Jul 19 2009
Week 27 2009
Yet another attempted death knell on the great, but struggling, Capitalism
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Vice President Biden was being held to account again for saying back on June 14th what we all had already known all along — that the Obama administration had, and we quote here, “guessed wrong” when they had originally spoke about the impact of the economic stimulus package that was put forth. VP Biden went even further by saying, and we’re quoting here again, “No one realized how bad the economy was.” ( These quotes come from the website “Breaking News 24/7″ and can be found here — http://blog.taragana.com/n/vp-biden-says-everyone-guessed-wrong-on-stimulus-jobs-number-defends-estimates-81282/ )
This information is, well, old news to anyone who has not been watching American Idiot re-runs 24-7 for the last several months. That would include anyone with or without a job, anyone who has even glanced at a newspaper or caught a commercial for a news program and / or anyone that has even passed by a computer terminal that once had an internet connection. In other words, you didn’t need KangarooMoney.Com or the Vice President of the United States of America to state the obvious. Instead, what has been needed is less Stimulus and more Package. Or better yet, more Capitalism and less Bailout.
The KangarooMoney.Com Team and KM Partners have long advocated a strong business environment with more than just a streak of “the strong shall survive” attitude. The history of America from well before the American Revolution up until this very day has been founded on solid business concepts and theories that can be found in any good business today — make what people want, provide it to those people in a timely and reasonable manner and charge enough to make a fair profit in order to stay in business. Charge too much? People will go elsewhere for the product. Can’t provide enough of the product or keep the market in a flowing manner for the product? People will move on to something else no matter how great the product is or how much people desire it. Can’t make what the people want? People won’t buy you product, ever. If you do any of the items that would make people not buy your product and you just won’t be in business very long. That’s the first law of capitalistic business. Perhaps the only law really. Interrupt that law in some way — can you say Bailout? — and the whole formula gets skewed, sent off kilter.
So where are we going with this line of thought? Only in the direction that last 26 weeks have taken us. Some companies have found the strength and well being in the New Economic Normal. Think Ford, Con-Agra, Caterpillar or Boeing, all KangarooMoney.Com favorites by the way. Other companies have gotten lost, searching for their way out of the business desert that they accidentally wandered into. Think GM, AIG, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, all KangarooMoney.Com dislikes by the way. But you don’t have to believe the KM Team. Just check the stock listings for companies getting US Government “assistance” and those companies that are not.
And then let the KM Team know what you found out. We think that after a little effort, you’ll be on the same page as we are. The KangarooMoney.Com page. Of course.
Which leads us to this weeks quote: “The business of America is business.” A serious line delivered from a serious man during a serious time. In fact, the line was delivered from a man better know for not saying very much at all, which makes the statement all that much more important, when it was said and how it applies to today. When you consider what the statement meant from the man who said it, well, the meaning for today is all that much more critical to the whole point we have been trying to make this week.
In the meantime, enjoy this weeks posting…
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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 and earn 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 and KM Partners have decided to publish our Disclaimer as a separate posting effective January 2009. Please spend a moment reading that posting to make sure that you understand that 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 and KM 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 end all- 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!
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 fifth new addition of 2009 to the KangarooMoney.Com BlogRoll, the KM Team is adding the website for PickensPlan.Com ( found here http://www.pickensplan.com/ ). While this site would not automatically be assumed to be a business website, reviewing the information found there will lead you to find many different business impacting strings of knowledge and thought that will help drive you and your business forward in these changing and challenging times. The information is fresh and current as well as being supplied by some of the best known people in the field of energy supply today. So, please enjoy this latest addition to the BlogRoll and visit PickensPlan.com today.
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- One of the things that the New Normal is teaching all of us today is that business entities may die but they don’t fade away. Indeed, businesses may go bankrupt and sell off everything from their brick and mortar buildings, they may cancel all of their debts at pennies on the dollar and they might even erase all of their salaries, bonuses and Board of Directors but, that doesn’t mean that those businesses go quietly into the good night. What do we mean? ( click here to read more) In the first six months of 2009, there has been no shortage of companies with brand names going bankrupt and / or out of business. One of those companies, Circuit City, was pummeled by us here at KangarooMoney from the 2nd Quarter of 2008 ( Week 20 2008 from KangarooMoney.Com ) right up through its declaration of bankruptcy and complete shutdown in January 2009, and we took some follow up potshots at CC after they fired everyone, closed their stores and broke their leases. So can you imagine how members of the KM Team felt when the equivalent of internet circulars starting to show up in our email boxes? And on a fairly regular basis to boot. Before we could really discuss and digest that bit of audaciousness was quickly followed by email flyers for Linen and Things, another company that found life in the real world much to hard to continue. However both of these companies are on the web almost as if nothing has happened out here in real life. Now, one of the great banes of internet life is that you never really know the attitude and true meaning of what is getting communicated to you. Does the writer mean what they are saying in a serious way or was it said with a smile almost a joke? With email and the net you just can’t tell. So when we see the same type of flyer from these “dead” companies coming into us 6 months after we buried them in the Great Business Graveyard it’s a little more than disconcerting. Do these flyers and sales and promise of great products and deliveries mean those companies are back and better than ever? Or are they just pulling our legs with false input? Does it mean that what we bought at the Going Out of Business sales wasn’t as good a deal as we thought? Or does it mean that there really wasn’t any deals at those 75% off counters? ( go here to decide for yourself — http://www.circuitcity.com/ and here http://www.lnt.com/home/index.jsp ) Those of us on the KM Team are reserving judgement for the websites and the businesses that are attached to them. We still don’t agree with what they did in closing down their brick and mortar businesses and giving their hundreds of creditors pennies on the dollar for what they owed. We also still don’t agree with what they did to and for their faithful employees who hopefully have been able to rebuild their lives and move on. The websites and the new business models of these reborn companies promise former glory at future profits for those who continue the effort. The KM Team and KM Partners will keep our wait and see attitudes. We also look forward to see how some the bankrupt restaurant chains might use the internet…but we’ll bring snacks anyways, thanks.
- One of the company sectors that has to be reviewed not because the markets are currently bouncing along at their expected lows ( the KM Team had always said a Dow Market would travel at between 8,000 and 8,200 when the recession finally bottomed out and settled down ) but also because you can not help but hear about the situation every day as the summer months drags their way to the cool of the fall season, is the Medical Sector. That particular sector as grouped by that word “medical” can be huge and daunting if you look through the companies involved there. For the KM Team and KM Partners, we found it better to break that group down into smaller bites and look for leaders in not the ocean but the lakes of the medical field. ( click here to read more) It can be, as we said, daunting to go out and research any and all possible beneficiaries of the ongoing loud and rancorous debate on what is coming to be called US National Healthcare. Because of that, the KM Team has been out looking for hidden fishing holes on the smaller lakes of the healthcare field. One of the companies we have found is Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.( http://www.thermofisher.com/global/en/hom.asp). While TMO is a company that is about serving the science community by providing analytical instruments and equipment, reagents and consumables, and software and services for scientific research, analysis, manufacturing of scientific products as well as the discovery of new scientific insights, it has a sizable stake in the medical field. TMO is currently split into two different sections — one is the Analytical Technologies section and the other is the Laboratory Products and Services section. While the sexy art of the business might be considered the analytical side, which has pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government ( including USoA and foreign ) and other industrial areas to work in, that side appears to be the steady revenue stream for the past since the company came to being back in 1956. But it is now the laboratory products and services side of the house that is looming as the happy Accountants favorite hidden spot to go to. By providing products and services designed for customers to allow for research, development and manufacturing of drugs and medical supply systems, the company is positioned well as the healthcare debate carries on this summer. It may be said that Thermo Fisher Scientific is providing the tools to others and having them take all of the chances necessary for success while staying out of the chancy fray of chasing only potential success. Add to that line of thought that as TMO supplys the items to others that are necessary for those to research and discover new processes and drugs, they can adjust their own technology side of the house business based on what is seen on the products and services side. The KangarooMoney.Com Team also sees a company that has roughly 34,500 employees worldwide under its current payroll, a sizable company but not the largest one that was reviewed in this effort. Just the right size for growth going forward however. TMO is as of this writing traveling at almost its midpoint between its current 52 week high ( 62.77 ) and its current 52 week low ( 26.65 ) closing on Friday at 39.23. There has been a slight drop off during the month of July 2009 but that would be true of any company this year as the Spring Rush has dropped back down to Summer Doldrums. However, the last three months has seen TMO gain a steady rise from 32.39 despite announcing a downward revision in their guidance for the remainder of their 2009 forecast in April and May 2009. That rise despite the push down on their earnings could be pointed back to their acquisitions of Biolab in April 2009 and then the completion of their acquisition of Alesco Corporations’ Scientific and Medical division right behind that in early May 2009. Because of all of these factors, we believe that TMO has been pushed upward over the last several months, and will continue to push upward going forward, but slowly and methodically with the proper amount of hiding from causal investors as well as the pursuit of the hard and deep looking investors. The KM Team and KM Partners will continue to follow Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. as the healthcare debate and summer rolls on.
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Updates and Comparisons:
Week 17: In an article from this week, the KangarooMoney.Com Team applauded Delta Airlines, Chrysler and SLM ( aka Sallie Mae ) for bringing their respective call center operations back to US shores during 2009. The KM Team noted that during tough times it was worthy to note that these companies were returning jobs from overseas even though the situation was more customer perception orientated than strictly bottom-line-now orientated. News comes now that Continental Airlines Inc. ( CAL, traded on the NYSE, not recommended at this time ) will be closing its Reservation Call Center in Tampa FL as of July 19, 2009. While the people working there will be offered placement at the Houston and Salt Lake City centers, there will most likely not be that many takers for that choice. After all, Houston and Salt Lake City are NOT Tampa. And while this news is from May 2009 the impact is just now settling in for those folks in Tampa. One step forward, two steps back.
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Market Mover of the Week 27 2009: While we here at KangarooMoney.Com don’t believe for a moment that the handlers at the White House and at Democratic Headquarters will continue to allow Vice President Biden to continue speaking on the economy ( or, to the point, to continue speaking period ), we do believe that the MMoW for WK27 will indeed be VP Biden. His calls for a restudy of the economy due to the Obama administration “misread” is sure to fire debate on additional stimulus funds to be shunted into the world at large. How that stimulus money is paid out, and especially to who, will not come from VP Biden but it is clear that he has started the discussion on the subject and now it must play out. Let’s see where this week takes us little joeys.
Market Mover of the Week 26 2009: In a week that finally saw 100 USoA Senators seated and present for business ( Senator Franken was finally cleared by Minnesota to assume his duties in the US Senate ) it is almost surreal that the main thrust of the week came not from Wall Street or from Washington or even from history as the country celebrated its birthday but instead came from Bentonville, Arkansas. For the MMoW for WK26 one has to award the comments and opinions that were offered by Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. Mr. Duke participated in a letter signed by a number of others ( including CEO of the Center for American Progress John Podesta and the Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern ) that was delivered to President Obama stating that they were “for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage”, essentially telling not only the President but other large corporations that don’t agree with them that Wal-Mart was going to support requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers. This comment from the nation’s largest private employer ( sorry GM, your day has passed ) has been seen as a huge boost to the efforts of the current administration for universal or national health care but it has also been seen as hedge bet in case, or when, national health care fails. Wal-Mart and Mr. Duke can always say “Hey, we were on your side,” no matter who wins. In any case, Mr. Duke turned the market from what it was doing for the upcoming holiday weekend and redirected it. And that is what a MMoW does. Congrats to Mr. Duke for being MMoW for Week 26 2009.
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International Impact Incident of the Week: This week we have three choices for the Triple I of the Week — 1) the meeting of USoA President Obama and Russian President Medvedev to talk nuclear disarmament; 2) the attempted return to resume his office of President of Honduras by Manuel Zelaya; 3) The G-8 Meeting in Italy. While the meeting between President Obama and President Medvedev is very important to ongoing world peace and the possible flashpoint situation of President Zelayat rying to return to his country is important to Western Hemisphere Peace, there is no doubt that the G-8 Meeting in Italy this week will have more to do with how the economy both in the US and around the World goes forward. While it might seem that no real heavy lifting takes place at the G-8 Meetings, the truth is that quite a bit goes on behind the scenes and thus into — and out of — our pockets. This weeks meeting should be no different, even if it’s not as flashy as the photo ops in Moscow or as combative as the planes trying to land in the Honduran capital.
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DEFINITIONS:
G-8: Group of Eight or G-8, is a term that has come to mean the nations that make up the Northern Hemisphere; those nations are the USoA, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Russian and Japan; the term has also become to be known as the meeting at which the G-8 countries and the European Union ( who is represented and allowed to sit in the meetings but can not be either the Host Country or the Chair of the meeting ) discuss the major issues impacting or about the impact the group; France founded the group in 1975 when it was then called the G-6 in order to have a more direct face-to-face forum concerning issues that directly impacted the group countries; the original G-6 having spawned the G-8 is now also spawning the G-20 which involves developing and / or large nations not necessarily in the Northern Hemisphere
Brick and Mortar:A term that has arisen, strangely enough, due to the internet age that describes a business that does most or all of its primary business out of buildings and not on the internet; a common example of a brick and mortar company would be Wal-Mart with its hundreds of stores and dozens of distribution centers whereas Amazon would be referred to as an internet company due to the fact that, as of this writing, you can not walk into a store called “Amazon” that is associated with the bookseller that we know online.
Health Care:As it is being referred to in the Congressional debates in the USoA as of this writing, it means the delivery and service methods of having someone or some organization describe or provide options to giving an individual and / or their family medical service or advice; this broad term is being used to describe any and all practitioners of medicine regardless of field or level of speciality in order to get as many people as possible involved in the ongoing debates; a fairly generic term that can mean information for preventing possible illnesses up to and including immediate medical attention to help fix a persons’ body due to accidental injury or long term natural diseases from cancer to aids to old age.
Call Center:As it sounds, this describes a central or grouped location where many calls from around the country or the world come to in order to have trained personnel provided the same or similar information to all callers about that business; usually a large warehouse style building with many small and simple office cubicles inside where a person will typically have a telephone and computer and will then answer customer questions and / or complaints about the host companys’ products and services; once the employer of a large number of lower to mid-range wage earners in the USoA, many companies moved their call center services overseas to reduce costs ( employee pay and benefits ) with the mistaken belief that the quality of service would remain the same; call centers are also know as cube farms, an employee term that is not meant as an endearing reference.
Capitalism:The idea that economic and social considerations of trade and the means of industry, manufacturing and product production are controlled by private, non-government entities such as individuals, companies of workers, shareholders and the like, all operating with the goal of a profit being made for the controllers of the businesses concerned; the basic idea is that the capital that is supplied ( money, land, equipment and/ or people ) will drive the business to make not only more than it costs to produce its product but to also return an additional profit on the efforts of what is involved; this particular -ism is in contrast to other -isms such as Communism ( the idea of a “all for one, one for all” community with all getting an equal share of what is done ) and Socialism ( the idea of a government gathering all efforts and dividing the product out equally amongst all ); the current model of the business world as it is known today in almost all nations of the world.
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( This weeks quote comes from an “Oh Yeah!” former President — a man that was well known and well respected in his time but today would rate only an “Oh Yeah! HIm!” reaction from most people. The man in question was more well known for what he DIDN’T say rather the one quote that is most remembered as being his, President “Silent Cal” Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States of America. He came into his own during the turn of the last century, going from Mayor to State Senator to Lieutenant Governor to Governor, all in the state of Massachusetts. During those 20 years of political work in Massachusetts his most notable moments came during the famous Boston Police Strike of 1919, which he was completely against. He was elected Vice President in 1921 to serve with President Warren G. Harding and he ascended to the highest political position in the USoA when President Harding took a heart attack in August of 1923 and died. While lacking a strong demeanor, hence the “Silent Cal” name tag, he was forceful when agitated. His most famous quote that “the business of America is Business”, shows that President Coolidge could turn a word and indeed, he was a skilled public speaker. Being President during a similar time in America as can be found today the only problem is that as opposed to President Coolidges’ lack of spouting off, today’s USoA leaders can’t seem to be quiet. What a difference 80 years makes! A few remaining side notes — President “Silent Cal” Coolidge’s inauguration was the first ever broadcast over radio, he was the first President to give a speech over radio, he was the first President to appear in a talking movie AND he gave 529 press conferences — meeting with reporters more often than any President before or since. Not bad for a man who was seated at dinner next to a person who sat down and said “Mr. Coolidge, I made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you,” to which President Coolidge simply replied…”You lose.” )
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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