The Absolute Worst Pro-Obama Ad Ever Made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5fH3np1jsw

And you thought the “Have Your First Obamagasm” ad was bad…

Here are the lyrics:

Imagine an America
Where strip mines are fun and free
Where gays can be fixed
And sick people just die
And oil fills the sea

We don’t have to pay for freeways!
Our schools are good enough
Give us endless wars
On foreign shores
And lots of Chinese stuff

We’re the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And we’re kinda blaming you

We haven’t killed all the polar bears
But it’s not for lack of trying
Big Bird is sacked
The Earth is cracked
And the atmosphere is frying

Congress went home early
They did their best we know
You can’t cut spending
With elections pending
Unless it’s welfare dough

We’re the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And we’re kinda blaming you

Find a park that is still open
And take a breath of poison air
They foreclosed your place
To build a weapon in space
But you can write off your au pair

It’s a little awkward to tell you
But you left us holding the bag
When we look around
The place is all dumbed down
And the long term’s kind of a drag

We’re the children of the future
American through and through
But something happened to our country
And yeah, we’re blaming you

You did your best
You failed the test

Mom and Dad
We’re blaming you!

For all of the polls that are flying out almost hourly now, there are two common trends emerging: Mitt Romney is leading independents by healthy margins, and who holds the overall lead is entirely dependent on the party split within the sample. As of last night, Romney has a razor thin lead of eight tenths of a point nationally against an average Democratic partisan advantage of 4.4 points. In 2008, Barack Obama won the election by 7.2 points (52.9–45.7) and Democrats outnumbered Republicans by eight points. Compared to the average today, Obama has dropped eight points while only losing 2.6 points of the turnout advantage. That is due entirely to Romney’s strength with independent voters, and reason enough to sound the alarm in Chicago.

But of all the polls that have been released, there are two polls that will have Team Obama waking up in a cold sweat knowing that if these polls are even somewhat accurate they might be on the other end of a dramatic victory on Election Day: The party-affiliation polls from Gallup and Rasmussen.

Read the rest here.

Steyn: ‘We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video,” said Hillary Clinton. No, not the person who made the video saying that voting for Barack Obama is like losing your virginity to a really cool guy. I’ll get to that in a moment. But Secretary Clinton was talking about the fellow who made the supposedly Islamophobic video that supposedly set off the sacking of the Benghazi consulate. And, indeed, she did “have that person arrested.” By happy coincidence, his bail hearing has been set for three days after the election, by which time he will have served his purpose. These two videos — the Islamophobic one and the Obamosexual one — bookend the remarkable but wholly deserved collapse of the president’s reelection campaign.

Read the rest here.

The next Treasury secretary will confront problems so daunting that even Alexander Hamilton would have trouble preserving the full faith and credit of the United States.

Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don’t want, but need, to hear.

Where are we now?

Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household.

The amount of debt is one thing. The burden of interest payments is another. The Treasury now has a preponderance of its debt issued in very short-term durations, to take advantage of low short-term interest rates. It must frequently refinance this debt which, when added to the current deficit, means Treasury must raise $4 trillion this year alone. So the debt burden will explode when interest rates go up.

Read the rest here.

This is the story of a trader who met someone from an advanced alien species and tried to get him to answer a few questions about technical analysis.

The meeting of course was totally accidental. The alien came from an advanced species where most of the usual problems have been solved to the point that their science is all about trying to create new problems instead of solving some. After a conversation concerning other things, the trader was tempted to ask the alien about technical analysis:

Read the rest here.

Great article by Derek Hernquist:

Shortly after I met Brian Shannon, he pulled out a folded piece of paper with his watchlist for the week. As he does every weekend, he had gone through hundreds of charts and noted by hand the ones he wanted to consider further. I chuckled at its archaic nature and said I thought Art Cashin and I were the only ones that scribbled notes by hand. Then we did Art proud with a few drinks and some chart scribbling on cocktail napkins.

As I read about other great market operators, I continue to see that many do the same.  A blog post on Ralph Acampora. An old video with Linda Raschke. A podcast with Ralph Vince. Everywhere I turn, I’m reminded that the optimal analysis of data is a physical act. By keeping records this way, we are engaging in deliberate practice and activating our intuition to help us make decisions.

Read the rest here.

Roy Niederhoffer has been a hedge fund manager for almost 20 years — but the nerdy investor is probably just as well known in Manhattan social circles for his love of music.

A patron of the arts and an accomplished musician, the 46-year-old investor is scheduled to play violin next Saturday with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.

He might want to buff up his musical resumé — the hedge fund he is running hasn’t made a dime since 2008 when it had a spectacular 51 percent gain.

Since then, roughly $1.1 billion has been lost to poor investments.

Read the rest here.

I know, too much talk about Twitter and you still trying to figure out if it’s right for you or your business, or if you should tweet as yourself or as a business.

While everybody and their grandmas are looking for new angles to keep arguing about the war between Facebook and G+, Twitter came back yesterday to kindly drop a bomb on the Internet. Just in time to make it in 2011. Twitter gets a high five from me!

Now you’re hearing about “Discovery” and “Brand Pages” and your head’s spinning about how you approach it or how you adjust.

Fortunately Flowtown just published its new infographic to help you determine how you are going to use Twitter or if you should stay clear. And it sort of funny too…

Read the rest here.

Hoplite Capital, the long-short hedge fund managed by the Tiger Cub John Lykouretzos, released its third quarter Letter to Shareholders.

(One of our avid readers and fan, who “spends at least 30 minutes a day reading” our hedge fund profiles, pointed us to this letter – many thanks and keep them coming at [email protected] )

While many analysts and websites follow the long side of the very reticent Mr. Lykouretzo’s portfolio through regulatory 13 F filings, the letter provides a glimpse into his short portfolio.

Read the rest here.

See the graphic here.

Unbelievable. First the UN is coming over monitor US elections. Now they are telling us how to vote in them!

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights has warned Americans not to elect Republican Mitt Romney in next month’s presidential election, saying that doing so would be “a democratic mandate for torture.”

The UN’s Ben Emmerson was referring to Romney’s refusal to rule out the use of waterboarding in interrogating terror detainees, a practice that President Barack Obama has ended.

Read the rest here.

Google may be on its way out as the dominant player in search, according to one analyst — and could even “disappear” in as little as five to eight years if the competitive pressures that ultimately claimed other search giants start to take root.

In the wake of a surprisingly weak earnings report, Eric Jackson, Ironfire capital founder and managing member, said Google Google[GOOG  681.79    -13.21  (-1.9%)   ] could easily find itself fending off the woes that eventually took hold at embattled Yahoo![YHOO  15.84    -0.16  (-1%)   ]

Read the rest here.

HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) – Workers at LG Chem, a $300 million lithium-ion battery plant heavily funded by taxpayers, tell Target 8 that they have so little work to do that they spend hours playing cards and board games, reading magazines or watching movies.

They say it’s been going on for months.

“There would be up to 40 of us that would just sit in there during the day,” said former LG Chem employee Nicole Merryman, who said she quit in May.

“We were given assignments to go outside and clean; if we weren’t cleaning outside, we were cleaning inside. If there was nothing for us to do, we would study in the cafeteria, or we would sit and play cards, sit and read magazines,” said Merryman. “It’s really sad that all these people are sitting there and doing nothing, and it’s basically on taxpayer money.”

Two current employees told Target 8 that the game-playing continues because, as much as they want to work, they still have nothing to do.

“There’s a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch,” filling their time with card games and board games,” one of those current employees said.

That employee says some workers are doing odd jobs around the building, including cleaning and maintenance, while others hang out in the cafeteria playing video games, Texas hold-’em and Monopoly or doing Sudoku or crossword puzzles — all on company time. The employee said some watch movies.

Read the rest here.

An endorsement that could give Mitt Romney a boost in the Rust Belt: Former Chrysler and Ford executive Lee Iacocca is backing the Republican nominee, the Detroit Free Press reports.

In his endorsement message, Iacocca complained that “America is in deep trouble,” facing high debts and still suffering “anemic” economic growth. He said “hope and speeches won’t get our people back to work.”

Read the rest here.

Yesterday we ran a bunch of happy economic charts.

Car sales are booming. The unemployment rate is collapsing. Consumer sentiment is soaring.

But there’s a dark side: Corporate side data is turning south.

Let’s just go to the charts!

Weimar Germany after World War One went through one of the worst hyperinflations in history, unleashing untold horrors on the German people and their economy.

Memories of Weimar still haunt the eurozone today. The European Central Bank, widely considered to be the only institution with the firepower to stem the euro crisis, is somewhat restrained by the legacy of the German Bundesbank.

The Bundesbank – established in 1957 (well after Weimar) – for years before joining the euro was extremely conservative in expanding the money supply because of what happened during the Weimar years. And 90 years later, Germans are reminded of the perils of the printing press, whether or not the comparison is truly apt.

Adam Fergusson authored a book on the subject, entitled When Money Dies – and many consider it to be the definitive work on the Weimar hyperinflation.

It used to be out of print and a bit hard to find, but now you can find it in its entirety online.

We summarized the key elements of Fergusson’s book.

Jack Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and author of “The Clash of the Cultures: Investment Versus Speculation,” says that investors should not be shaken by the economy, the election or the fiscal cliff and should, instead, stay focused on buying good businesses for the long haul, regardless of market conditions.

“Get out of the casino, own Corporate America and hold it forever,” Bogle said during “The Big Interview” on MoneyLife with Chuck Jaffe. “No trading, no nothing. You don’t need to trade; you don’t need to worry about the market. To protect yourself from the bumps the stock market will scare you with – even though it shouldn’t scare you because there have been bumps in the market since the beginning of time – have a bond position to go along with your stock position, and have your bond position [the proportion of your assets in bonds]  … have something to do with your age.”

Read the rest here.

The Black Monday stock-market plunge on Oct. 19, 1987, stunned investors and rattled Wall Street. Below, review front-page articles from The Wall Street Journal’s coverage that week; use the dates at right to read article details.

Read the rest here.

When it comes to the presidential candidates’ pensions, size matters in more ways than one.

Read the rest here.

It’s a conspiracy theory, to be sure, but “Kozy” asserts the Benghazi attack was an “October Surprise” gone awry thanks to two SEALs who weren’t even supposed to be in Benghazi.

The scenario is both simple and plausible:

Read the rest here.