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Bill Fleckenstien:
Spewing incorrect
analysis right and left.
Copyright Findawish.com
12-12-07
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Introduction:
Before reading this article
and definitely before sending an email, read the sources and pledge
sections.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/
ContrarianChronicles
/TheBloodOnGreenspansHands.aspx
Here's what Bill Fleckenstein doesn't
say...so exactly
what did Allan Greenspan do to warrant
a title "The blood on Greenspan's hands." Hollow and completely
self-promoting, while being out of touch with reality, Fleckenstein’s
article is ridiculous. I'll challenge you Bill, and will keep track of
your comments for a few years (if you stick around that long) just to
prove how hollow your article titles really are.
I have to admit I do not
remember reading a Contrarian Chronicles, nor have I read too many
articles by Bill Fleckenstein. It probably has something to do with their
ridiculous titles. Most titles with "blood...on hands" are going to be
hollow by design, using a shock title to get you to read the first few
paragraphs of the article. This allows the writer to fill your head with
what they want you to believe because most articles correct themselves
late in the story but most people do not read enough of the article to see
its a rouse.
Despite all of that Bill
Fleckenstein is a self-promoting person who is wrong. I'm quite certain
that he saw how successful Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence"
is and thought "I can make money off of this!" I actually applaud this as
an entrepreneurial adventure at its best even though I think it is in the
moral grey zone of human morality fitting in somewhere just above the
paparazzi.
Let's try to fully digest what
Fleckenstein is trying to say and point out what he doesn't say. Bill
starts out well enough, blaming some on the lenders and some on the
borrowers, though it is quite obvious that the lenders are to blame since
they are the ones who actually hand out the money. A kid will ask their
parents for candy and toys a thousand times a day, it's up to the parent
to decide how much is healthy and affordable. It's the same relationship
with the borrowers.
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Owning a home is a big deal. I
think it is fairly easy to get a house where I live if you can afford
$1,200 a month in payments. If lenders solely looked at this price, they
would be stupid. Utilities (gas, electric, water) and insurance
(including earthquake insurance) can run $700 a month in the winter and
tack on the taxes of $320 a month year round...your price of home
ownership has almost doubled. This doesn't count times when your
refrigerator breaks, your roof springs a leak, your kid breaks his arm...
The point is everyone wants to
own a home but there are quite a few people who do not qualify and it is,
for the most part, their decisions in life that have led to their
ineligibility. The people without college educations, who work for years
and do not take a single class to better their education, the people who
had kids as teenagers and never got ahead of the curve, the people who
cause problems at their current job and fail to advance...ultimately
everyone is responsible for their own actions and it doesn't matter how
much liberals try to say otherwise.
A lender's responsibility is to
weed out these people who have not made the right decisions in life.
Should they lend to a college educated couple who have had steady jobs
through college currently have jobs and have the chance of a promotion,
who have waited to have kids until they can afford them, saved up a little
money but are right on the break of being able to afford a house and start
a family, or should they lend to the single mother who makes $34,000 a
year at a job that won't allow her to make much more in the years to come?
You can't blame the young
mother. Sure, unless she is single by way of widowing (which means she
was irresponsible enough not to have life insurance), she has made bad
decisions in her life. She's obviously not well educated or is well
educated in basket weaving. She had kids before she could afford them and
a house and she chose to marry (or at least have a child with) a loser
that she later had to leave. It's also plausible that her husband was
great, she's the loser and he had to leave.
You still can't blame her for
trying. I've read articles that recount how newly rich individuals fail
many times (11 failures sticks in my head for some reason) before they
finally strike it rich. Many of these people have foreclosures,
bankruptcies (though it sounds like it is harder to go bankrupt these
days) and failures galore before they finally picked up on the million
dollar idea. Many more (especially book writers) toil with an idea or two
for decades or more before they finally get their break.
The American dream is to take
chances and be able to live another day to take another chance. We should
applaud the young mother for taking a chance. It could have easily ended
up as a success story. I truly hope she tries again soon. She and her
children deserve it because they are United States Citizens.
Blame the lenders. Not for
lending to the young mother, but for lending to too many young mothers
and/or, possibly, to the wrong young mothers.
Now for the kicker in Bill's
article. He drags Alan Greenspan into it. Greenspan, Bill says, said
that there wasn't a housing bubble and mentioned the difference between
Portland Maine and Portland Oregon. Bill takes this statement quite
literally, when it is an obviously an example most people can relate to.
Greenspan's book is overly redundant on how one has to look at the world
economy to make economic decisions. I'd say that Bill should do his
research before writing such an article but I'm sure he has and I'm sure
he's just trying to stir up controversy for publicity of his own book.
Another problem with his
analogy is that he blames Greenspan's actions. Bill doesn't actually say
anything specific (Bill, Bill, Bill...have some substance won't you?), so
I assume he is blaming the lowering of the interest rate, for the
abundance of the US dollar and, therefore, its drop in value compared to
other currencies. It's obvious the interests rates had to be lowered,
especially after our financial core was bombed with human beings in an
airplane. It's brutal to say it that way but it becomes obvious that
something drastic had to happen to save the markets. We made it through
that absolutely atrocious attack and we should thank the leaders who lead
us. Not because we are weak and we can't lead ourselves, but because they
did their part as we were leading ourselves.
Bill then goes on to list a few
instances where Greenspan appears to be wrong about the housing crisis.
Be wary of the Monday morning quarterback because they are always piggy
backing off of someone else's failures with "I told you so, see he doesn't
know what he's talking about, I was right" so that they can have some
glory. This is that moral grey area and after typing it out in black and
white, maybe Bill should be grouped in with the paparazzi...not the worst
of them but in with them none the less.
The NYSE was at 5,000 five
years ago and is only down a few hundred from its high of 10,000 this
year.** November was supposedly a bad month, people are supposedly not
making as much as they think they should* but the fact of the matter is
that the stock markets' few ups and downs are minimal, I've made money on
every stock I've purchased this month, and the entire up and down facade
is because of the unrest that people like Bill spew out in article after
article. Just look at the side links for other Contrarian Articles "No
shelter from housing storm", "Stage is set for stock crash", "Fed digs us
a deeper hole", blah, blah, blah. Start typing dooms day stories when the
stock markets drops a thousand points in a month and doesn't recover;
start typing stories like that when there is actually a chance that it
might happen. Don't type such ridiculousness to get attention knowing
full well that you are such a nobody and when you know that no one will
look up your wrongly stated predictions when they do not come true.
Better yet, focus on the positive a little more Bill. I'm sure you are a
smart guy and know that the markets are emotional. It's also obvious that
you know enough to realize bad news sells...especially to suckers.
I'll write some more about your
predictions next year...and the year after and I'll do my best to get them
listed in search engines. I'm quite certain that you are wrong and in it
to profit for yourself. Why would I do this? For money? For fame (Ha)?
To defend Greenspan’s honor? Hardly. Maybe I'm wrong...but I'm not being
paid for my "expert" opinion. Bill Fleckenstein is.
*This is an entire article in
itself...one that really, really gets to me as to how stupid forecasts and
guessing and so called expert opinions really are.
**Basically if you tried saving
$5,000 in the NYSE listed stocks 5 years ago you'd have about $10,000
invested right now.
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Sources
Yes it seems I'm selling Bill Fleckenstein's stupidity, but if you
notice my site is pretty much defunct as I'm too lazy to update all of
those links and I'm not making a dime off of this article. I am
tired, however, if people who are in a place to truly help someone just
blabber on and bend the truth to promote their own agenda. It is
also a great debate between the victim mentality and those who want to
take care of themselves.
Before you send any other comments, remember this too: Stupidity
is not in the eye of the beholder. Stupidity is believing that you are not
stupid like the rest of us. And yes, I am doing something about it.
I am posting my opinions for public comment which evokes public thought.
Things may get worse through this "public thought process" but at least
they are changing.
My Pledge
As you may notice in the many articles to come, I absolutely can not
stand people that have an opinion about something they know very little
about or didn't take the time to research before giving their opinion. I
pledge that I will not write a single article about a subject that I don't
know enough about to see several sides of the issue. If you think I am
missing something,
I'd love to be the first to know about it.
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