Poster Permabear wrote:
"I listened to a bit of Moneytalk today. Agree that on the surface the decision to slap tariff on tires appears to be a mistaken policy. But there may be a lot more to the story than what appears on the surface. Yes Obama may be paying back the unions for their support. But perhaps he is also sending a message to China about their frequent openly expressed concerns about the dollar being the world's reserve currency. Also I've seen reports of China not buying as much treasury bonds as they were previously. And of course we all know that China has strict trade rules limiting foreign imports while at the same time flooding the U.S. and other countries with cheap exports, contributing to many of the imbalances that blew up into one massive bubble that popped last year. In sum, there may be much more to the story than what we heard on Moneytalk today."
Poster George J. wrote:
"There is lots of evidence that goes way back about the total Brinker record. It is a mixed record. If you study the evidence it is obvious he can't time the market any better than anyone else. All the experts say you can't consistently time the market. Brinker can't either. What he is doing is making a lot of money promoting a newsletter and radio program. He will not admit any mistakes. His method of operation seems to be to say what ever is necessary to maximise his listeners and readers. He is a snake oil salesman of the worse kind and can't be trusted. He provides some good conservative advice but coming from someone you can't trust, I can't be sure he is right or knows what he is talking about. It is a shame that so many people are following him like the pied piper. A lot of them including many retired people must have lost their shirt over the latest bear market.
There were people on these sites such as I believe Will L who said he would not call the next bear. Will L had a great analysis of why he would not try to call the next bear. I agreed with him and concluded that if he couldn't or wouldn't call the next bear he was worthless to me and quit listening or paying attention to him several years ago. His only value to anyone would be to call a bear and he failed miserably. This didn't surprise me and it doesn't surprise me now that he is not admitting any mistakes. I would be shocked if he said he was wrong and provided an analysis of why he missed the bear. In fact if he did that he might perk up my interest at least a little again."
Eddy StL. wrote:
Yes, I agree. An honest man admits he was wrong and attempts to explain why( at least partially). And this would give a person their integrity, respectability back. It is like Watergate. The biggest crime in life isn't in making a mistake. The biggest mistake is trying to cover up or blame others for our own mistakes. There is the rub. Even Albert Pujols strikes out occasionally. No one gets a hit every time they come to bat in life. We are not perfect.
The best we can do is to study the market history thoroughly. Take a disciplined, and somewhat conservative bias, depending on our age of course. And to re-balance our portfolios every 1 to 3 years as the asset allocation changes. This insures we take some profits where we have them. Maintain a safe risk profile. And compound our gains many , many times over a long period of time. Being in a more balanced asset allocation helps us to stay the course when the bear in active. And it provides the assurity that we have cash to BUY stocks when the markets dive. Warren Buffett always says that the first rule about investing is : 1. "Don't lose money," and that the 2nd rule is: "Don't forget rule # 1." Staying in balance helps us to do just those things."
Dixiegeezer's "Civil War" pictures. This is how the battlefields were laid out:
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