Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Obama calls GOP budget 'Social Darwinism'


Washington, DC, April 3, 2012. President Obama attacked the Ryan - Boehner Grand Old Tea Party budget passed in the House of Representatives, calling it "Social Darwinism." The Grand Old Tea Party immediately attacked the President saying "Darwinism? That's evolution. We can't practice evolution. We don't believe in it!"

When he heard about the response from the GOP and Tea Party, President Obama started laughing. His laughter, however, subsided when he was reminded of the November 2010 elections, the Grand Old Tea Party majority in the House, their votes in the Senate, and their apparent 5 - 4 majority in the Supreme Court.

President Obama was having lunch with editors and reporters of the Associated Press when he condemned the Ryan - Boehner Grand Old Tea Party budget. He called it a “Trojan horse” and “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” Mark Landler, in the New York Times, aka "the Liberal Elitist media,"  (here), wrote that Obama said the Ryan - Boehner Grand Old Tea Party budget "would greatly deepen inequality in the country."

While expanding the disparity of wealth that exists between the 3.07 million richest Americans, i.e. the 1%, compared to the 303.93 million not-richest Americans, i.e. the 99%; by decreasing educational opportunities and access to health care, and by increasing poverty, the Ryan - Boehner Grand Old Tea Party budget would actually serve to expand equality among the 303.93 million non-richest Americans, albeit in what many consider to be the wrong direction.

The Ryan - Boehner Grand Old Tea Party budget has been endorsed by all four remaining candidates running in the Republican primaries. Altho Newt Gingrich, opposed it before he was for it, calling it "right wing social engineering." As Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, it must also be noted, pioneered the technique of shutting down the government as a way to protect the taxpayers from the services they need from their government.

The Grand Old Tea Party also attacked the President for having lunch when he should be working. There are rumors that Mr. Gingrich called President Obama "shiftless" and "lazy" for having lunch when he should be working. However, as there are no reporters covering Mr. Gingrich, those rumors could neither be confirmed nor denied.

Rush Limbaugh demanded videos of the President with young female reporters. Mr. Limbaugh later changed his statement, demanding videos of young female reporters without the President, and large quantities of various controlled substances.

Former Vice President Cheney could not be reached for comment. It is believed that he is in a secure but undisclosed location where he may be hunting with lawyers. Or hunting lawyers. 
 

Monday, April 2, 2012

Investment Advice: The STUBL Index

Carl Richards, author of "The Behavior Gap," and a columnist in the NY Times, wrote "Beware of 'Market Predictors' (here)

"To demonstrate how ridiculous market predictors can be, ... David Leinweber decided he could prove a point with butter production in Bangladesh:

    After casting about to find a statistic so absurd that no sensible person could possibly believe it could forecast U.S. stock prices, Mr. Leinweber settled on annual butter production in Bangladesh. Over an 13-year period, he found, this statistic “explained” 75 percent of the variation in the annual returns of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

    By tossing in U.S. cheese production and the total population of sheep in both Bangladesh and the U.S., Mr. Leinweber was able to “predict” past U.S. stock returns with 99 percent accuracy."

I've used the STUBL index, pronounced "Stubble" index. It stands for "Standard Transitory Unshaved Beard Length." I look at college students on Monday mornings. When a majority of them are clean-shaven I conclude they went to sleep early enough to get up early and shave, and therefore didn't have a great weekend. When a majority of them have a two day beard I conclude they had a great weekend. 

This is a leading predictor of the market.  However, I'm not sure when the correlation is positive and when it's negative. That's where the crystal ball comes in.

See, it's an integrated approach.