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The Economic Impact Of Politics On Investing:
Just six short months from now we will be asked to elect a leader for the still most powerful economic entity on the planet clearly, we need to focus on broad long term strategies that will create jobs and make it possible for both businesses and individuals to prosper. |
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Strategic Investment Mixology - The Illusive Holy Grail Cocktail:
Investment portfolio mixology doesn't take place in the smiley faced environment that brought us the Cosmo and the Kamikaze, but putting an investment cocktail together without the risk of addictive speculations, or bad aftertastes, is a valuable talent worth finding or developing for yourself. |
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How To Create More Jobs, America:
Today, employers are reluctant to create jobs because the mandated non-productive overhead associated with each worker adds significantly to the cost of running the business--- worker's compensation, unemployment insurance, OSHA compliance, liability insurance, social security contributions, minimum wage/union pay scales, etc. |
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How To Stimulate Consumer Spending And The Economy --- The Romney Plan?:
The single, easiest, fastest, biggest, consumer-spending instant winner bonanza is not even a twinkle in an old politician's eye --- and there are far too few new politicians. Replace the Social Security Retirement Program with a plain vanilla pension plan, pre-funded by smaller, mandated employee contributions. |
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How To Create A Fairer Tax Environment:
There are 44,000 pages in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) alone, 5.5 million words, incomprehensible at best. Obviously, there is a lot more to be said about each of the ideas that follow. Here are the top survey ideas; the first two were discussed in previous results articles as consumer spending enhancers and job creators, respectively. |
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Global Investors' Bill Of Rights May Prevent Economic Déjà Vu (February 2009):
The purpose of IBOR is to protect financial markets and to create self-sufficient investors who produce economic growth instead of government deficits. IBOR standards create transparent financial markets, regulate speculation, and protect retirement portfolios. Here's a Summary: |
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Only YOU Can Prevent Obama Care:
If President Obama owned the New World Order Health Insurance Company, he would not be willing to insure an applicant with brain cancer nor would he be willing to pay an unlimited lifetime benefit to all insureds --- not without a premium that reflects the risks to his personal bank account. |
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Investment Politics 2012: What's (left) In Your Wallet?:
As Investors, we represent the single biggest voter block in the country. We must respond in one voice to the endless political drivel with a resounding Money Talks, BS Walks. We want decision makers who design laws that aid economic freedoms, not lawmakers who make decisions that restrict them. Here's the MT~BSW Financial Plan for the 2012 Election. Dot Connectors Wanted! |
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Investment Grade Value Stock Index Approaches New All Time High:
The valuestockindex.com web page has been updated through April 2012 ---here are the headlines and links to the web pages |
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IGVSI Expectation Analyzer For Market Cycle Investment Management Portfolios:
What happens in the future is unpredictable, but understanding the past and how it impacts your unique portfolio, is essential to your long-run investment comfort --- and sanity. The IGVS Expectation Analyzer has been developed for investors who want to open their monthly statement envelop (or view it on line) with a reasonable idea of what to expect. |
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Investment Grade Value Stock Bargain Monitor Grows Two Months In A Row --- Hmmm:
The fewer IGVSI equities at bargain prices, the stronger the market and the more Smart Cash that should be accumulating in the equity bucket of your portfolio. As the list of bargain IGVSs grows (indicating market weakness), portfolio Smart Cash should be finding its way back into undervalued securities. |
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IGVSI Issue Breadth Statistics Positive --- Extending Upward March thru April:
IGVSI breadth statistics signal changes in direction within Investment Grade Value Stocks only --- all CEFs, ETFs, REITs, and preferreds (and individual issues that are NOT investment grade) are excluded. Issue Breadth Statistics should allow investors to look inside an index to obtain a better feel for what has been going on --- these numbers will help you do just that. |
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New 52-Week High vs. New Low Statistics Remain Strong Thru April '12:
The New High and New Low issues themselves can also identify weaker and/or stronger sectors within the Investment Grade Value Stock selection universe--- very important in helping investors determine where the bargains are and where the profit taking opportunities should be. Clearly, new high vs. new low statistics are at mature rally levels. |
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More Jobs, Fewer and Lower Taxes - The KISS Principle:
There are no purely economic problems with making the shift to a consumption tax --- just political ones. The legislation has been on the hill, and summarily ignored for decades. We need to apply cool economic sense to the elimination of the Internal Revenue Code and the Social Security Ponzi scheme. |
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Let’s K.I.S.S. Social Security Goodbye: Part 1:
We need to simplify the benefit structure as well, to make it just a retirement program and not a Widows and Orphans Protection and Healthcare Society. |
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Let’s K.I.S.S. Social Security Goodbye: Part 5:
If we are serious about solving Social Security, this isn’t as difficult as one would think, and arguments could be made for several methods. But in keeping with the K. I. S. S. principle, let’s start with the oldest Social Security recipients first and work backwards. |
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SIBORAP: The Securities Investors' Bill Of Rights - Part Four:
We the securities investors of the United States, in order to form more transparent financial markets, establish effective regulations, defend against destructive speculation and manipulation, promote financial well-being, preserve working capital, and protect retirement income... |
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The Securities Investors' Bill Of Rights (SIBORAP): Part Three:
We the securities investors of the United States, in order to form more transparent financial markets, establish effective regulations, defend against destructive speculation and manipulation, promote financial well-being, preserve working capital, and protect retirement income... |
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The Securities Investors' Bill Of Rights (SIBORAP): Part Two:
We the securities investors of the United States, in order to form more transparent financial markets, establish effective regulations, defend against destructive speculation and manipulation, promote financial well-being, preserve working capital, and protect retirement income... |
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SIBORAP: The Securities Investors' Bill Of Rights - Part One:
We the securities investors of the United States, in order to form more transparent financial markets, establish effective regulations, defend against destructive speculation and manipulation, promote financial well-being, preserve working capital, and protect retirement income... |
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A Conservative's Liberal Plan To Transform Social Security:
A Social Security Retirement Income Annuity, or SSRIA, invested 70% or more in government (all levels) guaranteed securities, could be phased in quickly as a mandatory replacement for the existing Social Security program. The personally owned SSRIA would also become a voluntary investment option for all self-directed programs and a guaranteed safe savings vehicle for after tax discretionary dollars. |
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An Investor's View of The Fair Tax: A 2012 Resolution:
A Government that bemoans the population's low savings and investment rates has only itself to blame. The majority of Americans would agree that investing, retirement planning, and estate preservation would be easier to manage if the Internal Revenue Code was comprehensible. A landslide of American voters would elect any candidate championing IRC replacement surgery. |
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Who Wants To Be President Of The United States - Investment Politics:
The objective of the exercise, Barack, is to permanently place more disposable income in consumers' wallets while providing incentives for employers to hire more workers. There are three areas where the impact of reforms would be beneficial to all, irrespective of political sentiment. Social Security reform would benefit the most people, most quickly |
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The Congressional Reform Act of 2012 - A Proposal:
You may not agree with all of these ideas, but this is the kind of change in government that many of us are looking for. It may be difficult to find candidates with the guts to push this agenda, but its worth the effort. |
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Investor Political Priorities - A Survey - Part 2:
Is it enough to say that we tax pension and other retirement income, including the sacred pittance from Social Security. The income tax needs to be revised, reformed, or replaced by something. Eliminating the tax on all forms of retirement and investment income, including capital gains, rents, royalties, etc. would have incredible positive effects (and would guarantee a Pennsylvania Avenue address for eight years). |
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Guaranteed Social Security Benefits: Finally, An Approptiate Use For (Fixed) Annuities:
What if, instead of donating 7.6% of your salary (15.3% if you are self employed) to support the war de jour: (a) you could choose to deposit from 3% to 5% of your salary in a guaranteed retirement program maturing anytime after age 60, (b) the lifetime benefit is totally income tax free, and (c) your employer uses his savings to either create jobs, raise non-executive salaries, reduce prices, or increase shareholder dividends. Interested? |
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Guaranteed Social Security Benefits - The Old Fashioned Way:
What if, instead of donating 7.6% of your salary (15.3% if you are self employed) to support the war de jour: (a) you could choose to deposit from 3% to 5% of your salary in a guaranteed retirement program maturing anytime after age 60, (b) the lifetime benefit is totally income tax free, and (c) your employer uses his savings to either create jobs, raise non-executive salaries, reduce prices, or increase shareholder dividends. Interested? |
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Investor Political Priorities - What's On Your Mind?:
90% of all Americans are investors and, as such, there are issues that we need to hear about from the men who would be king. None of our could-be leaders are addressing the issues that would allow us to achieve our financial goals. What we all want is to keep more of what we make, and then to spend it as we see fit. It's not clear how the candidates intend to help us. |
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An Investor's Eye View of the Corporate Income Tax:
Politicians have neither been shy about dictating proper behavior to individuals nor hesitant in shamelessly picking the pockets of businesses. At the root of the problem is the tremendous investment the major parties have in nurturing divisiveness, jealousy, and misunderstanding in the electorate. The corporate income tax is a non-productive weight on business decision makers, causing expenditures that would not be considered were they not tax deductible. |
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Jobs - Permanent Jobs - Millions Of 'Em:
Today, in the very birthplace of capitalism, an entrenched, arrogant, and incompetent congress equates greedy executives with the demise of capitalism while the economic force field it demeans catapults third world nations onto the leader board of global economic growth potential. Capitalism dead? Hardly. |
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Ishares and ETFs: Multiple Levels Of Speculation:
So, in addition to the normal risks associated with investing in general, we add: speculating in narrowly focused sectors, guessing on the prospects of unproven small cap companies, experimenting with securities in single countries, rolling the dice on commodities, and hoping for the eventual success of new technologies. |
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How To Make Short Term Trading Your Long Term Investment Strategy:
But most programs are designed to reward the genius and hard work of their creators, not the passive involvement of add to cart speculators looking for assistance making investment decisions. Face it people, much as I still love the over-regulated markets that we call Wall Street, the Master's of the Universe are clearly more interested in enhancing their own wealth then ours. |
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Investment Grade Value Stock Index Near New All Time High!:
The IGVSI is a barometer of a small but elite sector of the stock market called Investment Grade Value Stocks. Some IGVSs are included in all averages and indices, but even the well dressed Dow Jones Industrial Average includes several issues that are well below Investment Grade and very few boast an A+ rating. The S & P 500 contains about half the IGVSI selection universe, which tracks a portfolio of less than 400 stocks. |
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Stock Market Rallies, All Time Highs, Action Plans, Etc.:
There is no need for rocket science in investing --- no correlations, standard deviations, coefficients, Alphas, or Betas are required. There is no reason for anyone to have had zero growth in market values over the past dozen years. Wall Street wants you to accept mass produced mediocrity... |
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Market Lines and Numbers - - - Very Interesting:
The S & P average has no quality safeguards, no profit-taking discipline, no income requirements or reinvestment protocol, and no asset allocation plan. It is a totally unmanaged entity except for equity content manipulation by S & P Corporation. It is widely accepted as the benchmark against which most equity portfolio managers are measured, and it typically outperforms most of them. But it really only outperforms those professional portfolio managers who are responsible for public participatio |
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What Do The Top 100 Newspaper Business Editors Have In Common, Besides Arrogance:
Should the country's biggest newspaper business editors be interested in a better way to manage investment portfolios than mutual funds or Modern Portfolio Theory speculations about the future? Should they care about an old approach to investing that actually takes advantage of the market cycle? Should they be tired of promulgating the same old and tired Wall Street advice that always seems to take investors in the wrong direction. Yeah, they should. |
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What Your Mother Never Told You About Income Investing: Twenty Questions:
Investors are a very dependent group of people, particularly now that most employed persons have been given the responsibility of directing their own savings and investment programs for retirement. Mother Wall Street has monopolized this huge market, and nursed its children first on Mutual Funds and now on derivative betting mechanisms they call index ETFs ---the unhealthy investment equivalent of a diet of fast food, limited protein, and high energy fusion products. |
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What Your Mother Never Told You About Income Investing: Twenty Questions (Part Three):
But, and this is about the biggest news in the history of the financial markets, news that was totally ignored by the financial media: the income generated by taxable income CEFs (other than REITs and mortgage heavy investment funds) actually increased during the financial crisis. The same result was experienced in the Tax Free arena, but with no exceptions at all. |
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What Your Mother Never Told You About Income Investing: Twenty Questions (Part Two):
Investors should certainly know the basics about what they are doing. Corporations raise capital for their operations by issuing common stock, or shares of ownership in the company. They also raise money by borrowing from banks, insurance companies, and the public through the use of debt instruments called bonds, debentures, notes, and others. |
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Hang On A Minute - The Mighty Dow Is Still 10% Below 2007 Levels!:
Do they think investors are stupid enough to get excited about this dismal performance? Particularly, when less than 20% of professionally managed equity funds did as well. And how about unmanaged ETFs? I haven't heard any claims of brilliance, have you? |
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Press Release: IGVSI Outperforms S & P 500 and DJIA By Significant Margins in 2011:
Because the MCIM operating system demands buying on weakness (and because all securities produce income), positions are increased and new positions are added while others panic. A true MCIM user would be taking profits during rallies, in preparation for the next inevitable downturn --- it's part of the methodology. |
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Value Stock Buy List Program - What's all the Excitement About?:
Investor's are discovering an Investment Grade Value Stock Selection and Trading Strategy that makes sense. Merritt Information Strategies has developed a multiple level spreadsheet program that allows you to implement the Market Cycle Investment Management methodology documented in The Brainwashing of the American Investor, inexpensively and productively, on your own PC, whenever... |
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Golf and Investing --- Four Important Lessons:
Golfers will spend thousands on instruction, gadgets, machines, clinics, magazines, lessons, drivers, and putters. Investors love the gimmicks, shortcuts, and expert recommendations, but they seem allergic to anything really educational. They must see it as a sign of weakness. Golfers should be better investors. Investors need to introduce themselves to some basic education. |
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Modern Portfolio Theory Assumptions --- The Root Of All Evil:
Clearly, the MPT creators were once Mutual Fund investors, looking for something better after years of disappointing investment returns. True, mutual fund managers rarely beat the markets --- but why? And also true, private, individual, portfolio managers rarely fail to beat the market averages over significant time periods. |
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Harnessing Stock Market Volatility:
On the bright side, enhanced market volatility enhances the power of the equity and income security trading disciplines and strategies within the Market Cycle Investment Management (MCIM) methodology --- an approach to market reality that embraces market turbulence, and harnesses market volatility for results that leave most professionals either speechless or in denial. |
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IGVSI Out Performs DJIA & S & P 500 in Best Stock Market October Ever:
The IGVSI is a barometer of a small buy elite sector of the stock market called Investment Grade Value Stocks. None of the popular averages or indices track investment grade companies exclusively and few market tracking websites offer expert comentary that can help you develop reasonable performance expectations for properly diversified portfolios |
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Play Kiawah's World Famous Ocean Course For Free and For Two:
Kiawah Island's renowned Ocean Course is rated one of the best tracks in the world that YOU can play. Up to four times per year (depending upon entries) one lucky winner will be invited to play the Ocean Course absolutely free, with a friend --- including caddie and beverage cart (within reason). |
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The Investment Grade Value Stock Index - Continued:
The IGVSI was developed in December of 2007 to provide a benchmark for the Equity portion of MCIM portfolios managed using Working Capital Model (WCM) disciplines. For more than ten years, Investment Grade Value Stock investors had been frustrated by the inadequacies of the DJIA and the NYSE indices. During that period. NYSE Issue Breadth and New High vs. New Low Statistics moved in different directions than the averages, nearly all of the time. |
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Stock Market Perspective 2011 --- Some Things to Think About:
Always, every time and without exception, the general media has predicted the end of the financial world, financial experts have pointed out the remarkable differences from the last correction, and investors everywhere have been encouraged to take their losses and sit on cash or gold until the smoke clears. Every time, the short sighted fear mongers have been wrong. Not just most of the time mind you --- absolutely all of the time. |
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Making A Volatile Stock Market Your VBF (very best friend):
Call it foresight, or hindsight if you want to be argumentative, but a long-term view of the investment process eliminates the guesswork and points pretty clearly toward a trading mentality that keys on the very natural volatility of the hundreds of investment grade value stocks out there for your portfolio building attention. Market Cycle Investment Management makes market volatility your Very Best Friend |
