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.

I want to be clear that the whole point of the RevolutioNewsletter is to remember that it’s always about the SLOW MONEY and that we’re trying to build wealth and protect our capital always looking out at least five to ten years.   That said, we should note for marketing purposes that the five stocks (including one ETF) in the RevolutionPicks portfolio are up all up an average of 15% since we started it last month.   Visit RevolutioNewsletter.com to sign up now.

From RevolutioNewsletter’s marketing materials:

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,

Cody Willard

Subscribers to the RevolutioNewsletter get:

• A bi-monthly newsletter full of common-sense economic, political, and markets commentary, with proprietary stock picks
• A daily or weekly email (your choice) full of summaries and links of Cody’s articles, blogs, commentary, interviews and appearances.
• Access to RevolutionPicks.com, a password-protected website that tracks all of the RevolutioNewsletter’s stock picks for its subscribers.

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.

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

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.

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.

Freedom, lord what a funny word,
We search for it just like some kind of fool,
Woman leaving home, man sits there all alone,
Little child is paying all the dues — The Allman Brothers

I know most pundits and politicians and the company executives they cater too are all convinced that going into the markets and borrowing hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars that are then going to be to give huge contracts to huge corporations that have made huge donations to the politicians who are doling out that hundreds of billions of dollars is going to be bullish and good for our economy.

They’re idiots.  They’re wrong.   The socialist Republican/Democrat/Obama’s Stimulus Package is actually the single largest pork bill ever proposed in this country.

“It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation,” Obama said of the plan. “We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels.”

That’s a nice thought…but the funding for such things can only come from excess profits in the system.  And in case you guys didn’t notice, there are only excess losses in the system right now.

Keynes went broke because he was an idiot and didn’t understand the very broader economic cycles he purportedly conceptualized.  Gimme a break.  Keynesian economics uses force to redistribute the value of savings (profits) to those most connected politically.   That’s it.  You can put up all the fancy equations and layer all the trickle down magic on top of the principle that you want.  But the fundamental politicization of any “stimulus/pork” contract is the most fundamental principle of Keynesian economics.  And politicization of contracts doesn’t create as much profits as profitization of contracts.

I hate the use of force to redistribute wealth.  Keynesian economics purports using force to redistribute wealth.  Therefore I hate Keynesian economics.

“We are not going to simply write a bunch of checks and let them be spent without some very clear criteria as to how this money is going to benefit the overall economy and put people back to work. We’re not going to be making decisions on projects simply based on politics and — and lobbying,” Obama said.

How else does a politician decide anything — but on politics and lobbying?  By definition, politics are decided by politics.

It ain’t good for our obviously corrupt government to amp up its sucking of money that would otherwise be invested in private, profit-seeking markets.

Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
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Here’s an email I just got from a long-time friend, colleague and reader of mine:

Hey, Cody,

Did you see this?

Two central bank officials, speaking at the annual economic forum in
Beijing said exports shrank in November.  This is compared to Bloomberg
estimate of +14.8% and the October reading of +19.2%.  A decline in
exports would be the first since June 2001.

Not sure if it was exports or China GDP that you predicted would be
negative in 2009……plus, you were saying oil would fall to $30, back
when it was trading $120+…….you should use these predictions in
marketing your newsletter.

CS

It’s GDP.  Exports going negative doesn’t bode well for GDP staying positive in an export-driven economy like China’s though.  I thought using his marketing idea was a pretty good idea.  So I just did use it in marketing my newsletter. Thanks, Charlie.

Subscriptions to RevolutioNewsletter (including full access to RevolutionPicks.com) are $20/month or $200/year. But you can sign up now 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.

Here’s the introduction to the latest and greatest RevolutioNewsletter:

For most of the last fifty years, the best approach to investing in the stock market has been to slowly scale into buying stocks in the very best companies in the country when the broader economic cycles have turned vicious and stocks are down at least 40% or more from their recent highs.  We’re certainly getting there in this market.  But just as every economic cycle takes time to turn from virtuous to vicious as this one did in 2007/2008, so too will it take some time for this now vicious economic cycle to turn virtuous again.  Slow and steady buying with an understanding that you’re getting to invest in some companies you’ll want to own for a decade or more is key.  Still. Slow and steady.  Still. Always.

Indeed, I’ve long argued that investors ignore the broader economic cycles at their own peril.  I thought some perspective from when I turned cautious and bearish at the top of the cycle in late 2006 and throughout most of 2007.

Trading ‘Em as I See ‘Em
By Cody Willard
4/25/2007 4:31 PM EDT

That action today can only be called classically bullish. That’s pretty much a continuation of the market’s upward bias this earnings season, though today’s juice had extra pulp. And that extra pulp comes from Amazon and its blow-out guidance. A 25% pop in Amazon spiked it back to its multiyear highs.

For the last few months, I’ve been referring to data points like this Amazon pop and reminding us that these things don’t happen at bottoms. And while I’m far from certain that this market and economic cycle are topping out — indeed, I’m still looking for my possible “echo techo bubble ” — I sure don’t think it’s wise to invest as aggressively to the long side as we have been for the last few years.

Invariably, when I attribute my cautiousness about this market — that really started afresh last May 10, to the day — to my concerns about being aggressive this long into the economic cycle, I get pushback about how I should just focus on individual names and not the broader cycle. I understand what people mean by that, and I’m much more about individual stock picking than trying to time big-picture cycles.

But I also know that markets and economies can turn bad. For several years out of the bust, I was mostly aggressively long tech. And while I had an Avanex or two in that run that I sold for losses, I also still have some huge winners in names like Google and Apple that I bought at about $90 and at $7 respectively.

Certainly I recognize that buying great names and letting the winners run is a great way to trade and invest.

And I do mostly ignore the broader economic trends that most of the mainstream media thinks most traders pay attention to, like the CPI and employment as measured by our government.

But I also saw the unwinding of a tech bubble that has left the Nasdaq still more than 50% lower than it was a full seven years ago. And even the best tech stocks got crushed in that downturn. Those folks who bought Apple in 2000 had to wait for six years to get even, for example.

I’m certainly not joining the permabear camp, and I’m not predicting a 75% decline in the Nasdaq like we had after the bubble popped in 2000. But neither do I have to be a vocal, leveraged, aggressive bull either. I will continue to focus on paired trades and finding great individual names.

I’m not going to get earholed by this market like I did in eighth grade by Tularosa, when we called a quarterback keeper trick play around the left end and I shattered my ankle into six pieces.

-

I can tell you right now even as I sold every last bit of my partners’ and my own exposure to the stock market by October 2007, that I, as usual, had beforehand taken a long, steady and slow approach to that selling.  It took more than a year before we had scaled out and we sold our very last bit of market exposure.

And I obviously got even more outright bearish as the collapse of the broader economic cycle became more apparent as 2008 took hold and the many virtuous economic cycles turned vicious as I outlined in the intro to the prior newsletter.

I would probably still have some long stock exposure today had I not taken this job as an anchor on Fox Business Network and decided that my new work schedule would make it impossible to continue running other people’s money.   On that note, I will tell you that despite all the intense pressure that comes from anchoring a national TV news show five days a week, nothing compares to the endless self-flogging that any successful money manager must endure to avoid complacency.

My mentor and friend, Jim Rogers, the legendary investor who helped co-found that little Quantum Fund with that little money manager named George Soros, tells people that the best investments are when you see a bag of gold in the corner and all you have to do is go pick it up.

The good news is that there’s lot of gold in these corners of our declining US economy.  The even better news is that this declining US economy will eventually turn itself back around.  The bad news though – come on, you know no good news comes without some bad news, right? – is that our US economy is likely to remain in decline and our stock markets in the bear markets that they are in, until we get some semblance of law back into our markets.

Unfortunately, the egregious TARP and Auto bailouts and the many bailouts that they portend along with the horrendous unintended consequences of shifting money out of the private, profit-seeking marketplace and into the political, vote-seeking marketplace is going to undermine any V-like recovery we might otherwise have enjoyed.   The huge stimulus and asset-inflation dynamic that our foolish, shortsighted, socialist government has put over on us hard-working, taxpaying, non-welfare/bailout citizens is likely to create some illusion of sustainable economic growth coming down the pike in 2009.  The markets will bounce off their lows as we plod along in this new socialist, less-profit-driven economy in our country, but I continue to expect that we’re rangebound between 7000 and 9500 on the DJIA.

Aggressive traders can look to buy any dips to 7500 (and get a bit long at 7000).  And they can look to sell any rip above 9000 (and get a bit short at 9500).   But for the most part, as I outlined in the inaugural RevolutioNewsletter, you’ll simply want to slowly but surely scale into the very best, long-term US-based companies.  Including the new one I add to the RevolutionPicks stock list below.  I’d also note that as the return on Treasuries turned negative today even as stocks have bounced nearly 20% from their recent lows, that I’d be looking for a serious hit to this stock market in the near term.  Investors and traders are fleeing to Treasuries and are willing to take 99 cents tomorrow – interest be damned.  That’s not healthy and certainly after the recent pop to stocks as they bounce here in the high 8000s, I’d rather be short than long when the Treasury market – much larger than the stock market in overall size – is not healthy.

Well, anyway…onto the long-term Revolution Stock Picks then…

Subscriptions to RevolutioNewsletter (including full access to RevolutionPicks.com) are $20/month or $200/year. But you can sign up now 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.

I got back late Saturday night, after Lobo and I fought delays on American Airlines for hours in Dallas. Even as I had such a terrific time in Ruidoso (and of course in LA as I became the second person from my kindergarten class of 28 students in Ruidoso, NM to be a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno — click here to see the clip), I was excited to get back to NYC and get back to fighting the good fight against the corporate and white-collar welfare society we continue to find ourselves being dragged into by the Republicans and Democrats in charge.

Didn’t take but one glance at my morning NY Times as Lobo and I headed out the door into the brisk single digit temperatures here in NYC to get my blood boiling:

First headline:

• Detroit Bailout Is to Bring On U.S. Oversight

  Congressional Democrats were drafting legislation for government control of the auto industry, including the possible creation of an …December 8, 2008 - By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and JACKIE CALMES - Washington

Second headline:

• Kremlin Rules - In Hard Times, Russia Moves In to Reclaim Private …

  The Kremlin seems to be exploiting the economic crisis to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long …December 8, 2008 - By CLIFFORD J. LEVY - International / Europe

=

Can you tell which country you live in? Can you tell which country supports private property laws? Can you tell which country is built upon the respect of contract law? Can you tell me which country has an upwardly mobile society and growing economy? Can you tell me which country has some semblance of balance between the rich and the poor, the ownership class and the working class? Can you tell me which country is full of oligarchs that are protected by their political cronies?

I can’t.

The bear market will continue until we get a recognizable system of law back in this country. No more bailouts for any companies or people who didn’t prepare for the rainy day that we’re all living through right now.

I’ve been saying for months that we’re likely rangebound between 7000 and 9500. We’re getting closer again to the top part of that range. Sell this rally and get short if we get closer to 9500.

PS. The second edition of my new investment newsletter, RevolutioNewsletter, is coming out tomorrow. Click here or visit RevolutioNewsletter.com to sign up now and for a limited time, get it at half price.

One of the head Illuminati crooks who have destroyed our economy by lying to everybody about their assets and earnings for years, Vikram Pandit, the CEO of the largest new welfare institution in the country, Citigroup, was on Charlie Rose last night.

I don’t know why Charlie Rose was so nice to this guy who just took billions of dollars in welfare for his rich shareholders and their lenders.  Peter Barnes and David Asman and I last night were trying to figure out under what provision or law or rule this latest $20 billion infusion into Citigroup was done under.  Treasury told Peter that they hadn’t published the provision yet.

Guys, what’s the definition of anarchy?   How about this one: “a state of lawlessness or disorder due to the absence or denial of an established authority.”

Our “government” (if that’s what it can still be called), just doled out more welfare than half the total budget for food stamps for hungry people in this country for 2008 to just one company , in one weekend, under a law that’s not even written yet.

You guys know I’ve been sounding the alarms about this corruption, cronyism and horrible redistribution of wealth upwards that the Socialist Republicans/Democrats in this country are putting over on us right now.  I’ve been rightly scared about what it means for our economy and society when we try to contain the trillions of dollars of losses that irresponsible companies and individuals have created for themselves by spreading those trillions of dollars in losses to all the people and all the companies who were responsible and trust-worthy.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re now being led by anarchists who don’t even care if they are following any laws, Constitutional or not.  I’m terrified of anarchy.  I don’t want the government to do much.  But I do want a government to protect the rule of law.

This Democrat/Republican government does exactly the opposite.   It destroys the rule of law.

Want proof of the blurred lines between the richest bankers in the world and the guys who were and are supposed to be regulating them…using LAWS?  Here’s a quote straight from the crook Vikram’s mouth on  television (public television…yeah, Vikram used welfare money to broadcast his explanation of why his company has taken in hundreds of billions of dollars of welfare this year so far) last night (italics are mine):

Vikram Pandit:

“That’s important. And we also put in another 20 billion of capital, and we are delighted. It’s great to have access to that capital. That in our view more than covers issues that might come up against the assets that we own and the loans that we’ve made going forward. So we’re extremely confident in both the earnings capacity of the company and our ability to manage —”

Who is the “we” in that paragraph?!

“We also put in another $20 billion of capital…”   Does it seem to you guys that Vikram now sees the Treasury and Federal Reserve capital (you know…the taxpayer’s capital…YOUR capital) as one and same as Citigroup’s?

Guys, your Republican/Democrat government has taken us along ways away from any semblance of law.  I’m not even getting started on how unconstitutional the laws they’ve created but aren’t following any more are. I’d be happy at this point with just some respect of any rule of law!

Markets hate uncertainty.  Certainty comes with rule of law.  Anarchy is scary.  And fear doesn’t build confidence.

I’m scared. I’m sick to my stomach over what’s happening so fast and to such huge magnitude with such huge dollar amounts going into the public sector and being politicized.  When will profits ever matter again?  Will they?

It’s going to take a few years now to fix what’s been destroyed.  The downturn won’t end until we punish those who lost all this money.  And we reward those who didn’t.  That’s what was supposed to happen under the rule of law that we had in this country until October 3, 2008.

Now I don’t know what we have.  Be careful out there for the next year or two.  We might find some good individual names and opportunities to buy.  And if your time horizon is five or ten years or more, it’s better to be a buyer right now than a seller.   But anarchy’s going to be anarchy on our markets until we get back control from these corrupt politicians and their cronies.

Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
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I was playing with http://trends.google.com this weekend after a friend told me he was worried about the suicide rate climbing in this country as the economy gets worse and the government keeps sending what’s left of our money to the crooks on Wall Street and those who support them.

Some interesting search word trends:

Searches for the word “depression” are climbing strongly this year, but are still down from where they were in 2004 -

Searches for the word “unemployment” are in a steady bull market -

I closed my hedge fund and took this financial media job at a pretty lucky little juncture.  Hedge funds are going all but extinct but everybody’s talking about the “stock market” right now.  Financial media is one of the few industries that’s actually benefiting from this economic collapse we’re living through.  Searches for “stock market” -

Wanna know an industry that’s in serious cyclical decline?  Yup, ain’t many people looking up the word “vacation” on the Net these days:

Remember last year when we’d do those Economic Infomercials on Happy Hour during which I’d plead with the politicians and bureaucrats to just let what would have been a minor economic downturn come and go.  Instead of letting people who should have lost money lose money because those individuals took bad risks when they bought, sold, borrowed and/or lent…we keep taking from those who rent and save and giving to those who don’t.  With force.  How else do they have the power to put over all these taxes and stimulus and bailouts on us who would otherwise have much more wealth and ability to create and invest than we do as those in power keeping putting over all these taxes and stimulus and bailouts to those who, by any definition of the word “freedom” should be losers by their own accord right now.

The long-term trend for vacationing won’t go back up until those who have money are allowed to keep it and those who lost money aren’t allowed to keep what they supposedly lost.

The long-term trend for unemployment won’t go back down until those who have saved feel that nobody’s going to steal that money or the value of that money from them to reward powerful cronies who would otherwise be insolvent.

Hey Washington, want the stock market to go back up?  Quit distracting us and let us get back to work around here!

PS.  Were I looking to trade, I’d be looking to short any rallies above 8700 in the near term if we get there.  Otherwise stay on the sidelines until we drop below 7800 again.

Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
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