I'm not a fan of Jim Cramer on CNBC…I figure he's a high priced shill
- to get you trading.
However, even a blind pig gets an acorn once in a while.
He actually points out that the market is rigged!

Boy it must be getting bad if they're even saying this stuff on TV.

FF

A multi-part feature of Bear Stearns promotional memorabilia from eBay with a few more items, starting with this calculator, which you can use to see how much money you lost when they went under.

More at:   http://blog.epromos.com/archives/retro_promos/

This from Ted Butler, the best silver analyst I ever read, at www.silverseek.com

The article is available at this link:

http://www.investmentrarities.com/06-16-08.html

Silver is still what - $33 below the price it traded for in
1980? It's about $17 an ounce today.

Know of anything else that's trading for one third of the price it traded or sold for 28 years earlier?

WASHINGTON - Larry Matlack, President of the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), has raised concerns over the issue of U.S. grain reserves after it was announced that the sale of 18.37 million bushels of wheat from the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation's Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.

“According to the May 1, 2008 Commodity Credit Corp's inventory report there are o­nly 24.1 million bushels of wheat in inventory, so after this sale there will be o­nly 2.7 million bushels of wheat left the entire CCC inventory,” warned Matlack. “Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian relief. AAM fully supports the action and all humanitarian food relief. Our concern is that the U.S. has nothing else in our emergency food pantry. There is no cheese, no butter, no dry milk powder, no grains or anything else left in reserve. The o­nly thing left in the entire CCC inventory will be 2.7 million bushels of wheat which is about enough wheat to make ½ of a loaf of bread for each of the 300 million people in America.”

The CCC is a federal government-owned and operated entity that was created to stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices. CCC is also supposed to maintain balanced and adequate supplies of agricultural commodities and aids in their orderly distribution.

“This lack of emergency preparedness is the fault of the 1996 farm bill which eliminated the government’s grain reserves as well as the Farmer Owned Reserve (FOR),” explained Matlack. “We had hoped to reinstate the Farmer Owned Reserve and a Strategic Energy Grain Reserve in the new farm bill, but the politics of food defeated our efforts. As farmers it is our calling and purpose in life to feed our families, our communities, our nation and a good part of the world, but we need better planning and coordination if we are to meet that purpose. AAM pledges to continue our work for better farm policy which includes an FOR and a Strategic Energy Grain Reserve.”

AAM’s support for the FOR program, which allows the grain to be stored o­n farms, is a key component to a safe grain reserve in that the supplies will be decentralized in the event of some unforeseen calamity which might befall the large grain storage terminals.

A Strategic Energy Grain Reserve is as crucial for the nation’s domestic energy needs as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. AAM also supports full funding for the replenishment and expansion of Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.

The May 1, 2008 CCC Inventory report may be reviewed here: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/wid2a.pdf <http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/wid2a.pdf> .

Don't we get a winter every year, good and bad seasons from our favorite sports team, low tide as well as high?

Recessions, as I understand them, are where the economy shrinks for 6 months. People shop less. And they only measure negative economic events like this backwards, after factoring in all the positives they can possibly find to make things look better…

They seem as normal as rain. We get a boom, we get a recession. We got drunk, we had a hangover. Isn't there something even moral about having to pay the consequences of our actions?

Here's a recession hint: Go play with all the stuff you ALREADY own.

Or as Groucho said, "I like a good smoke, but sometimes I take the cigar OUT of my mouth. (Do you need me to tell you that I added emphasis?) (I did.)

They're piling into commodities.  And they're all showing up in early 2008.  Way to go, Charlie.  You were waiting perhaps for the two digit years decade to get going?

It reminds me of the old beatniks in the 1960s.  They were all hip, sophisticated dudes.  Each was unique in his own special way.  Yet they all seemed to wear goattees, or have facial hair.  They all feigned an interest in berets.  They all wore casual clothes leaning toward sloppy, but in elegant shades of black somehow.  They all worshipped poverty.  They all expressed an interest in the poetry of Alan Ginsberg, or poetry in general.  (Or in colonel…)

If hedgies were all that smart, why are they all jumping into commodities the first two months of 2008, seven years after the train left the station? 

It's cause hedgies are behaving like beatniks.  9000 unique and special snowflake hedge funds…each looking at the others trying to get a clue…and then copying what they see.  No wonder their performance sucks.  Being early means taking a risk.  "Not on MY watch," they said.  Not having any conviction means never having to say, "Oops, I meant to do that." 

Let us review one bit of Buffettology here.   When Warren and Charlie bought Gen Re back in about 2001, the big reinsurer came with about 22,000 pieces of doggerel known as "derivatives,"  such things as Collateralized Debt Obligations, Credit Deferred Swaps, and even alleged "permanent insurance" products which were used to plump up earnings for a few unsavory corporate types.  Warren and company spent the next four years getting rid of the derivitive sewage.  He lost about $250 million bucks selling financial products, all of which were listed as profitable on the books when he got them. 

Gee, how would Wall Street banks and brokers feel about only losing $250 million on their toxic garbage they can't sell at any price these days?  I believe Da Boys have poured over $125 Billion down the write-off drain.

As a new rule, we should take the periodic piece knocking Buffett as an intermim peak indicator in the market, soon to be followed by much silent crow eating on the part of journo jerk writers, and hopefully the publication that printed it.