Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

We Get It

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Yesterday, one of the regulars here on Slope expressed puzzlement and my frequent mentions of "the evils" out there, such as Bernanke, Geithner, POMO, and so forth. He politely stated that the focus should be on the charts, and that the reason behind the price movement was really neither here nor there. He quickly got a lot of "Likes" on his comment, and I realized he had struck a chord. There was so much chatter about his comment that he wound up deleting it, but I felt it was something I should address.

I've made a habit of writing whatever is on my mind (within reason; I don't want to alienate everyone by being too candid about my feelings) here on Slope. It bugs me……..a lot……..that my beloved free enterprise system has been corrupted on an unprecedented scale, so I've been quite vocal – perhaps to the point of nettlesome – about these persons and actions.

Let us use the metaphor of an airplane pilot. I have been trained, let us suppose, as a pilot. I've got years of experience, volumes of knowledge, and a specific objective (which is to get the plane safely to my destination). I have been able to do this for years. However, one day, some people begin putting Vaseline on my windshield. This ground crew – – Geithner and Blankfein – – smear their POMO sauce all over my windshield so that things are difficult to see.

What used to work doesn't work anymore. Things don't make sense. I can't ascertain what's coming up next. Other pilots, whose windshields are similarly smeared, tell me to just keep flying, and that everything will be fine. Just fly, and don't worry about it. But I can't; it's uncomfortable, unsettling, and bothersome. So I complain about the Vaseline. And I keep complaining.

So it is with the markets today. The easiest thing to do is fly (buy) and keep flying (keep buying). It's worked out for plenty of folks. But it seems insane to me (as examples like FFIV are beginning to show us). I'm not a momentum trader. I don't play "Greater Fool" markets. That costs me sometimes, since insanity like 1999 (and 2009/2010) happen. But pushing my plane full-throttle forward, Vaseline be damned, just isn't the way I'm put together. Maybe that makes me a fool, but at least I'm a fool with integrity.

But I understand the Sloper's point about my all-too-frequent complaints about Vaseline. I'll lighten up about it, since I've made my point. You guys know how I feel. I'll try to refrain from mentioning the Evils anymore – – or at least do so infrequently – – since I understand repeating what I've said doesn't really add anything to the discussion. And that's all I've got to say about that.

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Shalom’s New Best Buddy

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As proof of a munificent God, I offer the fact that none other than Ron Paul – the libertarian Texas congressman whose last book is dedicated to why the Federal Reserve should be abolished – is going to be in charge of Congressional oversight of…………the Fed.

Here, from a New York Times article, are some earnest expressions of Paul's love for this esteemed institution:

The Beginning of the End

“The day the Fed came into being in 1913 may have been the beginning of the end, but the powers it obtained and the mischief it caused took a long time to become a serious issue and a concern for average Americans.”

The Gold Standard

“Whenever I talk of a gold standard, there are always people ready to accuse me of having some obsession or fixation. Fetish is a word thrown around. In fact, I’m only observing reality: the idea of sound money in most of human history has been bound up with gold money.”

A Full-Time Counterfeiting Operation

On Mr. Bernanke: “There is something fishy about the head of the world’s most powerful government bureaucracy, one that is involved in a full-time counterfeiting operation to sustain monopolistic financial cartels, and the world’s most powerful central planner, who sets the price of money worldwide, proclaiming the glories of capitalism.”

New Money Out of Thin Air

“Only the Federal Reserve can inflate the currency, creating new money and credit out of thin air, in secrecy, without oversight or supervision. Inflation facilitates deficits, needless wars and excessive welfare spending.”

Fed Chairmen He Has Known

“Being in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s and serving on the House Banking Committee, I met and got to question several Federal Reserve chairmen: Arthur Burns, G. William Miller and Paul Volcker. Of the three, I had the most interaction with Volcker. He was more personable and smarter than the others, including the more recent board chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.”

Low Interest Rates

“Artificially low interest rates are achieved by inflating the money supply, and they penalize the thrifty and cheat those who save. They promote consumption and borrowing over savings and investing. Manipulating interest rates is an immoral act. It’s economically destructive.”

The Bailouts

“Today, there is no principled opposition to the corporate bailouts and the Fed’s trillions of dollars of new credit and the takeover of insurance, mortgages, medical care, banks and the auto industry. The arguments have only been over amounts, financial vehicles, and which political group gets to wield the economic power. If there is no moral argument against the economic takeover of America, there will be no resistance to the dictator who rules over our lives with an iron fist.”

The Obama Legacy

“For the same reason a disease cannot be cured by more of the germ that caused it, the inflation and debt accumulation of the Obama years will not inflate our way out of it. This depression will likely last and last.”

United States Wimperment

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For those unfamiliar with my philosophical leanings, let me preface this with a few Tim Facts: I am no fan of government. I have had a lifelong affair with entrepreneurship, capitalism, small business, and low taxes. I'm a child of Reagan. I think governments of all kinds of the most inefficient, wasteful, and feckless organizations ever to curse the planet, largely populated by those who can't hack it in the private sector.

Having said that, I think the U.S. is on a collision course with its debt, and the government's wimpy refusal to do nothing about it only hastens the day of reckoning.

Let's review some recent decision points:

Event: The Bowles-Simpson Commission presents their recommendations on cutting the deficit by trillions through a combination of tax hikes, government cuts, and reduction in "entitlement" payments. Moments later, the lamest duck Pelosi declares it "simply unacceptable", and Obama effetely declares he'll take a look at it for ideas. Effect on the national debt: Negative.

Event: With the Bush tax cuts ready to expire within weeks, Republicans in the Senate stated plainly that, unless the cuts were extended for everyone – – particularly the likes of anti-Christ Lloyd – – they would simply hold all legislation business hostage. Within days, almost everyone rolls over, accepting continued tax cuts for the richest among us to be a foregone conclusion. Effect on the national debt: Negative.

Event: With the minuscule amount of bravado he has left, Obama meekly bleats one contingency in exchange for continued low taxes for the rich……..yet another extension of Unemployment Benefits for the poor! More specifically, those who have been out of work for more than a year get to stay on the dole for the foreseeable future. Are you rich? Keep your money. Do you not work? Here, have some! Effect on the national debt: Negative.

I imagine that big Obama fans who actually read the news must feel deeply betrayed. One would have assumed that a young, handsome, strapping fellow like Obama would have strutted into Washington and kicked some serious ass. Instead, he's a quivering, vacillating, compromising flatfish who brought Change No One Can Believe In.

Yes he did.

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