Poster Child For Health Care Reform....

Here is a video of Rick Scott (formerly of Columbia/HCA.....a for profit, hospital company).

If there is anyone NOT to believe about healthcare.....it is Rick Scott. Columbia got fined by Medicare for various grievances ("upcoding" among them) to the tune of $1.7 billion dollars. He is, in my estimation, in the league of Richard Scrushi (HealthSouth founder).

I have heard some of the stories about Columbia hospitals second hand, since I was a CFO in the healthcare industry. Entrusting Rick Scott with healthcare reform would be like entrusting OJ Simpson to take your daughter out on a date.

Interesting Chart...

Here's a chart that goes back to 1950 and charts both "household assets" and "household liabilities."

As you can see...it's a little intimidating. We all know how parabolic charts usually end....and it is not pretty. As the US continues to wind through its long process of de-leveraging, I think we can expect the asset line to continue to drop as the liability line also drops.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Too Far From The Tree....

I just have to laugh at this one. Remember Enron? Remember the accounting firm that was the auditor of Enron? Arthur Anderson was Enron's Auditor....and it was subsequently sued and they eventually went out of business.

Well, some of the staff/partners at Anderson Consulting started a new firm after the collapse of Arthur Anderson. The firm was "Huron Consulting."

Last Friday, after the close, Huron disclosed that they would have to restate earnings for the last 3 years. Apparently the company hasn't lost its touch from the Anderson Consulting days. Once a crook........always a crook.

Huron (HURN) is down 66% in pre-market trading this morning.

BIG Drop In Bullishness...Investor Sentiment

Last Friday......apparently many of the bulls left town. The "bull to bear ratio" dropped to 1.0 to 1.0.......from 1.41 to 1.0. That is a BIG one week drop in bullishness.

I expect the move to continue toward more bearishness over the next few/several weeks until we get down to the .4 - .7 area of "Bulls" (from the current 1.0 reading). If the market comes back in a little more.......from the early June highs.....that could set us up for a strong move up. If we get some more BEARISHNESS over the next 2 - 3 weeks....I would be getting pretty BULLISH in the short/intermediate term.

DELUSIONAL.......

Boy......Dykstra MUST have been hit one too many times by one of Tom Seaver's fast ball's. WOW.

Here's a CNBC interview of Dykstra with Jane Wells. Dykstra should be a sales person........not a business owner.

I do like one of his quotes in this interview however: "I can't even find a bodyguard...nobody wants to walk by me."

Boy.....I wonder why?

Nice Diggs......

Here's a short article from 2006 about 3 expensive homes (2 of them owned by former pro athletes) that were selling their homes back in October of 2006 at the height of the housing bubble.

Wayne Gretzky (aka "The Great One") dropped the price of his 12,500 sq foot pad outside of LA, from $25 million down to $18.5 million (and Jim Cramer's buddy Lenny Dykstra bought it....before it was foreclosed on over the past week).

But what really caught my eye was Don Meredith's sale of his pad in Santa Fe (BEAUTIFUL city by the way). Here is key paragraph from that sale:

The three-acre property has a four-bedroom main house of just over 5,000 square feet, a two-bedroom apartment above the garage and a detached office that could be used as a one-bedroom guest house. There's also a greenhouse, tennis court and three roof decks. Ms. Meredith said she and her husband bought the property as a small adobe house 26 years ago, renovated and expanded it and have used it as their primary residence ever since. She said they're downsizing but will stay in Santa Fe.

We are in changing times. We have come out of the "age of opulence".....that was driven by many things: (1) baby boomers, (2) credit bubble, (3) housing bubble, (4) bigger is better mantra, (5) a sring of "good economic times" that were fueled by the above 4 items.

But now....on the other side of that mountain.....we are facing things that work in just the opposite direction: (1) ageing baby boomers that are downsizing, (2) baby boomers that are getting rid of their 2nd or 3rd homes, (3) de-leveraging....instead of growing credit, (4) the age of "saving the planet".....instead of the age of opulence.

So the high end of real estate.......I believe.....will be getting roundly trashed over the coming years. If you think the sub-prime market was a disaster........just wait for another year or two of sinking home prices at the high end of the market. It's going to be brutal.

Maybe SEC Should Look Into Gabby Abby...

Maybe the SEC should look into Gabby Abby and her cronies at Goldman Suchs. Pump up the market in public.....and short the hell out of it on your trading floor.

Let's see.....her snake oil target in October of 2007 was 1600 for 2008. NICE CALL ABBY. And her target for 2009 at the beginning of this year was 1,000. It won't be even close to that.

Maybe the SEC should take a little "looksie" into the trading positions of Goldman right now. I can tell you they will be VERY NET SHORT.

Of course.....many people at the SEC end up at Goldman.....so they aren't going to touch them. Just let them keep on spouting off.....leading the lemmings into the sea.

Just keep shinning the light on Goldman......and eventually the rats will be caught.

Maybe Cramer will say something bad about Goldman? Just kidding....what do you expect from someone who thinks that Lenny Dykstra is a financial genius. With all the mud on his face.....maybe Cramer should change the name of his show to "Mud Money".