device and manually reset it by holding down MENU and the CENTER Button. After it restarts, the iPod prompts me to plug it back to the iTunes to do a full restore of the mp3 player. After 5 attempts at restoring, the iPod keeps restarting only to keep prompting me to restore the player.

By the 10th time, I realised that the iPod is broken and very little can be done for it. I tried restarting the computer and manually restarting the iPod again. Only this time, the computer was running fine while the iPod kept asking for a restoration. At this point I simply gave into my base emotions and I smashed the damn iPod until it split into two distinct pieces. Well, there goes $250 worth of 5th generation Apple technology. It is times like this I wished Apple would be smart enough to put a damn on/off button on the iPod and to actually have better quality control and technical service for their leading music player.

This is especially upsetting knowing that about 25 gigabytes worth of songs and videos were stored on that damn music player before the machine decided to crap out like a Windows 98 on me. Steve Jobs should be ashamed that he allowed his iPod to behave like Windows 98 at the slightest problem.

RON PAUL TEA PARTY 07 CONCERT FUNDRAISER! Saturday, December 15 at 8:00PM!

RON PAUL TEA PARTY 07 CONCERT FUNDRAISER!

When- Saturday, December 15 at 8:00PM

Who - Everyone

Where

NYC Ron Paul HQ
515 W. 29th St.
New York NY 10003
646-623-1020

Event Description

Join us on December 15 for the Ron Paul Fundraising concert at the RPHQ.

The line up will be:
The Violets
The Dig
The Case of Gretta Conners

Bring all your friends, family, whoever is interested in the restoration of liberty and prosperity of this great nation.

Let’s make this moneybomb top the last!! Come donate at midnight and see your name on the wall projected showing the spike in donations at midnight.

300 people expected this time

9 p.m. to close (3 a.m. to 5 a.m.)

Midnight Countdown to Ron Paul Money Bomb
Come donate on our computers at MIDNIGHT and see your name on the projectors!

Come see the donations SKYROCKET at MIDNIGHT
We’ll try to stream live on Justin.TV.

BRING YOUR FRIENDS to the biggest political day in history.

CHEAP CHEAP Drinks. Raffles. Ron Paul Merchandise will be sold.

Suggested $17.73 donation
–
Marisa
646-808-6098

Good news: We just beat the $12 million goal so far. Keep the moneybombs flowing! We gotta drop bombs like Hiroshima!

Start dropping Moneybombs at https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate/

What is new? The World Markets are bleeding.

I am really unsure of my current predicament. There are certain things that tell me that the US economy is going to slow if not go into a recession. It looks like the retail and services sector really did get hit from the subprime debacle as the credit crisis made it difficult for consumers to have enough disposable income to spend while at the same time the problem has reached a point where people are actually defaulting their consumer debt, such as credit cards or car payments as well. It would seem like a great idea to start investing overseas or even on fixed income; then again most of these bad commercial paper created from bundling subprime loans has also contaminated these investments as well.

Investing in foreign currencies is another interesting idea. So far some viable currencies would be the Swiss Franc, known for being historically stable, the Chinese Yuan, and even the Japanese Yen. Unfortunately, it looks like the Euro, Canadian Dollar, and even the Australian Dollar are in the process of appreciating against the American Dollar. Thanks to Paulson and Bernanke’s poor decisions, the U, S of A could also be in a bad position to undergo stagflation, which is a period of economic decline combined with growing inflation. Already we can see petrol prices and grocery prices significantly increasing due to the interest rate cuts, which did little to stem the growing panic over the credit crisis, and it is safe to say this has also taken away from retail sales.

Many people think the third quarter was horrendous for Wall Street, but we have no seen anything yet when we finally get to hear the 4th quarter and annual earnings for these companies. It is safe to say that the results will look like a bloodbath and make the first 3 fiscal quarters look like a slap fight. If America is going down the tubes, just imagine what is going to happen to the rest of the world.

I really don’t sound like a marketing guy anymore. All these transitions and close proximity to the finance department and savvy investors has gradually shifted my interests in the past months. It’s also because I have taken greater control of my personal finances and have access to countless websites and blogs dealing with personal finance in addition to informed colleagues. While it is true that most of the personal finance or investment blogs are full of crap or simply vehicles to promote an average investor’s particular fund or security, a few of them do give useful advice or make posts that summarise major points discussed in common personal finance or investment books.

It’s days like this I wished I had bought shares of Nintendo when it was hovering around $30/share, placed some money in a Vanguard index fund, or put more money into a high-yield online savings account. Then again, I don’t have any credit card debt, I have money in the 401(k), and I am almost maxed out on this year’s Roth IRA; so I am in decent shape compared to others. I do have my own car, I pay for my own mobile plan, and I am not dependent on a financial adviser.

Today is the day I wish I was still lying in the hot springs in Taiwan without a care in the world. Oddly enough I never did find this school while I was around Taipei:

The Ladder Theory

The Ladder Theory makes a great deal of sense in recent months. According to this theory, women look for the following men in their significant other:

We can clearly see that about half of the interest revolves around money or power. Money can be defined as simply being wealthy to just having a credit card depending on the girl’s perceptions at that particular time. The same holds true with power in the sense it can be anywhere ranging from being the company CEO to being one of the leading brothers at the fraternity. Again, it is largely based on perception by the said girl and it’s all relative based on the circumstances.

It’s possible to act “as if” one had power and money but sooner or later one will need to back up these claims with tangible proof…

While it may be true that girls claim that none of these things truly matter to them the fact is far from it. When a girl says she just looks for a man or woman with “confidence” she means she wants someone who can exert a great deal of influence, meaning power. When a girl says she is just looking for a guy to treat her right or from a good family, she implies she is looking for a guy who has his financials together or comes from a well-off family.

So basically half the interest will come from just having money and power alone, but the other 40 or so percent revolves largely on attraction. Just about 20% is attraction drawn from physical attraction, which largely speaks for itself. Someone who resembles Brad Pitt will clearly have a better shot than Tom Green at meeting that girl.

The other 8% is going to involve some sort of competition. It has been said that a girl will lose all interest in you the moment you express a modicum of interest in her instead of acting like a challenge. Some girls seem interested in guys that don’t express any real interest in favour of hobbies, other girls, or even their current priorities. It’s strange that this actually seen by the opposite sex as a way for guys to express their self-confidence. Play it too cool, and you just might lose the girl.

Another 8% goes to having some sort of novelty. This could range from being an ethnic minority to being able to beat the shit out of anyone at will. One would think that girls just want a regular guy who doesn’t act like crazy frat guys who are official taste testers for their house’s “jungle juice”, the guys who regularly smuggle out Dos Equis out of bars and drink in public or even guys who smoke ganja out of their cousin’s “Pikachu” bong. Well that is just bullshit because girls, like guys, actually want some excitement in their lives and this partly explains why you may see some attractive young girls dating 60+-year-old corporate executives, getting rammed by the asshole fraternity brother near Stone St. and even rappers.

The rest of the attraction are other factors. They could be just things such as being a Bible thumper, to being a minority, or nothing.

The next 10% are things girls claim they don’t care about but really do. For example a girl could claim that she never worries about money, but she does. So if a girl ever says she never worries about a guy going bald, the guy should tell her he will try to not stress out and will even take Rogaine just to be safe. Most of what they say they don’t care about are just white lies. When a girl says she doesn’t care about money or power, it’s just her way of saying she would love to have it and might even leave you if it doesn’t happen.

Another thing to watch out for is the code words women use. Here is a translation guide for dealing with women.

Says: I want a man who is motivated and has goals.
Means: I want a rich man

Says: I want a man who knows how to treat a woman.
Means: I want a rich man

Says: He’s from a really good family.
Means: He’s from a really rich family.

One more thing: if a guy finds a girl attractive, it’s going to be impossible to be real friends. The only way to find out is to hypothesise whether you would have sex with the girl if she suddenly goes into the bathroom and comes out naked begging you to have sex with her. Only two things will come out of this situation: either you do it or give an excuse about being fearful of ruining that special friendship. When in doubt just ask that question and you’ll know that friendship is impossible, but you will need to be honest with yourself.

What to do (now the truth is known)

Relax About Women (Preferably, the rest of your life)

Work Out (Optional, helpful)

Above All Else, Never Give Up

No Prison Break this week

The time was originally pre-empted for the World Series, which was won by the Boston Red Sox.  Let’s see in Prison Break, Sucre is being extorted by some guy, Sara lost her head, Michael is turning into MacGyver, and Whistler is a shady Australian.  I think this show has jumped the shark just like Lost with their obscure East Asian symbolism, drunken actors, and random numerology.

My last weekend out made me realise that I am missing something in my life at the same time I am capable of meeting nice people.  I am sure there are a good number of nice girls out there, the challenge is mostly meeting nice girls that are single and straight.  I think this may hold true for girls looking for confident, reasonable, and decent guys, but it’s much easier for them.  My core looked out for me when I was at my worse and they are great company, but sometimes I wished a few of them broke out of their shell…

It’s times like this I wish there were large and affordable Sugar-Apples around to eat.

Although they look like disgusting vegetables, they are actually quite sweet especially after they ripen.  However, they become obscenely sweet if you let them ripen too much.  Most of these large-sized Sugar-Apples were about $3-4 USD in Taiwan but cost about $7-10 USD over in America due to import duties, FDA quality control, and distribution.  All it involves is just a fork and peeling away the green peels to unveil the sweet, yellow fruit that lies inside that actually goes well with crushed ice.

Now that idiot Bernanke is again considering cutting the interest rates to just jump start the ailing economy from the subprime fiasco.  Bernanke should know that cutting rates will only help the hedge fund managers, the traders and the analysts in the short-term but it will do nothing to make this subprime bullshit go away anytime soon.  People start defaulting on their debts, this eventually spills over to consumer debt (eg credit card), then it affects goods and services in the retail sector which in turn affects the manufacturers and services themselves.   It’s even worse when all these bad commercial paper is lying somewhere in overseas investments.

The US economy is going to slow down in the next 1 to 2 years, even if it doesn’t end in a recession if we are lucky.  Worse of all the supposed rate cut will only further debase the US dollar against world currencies.  Already it is going to cost around $1.05USD to buy a Canadian dollar while $0.90USD can get an Australian dollar plus the Chinese Yuan is now hovering around 7.40 to the dollar.  If Bernanke does a rate cut, regardless of the basis points reduced, he is just going to cave into Wall Street instead of looking over for the people he professed to help when he acknowledged that a powerful Federal Reserve contributed to the Great Depression.   It’s times like this I wished ING or eTrade allowed for high interest savings to be kept in foreign currencies.