Sure, Don...but my investment horizon is decades, not days.  Since I invest mostly in mutual funds, the buy and sell decisions are made by the fund managers.  That's their job.  And even in a rising market, there are always undervalued companies with room for price growth.  Finding them is the fund manager's job too, a...more

Sure, I remember 2008...I kept my head, sold nothing, and kept investing on the same regular schedule that I always had.  And I'm pretty damned happy with how my portfolio looks right now.

Not going to happen.  The Chinese and Russian economies and political systems are too opaque and too severely rigged for either the Ruble or the Renminbi to be accepted as reserve currencies.  Put simply, no one trusts those nations enough to ever consider them as "safe havens" as the US and a few other stable, large, ...more

It's not "free money", Maddog...It's an insurance payout.  The recipient has paid into their state's unemployment insurance fund from the day that they took their first job.  It's their right to collect the insurance payout when they are laid off.  To force someone in that economic condition to pay extra fees to banks ...more

Privatization is a bad idea.  Period.  Here's how the scenario you outline really turns out:  Companies fudge their numbers to get the government contracts to supply Social Security insurance, and then use the torrent of tax dollars to pay their executives enormous sums and make ever-riskier bets with ever more arcane ...more

Exactly...Comparison across market classes or price points makes more sense.  Picking on Mercedes-Benz was unwarranted (full disclosure:  I own a C230).  Some of those cars listed sell in mere double digits annually.  Comparing insurance costs for a C250 or E350, the bread-and-butter variants, with their competitors wo...more

What dictatorial power grab?  I don't see it. Let's assume you are right., for the sake of discussion:  Accepted is the postulate that the current administration is attempting to rule by fiat, and that a revolt is brewing.  If such were the case, the revolt would be crushed almost immediately.  For the sake of d...more

I'm not saying that the Tea Party should be silenced.  They have a right to their opinions, and a right to express them.  What they fail to understand is that not all opinions are equal when debating public policy, and not all are worthy of serious consideration let alone implementation.  They can rage all they want......more

I know what GDP is.  The size of US debt relative to world GDP is irrelevant.  The size relative to US GDP is more relevant, and while ours is high it isn't as high as other developed nations.  So long as we continue to pay our bills other nations will "borrow" us money...the correct word is "lend".  The issue isn't re...more