gdp's Comments

The Disciplined Investor : Cash for.... Appliances. Really?

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:02:40 +0000

Join my cash for VHS campaign! http://scottsinvestments.blogspot.com/2009/08/car...

The Disciplined Investor : Links and Reading for August 24th

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:42:05 +0000

Andrew - You may be interested to know that a bailout of the VHS industry is in the works.... ;) http://scottsinvestments.blogspot.com/2009/08/car...

The Disciplined Investor : Was that the end of the rally?

Thu, 14 May 2009 03:30:26 +0000

One other note - could this global slump end up costing us $33 TRILLION? Interesting article by Niels Jensen seems to say it could, http://scottsinvestments.blogspot.com/2009/05/jen...

The Disciplined Investor : Was that the end of the rally?

Thu, 14 May 2009 03:28:55 +0000

Good work Andrew, I tend to agree and your argument echoes those other voices who tend to be right more then they are wrong (Hussman, Mauldin, and others). I heard somewhere we could be in for a 'V-L' recovery, a sharp bounce of the near complete meltdown in 2008, but a long, subdued recovery after the initial bounce. Also, Alt-A and Option ARM resets set to increase this summer will not bode well for the overall economy, especially when people are losing their jobs.

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Sunday Drive-By/Grassroots Economics

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:24:48 +0000

Observations from the northwoods of Minnesota: 1) A lot of men in small towns in Minnesota are in 'blue collar' or manual labor related fields/small businesses such as logging, construction, etc. Also, recreational vehicles (ATVs, boats, snowmobiles) are big industries. I heard a lot of talk this weekend about the inability to get financing, and also the dreaded 'underemployment'. Guys aren't working a normal 40 hour work week, which I'm sure doesn't show up in normal unemployment statistics since technically they still have some work, just not enough. In addition, deflation has hit the recreational vehicle industry - if you have extra money to burn, you can get some great deals as prices continue to drop. 2) On the flip side, I own an ecommerce business catering to computer hardware upgrades. A lot of people are upgrading hard drives/memory or buying external storage devices as opposed to buying new laptops. This has been great for business, and probably is in line with what some of the auto part stores are seeing - people doing their own repairs.

The Disciplined Investor : Videos: Is the White House Threatening Rick Santelli?

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 20:01:38 +0000

Was Santelli's rant planted? Not sure if it was, but it makes for an interesting talker. Barry Ritholz highlighted an article by Playboy in his blog, http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santell... : I was interviewed by several journalists last week about Rick Santelli’s Rant — my exact quote was it had a “Faux” feel to it. (I haven’t seen it in print yet) What was so odd about this was that Santelli is usually on the ball; we usually agree more often than we disagree. He’s been responsible for some of the best moments on Squawk Box. But his rant somehow felt wrong. After we’ve pissed through over $7 trillion dollars in Federal bailouts to banks, brokers, automakers, insurers, etc., this was a pittance, the least offensive of all the vast sums of wasted money spent on “losers” to use Santelli’s phrase. It seemed like a whole lot of noise over “just” $75 billion, or 1% of the rest of the total ne’er-do-well bailout monies. It turns out that there may be more to the story then originally met the eye, according to (yes, really) Playboy magazine. Excerpt: “How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant? What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was. What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.” What is Playboy’s evidence of this? “Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short’s Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first “exposed” a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg’s radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” That Rosenberg’s producer owns the “chicagoteaparty.com” site is already weird—but what’s even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg’s launch of the “Obama is a terrorist” campaign. It’s as if they held this “Chicago tea party” campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was. This looks like more than a coincidence. This is now a very serious charge. I have no insight as to whether this is true or not — but it certainly deserves a serious response from both Santelli and CNBC. If its false, then they should say so, and demand an apology from Playboy. But if any of it is true, well then, Santelli may have to fall on his sword, and CNBC may owe the public an apology. I am VERY curious if there is any truth to this. My response to their article is here. Please read it so you know just how wrong they were about me and my politics.

The Disciplined Investor : Videos: Is the White House Threatening Rick Santelli?

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:37:45 +0000

The blame game goes both ways, Fibbs can be accused of class warfare but just as equally so could Santelli. Once again, I pose the question: Has Santelli ranted against the bank bailouts? I'm not saying he hasn't, but nobody seems to be able to answer this question. The mortage bailout pales in comparison to the bank bailouts. My guess is Rick has a few more buddies being directly helped out/in need of a bank bailout then a mortage bailout. I'm sick of bailing the irresponsible parties out, both corporate and invidual, but let's have some perspective on who is getting what....

The Disciplined Investor : Videos: Is the White House Threatening Rick Santelli?

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:12:37 +0000

Has Santelli ranted against the bank bailouts? I'm not saying he hasn't, but nobody seems to be able to answer this question. The mortage bailout pales in comparison to the bank bailouts. My guess is Rick has a few more buddies being directly helped out/in need of a bank bailout then a mortage bailout. I'm sick of bailing the irresponsible parties out, both corporate and invidual, but let's have some perspective on who is getting what....