BigBoyBC says:

I can’t say that I understand everything John and Andrew say, but I get the basic gist of it. It makes me feel pretty good to hear people who know about all this financial stuff, basically confirm my own thought on the subject, even though those thoughts and confirmations are predicting more gloom and doom…

Lou Minatti says:

Gerald Celete is a joke.

John, yes. This is a classic bear market trap. The fundamentals that caused this mess haven’t improved, and they are in fact getting worse.

Mark says:

Dvorak,

I want to comment on your PCmag story about Microsoft’s brand image.

I think you are correct, that Microsoft’s products get downgraded somewhat by the image. But there are fundamental differences between their products and those of other companies. Microsoft makes “geek” products, with little thought to user experience. It’s not a brand perception that google is better than MSN, mac is better than vista, or anything is better than “the ribbon”.

Microsoft arrogantly ships crappy products because they they want the revenue, and they know they can cram it down the monopoly. This is analogous to Detroit before Japanese cars were imported. Remember when you couldn’t get a car with seat belts? Well, now you can’t get a PC that reboots in under 3 minutes.

rance bleester says:

I did not listen to the podcast – it’s far too long.
John: need a 3 page summary transcript.

This is most assuredly a bear trap.
Unfortunately, for all of us.
But when gauging the timing on this, don’t forget that it is not only the usual gang manipulating prices, but our mighty Gov under the supervision of the Three Dumb Men, a.k.a., the Three Stooges – “Curly” Bernanke, “Larry” Geithner and “Moe” Obama.

It’s awful. Most people now are feeling a lot better with the market pop and all the happy talk BS coming from the Three Stooges – except from poor, frightened Larry, also known as Rabbit Boy, who needs a mouthpiece since he is constantly shitting his soon-to-be pawned suit pants and cannot speak except in breathless gasps.

Another clearly manipulated item is oil. By any measure, oil should be no more than $25 – and will be soon. All those dumbfuck traders who have been hoarding the stuff in tankers, tanks and probably empty wine bottles, will be forced to panic-liquidate those holdings, all at once.
That could spike oil down to $18 or so.
Hello “deflation”, goodbye phony prosperity.

rance bleester says:

Right.
To be ahead of this,people need to accept the change and prepare.
This means stocking up on food/water/necessities/pills, getting a weapon and ammo, creating neighborhood groups and so on.
Also need some cash a cheaply bought stock of tradeable goods for barter.
Pricing are going to drop – sell now, buy later for everything else.
Banks will have to adjust mortgages, or people will just squat anyway.
The Three Stooges will have to do a very quick about face on all their stupid, ruinous policies – wars and military, blue sky social/enviro BS, immigration, financial firm “bailouts”.

Jeffad says:

Will the stimulus help in the long term? Maybe, but that’s likely to come at the expense of deficit and inflation. We have been through several downturns before (see, for instance,
http://www.recessioninfocenter.com
so, maybe we should just accept that it’s part of the economic cycle