Please sir, may I have some more?
Today's Financial News - Posted January 30, 2009
Maybe it is the decaf coffee the waitress slipped me this morning, but this political environment is getting depressing. Since when does a financial analyst need to be a political expert. Americans don’t know whether to read the Wall Street Journal or Roll Call. Fortunately, there’s TFN.
By Andrew Snyder, TodaysFinancialNews.com
Baltimore – (TFN): Here I go bragging again, but I just cannot help myself. This nauseating market and the where’s-the-bottom-mentality that surrounds it makes it too hard to resist.
On Wednesday, I warned investors to steer clear of the multi-session rally that was giving investors hopes of profits even though the data flooding the market was absolutely horrific. I told folks to take a look at the SPDR (AMEX:SPY) February 86 Puts. It was an easy call, but if followed, the advice was worth gains of about 50%.
I am not writing today to prop up my ego or to shed some light on an interesting topic. We do enough of that. Today I want to tell you that I am downright worried.
Frankly, I am concerned with the way my job has shifted.
When I decided to get my MBA with a concentration in finance, I did it because I knew the insight gained would be invaluable throughout my investing career. But now am I wondering if I made a mistake. Maybe I should have entered a program like political science. After all, lately I spend just as much time, if not more, researching what is happening on Pennsylvania Avenue than on Wall Street.
We need a new amendment
I know the church and the state are constitutionally separated, but I always thought it was some sort of un-written rule that Washington would stay out of the way of business. Of course, Uncle Sam has always had his way with taxes and oversight, but when I imagined becoming a banker or a healthcare provide or a carmaker I never dreamed it would involve competing with the government.
But now it does.
Even worse, because the government has woven its way into so many industries, all of which are losing money almost as fast as the Treasury can print it, the average businessman is forced to subsidize it. What incentive do I have to dedicate my life to running a business if Uncle Sam is going to bust in and tax me to death just so he can keep his businesses in order?
Even worse, what incentive does the average American have to crawl out of bed every morning at 5:15, go to work, pay his health insurance premium, pay for groceries, pay for birth control or pay for his house if Congress is busy creating incentives that essentially deter hundreds of thousands of people from doing the exact same thing.
The House just passed a bill that gives Americans more money for not working, more food for not working, an easier way not to fulfill a financial obligation they committed to and a financial reason not to go look for a job, or even better, go create one. (Then they have the audacity to say, here’s some birth control. The economy is better off without your kids.)
They only thing our leaders ask for in exchange of all this free money? A vote.
Why do you think so many of the items in the latest stimulus do not go in effect for at least another year? That way they will be in full swing and all over the headlines just in time for the mid-term elections.
I hope our leaders are looking at the riots in France this week, like it is a crystal ball into America’s future.
Because that is exactly where we are heading.
If the French can riot asking for more handouts, you had better believe Americans will do it as soon as Uncle Sam pulls his free money off the table.
Maybe that is exactly how Democrats want it.
Our dependence on government money is their job security.
My play for next week. Double up your short against the equities market. If the Dow breaks the 8,000 mark again. The bottom is a long way down.
Next Article: Take notes: This week’s trading strategy
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