Ron Paul, the Lake Jackson GOP lawmaker whose Internet-driven presidential campaign has smashed fundraising records but failed to garner substantial voter support, is scaling back his White House efforts and is focusing on the primary race to retain his House seat.
In an e-mail message sent to supporters Saturday, Paul said that while he will remain in the presidential race, he must place a priority on his congressional contest, where he faces Friendswood accountant Chris Peden.
"If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas," he said. "I cannot and will not let that happen."
With Arizona Sen. John McCain on a clear path to the Republican presidential nomination, Paul said he no longer needs as big a national staff, "so," he said, "I am making it leaner and tighter."
Read the rest
FMM Comment: The MSM negative bias just doesn't end. Chuckle-chuckle...It makes you wonder what they fear.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
How to Stimulate Yourself
The Bush stimulus has been approved. Scratching your head? Don't know what to do with this "free" money? I offer three suggestions:
- Donate it to the Ron Paul Revolution or
- Pay of your debt or
- Buy gold, i.e. a Kruger Rand
Other suggestions are welcomed.
Words from the (Investment) Wise
by Prieur du Plessis
The past week witnessed a turnaround in sentiment as renewed recession fears dominated investors' actions. Stock markets across the globe were subjected to selling pressure, while credit spreads scaled new highs. "What the market giveth [the previous week], it also taketh away [last week]," was Briefing.com's very apt description of events.
A particularly weak ISM Services report and the specter of bond insurer downgrades further reignited recession concerns, and reminded pundits of the words of Lily Tomlin, the American comedian: "Things are going to get a lot worse before they are going to get worse."
Randall Forsythe of Barron's offered the following commentary: "The Mardi Gras that's lasted four decades for the American consumer is drawing to an end, if it is not already over. After Fat Tuesday comes Ash Wednesday, which is observed today, and is the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, self-examination and renewal for Christians, analogous to Ramadan for Muslims or Yom Kippur for Jews. Lower interest rates are a palliative, not a cure, for the economy's woes. Time is the only healer. Economists call that time a recession, and it can no longer be avoided."
Before highlighting some thought-provoking news items and quotes from market commentators, let's briefly review the financial markets' movements on the basis of economic statistics and a performance chart.
Read the rest
The past week witnessed a turnaround in sentiment as renewed recession fears dominated investors' actions. Stock markets across the globe were subjected to selling pressure, while credit spreads scaled new highs. "What the market giveth [the previous week], it also taketh away [last week]," was Briefing.com's very apt description of events.
A particularly weak ISM Services report and the specter of bond insurer downgrades further reignited recession concerns, and reminded pundits of the words of Lily Tomlin, the American comedian: "Things are going to get a lot worse before they are going to get worse."
Randall Forsythe of Barron's offered the following commentary: "The Mardi Gras that's lasted four decades for the American consumer is drawing to an end, if it is not already over. After Fat Tuesday comes Ash Wednesday, which is observed today, and is the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, self-examination and renewal for Christians, analogous to Ramadan for Muslims or Yom Kippur for Jews. Lower interest rates are a palliative, not a cure, for the economy's woes. Time is the only healer. Economists call that time a recession, and it can no longer be avoided."
Before highlighting some thought-provoking news items and quotes from market commentators, let's briefly review the financial markets' movements on the basis of economic statistics and a performance chart.
Read the rest
Cool Tool: Election 2008 Political Dashboard
Here is a cool interactive tool if you want to follow the 2008 election results by state, party and candidate.
http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard/?d=ST
http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard/?d=ST
Another Asian Crisis Brewing?
Japan is the next sub-prime flashpoint
There is still $300bn of bad debt out there, and Japan could be hiding most of it. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports
Just as battered investors had begun to glimpse signs of recovery in America, the next shoe has dropped with an almighty thud in Japan. Echoes are rumbling across the Far East.
The Tokyo bourse has crumbled, suffering the worst start to the year since the Second World War. The Nikkei index is down 17 per cent since Christmas, and the shares of Japanese banks are leading the slide. Mizuho Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui have all been punished as hard or even harder than those US banks at the epicentre of the sub-prime debacle.
The nagging fear is that Japan's lenders - the conduit for the world's greatest stash of savings - have taken on a far bigger chunk of mortgage securities, collateralised loans obligations and other exotica from America's structured credit boom than they have yet revealed.
Americans and Europeans have so far confessed to $130bn of the estimated $400bn to $500bn of wealth that has vanished into the sub-prime hole. Somebody, somewhere, must be sitting on a vast nexus of undisclosed losses. We may find out soon enough whether the hold-outs are in Japan. The banks have to come clean under the country's strict new audit codes by the end of the tax year in March.
Read the rest
The drumbeat of Weak Economic Numbers
Ugly retail sales on tap, and more from Bernanke
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The drumbeat of weak economic numbers will likely continue this coming week, topped by awful retail sales figures and depressed consumer sentiment readings.
As if that weren't enough, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will trudge to Capitol Hill again, along with the rest of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (a.k.a. The PPT), to explain to senators just why the financial markets aren't working.
Risks abound in both the numbers and in the testimony.
FMM Comment: I'm looking forward to Ron Paul boxing Ben's ears again. Is Ben dragging the PPT along as bodyguards?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
