As I’ve been so vocal and adamant against all the forms of corporate welfare (you can call it “bailouts” if you want), I’ve gotten one question over and over as these two real quotes from my blog comments asked:

“What should we do about it?”

“What are you, we, going to do about all this?”

So many people write to me saying they feel that, now more than ever, they don’t have a voice as Congress and the Republicans/Democrats ignore the overwhelmingly unanimous wishes of the body politic. Fact is though, I’ve long noted that Internet enables us to prove Orwell wrong — that it can and should be Little Brother Watching You…watching Big Brother.

It starts now — http://www.SpokeUp.com

You can read up on what politically- and socially-active people are reading, watch videos from YouTube that they’re watching and surf the site to get a sense of what people are really thinking about the times we’re living in. Or you can sign up for free to become part of the community and Speak Up yourself.

Here’s just one example of what people are speaking up about on SpokeUp.com that you can read and join in on:

Chicago FED Says Take Interest Rates Below 0 and Monetize Debt

You can visit my home page, where I feature funny financial or political videos and talk about things like my FBN feature, “Where’s My Money?!” — http://spokeup.com/pg/profile/cody

You can also check out the fan club pages for Happy Hour, Cavuto, America’s Nightly Scoreboard, or the Dave Ramsey Show.

The upshot is we wanna affect some positive change. Let’s be heard indeed.

PS. Full disclosure: I’m the founder of the company that built SpokeUp.com.

Some thoughts that are kicking off the playoffs in my own head this weekend:

* I’ll introduce this more formally in an upcoming post this weekend, but I want to let readers know now that after two years of blood, sweat and tears, we’re proud to beta-launch SpokeUp.com - The social network for individuals who speak up.

You can visit my profile page at http://spokeup.com/pg/profile/cody and you can check out what subscribers are reading, talking about and watching on the Internet by visiting SpokeUp.com.  It’s all free and it’s all about creating a force for positive change in this country despite (because of) the scary economic and political climate we live in.  Let’s be heard!

* You know, given all the obvious corruption around all the insider dealings in this administration (not that you can separate this Republican Administration from the Democrat one before or about to come of course), I just have to wonder why what Rod Blagojevich did that’s any different.  Not that I condone any of this insider cronyism and corruption, but I am just saying that I seriously can’t tell why what he did is a crime and why what Bush did with these pardons, for example, isn’t.

* Everybody’s seems to be convinced that there’s tons of trillions of dollars “on the sidelines”.  You still hear people talk about the sovereign wealth funds that were built upon oil’s ascent as if they’re loaded to the gills in cash.  Come on, now, guys, let’s face it — in the same way that the steel titans, the real estate titans and the dot com titans of recent years went from flush to broke in the blink of an eye as their bubbles popped, shouldn’t we expect that the oil-built sovereign wealth funds have gone broke as oil’s dropped 75%?  I know, I know, I sound silly.  Sure.

* Oil’s traded in a ten percent range so far this year.  Did I mention that the trading year is almost a full half day over already?   This  wild kind of volatility is not the stuff bull markets are made of.   I tend to think we can expect a lot more volatility in both stocks and oil in 2009 — thus my “target ranges” of 7000-9500 for the DJIA and $20 to $50 for the black crude.  Only 363.5 more days to get through to find out how this year’s final numbers end up.

* On Happy Hour tonight on Fox Business, Gogo and I (Eric’s still out til Monday) will be discussing how John Paulson was up another 35% in 2008 while Warren Buffett’s stock was pummeled by 38%.  Buffett would say who cares, since he’s in his stocks for the long run, but down 35% vs. up 38% is a huge difference and I find it fascinating as a news topic.

* Remember when we used to have to listen to people say “oil’s still not quite at its inflation-adjusted all-time high” when oil kept trying to get up above $100 in 2008?   Wonder how long it’ll be before we hear those words muttered again.  Just sayin’.

* Wanna hear a scary stat — if in 2009, the S&P 500 can simply match its performance in 2008, we’ll be at S&P 550 this time next year.   I don’t we get that low during the course of the year, but I sure will give myself some space to scale in as I buy this year, just in case.  No rush, that’s for sure.

* Happy New Year!

Cody Willard
Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Speak up at http://SpokeUp.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
Facebook me at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=763890180
Myspace me at http://www.myspace.com/codyonfox

Just a quick reminder that if you sign up for the RevolutioNewsletter today, you get it for half price. Starting tomorrow, the price jumps from the introductory sale price of $10 a month or $100 a year to the actual price of $20 a month or $200 a year.

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I sit down and talk to Fortune 500 CEOs from all facets of the economy, with Senators and Congressmen, and the biggest and brightest economic, markets, and political thinkers of our time. Every day. And as the system of finance, banking and even monetary control itself has shifted during the collapse of the last few years, it’s become increasingly clear to me that everything we thought we knew about making money (and, every bit as important, then keeping the money you make) in investing and trading has changed too.

The good news is that these tumultuous times create money-making investment opportunities that we’ll likely never see again in our lifetimes. The bad news is that navigating these brave new worlds that our leaders, both corporate and political, have taken us to, is going to be wraught with danger and difficulty.

There are already a few long-term RevolutioNewsletter stock picks trading at levels to cash flow and net cash that remind me of the kind of bottom-picking opportunities that prompted me to launch a technology-centric hedge fund at the very bottom of The Great Tech Depression in October 2002. Many of those original investments were up several hundred percent over the next few years — though to be sure, the ride was anything but steady. And any investor’s going to need to stay vigilant and on top of their investments and trades in this day and age if ever.

I’ve spent twelve years on Wall Street and I’ve never seen a time that requires common sense thinking and analysis as now. Sign up for The RevolutioNewsletter today and I’ll send you the first month’s newsletter for free today.

Rock on,

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1. Stocks vs. Bonds

2. Medicare vs. TARP

3. Big City vs. Ruidoso

1. Stocks have been hanging pretty tough. Corporate bonds have been crushed because investors don’t think they’ll get paid back the money they lend from company cash flows. Treasuries are still paying about zero percent as investors flee to the only place that has a printing press of dollars that can pay them back – and they’re willing to take 99 cents on the dollar. Not sure the money bet’s that stocks are gonna higher. Be careful.

2. Numerology of the day: $454 billion. You choose – that number’s both the total welfare we spent on all of medicare in 2008 in this country. Or it’s just 25% of how much the Treasury and Fed have already given to the bankers and car companies who blew up this economy. Welfare don’t make bull markets in any case.

3. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently gave Congress a list of 11,391 projects worth more than $73 billion. My hometown’s been needing a new waste treatment center to stop polluting into the rio Ruidoso for decades. Why do I expect big city mayor’s are going to get their needs met first, just like big business gets its needs met first. Spending by politicians and bureaucrats is never bullish.

Here’s the intro to the latest bi-weekly RevolutioNewsletter that we published today.

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The stock market’s been hanging in there. Even as GDP has fully turned negative, even as retail sales plummet, even as oil’s drop from its highs just a couple months ago hits 70% plus, even as China’s exports drop double digits, even as housing prices drop the most since the Great Depression – the stock market’s been hanging in there.

Of course, the market’s already down 40% from its highs early in 2008. And more the point, stocks don’t necessarily trade according to current economic results. Stocks of course are supposed to be forward-looking, discounting mechanisms.

Forward-looking, so too are the bonds that represent those who lend the companies that those stocks represent ownership. The stress in the corporate bond market can be measured by the difference between how much the interest on those bonds are vs. what the US government pays on Treasuries. This is also known as “spreads”. And while spreads have come down a little bit recently, they still remain at record levels. Levels, that, yes, we’ve not seen since the Great Depression.

It was partly the spiking spreads back in late 2007 and early 2008 that had me repeatedly telling the bulls on Fox Business Network that they were whistling past the graveyard since corporate bonds were signaling distress even as stocks were hitting all-time highs.

Spreads are much, much higher now than they were back then. And that’s even after they’ve come down a bunch in the last month. Corporate bonds are clearly signaling more cash flow distress ahead. And that means more earnings distress ahead. And that likely means more stock price distress ahead.

Meanwhile, short-term Treasuries are trading with near zero interest yields. They’ve even gone negative yields in recent weeks, which means that billions of investment dollars are being lent to the government by investors and traders who are so scared about being paid back by corporate cash flows that they’re willing to get back 99 cents for every dollar they lend.

The stock market keeps hanging in there though. And while that might mean that stocks have already discounted much of what the bond and Treasury markets are signaling, it might also mean that stock investors are once again whistling past the graveyard. I tend to think that’s the most likely scenario, and that’s why I continue to think we’ll see the stock market trade in a range of 7000-9500 for most of the next year or two. And right now, I tend to think we’re headed toward the 7500 range or lower as stock investors and traders come to terms with the fact that many companies are going to go bankrupt in 2009 and 2010, taking their stocks to zero no matter how many bailouts the government hands the shareholders on the way down.

Opportunities to slowly scale in are ahead in this stock market. Let’s be patient. In this newsletter, we look at some of the horror stories that come to investors in companies who disregard the importance of building clean balance sheets and maintaining high, virtuous profit margins.

Here are some stocks from which we can learn what to avoid in these Revolutionary economic times…

CLOCK IS TICKING ON THIS LIMITED TIME OFFER: Subscriptions to RevolutioNewsletter (including full access to RevolutionPicks.com) are $20/month or $200/year. But you can sign up BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR and get your first year of the RevolutioNewsletter and access to RevolutionPicks.com for half price — $10/month or $100/year. Click here to sign up now.

1. It Takes A Billion

2. 50 Cents Gets You a Dollar

3. Read up on Darfur

1. Real headline of the day: “Obama Led First Billion-Dollar Race This Year as Spending on Vote Doubled”. These guys needed a billion dollars to get elected this year and you really think they’re out for anybody but the richest companies and people who gave them the money to get elected? Where do you think all these bailouts come from?

2. I stumbled across Openwave (OPWV) today. You can buy the company for half the amount of money they actually have in their checking account. Problem is that they’ve not generated cash from operations since 2006. You’re gonna see a lot of stocks trading below cash in the next year or two. Be patient though.

3. When was the last time you googled Darfur and read up on the horrific situation there?

Here’s what I was asking myself rhetorically today:

1. Still Think I’m Crazy?

2. American Express: Welfare Institution

3. Bankruptcies Would Be BULLISH!

1. Real headline of the day: “U.S. Housing Prices Collapse at Near-Depression Pace After Purchases Slide.” Think about that for a minute. We’ve thrown trillions at housing and nationalized the entire mortgage industry in the last year in the name of propping up housing and a year into it, prices collapse like they did in the depression. People used to think I was crazy for saying the bailouts create depressions. Still think I’m crazy?

2. Another real headline this Christmas week: “American Express Wins Approval to Get $3.39 Billion in Capital Under TARP.” If AmEx is insolvent without this welfare, then why don’t the people who were rich enough to take on the risk of owning AXP have to deal with the insolvency before we taxpayers do?

3. I’ve said many times on this show that I wouldn’t buy a homebuilder until we finally see some bankruptcies in the sector. Don’t you see that giving welfare instead of forcing bankruptcies on all these rich people and big companies who managed their money all wrong is bearish and not bullish like these people keep telling us?

1. Forced Lending Will Destroy Housing

2. Housing Cannot Rebound For Years

3. Trade With The Kremlin? No Thanks

1. It stands to reason that the only self-sustaining system is one where private-profit-seeking companies with self-serving interests trades/lends/borrows/invests because they can create profits from doing so. Our new system is built upon welfare institutions that are soon to be “forced” lend to businesses and people that won’t be able to pay them back…what’s self-sustaining in this new system?

2. 80% of all mortgages are now owned by the US government and controlled by politicians and bureaucrats who don’t get a share of the profits, but want your votes. Everybody wants to create artificial government-controlled incentives to fix housing. Housing won’t be fixed until banks and homeowners are profit-seeking again, and that will only happen when the government gets out of the way.

3. Real headline of the day: State cash gives holiday cheer to Russia share. MSM is stupid! The Russia market index was down 40% when they started using taxdollars to buy back stock in the open market. It’s now down 70%. See points #1 and #2 above for why.

But give my daddy a job cause he needs one
Hes got lots of mouths to feed
But if youve got one, I’ll have a machine gun
So I can scare all the kids down the street

Father christmas, give us some money
We got no time for your silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
Give all the toys to the little rich boys — The Kinks

The liars and crooks who run the investment banks that are now the largest welfare institutions on the planet took out almost $2 billion of money JUST THIS YEAR that they should have been saving for the rainy day that’s now here and handed it to the 600 people they thought were most important to their companies’ well-being.

And now they’re still driving around in corporate jets even after becoming welfare institutions? I went down to Wall Street to find some people to defend this concept. We got a guy on our show tonight who says it’s probably not a bad idea to let Wall Street remain excessively wealthy….

We’ll be doling out “gift ideas” on Happy Hour later today, and I think I’ve got a good, sarcastic gift idea to save Joe Sixpack. I just hope Obama/Pelosi/Palin/Paulson don’t wind of this idea and think it’s serious…because the socialist Republican/Democrats that you guys keep voting into office might want to put this over on us economy-destroying worthless savers and renters:

I’d like to give the $2.6 million that the average Wall Streeter got last year to every elected politician and bureaucrat in this country – to every small town councilmember, police officer, firefighter and sewer cleaner, every mayor, every US and state representative and even, yes, Bush and Pelosi and Ben and Hank…

Don’t you guys realize that unless rich people feel rich everyday, that this economy will implode and Joe Sixpack will lose his job, and since it’s too outrageous to give Wall Streeters this big a bonus after they’ve destroyed our economy and are now on welfare…let’s pick the old-school bureaucrats to take their place!.

PS. Flip It, indeed. You know it’s bad when you have to explain that you’re just being sarcastic when you propose something as outrageous as I just did. I mean, didn’t you think it had to be a joke when you heard that the real estate developers of the world were uniting to beg for welfare for the ownership class they represent?

Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
Facebook me at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=763890180
Myspace me at http://www.myspace.com/codyonfox

My own version of Sunday Comics –

How are all these ad-hoc rules and bail outs supposed to create confidence, again?:

-

[The credit agencies]: “I’m not going to so my math homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here’s a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts.”
“I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths.”
“I prefer to savour the mystery.”

-

“”We’re sorry to learn that you will soon be dead,
but though you may find this slightly macabre,
we prefer your extinction to the loss of our job.”  No, Calvin, your story doesn’t sound far-fetched at all, actually.

-

Susie [middle American voters to Wall Streeters and Detroit]: You’d get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It’s wrong to get rewards you haven’t earned.
Calvin: I’ve never heard of anyone who couldn’t live with that.

-

Still think Bernanke and Paulson et al are “real doctors”?

-

“Mom’s [the economy] not feeling well. So I’m making her a get well card.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.”
“See, on the front it says, ‘Get Well Soon’ … and on the inside it says,’Because me bed isn’t made, my clothes need to be put away and I’m hungry. Love Calvin.’ Want to sign it?”
“Sure, I’m hungry too”

-

The wisdom of letting free markets work:

-

“Dad, I’d like to have a little talk.”
“Um…ok.”
“As the wage earner here, its your responsibility to show some consumer confidence and start buying things that will get the economy going and create profits and employment. Here’s a list of some big-ticket items I’d like for Christmas. I hope I can trust you to do whats right for our country.”
“I’ve got to stop leaving the Wall Street Journal around.”

-

What those of us who have a clue that profits make economies and societies prosper and that central planning destroys the coffee table:

-

“I just read this great science-fiction story. It’s about how machines take control of humans and turn them into zombie slaves.”
“So instead of us controlling machines, they control us? Pretty scary idea.”
“I”ll say…*HEY* What time is it? My TV show is on.”

(Yeah, career choice irony duly noted.)

-

How all you socialists and Keynesians sound to the rest of us when you explain your theories:

-

[Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson]: “Reality continues to ruin my life.”

-

The big shakers on Wall Street and other corporate chieftains now begging Joe Sixpack for welfare:

-

Bernanke and Paulson and Bush and Pelosi and the rest who told us this economy can never have what used to be a normal, cyclical downturn again:

“Since September it’s just gotten colder and colder. There’s less daylight now, I’ve noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isnt going out. He says its colder because the earth’s orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon.
Isn’t it sad how some people’s grip on their lives is so precarious that they’ll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?”

-

You call it Troubled Asset Relief Program, I call it extortion.  “If we don’t bail out Wall Street, Joe Sixpack will lose his job and his ATM card wouldn’t work any more…”:

-

[John Thain]  : “What do you think is the secret to happiness? Is it money, power or fame?”
[Bernie Madoff] : “I’d choose money. If you have enough money, you can buy fame and power. That way you’r have it all and be really happy. Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.”
JT : “I suppose thats *one* way to define it.”
BM : “The part I think I’d like best is crushing people who get in my way.”

-
The UAW even as we give them $17 billion in outright welfare:

-
How we’ll feel when we finally have to eat the trillions of dollars that the Fed’s wasting on the investment banks and not telling us how or on what junk.  (FBN is suing the Fed under FOIA to get more info, btw):

-  You decide, TARP or Calvinball?

Permanent Rule: You may not play the Calvinball (TARP) the same way twice.

Primary Rule: The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or deleted by any player(s) involved. These rules are not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball (TARP).

1.0. The following words in these rules are mostly freely interchangeable, the Primary Rule applies (to the banks who get TARP funds):

§ Can

§ May

§ Must

§ Shall

§ Should

§ Will

§ Would