Obama and the economy FIRST term

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Obama and the economy FIRST term

Do you think a president can have a massive impact on the economy in his or her first term?  If so, please be specific. Past presidential evidence would be great. Do you think Obama's administration can truly fix the economy in 4 years? Thanks!


darth_josh
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Which part of the economy?

Which part of the economy? The day trader/traitor economy or actual markets?

 

Hint: One of those can be manipulated right in front of your eyes like a game of 3-card monte.

 

Flip over to CNBC the next time someone prominent is supposed to give a speech on the economy and watch the ticker. Weigh the speaker's prominence and the speech according to whether or not it affects certain stocks and that stock's component weight on the DJIA. Multiply by 10% of the VIX and you'll be able to predict the effect of the speech on the stock market. I'm +- 30 points on the dow when there is little breaking news affecting the top nine weighted components.

Obama is good for financial stocks, bad for industrial stocks. Only 11 of the Dow 30 are financials so he will only be able to cancel 31% of the bad economy on his present course by my convoluted guess. That's better than Bush who is good for -60 points as soon as he walks into the Rose Garden.

I don't know how he'll fare with regard to the technicals on the NASDAQ or the few on the S&P. Putting the video on youtube yesterday is good for 10 points on the NASDAQ I think, but long-term is questionable. Yahoo is dragging today, but will rally on Thursday hardcore +7% over last week despite this week's dismal performance.

The CME(old NYMEX) is independent of such political concerns. Look for any tariffs that Obama might want to include in his package to hurt durable goods and that will be the only thing he could do wrong right now for you capitalist sycophants(sorry had to get that out. lol.)

Want to make money? Wait until mid-December and buy 'green' stocks with medium dividends not necessarily higher than a fed note, hold them until March then sell, sell, sell after you get the first quarter's dividend.

Send 8.7% of your net profit to the RRS, become a world socialist, and thank me.

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There was just an article in

There was just an article in the paper that even thought the first few years of the Bush administration the economy was techincally good, things got worse for those not making a lot of money. It's important to look at how the poor/middle class are doing rather than just the markets/rich motherfuckers.

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MattShizzle wrote:There was

MattShizzle wrote:

There was just an article in the paper that even thought the first few years of the Bush administration the economy was techincally good, things got worse for those not making a lot of money. It's important to look at how the poor/middle class are doing rather than just the markets/rich motherfuckers.

Sometimes.

Weekly unemployment numbers come out on Thursday mornings. Sometimes it makes a difference, but it really matters where the jobs went. A company restructuring by eliminating jobs will see its stock price fluctuate for a few daays and then it will be on a steady rise. Like Citigroup this week.

Josh's prediction for the DOW close today = 8401 +-30

It will rise today. Opening Bell is in eleven minutes. We shall see. As long as GM stays in limbo today.

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Oops. 1 hour eleven minutes.

Oops. 1 hour eleven minutes. lol. I never set my wall clock back.

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The unemployment numbers can

The unemployment numbers can be misleading because they only include people actually getting unemployment.

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MattShizzle wrote:The

MattShizzle wrote:

The unemployment numbers can be misleading because they only include people actually getting unemployment.

We can't go on what WE know. We have to go on what they're thinking.

It gives them a number and they look for which company has dropped its payroll and whether or not it will still make a profit.

Several factors are counterintuitive to logic's use. Dropping a CEO can be a red flag or a green flag whereas you and I would expect a period of chaos following a drastic change, these guys(traders) think flowers will miraculously sprout from a new guy/gal's ass in almost every instance.

 

When Obama finishes the cabinet preliminaries (such as naming a potential treasury secretary), it will add 20% to the VIX instantaneously.

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Just thinking and

Just thinking and ranting.

 

Dow closed 8424.

23 points higher than I predicted, but I said +-30.

When the VIX goes down into the 30's, my predictions will get closer. The S&P 500 has much more effect upon trading. So when you couple it with commodities price fluctuations and compare and contrast the indices, it gives you the answer.

Obama will replace the 'Bush administration' factor eventually. Probably March when the last bits of 'change' happen. If you're going to buy a house wait until March. If you're wanting to sell a house, wait until mid-2010.

 

This capitalism shit is pathetically scripted. Alot of people see the 'suits' on the news and in the pits and think "Wow. Those guys must be successful." I look at them and think "Wow. Someone dressed up Larry the Cable Guy."

Tentatively, tomorrow will be another slight gain. I won't have numbers and news roundup until 5:30 eastern.

Why pay attention? In order to hate, and I mean truly hate, something then one should understand it first.

I hate capitalism and I know why.

 

Obama is hope for all of us, but even the best doctors in the world can't save capitalism's suicide bombers on the NYSE, NADAQ, and CME.

He won't be able to put a moratorium on day trading speculation because the people who make their salaries that way would riot and sell incrementally until nothing was left. No tracks for the SEC to follow easily.

Obama will be spending his initial days on foreign matters trying to correlate them with the markets at home. He's intelligent enough that he'll figure out how very little they matter to the 'home' economy unless they're buying stuff from us or through us.

Central America will see a depression in 2010. If he thinks like Clinton (both) then he will see that as an opportunity to tax the shit out of other countries wanting to invest in C.A. companies. He will probably use environmental concerns as a disguise for charging garish tariffs on things passing through. Bush used terrorism, but that is getting old and worn.

Obama will see the first actual cut in OPEC production that a sitting president will have since Reagan. There will be a surplus this week of over a million barrels and that will trim to even until the second week of December.

Obama will probably see the 111th congress attack the great oil speculation of 2008 and he will fall into party lines. Barney, Nancy, and Henry will propose 'limit up' legislation allowing for market manipulation using the strategic oil reserve as leverage. The president has this power, but if he ever used it then he would be pariah on Wall Street and Chicago. The CME will go nuts. Those guys and girls are like sharks smelling blood on Wednesday morning when the crude inventory numbers come out.

Iraq sucks and we won't see a dime of their billions in profit. Iran will go back to using the dollar for oil pricing when the Euro bottoms in January to 1.08. Sorry, europe. Your problems have just begun.

 

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I've been saying online how

I've been saying online how much I hate capitalism for years now.


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Yes, a first term president

Yes, a first term president could impact the economy. The better question is should he. There is always the laws of unintended consequences to deal with. For example, Cynthia McKinney ran for president under a plan to nationalize the banking system. Had she been elected there would be no way for her to implement her plan as it would mean a loss of profit incentive for banks. However, for sake of argument suppose her plan was successfull, without the motivation of gains to be made, the banks would become bloated like every other government run institution. I favor disolving the FED and allowing markets to work like markets should run without the federal reserve regulating the economy. Yes, I do understand that doing so would have unintended consequences that we could not foresee, but our brand of capitalism (if we can call it that) should not have to bail out poor leadership and reward ineptitude. 

I don't think Obama will be able to fix the current situation we are in. The years of living on credit are coming to a close. We've chosen for too long to borrow from others and pretend that credit represents wealth. The strength of the economy is built on a strong foundation of the middle and working classes. Without a method of rebuilding our manufacturing base we can only expect things to get worse. China is expected to outpace our manufacturing in the near future, but all may not be lost. If we develop good fair trade policies with China and other rising nations we could secure a good future for both economies. The heart of NAFTA is sound, but the execution was terrible. Wow..... unintended consequences again. Corporations that sent jobs overseas were expected to dramatically increase the quality of life for their workers and in turn create demand for our more high tech industries. This has yet to happen.

So in a nutshell maybe Obama will be able to do some good, but I won't hold my breath. Boom and bust cycles are caused by too much regulation or not enough regulation in many cases. We would all love to see a steady rise in the economy but the system is flawed like every other system we have developed. Until we can come up with a sure fire system for economic growth (which can never happen) we are stuck with periods of excess and periods of want.

  

 

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darth_josh wrote:I hate

darth_josh wrote:

I hate capitalism and I know why.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this for curiosity's sake?  I tend to view the markets as fancy ways of gambling.  However, markets are only an aspect of capitalism, existing in current form due to Free Market religion.  Do you object to capitalism on more personal levels?

What resources do you use when looking at what's driving the VIX?  I'm more accustomed to looking at the S&P 500, but would be very interested in learning more about commodities markets. 

(Let me know if you would rather move this to another thread or PM. )

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Observer wrote:Do you think

Observer wrote:

Do you think a president can have a massive impact on the economy in his or her first term? 

They COULD... but they are politicians after all, so its generally not worth it for them

 

Observer wrote:

Do you think Obama's administration can truly fix the economy in 4 years? Thanks!

No true fix, he might be able to level the american economy off, what takes years to build can be destroyed in moments  so its highly unlikely that everythings gonna be A.OK when he leaves

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darth_josh
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anniet wrote:darth_josh

anniet wrote:

darth_josh wrote:

I hate capitalism and I know why.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this for curiosity's sake?  I tend to view the markets as fancy ways of gambling.  However, markets are only an aspect of capitalism, existing in current form due to Free Market religion.  Do you object to capitalism on more personal levels?

What resources do you use when looking at what's driving the VIX?  I'm more accustomed to looking at the S&P 500, but would be very interested in learning more about commodities markets. 

(Let me know if you would rather move this to another thread or PM. )

I have the comfort of working in a near-recession-proof industry. However, I physically feel pain when I am emotionally moved by the harm caused by this 'gambling'. Psychosomatic agony. It is gambling, but it isn't as 'fair' as a deck of cards or a pair of unloaded dice.

I have no emotion when the lottery numbers don't come up for a friend or the dealer wins all ties.

The price of a piece of stock is initially set by the company seeking investors in its enterprise. People buy the stock based on how much money they can earn over a period of time whether that is in dividends or sale. The dividend is based on the company's profitability, not the fair value of its product or business.

Here's the HATE part: The absolute FIRST thing that the vast majority of companies do in order to maintain their profitability is CUT JOBS and expect MUCH MORE from the remaining employees.

That is the unmentioned PEOPLE MARKET that no stock option exists to measure. They've had to create indexes to mask or manipulate the effects on the people market caused by the owners/shareholders desire for obnoxious sums of money in exchange for their initial investment.

I'm not saying every 'worker' is priceless. Unfortunately, I have watched too many really good people suffer simply because Lehman Brothers, AIG, JP Morgan, or others down-rated their company's stock on a fucking whim. Or WORSE, upgraded a competitor's stock because they were buddies with them.

The VIX is the volatility index and it uses the S&P as its guide. The key to understanding the effect on the DJIA is looking at the interactions between the S&P and the Dow 30 components.

Both of those indexes are reliant on the CME and the NYMEX(which CME Holdings now owns.) The 19 industrial components will rise slightly when their relevant commodities drop in price (except for oil). After that rise in the stock's value, the greedy investors 'capitalize' on it. As soon as you sell shares, it gives a point where someone else will calculate whether or not the dividend is worth holding onto the stock or not.

Commodities are where actual/real goods are moved and traded. At the end of commodities trading there is a 'margin call' where the goods that were bought are then sold to the industrial components for use in production or resale.

An easy example is oil. Millions of barrels of oil come in. The inventory is measured and then the bidding from the brokers begins. Each broker is trying to get it for the cheapest price they can because they already have an asking price from the oil component on the stock market. If a broker is told that Exxon will buy their oil for $70 a barrel then the broker is looking for anything less than $70 they can buy it for. At the same time, the ask price is factored into the dow component based upon all of the products they can produce from that single barrel of oil (Diesel, Heating oil, Gasoline, etc.) (all of which go right back to the commodities market for bidding to go to other components - vicious cycle of price increase)

 

That's the way it goes without math.

The math is impersonal and is more arbitrary than one single human mind could imagine, in my opinion.

It's Thursday. The jobless number comes out this morning. To see how 'evil' the little wind-breaker-wearing assholes can be... watch the companies that reported layoffs earlier in the week. Their stocks will rise. Citigroup announced they would be dropping 53,000 people. They'll go back above $7 per share today which will pare GM's losses.

If Paulson can be quiet today then the rise on the companies that can retain their 'profitability' today should cancel the companies in trouble. No 'chicken littles' turning into 'bears' today.

If Paulson hadn't declared the other half TARP to be in limbo yesterday then the financials would not have dragged down the average 490 points. -427 is the number, but before he went on I had +63(+-21)

You can google some of the phrases and words I've used here. As much as I dislike them... CNNMoney has good numbers and charts as well as a component list that refreshes every 10 seconds or so.

Today +71(+-26) unless the jobless claims come in above 30,000 new then you'll see the market 'blip' high before it dives (especially the S&P). If they come in lower than 10,000(yeah right) then there will be a hell of a rally. Anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 new and they already have it factored in (I hope).

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Thank you for being willing

Thank you for being willing to elaborate.  I would agree with much of your assessment of how the investment world negatively affects companies and the average worker.  The focus on short-term gains at the expense of long-term stability, growth, and just general responsibility is maddening.  I don't see how any administration can reign it in.  There are too many people who make too much money off the current system.  It will be interesting to see what Obama tries, but I don't expect much real change.

It's been interesting to see some of the caps Europe has in reagrd to CEO pay.  I would love to see either a law that caps the amount of stock an executive or board member can own of any company they are involved with or that freezes sell transactions for a majority of their holdings until a good while after they move elsewhere.  I suppose I can always dream!

Thanks for the CNNMoney recommendation.  I'll add that to my list.  Watching the prices of soy, corn, copper, oil, etc. over the past year has been interesting to say the least. 

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Capitalism is like democracy

Capitalism is like democracy extremely unpleasant and often inefficient but still better than any other alternatives anyone has ever come up with (not to say they won't in the future)

It's when people treat capitalism like a religion that somehow it is sacred in itself that it all goes wrong, to me its just a useful tool to pay for a decent society .

 

 


darth_josh
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mrjonno wrote:Capitalism is

mrjonno wrote:

Capitalism is like democracy extremely unpleasant and often inefficient but still better than any other alternatives anyone has ever come up with (not to say they won't in the future)

It's when people treat capitalism like a religion that somehow it is sacred in itself that it all goes wrong, to me its just a useful tool to pay for a decent society .

 

I don't know of any examples that are not capitalism. I have nothing to judge better or worse.

What you refer to as 'inefficient', I call unethical.

There are alternatives. However, they are attacked with capitalist 'dogma' and ignorance.

The 'almighty dollar' requires a blood sacrifice.

A 'decent society' isn't sadistic in my opinion.

"Here, have this big SUV, huge house, 64" flat screen, and a trophy wife/husband with a diamond/cars fetish... Now, as long as nothing goes wrong with 710 variables affecting your life then you can keep them. However, if one of those 710 things is over-leveraged then we're going to take EVERYTHING away."....................... "By the way, you owe us for the difference after liquidation."

That's not decent. That's sadism.

Now, if you could have transportation, food, tv, regular house, and a wife/husband that loves you without the diamond baubles all securely guaranteed by the other people in the society with the same means... would you be happier?

 

 

 

WOW. Could I have gotten any closer? lol. After 11 am all of the numbers changed.

GM was the only listing on the 30 that closed above yesterday. Figure that one out. lol.

Jobless claims 27,000 new. Market rose. Paulson spoke just after noon. Financials started dominating the sells. Market NOSEDIVED.

Right now, it's like a diver got scratched off the cost of Bermuda. If it goes below 7500 then it will be like a 10" gash in your leg off the coast of Australia.

Metaphor: There's investor blood in the waters of Wall Street.

 

Obama finishing the cabinet will help the financials even though I want to see them suffer more. It's amazing that even though today was bad, people still look to tomorrow to reinforce their ideas that capitalism can prosper again under exactly the same methods that have caused the recession.

The industrials will realign.

Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP will all still post ridiculous, but not record profits for 4th quarter even with oil below $50 and gas futures at $1.00 (oops $0.99)

 

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