The Rational National

$NYSI - Looks toppy

2011-11-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

This indicator is quite useful for swing trading..

Zerohedge: CME Goes To Margin DefCon 1: Makes Maintenance Margin Equal To Initial For... Everything!? | ZeroHedge

2011-11-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Unreal..if this has merit..wow. Bank holiday anyone?

CME Goes To Margin DefCon 1: Makes Maintenance Margin Equal To Initial For... Everything!? | ZeroHedge

Rhyming?

2011-08-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

You decide...

NB: The 50 has not crossed the 200 yet!

And then there's this ratio chart of the $SPX:$TNX - is it different this time?

For your consideration..

2011-07-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Great video..

Bahaha

2011-04-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

Nice one..

Selling put options to keep rates low? IMA JUST OPEN UP A NEW ONE

Sometimes..you have to wonder.

2011-04-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

The other week I asked my accountant how hard it would be to setup a bank. I mean, these guys really live the good life don't they? Here's Matt's most recent article (link) make sure you read it..and of course, watch this:

...and then contemplate Max Keiser's proposed solution:

Good Canadian boys

2011-04-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Here's to coffee..thanks boys...for everything

Rick Santelli

2011-04-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

Great rant. The scale of things are lost on folks. Many have become numb to the numbers. Rick reminds everyone that the estimates for the cost of the Japan recovery of the quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster could be addressed with one month of the US deficit spending. ASTONISHING.

Another great video

2011-04-05T13:44:00.001-07:00

Rational, plain thought - and that is appealing to me.

Regenerative Medicine

2011-03-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

While doing a masters degree in 2006, my class was asked what effect the baby-boomer retirement would have on productivity in our society, and what we could do about it. I responded with "accelerate research in regenerative medicine and keep those people working"! The prof. felt that it was too far fetched. This video is from 2009, three years after that discussion. Exciting stuff..

Davidowitz

2011-03-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

This is rational, practical, pragmatic thought if I've ever heard it. Must watch:

Go get 'em Dylan

2011-03-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

SCAM SCAM SCAM - Obama-rama-ding-dong, let's see some handcuffs. Oh, and F*CK YOU

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Great stuff over at Jesse's

2011-02-25T20:50:00.000-08:00

Prospects for US Banks and the Economic Recovery

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Matt Taibbi

2011-02-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Via Jesse's:
This strikes to the heart of what I have called the credibility trap.

The US government cannot effectively deal with the financial crisis and the required credible reforms because in fixing the problems they would necessarily expose the underlying fraud, and endanger the very powerful status quo that funds them and their political campaigns.

This is more difficult to manage than a liquidity trap because the very means of remedy have been co-opted. The doctors caused the illness, and cannot pursue a cure without admitting their malpractice, which may not have been done in simple error but with complicity.

So this malaise and period of selective recovery will continue until there is a another, more destructive crisis that finally clears away the fog of corruption. Or there is some exogenous event to distract the people to some other problem, to change their focus. 'Never waste a crisis' as they say in the Washington Beltway.

Taibbi: Why Wall Street Isn't In Jail - Video Interview

Jim Grant

2011-01-28T13:29:00.001-08:00

Via Zero Hedge - please follow this link and watch the video.

Jim Grant, who will never be accused of being a fan of the Criminal Reserve, and whose views on what will happen to asset prices in a printer-happy world are gradually being validated, appeared on Bloomberg TV, telling Margaret Brennan upfront that Bernanke owes the world an apology. Alas, after various revolutions around the world have been catalyzed by Bernanke's policies, we have a feeling that ever more oppressed people will soon see the Printer in Chief as a patron saint of violent revolution, alas against crony regimes fully supported by the US (and hopefully the US will view it the same way when its time comes). That aside, Grant's criticism of the Fed should really start to grate on the Chaircreature: "I think what would be very good for the Fed if there would be a confession, the Fed should confess that it has sinned grievously, and is in violation of every single precept of its founders and every single convention of classical central banking. Quantitative Easing is a symptom of the difficulties that the Fed has created for itself. The Fed is running a balance sheet which if it were the balance sheet attached to a bank in the private sector would probably move the FDIC to shut it down. The New York Branch of the Fed is leveraged more than 80 to 1. Meaning, that a loss of asset value of less than 1.5% would send it into receivership if it were a different kind of institution...The Fed is now in the business of manipulating the stock market." Jim also has some very critical discussions on how the Fed never settles up on the $3.4 trillion in custodial debt on its books. As always, we can't get enough as more and more mainstream figures turn to bashing that biggest abortion of modern capital markets.

Is this a trend change?

2011-01-25T08:57:00.000-08:00

Well, perhaps at most one more leg up...or maybe not.

Can't make this stuff up

2011-01-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

From the economics collapse blog found here:

The following are 22 signs that austerity has already arrived in America and that it is going to be very, very painful....

#1 The financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb, has submitted a proposal to close half of all the schools in the city. His plan envisions class sizes of up to 62 students in the remaining schools.

#2 Detroit Mayor Dave Bing wants to cut off 20 percent of the entire city from police and trash services in order to save money.

#3 Things are so tight in California that Governor Jerry Brown is requiring approximately 48,000 state workers to turn in their government-paid cell phones by June 1st.

#4 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing to completely eliminate20 percent of state agencies.

#5 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has closed 20 fire departments at night and is proposing layoffs in every single city agency.

#6 In the state of Illinois, lawmakers recently pushed through a 66 percent increase in the personal income tax rate.

#7 The town of Prichard, Alabama came up with a unique way to battle their budget woes recently. They simply stopped sending out pension checksto retired workers. Of course this is a violation of state law, but town officials insist that they just do not have the money.

#8 New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently purposely skipped a scheduled 3.1 billion dollar payment to that state's pension system.

#9 The state of New Jersey is in such bad shape that they still are facing a $10 billion budget deficit for this year even after cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and laying off thousands of teachers.

#10 Due to a very serious budget shortfall, the city of Newark, New Jersey recently made very significant cuts to the police force. Subsequently, there has been a very substantial spike in the crime rate.

#11 The city of Camden, New Jersey is "the second most dangerous city in America", but because of a huge budget shortfall they recently felt forced to lay off half of the city police force.

#12 Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have all instituted "rolling brownouts" during which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis.

#13 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars.

#14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.

#15 In Connecticut, the governor is asking state legislators to approve the biggest tax increase that the state has seen in two decades.

#16 All across the United States, conditions at many state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long. The following is a quote from a recent MSNBC article about these project backlogs....

More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.

#17 The state of Arizona recently announced that it has decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program.

#18 Not only that, but Arizona is do desperate for money that they have even sold off the state capitol building, the state supreme court building and the legislative chambers.

#19 All over the nation, asphalt roads are actually being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#20 The state of Illinois is such a financial disaster zone that it is hard to even describe. According to 60 Minutes, the state of Illinois is six months behind on their bill payments. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Illinois state Comptroller Dan Hynes how many people and organizations are waiting to be paid by the state, and this is how Hynes responded....

"It's fair to say that there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be paid by the state."

#21 The city of Chicago is in such dire straits financially that officials there are actually toying with the idea of setting up a city-owned casino as a way to raise cash.

#22 Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is desperately looking for ways to cut the budget and he says that "hundreds of jurisdictions" in his state could go bankrupt over the next few years.

China p0wnage

2011-01-18T06:26:00.001-08:00

Fascinating

2011-01-17T07:45:00.001-08:00

It's worth checking back to this site for their updates on a whole raft of topics. Great mental floss:

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

2011-01-12T14:49:00.001-08:00

Interesting...

2011-01-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

On another note, I remember something I saw recently that talked about how new centuries don’t define themselves until around the 10th year or so, think WW I for the twentieth century for example. We are now in that century defining period. Will it be the weekend shooting spree the that will mark the beginning and definition of the 21st century? Possibly. I am keeping my eye on what I call the eco-eco unraveling.

I heard an interesting data point last week, the kind that sticks in my head for days and breeds lots of additional thoughts and ideas; that the oil-dependent growth needed to pull various economies out of debt is greater than the oil in the ground to enable that growth. In other words, there is more debt than there is oil to power the necessary growth to overcome it. Given the stats on Global Peak Oil – a point that now appears to have passed last year or the year before (the end of needing 1 barrel of oil’s worth of energy to extract 10 barrels, and the beginning of a new era where it takes at least 3 to 4 barrels – and going higher) – combined with the revelations about there being another 20 trillion in debts not yet accounted for by governments and banks – and the mathematical certainty of this conundrum becomes clear.

There is no question in my mind that, as Dr. Michael Hudson and others have been saying for years, most of the debts plaguing economies around the world have to be abandoned. They will never be paid. The globe is one big Iceland. So what do we do? Do what Iceland did, and say to hell with the bankers and start over again. Or do we do what Ireland is doing – extend and pretend – and throw the keys of sovereignty over to international organizations like the IMF?

Silver and the Comex..

2011-01-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Via Zero Hedge...

Ron Paul

2010-12-10T10:15:00.001-08:00

Nicely done..RP for president?

Hah!

2010-12-09T11:07:00.001-08:00

My sentiments exactly:

Finally, 61.8 fib hit on ES

2010-12-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Buzz buzz, whir whir..ahh forgettaboutit.