Where to today?

Quick post this morning. Read this article this morning and thought it was a good one. And the article below is one I came across this afternoon. Very good discussion about the bailouts. I'll post more this evening.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27653888

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/AXP-fre-fnm-aig-gm-fannie/index/a/19940

And how about some interesting tidbits of information that I stole from an article:

Is it safe to assume the current recession "officially" started in the fourth quarter of 2007?

The thirteen recessions since 1929 lasted on average ten months?

The longest recession ever—The Depression—lasted 44 months?

The second longest recessions—1973-1975 and 1981-1982—lasted 16 months each?

In the thirteen recessions dating back to 1929, the median S&P bottom occurred 58% of the way through the recession?

The average return from the recessions' closing low to the end of the recession was 20.3% while the average return for the year following the recession was 15.9%?

If our current conundrum is on par with The Great Depression in terms of duration (44 months) and we apply the median S&P bottom (58%) while assuming it started in the fourth quarter of last year, can we extrapolate that THE bottom will arrive in the first quarter of 2010?

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OK, settled into the hotel for the evening... now time for me to get on my soapbox for a little bit... When are the bailouts going to stop? Where are they going to stop? At what point do you let free markets operate as they're supposed to.

First it was the investment banks, then the regular banks, then the insurers, next are the automakers, bailout homeowners that got in over their heads...

The Fannie and Freddie bailout plan came out today. The markets spiked up on the release... until people started reading the fine print. It's insane and it's not going to save many homeowners at all (which is fine by me). The rules that are in place for people to qualify for this latest attempt at help will rule out 99% of people because you have to have 10% equity in the home at it's present value. Well guess what, nobody has 10% equity in a home they bought in the last 4 years with no money down and home prices having dropped 30%.

I know the gov't has good intentions, but it's time to let things work themselves out. Let failures happen. Stop trying to save everyone from themselves. If GM and Ford had run their businesses properly they wouldn't be in trouble right now. If the banks made too many stupid loans, too bad.

The article I posted above on Minyanville touches on all of this as well. We can fight like hell and try to stop the inevitable from happening, thereby dragging it out for many years, or just rip the band-aid off and let it happen. This reminds me of the giant sandbags being put in front of beach homes. Folks, the ocean will win. This problem we're in is the same thing... the natural order of things will win. There are boom times and then there are down times. This down time is long over due and is going to be painful for everyone, but lets get it over with as soon as we can.

Keep an eye on Citigroup... stock price is under $11 a share... something is wrong within their kingdom.