The Oil Seesaw

When it comes to oil, it is going to be like this for a while. That is, up and down, up and down. Yesterday the markets jumped because of oil, and today it looks like it will fall because of oil, and the day before that weren't we concerned again about oil—causing markets to fall? The entire start of the year's market woes have been due to excess inventories and low demand.

The question is, is oil something to be concerned about? For me the short answer is no.

While oil is at considerable lows, and is certainly much lower in price per barrel than the last time we saw the oil market devoured, the simple truth is that even if demand is low right now, oil is still in demand nonetheless, and will be for some time. Besides the fuel we put in our gas tanks, oil is of course a component of nearly everything we own.

I would be buying oil companies right now. Not dumping them. Some names I like? OAS, MRO, and the YYY. And by the way, the YYY pays out a hefty 9% yield, so it is definitely on the order of "get paid to wait."

Call it what you will, speculation or manipulation, or perhaps a little bit of both. This is in part what is driving the price of oil into the ground. Sure, as I mentioned, demand is down. But why? For starters we had a warmer winter this year and so less people needed oil, in those regions where it is common, to heat their homes. Despite record miles driven in the United States, cars are more fuel efficient than ever before, and the gap between newer more efficient, and older less efficient is widening. But it is not just the United States of course. Demand throughout the world has waned for a variety of reasons.

But, despite the natural forces driving oil prices down, let's not forget that the major oil producing countries are making the decision that they will not slow down production. So in a market where there is low demand and excess inventory, that just means there will be even more inventory built up, and that of course will cause the price per barrel to remain low.

In reality, I actually believe that lower oil prices currently helps to lift up the entire economy ultimately, and that's because oil is of course a large part of the household budget. You have to get to work and you have to get to the grocery store, and the more money it costs to get around the less money people have to spend elsewhere, and on other things. I think lower prices at the pump will actually have a significant impact on spending once we get around to spring and summer—although let's also be real. That's when some of the break will be over. Oil producers know that most of the miles driven are when it is nice outside, and so seeing oil prices, and ultimately gas prices spike during the summer especially is something I think we can all expect.

Even if gas prices rise slightly above the $2 mark, it is still much lower than prices we have seen in the recent past, and there will still be plenty of disposable cash to go around boosting sales to resorts, entertainment like the movies and restaurants, and of course retail. If we see continuing improvements to the labor participation rate and jobs this could be a double boost for the entire markets, making oil less of a factor to drive all of the other sectors down with it.

Oil is a seesaw right now. Fine. No problem. We have been down this road before. Oil will eventually stabilize and by that time those of us who knew this all along will have the fun of counting the gains on the way back up, having significantly lowered our cost basis beforehand.

Lena Dunham Cries Sexism in Hillary Coverage

Here we fucking go again!!!

Pardon my harsh opening line for this one, but Lena Dunham of HBO series Girls fame, and many others like her mind you, just make my effing blood boil. She is honestly coming out and making her claim that the media coverage of Hillary Clinton is "rabidly sexist." My gosh, they are focusing on her clothing and her personal life? 

In her mind ONLY conservatives or conservative minds can be sexist.

Say nothing of the horrible and totally inappropriate comments that Bill Maher made about Sarah Palin's daughter. And of course Palin herself. And was Lena Dunham around for the entire media circus that surrounded Sarah Palin? 

The focus was on Palin's intelligence (or lack thereof), the way she talked, the fact that she hunted for her food, and the list goes on.

Ms. Dunham, understand that the reason Palin became the darling buffoon for the largely liberal media is two-fold. She was a threat. And she was a woman. And by the way, when Lena Dunham talks about "if we were allowed to talk about male candidates like that, I'd have a fucking field day," it becomes all too clear that she, and those of her ilk, are simply living in the stars somewhere. 

Because male candidates DO get talked about like that all day long, twice on Sundays!

Remember the jokes about George W. Bush? Look at some of the stuff that is being said about Donald Trump for crying out loud. Remember the fat jokes about Christie when he ran in the last race? Do you remember the cartoons of Christie with turkey drums, or perhaps were there some that depicted him actually eating his opposing candidates?

Without sounding sexist myself there is one thing I say to these fucking women who constantly want to play this game. Man up! Suck it up, buttercup. It is what it is, and nobody likes it, but it DOES happen, and let's be real shall we? 

It happens WAY MORE OFTEN to conservatives than it ever happens to liberals.

But there is another thing that typically happens as well in these such matters and that is that more often than not the liberals become crybabies about it, and while conservatives moan a bit—they rarely get their panties all in a bunch. They simply see it for what it is, ridiculousness, and they move on to the more important matters.

Because there really is no point, to my mind, in pointing out the wrongs of the coverage however annoying and unfair it may be—or seem to be—because what does this sort of thing really seek to do? What does it really seek to accomplish? To shift the conversation and hide the facts. That is what it is exactly designed to do. It is designed to focus the watcher, listener, reader, voter on things other than rhetoric, policy, strengths, weaknesses, prowess, ability, lack of ability, or whatever it is that the media wishes to hide from the truth.

When one goes out of their way to call this sort of thing out I think it just goes to show one very important thing to know—the complainers do not know the facts and so rather than dig in and fight back with the truth, they resort to simple name calling. 

Sexist, racist...

And yep. Conservatives sometimes do it too to be fair. Baby killer comes to mind. But again it is less pronounced and less frequent, and often times comes from those on the fringe. 

Let's all take a lesson from the pages of Dragnet screenplays. "All we want are the facts." The rest of it is just crap that doesn't matter, and should be recognized for what it is—unintelligent puerile crap that everyone should simply ignore. We can easily disengage from the childish conversations most teens have. So let's do the same here and understand that "kids will be kids," and meanwhile the rest of us can act like grown ups and have adult conversations.

Iowa And New Hampshire Will Determine The Road to the White House: This Time

I am no Nostradamus and certainly there is no science behind my "gage of how things might go." Ergo, what most people refer to as predictions. But I am a bit of an analytical mind, taking bits and pieces of this here, and that there, and I think by doing that it is safe to say that I can at least draw a logical conclusion at the end of the day based on a variety of data. It was actually a little bit fun to look back on my Predictions For 2015 post to see how I fared. As one would suspect a couple predictions were spot on while others were close, and of course others never happened at all. Not even close.

I will admit that some of my predictions, perhaps even the one I am about to get into, are sometimes a bit tongue in cheek. Hey. Why not have a go at trying to lay out the details of the future. Political pundits, analysts, sports commentators, and stock market "gurus" all have their hand in a little bit of that and boy do they get paid regardless of their accuracy.

Don't even get me started on meteorologists for crying out loud!

But while we're at it, there is that "donate" button to the right, and of course one can click on my ads or buy something from Amazon. Ahem. But of course that suggestion is, as well, tongue in cheek. But if you happen to be so inclined... {enter a smiley emoticon here, or should that be a smiley emoticon with a tongue sticking out?}

Okay, okay Mr. Bauer. Can you just get the fuck ON WITH IT already? What the hell is this post even ABOUT?

Jeez. It's tough to be a windbag these days. Tough crowd. Very tough crowd.

So we know that for any political junkie such as myself the big Super Bowl of politics is right around the corner. The primaries. And first up is of course Iowa on February 1st. I won't get into how truly insignificant the first of these primaries really are even if for all intents and purposes they seem to always be true indicators of the political climate among the voting public. To those running for their shot at the White House, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are no small beans.

What we have here is an amazing set of circumstances. Of course we have an abysmally failed two terms with Barack Obama, and even those of us on the conservative side will readily admit that the last two years or so of Bush the 2nd weren't all that much to write home about either. So when it comes to politics, it's been one hell of a horrible, if not horrific 9 long years for the majority of the American people.

With roughly one year left to go before we can hopefully breathe a sigh of relief.

On the one hand you have Hillary Clinton who has been the "darling" of the democratic party since she lost the election to Barack Obama. She is also the "establishment" when it comes to the DNC. For the RNC we had Jeb Bush step to the stage, and easily one paying attention would have thought immediately, "That's it. That's the end of the race. It's Clinton vs. Bush. Deal done." While Clinton was able to maintain a commanding lead for much of her candidacy, and even before the running was official, once again an "outsider," or someone completely outside the box so to speak, is giving her a newfound run for her money. Bernie Sanders. Clinton is of course politics as usual, and she is not shy to tout the so-called "successes" of the Obama administration, and promises to not undue his policies, but strengthen and finish the work.

Code for, to my mind, "to further toss the Land of the Free into the garbage can forever."

The anomaly of Bernie Sanders' popularity is that of course there are many Americans who have not done better under Obama, and rather than cede that it's his policies that are largely to blame, they have taken the notion that it is instead big bad corporate America and the fat cats who populate it. Bernie Sanders is offering a fix for that. Take everyone at the top, grab them by their ankles, and start letting their change drop out while people scramble to take their "fair share." You'd be surprised how many people actually cheer that on—even if it also happens to be clear to any fair minded individual that it will do more harm than good.

So Bernie Sanders is the "on the other hand."

But there is, of course, also the extremely and undeniably popular Donald Trump on the other other hand. His approach is totally different than Sanders, and to him the blame for America's woes lies directly in contrast to Bernie's claim. It's not the fat cats. They have only been operating under the restrictions and controls of policy put into place by politicians; democrat AND republican by the way.

"Mr. Trump, you say that you are for America and American jobs yet your ties are made in China." How has Trump responded? Brilliantly and accurately actually. A smart businessman operates to make a profit, and right now policy and other factors make it more economical to have his ties made in China. Does he like it? No. Can he avoid it? No. The facts are the facts and the reality is the reality. But the fact that he fundamentally understands the reason it makes more sense to have his ties made in China also makes him qualified to come up with a solution and make it more economical to have his ties made here. Which he has stated often he would prefer by the way. Trump offers a contrast to the Sanders camp which is stark.

Make America great again not by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, not by trying to artificially create income equality, not by taking away incentive and opportunity nor punishing success, but to right some of the wrongs of YEARS of policy in Washington which have made it impossible for America to compete for better wages, better jobs, and to deny other countries advantages in trade against us which we have designed and fostered over the last three or four decades.

With early polls putting, at least on the republican side, all three outsiders in the lead—Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina—and with Bernie Sanders leading polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire one thing is crystal clear in this current race to the White House.

Politicians are out. Outsiders are in.

Bernie Sanders, in the most recent polls, is running roughly 9 points ahead of Clinton in Iowa. On the republican side it's Trump with an almost 11 point lead. Originally I thought Iowa winners would be Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton with Bernie Sanders and Trump taking New Hampshire. But I think, especially as we draw nearer to the actual first caucuses, that the winners will be Sanders and Trump in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And this may well be the case in South Carolina as well. I could be wrong. That's the nature of predictions, and of course things change.

But here is my bold prediction. Wow buddy, took you long enough to get here.

Winners in Iowa will be Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Same goes for New Hampshire. South Carolina I am going to predict a wild card. It probably goes the same way. Super Tuesday will be a mixed bag. But the ultimate result will be that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump may well be the nominees—because Clinton just has too much baggage and she's not as likeable as she is popular. This is America's race this time around. This is the ultimate question of our time. Do we want the world handed to us on a silver platter, or do we want to have to work for it?

But, Donald Trump is offering an alternative to the traditional means to that end. He wants to take away unfair trade which kills jobs and make it so that the fat cats can operate WITHIN our borders. He is not suggesting more of the same that traditionally republicans have fought for which in fact hinders the opportunity to have a fair shot at realizing the American dream.

I think this race comes down to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. And who will be the next President of the United States?

Donald Trump.

As for his win? I think it will be a landslide.

You Might Be Raising A Democrat If...

Perhaps it is a product of my own upbringing, coming up into the world from the School of Hard Knocks, that I form my opinion about life in general. I have no kids of my own. Not that my wife and I did not try, nor want them. It just wasn't in the cards for us. But I do have a brain, and I don't think for a second that not having kids means I don't understand what can fuel a generation of people into, if not believing in it, understanding the principles behind a society of living off of somebody else's dime and being completely content with that. And as is an undeniable tenet of liberal ideology having the compelling belief that one is entitled to something for nothing.

Let me start by citing at least one component I believe was true of what ultimately lead to the financial crisis of 2008, which also was a component in the whole Internet boom we saw in the 90's which lead to a crisis of its own. What was it? It was a belief that all along generations before the new generation were doing it wrong.

Hard work? You're doing it wrong. Starter home? You're doing it wrong. First car that spends more time in the shop than on the road? You're doing it wrong. Traditional 9 to 5 job? You're doing it wrong.

Of course, the blame cannot be laid completely on the kids. Parents who came up in the world, realizing the struggle and overcoming it through hard work vowed that if they ever had the means they would make their children's lives better. They will have what I could not have. It is as noble an idea conceptually as feeding the poor, or providing shelter to the homeless. All the while I think we all still fundamentally believe in the old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Except now we make exceptions, and there are many free lunches. And despite all of our efforts as parents to give a leg up to our children as they make their own way into the world, we in fact instead cripple them. And I think it is beginning to become quite clear that as a country and a society as a whole, we are also crippling the entire nation.

These children potentially become the liberal voting block that is growing and threatens the basic founding principles of the nation as a whole.

In life you are supposed to start off poor and struggling. You are supposed to have to drive beat up cars, live in small apartments, make your way up through the corporate ranks, have lousy first jobs, and these are the things that are supposed to make and shape you as a person. These are the things that are supposed to make you appreciate what you achieve once you arrive. And the struggle is what is supposed to get you off your duff to come up in the world and make something out of yourself.

The struggle is real. And the struggle is an integral part of it all. Without it, like a delicate ecosystem, if you take away the struggle, the entire process and system goes out of balance. And that is sort of a place we have arrived at in our current time.

What do we take away from our children when we do not allow them the struggle? Necessity. And here is another thing I think we all fundamentally still believe in, and that is that necessity is the mother of all invention. When you do not have food, and no other means to get it, you will learn to hunt—or you will learn ways to get money to buy it. All of the tools of the hunt, by the way, were invented out of the need to improve our odds at a kill. If the animals all simply fell dead at our feet would we have needed to bother to make arrows? Bows? Guns? Hell, cattle farms for that matter. None of these things would exist if we did not have the need for them.

The bottom line here is that the more we give of things rather than advice, life's experiences, and instilling the importance of why the struggle is necessary, the more we actually take away from the whole rewarding and life experience of our children. We can see examples of this in trophies handed to participants. Not winners. We can see this in examples of kids entering the workforce believing that working at Burger King is beneath them. We can see this in examples of kids being dissatisfied and slighted if they have to drive a 15-year old car for the first time in their driving career. We can see this in examples of kids who believe that their first real jobs in life should be professional careers rather than having to work their way into fields that pay better, and even to work on their own to pay for their own advancement in life in the workforce.

You need to get your hands dirty. You need to sweat a little bit. You need to arrive at home after work with sore arms, sore legs, and dog-tired. It makes you appreciate what you have. It makes you appreciate the achievements. And it makes you struggle and work harder to improve your own life and your own situation. It builds a strong society. It builds a strong character. It builds a strong work ethic. It creates a sense of drive and ambition. And all the while it makes life much more purposeful, and as we draw closer to the ultimate finish line, it makes us more proud to have lived. To have worked hard. To have struggled. And to have arrived. Even if not rich, not for lack of trying, it is better to reach the end having done everything we could have, on our own, than to have had it all handed to us.

I play the lottery. I want the money and the riches like anyone does. But I always say while I will gladly take the money for free, I'd much rather have my come-uppance by my own hand. It is much more rewarding. It is much more worthy. And one like myself would have to wonder; if I simply won the lottery and did not have to do anything else in my life, what else might I have otherwise accomplished that will never be known simply because I did not have to bother to do it?

Stock Markets Plummet, Do NOTHING!!!

Whenever the stock market is having a tough go of things I always get a kick out of the gloom and doom stories that begin to trend, and all of the wise men of the markets declaring "this is the end," "the sky is falling," and "cash it all in!" It's why I write about it so often. But what gets me more is the well known fact that, well...

We have been down this road time and time and time again.

The fact is, and remains, that the markets will move up and they will move down. And by the way, for anyone who has ever paid attention, they tend to typically go higher than where they left off before they fell when they eventually do go back up. And the markets always do go back up.

Currencies rise and fall. World markets expand and contract and shift. One day it's Japan whose the hottest growing country. Then it's China. Right now it's actually India. Consumer confidence goes up, it goes down, it goes dormant. Wages rise, wages fall. Banks are fantastic, then they are not. Same goes for auto companies, and by the way, every single company that has ever done business and every single market sector for that matter.

Tech is the doll. Then it's the financials. Then it's oil. Then it's durable goods. And then one day they aren't and something else is.

After the Crash of '29, after the recession that hit in the 80's, after Black Tuesday, and after the financial crisis of 2008, all were undeniably the worst markets to deal with obviously, but were also some of the best times to invest. Buy low, sell high might be considered old school to some in the current markets—but I think fundamentally the concept is still very much true.

And the markets are never lower than when they are down.


Wow. That's a brilliant statement, is it not? Of course I am being facetious. But more than buy low, sell high, what is really the point here is staying the course in good times and in bad times. On the averages historically, heedless of what the market does in the short term, you are going to come out ahead in the long term. And since you cannot predict what the market is going to do—ever—there is really no rational reason to try to "time" when you are going to add shares, or even perhaps when the best time to do that is.

It's always painful to see the value of your portfolio go down, and it's even harder sometimes to see the light at the end of the tunnel. What's easy is reacting to it—and it is also a very dangerous and unwise move when it comes to your invested money.

Of course I am speaking not to speculators here, nor traders. I am speaking to investors. Why is that an important distinction to make? Speculators and traders are not investing in companies. These folks are investing in short term movements in the markets. Be they short sellers or day traders buying long hoping to gain a few bucks on a momentum play, the reason they jump ship is because they are riding in a big ocean with heavy waves afoot in a dingy. They can't handle the rougher seas like a bigger boat or yacht can. Investors are the bigger boat, and they can ride out the storm.

This market will fall some more. That's to be sure. All of the indications with oil and a slowing economy in Asia and Europe point to that. But that's a time to buy, not to sell. And since you happen to be an investor invested in companies this just means that those companies, whose fundamentals really haven't changed all that much aside from being kicked around by other falling sectors and stocks, are going to be going on sale. That's when you load up, get more bang for the buck, and enjoy the ride back up eventually.

What's more, if you are invested in dividend paying stocks it's an ever better ride up since the shares you will buy in the downturn will obviously be cheaper, increasing the total yield on your invested dollars.

Sit tight, stand still, do nothing—well, other than buy more stock. The markets will find their current bottom, and then it's bottoms up. The smart money, the investors who ultimately understand the nature of these market dynamics of rising and falling will have won the prize and laughed all the way to the bank.

Mark my words...for the umpteenth time.