Market analysis

The DJI recently topped 11,000 but with poor job numbers continuing to come in, and the fed still reluctant to do QE2 I believe that a market correction of 10%-20% is imminent. The fundamentals don't justify where the stock market is right now. I would say this will happen by mid November barring QE2 or a dramatic increase in private hiring. I am not a economist or market forecaster all views expressed here are my opinion.

Just a thought

So on almost any piece in any major news outlet ive ever read about US government debt they always mention 2 things. First they always say that "communist china owns 25% of US foreign treasury debt. Now this seems like a big number at first, if you look at the numbers China actually owns much closer to 6.5% of US Government bonds. Why the huge difference? Most US T Bill debt is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund, and private investors. Only 27% of US debt is owned my foreign countries so China owns 5% of the 27%. The reason i mention this is again not to dismiss the United States debt entirely, but to put it in perspective. Another figure you will hear tossed around alot is that were 14 trillion dollars in debt! Now obviously this seems as if its a huge number but as a percent of the GDP its roughly 90%. Only 20% away from Greeces current level of debt. However most the debt is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund, and countries measure their debt in debt held by public. The US debt held by the public is around 63% of GDP. While a reaosnably large number this is not earthshattering and can be dealt with by raising taxes and cutting spending.  Most developed nations have much more government debt as a percent of GDP than we do. I'd also mention again (Not that i support hyperinflating our currency) that the debt is denominated in something that we can make infinite numbers of. So we in theory could create vast ammounts of dollars to pay the debt off with. Now obviously if taken to the extreme could cause hyperinflation, but if used moderately it could help create a climate in which the United States would have a easier time paying off its obligations.

"Unfunded Liabilities"

   Im getting really annoyed about the "unfunded liabilities" myth. So here goes the logic in the future the United States government is going to have to pay baby boomers Medicare/Social Security. Now the issue i have is that it assumes the government makes no money off the programs. That Healthcare costs keep going up at extremely fast rates, and that the government policy will never change. The reasoning behind unfunded liabilities is that its the way that businesses do accounting. However there are two major differences. First the United States issues its own money, and the money is completely controlled by the Federal Reserve System (Also known as a Fiat Money System). This means that the US cannot go bankrupt. Now im obviously not saying that we can print infinite money, but we can cause high inflation relieving the burden of US debt. The second thing is that the US can change its policy at any time. A business can't just say they will not pay their power bill, if they do they would lose their power and go out of business. However the federal goverment can, and does regularly cut costly programs. So assuming we will never again cut a program borders on fantasy. As a sidenote investor confidence is close to a all time high on 30 year US T bills. Determined by their interest rates (Investors charge more interest on riskier investments).

Edit: Id also like to add that i don't consider them a non issue. However the hype regarding them, and throwing out numbers randomly between 25 trillion and 140 trillion helps noone and just goes to show the incredible ammount of guesswork involved. Id also note that this is over a 75 year stretch. I think the Healthcare reform law goes along way towards fixing the issue, but we do need more legislation not just to help relieve government debt, but to keep healthcare costs from strangling the private sector to.

Sarah Palin/Glenn beck rally today

Nothing really exciting happened just alot of "common sense conservatives" got together, and talked about how were socialists for doing things like regulating banks, and not letting people starve to death in the streets because they got laid off.

Deflation?

To all the people crying that the stimulus and bailouts were going to lead to high levels of inflation. At the current time deflation presents the largest threat to the United States/Global economy. When people usually think deflation they think that falling prices is good, but deflation is normally excess capacity so businesses lower prices in a attempt to get costumers. This slims the businesses profit margins which causes lower wages. At the same time the debt burden on consumers and companies increase causing defaults. Deflation is a very bad thing, and should be avoided. In the long run due to the Moneterist policy the United States has been pursuing we will have to raise interest rates at some distant point to prevent stagflation.

Obama is a

Socialistcommunistfacistmuslimterroristdictatorhitler FEMA CAMPS!!!!

Why i have a problem with the name "Ground Zero Mosque"

So if you have listened to the news in the last month you have doubtless heard of the alleged "Ground Zero Mosque" or the "Victory Mosque". First i would make the point that its 4 blocks from Ground Zero not on  Ground Zero as the name implies. The Imam wants to bridge out to other religions and is very pro western, totally on the opposite side of the spectrum from radical Muslims. Now the project was proposed awhile ago, but only recently became a issue. Why? because of the November elections. This has just become another talking point of the Republican establishment. You know what else is within 4 blocks of Ground Zero? A Burger king a Mc Donald's and a Gentlemen's club. There needs to be a serious discussion ab