Stress Test Anybody?
I hear the term ‘stress test,’ and I think of my poor late Dad on a treadmill regretting a lifetime’s worth of cattle-dining. If he were around today, he’d certainly be devastated to watch his hard-earned American Dream be erased in a matter of months.
I don ‘t know about all of you out there, but I could use a Stress Test! And all my years of tofu and veggie consumption may not be enough to save me.
Are you afraid to turn on the tube too?
If so, then you qualify. And President Obama will even pay for your doctor’s visit.
Don’t get me wrong…I certainly do not blame the President for what’s happened in the past. Bush- appointed SEC Chair, Christopher Cox, should be housed in Guantanemo for allowing criminals like Stanford and Madoff to roam free on Wall Street.
But enough is enough. As an investor, I want the markets to succeed and a little optimism from The Administration would be welcome right about now. I may not be at retirement, but this crisis is adding twelve years to my age (or “24″ if you factor in this morning’s market value reaching 1997 lows).
Tomorrow Mr. Geithner had better perk up or his new plan will be DOA! After all, with international headlines like “Geithner’s damp squib fuels de-globalisation,” who needs market killers!?! The President and his assortment of ‘smartest guys in the room’ are urged to calm these markets, or Cramer (and I) will assign a ‘SELL SELL SELL’ to that bluechip known as TAD (The American Dream).
on February 24th, 2009 at 9:30 am
not yet posted but later today you can go to charlierose.com to watch his interview last night with john mack, ceo/morgan stanley. he had quite a number of interesting things to say about the financial crisis. bonus material: he thought hillary’s meeting with the chinese leadership was good. also, charlie discloses his long relationship with mack including marrying sisters.
i think of my poor late father, too. he worked his entire career for ge and was always proud to represent it. i am so glad he is not here today to see where the stock is. (i’m also glad he hasn’t been around to see what nbc has become since they were bought by ge.)
on February 24th, 2009 at 9:38 am
i will smilla…thx
on February 24th, 2009 at 10:18 am
if barry would just take a hint from bill…and stop making like the sky is falling and stop scareing the c*** out of the wall street & the people…
yes bm…and it will be interesting tonight to see if he ‘heard us’
on February 24th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Princess, you always come through with the right post when we need you. This past weekend my eight-five year old father suffered severe panic attacks after his lifetime of accumulated GE stocks sank to nothing. We were depending on these to fund my mother’s Alzheimer’s care. We are still in shock and honestlly don’t know what’s next.
Thanks for the music. I say, we start a movement to oust Geither and let Big Dawg manage the recovery! Oh, and forgot to mention, I was in Fl a couple of weeks ago visiting a friend. Must say its easier to cope with the horrible realities when its warm. Have been thinking about you…its tough to be in business these days, but I tell myself at least the self-employed can’t get laid off. Thanks so much to you and Sista for bringing back the blog to give us a little snap and cheer.
on February 24th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
bbs, that is just gut-wrenching, tragic and un-american all at the same time…i cannot even imagine the heart-ache your family is suffering…it makes me so sad that people like your Dad have to witness this…
and we will remain here @ hireheels as long you keep visiting….
let us know if there is anything we can do help…
xo
ps…it does help a bit to be in a warm clime…but you need strong economy no matter your zipcode…
on February 24th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
thanks, Princess, just keep those humorous Splash pages coming…I love Hillpod and the captions! Oh and Rick is ranting again! Sure makes me feel better when Rick takes off and slams the greedy idiots.
we love ricky santelli!!!
on February 24th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
on February 24th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
and in other news, Fat tuesday ain’t what it used to be:
on February 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
CNBC reported that he would talk about “responsibility”. REALLY? WHOSE???? I’m not sure I can watch this tonight given my mood today. Now CNN is talking “sacrifice”. Someone may have to summarize this for me because I think if he says responsibility or sacrifice one more time I will throw a heavy object at the tv.
on February 24th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
god love you all that you can sit and watch another big fat greek speech tonight. i cannot! all he knows to do is to drop a dime on someone.
is it 2012 yet?
on February 24th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Glad to see y’all back!
Bill can’t openly manage the economy now, but Geithner is an old Clintonista from the 90s and is more likely to listen to Bill than anyone else is.
on February 24th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
good evening girls looks like Os Popularity & love affair with the public is starting to go south in a big way.
Obama Job Approval Dips Below 60% for First Time
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116077/Obama-Job-Approval-Dips-Below-First-Time.aspx
was,nt he like in the 80s a few weeks ago.?
on February 24th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
good evening girls
on February 25th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Hi boogie, well, I watched most of it..till i couldn’t stand it any more… I thought it was sadly banal. The lawyer who represented Acorn going on about people buying houses they couldn’t afford? I wonder how many of those people even understood the applications the Acorn workers were (allegedly) fabricating and handing to unsophisticated people to sign. As for the ones who took advantage of the system and knew they were in over their heads, they should live with the consequences. The speech jumped around like a campaign stop and didn’t add anything new.
on February 25th, 2009 at 1:52 am
i guess i was lucky enough to miss it .
on February 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
and i guess i lied because i did watch a little of it. how great was it to see hillary enter the chambers? i checked my emotions but really did want to cry, thinking of what might have been, that she should be the one behind that podium. did anyone else notice o’s cool reception of her? a little peck on the cheek but totally flat expression. she is working her tail off and it’s still not enough. well, i’ve heard there’s some power struggles so maybe that’s part of it. it’s her turf but o’s got lots of messengers it seems working the globe. that will invariably bring conflict. anyway, we’ve heard these speeches enough to know it’s mainly talk and that little is ever actualized. maybe we need to hope for that.
i still loved seeing hillary. that was grand!
on February 25th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
she was the only thing worth watching..
on February 25th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Hillary was the only reason many of us watched. Beautiful Splash page, Princess and Sista. Oh, Sista, I was floored to learn you are a trained soprano. So was I, back in the dark ages of my youth. Always wanted to be a mezzo though with that dark sexy sound.
And what, exactly, did Obama say? It sounded like a lot of nothing to me.
on February 25th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
its good hillarys out there looks like she,s the only one thats actually working & accomplishing something .
on February 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
as far as a streess test i dont know about the banks . needing a strees test mabeo 0 should starting giveing did i pay my taxes test , to all his new cab picks wait that a test that berry would fail .
on February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
that’s good boogie. i will never believe that Geithner made a “mistake”. I think he just bet on the fact the the IRS has an internal policy that says they only audit for three or four years. Still, i think they clearly could make a case that he owed the money which is why he paid it when he was finally outed. i have no use for the man. All of us who are self employed are stuggling to make the extra 15% payment to FICA and he brazenly flouts the law, not because he can’t afford it, but because he really believes there should be no social security. They want to drive the small entrepreneurs and professionals out of business and have everybody working for minimum wage at huge multinatioal conglomerates.
I think there are two things you cannot take away from Americans, cars and the dream of being one’s own boss. Do that, and the fabric of our social order will collapse.
on February 26th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Back Bay REMEMBER when Geithner blamed it on turbo tax . . .. almost sounds like something out of an snl skit. i mean is this guy cant even get turbo tax right. ..
on February 26th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
princess—-you are exactly right about needing to hear some optimism from the administration right now.
this doom and gloom attitude from the candidate of “hope” is not helping anything!
he needs to ditch those damn teleprompters and look the american people right in the eyes and tell us that things will get better, if he has anything to do with it, by god!
hubby and i are in west texas for a couple of days and boy it’s sad out here, because of the economy.
who does obama think it’s helping when he’s so damn negative? at least bush made us laugh (even though we were usually laughing “at” him)
on February 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
what upsets me is that bill & hillary were vetted to the nth degree but no other candidate was…obviously. i have always felt obama’s camp wanted to know intimate details of bill’s global initiative–names, resources–as well as the clinton’s personal wealth information. just another way to make them bend to o’s will…and will be useful to o either while he’s potus or once he leaves office. there’s just no end to how low he goes.
hill’s supposed to meet with him this afternoon.
on February 26th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
boogie, it is beyond SNL…funny how those pesky computer programs can only calculate what we put into them!
on February 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
If he did in fact attempt to do his own taxes, I find that even more suspicious. At his income level, he should have been using a CPA. And CPA’s are held to a very high standard of due diligence….the average pre-prep questionnaire is about thirty pages long. And any CPA would have known about the foreign employment provision and made him pay the self-employment portion of the tax. If he was doing it himself, that’s proof enough for me that he intended to evade the taxes,….heck, he probably couldn’t even get away with hiding that from H&R Block or TaxMan.
on March 1st, 2009 at 2:02 am
backbay-
i just read your comment about what you, your father and mother are going through. i am so sorry!!
until i became a grandmother last summer, i was spending my time doing “sing-a-longs” at nursing homes and at a weekly program for alzheimer’s patients.
since you’re a singer., i thought you’d want to know that through music, i had wonderful reponses from those dear people with alzheimer’s. i would pass around booklets of all the old time songs, and i’d play the piano and they would sing their hearts out! most of them didn’t remember who they were, but they remembered every line of every song! you’ve probably sung to your mother, but if not, i think she’d enjoy it, and maybe sing-along with you, too. it might lift your spirits……….
on March 1st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
back bay,
Do you have any evidence for what you’re saying about Geithner and Social Security? Obama seems to want to cut SS and Medicare, but Geithner is a friend and ally of the Clintons and they are certainly in favor of SS. Let’s not hamper the Clntons by spreading negative gossip about their friends.
on March 1st, 2009 at 8:21 pm
thank you Cindy. They do have a piano in the unit she’s in which is a very nice assisted living. I am a sort of one finger at the piano type, but I will give it a try. It’s so nice of you to sing at nursing homes. My mother was a singer as well, a contralto.
I will go in some weekday and give it a try…hopefully when there are not too many people around. Need to do some situps…as Sista said, once we get out of practice, the diaphragm gets a little wobbly. Thanks again to you for your lovely concern and support.
on March 1st, 2009 at 8:45 pm
backbay—bless your heart! singing a capella would be fine, too. and you don’t need to be in good voice for people to appreciate it. I know the staff would love it, too! .and they (other patients) could all sing-along with you….their singing will give you confidence, and so much more…..just have fun, and the music will do the rest!
on March 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
at least geitner survived his testimony today…there was one collective breath-holding ’til we realized he was finally coherent in his comments…..but i am still holding my breath