Mar

4

It's unusual for a President to give a buy tip on stocks, but he did. The Japanese government has threatened to buy stocks as well, a thumb in the dyke so to speak. Do you think the mythical "plunge protection" team might be getting ready? I wonder if this is the usual jawboning or something else.

On another subject, I watched The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa for the umpteenth time. The phrase that really jumped out at me was, "If you only defend you will lose." The other interesting aspect was the counting of the deaths of the bandits, one by one. Kind of like these continuing down days. They must be getting desperate.

George Parkanyi replies:

Oh yeah? What's he buying? (Thinking out loud: How many stocks out there have the name Lincoln or Roosevelt in them? Franklin? BEN! … nahh, it can't be that easy …)

This is not unprecedented. Not two years after taking over taking over Hong Kong, the Chinese government bought Hong Kong blue chips (and probably took a few shorts out back to shoot for good measure) to shore up the market during the Asian crisis. It worked; the market rebounded shortly thereafter and they gradually sold off the positions. (They kept the up-tick rule for a while, but only for sentimental reasons.)

I wish I could print money to buy stocks. But people on the whole seem to be purists, and react negatively when I try, for example, to add zeroes to a $10 bill at the check-out counter.


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5 Comments so far

  1. Steve Leslie on March 4, 2009 4:15 pm

    I would think that Obama would be recommending banking stocks, and auto stocks because that is what the government owns in their portfolio. General Patton was emphatic about advancing and reluctant to retreat. He received criticism as to these methods, as critics commented that as a result of his methods, unnecessary lives were lost. I prefer Sun Tzu: "Sun-tzu: If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight, and if not split and reevaluate." - the character Bud Fox in Wall Street Here are some great quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sun_tzu.html

  2. Reid on March 4, 2009 5:36 pm

    In “Black Belt” a recent Japanese film available on DVD from netflix, the winner of the right to carry on the schools teaching honors his masters advice by playing defense until the final blow and victory. The left in modern American politics is similar - soften up the target the American middle class and its institutions, eliminate oppostition through bread and circuses (CITI for instance), and finally attack and destroy (AIG). Socialism.

  3. Steve Leslie on March 5, 2009 10:05 am

    Art Cashin mentioned that there have been only three times in over 100 years that the market has retreated to 12 year lows. The first two had profound advances shortly thereafter. This is the third time that this has happened. His suggestion is that there is one extraordinary advance on the horizon. That rivaling Patton's advance through Europe.

    Monday Morning March 9th Warren Buffet will be on to take questions and email on CNBC. askwarren@cnbc.com is the address. This is an opportunity to correspond with the sagacious, sanctimonious sage and solipsist, the profound purveyor of pretentiousness, the ostentatious Oracle of Omaha himself. Oh I left one out the nabob of Nebraska.

    Pretty creative huh?

  4. david higgs on March 5, 2009 12:52 pm

    I think Obama will be the sucker puncher of "all times"

  5. John White on March 5, 2009 2:40 pm

    All the talk of the impact of Obama's policy "failures" on the major indexes omits the fact that earnings estimates have been dropping like a stone. Lower earnings expectations are much more likely the cause of the decline.

    As an aside, I feel compelled to highlight the definition of socialism as the term seems to be thrown about often these days. Socialism requires public or state ownership of the means of production and the distribution of goods. I have seen nothing to suggest that the current administration is advocating, wants to, or intends to go down that path. The current policy of temporary intervention in the private sector to prevent systemic collapse is more along the lines of Keynesianism than socialism. While differences of opinion as to the effectiveness of a Keynesian policy response are valid, it is counterproductive to fear monger with terms like socialism.

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