Found a couple of things I wanted to pass along. (Both from Bloomberg)br /br /br /1) a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037amp;sid=a.pZggcuVEp8"Chinese Stocks to Recover From Plunge, Fisher Says/a.br /br /blockquoteChinese a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SHCOMP%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'SHCOMP:IND' ))"stocks/a will recover from their steepest drop since November and end the year higher as speculation that the government will limit bank loans is unfounded, billionaire investor a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Kenneth+Fisheramp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Kenneth Fisher/a said. pThe nation’s economy is “gangbusters compared to the rest of the world, why would they try to kick that?” said Fisher, who has about $900 million invested in Chinese shares among the $28 billion he manages as chief executive officer of Fisher Investments Inc. in Woodside, California. “They have zero incentive” to curb lending, he said. /p/blockquotepbr //ppZero incentive? How about the incentive to avert a massive ...

Ghost of stimulus past warns… government spending “does not work”…Obama champions bill, nevertheless… Lew Rockwell provides voice of opposition…Geithner unveils TALF, TARP 2.0, whatever you want to call it… another $1 trillion-plus on the line…Time to go back to school, right? Maybe not…. MBA recruiting at record low….Not all market sectors in the drink, one high-end market still showing signs of life…

“We have tried spending money,” begins our mystery politician today. “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started…

“And an enormous debt to boot!”

The mystery man? Henry Morgenthau Jr., Treasury secretary to then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Morgenthau uttered these words in May 1939 before the House Ways and

...

For the week, the Dow gained 1.8% (down 13.9% y-t-d) and the S&P500 increased 0.8% (down 14.8%). The Utilities rose 2.6% (down 14.8%), and the Morgan Stanley Consumer index gained 2.2% (down 5.1%). The Transports jumped 3.8% (up 11%), and the Morgan Stanley Cyclical index advanced 3.3% (down 13.2%). The small cap Russell 2000 added 0.2% (down 5.1%), and the S&P400 Mid-Caps increased 0.4% (down 8.1%). The NASDAQ100 was about unchanged (down 15.2%), while the Morgan Stanley High Tech index slipped 0.4% (down 15.6%). The Semiconductors lost 2.9% (down 21.2%). The Street.com Internet Index declined 0.3% (down 11%), while the NASDAQ Telecommunications index gained 1.7% (down 10.2%). The Biotechs gained 1.0% (up 3%). The financial stocks were mixed. With Lehman collapsing, the Broker/Dealers sank 11.6% (down 35.9%). Meanwhile, the Banks gained 3.2% (down 19.9%). With Bullion sinking $37, the ...

For anyone who still doubted the growing global influence of such emerging powerhouses as China, consider this: The U.S. government’s decision to take control of foundering mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) was driven not by worries about the fading U.S. housing market, but by concerns that foreign central banks in China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Russia might stop buying our bonds. As the bailout announced Sunday is currently structured, more than $1.3 trillion worth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt currently held by the central banks and other investors in those regions will be guaranteed by the U.S. government - even if one or both of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) were to fail. That means that U.S. taxpayers - government parlance for you and me - will ultimately foot a ...

Alex’s Notes: Wow are these guys nuts?

Let me see if I can sum this up.

1. A whole bunch of banks get stupid all at once, and create a whole industry of liar loans (the sub-prime mess) allowing people who never should have been given the debt to take out a half million dollar mortgage an go shopping

2. Those mortgages get packaged up nice and tidy and sold to Wall Street

3. Wall Street packages the garbage up and sells it to municipalities, foreign banks, and governments all over the world

4. A whole bunch of people default on their loans (wow, big surprise there)

5. Financial institutions all around the world start taking losses on their balance sheets and start crying uncle

6. The good old Fed steps in and bails out Bear Stearns, mostly because they were greedy and stupid, in early 2008, and YOU GET TO FOOT THE BILL.

7. More banks fail,

...

Real Estate:  It’s Up?, It’s Down?  It’s ……?

This week’s real estate price data is another example of why long-term investors should not be moved by short-term data or headlines.  Long-term investors should pay attention to long-term trends and ignore the daily fluctuations in the news for the most part.

Consider these two quotes, one from S&P Shiller-Case (via CNN) and the other from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversite (via WSJ):