A Whole New Low
By John Schuler
November 23, 2008
At this point, you've probably heard a variety of clichés regarding the stock market's performance this week… So, I'll avoid subjecting you to more by keeping it brief: This week was terrible. A quick glance at the numbers says it all…
The Dow opened the week around 8500 and managed to drop below 7500 on Friday. The NASDAQ fell 11% this week (it's down around 50% for the year). The S&P 500 plunged to 750 on Thursday, a point not seen since 1997… And since you've probably had enough of the gloom and doom over the past few days, we thought we'd cheer you up with two FREE stock recommendations from our colleague Chris Mayer, editor of Mayer's Special Situations. He's found a pair of companies that you can invest in now. They've been unfairly battered lately and should bounce back once the market hysteria subsides. You have until tomorrow morning to sign up for Chris' free webinar by clicking here… And aside from that, perhaps this week's top stories can soothe a portion of the pain… This Week's Top Stories
What's a Few Trillion Between Friends?
By Chris Mayer
Some concepts I can explain to my 9-year old son, Calvin, but economists with advanced degrees seem not to get it. Calvin, named after my favorite ballplayer (Cal Ripken, though my wife hates it when I say that. "We didn't name him after Cal Ripken, we just liked the name!"), wanted to know how the dollar lost value over time. He wanted to know why things got more expensive over time.
I explained it very simply. He likes to play this card game in which the players get different creatures and each of them has certain abilities. I explained to him how he valued certain cards highly because they are rare and hard to get. If the cards were easy to get and common, then they would be less valuable. This he understood… Read the Full Article Here… <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> OPEC's Imaginary Oil
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In the 1980s, OPEC's claim of total reserves magically leaped from 353 to 643 billion barrels without a single major discovery. Industry experts call it the quota war.
You see, OPEC had to limit how much oil each member could sell, because prices were too low. The quotas were based on...each member's oil reserves! That's right: The amount of oil OPEC would let a member pump depended on how much that member had in the ground. So it paid for OPEC members to claim the biggest reserves they could. And that's what they did... Read the Full Article Here… <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Embracing Inflation
By Dan Amoss
The battle between credit contraction and government-sponsored inflation rages on. For several weeks, the forces of credit contraction have been winning.
There are fears that banks will never expand lending again, and that everyone with debt wants to pay it down as fast as possible. I think these fears are excessive. They ignore the massive and limitless inflation schemes coming from the Treasury and the Fed. Those fearing deflation assume that every American consumer is stereotypical: an overextended, credit card-addicted, house-flipping gambler. This is simply not the case. Many Americans don't have a mortgage. And most Americans with mortgages are still making their payments. They have, however, temporarily reigned in… Read the Full Article Here…
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