More Market Bubble Talk Bubbling Up: Time to Take Profits?

Well it seems that some heavy hitters are talking about a FED funny money bubble forming in the market.

Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world's largest money manager, warned this week that the Fed's quantitative easing policy was leading to the formation of market bubbles and advised the central bank to start tapering immediately. 

Meanwhile Robert Heller, former Governor at the Fed from 1986 to 1989, told CNBC on Thursday that markets were "perilously close" to the formation of a bubble. 

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones have risen 24.5 percent and nearly 20 percent, respectively, year to date. 

Well a 24.5 gain should be banked for sure and cash raised for a sell off. It would be nice for a correction to pop up in the market so I can buy some stocks at a discount. I just cant see the Stock Market making new highs every few days without some kind of pullback.

The warning sign of a bubble is whenever someone says "This time it is different." and Jeff Reeves of MarketWatch just did. 

But investors need to ask themselves why we bother comparing stocks to the same valuation metrics from a century ago when so much has changed on Wall Street in regards to the way we trade and the way companies operate. 

Companies still do the same things as they did a century ago. They try to make a good product and have people buy the product. The scale of the capital they have is different (Apple has $150 billion in cash) but at the end of the day they make good products that people want. As soon as they stop making a good product they will get clobbered.

At least this time the "new economy" stocks like Google and Facebook are making money unlike the Dotbombs of 2000. The problem is if the stock price of Google and Facebook actually match up with reality. If not there will be nice correction before we can go any higher.

CNN Pulls in Only 67,000 viewers last night

Out of the 313 million people living in the US only 67,000 people tuned into CNN.

Not only was CNN behind rivals Fox News Channel (396,000) and MSNBC (127,000) but also it did worse than sister station HLN (93,000) and CNBC (79,000). The most watched show on CNN last night was Piers Morgan Live at 9 PM which got a soft 83,000 in the demo and 340,000 viewers overall. Overall CNN had 285,000 viewers in primetime last night compared to MSNBC’s 683,000 and FNC’s 2.312 million.

The CNN viewers could easily fit into Candlestick Park with a few 1000 seats to spare. That must be truly galling.

Send in the Reinforcements: Obamacare Brings in Google

From the "they should have done this in the first place" department we have Obamacare scrambling to get some tech help to fix their website.

An engineer from technology giant Google has been recruited to help fix HealthCare.gov, the new federal insurance exchange website.

Software companies Red Hat and Oracle will also assist, according to Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has coordinated the development of the site that has experienced numerous problems in its first month of operations.

If the Government approached Google from the beginning to bid for the website maybe it would have been working decently. Instead it has been the worst product roll out in decades.

I was watching a Bloomberg video that had some talking head going on about Obama being totally engaged in the website fix it process. It gave me a mental image from the movie Lincoln where the president is waiting in in the telegraph room for news from the war. Instead it is Obama looking at an iPad and it says "error 404, webpage not found." He looks up and says "the Obamacare dream has died today" and slumps into a chair as the iPad slips from his nerveless fingers.

National Review to GOP: Just Win Baby!

I have to agree with the advice to the GOP contained in this article.

The key premise that has been guiding these conservatives, however, is mistaken. That premise is that the main reason conservatives have won so few elections and policy victories, especially recently, is a lack of ideological commitment and will among Republican politicians. A bigger problem than the insufficient conservatism of our leaders is the insufficient number of our followers. There aren’t enough conservative voters to elect enough officials to enact a conservative agenda in Washington, D.C. — or to sustain them in that project even if they were elected. The challenge, fundamentally, isn’t a redoubling of ideological commitment, but more success at persuasion and at winning elections.

The idea that the country is center right might be true but you have to think about the center part. Conservative ideas need to used to persuade centrist Americans instead of going after some mythical enclave of far right people. 

Defending Main Street a New Center-Right, Pro-Business Alternative to the Tea Party?

This sounds like just what America needs as an antidote to the Tea Party sickness.

But there's also Defending Main Street, a new GOP-leaning group that's halfway to its goal of raising $8 million. It plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works — and their preferred, typically tea party candidates.


Hopefully, they can get a few hedge fund billionaires to open their wallets to support this kind of group. I mean the Tea Party seems directly against their interests.

Call it the wrath of establishment Republicans and corporate America, always considered the best of friends. Since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, they've watched the GOP insurgents slow a transportation bill and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, block a treaty governing the high seas and stand in the way of comprehensive immigration legislation.

The final straw was the bitter budget standoff that partly shuttered the government, precipitated by Republicans like Amash and Bentivolio who enlisted early in the campaign demanding that President Barack Obama dismantle his health care law in exchange for keeping the government operating.

I think I might look into this Defending Main Street and send them a few bucks to get rid of the Tea Party rot that is affecting the GOP.

Insane Pastor Attacks Girls Scouts: "Antithetical to a biblical vision of womanhood?"

What is so good about the biblical vision of womanhood? Those times were brutish and horrible and tribe wiped out tribe the the last man. People rarely lived past their 30s and many women died in childbirth. And people wonder why the Religious Reich get such a bad name?

Most recently, Pastor Kevin Swanson this week used his show, His Generations Radio, to denounce the Girl Scouts as "a wicked organization" whose "vision of America is antithetical to a biblical vision of womanhood." He urged listeners not to incur the Almighty's wrath by buying Tagalogs and Do-Si-Dos, saying, "I don't want to support lesbianism, I don't want to support Planned Parenthood, and I don't want to support abortion. And if that be the case I'm not buying Girl Scout cookies."

If my Samoas money goes into supporting lesbianism, Planned Parenthood, and abortion then I really should buy more. I'm pretty sure Pastor Swanson is reading quite a bit more than is normal into the Girl Scouts and what they stand for.

Republicans Ignore Heritage Action and Pass Water Projects Bill: Maybe some Grown-Ups Left in the GOP?

It was only a few billion dollars but it shows that the House can actually work together to pass something that will benefit most Americans that live near a waterway of some sort. They actually defied some of the heavy hitters that normally hold their reigns.

To pass the bill, many conservative Republicans had to ignore FreedomWorks, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Heritage Action for America and seven other outside groups that wrote lawmakers in opposition to the bill, saying it didn't do enough to cut spending or block unneeded projects. Both FreedomWorks and Heritage Action had whipped up support for the government shutdown.

It seems that the Chamber of Commerce is wielding more power in the House as well.

Business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, had pressured lawmakers to vote for the bill and highlighted its potential to create jobs. The chamber distributed state-by-state fact sheets and made the measure a "key vote" when it determines which lawmakers to support in next year's election.

Maybe some GOP members are finding out that it was FreedomWorks and Heritage Action that called for the idiots in the Tea Party to damage the Republican Party for no gain at all. I still hope the Chamber of Commerce actually throws some money at pro-business fiscal conservatives to muscle out the Tea Party imbeciles.

Democratic Senator Prepping Bill to Delay Tax Penalties from Not Having Insurance

It is as if Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) suddenly joined the Tea Party.

In the wake of the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, the website where consumers can purchase health insurance, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has begun drafting a bill that would delay the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate by a year, his office confirmed.

It's unclear what the Manchin-sponsored legislation would contain, but the version being floated would delay the penalty for not purchasing insurance. Customers could still purchase insurance if they wish. 

It also seems that other Democrats are trying to stave off the tax penalty for not buying insurance as well.

Sen. Jeanne  Shaheen (D-N.H.) became on Tuesday the first Democrat to push for a delay of sorts. She wrote a letter to the White House  asking for an extension to open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act beyond March 31, 2014. 

What is so funny is Ted Cruz damaged the GOP for no reason. It seems that HealthCare.gov is going to sink Obamacare faster than anything that idiot could have come up with. It seems like the do-nothing and let it fail was the best plan after all.

Obamacare Roars out of the Box for North Dakota: 14 People Have Signed Up with Blue Cross Since October 1st!

Well it seems that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota is just cleaning up with Obamacare. They have signed up 14 people since October 1st that have come from the Heathcare.gov website.

The North Dakota online publication Inforum on Tuesday quoted a Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota spokesman as saying just 14 state residents have signed up with that insurer, the largest in the state, since the Oct. 1 launch of HealthCare.gov. Only six other people in North Dakota have signed up with other carriers, according to Inforum, which noted that means an enrollment rate of less than one person per day.

Wow, slow down Blue Cross Blue Shield! At this rate they will have a 100 people (not 100s but exactly 100 people) with insurance by the cutoff next year. At this rate they should have everyone in North Dakota signed up by the the year 3929. Just a little less than 2000 years from now. That's fast for government work.
 
Blue Cross Blue Shield official James Nichol, speaking at a public meeting in Fargo on Monday, revealed that earlier that same day the federal government had asked the insurer not to reveal enrollment figures. 

I'm sure the White House had the best of intentions to have the insurer hush-up these scintillating numbers. They are the most open Administration of all time I am told. 

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that CMS director Tavenner earlier that same day had told directors of state Medicaid agencies that HealthCare.gov is still not able to electronically enroll people in Medicaid, which is the government health insurance program for many poor people. 

HealthCare.gov is even stopping poor people from getting free insurance. Now that is one website that ignores class. It sucks equally for all Americans regardless of income.

Pope Francis Smacks Down Bishop of Bling

Pope Francis is cracking down on high spending German Bishop Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst.

The pope's decision to expel the "Bishop of Bling" – as he has been dubbed in the international media – takes effect immediately.

A final decision on the future of the big spending priest will be determined only after the German Bishop Conference has finished a detailed report on the cost of the construction remodelling of the bishop's official residence. The pope was reportedly told last week that the final costs may reach $55 million, $13 million over the already substantial price tag.

Wow I wonder how many hot meals $55 million can buy the poor people of Diocese of Limburg?

Consumer Reports Tips to Access Healthcare.gov: Use a Different Browser to Verify Your Identity? What the what?

This has to be the worst roll-out of a major website in the history of tech. Keep in mind that this fiasco cost $400 million.

Consumer Reports tried to give potential users some advice:

• First, follow very carefully the needlessly complicated instructions for creating a password that has at least seven characters and at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one symbol.
• Second, as soon as you encounter a problem logging on, start over, since you can’t believe what the error messages tell you.
• If you happen to make it through, keep a sharp eye out for an e-mail confirming your account, or you’ll soon be timed out.
• Finally, when verifying your identity on the site, you may want to do it from a different browser than the one you registered from.

Got it? The publication’s bottom line: “Stay away from Healthcare.gov for at least another month if you can.”

I don't even understand that last suggestion. What does your browser type have to do with verifying your identity? It is almost like that Healthcare.gov was created in the 90s and you can view the site with IE 5 but not with Mozilla or something. The snail mail solution via a call center is even worse.

Going old school isn’t much easier. Megan McArdle of Bloom­berg View talked to a representative at an ObamaCare call center who said you could fill out a paper form — but it would take three weeks for it to be sent to your house and, after you send it back, a couple of more weeks until you are notified of your eligibility for subsidies. The representative wasn’t clear on what happens next.

So 5 weeks or more to find out if you are even eligible for subsidies or not? This is in a world where I can buy a million different products from Amazon and have them at my doorstep tomorrow morning. Hell, I could order something from Best Buy, while driving to Best Buy, and pick it up when I get there. This is a world where I can listen to every song I own on my phone, in my car, and then on my TV nearly seamlessly just with a few taps. It just boggles the mind that it takes 5 weeks via phone to verify if you are eligible for subsidies or not. It is so sad that Ted Cruz shut down the government and obscured how bad signing up for Obamacare really is for weeks.

The Inside Story of the Debt Negotiations

This is an interesting article on what went on in the White House before the debt default can kick.

Behind the scenes, administration officials were pulling any lever they could. They called business leaders, Republican lobbyists and GOP wise men to solicit ideas on how to move Boehner. They pleaded with them to call Republican congressional offices as well. (Obama told the Senate Democrats that one CEO, who went unnamed, was refusing to return Boehner's calls, angry at his alliance with the tea party.) The president recognized that the GOP wanted what he called "a bloody shirt" in exchange for funding the government and raising the debt limit. But their demands were outlandish to the point of being laughable: At a meeting with House Democrats, Obama joked that the Republican ransom list was so long, the only thing it didn't include was his resignation. And even if the demands had been reasonable, he had resolved on principle not to meet them. 

I wonder who that CEO was that didn't return Boehners calls. My guess it was probably someone in the financial industry because they would have been on the front line if there was a debt default. Maybe it was Jamie Dimon because he would be damn angry at Boehner for playing russian roulette with the economy. It also seemed we got pretty close to the edge before some grown-ups stepped in.

It was another bit of defiance against Obama's demand that reform of his health care law was off the table, and despair began to set in at both Reid's office and the White House. One senior administration official said concerns heightened that Tuesday that the country would default. Reid shared the fear. 

"Oh, yeah," he said when asked if there were moments he thought the country would hit the debt limit. "Oh, yes. Absolutely, absolutely. People were giving speeches that it wouldn't hurt anything. Of course there was worry. I was trying to be logical and rational dealing with illogical and irrational people. I was damned scared."

19 million Visits to Healtcare.gov and 476K Submitted Applications

Well it seems that healthcare.gov is barely signing anyone up.

Breaking it down further, the administration's data notes that a bit more than half of the 476,000 applications have come from the federally run Healthcare.gov, and that, in the interim, it's encouraging people to use call centers to sign up for health insurance. In fact, call center head count has been beefed up by 50% to meet increased questions and demand while technicians continue to work out the numerous architectural flaws in the government-run website.

Finally, we also found out that the number of people who had visited Healthcare.gov through Friday night had risen to 19 million.

So 19 million visits and less than 500k or so actually sign up for anything? Now that sounds like it sure wasn't worth the billions of dollars that was rolled into Obamacare.

McDonald's Mighty Wings Dismal Failure: Don't Compete Head to Head with Hooters

It seems that Mighty Wings were not the success that McDonalds counts on to drive their revenue.

1. Price: In McDonald's terms, Mighty Wings are a premium product. The wings come in packs of three for $3.69, five for $5.59, and 10 for $9.69. Thompson said the prices, which are similar to Buffalo Wild Wings, were  “not the most competitive.”

2. Spice: Thompson said the wings were too spicy for many customers' tastes. 

3. Appearance: The Mighty Wings looked too much like "McNuggets with bones," writes Susan Berfield at Bloomberg Businessweek.

4. Economy: Many McDonald's customers are still struggling financially—and are more likely to spend their hard-earned money on a tried-and-true favorite.

When you are going against Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters you will always come up short. The idea of 10 wings for $10 is kind of a rip off when you compare them to Wing Wednesdays at Hooters. All you can eat wings is $17 at Hooters and comes with all you can eat fries. 

Each plate is about 8 wings at Hooters so you only have to eat two plates in order to get ahead of McDonalds value-wise. Hooters also has the advantage of all sorts of different sauces you can get with the wings as well. There really isn't any comparison between the two.  

Ted Cruz wants to Shut Down the Government Again: Can't someone shut him up?

Well I can't wait until the GOP actually shuts the Tea Party down before the Dems get a hold of all levers of power again.

Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told ABC News he wouldn't rule out using the tactic again, when the same budget and debt questions come up next year.

"I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," Cruz said.

That divide defined the warring Republican factions ahead of the midterm elections, when 35 seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate and all 435 seats in the Republican-dominated House will be on the ballot. In the nearer term, difficult debates over immigration and farm policy loom, along with another round of budget and debt talks.

Yup the stakes are pretty high. I really hope the Chamber of Commerce and some Wall Street fat cats get together and throw some money at pro-Growth Republicans instead of the pro-Crazy Tea Partiers. I mean it seems that no-one is still left on the Tea Party bandwagon other than true believers.

A Pew Research Center poll released this week showed public favorability for the Tea Party dropped to its lowest level since driving the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections. An AP-Gfk poll showed that 70 percent now hold unfavorable views of the Tea Party.

70% unfavorable rating. That is pathetic. The definition of crazy is doing the same thing that failed over and over thinking they will get a different result. If Cruz shuts down the Government again for no reason then I think Texas voters need to mount a recall petition against him on the grounds that he is insane.

Hey Queen Schedule the Visit with Malala for the Weekend so She Doesn't Miss Class

Malala, who got jobbed out of the Nobel Peace Prize, visited the Queen on Friday.

The 16-year-old advocate for girls' education and survivor of a Taliban assassination attempt gave the 87-year-old queen a copy of her book, "I Am Malala," and spoke Friday with her about the importance of education.

Malala said she wouldn't ordinarily miss a school day but had made an exception. The pair also chatted about Malala's homeland, Pakistan's Swat Valley, which the queen visited decades ago.

I know the Queen is busy and all but couldn't she have met Malala on Saturday so she didn't have to miss a day of school? Malala's whole mission is to bring education to the worlds children so making her miss school to meet you is counterproductive. I mean the Queen could have came by after the school day is done as well. In any case hopefully Malala will get a chance to make up the work that the Queen made her miss.

More Advice for the Republicans: Growth Instead of Cuts

The more I read about this the more I think this issue will be what resurrects the GOP going forward.

But I don’t find this smattering of historical evidence persuasive enough to endorse sudden and severe budget cuts with interest rates at historical lows.(Even Rand Paul’s austere budget plan wouldn’t balance until 2018.) Given that the average US debt-to-GDP ratio was 37% from 1957 through 2007, a better policy goal would be to immediately shift — via entitlement reform and pro-growth polices rather than more discretionary spending cuts — the debt-to-GDP ratio onto a downward trajectory back toward that 37% level, if not lower, over the next two decades. That would be a far smarter and feasible agenda for Republicans and conservatives and libertarians of all types.

Lift all boats instead of trying to sink certain boats. I think if the Republican field talked more about raising GDP growth and less about what departments to get rid of Romney might have had a better chance. Instead of killing Big Bird he could have said he would let Public Broadcasting charge a licensing fee to Disney or whomever to aggressively market their characters. Don't kill whatever it is but find ways to make it grow.

A "pro-growth GOP" instead of a "makers vs. takers GOP" is just what America needs. A candidate saying "we want to help everyone, even Democrats" in a folksy way will go a long way to getting independents to vote GOP again.

Wow Even Forbes is Calling the GOP the Stupid Party

Well I have to agree with them on this point though.

Make no mistake: Obamacare is a very bad thing. It’s even worse than the public currently realizes. It is vital that Obamacare be replaced by something workable.** However, to assault Obamacare with this particular weapon (a government shutdown over the “continuing resolution,” or “CR”), at this particular time (moments before the Obamacare “exchanges” crashed and burned on October 1), was an example of the “Stupid Party” richly deserving its sobriquet.

The bad part is that you knew that the exchanges were going to be a disaster. They only had a little while to work on them and they didn't dole them out to a tech powerhouse like Google. If they did that at least you would have someone to blame for their failure. Too bad we barely even hear about that failure because of the shutdown and debt limit fights.

I agree if the GOP pursued this plan to grow our way toward a better future instead of cutting spending they would gain back some measure of popularity.

Raising our long-term average real GDP growth rate by only 0.27 percentage points, from the CBO’s pathetic 2.21% to a still-anemic 2.48% would increase the present value of federal revenues by $205 trillion. This would close the fiscal gap, with no tax increases and no spending cuts. Growth is the only sane option, and is the only thing that the Republicans should be fighting for right now.

Imagine if we could get that growth to 3% or 5% or something. Growth lifts all boats and makes the lives of every American better. If the GOP ditched the slash and burn form of budgeting and thought long and hard about growing the GDP they would keep America great. The winning play is to push energy independence ahead of everything else.

The Shutdown Cost $12 to $24 Billion?

The worst part is that money was wasted pretty much for no reason.

MacroEconomic Advisors estimates the shutdown cost the economy $12 billion. S&P used a broader forecasting model and estimates the 16-day shutdown cost the economy $24 billion, or about $1 million per minute. Since 2009, MacroEconomic Advisors estimates "fiscal uncertainty" -- debt-ceiling fights, shutdowns, threats of default, etc. -- have cost the economy $150 billion in lost output and 900,000 jobs. Gallup's Economic Confidence index suffered the largest drop since 2008 last week.

I think we should garnish the wages of Congress and all of their staffers until that money is paid back with interest. It would take like a 100 years but no matter. I still bristle that Congress was paid this entire time and 700,000 federal workers were not.  

In the Face: Ross Douthat Blasts Conservatives

I have to agree with every word this guy says in his article.

However you slice and dice the history, the strategery, and the underlying issues, the decision to live with a government shutdown for an extended period of time — inflicting modest-but-real harm on the economy, needlessly disrupting the lives and paychecks of many thousands of hardworking people, and further tarnishing the Republican Party’s already not-exactly-shiny image — in pursuit of obviously, obviously unattainable goals was not a normal political blunder by a normally-functioning political party. It was an irresponsible, dysfunctional and deeply pointless act, carried out by a party that on the evidence of the last few weeks shouldn’t be trusted with the management of a banana stand, let alone the House of Representatives.

This entire affair was a giant own goal on the GOP. They have shown that they cannot effectively govern when money is involved.