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Today's Commentary: 11.22.05
Be Thankful

This holiday has more than just they dysfunctional family gatherings, more than the tryptophan overdoses, and more than the symbolic gesture of giving thanks for whatever one might have. It should prompt us to be thankful for what or who we are not.

Be thankful you are not Ben Bernanke. He is inheriting a Fed that is at once, a figment of what it was intended to be and looks to be nothing but a politicized arm of federal policy. Bernankeıs brief stint under the White Houseıs influence has given him the taint of partisanship and loyalty.

He is staring down an economy, repeatedly pronounced healthy and vibrant by just about every source imaginable, that wants to inflate, recess and self-destruct under the weight of twin deficits.

If asked, Bernanke will support tax cuts and the printing of money to cover our mistakes. He can be quoted as saying both.

Be thankful you are not the owner of an adjustable rate mortgage. 2006 looks to be a banner year for you folks. Banks have been creating new and interesting ways to fund the bottom line, especially since Americans have dried up the pool of savings. There was a time, in the not too distant past when banks lent money from vast pools of saved money. No more.

Now those banks have creatively invented a secondary pool of investors willing to purchase risky mortgages. This has fed the average homebuyer ­ or check that, the sub-prime buyer ­ who has had, until recently at least, an ever growing appetite for homeownership. In the coming year, over $500 million of these loans will be adjusting at the most inconvenient of times.

Money is tight enough without adding additional outlays to cover the mortgage. Credit card companies are beginning to carry out lawmakerıs mandates to increase minimum payments. The irony of such prudence is not followed by example as the continued reverse Robin Hood effect, steal from the poor to give additional tax cuts to the rich, is not falling on blind eyes. Even folks who voted the party line are finding the GOP arrogance and detachment disconcerting.

Be thankful your job doesnıt depend on interest rates. The aforementioned housing concerns will befall the workers supporting this industry with particular swiftness. Not the same swiftness as the Republicans from the top down leveled at John Murtha, Representative from Pennsylvania, a decorated veteran who simply suggested aloud what far too many Americans are thinking.

Interest rates will take its toll on many of the industries whose supposed strength has kept the economy booming. It looks foolish for Congress to question big oil companies about their profits. It is a dance with chaperones watching, keeping us at armıs length. We begat their profits and weıll need to come to grips with a legislature that encourages gouging _ never admitted - as a way to abstinence - never encouraged. Their profits and subsequent tax incentives such as repatriation of overseas profits has made us all better off according to Congress.

Speaking of Congress, be thankful your elected officials are working for your best interest. Letıs talk budget cuts to the programs the benefit the bottom third at the expense of the top ten percent. Your seats can distance themselves from the party of George Bush but you cannot make the American public wonder what you have done with their vote.

Be thankful that you donıt need to pick a prescription drug plan, just yet. Be thankful that the alternative in Alternative Minimum Tax does not apply to you, just yet.

And be thankful that your country continues to find investors from overseas willing to ante up some serious investment to keep George's war, his debt and his misguided economic policy from crumbling before our very eyes, just yet.

As we prepare to celebrate a holiday of thanks for our good fortune to be American as opposed to being say, Iraqi, we should be thankful that the Euro, unsupported by a central treasury, is still trash and nowhere near the assumed safety of the highly volatile dollar, which should make us thankful if we have managed to buy gold, an asset with growing favor in a world that is beginning to seek tangible hedges against financial chaos.

Be well this holiday and be thankful.

BlueMoney Report

The Blue Money Report
Financial Commentary covering a wide range of topics concerning money, investing, and how it effects the average investor and their financial health.

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