{"id":15895,"date":"2012-11-07T09:04:36","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T14:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=15895"},"modified":"2012-11-07T11:40:13","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T16:40:13","slug":"the-day-after-the-depressing-reality-sinks-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=15895","title":{"rendered":"The Day After. The Depressing Reality Sinks In."},"content":{"rendered":"
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I suspect stocks will fall<\/strong> between now and the end of the year. This magical prediction is based on the fact that people will sell stocks to lock in their gains and be taxed at lower<\/strong> rates than they will be in 2013.<\/p>\n

Right now capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%. They could rise to 23.8% and 43.4% respectively “once the fiscal cliff arrives and also when tax hikes embedded in President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act take effect next year,” predicts Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n

That’s a huge potential hike — nearly three times for dividends.<\/p>\n

Goldman, however, expects that the rates will be negotiated to 23.8% for both capital gains and dividends. All this has to do with the “fiscal cliff” and the “automatic” expiring of the Bush tax cuts.<\/p>\n

Washington’s budget is a mess. It spends much more than it takes it. And\u00a0 our national debt (to finance the excess spending)\u00a0 is out of control. There are three ways of “solving” this:<\/p>\n

+ Raise taxes. Preferably on people richer than me.<\/p>\n

+ Spend less. That’s almost impossible since entitlement spending — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security — can’t really be cut. And the rest of the spending is peanuts.<\/p>\n

+ Print more money. Bernanke’s been doing that for several years, using the “money” to buy garbage securities and mortgages, destroying the mortgage REIT business in the process.<\/p>\n

If you’re a “trader” (also called a gambler), you will sell short obvious Obama-disliked stocks — like defense contractors, the big banks, and some others I haven’t thought of, yet.<\/p>\n

I personally will hold my present shorts (like RadioShack and BestBuy) until somewhere in the middle of December. Maybe I’ll eke a few more gains.<\/p>\n

I listened to Obama’s acceptance speech last night. I was searching for investment clues. There weren’t any.<\/p>\n

The election really didn’t change anything. Same president. Same Republican house. Same divided mess in the Senate. A recipe for the same old stalemate.. The good news is that some of the extreme nut cases, especially those who said stupid stuff about rape, abortion, babies and God didn’t make it. Maybe the right wing of the Republican will learn that something like the middle of the road makes more sense?. Maybe it will become less intransigent? I’m looking for flying pigs.<\/p>\n

Meantime, there is awful news out of Germany, the last remaining Euro-zone country that was doing OK. It no longer is. That’s not good.<\/p>\n

The Feds has done us in<\/strong><\/span>. Yesterday I wrote about the mess in my muni bonds (click here<\/strong><\/a>). Several readers kindly sent in ideas. I’m sifting through them. I do like this approach from one reader:<\/p>\n

The fed has absolutely killed savers and destroyed the great tax free yields of previous years. Longer bonds are also being called in, so maturity was not the answer. Call protection is the answer.<\/p>\n

I’m buying dividend paying stocks and writing calls on them. I look for great companies with consistent earnings and rising dividends, that may continue to increase over time. I look for a current cash on cash return of 3-4% plus once call premiums are factored in. I try to get a 7-10% upside spread between cost and option strike price so if the stock is called clients will have a 10-14%\u00a0 potential return in\u00a0 a 3- 6 month time frame. I would rather have the stock risk with\u00a0 potential rising dividends, than a fixed coupon, when rates do rise eventually.<\/p>\n

Sell covered calls on the stocks you own to replace bonds being called.<\/p>\n

What to Do if You Are Coughing Up Green Mucus<\/strong><\/span>. I dumbly caught a cold from a young friend who had just got off the plane from Paris and had caught something awful from a fellow traveler. I’ve had colds before. They all follow a standard pattern:\u00a0 coughing up mucus — first clear, then yellow then green. In the past I’d rushed off to the doctor to secure antibiotics. Recent newspaper and magazine articles have suggested this was stupid (which it was). The green stuff freaked me. Was I over-reacting? I found this on a site called Nutra-Legacy<\/strong><\/a>. It seems to make sense (and conform to what\u00a0 other medical web sites said).<\/p>\n

Many people tend to get worried if they cough up green mucus. Most of the time this is actually normal. Some believe that the presence of mucus indicates that there is something wrong with them, but in fact, it is just the natural immune response of the body to various invaders that attack it.<\/p>\n

If you are coughing up green mucus, it actually means that whatever illness you had is coming to an end. If you see yellow mucus, it means that your immune system is still fighting the invader. If your mucus is clear, then you must be in the beginning stages of the illness.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are still many people who believe that if they cough up green mucus, then it means they have a bacterial infection. So, they hurry to their doctor and ask for an antibiotics prescription. It’s important to understand that this is the last thing you should be doing, because antibiotics will definitely not help. Even if you did have a viral infection, antibiotics will only make the bacterial resistance to the treatment stronger.<\/p>\n

So, what can you do to speed up the natural process of mucus coming out? First of all, you should drink a lot of fluids of all kinds, since this makes the mucus thinner and decreases congestion levels. It is best to drink warm fluids, like chicken soup or hot lime green tea. Orange juice is also very good, since the Vitamin C it contains helps you recover from an illness faster.<\/p>\n

The most natural way to get rid of chest congestion and green mucus is to mix eucalyptus oil with boiling water. Use 2-3 drops of eucalyptus oil for one pot of water when you make this mixture. For best results, put a towel over your head and lean over the pot to inhale all the steam you can, covering the pot with a towel as well.<\/p>\n

If you want to get rid of green mucus, one thing not to do is take throat lozenges or cough suppressants. They might only make your problem worse. Anything that is designed to numb the pain or suppress a cough will actually create more mucus build-up, because you are basically turning off the necessary mechanisms in your body, which are supposed to fight the illness.<\/p>\n

Another thing you shouldn’t do is swallow the green mucus if it wants to come out. This mucus is full of infection fighting substances, such as immunoglobulins and glycoproteins. Essentially, when you cough up green mucus, it’s a sign that the substance has already served its purpose and should be eliminated. If you swallow it instead, it will reintroduce the mucus back into your system, which only perpetuates the problem.<\/p>\n

The perfect comeback.<\/strong><\/span>
\nA guy asked a girl in a university library: “Do you mind if I sit beside you?”<\/p>\n

The girl replied with a loud voice: “I DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOU!”<\/p>\n

All the students in the library started staring at the guy;\u00a0 He was truly embarrassed.<\/p>\n

After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly to the guy’s table and said: “I study psychology and I know what a man is thinking. I guess you felt embarrassed, right?”<\/p>\n

The guy then responded with a loud voice: “$500 FOR ONE NIGHT? THAT’S TOO MUCH!”<\/p>\n

All the people in the library looked at the girl in shock.<\/p>\n

The guy whispered in her ears: “I study law and I know how to make someone look guilty.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0Favorite New Yorker cartoon.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Harry Newton who wonders if there’s some significance to writing about green mucus the day after our wonderful presidential candidates just blew something like $2.3 billion running TV ads which you and I muted.<\/p>\n

Romney could have won the election, had he played the game honestly, skipped the lies (Chrysler,etc.), told what he was actually going to do to stimulate jobs and business investment, and opened up to the American public through intelligent interviews with the press, etc. and not just proposed to reward the richest 1% with lower taxes. He’s still the president we need — a successful businessman who’s met a payroll and understands business.. I rue the next four years, with the same divided Congress and a president unwilling or unable to reach across the aisle and get things done. But maybe he’ll try harder this time? He sort of suggested that in last night’s acceptance speech. My fingers are crossed.<\/p>\n

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I suspect stocks will fall between now and the end of the year. This magical prediction is based on the fact that people will sell stocks to lock in their gains and be taxed at lower rates than they will be in 2013. Right now capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%. They could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}