The US House of Representatives have given their approval for the further financial/economic destruction of the United States. I would like to thank all of the Representatives who voted no on H.R. 3221. This bill is not finished going through the process necessary to become law, so we wait for the official announcement. After this is signed by the President, keep your eye on the bond market. So far the bond market is showing it’s disapproval of handing Hank Paulson billions of dollars, to use as he sees fit. More in-depth comments on this bill will have to wait. As for the stock market reaction to this bill: short-term, maybe a continued bear market rally; long term, down. Our long term view of the market has not changed one iota. The short-term moves are extremely difficult to gauge with all of the government intervention, and the bigger picture/long-term outlook is worse because of that same government intervention. As I posted earlier about the financial stocks,

When the government says they will buy the shares, back up their book, and prohibit short selling (or at the very least, make it near impossible to short)…..what the heck do you think will happen??

Yes, they are rising in price right now. Is this the bottom? That’s everyone’s favorite (annoyingly persistent) question. My answer is no, this is not the bottom. How long will they rally? I don’t know, nobody does. But, I sure as heck won’t be a buyer. This H.R. 3221 bank bailout bill (posing as a “save the housing” bill) has already put me on the hook for bailing out the banks, so I’m not going to be giving them one red cent extra by buying their shares.

I wrote an article for Financial Sense back in December 2007 (not my best work, but I think I made my point):

Home loan defaults are not the only problem, either. Auto, personal, credit card and construction loans are defaulting or becoming delinquent at ever increasing rates. Bank solvency is the issue here now. Everything else is “noise” and the consequences of having reached these levels of debt have only just begun.

One of my favorite bloggers/investment advisors, Mike Shedlock, posted this article on the banking system, (thanks to our readers for posting this in comments). I couldn’t have said it better, so why try to reinvent the wheel.

The following chart is of the Russell 2000:

Posted in Categories: Contributor, External Research, Stocks.

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