Election 2008: Who Did You Vote For?

It’s election day, time for a change. Thank God George Bush can’t run again because Read more

Oil Retreats Below $120: Don’t Believe The Hype!

The price of a barrel of crude settled under $120 for the first time since May 5th yesterday. The market responded by jumping over 300 points, giving the Dow its biggest one day gain since April. On top of all the good news, the Fed kept rates steady at 2 per cent. Things look great, think I will go out and get me a no interest mortgage.

Wait a second!

Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t believe the hype. All this pre-election “let the good times roll” hysteria that we are allowing ourselves to get caught up in will no doubt disappear after the  election faster than the ground crew at Andrews can get Bush’s crap into Air Force One.

It will all settle back to normal by the time we head out to our mailboxes to get the bill for the first round of home heating oil. At the same time I get to watch Joe Kennedy on TV tell me how nice it is that the “good people” of Venezuela and CITGO have proudly donated home heating oil to the poor. It’s all a scam.

Why?

Because there are forces at work in this year’s election just like there was in the summer of 2007. Don’t you remember watching oil prices drop sharply only to see them rise again after the republicans got their asses handed to them in November?

Both sides will no doubt take credit for any downward pricing applied to a barrel of crude between now and Election Day while blaming the other for not doing enough. Point is, it’s all smoke and mirrors and I for one am going to remember the last eight years instead of just the last eight weeks of campaign promises. What’s the song by The Who…”Won’t Get Fooled Again“

Message To Fed: Where is Our Pound of Flesh?

WARNING!

This is a rant. It is not a drill. There was no research done to prepare for this rant. This is just me reading a headline, and freaking the ef out! But first, a little background. I get up at 6 a.m. to sift through the overnight business news from over 300 news outlets delivering almost 1000 items for me to peruse. And This was the headline that caused me to pause yesterday:

Fed loans $75bn more to aid banks

I thought, alright, let’s take a look. So I read the following;

The US central bank has auctioned a further $75bn of short-term loans to help the financial sector. The auction, the 15th since December, is part of the Fed’s attempts to help banks through the credit crunch.

That’s about when I lost it. People are being foreclosed on everyday while this relief package that has been talked about for months gets tossed back and forth from one side of the isle to the other in Washington. The Dow is at a two year low, unemployment is the highest it’s been in five years, my kid won’t even play with her Lego’s, that’s how bad construction is!  People are scared and have stuffed both hands deep inside their pockets…unless of course they need to fill up their gas tanks!

So, where is my pound of flesh Mr. Bernake?

While I am happy to see the Fed has plenty of loot to dole out to the banking sector, what about us? Banks won’t lend to other banks much less to people! This cry goes out to anyone out there listening who cares;

MAYDAY!    MAYDAY!

We are taking solid green water over the bow here. People are losing their homes, their jobs, their families, but at least the banks can live to fight another day. When does the calvary arrive for the rest of us? If the U.S. consumer drives this economy, we are really not giving them much to work with.

But……

We will all have one hand free come this November, right around election day! People are going to look deep down inside their pockets where money used to be, and realize they are not better off now then they were eight years ago and vote accordingly.

Good luck with that Senator McCain. I figure Bush will start wagging the dog sometime in late August or early September…..any takers?