As we sit and watch the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunge below 10,000 (down to under 9,800 as I write this), I feel compelled to note that no one has to sit and watch their entire investment portfolio evaporate into the thin air Democrat mandated bad lending decisions have created.

I want to start off by saying, first and foremost, I am not any sort of financial advisor or investment guru. Everything I write is written as a layman.  Don’t take my word for things, or anyone’s word for that matter, without doing your own personal research and evaluating your own personal situation.

An Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is a bundle of investments built like a mutual fund but trading on the open market like a stock.  Few people are aware that there is an entire class of ETF that moves inverse to the stock market.  They are called Short ETFs.  In simple terms, if the market moves down 1% these funds are designed to move up 1%.  In practice, on severe down days like today, they move a little less than the market sector they are supposed to represent because they are sold at a premium.

Not recommending any particular fund family here (could I possibly post any more disclaimers?), but you can get a general sense of the type of Short ETFs out there by looking at the list of ProShares Short ETFs.  You’ll see that contrarian funds exist for just about every major market index and sector.

Like any investment, there is inherent risk in these investment tools.  One school of thinking on a day like today is that the market is making a bottom.  Buying a Short ETF at the market bottom would be like buying a stock at it’s top: It would be all downhill for your portfolio from there.

Again, I’m not recommending that anyone put their money into Short ETFs or that anyone pull their money out of any investment. But I do strongly believe that everyone should be aware of all the investment options available to them and make their own decisions, and it seems that not many people in the financial press or on channels like CNBC and FOX Business are making investors aware that this option exists.

The majority of blame for our current financial crisis is so clearly shouldered by Democrats that even vicious left-wing hate machine Alec Baldwin can’t help but point it out.

Admittedly, Baldwin is barely competent to string a sentence together let alone perform coherent financial analysis.  Still, the man has not missed an opportunity to slam Republicans and President Bush during the course of his public life. It’s a shame, but very telling, that information dissemination is left to Alec Baldwin while the majority of the leftstream media turns a blind eye.

Even more surprising: Baldwin’s bout of clarity came on this week’s edition of the little-watched Bill Maher HBO smear-fest.

Continue Reading “Alec Baldwin: Democrats Chiefly To Blame For Financial Crisis” »

Bill O’Reilly knocks Barney Frank down over his malfeasance regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Barney can’t get up.

Note to Barney, people invest “going forward,” not in the past.

Video Below.

After being featured on Hannity & Colmes in a damning 2004 video showing Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against greater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations, Democrat Congressman Artur Davis admits Democrats dropped the ball on reigning in the failed institutions and calls on fellow Democrats to do the same.

“Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues, I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004.  Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit that when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. By the way, I wish my Republican colleagues would admit that they missed the early warning signs that Wall Street deregulation was overheating the securities market and promoting dangerously lax lending practices.  When it comes to the debacle in our capital markets, there is much blame to go around for both sides.”

Along with President Clinton, I take issue with Davis’ contention that equal blame exists on both sides.  President Bush requested greater oversight in 2003, Republicans are clearly seen in the video fighting for greater oversight in 2004, and John McCain led the charge for greater oversight in 2005.  All efforts were rebuffed by Democrats, who demagogued the issue with racial politics that made reform impossible to accomplish.  At least they tried. I see no evidence of any push toward greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac oversight since the short bus rolled onto Capitol Hill in January 2007.

That said, I appreciate Congressman Davis’ candor in admitting Democrats let their ideology get in the way of what was right for the country.

I was not shocked to see that Patrick Murphy, our accidentally elected Representative in Congress, accidentally stumbled upon doing the right thing and voted for the financial rescue package.  After all, Li’l Pat always does what his puppet master Nancy Pelosi tells him to do.  Leadership and free thought are not in his DNA.

I was also not shocked to read his unsurprisingly shallow assessment of the situation afterward.

Continue Reading “Patrick Murphy Actually Does The Right Thing” »

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi throws away a bipartisan agreement and fails to lead, throwing our credit markets into a tailspin.

Dow swings wildly.

Was it nothing more than a maneuver to combat Pelosi’s partisan speech directly prior to the vote?

CNBC: Dems say not dead yet.  See 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats in play.

Obama plays unhelpful blame game.

94 Democrats against.

Nancy Pelosi’s Partisan Speech that killed US Credit Markets

Obama’s community organizer colleagues in the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have organized us right into the current financial crisis by using frivolous lawsuits and strong-arm tactics to force lenders into making sub-prime loans and Fannie Mae to buy up the bad loans.

And, in return for ACORN’s hard work toward crushing our economy by forcing you to support those living beyond their means, the Obama campaign has paid the radical organization nearly a million dollars and Congressional Democrats attempted to write an ACORN slush fund into the financial bailout legislation.

Continue Reading “Obama’s ACORN Organized Us Straight Into Credit Crisis” »

Politico is reporting that a financial market rescue package deal has been reached.

Republican Whip Roy Blunt, the chief negotiator for House Republicans, said he was “looking forward to what we’re going to see on paper” and was optimistic that it would be something House Republicans could support.

Said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson:  “We’ve been working very hard on this and we’ve made great progress toward a deal which will work and will be effective in the marketplace and effective for all Americans . . . .We’ve still got a lot to do to finalize it, but I think we’re there.”

The plan would likely give Paulson a relatively free hand accessing the first $350 billion of the $700 billion he sought. It was not clear when the remaining $350 billion would become available, but Treasury apparently agreed that a future Congress could block its release though a joint resolution signed by the president.

Reports indicate a vote could take place as soon as Monday.