I must admit that the blog title smells a bit liberalish, but I'm not selling that here. My blogs usually try to focus on the two root causes of our nation's troubles, but today I will yap a bit about some symptoms and band aids. I could not find a way to make this one funny. Sorry.

Have you ever given serious thought about the unconditional charity provided by the US government? Why are there so few restrictions on it? Think about this. Government dependents get (fully or assisted) shelter, food, education, medical care, legal assistance, and other perks with almost no strings attached. They are given choices about where and how they live even though they do not work (sometimes never) or have the money to pay for it.

In nature, if a person does not do what is necessary to survive, they would soon dehydrate, starve, get eaten, freeze to death or succumb to some other form of demise delivered by Mother Nature. We can all agree that our harsh world naturally imposes conditions for survival. Do I think that our needy citizens should be forced to survive without aid? Absolutely not! Should this aid be provided with virtually no strings attached? Absolutely not!

There are MILLIONS of government dependents and caring for them all takes its toll. The lifestyle has become so popular that their population is swelling, and the masses are sneaking over our borders to enjoy the free rides. Unfortunately, the government dependent communities that form are basically slums that are rife with bums, drug addicts, dealers, pimps, prostitutes, alcoholics, vandals, thieves, gangs and other dangers.

These slums develop this way because there are large communities of people with nothing better to do who live as free as birds, while being given their survival necessities with minimal conditions. The kids are mostly undisciplined, and they attend schools that are largely ineffective because of all of the distractions and the absence of proper role models and values. Why does someone need education and values when their society does not require, reward or encourage them? Their society rewards street skills.

Like everywhere else, the definition of success in a slum is largely perceived as having money and property. Luxuries, attractions and comforts require it. However, the opportunities to acquire money and property in slums are quite limited from the lack of jobs and businesses (who wants to risk running a business in a dangerous slum?). Therefore, to be successful or address boredom, slum dwellers are mostly limited to crime as a means to improve their status. The culture actually admires effective criminals with street cred and holds them in high regard. People with jobs are considered uncool because they give into the man. Boring jobs are not necessary to survival in slums so working is a fairly unattractive option. Why work when you can survive indefinitely just hanging out and being cool? In that regard, it is an attractive lifestyle. Government programs handle their needs, while crime provides their wants.

Why does a strong and wealthy nation like the USA tolerate slums? Slums are dangerous places, and they do not belong here. Some slum areas are so bad that the police will not travel there in small numbers. Violence and property crimes are much higher in slums than the rest of the country, but the slums are tolerated and largely unregulated because they serve the purpose of providing a population of purchased voters. This reality is the reason that the government would rather provide 70,000 pamphlets that explain how to use heroin safely than stop the heroin addictions.

If conditions were attached on excess government provided perks, the number of people willing to receive them would become minimal. This would effectively reduce or eliminate the voting population that elects leaders whom can do whatever they wish as long as they keep the government perks flowing without conditions. That practice transfers power to the government at the expense of creating slums such that it is not really a government of the people today. It is legalize vote purchasing. It is the reason that our elected officials can and have ignored the will of the taxpayers with ever increasing freedom and boldness. Has anyone noticed this?

The government is very selective about when it permits or restricts liberties. If one wishes to travel, they must meet rigid security restrictions that often involve major invasions of privacy. If you want to fly, they get to fondle the underwear in your luggage. Remove your shoes and belt, please. They can justify these intrusive demands for the sake of public safety. Many government jobs and projects require one to pass a drug test and/or an invasive background check. Dress codes, conduct constraints and metal detectors are conditions for entering government buildings. There are many examples of compromises that must be made in order to enjoy benefits from the government. It is natural that benefits include conditions in our world, but we have perverted that balance.

In regard for fairness, norms and common sense, the US government must impose conditions on government provided benefits. People would not be forced to accept those benefits. However, if they want them, they should be required to meet some conditions. This is not unreasonable.

People that want free housing, should be required to live in compounds, protected by martial law. This would serve multiple purposes beyond providing shelter and saving them from starvation. A structured environment would prevent the vandalism, street violence and other realities of slums that threaten safety and health. Murders, assaults, prostitution, muggings, burglaries, robberies, thefts and vandalism are concentrated in slum areas. These could be virtually eliminated in compounds under martial law. The government acknowledges that safety is a reason to justify many of its impositions, restrictions and laws. Slums create and impose numerous, serious threats to public safety. The statistics are there. Extreme measures are required for extreme problems. Is the safety of air travelers more important than the safety of citizens who dwell in slums and their surrounding communities? The air travelers are safe after the flight to go home, but the slums threaten safety twenty four hours every day, year after year for the ones who call it home.

These compounds would not be as fun to inhabit as slums because there would be curfews and no tolerance for wild parties, gangs, substance abuse, or crimes. Regular dorm inspections would be performed, and drug and alcohol tests would be required of the tenants. The compounds would serve the purpose of providing a safe environment that motivates personal development, while offering opportunities that prepare individuals to seek independence, but there would be no free rides.

Community service would be required to maintain the upkeep and order of the compound and possibly even benefit the surrounding communities. For tenants with jobs, they would be required to pay rent and adhere the restrictions and requirements of the compound until they were ready to leave and live independently "in the wild". Government compounds could provide safe, stable environments where children are safe, and education and occupational training could actually be effective. A company is much more likely to hire a person with education and training from a stable community than someone lacking discipline with only street survival skills. This gives those people a chance. Some people may choose to stay in the compounds indefinitely, but they must obey its rules and conditions while living there.

Free housing would not be available to people that choose not to live in the compounds. Housing assistance and food stamps would not be provided unless the person receiving it had a job, provided community service in proportion to the assistance amount and agreed to substance abuse screening. Welfare checks become unnecessary with the existence of compounds since all of the basic needs would be available there for someone that cannot survive on their own.

As slum dwellers move to the compounds, the slums will shrink such that fighting crime is a winnable battle again. Crime prevention is better than criminal investigation. The slum areas will transition to become safe, healthy developing communities. The former slum properties can be sold off to the developers of healthy communities, ridding the government (taxpayers) of this burden.

People living in the compound will motivated by its limited comforts to become the independent citizens that our forefathers intended. On their journey to independence, they will have their basic needs with safety and stability in their lives. Government programs are meant to assist people that would perish without help. It is not meant to provide a support system for doing whatever the hell they please.

Some leaders in government will stand on their chairs and denounce this approach as stealing the liberties of the slum citizens because those leaders want to secure their purchased voters. For many, their political careers and power depend on it. If safety is not truly important then please stop fondling my underwear at the airport, abolish the speed limits, quit forcing us to wear seat belts, and get rid of all of those regulator departments that protect us from ourselves. It is a double standard that the deadly dangers in our slums are being ignored to achieve the real agenda, with its justification for an ever increasing number of police, while the mainstream citizens are burdened with the costs and hazards of the game. The slums are growing in number and size. What will happen when the taxpayers can no longer feed and shelter them?

Be nice.

When I rant about the awful direction our country is headed, it is sometimes met with the rebuttal, "It could be worse". Of course it can be worse. It could be your final living day in agony from some awful disease with no available pain medication, and then that could become worse by having someone stab you in the eye while setting you on fire as a rabid badger attacks your ankle at the same instant that you receive a text message from your girlfriend whom informs you that she used to be a dude, as your home team fumbles the ball in the final seconds of the game thus ensuring a loss. We have all had days like this.

Even if all of this was coming down on you, it could still be worse if you also had the tune "99 Luft Balloons" by Nena stuck in your head. That happened to me once, and it lasted the better worser part of a very long day. The point is that it can always be worse so that does not cut it as a valid reason to dismiss a concern.

America is still a great nation, but it has taken a turn in the wrong direction, and it's becoming a different country. I don't want to live in a different country. I believe that most of my fellow Americans agree because a second favorite rebuttal is "At least we don't live in [insert suckeon country of choice here]". Exactly! We don't have to relocate to end up there. We only have to close our eyes, and it will come here to us.

The wrong turn happened with the introduction of the income tax while failing to also limit the fiscal voting power to the taxpayers. This decoupled our leaders from the US voters because this enabled large scale vote buying as a legal practice. As long as the selective promised rewards are available, the recipients will elect the people that cancel the votes of your representatives. If they don't elect their representatives, they will lose their taxpayer funded lifestyles, hence, the consistent voting trends in government dependent districts. The purchasing reps are then free to do whatever else they want as long as they deliver the promised rewards to their purchased supporters. It's like having pet voters. That is how it works, or more accurately how our democracy has failed.

Speaking of worse, there's a good chance that you are the sucker that is providing the funding for the pet voters whom are cancelling your voting power. How's that for irony? For an encore, you can start paying the gym membership dues for the guy trying to steal your gal. In his case, he (and possibly your soon-to-be-ex girlfriend) will appreciate it. This differs from the government dependents who are not inclined to be grateful as it is known that you will be severely punished if you do not pay your taxes to support them. For extra fun, they are empowered to vote such as to claim an even larger share of your earnings in order to grow their population and strengthen their voting influence. Don't get upset though because you could also have cactus needles impaling your hemoroids after just using a tube of deep heating muscle liniment that you mistook for jock itch treatment cream (I always store these in separate locations now).

The Godzilla that I am facing is that I don't have a freakin' clue about how to correct this. I am not a powerful political activist. I am an attempted humorist that wishes to share some laughs, while not allowing unintended things swirl down the toilet. I believe that I have painted a big, neon bullseye on the root causes, but my markmanship skills kind of suck so the bullseye is laughing at me. It is clear for reasons discussed above (and here), that we are doomed to lose the voting game courtesy of our own tax dollars. So what do we do? My guess is that it will require a class action lawsuit to fix the 16th Amendment since the voting mechanism is broken. How does one initiate a class action lawsuit? I expect that this involves profuse exposure to lawyer life forms (shudder), which don't generally mix well with attempted humorists. Is there someone out there that can help get this going?

To those that still say that things could be worse, I say that things could be better. Hmmmm, I guess I could have just used that statement and saved all of this rambling. On the upside, no trees were harmed since my blogs do not appear in print so it could be worse.

Be nice.

P.S. Don't forget to spread the word about The Robot Protest.

If you are one of the many, many millions of readers that follow my blogs religiously, you may have noticed that I rag on the Tea Party activists sometimes. It's not that I disagree with their messages or goals. I respect and agree with them 100 percent! My beef (along with a little BS) is that I fear that their protests will accomplish little more than venting and noise, which can be ignored (ask any spouse). I am concerned that they will delude themselves into believing that they actually accomplished something, and hence, do nothing more. It's like exchanging cash gifts for similar amounts with someone. You have made a symbolic and meaningful gesture, but the net result will not buy any beers for anyone (a major concern!). Having made their noise, it is likely that the TPAs will sleep a little better, while dreaming of effective voting, only to wake up to the same reality in the morning.

The only real way to effect change is power and doing something new. Simply voting again will not work for reasons discussed in this recent blog (warning - that blog was written in the nearly humorless style used before my comic rebirth). For those unwilling to risk dry blogs, here's a recap. Votes from the right are mostly cancelled out by purchased votes from the left. Who purchased them? You did actually. As more government programs improve the comfort and acceptance level of being government dependent, the number of left votes will continue to increase to cancel the right votes, which are trying to stop the growing burden of it all. Unlike the gift swap analogy shared earlier, the taxpayers unfortunately pay for both sides of the deal.

Still, one must admit that the Tea Party activists bring attention to their causes (notice how I switched to third party context when conceding a counter point - sheer deviousness!), and attention can generate results (just ask any of the jailed streakers). So I brainstormed this and eventually experienced a genuine epiphany (happy nod to thesaurus). I started developing this idea several drinks into the New Year celebration so I know it is a solid concept.

My thought process went something like this. How does one protest without having to miss time at work (taxpayers generally have jobs - a major cooperation killer for protests)? Take another sip of margarita. How can the protest stand out amongst the noise of the numerous other protests? Down a Quervo shooter for inspiration. How did J-Lo get into that outfit? Take a gulp of margarita to refocus on mental exercise. How does one make a protest fun? Various tequila based consumptions now inspiring direction of thought process. Where and how do all of those Times Square celebrators go to the bathroom? I totally lost focus somewhere about that time and had to resume the thought process the next day while nursing a mild hangover.

Shortly after finishing my hot liquid morning stimulant, it hit me (not nausea, the aforementioned epiphany). The US taxpayers can rally together to express their support for the causes that motivate the US Stakeholders Movement by (wait for it...) DOING THE ROBOT! Yes, that is what resulted from my genius DNA and the sum total of all of my grand wisdom gathered over the years.

Doing The Robot is a classic American past time so it fits nicely. I considered the Moon Walk, but many people cannot do that correctly, and they would probably just be mistaken for someone that really has to pee so The Robot wins. Doing The Robot is kind of cool. It is an enjoyable form of artistic expression, and everyone can do it to some degree (you know that you have), with some really nailing it. The Robot is very symbolic because taxpayers spend a fair (make that unfair) share of their time working for someone else without compensation just like our mechanical friends. The Robot Protest does not produce the pains, looting, death or destruction created by violent rioting, yet it can still be fun. It goes well with beer (always a plus). It requires no sign fabrication, no trip to city hall (where parking gets scarce from the angry protesting and counter-protesting crowds), and it does not cost a cent of your taxed earnings. The Robot can also be performed while simultaneously hating Simon Cowell, if you simply must.

Most of you can probably do The Robot moves at work without effecting your job performance. Okay, surgeons get a pass here (only during surgeries), and barbers will require some use of caution, but in general, the mechanical movements and speech can be executed in compliance with the demands of most jobs. Even if you do not throw in some extra riveting moves, the robotic jerkiness is unmistakable from the graceful movement norms. Even my Chihuahuas notice the difference (I just tested this, and they cocked their heads and then ran).

Therefore, The Robot can be done almost anywhere. It is easily perceived, yet minimally disruptive to routine functioning. As with the government dependent living, mass participation will breed acceptance. With many taxpayers cooperating, others will join in the fun without even realizing it is a protest so there will be some collateral participant leverage as well (maybe even some unaware liberals... hee-hee). Some folks will certainly participate simply to annoy their boss and assorted co-workers a little.

The where and how are covered so let's address the when. If we actually did The Robot at work during the entire period that we are working only to pay income taxes, many of us would be robotting the entire work day for more than a quarter of the year. Doing The Robot that long is probably unpractical. I tried to do it for a week once and by late Tuesday afternoon, the novelty was gone. My robotting skills improved somewhat, but people eventually got desensitized to it. People can get used to almost anything, which is partly to blame for our nation's troubles. Likewise, if you redistributed the protest schedule to do The Robot daily at work throughout the entire year during the portion of each day worked only to pay income taxes, many taxpayers would be doing The Robot for over two hours every single work day. Again, it would get old, and getting old is not very robottish.

Since the Robot Protest is a demonstration of solidarity against unfair taxation and our disconnected government, let's do it on April 15th, tax filing deadline day. This gives everyone time to spread the news of this planned protest and plenty of time to polish their all important robotting skills, if they are rusty. Perform The Robot on April 15th at the beginning of the work day for a duration of time that lasts as long as the portion of that day being worked only to pay your income taxes. Many of you will be surprised by the immensity of that period of time. Feel free to throw in some extra Robot time if you happen to agree that our government is broken while paying little income tax (such as due to job loss, ever so popular these days). There is no gathering location. You just do it where ever you are (a public place would be notably more beneficial). Trust me. A nation of robotting taxpayers will not go unnoticed and will have a truly fun and unifying effect.

Don't forget to join the Robot Protest Facebook group and to put this event on your calendar. Start networking (good robots do) and spread the word that the US Stakeholders Movement is sponsoring The Robot Protest on April 15th.

Beep nice.

 My browser home page greeted me this morning with a featured headline which announced that a Facebook campaign successfully placed the #1 "Christmas song" on the UK charts as "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against The Machine (which totally rocks!). The song has been off the charts for a while as it was released over a decade ago, but it was selected because it is about taking a moral stance against authority. The Facebook users rallied to encourage participants to download the symbolic tune in order to bump the one that was the most promising candidate from the #1 spot. Why? Because the original #1 song candidate was one that originated from Simon Cowell's X-Factor, and it is considered to be manufactured pop from the big business machine. I can feel the anger!!!

The news created conflict in my head because even without my first sip of coffee, I realized that it was evidence that the internet could be used to effect change through social networking (a tactic in use by the US Stakeholders Movement). This gave me hope, which is good. On the other hand, it was successful for a cause that, in my humble opinion, ranks a tad below a silly little thing I refer to as THE ORGANIZED INTERNAL COLLAPSE OF THE USA. The priorities just seemed out of whack. It's sort of like stopping to change the television channel on your way out of a burning house, hence, the conflict.

So in my uncaffeinated fog, I pondered this matter as a sanity check. I perform sanity checks quite frequently because when something seems strange to me, I do not assume that the strangeness originates from "out there". I am still uncertain, as things often turn out to be exactly as I had perceived them. This implies that strange is the normal reality so that if I perceive it to be abnormal, I might quite possibly be insane, but I digress. First, a quick surf around the news pages. Yep, it's not a hoax. It really happened in this reality so now I must deal with it.

My guess is that Simon Cowell comes off as unlikable, even though "based on my perception", he appears to be much more honest and direct than any breathing politician. He is blunt, and his hit cranking show represents the music industry establishment. Music is cool, and its market should not be manipulated so everyone got angry.  Simon provides a face to personify the evil, and a movement is born. Okay, that part makes sense so I am probably not a lost cause, and my coffee will not leap out of the cup, shapeshift into a mermaid and begin juggling kittens. That is always unsettling.

It occurred to me that liberals do not like conservatives because of a perception that conservatives are the controlling establishment. This perception has been crafted by the best spin doctors (smooth move, lefties!). They personified it with Bush's face and spouted a bunch of oppression rhetoric and got some people very angry at him, I mean at conservatives. Was there really intel about WMDs in Iraq? How can I know? Conservatives are not a collective mind as commonly believed. We are mostly a bunch of individuals that pay our own way, and would prefer that everyone do the same. What I do know is that it served as an excellent rallying point that divides our country so it benefited both sides of the bipartisan shell game.

Now that I understand the mechanism, I can employ it. Therefore, please help me spread the rumor that Simon Cowell is not only the antichrist and stealer of all lost socks, but that he personally loathes the US Stakeholders Movement and is currently organizing a secret counter movement that will eventually crown him king of the USA.

Sorry, Simon. It's for a worthy cause.

Be nice.

For those unacquainted with the term "pump and dump", it refers to the practice of buying shares of a stock, then hyping the value or expectation of the stock with rumors via public forums to generate buzz and increase the demand for the stock. After the stock price climbs from this artificial demand, the pump-and-dumpers sell with their gains, taking profits while the new stockholders are left holding the bag to face reality. I have developed a conspiracy theory that it is possible that the US government may be artificially inflating the market with the assistance of some insiders for the grandest pump and dump scheme ever devised. Allow me to present the basis of my conspiracy theory with evidence and analysis.

First, here are some basics. For a given stock or fund, the price increases when there are more buyers than sellers, and the prices fall when there are more sellers than buyers. This may not make sense to a newbie since a stock gets sold from a buyer to a seller, which implies a balanced number, one share buyer for each share seller. This equation only applies to the actual transactions. It is the demand that exists before the buy/sell transactions that drives the price. Therefore, if more people are placing orders to buy a stock than the number placing orders to sell that stock, the price increases to reflect the buying demand. If more people are placing sell orders than buy orders, the price drops to move the stock (selling demand). Investors normally buy and sell stocks based on the perceived future value of the stock, which is normally based on the health of the corporation that issued the shares (or a recent or anticipated event). The health of the corporation determines the dividends, growth potential and the desirability of owning a share of that company. So why are the stock prices climbing? As just discussed, there have been more buyers than sellers.

The market has been steadily climbing with only the occasional short-duration corrections since March of 2009. Consider the drivers of this climb. Improving job market? Nope. Consumer spending? Nope (except for some subsidized by government programs). Lower future tax expectations? Nope. Promising future outlook? Nope. Political harmony? Nope. Healthy world trade policies? Nope. World peace? Nope. Cure for death? Nope. Undervalued stock prices? Nope (maybe a few back in March). Earnings improvements? Some credit goes here, but not because of sales. Largely from cost cutting and because earnings were so bad previously (a relative improvement). So why are there more buyers than sellers, and who has been doing the buying and selling?

In 2007-2008, investment portfolios (401Ks, IRAs, etc.) were hammered as the market tanked. This dropped the stock prices considerably, which is good for the classic buy low, sell high strategy if you can afford to get in while it's low. Did everyone jump in immediately and buy stocks in March 2009 after the market hit bottom? No, we couldn't. What could have been used to purchase stocks? Our portfolio holdings were worth little since they had recently tanked. Even if those holdings were sold to buy others, it would not generate a net capital increase. The net sales and purchases would all balance out with some healthier stocks rising some and some weaker ones dropping. The market as a whole could not rise significantly without newly added capital, which can normally only come from strong economy in a free market system as the result of produced and purchased goods and services. That is why stock markets classically move with some correlation to their economies. Did the capital come from private home equity loans or capital gains from real estate sales? Considering the residential real estate implosion, I don't think so! Did the capital come from cash savings? With the unhealthy job market, almost everyone is either saving as preparation for a possible job loss, or worse, spending their cash savings because of it. Also, our heads were still reeling from the recent market crash so it's not like everyone was primed to jump back into the game. Therefore, almost nobody was investing in stocks, but stock prices climbed because someone was buying. Who?

Search the term "trillions missing from treasury" via Google, look at the results, and you will find that it is well documented that trillions of dollars are missing from the US Treasury. Anyone that has worked with government monetary transactions knows that a dime does not change hands without rigid process and a detailed paper trail. Consider the paperwork required to pay your taxes as an example. Yet somehow, trillions of dollars are missing. To appreciate a trillion, write it down. It is a one followed by twelve freaking zeroes ($1,000,000,000,000). Now consider what a few trillion would do when injected strategically into a stock market that has hit bottom. Someone with a few trillion dollars could make a lot of profit buying low and selling high.

Such a scam could be made more effective with even more money available for market infusion. Moving massive amounts of money would not go unnoticed by the insiders so it would be necessary to get them onboard by making the deal attractive to them. Bail out money was one of the obvious incentives. That is why the executives of failed firms are allowed to receive their bonuses. The money was loaned without stipulation. If the bail out money had the proper conditions, such as being allocated for only repairing damage rather than rewarding incompetence, it would not benefit the cooperative executive insiders. Individuals with good credit histories cannot get large loans without explicit, binding agreements about how the money is used, but these firms that had already demonstrated faulty judgment were given unconstrained massive loans. Many of the highest involved government officials are former, top-level executives of the firms being bailed out. They are all in bed together.

Still, investing BIG money during a recession can be a risky venture. To get the Wall Street insiders onboard, rescued bonuses alone would not suffice. There would need to be some guarantee about their risk. Knowing when to buy and sell with a high degree of certainty controls that risk. Now consider that the value of the US dollar has been shrinking for years as a direct result of government control, and its decline has been very steady in 2009. The government has kept interest rates at a minimum level, and claims that it will continue to do so for the near future, while simultaneously claiming to have a strong dollar policy. With extremely low interest rates, climbing stock gains look very attractive compared to money wasting away to inflation in a bank account or money fund earning almost no interest. This draws private investors. Likewise, when interest rates climb, stocks become less attractive because of their relative risk/reward ratio. Since the government decides when the interest rates change, it effectively controls when the stock market will reverse direction. As an added bonus, the government also controls the distribution of stimulus money that has been helping to artificially prop certain economic indicators. This could provide for some additional strategic timing insight to insiders such as knowing which programs will be extended before everyone else. That is how the insiders could be brought onboard.

Keeping the dollar weak is a tool to help encourage investing in stocks and commodities. This allows carry traders who use cheap dollars to buy stocks, treasuries and commodities. Although our government states that it has a strong dollar policy, it does nothing to strengthen the US dollar. In fact, it often does the opposite as demonstrated by the massive currency printing. The currency in circulation has increased 120% in the last year. Action speaks louder than words.

To get the general public to invest, what could be more alluring than a sure thing such as a stock market that appears to only move upward? Look at this graph of the New York Stock Exchange Composite over the last 20 years for some perspective on the relative market surge that has happened in 2009. This steep climb rate trounces that of the thriving late 90's, but did our economy justify this? No way!

Headlines often affect the way that the market reacts, and many positive headlines helped to induce confidence in the market. However, if the market demonstrates resilience against bad news, that can really increase investor confidence. Bad news is minimized and only the bears complain. Somehow the market rallied on days even when the financial news headlines revealed that car sales plummeted after Cash for Clunkers ended, the trade deficit worsened, China threatened tariffs (in response to ours), unemployment growth disappointed, GDP growth news revised down, TARP justification admitted as worse than originally stated, etc. There have been many head-scratcher articles released by honest market analysts because it does not make sense. The market has been immune to bad news, which is extremely unusual.

One of my favorite headlines was the announcement that the recession was effectively behind us. Note that the bottomed interest rates, stimulus spending (such as mortgage assistance programs), and extended unemployment benefits have been continued, apparently without justification. If the economy has been repaired, why keep it in the expensive ICU (intensive care unit)?

Another popular theme in the financial headlines is that there is still billions sitting on the sidelines. This suggests that the market has much more climbing potential because of the uninvested private money. It has also been disclosed that insiders have been selling at record rates for months (Reference 1, Reference 2). If they have been selling, then outsiders must have been buying because the stock market moved upward. Since most people took a beating on the last market crash, and they have apparently been buying from the insiders, then how much money could really be sitting on the sidelines? These headlines must be trolling for the remaining suckers.

The entire rally of 2009 has been notably low on volume. Remember that it does not take a lot of extra buyers to notch the stock price up a tick. It only takes more buyer demand at each tick. The trending upward movement on consistently low volume also demonstrates the possibility of orchestrated flow. A recent article by TraderMark of Seeking Alpha pointed out the notable market spikes on Monday. This gives the trading week a nice optimistic start, doesn't it? Another notable trend is last minute volume spikes that happen almost daily at market closing. These volume spikes cause an overall rosy picture because the closing stock prices nudge up lifting those performance lines on the charts.

The low volume has everyone wondering, but it would be a symptom of such an operation. If all of the insiders went heavily into the market at any time, they would only be selling to each other (that was surely happening at the beginning to get prices moving). They never go in too heavy because they only want to go in enough to get the tick moving up, and then sell to the suckers that buy as a result and then do it again, drawing more private investors into the market. The insiders make iterative profits on the way to the big sting. They can do this with little risk because they know that the market will not move south until they let it. That is why the market seems immune to all forms of poison.

Note that one major indicator that cannot be directly controlled is the unemployment situation. It has not done so well because it cannot be manipulated with program trading and headlines. Saying that the job situation is getting/will get better did not get anyone hired. The best that they could do is say that jobs were still being lost, but at a slower rate. Of course it slowed down after paring down to a skeleton workforce. Saying that the economy, GDP, credit crisis, housing market, etc. are better can effect higher stock prices, however. Hence, the discrepancy.

You are probably wondering why people would get still onboard when the job and consumer spending indicators are screaming that something is amiss. Many people do not know much about the market. If they bother to look at a chart, it's a price chart, and those charts have been rosy. They invest based on what their peers and headlines are telling them, "the market is hot". They listen to their financial advisors. Common financial advisors are pressured into recommending stocks because of the momentum. Otherwise, they would have to explain why your buddy has been making super gains, while your account balance stagnates. By the way, if your advisor has not advised you to make some kind of gold investment, fire them right now.

When the US dollar value changes direction or interest rates are raised, it is widely known that stocks will crash. Guess who decides when this will happen. This is like being the puppet master. Sell off to the masses, maybe even take some last minute short positions, change the direction of the dollar and slam the door.

I know it is a wild and complex conspiracy theory, but the data supports it. That does not mean that it is the truth, but it is a theory that merits consideration. The founding fathers of our country intended for the people to control the government, not the other way around. When someone controls the purse strings of the population, they are its master.

Be nice.

Richard Bobo
Founder of the US Stakeholders Movement