Arkady's Thoughts

In a most stunning display from a high level office that I have ever witnessed, Department of Homeland Security has released a 10 page report titled: Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment . (click on link to download PDF , courtesy of MM blog). The premise of this report is to alert the powers that be of a rising threat of rightwing radicalism and extremism within the country as a result of the economic crisis, attack on the 2 nd amendment, disgruntled soldiers and of course the election of the first socialist...err...half white, half black President. I read the document and urge you to do the same, because this is where our tax dollars are being spent, to research and write about a perceived threat that cannot be quantified or measured. What is by far the most vulgar aspect, is not so much the vague generalities and slander, but the complete disconnect between a small handful of nut jobs and the entire conse...

At least some good news regarding the festering pirate situation. US Captain held hostage for 5 days finally got rescued by Navy SEALs . Looks like the courageous captain made a second escape attempt and our special forces trained in these kinds of situations reacted. What is especially important to note is that many speculated that our navy was under direct orders from the top to NOT fire on the pirates. We may never know the truth, but I suspect that the first escaped attempt was simply a botched operation that our SEALs were not prepared to handle. There are all sorts of speculations and rightfully so to suggest that there was absolutely no way that the first attempt was botched, primarily because escape attempts that are closely watched almost always react in gunfire. Still, I find it very hard to imagine that such strict orders would suddenly change from the first attempt to the second. Conservatives especially are angry and suggest that these orders came from the White House, b...

As you may be aware by now, for the first time in 200 years American sailors have been hijacked by pirates. Apparently the story is not important enough for CNN, but for the families of those individuals involved the importance of this story and their reliance on mass media is something we cannot imagine. As of now, our president has not said one word about this situation and Eric Holder has expressed concern over handling the pirate situation from a legal perspective . Personally I fail to see what legal complication there can possibly be with PIRATES. Pirates are thieves and murderers, they roam the seas and prey on innocent merchant ships. We have the biggest and most powerful navy in the world, using a combination of air and fast moving destroyers there should only be scraps of pirates left - and the only legal complication is whether or not the torpedoes used to destroy the pirates are environmentally friendly. Historically speaking, being attacked by Muslim pirates is not ...

In light of the G20 summit and Obama selling out our future at the expense of pleasing the world, I went to look at the latest ratings from the best pollster on the Internet . According to Rasmussen Obama is at his worst as of this morning. His total approval margin has dropped to +3, with 35% strong approving and 32% strong disapproving. This bodes well for 2010 where the possibility of power balance restoration can occur. Especially with Chris Dodd and Specter under public pressure, there could be another wave of change. This is imperative because Obama has been quite successful in seeing a lot of his agenda get pushed through the congress. Or is the agenda of Pelosi /Reid? Hard to make the distinction in the midst of the immense liberal power struggle going on in Washington DC. Americans must wake up and realize that our politicians are mortgaging our futures, our children's futures and placing the entire country in a very dangerous financial position. Some of the other...

Have not done a market post in a while, but today was a sharp down day and all sorts of ST/IT trend signals have been broken. However I don't think it will be that easy and in particular I have been keeping my eye on a certain fractal that might indicate the future direction of the market. As with all fractals they can fail at anytime and their success can be just a mere coincidence . Still, as of now it appears that we are more or less following the yellow line. I have included the chart for your viewing pleasure.

Tim Geithner today was on Meet the Press selling to the public his plan to shore up the toxic assets and alleviate the bank's balance sheets. Right now the banks are crippled because they aer holding assets whose value nobody truly knows, some rough estimates suggest that the value of these mortgage based securities could be 50-70% lower than their original purchase price. At this point banks do not want to let go of these assets because they are partially hoping that prices will rebound and in part because they are waiting for government intervention. The latter is my speculative guess and their prudence certainly paid off given the Geithner plan. Tim's plan involves bringing in private moneys to offer them incentives to purchase these mortgage based securities. In other words, Tim thinks that private investors are going to use their own money to buy up assets whose true worth is impossible to evaluate at the moment. You are probably thinking, why would any private investo...

This is an absolute must watch because it so eloquently depicts the very things that fiscal conservatives have been trying to explain for years. You simply cannot spend your way out of problems and it has become a tragic reality to be living under the command of a president who believes otherwise. In the case of the United Kingdom, their recession woes are hitting even harder than ours, but the approach that must be taken to rectify the situation is the same whether it be here or across the pond. Watch and listen as this young politician grills the Prime Minister in ways that I can only dream of seeing here at home. Obama's absolutely ridiculous budget deserves much of the same attention.