Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The European Union Survives, Stronger.

The large majority vote in Ireland a few days ago to ratify the Lisbon treaty, after narrowly defeating it last year, showed how much public opinion can change in a crisis. A crisis causes people to re-think their values and question assumptions. Decisions that could not be made in normal times can be made in or just after a crisis. A few years ago I questioned whether the EU could survive a crisis. Would its members focus on narrow, selfish interests ? Or pull together ?

At that time, I thought that it would crack up and fall apart. The events show I was wrong. Europeans seem to have learned how to live together peacefully and not resort to excess nationalism and hate-mongering of their neighbors. The big countries did not put undue pressure on the small ones. Perhaps that's because they had huge economic pressure on themselves.

The small countries realized they were far too vulnerable on their own. The vote in Ireland proved that.

I now expect all the small countries of Europe to join the Euro-zone as quickly as possible, as they know their economies and currencies are too at risk to raiders and unscrupulous or foolish financial practices. The lessons of Iceland and Hungary make this very obvious.

This is good news, a big gain for world stability. This removes a huge risk to world economic growth.

Actions

Je ne fais rien. Ich machte nichts. Nic nie robię. Estoy haciendo nada. Non faccio nulla. Nihil facio. I am doing nothing.

More precisely, I'm riding this bull elephant comfortably loaded with plenty high powered ammo in the form of a call options on stocks that I think will outperform due to overseas growth.

Word of the Day

"Mereology" - noun [$1000]; a word from logic.
Mereology means the general theory of the concept of 'part of': a 'part' is understood a section of a given object, and such a section is not identical with the object itself. The formal mathematical theory was developed by S. Lesniewśki; it is an extended system of Boolean algebra.
Sentence: Thinking about parts and wholes and how different (or alike) a part can be from the whole, that is, mereology, is quite essential to analyzing the fallacy called "composition and division". Mereology helps to critically assess many analogies and metaphors that might be false, or quite valid.

49 comments:

Bud said...

good morning Bman !!!!!


new drink for you...............raspberry chai sizzle........delicous

Bud said...

pretty disgraceful how the white house and the democrats in washington are treating general machrystal

i wish he would resign immediately sayin he can't work for this commander in chief...............a president who goes around the world apologizing for america ...............this guy will never have the 'back' of the troops

Bud said...

AMZN cuts the price of kindle by 40bux..............i think i gonna get one.............can i afford it??? well.................as soon as i am able to save 220bux for greens fees.................i think i can



danke vielmals e-mini boy !!!!!!!!





PS..................Bman do you own a kindle ??

Bud said...

Bman can you please answer my question from the other night ?? in easy english.............explain to me why the dollar and stock market are so closely related these days



i am missing somethin for sure

Bud said...

when it comes to wall street..............barney frank ain't a socialist...............he understands that our future prosperity depends on the freedom of our capital markets


he is really tryin to reign in gary genzler and the commies in the white house..........they wud like to outlaw the derivatives and futures trading



PS...........no doubt obama doesn't understand the significance of our capital markets .........we all just greedy evil speculators

Bunkerman said...

chai = tea in Russian (transliterated)

Bunkerman said...

nope, no kindle. I want the books on paper, so I can tag and mark good ideas and writing..

Bunkerman said...

kindle might work for a potboiler.

Bunkerman said...

it's not for serious reading.

Bunkerman said...

easy Bud: because the beefers want them to be so; or they have some theory why.

Perhaps that theory is a derivative of mine: big US companies make oodles of money overseas in other currencies, and with dollar is weak, that translates to higher profits. And more business, too.

omg, beefers read this blog !!!

Bunkerman said...

derivatives are bombs. Make the writers put up lots of cash collateral, or when they blow up, the taxpayer will be paying again.

Bunkerman said...

I hear no flack about today's word of the day. I had never seen it myself until reading the book on Fallacies that I mentioned a few days ago.

OED had it, though.

mfl59 said...

Here we go Yankees here we go!!!

We are the Yankees, the mighty mighty Yankees!!!!

Bud said...

uhhhhh...............i'll use a line from the NRA ..........maybe the Bman will then understand my views on derivatives


'guns don't kill people.........people do'


cars don't kill people............drunk drivers do......i can go on and on and on............



verstehen sie mich, punker ?

Bud said...

ace really is f'ng disgusting pig...........traitor............deserter.........judas........benedict arnold..........go to hell!!!!!

Bud said...

any word of the day that i don't know the meaning of gets an A from me.................if i have never even heard of it ......it gets an A+++.................i wud say about 80% of selections fall into the latter category


all-time fave..............easy...........slam dunk



'jizz'

Bud said...

Bman are you selling any gold up here ??

mfl59 said...

pfffttt....no way pal...now the true colors come out...no more games...

Die Yankees die!!!!!

sorry spin...

Bunkerman said...

nope re selling gold. This is jsut a break thru the old highs, new bull wave.

I'll wait for 1666.

Frosty said...

David Rosenberg thinks there is a 50/50 chance of a 0% GDP print in this quarter...Bunky, nononono jobs...11.5% here we come.

Bunkerman said...

Daivd Rosenberg has been wrong for over six months.

mfl59 said...

wake up Bob...unemployment will peak at 12% and I will win the trophy....

what was mern's pick?

Frosty said...

LOL, think Mern said 22% but prior to philly fed counting pimps and crack dealers...Bunky, do your girls earn fica credits sir?

Bunkerman said...

mern "implicitly" picked 25%, about where it peaked in the Great Depression

Bunkerman said...

hahaha, dunno, that is a layer away from me.

Bud said...

someone say mern ???? well................here is an email from him to me today..................i think 25% may be a good guess

----------------------------------

thats insane!

in the last 3 weeks, 3 friends of mine.....married with kids......no jobs, foreclosed home. now back living at home with mommy and daddy. and 2 or 3 more, r weeks away from going down that path.

i get emails from friends, with jobs...."ive got 8 bucks in the bank till i get paid on friday and i need milk for my baby......what do i do?"

u did read the employment report....for an expanding economy.....shedding 260,000 seems wierd. the corporate bond market is strong. stocks r so strong, i dont use a quotron, just buy and flip.....my account is up over 100% on the yr. i havent even tried......thats how easy this tape is, but its like 99. its just liquidity looking for a home.

the real economy.....well look at the jobs report. look at u6, its at 17% unemployment. hard to see economic growth when one in 5 americans who wud like to work cant get a job.............



--------------------------------





PS.......'sorry mern'..................but you are sorely missed here

Bud said...

up 100%....................great job mern !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



'blip hits' indeed

Bunkerman said...

hmm .. just imagine how fast and strong the growth will be as all that unused manpower is put to work.

earnings will go to the moon.

Bud said...

'unused manpower'



LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Frosty said...

Bunky, ever share a zima with frank quattrone at the club?

Bunkerman said...

nope, never met him, to my knowledge.

mfl59 said...

"thats how easy this tape is"

uh oh....that sounds a bit ominous

Frosty said...

"I was anxious to get a few more things going today but there just isn't much of interest out there"...thanks jim...Sal, perhaps jim should hire mern, might want to pass along those stellar results to him, very impressive.

Bunkerman said...

Google CEO says worst of ad slump is over - Reuters

hmmm ...

Bud said...

long new york yankees -380 tonite



folks.............this is simply about makin money..............to quote a great italian philosopher

' It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business '




PS.........what movie Bman ??

mfl59 said...

You have zero chance of winning that bet....karmas a bitch

son since when do we lay 380 to make 100?

Bunkerman said...

Godfather

Bud said...

i never ever ever like to lay more than 150-160 to win a 100.............sometimes i'll go to 200..............and as you all know i mostly bet dogs


on very very very very very very rare occasiions i'll go higher..............when it's a sure thing.....................there is no f'ng way the twinkies are winning tonite




PS.......i remeber in the mid 90s.........laying 4ooplus on both greg maddux and randy johnson..........during their historic seasons............of course i was much younger and much stupider back then




LET'S GO YANKEES !!!!!!!!!!!!!

mfl59 said...

so let me get this straight....you will be rooting for the scum of the earth Yankees tonight, like every other half a fag walking around the streets of new york....

and you are calling me a traitor...a judas...benedict arnold?

as Jeff would say in Curb Your Enthusiasm..."What the fkkk!!!"

Bud said...

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bud said...

uhhhh..............let's not get carried away


i won't be 'rooting' for them..........i'm just bending down and picking up a 100dollar bill off the floor.............simple as that

mfl59 said...

oh man....what a week spin picked to go on vacation....he'd have a few words here Im sure

Frosty said...

http://www.talk-sports.net/mlb/fan.club.aspx/Alex_Rodriguez

Bud said...

speakin of Jeff

episode 1 of curb was good..........2 was bad...........3 was ok but it had the reunion of the 4 which made it unique...............man george costanza turned into a hog


and entourage


mediocre season at best..........but the funniest of all................matt damon was hilarious in the last episode.........especially the part after the credits

Frosty said...

Bunky...you sound rather glib the past couple of days, superficial...your complacent attitude is making me nervous...what say you Mrs B, locking in some gains?

mfl59 said...

"costanza turned into a hog"

lmaooooooooooooo....yes he appears to be a bit bloated for sure...

Bunkerman said...

complacent lololololol

not close to complacent.

Bunkerman said...

one would have to be brain dead to be complacent after that 200 pt donw day.

moi, not brain dead.

working Polish now ... German was this AM.

did my three shifts of reading.

Bunkerman said...

sticking to my thinking, which seems to be panning out ... so far.