Kangaroo Money

Yes, we’re staying with the Space Theme that we established last time.  Why?  The KM Team and KM Partners believe that space technology companies, much like defense related companies, will prove to be solid performers as the economy continues to move forward.

So why go with space photos to get our picture capabilities highlighted?  First, there is not very much in the way of copyright infringement by using NASA photographs that are in the public domain.  Second, they look really cool.  Third, they highlight the ongoing attitude here at KangarooMoney.Com that we can do anything we put our minds to.  And that feeling is why we have chosen to write about and explore the great mystery of life — The Economy.

One of the major problems in digging around the knowledge mart that makes up The Economy is that there is no set and fast answer.  There is no solid non-changing rules or facts to follow or avoid like there is in Science.  There are no mysterious trails or maps to follow like in Archeology.  There are no handwritten statements or letters from known living / now passed on figures like in History.  No, The Economy is a free floating, ever evolving mass of many different states of being that while using tactics and basis from the past also mixes in new twists and turns from the potential future to make up the only thing that matters — The Now.  As the last 18 months has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, what worked yesterday is just so much junk and trash today.  But don’t throw it out!  We might be able to use it tomorrow.

When working in Space, there are some hard and fast rules to follow — stay in your suit, don’t get too far away from the spacecraft, don’t look directly into the Sun without your visor on.  These rules keep you alive for the next trip to space.  But on every trip to Space, we all learn something new, something different, something unusual about what is going on out there in the Great Big.  And we all learn how to apply that new knowledge back to things here on Earth.  If we could all start applying that same lesson and apply that concept to our daily financial lives, with an eye on the past-a steady flow on the present-anda wistful longing towards the future, we just might all find ourselves less wishful for credit and more demanding for longterm stability.  Change, after all, can be both a good and bad thing.  But, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.

Week 17 2009 was a week that saw us all, in the USoA and around the world, hearing how sick everyone was, is or will be.  Not sick from the current economy but rather sick from the H1N1 Swine Flu virus.  That news was just the type of thing to take peoples mind off of what was deemed to be both critical and harmful to the continued health of the overall US Markets.  Boring, little other news liiiikkkkeee, oh say, Chrysler declaring bankruptcy, then the same day being forced to combine with Fiat OR the US Government ends up with a majority stake in General Motors OR a Supreme Court Justice announcing that a return to his home state ( beautiful New Hampshire — who can blame him? ) is much more desirable than remaining in Washington DC to be on the highest court in the land OR an US Senator switching sides from being Republican to being the latest Democrat in that house of miracles.  No major news.  Certainly nothing that comes close to the typical television viewer like the fact that this weeks sniffles might be next weeks killer.  Here’s hoping everyone remembers to pay attention to their financial health the same way they seem to be paying attention to their personal potential health.

All of which leads us to this weeks quote:  “I told my Doctor it hurts when I do this.  The Doctor said, don’t do that.”  A funny line that we can use very seriously.  In your own financial world little joeys, if it hurts your wallet when you do that…don’t do that.

For more information about the Hubble Telescope, the upcoming mission to repair the telescope or just to see what else NASA is up to, go here http://www.nasa.gov/ .  And so, 5,4,3,2,1 Launch!

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We at KangarooMoney.Com and KM Partners realize and appreciate you taking your time and effort to read our blog.  All of us here at KangarooMoney.Com will continue to be here to help you find the way through the economic minefield that seems to have been created.  For this week, and going forward, the typical weekly information will appear up front and the new weekly information will appear down below.  Enjoy, learn andearn for the future as we all find our way back from the fear and darkness that has been.

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First and foremost, the KM Team andKM Partners have decided to publish our Disclaimer as a separate posting effective January 2009.  Please spenda moment reading that posting to make sure that you understandthat the writers of this blog are expressing their opinions only.  When you have finished reading the Disclaimer 2009, please spend some extra time going back and keeping us honest by reading some of our previous postings — and verifying the dates! — to see how the KM Team and KM Partners have been doing for the past year.  The KangarooMoney.Com andKM Partners all think that you will find our “opinions” are better than some other peoples’ so called “facts”.

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You the reader will find the KangarooMoney.Com weekly comments here on this page with more detailed opinions and reasons following after you hit the ( click here to read more ) highlight.  ( Currently, the KM  Team has turned this feature off so that one and all can get a feel for our writing and to read all that is available.  In the future at an to-be-announced date, this feature will be turned back on. )  As an educated reader, you know that anyone can tell you a “fact” in a one or two sentence blurb but, the KM Team and KM Partners like to back up our comments with our own views that you can read so that you can understand where we are getting our opinions from.

Below this weeks articles, there is the Updates and Comparisons Section, or the U & C as we call it here in the office.  In the U & C, the KM Team will give you some of the latest information concerning some of the previous comments and articles that have been published here as well as comparing the KM Team and KM Partners take on things as opposed to some of our mainstream and blog world counterparts.  The Updates and Comparisons section is a nice way to see if the KM Team is staying the true course in the stormy ocean of The Economy.

Down lower on the page, you will find our Market Mover of the Week feature, which highlights a prediction for the one person that the KM Team and KM Partners believe will be the one person most responsible for shaping and driving the USoA markets and / or economy for the upcoming week.  Included in this feature is the follow-up on who the MMW was for the week just past as well as pointing out if KangarooMoney.Com was correct in our prediction of who this was and who we determined to be the real Market Mover of the Week.

Going lower, you will find a similar feature called International Impact Incident of the Week.  The Triple I section will highlight an international situation either just passed or an expected upcoming event that the KM Team sees as having a major impact on the USoA financial markets.  Similar to the MMoW feature in nature, a weekly review will be held each week and you can track how the KM Team and KM Partners preformed in their predictions.  With our multitude of International readers, we expect you all to keep us pretty honest in this section.

Still lower you will find our Definitions of the Week.  In this section there will be items that explain some of the more technical terms used in our articles of the week.  New for 2009 will be a BlogRoll attachment that will allow you to go over to a complied dictionary for our DoW going all the way back to the beginning of KangarooMoney.Com.  Feel free to hop on over to the Dictionary whenever you feel the need to get the straight scoop on what we’re talking about.  Or even just to check out some of the financial / political expressions of the day.

At this time, the last feature we would like to mention is one that we hope will help you to see where the KM Team and KM Partners are coming from and where we are trying to go to.  Up in the BlogRoll section of the page is a little something called the Stock Docket, which is a link to a list of companies and their stock symbols that have been mentioned here in KangarooMoney.Com.  The link will take you to a spreadsheet that list the company names, their stock symbols, the index they are traded on, the week they were mentioned here, and a listing of stock prices that included the Friday just past closing price.  The KM Team with a firm lead from the KM Partners also highlight which stocks we supported at the time of mention and those that we did not support.  While this is a considerable undertaking on the KangarooMoney.Com Teams’ part, we all feel that this will help to determine how things are going and guide us through the minefield of the USoA Economy.  Eventually ( meaning 2009 sometime — honest! ) this feature is planned to be moved into an interior page, so please comment on this feature as much as possible before that happens.

Those of us that started the Stock Docket would love to have been right each and every time in this area but we have to admit that the financial meltdown of 2008 caught us all off guard.  We feel bad saying that but we also realize that we are in some pretty good company when it comes to “being caught off guard”.  All we’re going to say is that Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers are no longer with us and KangarooMoney.Com is still here.  It is safe to say that the ending 2008 Stock Docket is nowhere near where the original Stock Docket started out.  The dramatic dips, dives and drops of 2008 caused some serious reconfiguring of numbers as well as some reevaluations of stocks and companies.  Because of those facts, there will be a last 2008 Stock Docket and then the new choices, new outlooks and new recommendations / not recommended choices will be put forth by the KM Team and KM Partners and will take effect.  Like the real world teaches us, choices are rarely life long and unchangeable.  We will leave the last 2008 SD up on the BlogRoll just so you can jeer at us in late 2009.  Or maybe you will cheer us, as we expect you to.  As we said, 2008 gave everyone a left hook from deep center but we didn’t lose the whole pile…did you?  Just remember, a share here, a share there and pretty soon it all adds up to real money.

Please remember that the KM Team, KM Partners, KangarooMoney.Com and all of our contributors are not accountants, stock brokers or personal financial advisers, nor are we even Lawyers.  Should any one be any of those professions, full disclosure will be made attached to their writing.  In the meantime, you need to be sure that you do what YOU want to do.  If the KangarooMoney.Com opinions can help you have a better understanding of what has happened, is happening and / or is going to happen in such a way that you decide upon a path to follow, then our blog is serving a purpose.  You don’t have to agreed with us and you don’t have to follow what we publish as the endall - be all of the financial world.  All you have to understand is that this blog is ONLY guidance and direction as we believe it.  If you or yours uses ONLY our humble writings as your sole guidance and direction in the markets and economy dealings of the USoA to base decisions on, do NOT come crying, or suing, any member of KangarooMoney.Com, the KM Team, or KM Partners for something that has happened that we did not or could not foresee.  We certainly hope that this clears up any questions you might have in that regard.

And finally, because we are writing this for everyone to read and enjoy, please don’t be afraid to drop us a comment and let us know how we are doing.  This is an ongoing work-in-progress where we hope to bring fresh changes, new site additions and new page features to the blog as we go forward.  As the days go by, we won’t forget to tell you how we think we are doing — so don’t YOU forget to tell US how we are doing!  Seeing your comments up on the page for all to see is always a rush so be constructive and informative for the community, not selling junk and whining about something deeply personal.  Remember, we need to moderate what is written so please be nice and allow us to publish you as is.  For now, enjoy, learn and earn!

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In Week 01 2009, the KangarooMoney.Com team determined that some of the attached websites on our BlogRoll were no longer appropriate to be attached here and active.  With that in mind, the multiple discussions that took place in December 2008 in the KM Team offices about taking down the outdated websites and adding new websites to the BlogRoll that are more in line with our train of thought, have now come home to bear fruit.  Beginning that week, new additions to the BlogRoll began to take place, giving you, the Reader, new opportunities to visit some of the websites that the KM Team and KM Partners visit on a regular basis.  These will be mostly financial based but not always, so check out the listing to see what new information is available.

For the third new addition of 2009 to the KangarooMoney.Com BlogRoll, the KM Team is adding the website for CNBC, found here at http://www.cnbc.com/ . CNBC is an excellent website filled with current business news in easy to read and an enjoyable format.  While it has plenty of clickable graphics and a fair amount of front screen ads, it is one of the most business geared sites on the net today.  So, please enjoy this latest addition to the BlogRoll and visit CNBC.

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1. During the last week, it would appear that the Grey Lady has been trying to strangle the very life out of the old and storied Boston Globe for what would appear to be pennies on the dollar after all of the huge numbers we have heard brandied about in the last 9 months.  The KM Team here at KangarooMoney.Com cry shame, foul and havoc!  ( click here for more)  Much like the want to-be-lawyers arguing their case before the Professors and Dean at Faber College, the KM Team and KM Partners often have an Animal House-type reaction when someone tries to tell us that our newspapers are going the way of horse buggies and cable cars.  That is to say, newspapers won’t go completely away but rather will be regulated to some quaint but backwoods museum spot, all while being unavailable except at a high, high cost for every use.  This is an unrealistic long term concept due to the nature of newspapers and their history, especially here in the USoA.  Now, there are plenty of people out there already telling the KM Team that newspapers are passe’ due to the reality of cellphones, Palm Pilots, Blackberries and even the new Amazon Kindle.  We say — wrong!  While the handheld device has changed the way we all communicate over the last 10 years, trying to read even a short recap of any article requires much more attention and effort than just folding over a newspaper page to the spot you want.  Just try reading a 4 column wide, half page deep, continued on page 3 expose of Bear Stearns with all of the historical background, a timeline graph and a couple of pictures on an inch wide by inch and a half wide screen.  Let’s even give you 20-20 vision to do it, not the glasses and contacts that most of America wears.  Now how’s that reading going?  Oh, wait a minute — you’re trying to tell me that you read the “newspaper” online on your laptop?  Great for you, that’s very progressive.  How do you read your laptop when your stuck in traffic?  When you’re on the commuter train or bus?  How do you read your laptop in the break room at work?  Or better yet, when you’re in the bathroom?  Your laptop can not go everyplace with you like a newspaper can.  After all, lots of companies don’t allow laptops or even cellphones on their properties, let alone into their…lunchrooms.  For what it is worth, The New York Times ( NYT, traded on the NYSE, not recommended at this time ) and its family of newspapers around the country will almost certainly remain in business, both in hard copy and especially on the World Wide Web.  But to date, so many hard copy newspapers have gone away in the last year that it makes the banking situation look relaxed and like normal business.  Advertising has fallen by the wayside because sellers want to get the latest and greatest ad campaign out to you as soon as it crosses the planning board in their office.  And like television that is glutted by too many channels and not enough ideas, if an ad campaign doesn’t catch on in just a few days, it gets passed over and dumped.  Because newspapers need about two weeks lead time to get their ads together, well, you can see the problem.  The hottest, coolest, latest ads are passe’ by the time they hit the hard copy newsstands, so ad copy is falling by the wayside.  The cost of doing business as a newspaper has gone up faster than the price of oil did in 2008, not just from the lost ad revenue but also because of the problem between the NYT and the Boston Globe — the cost of the help.  Good writers andgreat editors are not easy to find and not cheap to have on the payroll.  Cheaper NOW, but you know what we mean.  A writer can develop a story for days, weeks even months before going to print.  And even after going to print, the story can continue on days, weeks even months.  The perfect example of this can be found here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/index.html .  And the point of the KM Team on newspapers is in the same place.  Enjoy, earn and learn!
2. With jobs continuing to remain scarce in USoA, not that this is any type of new news to regular readers of KangarooMoney.Com, it is always worthy to note when a company is adding jobs to the overall market base.  When the company is a struggling giant in a very squeezed industry, it becomes important to note the additional job increases.  And when a struggling giant in a squeezed industry adds jobs by bringing them back to American Shores?  Well, then you have to be praised by the KM Team and KM Partners at KangarooMoney.Com!  ( click here to read more).  During the middle of April 2009, Delta Air Lines Inc. ( DAL, traded on the NYSE, review at this time – conditionally recommended ) became the latest company to listen to its customers and pull back their customer call centers to the US shores from their current offshore home in the country of India.  Members of the KM Team applaud this move long and loud, having themselves had some very bad experiences using the India based sales and reservation call centers.  However, this move is also highly approved by KangarooMoney.Com for the simple reason that it is the correct thing to do from an American jobs point of view and for the airline industry on the whole.  While it is not directly a correct bottom line business move due to the fact that offshore call centers are cheaper than in-States call centers due to the excessively lower worker pay and benefits provided, it will be a long term gain because the customer base will be so much happier in dealing with the airline.  Happier customers, easier reservations and flight connections AND Americans working jobs again.  Isn’t this what’s suppose to happen in a downturn?  Okay, recession.  The correct answer is “yes”.  That this answer is correct is made evident by the fact that Delta Air Lines was preceded in this moving of call centers back to the USoA in 2009 by Chrysler LLC ( if still publicly traded, would you want to buy it? ) and by SLM Corp. ( SLM, traded on NYSE, d/b/a Sallie Mae, not recommended at this time ).  And as Delta’s CEO Richard Anderson has stated in a voice mail to the company employees, “The customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low.  Our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback.”  During the airline industry high times before 9/11 imploded the business, the airlines as a whole had no problem moving the call centers overseas, primarily to India, especially when it cut costs at the rate of about 6 to 1.  Who wouldn’t move something if you could save 5 dollars on every step of the situation?  At this time, all of the US airlines are considering moving their overseas call centers back to the USoAwith the intent of leaving only a few of these centers in primarily English speaking countries that are still within the Third World.  This should continue to improve service, even if only by perception of the customer.  But during these hard times, isn’t the perception of the customer the most critical thing there is in business?  If you don’t think so, find a customer and ask THEM!  As the old idiom goes, “Presentation trumps Content every time.”

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Updates and Comparisons:

At this point, the KM Team and KM Partners are reviewing their pasts and will be able to report our latest Updates and Comparisons in a few weeks.  Don’t worry — it will be worth the wait.

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Market Mover of the Week 18 2009: The MMoW for WK18 will continue to be the once Republican now Democratic Senator Arlen Specter.  Why would we think that a party switching Senator from Pennsylvania would have a major impact on the US Markets?  Because of his switch, Senator Spectoris expected to push the US Senate to the very brink of control by the Democratic Party, giving them a filibuster-proof majority once the Minnesota election is resolved ( most likely in favor of the Democrats ).  That majority will allow both houses of Congress to rubber stamp any bill or policy it sees fit to sendto the President, who you might remember is also a Democrat.  With Democrats in control all around, the business of America may change so dramatically as to not be easily recognized.  The future is unknown, as always, so we will all have to wait and see.  In the meantime, Senator Arlen Specter will be our MMoW for WK18.

Market Mover of the Week 17 2009: Make no mistake, the triple witch time has come up to strike 12 at Chrysler Motor Corp.  The power of the probable bankruptcy that Chrysler is expected to put forward in the next week or so can not be underestimated.  This will NOT be your father’s bankruptcy.  And that will put the CEO at Chrysler, Mr. Robert Nardelli, squarely in the front and center hot seat for all to see.  Like all major situations in business circles that bring certain cycles to a head, the auto industry needs a major purging event to force a settling and calming effect over the whole.  Mr. Nardelli will not feel any joy or happiness in being the lead player in this situation and Chrysler as well as the UAW will certainly berate and bemoan the events as they unfold but we are certain that Mr Nardelli will put on his game face and survive the week…just maybe not in the employ of this auto giant.

( as a recap, the KM Team wanted to report how we did for the MMoW for Week 16, so here it is! )

Week 16 2009 Market Mover of the Week: For the MMoW in Week 16, the KM Team picked Larry Ellison.  While in a normal week — and when was the last time we had one of those, eh? — the pick of Mr. Ellison for MMoW would have been dead on target.  However, last week belonged to US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Between making statements on the latest information on the nation’s banks “stress test” results andthen going to Capital Hill to give testimony on the TARP Fund handouts, Secretary Geithner got more news time last week than President Obama.  While this type of spotlight was expected for the incoming Treasury Secretary back in December 2008, this amount of 15 minutes of fame is still pretty intense.  And that makes him our MMoW for Week 16 2009.

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International Impact Incident of the Week: There is no doubt that the current governmental and multi-national “calming panic” that has swept all of the major news stations this past weekend has brought to our attention the outbreak of a new flu that seems to be a combination swine and avian flu.  The reported outbreak grows larger by the hour with reports now putting stricken people not only in Mexico and the southwestern border states of the USoA but also now into Canada, middle-America, and New Zealand but with all these cases having a connection to visits to Mexico.  The business impact is already being felt as Russia has already announced a ban on meat being imported from Mexico ( although there is no known sign that the flu can move via eating or handling meat ) and Russia as well as China have announced that a quarantine on anyone showing signs of the virus.  The Pork Council has been making announcements all Sunday downplaying the situation in fear of a strain of Swine Flu being the culprit here.  Look for more business impact this week with international ramifications.

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DEFINITIONS:

The Grey Lady: “The Grey Lady” is a nickname for the New York Times, the great American newspaper that was founded in 1851 and is currently the largest metropolitan newspaper still publishing in the United States.  The NYT is regarded as a national newspaper of record and a voice for the USoA around the world.  It is important to note that the original publisher was journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond.  As the publisher and thus the owner of the newspaper, the slant of the original writing was definitely yellow in taint.  The Grey Lady name came from its staid appearance and style and it also gave us the chance to continue the term “broadside” for the size of the newspaper page which was only recently cut down in width.  As the winner of the most Pulitzer Prizes and owner of an widely poplar website, The Grey Lady is keeping its nickname alive into the 21st century.

Kindle: The Amazon based software and hardware platform that allows for the reading of E-Books bought from Amazon.  Currently, there are 3 different models of the Kindle ( Kindle, Kindle 2 and Kindle DX ) using an electronic paper to allow for reading on the handheld devices that measure about 6 inches by 5 inches.  There is also an application for the IPhone that allows for the E-Books to be read there.  While the Kindle idea, shape and size is much better than reading on a cellphone or even the IPhone, the size is still a little bigger than a paperback book but smaller than a folded newspaper.  Price also comes into play as the unit itself sells for the cost of about 49 normal paperback books, 18 normal hardback books or boatloads of magazines and newspapers.  Plus you have to buy the E-Books from Amazon.  Meanwhile, the KM Team is still tracking down what ever the heck electronic paper is.  We’ll keep looking and then alert the newspapers.

Watergate:  Prior to 1972, the Watergate Office Complex in Washington, D.C. was a well known modern styled sprawling and multi-storied group of buildings housing a multitude of company offices, lobbyist and trade offices similar to the areas in major cities now called World Trade Centers.  But, on June 17, 1972 five men were arrested for breaking and entering at the Democratic National Headquarters which were located in the complex.  Those arrests eventually led to President Richard M. Nixon resigning as President of the United States in August 1974 as the trail from a taped over door lock led all the way to the Oval Office.  Forever after that date, Watergate became synonymous was scandal, especially major political scandal.  Even today, any time that a scandal surfaces in any way, some wit tacks a “-gate” to the end of it and out it goes into the collective public.

Call Center:  A central location for a business to have all of its telephone customer communication come into and go out of it.  Customer orders, questions, concerns and complaints are typically the same situations over andover again so having one major location with all of the telephone operators in the same area can solve a great many problems.  In the last 20 years or so, most of businesses around the world moved their call centers to low cost Third World countries such as India.  After training those employees in those countries how to speak in the incoming languages, most of the call centers have set scripts and formats to talk with the incoming callers.  While this usually takes care of the previously mentioned typical situations, trying to have unique or unusual situations taken care can prove to be frustrating and very long in time.

Filibuster:  A filibuster, or “talking out a bill” is a form of debate in a legislature house to extend indefinitely the verbal debate on any bill in order to either delay or defeat the bill in question.  While the term only dates back to 1851 ( 2nd reference to that year this week ) it has a history as a method as far back as Rome around 60 BC ( see Cato the Younger ) and has tracks throughout history up to the modern day.  While considered a modern day “nuclear weapon” when used, it is an effective tool for re-opening debate on subjects that may not be as universally desired as people are led to believe.  When put into use, it always gathers a large amount of attention in the news.

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( This weeks quote comes from a very funny man who passed away in 1998.  Having been around so long that people forgot he was still around, the quote has been attributed to this gentlemen and others as well.  But to be honest, the KM Team is granting ownership to Henny Youngman because chances are he stole it fair and square as he would say.  Known as The King of the One Liners, Youngman worked virtually every day for 45 years, playing a violin and telling jokes on stage, in movies and on television.  He always played it clean, picked only on himself or his wife and skewered every profession there was without getting any one of them mad at him.  No room was too small for him to play and he was always “on”.  Today, his style of comedy would be different and perhaps not as well received as it was in the Catskills or New England in days gone by or on a television set with 650 channels of, well, nothing on it.  But the quote fits the week and the man fits the times, so there you have.  A little more than 11 years gone and he stills gets a zinger in.  We should all be so lucky when the time comes. )

 Going forward, the KM Team and KM Partners want to thank you all for reading us and keep those comment coming in.  As always, enjoy, learn and earn!  The KM Team and KM Partners.

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