Obamanomics road music… and which TFN stem cell pick went up 69% since Jan. 12
Today's Financial News - Posted January 26, 2009
While communities are lining up to bag stimulus billions for “shovel-ready” construction projects, TFN’s stem cell stock pick Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) is spelling economic relief for our readers.
by J. Christoph Amberger
Baltimore—TFN: There was something of Hitchcock’s The Birds in the air as I stepped into the hallway this morning. Quietly, eyes phosphorescing in the dark, four of our cats—a rogues gallery of former strays missing an eye here, the tip of an ear here, half a tail there—were waiting for me in the semi-darkness.
Expectation hung heavy in the air. A sense of entitlement even. I had the feeling that I might be the first course on the breakfast menu, should I chose to direct my steps anywhere but the basement, where the cat food is doled out.
Once my initial suspicions were put to rest—and I had checked that they carried neither shivs nor rocks-in-a-sock—I basked in an almost presidential feeling: So that’s how Obama must feel as states, cities, and communities are assembling like hungry house pets to get their bellyful of stimulus.
There’s a certain irony to the fact that governments the world over now seek economic salvation in domestic infrastructure projects. “Shovel-ready,” as the local moneyburners call them. They want money for roads, highways, bridges, even new plumbing.
After all, FDR solved the Depression by paying people to dig holes in the ground!
To think that just six months ago, bridges to nowhere were considered political career killers! Today, the economic recovery of the world depends on spreading concrete, asphalt, and steel wherever a bureaucrat says that there’s need.
Although I am not quite sure how this is supposed to work out. You see, the City of Baltimore likes to do roadwork even in normal times. It’s a sight to see: Every weekday, usually around rush hour, you get to watch a half-dozen Central Americans jackhammer a hole into the ground. For several weeks afterwards, that hole will be covered by a large steelplate that goes ker-tchunk whenever a car rolls over it. Too bad if you live or work next to such a stimulus site, because you hear it ker-tchunking a couple thousand times a day…
Once limited on-street parking and pedestrian traffic restrictions have forced a sufficient number of businesses into bankruptcy, the hole will be filled by another trio of Central Americans. They work swiftly and enthusiasticially. But—here’s the kicker: The asphalt is not flattened… merely heaped and tapped.
After a few applications, the street’s surface resembles the moguls at Ski Roundtop… good for a half-dozen exhaust pipes and the occasional cracked oil pan a day… not to mention the variety of Obamanomics road music it creates: The metallic ker-tchunk is modulated into a melodic ka-creech!
If you’re lucky and wait long enough, you can get both on the same intersection!
It’s a perfect racket for the global economy: Remittances by road workers to Mexico and Guatemala keep Central American economies from collapsing. Contractors—even those not sleeping with the mayor—get to use the equipment they expensed three years ago. And China and India get to sell some steel. The exhaust fumes of logjammed cars keep gas stations busy and provide arguments for even more spending on road construction and pollution control. Lost hubcaps, cracked oilpans and damaged tailpipes will keep the local car repairshops and parts suppliers busy.
And nobody spends like a happy parts supplier!
In the real world…
Meanwhile, as we wait for progress to be measured in tons of concrete spread, some of you are enjoying the “windfall profits” of the outgoing Bush Administration: One of our top biotech picks, Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), is basking in the glory of FDA clearance to begin trials of its human embryonic stem cell-based therapy for patients with acute spinal cord injury.
Laura Cadden had recommended this stock a hile ago as a promising play on investors’ renewed punting on what is perceived as “stem cell stocks.”
This stock is only one of “Four Biotechs Set To Soar” she had outlined for your pleasure and profit. I sincerely recommend you read it.
Plus, on Friday, she recommended you take double-digit gains on her TFN exclusive recommendation Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA): “On December 2, we recommended TFN readers buy shares of Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VNDA) in anticipation of success with its VEC-162 drug for the treatment of sleeping disorders. The stock share price had been battered down to below 60 cents at that time — from a 52-week high of $6.50! Today, the stock has hit 81 cents, giving those that got in under my recommended buy price the anticipated double-digit gains. For those that got in that day at 60 cents — the gains are over 35%!”
Today, the stock price is back to her initial recommended level.
Next Article: Investors ignore the risk of the railways
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