Letters to the Editor
concerntroll
Published Letters: 78 Editor's Choice: 17
-
David Wurmser, another neocon Cheney aide quits!!
[Read the article: Operation Iraq betrayal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And the genius believes that he's being 'purged.' Wurmser, along with Feith, Edelman, Cambone et. al. played a supporting role in the whole debacle. I guess the guy would know about purges. It buttresses the stab-in-the-back, genocide-if-we-leave narrative. Yuck.
http://www.concerntroll.com/2007/07/key-cheney-aide-is-leaving.html
-
re: Chicken little
[Read the article: Stocks plunge as investors flee risk]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know - why cry uncle or peak oil every time the market corrects? if your investment thesis is correct (scarcity in fossil fuel), then redeploy your money accordingly. There are a lot of possibilities out there, from oil and oil services companies to utilities and alternative energy stocks. For my part I believe that after an almost 2000 points runup in the past 3 months it is time for a healthy retracement. On a fundamental level, yes the american economy is headed for the toilets - but as usual, not everybody will hurt the same. Now think about it: the low dollar allows the Bush administration to reduce the cost of the debt incurred by the unwise tax cuts and the crazy Iraqi adventure. There is no way inflationary pressures will abate, since there is no way in hell the Fed will raise interest rates after Nov 2007 (a year before the elections...). At present the housing sector is like the proverbial ambulance. A rate hike now would be like an AQI IED exploding under that ambulance (ok, dubious metaphor).
Currency traders know that, so everyone is shorting the dollar until at least mid-2008. The result is that large, multinational US companies will keep reaping the benefits of an unusually competitive environment (Boeing just announced that the boom in airplane orders would continue well into 2009 - hint, hint). Meanwhile we, the peones, we'll be feeling it at the pump, at the grocery store, when we fly cross-country to visit the parents, etc etc. But that's the point, we're peones.
So what can you do about it? Keep putting money in that index fund and let it grow - or even better, entrust it to people like IFA (www.ifa.com). Stop worrying and learn to love the market. And yes, in the long run, we're all dead anyways.
-
currency risk
[Read the article: Stocks plunge as investors flee risk]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]turning your dollars into euros is not necessarily a good idea - unless you have to travel to Europe. If you want to hedge against currency risk buy an index basket of currencies. An ETF does that, the index it tracks (the Deutsche Bank long-short currency basket) has beat the S&P by like 1% annualized over the past 10 years. So not bad - not necessarily the best, but not bad risk-wise, since the currency basket is largely uncorrelated to broader market indices. The ETF symbol is DBV. It's only worth it if you hold it. Do your resarch.
-
It's pretty obvious
[Read the article: The leak designed to save Alberto Gonzales]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wouldn't it make sense that they're trying to conceal electronic surveillance used for partisan purposes? Think of the timing: the hospital room showdown took place in March 2004.
And here's another question: why didn't they raise hell before that? what made the program so unacceptable in March 2004? Just speculating. (I collected my thoughts here - http://www.concerntroll.com/2007/07/nsa-spying-scandal-political.html)
-
It's all about the timing
[Read the article: The leak designed to save Alberto Gonzales]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK. I want to reiterate once again - data mining is incredibly powerful. If you've had the chance to see it work for direct marketing, you'll see what I mean. Imagine Amazon's recommendations - but with an exponentially larger data set, and much, much more powerful algorithms. They would not even need to know the actual contents of your communications to pinpoint you as a potential threat/enemy/target - whatever they want to pinpoint you for. But as Marty Lederman discussed today at Balkinization, the people at Justice did not seem to be very concerned about this until the reauthorization, in March 2004. So what happened that made the whole thing so egregious then? Why March 2004? Why not before? Is it because the data mining algorithm returned names of known political figures on both sides of the aisle, and that some blockheads in the FBI took it upon themselves to snoop on prominent American citizens? public figures? right-wing activists? Come on! We all remember COINTELPRO. This is not that far-fetched.
-
Frankly, thanks
[Read the article: The leak designed to save Alberto Gonzales]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK Frankly, I could buy that - Ashcroft and Comey realized they'd been left out of the loop. But what of the other guys? do you think that they were involved in the review and suddenly realized that probable cause was being trampled on on a regular basis? Was it like in the Big Lebowski, "new sh*t has come to light"?
In any case, thank you for your detailed answer!
-
Tour de France = Professional Wrestling
[Read the article: High on the Tour de Dope]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't see why it should be treated any differently. I mean it as close to sports as is pro wrestling : bogus antagonisms, canned story lines, grotesque bodies and grotesque feats of strength, 'roid rage and many premature deaths among the pros - not to mention the definite down-market aspect of it all. In the US, cycling is mostly a solidly white yuppie pastime (I mean, we all know the jackasses with all their spandex and $4,000 road bikes). In France, it's really a sport for the lumpen - I mean yeah, camping by the road for days to be deluged with sausage and candy from the promotional caravan, and then see 100 guys fly by you. Yoohoo. Trust me, it ain't what you think it is - it's kind of like the French NASCAR.