Chile Forum

I found it interesting that Bush's address to the country last night seemed to almost be carried on no international news stations but CNN (I only get three though).

What really grabbed me was how naive his attempt was to explain the crisis, as if the housing market bubble burst simply because they had some bad luck in new housing starts. I understand that he was trying to explain the problems in simple terms to the American people, but it was clear in his explanation that he had no real grasp of the economics behind it all and even a sample of the all the converging factors that created the mess. It was more like he was repeating the school teachers explanation, than explaining what happened in his own words.

yea, he really screwed the country with Iraq. Basically last nights speech was another appeal to the American people that there are weapons of mass destruction on Wall Street (which this time I believe there really is), and to trust him with 700 billion blank check. No one anywhere is buying it.

I was struck by how the similar challenges of the Bush administration have tended to be like the Roosevelt administration but with an mirror image success rate and strategies.

Roosevelt:
The after Wall Street crash fireside radio address to close the banks and bailout the average American to reset the economy,
followed by Pearl harbor address after the attack rallying America to defeat an ennemy.

Bush:
Post 911 address convincing America to be defeated by an ennemy, and a stock market crash address to keep the banks open and screw the American people.

Likely a better way to say that, but you get the picture.

yea, when you look closely at a lot of the "toxic debt", how they put to them together has a lot in common with what people do to launder money. I can not believe that most of those derivatives don't somehow violate federal money laundering laws. The FBI is looking in to it, but I don't expect much. We all know how Worldcom / Enron investigations turned out under the Bush administration.

For many it was very common for them to take the mortgage debt, throw in things like some other stocks and bonds, convert that to a stock or bond, then convert it back to whatever, convert that back to a stock, wash it through multiple currency trades, give it a spiffy name, a triple AAA rating, and then dump it on the open market so everyone could play hot potato with it. Well, someone got burned.

Honestly not being heavily invested before, I am now starting to cherry pick and nibble a bit at the market. I have always put my money in on the heavy crashes, and always get out the first time I hear one of the talking heads on TV use "bubble" in a complete sentence. If someone has to use that word even in a hypothetical, chances are you are already at the top. I still do not think we are anywhere near the bottom however. I apply the same rules to the stock market as I do to Las Vegas Casinos. Stick to a your limit going in, play with the houses money, don't throw good money after bad (Bush missed that memo), know when to fold, and DON'T GET GREEDY.

On the more conservative side are Certificates of Deposit in Chile. They are paying around 8%. In fact I have some U.S. government bonds that I inherited that I am going to convert shortly. I honestly am questioning the viability of those U.S. bonds with the national debt load the U.S. has taken on, especially if the taxes they have to raise to pay for those bonds makes them a wash.

My real investments are things I can kick, or have to worry about kicking. My long-term investment strategy is to buy a property a year in Chile, no matter how big or small, in various areas around the country. Worse comes to worse, my investment will feed me one way or another.