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Uncle Ho and the Founding Fathers
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
******************
“…we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”  – President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
___________________________

I can't speak for you, of course, but there was no need for me to hear the words above pass the lips of the US President for me to be convinced he is a communist.

See, I'm so old I actually got an education when I went to school.  Hell, by the time I had graduated high school I had an education every bit the equivalent of, at least, a two year college degree -- by today's standards -- maybe even four years depending upon the individual institutions of higher learning.

Plus, I am a veteran of the US military during the Vietnam War. 

Look.  I won't dispute that Uncle Ho may have studied our Founding Fathers and founding documents.  Lots of dictators have done so.   Heck, if I was a fledgling dictator, I'd be darned sure to study those men and those documents because -- they are dangerous to tyrants and dictators. 

No, I wasn't surprised to hear Obama mention Uncle Ho in a respectful manner.  Not in the least.  Ho Chi Minh was an enemy of the United states.  'Nough said.

Our President, Obama is a died in the wool socialist.  (Socialism is what one might call "Communism Lite.")  His spread the wealth policies and statist philosophy of governing and disrespect for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and his shallow knowledge of US history mark him for what he truly is.

Ho Chi Minh was a bone fide tyrant.  A communist tyrant! 

The following is a clip from a piece published in Reader's Digest back in November of 1968:

"The terror had its real beginning when Red dictator Ho Chi Minh consolidated his power in the North. More than a year before his 1954 victory over the French, he launched a savage campaign against his own people. In virtually every North Vietnamese village, strong-arm squads assembled the populace to witness the “confessions” of landowners. As time went on, businessmen, intellectuals, school teachers, civic leaders — all who represented a potential source of future opposition — were also rounded up and forced to “confess” to “errors of thought.” There followed public “trials,” conviction and, in many cases, execution. People were shot, beheaded, beaten to death; some were tied up, thrown into open graves and covered with stones until they were crushed to death, Ho has renewed his terror in North Vietnam periodically. Between 50,000 and 100,000 are believed to have died in these blood-baths — in a coldly calculated effort to discipline the party and the masses. To be sure, few who escape Ho’s terror now seem likely to tempt his wrath. During the 1950s, however, he had to quell some sizeable uprisings in North Vietnam — most notably one that occurred in early November 1956, in the An province, which included Ho’s birthplace village of Nam Dan. So heavily had he taxed the region that the inhabitants finally banded together and refused to meet his price. Ho sent troops to collect, and then sent in an army division, shooting. About 6,000 unarmed villagers were killed. The survivors scattered, some escaping to the South. The slaughter went largely unnoticed by a world then preoccupied with the Soviet Union’s rape of Hungary."   SOURCE:  http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/vietnam/hochiminh.html   

Consider this:  "On November 15, 2008, Sam Webb, National Chair of the Communist Party USA delivered an address to the Communist Party USA National Committee. During his address, he noted the following concerning the party's relationship with Obama,

    "The left can and should advance its own views and disagree with the Obama administration without being disagreeable. Its tone should be respectful. We are speaking to a friend."  SOURCE: http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party

And this:

"The late Marxist academic Manning Marable claimed that Barack Obama has read some of his books and "understands what socialism is."

Marable, writing in the December 2008 issue of British Trotskyist journal Socialist Review, also claimed that Obama worked in Chicago with socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party.

    What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organizer. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago who have worked with him for years... "   SOURCE:  http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party

Frank Marshall Davis became Obama's mentor at the tender age of ten years.  " ... FBI file reveals that Davis (born 1905) became interested in the Communist Party USA as far back as 1931.

Certainly from the mid/late '30s to the early '40s Davis was involved in several Communist Party fronts including the the National Negro Congress, the League of American Writers, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and the Civil Rights Congress.

The FBI first began tracking Davis in 1944 when they identified him as member of the Communist Party's Dorie Miller Club in Chicago-card number 47544.

Davis taught courses at the party controlled Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago and attended meetings of the party's Cultural Club until he left for Hawaii in 1948."  SOURCE:  http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party
(We recommend you read the entire article cited above.  It is entitled:  "Barack Obama and the Communist Party."  You will find it at:  http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party )

And finally -- "The famed Russian news site “Pravda,” which ironically was formed as the official Communist publication of the former Soviet Union, recently released a scathing opinion column entitled, “Obama’s Soviet Mistake,” in which the author unabashedly labels the U.S. president a “Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so.” - SOURCE: http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2012/11/blazecast-russian-news-outlet-labels.html#sthash.eECgrcwI.dpuf 

No, I was NOT surprised by Mr. Obama's drift from the teleprompter line.   (NOW you know why his "handlers" have him virtually chained to a teleprompter!)

But, dear reader, what is even MORE troubling is this:  With all this knowledge of Obama sympathies toward communism, roughly half the American electorate put him in office -- and kept him there for a second term.  Now THAT is TRULY frightening!

© J. D. Longstreet

Click to enlarge.

Not all exponential growth trends fail spectacularly with a trend reversal? Some actually accelerate to the upside? Who knew?



I don't think I've ever been quite so optimistic about the future! Why weren't we doing this all along? It took us nearly a century to finally figure out the trick to perpetual prosperity? What's wrong with us?

July 26, 2013
Consumer Confidence Revisits High Set in 2007


Yes! That's the spirit! I am not alone in my optimism! We'll spend more and accelerate growth in the months ahead just like we did in 2007! What could possibly go wrong?

The Great Recession began in December of 2007? Seriously? It's a fact? I'm way too frickin' optimistic to listen to the naysayers! Shun the nonbelievers!

Three More Years of Goldilocks! We're heading to Candy Mountain! Woohoo!

Got kidney?

See Also:
Sarcasm Disclaimer

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: St. Louis Adjusted Monetary Base

Click to enlarge.

Yay. We've recovered.

June 22, 2006
Citigroup and Coca-Cola: Two Global Investors Share Their Experiences in Emerging Markets

That priceless anecdote was brought to us courtesy of Knowledge@Wharton. With knowledge like that, who needs ignorance?

Source Data:
Yahoo Finance: Citigroup Historical Prices
St. Louis Fed: CPI

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Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: MZM Money Stock
St. Louis Fed: Money Market Accounts: National Rate of Banks

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Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

The question we face is "will we end America's liberal journey as a fascist country (our current trajectory) or as the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

Help educate the brainwashed...!

We need to educate the ignorant, send this video to a lib or two, (a dozen) ... ALSO - send it to kids in school, even your very young grandkids and your nieces and nephews.  Kids know something is wrong  with America, they are yearning for answers, help them... suggest they ponder this age old concept ...




Give liberals a chance to show how smart they are - have them explain this.

You younger kids in the school, engage your teachers, explain the U-Haul research on this video. I contend it is simple supply and demand. Have them do their own research and prove me wrong...

Send it to your news papers and ask them to verify it.  Put it to the test... 

 ask them if they do similar studies on anything important?

A city inspector stole three packages of cigarettes from a child he humiliated and forced to dump candy on the ground at the Municipality of the Centro de la Zona Luz in Villahermosa, Tabasco.

Malaise is here -- Misery Index On The Way
"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*************

You DO realize this is President Jimmy Carter's third term -- don't you? 

Yeah.  I KNOW that's not funny.  There hasn't been much fun for a long time now.

During the Carter era years I was trying to run a profitable business, keep all my employees on the payroll, and figure out how to comply with all the ridiculous regulations handed down from DC -- up to and where, exactly, to set the heating and cooling thermostat in my office!  YES!  It WAS just that ridiculous.

The picture of Jimmy Carter in a cardigan sweater sitting in front of a fireplace with logs burning cheerfully in the background still haunt my nightmares to this day.

You know, Obama was not the first President to be referred to as the Messiah.  Carter owns that irreverent title. At some point during that trying time some one tacked a photo of  Jesus Christ with Jimmy Carter's face superimposed on the head of Christ on one of our studio's bulletin boards.  It came down when Reagan was elected.  

It was, indeed, a miserable time.

The country was wallowing in syrupy malaise.  And then there was the misery Index.  (You find the misery index by adding the unemployment figure to the inflation figure.)   It was pure-"T" awful under the Carter Administration.

Jimmy Carter delivered the famous or infamous televised "Malaise" speech on July 15, 1979. That was 34 years ago.  

Recently Laura Ingram said the following:  "Friday marked the 32-year-anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” later pegged “malaise speech,” a nationally televised and ill-received address trying to combat what Carter saw as apathy and doubt among Americans concerning politics and the energy crisis. In the days following the speech Carter fired cabinet members feeling that his administration failed to capitalize on a window of opportunity, which some believe was the beginning of the end for Carter and his ability to appear as a strong and significant leader.

Thirty-two years later another first term Democratic president faces a crisis of continued economic decline and failure to bridge heated political differences from Capital Hill to Main Street. Ingraham’s audio suggests that like Carter, Obama is failing to step up as a strong and believable leader in the eyes of Americans looking to him in a time of crisis."  SOURCE:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/07/16/laura-ingraham-airs-scary-obama-remix-of-jimmy-carters-malaise-speech/

My friend Alan Caruba said recently:  "The current economic malaise has affected everyone in some fashion—losing a job, having a job converted to a part-time status, having work hours limited, possibly facing foreclosure on their home, experiencing extremely low interest rates on their savings, the higher cost of gas and groceries, all without seriously affecting Obama’s job approval ratings or popularity."  Source:  http://www.factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-economy-it-must-be-gops-fault-right.html

If you recall, Carter's Malaise speech, otherwise known as the "Crisis of Confidence" speech you will instantly note that it sounds exactly like speeches given by President Obama today. 

For instance Carter said:  "I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense -- I tell you it is an act of patriotism."  SOURCE:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/

Of course we knew it was more an act of desperation on Carter's part than it was patriotism on the part of the American civilian population.  We weren't as dumb then as we are today. For evidence, note that WE DID NOT REELECT CARTER TO A SECOND TERM!

A year ago I wrote the following:  "Malaise in an individual is bad.  Malaise in a nation can be fatal.

America is currently mired in the worst case of malaise in my lifetime.

I’ve been around since FDR was President.  I have experienced American national malaise twice in my lifetime.  Both times it was during the administrations of Democratic Party Presidents.

The first case of American malaise (in my lifetime) was under the administration of the 39th President of the United States—Jimmy Carter.  It was BAD.

I was trying to run a business—and it was pure hell.  All business could do was hunker down and wait for a flicker of light at the end of that very long and very dark tunnel.

When it came, it was not a flicker—it was a sunburst by the name of Ronald Reagan.

America came roaring out of her national depression and raced back to the to the top—turning on all the lights as they went —illuminating “the shining city on a hill.”

Now, under the Obama administration (another Democratic Party President) here we are—in an even deeper national depression—or malaise—than we were even under Jimmy Carter.  This time—there is no Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings. In my opinion THAT is why THIS malaise is even deeper than Carter’s."  SOURCE:  "America’s Malaise Is BACK!" at: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/48449

I wrote those few words BEFORE the 2012 election.  As I said in that piece, there was a sense of impending doom which spanned the entire right side of the political spectrum in America.

A year ago, when I wrote those words,  America's future doom, under an Obama second term, was as clear as the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's Feast. (You'll find the story in the fifth chapter of Daniel in the Old Testament of the Bible.  We recommend you read it.  It certainly won't hurt -- and you just might learn something about what lies in America's immediate future.)

The moving fingers wrote: מנא, מנא, תקל, ופרס
or: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." 

So what DID those words, written by the hand of God, announce to THAT corrupt King of Babylon: "And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." — Daniel 5:25–28

Suppose, just for a moment, that that feast was a state dinner at the White House and the reigning king was Obama.  To whom would the hapless kingdom of America be about to fall?  Who ARE the modern Medes and Persians?

Well,  Easton's Illustrated Dictionary lists the Medes as part of the Assyrian Empire, which covers the area of today's IRAQ, SYRIA, and LEBANON.

The Persians are still Persians, of course, but Persia is known today as -- IRAN. 

Of course, we are thousands of years removed from that feast, but, isn't it strange how ancient scripture and modern history seem to interlace, seem to be spun and twisted together?  Interesting, what?

Is America modern Babylon?  Judge for yourself at:  http://www.beaconoftruth.com/babylon.htm

I'm no prophet, or "seer."  I just pay attention with, possibly, a higher than usual degree of situational awareness. That's all.

America's state of national malaise bespeaks a people who are uneasy about something very bad they sense is in the offing for their beloved country.  They can't get past the feeling that our shared malaise is a signal and/or a symptom of a very unpleasant future.

Whatever the reality is, we can all be sure it isn't the the future scenario, the President and his cronies are painting, of a prospering America returned to her days of glory as a result of his socialist "share the wealth" agenda.   Reality by definition is real -- and it does not match his words.

© J. D. Longstreet

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny


American's are an interesting bunch. Stubborn and fickle at the same time. Especially Republicans. But then again I question just why in the hell anyone is concerning themselves with the 2016 presidential race two years out? I guess it's because we're... Americans?

Public Policy Polling -

PPP's newest look at the Republican field for 2016 finds some big changes from our previous polling. Marco Rubio, who had led all of our polling since December, has dropped all the way to 6th place. Rand Paul now has the lead nationally, to go along with the leads he posted in our most recent Iowa and New Hampshire polls. And Ted Cruz has already hit double digits.

The numbers are: Paul 16, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Paul Ryan each at 13, Cruz at 12, Rubio at 10, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal at 4, and Susana Martinez at 2. Cruz has proven to be such a darling to the far right that he actually already leads among 'very conservative' voters with 20% to 18% for Paul and 17% for Ryan. Christie gets 24% with 'moderate' identifying Republicans but doesn't do better overall because he's at just 7% with 'very conservative' ones.

Rubio was at 21 or 22% on all of our polls between January and March but his support has now dropped to half that level. Meanwhile Paul has vaulted into the lead after starting the year at only 5% in our polling, perhaps owing to the positive attention he received from conservatives after his filibuster earlier this year. Christie and Bush have remained consistently in the 12-15% range in all of our polling.
The Republicans are looking more competitive with Hillary Clinton than they were in some of our earlier polling this year. She still leads all of the GOP hopefuls but in many of the cases it's by tight margins- 1 point over Chris Christie at 43/42, 2 points over Paul Ryan at 46/44, 3 points over Jeb Bush at 44/41, 5 points over Marco Rubio at 45/40, and 8 points over Rand Paul at 47/39. Obviously it's early but you can see a picture here that's been painted in many key Senate races over the last two cycles- the person with the most support from Republicans is also the weakest general election candidate.

Joe Biden does on average 6 points worse than Hillary against the various Republican possibilities. He trails Christie by 6 points at 45/39, Bush by 4 points at 45/41, and Ryan by 3 points at 46/43. He does at least manage ties with Paul and Rubio at 43% and 42% respectively.

Clinton continues to dominate the Democratic race, although her 40 point lead this month is down a bit from 50 and 46 points on our previous two polls. She's at 52% to 12% for Biden, 6% for Elizabeth Warren, 5% for Kirsten Gillibrand, and 3% for Cory Booker with no one else above 2%.

In a Clinton-less field Biden leads with 34% to 13% for Warren, 10% for Andrew Cuomo, and 4% for Booker with no one else above 3%. And in a field without either Clinton or Biden the leader for the first time is Elizabeth Warren who gets 20% to 11% for Cuomo, 8% for Booker, and 5% for Gillibrand. Full results here

Via: Memeorandum

July 24, 2013
No, Meredith Whitney, Detroit's Bankruptcy Is Not Going To Lead To A Wave Of Municipal Defaults


The following chart compares the yield of a municipal bond index (bond buyer index, general obligation, 20 years to maturity, mixed quality) to the yield of the 20-year treasury.


Click to enlarge.



If the long-term trend in this chart continues, then municipal bond yields will rise (and will continue to rise) once treasury yields stop falling. How's that for scary? Want scarier? The declining long-term linear trend has actually failed. The Great Recession caused it to go from bad to worse.

I'm therefore willing to offer an opinion.

Yes, Meredith Whitney, over the long-term Detroit's bankruptcy could very well lead to a wave of municipal defaults. For what it is worth, I'm not a big fan of investing in declining linear trends breaking to the downside. I have had no desire to invest in municipal bonds at any point in my life. I feel no great need to start now.

This is not investment advice.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

Vanessa Vásquez

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny


He does it again! Maybe it's in the name?

New York Post - Anthony Weiner came up with an extraordinary excuse yesterday to explain why he went back to sexting after supposedly kicking the habit — he was suffering from marital woes.

In a startling e-mail letter sent to rally campaign supporters, Weiner said he sought hot-blooded female consolation on the Internet when he and his wife, Huma Abedin, hit a rocky patch in their relationship last summer.

At the time, Weiner had been out of Congress for a year, having resigned in disgrace, and was giving interviews with his wife at his side claiming he was cured.

“It was a terrible mistake that I unfortunately returned to during a rough time in our marriage,” Weiner said in the e-mail.

Later, at a press conference, he went into more detail.

“I think that a lot of people see the resignation was the end of the challenges my wife and I, my family faced, and it wasn’t,” Weiner said. “It was part of something that needed to get resolved and frankly it hadn’t been.

“It took some work to get to that place. It wasn’t a function that a certain moment in time came and went. It was a continuum. These things are behind me now.”

A defiant Weiner vowed not to quit the race for mayor despite revelations that he used an online pseudonym — Carlos Danger — to exchange dozens of sexually explicit messages, phone calls and photos with a 22-year-old Indiana woman identified as Sydney Leathers. {Read More}

A PATHETICALLY small unstable man.

Via: Memeorandum

Child made to dump candy after a public official from the municipality of the Centro de la Zona Luz in Villahermosa, Tabasco forced him to toss the candy away.

A National Shouting Match On Racism
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*********************

As a Southerner, I am used to -- well, allow me to rephrase that:  as far as it is possible, I am used to being called a racist, a bigot, a redneck, and several other epithets that I refuse to print here.  That is not to say that I am comfortable with them, I am not.  Nevertheless, again, as a southerner, hardly a day goes by that such disparaging words are not used, in reference to yours truly, singularly, as an individual, or collectively, as a member of the politically conservative right, or regionally, as a Southerner. 

I suppose the thing about all this infantile name calling that troubles me most is the utter hypocrisy of those using such hurtful language. I have learned as an adult that many, if not most, of those tossing about such colorful, yet hollow charges, are soaked in ignorance of the origins of such words and the history of the my region of America, and indeed, the history of America itself.

For instance -- before the American Civil War, (you know -- the war we Southerners refer to, and think of, as “The War for Southern Independence,”) it was the Democratic Party, that had a death grip on the Southern States, which our young scholars have been  erroneously, taught were the only slave holding states in the country. 
That is far from the truth, very far. The Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States, including Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, had legally sanctioned slavery in the 17th, 18th and even part of the 19th centuries.

This may come as a shock to you but… not only were black people enslaved in the North for over two hundred years, but the vast majority of all slave trading in America was done by northerners. Yes, we did just say: “The VAST Majority….”  Remarkably, half of all North American voyages involved in the slave trade originated in Rhode Island, and all the northern states benefited. This is a fact much hidden from the youthful eyes of America’s young scholars for many, many, decades.  In fact, many of those folks who so piously refer to Southerners as racists (because of our ancestors participation in the detestable trade) themselves hail from regions (and, yes, even families) that made fortunes on the trade of African blacks into slavery. 

Shocked?  You needn’t be.  It has been SOP in America’s public (Government) school system for many years.  It is the foundation of the ignorance from which springs the scurrilous charges made against so many of my ancestors and yes, even this scribe today.

I tell you this so you will be less shocked when we say that much of the name calling of southerners and politically right conservatives is coming from Representatives and Senators, of those Northern States who desperately want to paint all members of the political right as racists, and bigots.

There is also a statement made, time and again, which goes something like this:  Blacks, or, if you prefer, African-Americans, cannot be racists because they lack power or clout.  That is absolutely pure, unadulterated nonsense, clap-trap, BS, horse hockey, and a few other things we dare not print for general consumption.   If one human hates another because of the color of his skin, regardless of the color of his own, that is bigotry.  We see it everyday, as well, or hear it referenced every day in the music popularly known as “Rap” Music and "Hip-Hop" music. 

The left claims to want a national “conversation” about racism in America.  They don’t, of course.  If they did they’d stop using the first sentences out of the mouths of members of the right to label them racists , which simply shuts off all conversation instantly.

No.  The left does not want a national confab on racism in America.  It is a ploy, that’s all. 

White America has grown tired of pretending not to see the overt racism of the left.  We’ve grown exceedingly resentful of being used as a punching bag and we’re beginning to punch back. 

The national conversation on racism in America, the left claims to want, may yet materialize – in the streets of the nation’s cities as black and white mobs clash.  It will be a conversation of the fist and club and, eventually, the gun. 

Nobody in their right mind wants this to happen. But that is exactly where America is headed once the last straw is applied to the camel’s back.

I DO realize the weight of the words above.  I DO realize, as well, that until we are ready, as a people, as a nation, to face up, honestly, to the racism of the left -- and the black community in particular – then it is a non-starter.  Until that time a civil conversation will not be had for it cannot be had.

The best we can hope for is the continued stand-off and the barely concealed hatred boiling just beneath the surface. The plain truth is, I believe, the very best we can hope for is that the black community will continue to pretend they're not racists and the white community will continue to pretend that it doesn't notice black racism.

No, there will be no national conversation on racism.  There WILL be more shouting matches, bruised egos, and hurt feelings, which will do nothing to salve the wounds of the vicious national argument on racism.

WE Americans have tried for 237 years to hold the people of the country together in some sort of union -- even with the numerous cracks and fault lines running between us.  Today those cracks and fault lines have become chasms. And some are un-crossable. This is one of them.

© J. D. Longstreet

Mexican authorities say, each undocumented immigrant paid $5,000 dollars to be transported from Guatemala to the U.S. border.

July 6, 2013
CNBC may tinker with primetime


I'm still glued. I love to see analysts fight over a stock. You know. One says that it will rise by 10% and the other claims it will rise by 20%. That's great info for me. I just average their estimates, assume I'll earn that over the long-term, and then go on spending sprees at my local Sears, J.C. Penney, and Radio Shack.

And don't even get me started on how useful Mad Money and Fast Money are to me. I love both of those shows so much that mere words can barely do it justice. Mad? Yes! Fast? Yes! It's the only way to make risk-free money over the long-term now that the economy has been horribly crippled and disfigured.

In fact, I use the information I get there to compete with other people also getting their information from there. It's like getting inside information that's actually shared with everyone. Not only that, but this mechanism really levels the playing field between retail traders and institutional traders. I'm watching a TV with some crazed guy pushing sound effect buttons but they only have supercomputers and advanced trading algorithms! What could possibly go wrong?

Click to enlarge.

Gasp in horror at the return to the long-term declining trend lines. Behold the exponential trend failures which have been foretold for years! Any second now! Brace for them!

So when will the Fed raise rates? Let's listen to the experts!

December 23, 2010
Economists: Fed won't raise rates until 2012


The current bid is 2012. Can I hear 2013? Yes!

January 12, 2012
Economists Expect Fed to Raise Rates by 2014


Can I hear a "well before 2014"? Yes, you sir in your ivory tower!

March 26, 2012
Fed to Raise Rates `Well Before 2014' Siegel Says

Can I get a 2015? Yes, you sir! 2016? Yes! Yes!

April 30, 2013
Fed Officials Forecast Main Rate to Stay Near Zero Until 2015


This is a very popular item guaranteed to impress the ladies. Can I get a "Years in the Future" bid? Yes!

July 10, 2013
Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel Thinks the Fed Raising Rates Is Years in the Future


Sold to the desperate man in the ivory tower! Nicely played Professor Siegel! We'll just forget about your previous "well before 2014" bid. That was just crazy talk.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
Bloomberg: US Rates

Click to enlarge image.Yeah right, Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA) investigated and discovered that scammers have been using an actual couple's name who won a British lottery and this scammers are trying to scam victims. The Gillian lottery e-mail scam began several years ago, according to authorities. 

The following chart shows the difference in yield between the 10-year treasury and the average of the 5-year treasury and 20-year treasury yields.


Click to enlarge.

As seen in the chart, the 10-year treasury is actually yielding about 0.25% more than we might expect. By comparison to other treasuries, it is currently very unloved.

When was the last time we've heard a financial expert on CNBC tell us to buy a 10-year treasury and hold to maturity? All we are told, ad nauseum, is how dangerous treasuries are. Right?

In my opinion, the financial "experts" keep scaring savers into shorter term treasuries because it is "common knowledge" that yields will rise any day now. Meanwhile, is there another group, a more secretive group, which apparently doesn't mind buying the 20-year treasury? That's what I see when I look at this chart anyway. One group clearly embraces the 5-year. Another group clearly embraces the 20-year. It's very polarized. There is no middle ground. I very much doubt that both groups are right. On a risk vs. reward basis, perhaps the 10-year is a bargain.

For what it is worth, I generally prefer long-term TIPS and I-Bonds, but I have also purchased long-term EE-Bonds in moderation (currently yielding 3.53% if held 20 years, since they are guaranteed to double in price over the period). I continue to believe that this economy cannot support high real yields either now or well into the distant future.

This is not investment advice. It's just something to think about.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
U.S. Treasury: Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates