Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Reinhold Neibuhr
Niebuhr's great foe was idealism. American idealism, he believed, comes in two forms: the idealism of the antiwar noninterventionists, who are embarrassed by power, and the idealism of pro-war imperialists, who disguise power as virtue. He said the non-interventionists, without mentioning Harry Emerson Fosdick by name, seek to preserve the purity of their souls, either by denouncing military actions or by demanding that every action taken be unequivocally virtuous. They exaggerate the sins committed by their own country, excuse the malevolence of its enemies, and, as later polemicists have put it, inevitably blame America first. This is all just a pious way of refusing to face real problems, Niebuhr argued.[37]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr
Monday, September 27, 2010
Timeless Traits
Timeless Traits: Amazon's 2003 Peak Could Help You Learn To Lock In Gains In Any Market
In this Special Edition of the Daily Stock Analysis, we're going to take another look at one of the market's biggest winners from the past.
Most of you know by now that studying past winners will help you learn to spot emerging leaders. That's because the same chart patterns show up year after year, decade after decade in great stocks.
- While buying at the right time is important, it's just as important to know when to sell. After all, no one likes to ride a winning stock up to big gains, only to watch them evaporate because you didn't know when you sell.
- As with buy signals, the stocks show similar sell signals again and again. So that's what we're going to talk about today.
Chart Analysis
- We'll take another look at Amazon (AMZN), which we also discussed in the previous Model Book video where we focused on buy signals.
- Back in March 2003 the Internet retailer broke out of a cup-with-handle base (Point 1).
- Base patterns can be powerful and have often served as the foundation for the big runs of some of history's biggest winners.
- And Amazon certainly had a good run. The stock gained 161% in less than eight months (Point 2).
- But no stock's run lasts forever and even big winners like Amazon need to take a break sooner or later. So let's look at some signs that showed Amazon was running out of steam.
- For one thing, during its run, the stock repeatedly found support along its 10-week moving average line as big investors stepped in to buy shares (Point 3).
- But that began to change in October 2003. During the week ended Oct. 24, it hit a new high, then turned tail and reversed on volume that was well above average (Point 4). That alone wasn't a reason to sell, but when you see a stock starting to flash warning signs like this, keep a close eye on it.
- Amazon's behavior didn't get much better in the weeks afterward. It fell beneath its 10-week moving average line. When it tried to climb back above that benchmark line, sellers kept slapping it back down (Point 5). Also, volume was well above average during the weeks its price fell. That's called distribution and it occurs when there's a big weekly price drop on above-average volume. It tells you big investors are unloading shares. It's often a good idea to follow their leads and sell at least part of your holdings so you can lock in your gains.
- A final warning sign came in early February 2004 when Amazon fell below its 40-week moving average line (Point 6). If you hadn't sold your holdings yet, this was the time to do it.
- In the months that followed, Amazon continued to drift lower (Point 7). That's why it's important to learn to recognize sell signals that get out at the right time to avoid going along on that downward ride.
- If you'd like to learn more about sell signals, check out IBD University. You can find it by clicking the Education tab on the home page. Next click "View All Courses." That takes you to a page with a series of courses on how to spot sell signals. There's also a handy checklist of warning signs that you can print out so you'll have it handy as you evaluate a stock.
Stock Checkup
- When Amazon hit its peak in Oct. 2003, it showed few signs of trouble ahead in its terms of its fundamentals. It carried an 82 EPS Rating. That's not surprising since problems often show up on a stock chart long before they're reflected in a company's quarterly earnings or sales reports.
- Its Accumulation/Distribution Rating in Oct. 2003 was a B. That rating measures buying and selling of the stock among big investors. But the A/D Rating began to fall as the stock repeatedly ran in to trouble trying to climb above its 10-week moving average line. By late Jan. 2004 the A/D Rating had fallen to a C. And in Feb. 2004 it had dropped to an E, the lowest rating possible.
Total Number of Shares outstanding,demand and rally
It is important to keep in mind the total number of shares outstanding. As investor David Ryan says, looking out for 30 Million is an idle quantity. I mean 40-50 should not be a problem.
The logic behind this less volume outstanding is that the less the volume, the more tight the demand is. The demand rope is tight. There are less number of shares and when ever people get interested in the stock with such a quantity, the stock jumps and leaps.
Look at HWK, it has only 7 Million stocks. Also such stocks have a high chances of splitting.
The logic behind this less volume outstanding is that the less the volume, the more tight the demand is. The demand rope is tight. There are less number of shares and when ever people get interested in the stock with such a quantity, the stock jumps and leaps.
Look at HWK, it has only 7 Million stocks. Also such stocks have a high chances of splitting.
Using Leverage and Portfolio management
If ones analysis is good and the stock is behaving and moving in a fast pace one should put more resources into that stock. One should also use more leverage into that stock.
I got CMG at 93 range but did not use much money or leverage. I got a couple of thousand dollar profit but that was a mistake to not put more resources into the stock that is moving wildly.
Then when the stock cools down one can cut down the leverage and keep half the stock, for a longer slower growth phase. This is an important strategy one needs to use, to make maximum profits. Learn to take more profits, when the stock is moving wildly. Cut back risk when one feels it is too high to half position. That makes the use of leverage wisely.
This strategy coincides with George Soros strategy of using leverage.
This worked out well for me with JKS and I got good profits. Now I am using the same for CIS. Need to see what will happen.
One needs to learn to identify stocks that are new breakout and put more resources in these kind of stocks. Not that one that are already in their later stages of stock rally. One has to put more resources at the beginning of the rally. Luckily one can find out what stage a rally is at looking at the charts and the volume.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala
Son of an income tax officer, he started dabbling in stocks while in Sydenham college and plunged into investing as a full time profession soon after completing his education. He started his career with $100 in 1985 when the BSE Sensex was at 150. He made his first big profit of Rs 0.5 million in 1986 when he sold 5,000 shares of Tata Tea at a price of Rs 143 which he had purchased for Rs 43 a share just 3 months prior. Between 1986 and 1989 he earned Rs 20-25 lakhs. His first major successful bet was iron ore mining company Sesa Goa. He bought 4 lakh shares of Sesa Goa in forward trading, worth Rs 1 crore and sold about 2-2.5 lakh shares at Rs 60-65 and another 1 lakh at Rs 150-175. The prices then went up to Rs 2200 and he sold some shares.
But he credits Madhu Dandavate's Union budget of 1990 as the inflection point for his investing career which quintupled his net worth. His privately owned stock trading firm Rare Enterprises, derives its name from the first two initials of his name and wife Rekha's name.
Under the guidance of Mr Radhakrishna Damani, he made a lot of money shorting stocks at the time of Harshad Mehta scam post 1992.
"My decision to aggressively invest in the asset class of Indian equities at the right time was a very important determinant of my success,” said Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
Investment Philosophy
Although he claims to put only a minuscule of his networth on the table for trading activity, he has often leveraged his own capital and managed to make a fortune from his calls, more often than not. His stock picking strategy is influenced by the lessons from Mr George Soros's trading strategies and Dr Marc Faber's analysis of economic history. He endorses the thumb rule of 'trend is my best friend'.
He is the poster boy of the Indian bull run but admits to have been a bear in the Harshad Mehta days and believes that a person in the market should be like a chameleon. He calls the markets as temples of capitalism and believes that they are the ultimate arbitrators.
Much like Mr Warren Buffet, he buys into the business model of a company and for judging the longevity and growth potential, he gives top priority to 'competitive ability', 'scalability' and 'management quality' of the enterprise. The 'entrepreneur', according to Mr Jhunjhunwala is what makes an invaluable difference to his expected investment returns. According to Mr Jhunjhunwala, believing in the vision and the beliefs of the entrepreneur and validating the risks that may not be perceived by the entrepreneur are the key success factors for an investor.
Mr Jhunjhunwala has managed to identify numerous multi-baggers in the past decade, notable being Karur Vysya Bank, Praj Industries, Crisil, Titan, Nagarjuna, HOEL and PSUs like BEML and Bharat Electronics, among others. The typical traits to look for while identifying potential multi-baggers, according to Mr Jhunjhunwala are - low institutional holding, under-researched and general pessimism about the stock.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Line formation and new breakouts
Netflix and dollar tree broke out from line formation more than 6 months back and tripled in prices.
The new ones I found are Citrix (CTXS) and OPEN, that broke the line formation couple of months back. One has to pick stocks that have broken line formation recently rather than extended rally for maximizing profits.
In case of Priceline, it formed a V-formation at price 180 and it is now at 340, that was almost double the price in a couple of months. It needs to be seen how much more this rally is going to extend. I am guessing another 10-20 percent. 400 price is a good point to sell and get out.
JKS has tripled in price. It needs to be seen if it can keep moving up. Results are due in december when 3000% increase in revenue is expected. Good idea to hold the stock till then.
The new ones I found are Citrix (CTXS) and OPEN, that broke the line formation couple of months back. One has to pick stocks that have broken line formation recently rather than extended rally for maximizing profits.
In case of Priceline, it formed a V-formation at price 180 and it is now at 340, that was almost double the price in a couple of months. It needs to be seen how much more this rally is going to extend. I am guessing another 10-20 percent. 400 price is a good point to sell and get out.
JKS has tripled in price. It needs to be seen if it can keep moving up. Results are due in december when 3000% increase in revenue is expected. Good idea to hold the stock till then.
Counting Bases Helps Assess Buying Risk
How are your base-counting chops?
Do you recognize when a stock resets its base count? Do you know how many bases a winning stock racks up before it tends to run out of steam? If not, here's a review.
Leading stocks normally form and break out of more than one base in the course of an advance. Keeping track of these bases is important because it helps gauge how much fuel a stock still has in its tank.
Initial bases can form after an IPO, after a market correction or after some sort of turnaround in the company's fortunes.
It's important to remember that bases formed below $10, or those which occur before a company's earnings show appreciable gains, don't count as initial bases.
There are a number of different types of bases. But all have a few common needs. One is for an advance of at least 30% prior to the start of a base pattern. Second-stage or later bases require a 20% advance leading to the left side of the structure.
Advances before first-stage bases can start from the bottom of the prior correction. For second- and later-stage bases, measure the uptrend from the prior base's buy point.
Leaders often generate follow-up or add-on buy opportunities as they move between bases. These might include three-weeks-tight patterns or pullbacks to their 10-week moving averages. These don't affect your measure of a base-to-base advance.
Sometimes stocks don't log a 20% climb between bases. In this case, the paired consolidations are considered a base-on-base pattern. These count as a single stage in your base count.
If and when a stock reaches a third-stage base, it is typically starting to run out of steam. IBD research shows the success rate for breakouts from third-stage bases is around 67%. The failure rate climbs to 80% for fourth-stage bases.
Stocks sometimes plateau after their third- or fourth-stage base levels. They can also turn down and slide into steep, long-term declines.
On rare occasions, a stock will correct back to below the level of the prior base's low point, then turn and recover. When these undercuts occur, the correction resets the stock's base count. That signals the stock may be primed for another raft of gains. The next time the stock shapes a viable base and buy point, it reverts back to stage one. Be sure that the company still has excellent fundamentals.
Priceline.com (PCLN) has provided base counters with several valuable lessons in its recent run.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/548079/201009221823/Counting-Bases-Helps-Assess-Buying-Risk.aspx
Do you recognize when a stock resets its base count? Do you know how many bases a winning stock racks up before it tends to run out of steam? If not, here's a review.
Leading stocks normally form and break out of more than one base in the course of an advance. Keeping track of these bases is important because it helps gauge how much fuel a stock still has in its tank.
Initial bases can form after an IPO, after a market correction or after some sort of turnaround in the company's fortunes.
It's important to remember that bases formed below $10, or those which occur before a company's earnings show appreciable gains, don't count as initial bases.
There are a number of different types of bases. But all have a few common needs. One is for an advance of at least 30% prior to the start of a base pattern. Second-stage or later bases require a 20% advance leading to the left side of the structure.
Advances before first-stage bases can start from the bottom of the prior correction. For second- and later-stage bases, measure the uptrend from the prior base's buy point.
Leaders often generate follow-up or add-on buy opportunities as they move between bases. These might include three-weeks-tight patterns or pullbacks to their 10-week moving averages. These don't affect your measure of a base-to-base advance.
Sometimes stocks don't log a 20% climb between bases. In this case, the paired consolidations are considered a base-on-base pattern. These count as a single stage in your base count.
If and when a stock reaches a third-stage base, it is typically starting to run out of steam. IBD research shows the success rate for breakouts from third-stage bases is around 67%. The failure rate climbs to 80% for fourth-stage bases.
Stocks sometimes plateau after their third- or fourth-stage base levels. They can also turn down and slide into steep, long-term declines.
On rare occasions, a stock will correct back to below the level of the prior base's low point, then turn and recover. When these undercuts occur, the correction resets the stock's base count. That signals the stock may be primed for another raft of gains. The next time the stock shapes a viable base and buy point, it reverts back to stage one. Be sure that the company still has excellent fundamentals.
Priceline.com (PCLN) has provided base counters with several valuable lessons in its recent run.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/548079/201009221823/Counting-Bases-Helps-Assess-Buying-Risk.aspx
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Stocks of interest and change to Yahoo finance for chart shapshots
ARHM AT 18$
JOBS AT 36$
Do not use google finance because it does not give the over all picture of the chart. Yahoo finance is the best because it gives a small picture of the stocks. This is very useful tool as it gives the present situation in a snapshot.
When there is a correction and when the ARHM is near the 30 day average, purchase the stock.
JOBS had a large volume change that moved the stock from 30 to 36. That is a very positive sign of the stock moving even further up into mid forties.
By not looking at the chart patterns in a snap shot I missed out on many major moves. Like JOBS. Even if one manages to get in between the rally that would be very profitable. So it is vital that I watch the charts as a small pic along with the portfolio. A small mistake like this can cost me thousands of dollars.
JOBS AT 36$
Do not use google finance because it does not give the over all picture of the chart. Yahoo finance is the best because it gives a small picture of the stocks. This is very useful tool as it gives the present situation in a snapshot.
When there is a correction and when the ARHM is near the 30 day average, purchase the stock.
JOBS had a large volume change that moved the stock from 30 to 36. That is a very positive sign of the stock moving even further up into mid forties.
By not looking at the chart patterns in a snap shot I missed out on many major moves. Like JOBS. Even if one manages to get in between the rally that would be very profitable. So it is vital that I watch the charts as a small pic along with the portfolio. A small mistake like this can cost me thousands of dollars.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Stan Weinstein Book: Secrets for Profitting in Bull and Bear Markets
This book is a life changer. I just seem to love this book more than any investment book. Few readers comments on this book.
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So I've spent about $5,000 on a course to learn how to trade. Tried out trading, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. Then I ran into a guy online who suggested 7 or 8 books that every trader should have. This was one of them. I'm making my way through all the recommended books, but this one was fantastic! It suddenly seemed to fill in all the gaps in my knowledge from the course I had taken. It explained a comprehensive way to view the market (any market) that my $5,000 course never even touched on! Now I feel confident enough to re-enter the market, combining what I learned in the $5,000 course and this $20 (or so) book. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein.
I've had a few successes in trading, I called the short on STEC, RINO, FUQI before they collapsed in price, and I went long RINO and STEC when they were on their way up. I purchased Apple at 145, still holding onto it. All this while going to school and running a small side business and writing two novels and a screenplay. Several books that helped me--though not all of them that helped build my strategy of Growth-Value Trading,
Nicolas Darvas's three books, How I Made 2,000,000 Dollars in the Stock Market, Wall Street The Other Las Vegas, and You Can Still Make It In The Market.
Jesse Livermore: How To Trade Stocks
Gerald Loeb: The Battle For Investment Survival
Martwin Zweig: Winning on Wall Street
William O'Neil: How To Make Money In Stocks
And finally Van Tharp: Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom.
These books with a few more, helped me get 600 percent in 2009, and thanks to BP, 400 percent now.
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This book has completely changed by perspective on trading or investing (there's a difference). With either one, I believe you will find this book VERY helpful and practical (recognizing breakouts, when to buy, when to sell, cycles of a stock's life, market timing, shorting stocks, establishing safeguards, various order types, etc.).
The book has a heavy emphasis on analyzing charts. This is a major plus, but it's very practical, not numbingly theoretical.
Weinstein is often compared to O'Neil in (momentum) investment style, but I find Weinstein's book much more systematic and well organized than anything I've read by O'Neil. I own 8 books about investing. This is the best, and the only one I go back to continually.
Bottom line: my portfolio has grown 30% in two months using his methodology, and it's kept me from making a LOT of bad decisions.
Don't let the date influence you. Start reading, and you will think he published it this year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I've spent about $5,000 on a course to learn how to trade. Tried out trading, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. Then I ran into a guy online who suggested 7 or 8 books that every trader should have. This was one of them. I'm making my way through all the recommended books, but this one was fantastic! It suddenly seemed to fill in all the gaps in my knowledge from the course I had taken. It explained a comprehensive way to view the market (any market) that my $5,000 course never even touched on! Now I feel confident enough to re-enter the market, combining what I learned in the $5,000 course and this $20 (or so) book. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein.
I've had a few successes in trading, I called the short on STEC, RINO, FUQI before they collapsed in price, and I went long RINO and STEC when they were on their way up. I purchased Apple at 145, still holding onto it. All this while going to school and running a small side business and writing two novels and a screenplay. Several books that helped me--though not all of them that helped build my strategy of Growth-Value Trading,
Nicolas Darvas's three books, How I Made 2,000,000 Dollars in the Stock Market, Wall Street The Other Las Vegas, and You Can Still Make It In The Market.
Jesse Livermore: How To Trade Stocks
Gerald Loeb: The Battle For Investment Survival
Martwin Zweig: Winning on Wall Street
William O'Neil: How To Make Money In Stocks
And finally Van Tharp: Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom.
These books with a few more, helped me get 600 percent in 2009, and thanks to BP, 400 percent now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book has completely changed by perspective on trading or investing (there's a difference). With either one, I believe you will find this book VERY helpful and practical (recognizing breakouts, when to buy, when to sell, cycles of a stock's life, market timing, shorting stocks, establishing safeguards, various order types, etc.).
The book has a heavy emphasis on analyzing charts. This is a major plus, but it's very practical, not numbingly theoretical.
Weinstein is often compared to O'Neil in (momentum) investment style, but I find Weinstein's book much more systematic and well organized than anything I've read by O'Neil. I own 8 books about investing. This is the best, and the only one I go back to continually.
Bottom line: my portfolio has grown 30% in two months using his methodology, and it's kept me from making a LOT of bad decisions.
Don't let the date influence you. Start reading, and you will think he published it this year.
The Meaning of Koran
Test your religious literacy:
Which sacred text says that Jesus is the “word” of God? a) the Gospel of John; b) the Book of Isaiah; c) the Koran.
The correct answer is the Koran. But if you guessed the Gospel of John you get partial credit because its opening passage — “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God” — is an implicit reference to Jesus. In fact, when Muhammad described Jesus as God’s word, he was no doubt aware that he was affirming Christian teaching.
Extra-credit question: Which sacred text has this to say about the Hebrews: God, in his “prescience,” chose “the children of Israel … above all peoples”? I won’t bother to list the choices, since you’ve probably caught onto my game by now; that line, too, is in the Koran.
I highlight these passages in part for the sake of any self-appointed guardians of Judeo-Christian civilization who might still harbor plans to burn the Koran. I want them to be aware of everything that would go up in smoke.
But I should concede that I haven’t told the whole story. Even while calling Jesus the word of God — and “the Messiah” — the Koran denies that he was the son of God or was himself divine. And, though the Koran does call the Jews God’s chosen people, and sings the praises of Moses, and says that Jews and Muslims worship the same God, it also has anti-Jewish, and for that matter anti-Christian, passages.
This darker side of the Koran, presumably, has already come to the attention of would-be Koran burners and, more broadly, to many of the anti-Muslim Americans whom cynical politicians like Newt Gingrich are trying to harness and multiply. The other side of the Koran — the part that stresses interfaith harmony — is better known in liberal circles.
As for people who are familiar with both sides of the Koran — people who know the whole story — well, there may not be many of them. It’s characteristic of contemporary political discourse that the whole story doesn’t come to the attention of many people.
Thus, there are liberals who say that “jihad” refers to a person’s internal struggle to do what is right. And that’s true. There are conservatives who say “jihad” refers to military struggle. That’s true, too. But few people get the whole picture, which, actually, can be summarized pretty concisely:
Bay Ismoyo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Reading the scripture.The Koran’s exhortations to jihad in the military sense are sometimes brutal in tone but are so hedged by qualifiers that Muhammad clearly doesn’t espouse perpetual war against unbelievers, and is open to peace with them. (Here, for example, is my exegesis of the “sword verse,” the most famous jihadist passage in the Koran.) The formal doctrine of military jihad — which isn’t found in the Koran, and evolved only after Muhammad’s death — does seem to have initially been about endless conquest, but was then subject to so much amendment and re-interpretation as to render it compatible with world peace. Meanwhile, in the hadith — the non-Koranic sayings of the Prophet — the tradition arose that Muhammad had called holy war the “lesser jihad” and said that the “greater jihad” was the struggle against animal impulses within each Muslim’s soul.
Why do people tend to hear only one side of the story? A common explanation is that the digital age makes it easy to wall yourself off from inconvenient data, to spend your time in ideological “cocoons,” to hang out at blogs where you are part of a choir that gets preached to.
Makes sense to me. But, however big a role the Internet plays, it’s just amplifying something human: a tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.
This side of human nature is generally labeled a bad thing, and it’s true that it sponsors a lot of bigotry, strife and war. But it actually has its upside. It means that the regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter.
After all, the adherents of a given religion, like everyone else, focus on things that confirm their attitudes and ignore things that don’t. And they carry that tunnel vision into their own scripture; if there is hatred in their hearts, they’ll fasten onto the hateful parts of scripture, but if there’s not, they won’t. That’s why American Muslims of good will can describe Islam simply as a religion of love. They see the good parts of scripture, and either don’t see the bad or have ways of minimizing it.
So too with people who see in the Bible a loving and infinitely good God. They can maintain that view only by ignoring or downplaying parts of their scripture.
For example, there are those passages where God hands out the death sentence to infidels. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are told to commit genocide — to destroy nearby peoples who worship the wrong Gods, and to make sure to kill all men, women and children. (“You must not let anything that breathes remain alive.”)
As for the New Testament, there’s that moment when Jesus calls a woman and her daughter “dogs” because they aren’t from Israel. In a way that’s the opposite of anti-Semitism — but not in a good way. And speaking of anti-Semitism, the New Testament, like the Koran, has some unflattering things to say about Jews.
Devoted Bible readers who aren’t hateful ignore or downplay all these passages rather than take them as guidance. They put to good use the tunnel vision that is part of human nature.
All the Abrahamic scriptures have all kinds of meanings — good and bad — and the question is which meanings will be activated and which will be inert. It all depends on what attitude believers bring to the text. So whenever we do things that influence the attitudes of believers, we shape the living meaning of their scriptures. In this sense, it’s actually within the power of non-Muslim Americans to help determine the meaning of the Koran. If we want its meaning to be as benign as possible, I recommend that we not talk about burning it. And if we want imams to fill mosques with messages of brotherly love, I recommend that we not tell them where they can and can’t build their mosques.
Of course, the street runs both ways. Muslims can influence the attitudes of Christians and Jews and hence the meanings of their texts. The less threatening that Muslims seem, the more welcoming Christians and Jews will be, and the more benign Christianity and Judaism will be. (A good first step would be to bring more Americans into contact with some of the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are in fact not threatening.)
You can even imagine a kind of virtuous circle: the less menacing each side seems, the less menacing the other side becomes — which in turn makes the first side less menacing still, and so on; the meaning of the Abrahamic scriptures would, in a real sense, get better and better and better.
Lately, it seems, things have been moving in the opposite direction; the circle has been getting vicious. And it’s in the nature of vicious circles that they’re hard to stop, much less reverse. On the other hand, if, through the concerted effort of people of good will, you do reverse a vicious circle, the very momentum that sustained it can build in the other direction — and at that point the force will be with you.
Postscript: The quotations of the Koran come from Sura 4:171 (where Jesus is called God’s word), and Sura 44:32 (where the “children of Israel” are lauded). I’ve used the Rodwell translation, but the only place the choice of translator matters is the part that says God presciently placed the children of Israel above all others. Other translations say “purposefully,” or “knowingly.” By the way, if you’re curious as to the reason for the Koran’s seeming ambivalence toward Christians and Jews:
By my reading, the Koran is to a large extent the record of Muhammad’s attempt to bring all the area’s Christians, Jews and Arab polytheists into his Abrahamic flock, and it reflects, in turns, both his bitter disappointment at failing to do so and the many theological and ritual overtures he had made along the way. (For a time Muslims celebrated Yom Kippur, and they initially prayed toward Jerusalem, not Mecca.) That the suras aren’t ordered chronologically obscures this underlying logic.
Which sacred text says that Jesus is the “word” of God? a) the Gospel of John; b) the Book of Isaiah; c) the Koran.
The correct answer is the Koran. But if you guessed the Gospel of John you get partial credit because its opening passage — “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God” — is an implicit reference to Jesus. In fact, when Muhammad described Jesus as God’s word, he was no doubt aware that he was affirming Christian teaching.
Extra-credit question: Which sacred text has this to say about the Hebrews: God, in his “prescience,” chose “the children of Israel … above all peoples”? I won’t bother to list the choices, since you’ve probably caught onto my game by now; that line, too, is in the Koran.
I highlight these passages in part for the sake of any self-appointed guardians of Judeo-Christian civilization who might still harbor plans to burn the Koran. I want them to be aware of everything that would go up in smoke.
But I should concede that I haven’t told the whole story. Even while calling Jesus the word of God — and “the Messiah” — the Koran denies that he was the son of God or was himself divine. And, though the Koran does call the Jews God’s chosen people, and sings the praises of Moses, and says that Jews and Muslims worship the same God, it also has anti-Jewish, and for that matter anti-Christian, passages.
The regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter.
As for people who are familiar with both sides of the Koran — people who know the whole story — well, there may not be many of them. It’s characteristic of contemporary political discourse that the whole story doesn’t come to the attention of many people.
Thus, there are liberals who say that “jihad” refers to a person’s internal struggle to do what is right. And that’s true. There are conservatives who say “jihad” refers to military struggle. That’s true, too. But few people get the whole picture, which, actually, can be summarized pretty concisely:
Bay Ismoyo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Reading the scripture.Why do people tend to hear only one side of the story? A common explanation is that the digital age makes it easy to wall yourself off from inconvenient data, to spend your time in ideological “cocoons,” to hang out at blogs where you are part of a choir that gets preached to.
Makes sense to me. But, however big a role the Internet plays, it’s just amplifying something human: a tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.
This side of human nature is generally labeled a bad thing, and it’s true that it sponsors a lot of bigotry, strife and war. But it actually has its upside. It means that the regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter.
After all, the adherents of a given religion, like everyone else, focus on things that confirm their attitudes and ignore things that don’t. And they carry that tunnel vision into their own scripture; if there is hatred in their hearts, they’ll fasten onto the hateful parts of scripture, but if there’s not, they won’t. That’s why American Muslims of good will can describe Islam simply as a religion of love. They see the good parts of scripture, and either don’t see the bad or have ways of minimizing it.
So too with people who see in the Bible a loving and infinitely good God. They can maintain that view only by ignoring or downplaying parts of their scripture.
For example, there are those passages where God hands out the death sentence to infidels. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are told to commit genocide — to destroy nearby peoples who worship the wrong Gods, and to make sure to kill all men, women and children. (“You must not let anything that breathes remain alive.”)
As for the New Testament, there’s that moment when Jesus calls a woman and her daughter “dogs” because they aren’t from Israel. In a way that’s the opposite of anti-Semitism — but not in a good way. And speaking of anti-Semitism, the New Testament, like the Koran, has some unflattering things to say about Jews.
Devoted Bible readers who aren’t hateful ignore or downplay all these passages rather than take them as guidance. They put to good use the tunnel vision that is part of human nature.
All the Abrahamic scriptures have all kinds of meanings — good and bad — and the question is which meanings will be activated and which will be inert. It all depends on what attitude believers bring to the text. So whenever we do things that influence the attitudes of believers, we shape the living meaning of their scriptures. In this sense, it’s actually within the power of non-Muslim Americans to help determine the meaning of the Koran. If we want its meaning to be as benign as possible, I recommend that we not talk about burning it. And if we want imams to fill mosques with messages of brotherly love, I recommend that we not tell them where they can and can’t build their mosques.
Of course, the street runs both ways. Muslims can influence the attitudes of Christians and Jews and hence the meanings of their texts. The less threatening that Muslims seem, the more welcoming Christians and Jews will be, and the more benign Christianity and Judaism will be. (A good first step would be to bring more Americans into contact with some of the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are in fact not threatening.)
You can even imagine a kind of virtuous circle: the less menacing each side seems, the less menacing the other side becomes — which in turn makes the first side less menacing still, and so on; the meaning of the Abrahamic scriptures would, in a real sense, get better and better and better.
Lately, it seems, things have been moving in the opposite direction; the circle has been getting vicious. And it’s in the nature of vicious circles that they’re hard to stop, much less reverse. On the other hand, if, through the concerted effort of people of good will, you do reverse a vicious circle, the very momentum that sustained it can build in the other direction — and at that point the force will be with you.
Postscript: The quotations of the Koran come from Sura 4:171 (where Jesus is called God’s word), and Sura 44:32 (where the “children of Israel” are lauded). I’ve used the Rodwell translation, but the only place the choice of translator matters is the part that says God presciently placed the children of Israel above all others. Other translations say “purposefully,” or “knowingly.” By the way, if you’re curious as to the reason for the Koran’s seeming ambivalence toward Christians and Jews:
By my reading, the Koran is to a large extent the record of Muhammad’s attempt to bring all the area’s Christians, Jews and Arab polytheists into his Abrahamic flock, and it reflects, in turns, both his bitter disappointment at failing to do so and the many theological and ritual overtures he had made along the way. (For a time Muslims celebrated Yom Kippur, and they initially prayed toward Jerusalem, not Mecca.) That the suras aren’t ordered chronologically obscures this underlying logic.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
China, Japan, America
Last week Japan’s minister of finance declared that he and his colleagues wanted a discussion with China about the latter’s purchases of Japanese bonds, to “examine its intention” — diplomat-speak for “Stop it right now.” The news made me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration.
You see, senior American policy figures have repeatedly balked at doing anything about Chinese currency manipulation, at least in part out of fear that the Chinese would stop buying our bonds. Yet in the current environment, Chinese purchases of our bonds don’t help us — they hurt us. The Japanese understand that. Why don’t we?
Some background: If discussion of Chinese currency policy seems confusing, it’s only because many people don’t want to face up to the stark, simple reality — namely, that China is deliberately keeping its currency artificially weak.
The consequences of this policy are also stark and simple: in effect, China is taxing imports while subsidizing exports, feeding a huge trade surplus. You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its currency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An undervalued currency always promotes trade surpluses, and China is no different.
And in a depressed world economy, any country running an artificial trade surplus is depriving other nations of much-needed sales and jobs. Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow exempt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.
So what should we be doing? U.S. officials have tried to reason with their Chinese counterparts, arguing that a stronger currency would be in China’s own interest. They’re right about that: an undervalued currency promotes inflation, erodes the real wages of Chinese workers and squanders Chinese resources. But while currency manipulation is bad for China as a whole, it’s good for politically influential Chinese companies — many of them state-owned. And so the currency manipulation goes on.
Time and again, U.S. officials have announced progress on the currency issue; each time, it turns out that they’ve been had. Back in June, Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, praised China’s announcement that it would move to a more flexible exchange rate. Since then, the renminbi has risen a grand total of 1, that’s right, 1 percent against the dollar — with much of the rise taking place in just the past few days, ahead of planned Congressional hearings on the currency issue. And since the dollar has fallen against other major currencies, China’s artificial cost advantage has actually increased.
Clearly, nothing will happen until or unless the United States shows that it’s willing to do what it normally does when another country subsidizes its exports: impose a temporary tariff that offsets the subsidy. So why has such action never been on the table?
One answer, as I’ve already suggested, is fear of what would happen if the Chinese stopped buying American bonds. But this fear is completely misplaced: in a world awash with excess savings, we don’t need China’s money — especially because the Federal Reserve could and should buy up any bonds the Chinese sell.
It’s true that the dollar would fall if China decided to dump some American holdings. But this would actually help the U.S. economy, making our exports more competitive. Ask the Japanese, who want China to stop buying their bonds because those purchases are driving up the yen.
Aside from unjustified financial fears, there’s a more sinister cause of U.S. passivity: business fear of Chinese retaliation.
Consider a related issue: the clearly illegal subsidies China provides to its clean-energy industry. These subsidies should have led to a formal complaint from American businesses; in fact, the only organization willing to file a complaint was the steelworkers union. Why? As The Times reported, “multinational companies and trade associations in the clean energy business, as in many other industries, have been wary of filing trade cases, fearing Chinese officials’ reputation for retaliating against joint ventures in their country and potentially denying market access to any company that takes sides against China.”
Similar intimidation has surely helped discourage action on the currency front. So this is a good time to remember that what’s good for multinational companies is often bad for America, especially its workers.
So here’s the question: Will U.S. policy makers let themselves be spooked by financial phantoms and bullied by business intimidation? Will they continue to do nothing in the face of policies that benefit Chinese special interests at the expense of both Chinese and American workers? Or will they finally, finally act? Stay tuned.
You see, senior American policy figures have repeatedly balked at doing anything about Chinese currency manipulation, at least in part out of fear that the Chinese would stop buying our bonds. Yet in the current environment, Chinese purchases of our bonds don’t help us — they hurt us. The Japanese understand that. Why don’t we?
Some background: If discussion of Chinese currency policy seems confusing, it’s only because many people don’t want to face up to the stark, simple reality — namely, that China is deliberately keeping its currency artificially weak.
The consequences of this policy are also stark and simple: in effect, China is taxing imports while subsidizing exports, feeding a huge trade surplus. You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its currency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An undervalued currency always promotes trade surpluses, and China is no different.
And in a depressed world economy, any country running an artificial trade surplus is depriving other nations of much-needed sales and jobs. Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow exempt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.
So what should we be doing? U.S. officials have tried to reason with their Chinese counterparts, arguing that a stronger currency would be in China’s own interest. They’re right about that: an undervalued currency promotes inflation, erodes the real wages of Chinese workers and squanders Chinese resources. But while currency manipulation is bad for China as a whole, it’s good for politically influential Chinese companies — many of them state-owned. And so the currency manipulation goes on.
Time and again, U.S. officials have announced progress on the currency issue; each time, it turns out that they’ve been had. Back in June, Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, praised China’s announcement that it would move to a more flexible exchange rate. Since then, the renminbi has risen a grand total of 1, that’s right, 1 percent against the dollar — with much of the rise taking place in just the past few days, ahead of planned Congressional hearings on the currency issue. And since the dollar has fallen against other major currencies, China’s artificial cost advantage has actually increased.
Clearly, nothing will happen until or unless the United States shows that it’s willing to do what it normally does when another country subsidizes its exports: impose a temporary tariff that offsets the subsidy. So why has such action never been on the table?
One answer, as I’ve already suggested, is fear of what would happen if the Chinese stopped buying American bonds. But this fear is completely misplaced: in a world awash with excess savings, we don’t need China’s money — especially because the Federal Reserve could and should buy up any bonds the Chinese sell.
It’s true that the dollar would fall if China decided to dump some American holdings. But this would actually help the U.S. economy, making our exports more competitive. Ask the Japanese, who want China to stop buying their bonds because those purchases are driving up the yen.
Aside from unjustified financial fears, there’s a more sinister cause of U.S. passivity: business fear of Chinese retaliation.
Consider a related issue: the clearly illegal subsidies China provides to its clean-energy industry. These subsidies should have led to a formal complaint from American businesses; in fact, the only organization willing to file a complaint was the steelworkers union. Why? As The Times reported, “multinational companies and trade associations in the clean energy business, as in many other industries, have been wary of filing trade cases, fearing Chinese officials’ reputation for retaliating against joint ventures in their country and potentially denying market access to any company that takes sides against China.”
Similar intimidation has surely helped discourage action on the currency front. So this is a good time to remember that what’s good for multinational companies is often bad for America, especially its workers.
So here’s the question: Will U.S. policy makers let themselves be spooked by financial phantoms and bullied by business intimidation? Will they continue to do nothing in the face of policies that benefit Chinese special interests at the expense of both Chinese and American workers? Or will they finally, finally act? Stay tuned.
The Meaning of Basel: Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz
“It’s a move in the right direction. One should see these actions as part of trying to correct what is clearly a dysfunctional banking sector.”
“While it’s understandable, given the weaknesses and the failings of the banking system, that one would want to be slow in introducing these increased capital requirements, delay is exposing the public to continued risk. Given the high levels of payouts in bonuses and dividends, it seems a little unconscionable to continue putting the public at risk with an argument that they cannot more rapidly increase their own capital.”
“The banks have complained about the fact that increased capital adequacy requirements of this kind would increase the cost of capital that firms would have to pay. But one should recognize that through the bailouts that have been repeated all through the world, not just during this crisis, the public has in effect been subsidizing the banking sector and that represents a very large distortion in the financial system. If the cost of capital is higher as a result, it’s just undoing a distortionary subsidy.”
“Any assessment of the full impact depends obviously in part on the accounting standards. If banks are allowed to continue the kind of deceptive accounting where they can treat non-performing or impaired mortgages as if they were fully performing, it undermines the effectiveness of these attempts to ensure that banks are adequately capitalized.”
The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008 “provides an example par excellence” because of the gap between its stated capital and actual capital when it went bankrupt.
“It’s a move in the right direction. One should see these actions as part of trying to correct what is clearly a dysfunctional banking sector.”
“While it’s understandable, given the weaknesses and the failings of the banking system, that one would want to be slow in introducing these increased capital requirements, delay is exposing the public to continued risk. Given the high levels of payouts in bonuses and dividends, it seems a little unconscionable to continue putting the public at risk with an argument that they cannot more rapidly increase their own capital.”
“The banks have complained about the fact that increased capital adequacy requirements of this kind would increase the cost of capital that firms would have to pay. But one should recognize that through the bailouts that have been repeated all through the world, not just during this crisis, the public has in effect been subsidizing the banking sector and that represents a very large distortion in the financial system. If the cost of capital is higher as a result, it’s just undoing a distortionary subsidy.”
“Any assessment of the full impact depends obviously in part on the accounting standards. If banks are allowed to continue the kind of deceptive accounting where they can treat non-performing or impaired mortgages as if they were fully performing, it undermines the effectiveness of these attempts to ensure that banks are adequately capitalized.”
The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008 “provides an example par excellence” because of the gap between its stated capital and actual capital when it went bankrupt.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The slump goes on: Why?
excellent review
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/sep/30/slump-goes-why/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/sep/30/slump-goes-why/
3, 6, 12 month RS are different measures
According to MSN the 14 day RS values are different and cannot compare them with each other. For example , the 14 day RS low for IDT for a 1 year graph is 60 and for the last 3 months graph it is 45.
So when comparing the RS between two stocks one has to make sure that they belong to the same time range. This is important to interpret the weakness or strongness of the trend. And how low to hold on to till
the stock actually breaks the 30 day MA.
I observe that RS was around 80 when it broke off the 30 d MA on IDT, that is pretty high. From this I understand that one cannot make a definite statement about the RS, rather than declining or ascending RS for buy or sell decisions.
I feel intuitively that the 14 day RS is good for 3 and 6 month graph, because of the 2 week relative analysis.
In case of JKS, a 3 month RS shows a low of 55 and has not cut the 30 d MA.
Interesting observation.
So when comparing the RS between two stocks one has to make sure that they belong to the same time range. This is important to interpret the weakness or strongness of the trend. And how low to hold on to till
the stock actually breaks the 30 day MA.
I observe that RS was around 80 when it broke off the 30 d MA on IDT, that is pretty high. From this I understand that one cannot make a definite statement about the RS, rather than declining or ascending RS for buy or sell decisions.
I feel intuitively that the 14 day RS is good for 3 and 6 month graph, because of the 2 week relative analysis.
In case of JKS, a 3 month RS shows a low of 55 and has not cut the 30 d MA.
Interesting observation.
Friday, September 10, 2010
What it means: Increase in volume in the way above 30d Ma graph, VRX vs JKS
This is a important point one has to make a note. After a stock has double and it the stock is continuing the trend there are many volume changes that can happen. One should not hastily take an decision not to hold the equity if the graph is above the 30 d MA or may be with in 5 % below it. There are normal corrections and one should not sell the stock in this situation.
As did happen to me on the purchase of VRX at 42, the stock was still above the 30d MA. But it jump to 45 in a couple of day with large volume. It also slided back to the 41-42 range bordering the 30 d MA. Hastily I sold it off with the fear that the trend has come to an end. But large volume and sell off above or resulting in bordering 30 d MA should be taken as a normal correction on the path. Though large volume
is sometimes an indicator that people are selling and booking profits, one has to be cautious. Actually at these dip points and bordering the 30 d MA are the best stock accumulate the stock.
Then VRX moved to 59 dollars. I got into it again at 59 and now it is at 65. I lost 50 % move because of my mistake.
Now a similar situation has arisen for JKS. There is high volume sell off and book profit situation. The stock is well over its 30d MA. The stock is at 24 after the sell off. Declined 20 percent from 29.
The 30d MA is at 22. I need to give room for this stock to wobble a little bit. At least 21 something.
After the sell off is over the stock can either rise or decline further. Usually good stocks with good Investor.com rates go higher after the sell off.
The trick is to accumulate such stock during panic and sell off. But one has to learn to beat the gut reactions to sell off and book profits too soon. Of course selling to cut losses is the first thing to do if the stock heads below the 30 d MA. But if the stock is bordering then it means it will definitely rise or forming another base for another rise even with bleak volume.
It is interesting to observe the mass behavior in uptrend stocks. Lets see what happens in this case JKS.
The fundamentals seem to strong for JKS.
As did happen to me on the purchase of VRX at 42, the stock was still above the 30d MA. But it jump to 45 in a couple of day with large volume. It also slided back to the 41-42 range bordering the 30 d MA. Hastily I sold it off with the fear that the trend has come to an end. But large volume and sell off above or resulting in bordering 30 d MA should be taken as a normal correction on the path. Though large volume
is sometimes an indicator that people are selling and booking profits, one has to be cautious. Actually at these dip points and bordering the 30 d MA are the best stock accumulate the stock.
Then VRX moved to 59 dollars. I got into it again at 59 and now it is at 65. I lost 50 % move because of my mistake.
Now a similar situation has arisen for JKS. There is high volume sell off and book profit situation. The stock is well over its 30d MA. The stock is at 24 after the sell off. Declined 20 percent from 29.
The 30d MA is at 22. I need to give room for this stock to wobble a little bit. At least 21 something.
After the sell off is over the stock can either rise or decline further. Usually good stocks with good Investor.com rates go higher after the sell off.
The trick is to accumulate such stock during panic and sell off. But one has to learn to beat the gut reactions to sell off and book profits too soon. Of course selling to cut losses is the first thing to do if the stock heads below the 30 d MA. But if the stock is bordering then it means it will definitely rise or forming another base for another rise even with bleak volume.
It is interesting to observe the mass behavior in uptrend stocks. Lets see what happens in this case JKS.
The fundamentals seem to strong for JKS.
Study of JKS
Nice rally from 10 to 29, then there is a high volume sell off. People are booking profits. Stock down 15 percent, now at 24.
I am averaging at about 24 with 600 stocks. will sell 400 if stocks goes below 21.99. Stock has potential according to Investor.com ranking. Hmmm
Kind of tense situation when you are hanging on the average. 30 day MA at 22.5. That is another 7 percent down from present position. Since the company is good, where will the stock go now?
After all the selling is over, it is only left with buyers. But if the stock goes down below its 30d MA of 22.5 then it is good to sell off 50 percent of position to cut back losses. If the stock hangs around that range for some time, that means it is forming a new base. If the stock comes down sharply, to 20 or 19, then it means the trend is over for now. I have to sell off everything at 21 and get out for a modest loss.
Treasure hunt comes with a certain risk. If it is 10 percent , thats ok. One has to cut losses max 7-10 percent.
Lets see what happens. At the same time one should have the patience to hold when other are taking profits and when there is a healthy correction to the stock above the 30 d MA. Nothing wrong in that correction.
Today stock only declined 1-2 percent. Sellers and buyers on same page. Selling is almost over. Have to watch if more selling happens tomorrow. Then stock will come down, its 30 day MA. that is danger zone. But till then one has to wait. The great virtue of a true trader is to buy on those low points on or above the 30 day MA. That is the skill and power of knowledge.
I am averaging at about 24 with 600 stocks. will sell 400 if stocks goes below 21.99. Stock has potential according to Investor.com ranking. Hmmm
Kind of tense situation when you are hanging on the average. 30 day MA at 22.5. That is another 7 percent down from present position. Since the company is good, where will the stock go now?
After all the selling is over, it is only left with buyers. But if the stock goes down below its 30d MA of 22.5 then it is good to sell off 50 percent of position to cut back losses. If the stock hangs around that range for some time, that means it is forming a new base. If the stock comes down sharply, to 20 or 19, then it means the trend is over for now. I have to sell off everything at 21 and get out for a modest loss.
Treasure hunt comes with a certain risk. If it is 10 percent , thats ok. One has to cut losses max 7-10 percent.
Lets see what happens. At the same time one should have the patience to hold when other are taking profits and when there is a healthy correction to the stock above the 30 d MA. Nothing wrong in that correction.
Today stock only declined 1-2 percent. Sellers and buyers on same page. Selling is almost over. Have to watch if more selling happens tomorrow. Then stock will come down, its 30 day MA. that is danger zone. But till then one has to wait. The great virtue of a true trader is to buy on those low points on or above the 30 day MA. That is the skill and power of knowledge.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Soros Makes $100 Million Rights Gift
Soros Makes $100 Million Rights Gift
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: September 6, 2010
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The philanthropist George Soros said in an interview that the gift to Human Rights Watch is the first in a series of large gifts that he planned to make.
Pat Roque/Associated Press
Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, which monitors rights abuses.
The largest known gift in 2010 was $200 million pledged by an anonymous Baylor University graduate, to be dispensed upon the donor’s death, for medical research at the university.
Uncertainty about the direction of the economy has made even the wealthiest individuals more cautious about making big philanthropic commitments, Mr. Rooney said.
Contrariness, however, is a hallmark of Mr. Soros, both as an investor and as a philanthropist. While others have held on to their money, he has made bigger gifts than ever. And he said in an interview that the gift to Human Rights Watch is the first of a series of large gifts that he plans to make.
“This is partly due to age,” said Mr. Soros, who celebrated his 80th birthday last month. “Originally I wanted to distribute all of the money during my lifetime, but I have abandoned that plan. My foundation should continue, but I still would like to do a lot of giving during my lifetime, and doing it this way, with such size, is a step in that direction.”
Last year, in the depths of the recession, Mr. Soros gave the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that fights poverty in New York, a $50 million contribution that helped it raise significantly more than that amount. He also gave every family with children on welfare in New York State $200 to buy school supplies, a grant worth $35 million that enabled the state to gain access to some $175 million in federal money for which it would not otherwise have qualified.
So far this year, Mr. Soros has donated about $700 million to various causes, including the gift to Human Rights Watch. His hedge fund, Quantum Endowment, grew 29 percent in 2009, earning him $3.3 billion in fees and investment gains.
Human Rights Watch will use the gift to add about 120 staff members to its team of 300 around the world, expand translation of its reports and open new offices. The intent, said Kenneth Roth, the advocacy group’s executive director, is to increase its influence in emerging power centers. The group, which is based in New York, investigates and draws attention to human rights abuses around the world.
Mr. Roth said that South Africa had more sway in Zimbabwe than the United States and other Western powers. Similarly, India, China and Japan are more influential in Sri Lanka. “We need to try to generate pressure on those governments, those emerging powers, now, which means expanding our capacity to deploy our information,” Mr. Roth said.
Mr. Soros put it differently. “I’m afraid the United States has lost the moral high ground under the Bush administration, but the principles that Human Rights Watch promotes have not lost their universal applicability,” he said. “So to be more effective, I think the organization has to be seen as more international, less an American organization.”
He said the gift to the organization was “also from my heart,” an acknowledgment of the training in human rights issues and philanthropy that he received from the group when he was just starting to emerge as a major donor.
“Every Wednesday morning at 8 o’clock, a group at Human Rights Watch got together and discussed issues with the managers,” Mr. Soros recalled. “I was an active participant in that group, and human rights remains an important element of my foundation’s current activities.”
Mr. Roth said few people then knew who Mr. Soros was. “We were just trying to figure out what we were going to do that week and so on, and he was just a guy at the meeting,” he said.
The grant is structured as a challenge that asks the group to raise $10 million from new, primarily international sources, each year for the next decade, but Human Right Watch will receive the Soros grant regardless. Roughly 30 percent of its revenue comes from countries other than the United States, but less than 1 percent is from non-Western countries, where much of the organization’s work is focused.
Mr. Soros wants to see the organization raise more money in places like Brazil, Mexico, India and China, which will be challenging, Mr. Roth said. “This is a transformative grant in more than one way for sure,” he said.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Real Story
Next week, President Obama is scheduled to propose new measures to boost the economy. I hope they’re bold and substantive, since the Republicans will oppose him regardless — if he came out for motherhood, the G.O.P. would declare motherhood un-American. So he should put them on the spot for standing in the way of real action.
But let’s put politics aside and talk about what we’ve actually learned about economic policy over the past 20 months.
When Mr. Obama first proposed $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, there were two groups of critics. Both argued that unemployment would stay high — but for very different reasons.
One group — the group that got almost all the attention — declared that the stimulus was much too large, and would lead to disaster. If you were, say, reading The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages in early 2009, you would have been repeatedly informed that the Obama plan would lead to skyrocketing interest rates and soaring inflation.
The other group, which included yours truly, warned that the plan was much too small given the economic forecasts then available. As I pointed out in February 2009, the Congressional Budget Office was predicting a $2.9 trillion hole in the economy over the next two years; an $800 billion program, partly consisting of tax cuts that would have happened anyway, just wasn’t up to the task of filling that hole.
Critics in the second camp were particularly worried about what would happen this year, since the stimulus would have its maximum effect on growth in late 2009 then gradually fade out. Last year, many of us were already warning that the economy might stall in the second half of 2010.
So what actually happened? The administration’s optimistic forecast was wrong, but which group of pessimists was right about the reasons for that error?
Start with interest rates. Those who said the stimulus was too big predicted sharply rising rates. When rates rose in early 2009, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “The Bond Vigilantes: The disciplinarians of U.S. policy makers return.” The editorial declared that it was all about fear of deficits, and concluded, “When in doubt, bet on the markets.”
But those who said the stimulus was too small argued that temporary deficits weren’t a problem as long as the economy remained depressed; we were awash in savings with nowhere to go. Interest rates, we said, would fluctuate with optimism or pessimism about future growth, not with government borrowing.
When in doubt, bet on the markets. The 10-year bond rate was over 3.7 percent when The Journal published that editorial; it’s under 2.7 percent now.
What about inflation? Amid the inflation hysteria of early 2009, the inadequate-stimulus critics pointed out that inflation always falls during sustained periods of high unemployment, and that this time should be no different. Sure enough, key measures of inflation have fallen from more than 2 percent before the economic crisis to 1 percent or less now, and Japanese-style deflation is looking like a real possibility.
Meanwhile, the timing of recent economic growth strongly supports the notion that stimulus does, indeed, boost the economy: growth accelerated last year, as the stimulus reached its predicted peak impact, but has fallen off — just as some of us feared — as the stimulus has faded.
Oh, and don’t tell me that Germany proves that austerity, not stimulus, is the way to go. Germany actually did quite a lot of stimulus — the austerity is all in the future. Also, it never had a housing bubble that burst. And with all that, German G.D.P. is still further below its precrisis peak than American G.D.P. True, Germany has done better in terms of employment — but that’s because strong unions and government policy have prevented American-style mass layoffs.
The actual lessons of 2009-2010, then, are that scare stories about stimulus are wrong, and that stimulus works when it is applied. But it wasn’t applied on a sufficient scale. And we need another round.
I know that getting that round is unlikely: Republicans and conservative Democrats won’t stand for it. And if, as expected, the G.O.P. wins big in November, this will be widely regarded as a vindication of the anti-stimulus position. Mr. Obama, we’ll be told, moved too far to the left, and his Keynesian economic doctrine was proved wrong.
But politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. The economic theory behind the Obama stimulus has passed the test of recent events with flying colors; unfortunately, Mr. Obama, for whatever reason — yes, I’m aware that there were political constraints — initially offered a plan that was much too cautious given the scale of the economy’s problems.
So, as I said, here’s hoping that Mr. Obama goes big next week. If he does, he’ll have the facts on his side.
But let’s put politics aside and talk about what we’ve actually learned about economic policy over the past 20 months.
When Mr. Obama first proposed $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, there were two groups of critics. Both argued that unemployment would stay high — but for very different reasons.
One group — the group that got almost all the attention — declared that the stimulus was much too large, and would lead to disaster. If you were, say, reading The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages in early 2009, you would have been repeatedly informed that the Obama plan would lead to skyrocketing interest rates and soaring inflation.
The other group, which included yours truly, warned that the plan was much too small given the economic forecasts then available. As I pointed out in February 2009, the Congressional Budget Office was predicting a $2.9 trillion hole in the economy over the next two years; an $800 billion program, partly consisting of tax cuts that would have happened anyway, just wasn’t up to the task of filling that hole.
Critics in the second camp were particularly worried about what would happen this year, since the stimulus would have its maximum effect on growth in late 2009 then gradually fade out. Last year, many of us were already warning that the economy might stall in the second half of 2010.
So what actually happened? The administration’s optimistic forecast was wrong, but which group of pessimists was right about the reasons for that error?
Start with interest rates. Those who said the stimulus was too big predicted sharply rising rates. When rates rose in early 2009, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “The Bond Vigilantes: The disciplinarians of U.S. policy makers return.” The editorial declared that it was all about fear of deficits, and concluded, “When in doubt, bet on the markets.”
But those who said the stimulus was too small argued that temporary deficits weren’t a problem as long as the economy remained depressed; we were awash in savings with nowhere to go. Interest rates, we said, would fluctuate with optimism or pessimism about future growth, not with government borrowing.
When in doubt, bet on the markets. The 10-year bond rate was over 3.7 percent when The Journal published that editorial; it’s under 2.7 percent now.
What about inflation? Amid the inflation hysteria of early 2009, the inadequate-stimulus critics pointed out that inflation always falls during sustained periods of high unemployment, and that this time should be no different. Sure enough, key measures of inflation have fallen from more than 2 percent before the economic crisis to 1 percent or less now, and Japanese-style deflation is looking like a real possibility.
Meanwhile, the timing of recent economic growth strongly supports the notion that stimulus does, indeed, boost the economy: growth accelerated last year, as the stimulus reached its predicted peak impact, but has fallen off — just as some of us feared — as the stimulus has faded.
Oh, and don’t tell me that Germany proves that austerity, not stimulus, is the way to go. Germany actually did quite a lot of stimulus — the austerity is all in the future. Also, it never had a housing bubble that burst. And with all that, German G.D.P. is still further below its precrisis peak than American G.D.P. True, Germany has done better in terms of employment — but that’s because strong unions and government policy have prevented American-style mass layoffs.
The actual lessons of 2009-2010, then, are that scare stories about stimulus are wrong, and that stimulus works when it is applied. But it wasn’t applied on a sufficient scale. And we need another round.
I know that getting that round is unlikely: Republicans and conservative Democrats won’t stand for it. And if, as expected, the G.O.P. wins big in November, this will be widely regarded as a vindication of the anti-stimulus position. Mr. Obama, we’ll be told, moved too far to the left, and his Keynesian economic doctrine was proved wrong.
But politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. The economic theory behind the Obama stimulus has passed the test of recent events with flying colors; unfortunately, Mr. Obama, for whatever reason — yes, I’m aware that there were political constraints — initially offered a plan that was much too cautious given the scale of the economy’s problems.
So, as I said, here’s hoping that Mr. Obama goes big next week. If he does, he’ll have the facts on his side.
Joseph Stinglitz: A real global man
http://www.josephstiglitz.com/
He has wondered all around the world and has seen the conditions all over the world first hand. He does not take sides with United states but critiques where necessary. His book " Making Globalization work" gives a true picture of the downsides of the present form of globalization and its problems and what needs to be done for globalization to work. He definitely thinks that globalization when rightly used can alleviate the poor countries but now the developed countries have greater bargaining power. This needs to be changed.
Its a wonderful book for a lay man to understand the present situation of globalization and to understand what needs to be done to remedy it.
He has wondered all around the world and has seen the conditions all over the world first hand. He does not take sides with United states but critiques where necessary. His book " Making Globalization work" gives a true picture of the downsides of the present form of globalization and its problems and what needs to be done for globalization to work. He definitely thinks that globalization when rightly used can alleviate the poor countries but now the developed countries have greater bargaining power. This needs to be changed.
Its a wonderful book for a lay man to understand the present situation of globalization and to understand what needs to be done to remedy it.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Is the war in Iraq over?
Was the whole enterprise to dethrone Saddam hussain really worth it? After more than 100000 Iraqi's dead and 4500 soldiers dead, what has the war achieved? There are warring factions still remaining and there is severe unemployment in Iraq.
Americans only think about their country and their massive economic problems. With just 10 percent unemployment rate, people in united states are baffled, what about 25 to 30 unemployment in Iraq???
The matter is not just dethroning Saddam, it has escalated and affected every middle class family in Iraq. Baghdad was one of those beautiful cities and now it is in ruins.
I hope the Iraqi's will stop fighting among themselves and bring some peace to the region which may take a long time. People need to learn to share power and live peacefully.
Americans only think about their country and their massive economic problems. With just 10 percent unemployment rate, people in united states are baffled, what about 25 to 30 unemployment in Iraq???
The matter is not just dethroning Saddam, it has escalated and affected every middle class family in Iraq. Baghdad was one of those beautiful cities and now it is in ruins.
I hope the Iraqi's will stop fighting among themselves and bring some peace to the region which may take a long time. People need to learn to share power and live peacefully.
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