Does America really want a change?

[homedawg]

Rick Santelli and the "Rant of the Year"

[homedawg]

Stocks slide, Dow ends at lowest in 6 years
Feb. 19, 2009

NEW YORK - An important psychological barrier gave way on Wall Street Thursday as the Dow Jones industrials fell to their lowest level in more than six years.

The Dow broke through a bottom reached in November, pulled down by a steep drop in key financial shares. It was the lowest close for the Dow since Oct. 9, 2002, when the last bear market bottomed out.

The blue chips’ latest slide dashed hopes that the doldrums of November would mark the ending point of a long slump in the market, which is now nearly halfway below the peak levels reached in October 2007.

The market’s inability to rally signals that investors see no immediate end for the recession, which is already 14 months old and one of the most severe in decades. Investors also haven’t been impressed with two major economic initiatives from the Obama administration this week, an economic stimulus package and a mortgage relief plan.

“It is definitely, definitely a blow to psychology,” said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford, referring to the Dow’s finish. “There is more pessimism in the market as to when the economy is going to pick up steam.”

The Dow had been teetering close to November bottom since Tuesday, when the index tumbled 300 points on worries about the economy and the stability of banks in Eastern Europe. Stocks had barely finished above the November low on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday, worries about financial and technology stocks weighed on the market, with steep drop-offs in financial bellwethers like Citigroup and Bank of America leading the way downward. Both stocks tumbled 14 percent and closed below $4, less than the cost of a latte in some coffee shops.

“The Dow represents, to the average investor, the American economy,” Krosby said. While professional investors often look at indexes like the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the Dow’s slide is an unwelcome milestone. “It’s a tenet of the market, selling begets selling. You’re going to see the market on guard.”

The Dow lost 89.68, or 1.2 percent, to end at 7,465.95.

The blue chips have fallen 9.8 percent in the last eight sessions.

Broader indexes also fell. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended down 9.48, or 1.2 percent, to 778.94. The index finished above its Nov. 20 close of 752.44, which was its worst finish since April 1997.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index suffered the biggest hit Thursday after Hewlett Packard Co. tumbled 7.9 percent after posting worrisome results. The Nasdaq fell 25.15, or 1.7 percent, to 1,442.82.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.47, or 1.5 percent, to 416.71.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 5.64 billion shares compared with 5.65 billion shares traded Wednesday.

Dan Cook, senior market analyst at IG Markets, said the Dow’s move lower is unnerving because it forces many investors to reassess their expecations of how far the market could slide.

“It’s kind of like if we’re walking across a frozen pond. If that ice starts to crack a bit we’re going to be very wary,” he said.

The news of the day didn’t offer much support. Hewlett-Packard Co. gave up nearly 8 percent after the computer and printer company turned in disappointing fourth-quarter sales, hurt by tightening spending at many businesses.

Even the bright spots weren’t enough to lift the market. Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, rose 20 percent after its fourth-quarter results came in better than forecast. And Whole Foods Market Inc. jumped 37 percent Thursday after earnings from the natural and organic grocer topped expectations.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite to its price, rose to 2.86 percent from 2.75 percent late Wednesday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, fell to 0.29 percent from 0.30 percent Wednesday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices slipped.

Light, sweet crude rose $2.77 to settle at $40.18 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Economic news released Thursday offered investors little incentive to buy.

The number of workers receiving unemployment benefits hit a record high of nearly 5 million, and new jobless claims are at levels not seen since the early 1980s. A reading on wholesale prices, the Producer Price Index, jumped more than expected in January, the first increase in six months.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve said conditions in the region’s manufacturing sector weakened in February. There was some good news: An index of leading economic indicators logged a surprise increase in January, the second straight monthly gain.

Technology and financial stocks weighed on the market. H-P fell $2.69, or 7.9 percent, to $31.39 after its fourth-quarter results disappointed investors.

Citigroup fell 40 cents to $2.51, while Bank of America fell 64 cents to $3.93.

Some investors turned to consumer staples stocks after drugstore operator CVC Caremark Corp. posted a better-than-expected 17 percent increase in earnings for the final three months of 2008. CVS rose $1.72, or 6.4 percent, to $28.71.

Sprint rose 54 cents, or 19.9 percent, to $3.25, while Whole Foods rose $3.46, or 37.2 percent, to $12.75.

Overseas, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.2 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.1 percent. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.3 percent.

[FlyersFan]

Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer's television series, "A World of Ideas." The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues.! She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004 she was awarded tenure.

This article by her is something else.
No He Can't
by Anne Wortham

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul 's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America .

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America . Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University 's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.

There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

[FlyersFan]

this country is just an atrocious mess. i never in my lifetime thought i would see this much incompetence in washington. i think that our founding fathers would roll over in their graves just as santelli says.

lmao....you thought the bush years were bad...hold on tight for the next 4.......

the sad thing is that the people who are truly penalized in this country are the hard working people who do things the right way....pay their taxes, live in a house they can afford, work hard.

illegals, people who were irresponsible with housing, jobless lazy people who don't want to work...come on down........you're the next contestant on get something for nothing...

[homedawg]

FF, Good read!

More than 500 protest Obama's arrival
February 18, 2009



Presidential protesters made their voices heard in chants and signs Wednesday outside Dobson High School.

The protesters, about 500 to 600 strong and growing, began arriving as ticket holders walked in.

Mesa police set up a protest area along Guadalupe Road.

They held their signs up high: "Don't tread on me," "Spend all you want, I'll pick up the tab," "I'll keep my freedom! You keep the change!" "Free fertility drugs now." And "B.O. smells and so does Socialism."

A Gilbert woman, with a sign that said, "Fund bikini wax now," said she is entitled to the beauty treatment.

"It's a self-esteem issue and hygiene issue, which makes it a health care issue. I think we're all entitled," said the woman in jest. She only gave the name JoAnne, because she is skipping work.

Critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio showed up in force, as well.

At one point about 15 members of Somos America, in striped jail garb and linked by chains, marched passed the presidential protesters. Those protesters responded with chants: "We love Joe!"

Rob McElwain, spokesman for Somos, said they want an end to laws that allow local police to enforce immigration laws, an end to Arpaio's immigration sweeps and a federal investigation into Arpaio.

The Mesa Police Department stationed four neutral observers outside the school, including Phil Austin, former president of the Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens.

Austin said things went smoothly, except for a few vendors trying to sell goods without a permit.

As protesters held their signs high, they exchanged cheers with the honking cars that passed.

The general message of the protesters was that Obama's policies would lead the country toward socialism.

"I'm out here to exercise my First Amendment rights while I still have them," said Tim Guiney, 52, a Phoenix sales manager. "Everything that man stands for is the antithesis of what this country was founded on. He's a Marxist, fascist."

Lee Bauer, 53, a social and fiscal conservative, said she doesn't believe in the $787 billion stimulus package signed by Obama Tuesday in Denver.

"Obama's stimulus package has only mobilized the opposition," she said.

Former Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona also was in attendance.

He called the bill a "trillion-dollar boondoggle."

A man shouted over a megaphone, "I want to see if the president is driving a (Toyota) Prius or an electric car."


Check out some of the protesters:

Protesters greet the Messiah In Mesa (pics)

[homedawg]

MarketWatch: Afford A Better House with Government Help
February 19, 2009

Radio host John Batchelor talks to Simon Constable of Dow Jones Newswires about how you can use the stimulus plan’s provisions to trade up to a better home.




U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK:

[Heave Ho]

Were going to close this thread for now.