Nov 21, 2011

Fred Hickey on QE3

Maybe I've spent too much time in the basement, but it can't be any clearer to me that we're seeing an almost exact replica of what occurred last year.  Last year Ben Bernanke and a "galaxy of Fed officials" fanned out to pave the way for the next round of QE.  This year they're doing the same thing.  Stocks soared for months before and for months after the implementation of QE2.  Now we're in the months leading up to the implementation of QE3 and the stock market has begun to soar again.  Yet there are a lot of stock market bears trying to short this market.  Look, I'd like to be bearish too, based upon the dismal economic fundamentals.  Unfortunately in this case, you can't fight the Fed.

~ Fred Hickey, The High-Tech Strategist, November 6, 2011

Nov 20, 2011

Václav Havel on hope

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

~ Václav Havel

Nassim Taleb on science and business

In science, you need to understand the world; in business, you need others to misunderstand it.

~ Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

Nov 19, 2011

Vice President Joe Biden on Jon Corzine

Jon Corzine helped craft the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. When Barack Obama and I were sitting at a desk in a high rise in Chicago beginning to plan to get this economy out of a ditch the first guy I called was Jon Corzine. Not a joke, not a joke he is the smartest guy I know on finance and the economy. He was pushin when I was campaignin about the need for us to save or create jobs. And so if you need any evidence look at the recovery efforts of NJ and you can mirror them. They fall right on top of what we're doin so thank you Jon, thank you.

~ Vice-President Joe Biden on Jon Corzine

Nov 16, 2011

Surfer Garret McNamara on riding the worlds largest wave

I just didn't realize how big it was. So I started and I kept going down and down, and the drop seemed like forever, and I thought, wow. I started making the bottom turn, and felt the lip hit me. You can see it in the video. You see me look around twice, and then I get hit by the white water on the shoulder, and it feels like a ton of bricks, and I am thinking, I've gotta make this. I've seen waves rip guy's arms off, and I am thinking this thing could tear my head off.

Garrett McNamara, World Surfing Champion, November 8, 2011

Nov 3, 2011

Jamie Dimon speech at University of Washington

It’s okay for us at times to blame and be dissatisfied with others and hold them responsible, but it’s not okay to oversimplify and paint everyone with the same brush. It should not be acceptable to denigrate entire groups, not all companies, not all CEOs, not all politicians, not all media, not all students.

Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase, Bloomberg, November 2, 2011

Nov 2, 2011

US Bancorp CEO Richard Davis on bank practices

Everybody’s breaking the rules, blah blah blah, Get over it.

Richard Davis, CEO US Bancorp, Minneapolis News, November 2, 2011

Bernanke on MF Global failure

It appears to be an idiosyncratic case. We are monitering the possible impacts on funding markets and elsewhere, and so far we have not seen any significant impact on financial stability.

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Press Conference, 11/2/2011

Richard Cobden on free trade

I look farther; I see in the Free-trade principle that which shall act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation in the universe,—drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace.

~ Richard Cobden