Rick Ackerman
02-22-2011, 06:11 AM
Just when we were starting to adapt to living in these accursedly interesting times, the times have waxed positively exciting. Uh-oh. Who’d have believed that the full-tilt political battle going on in Wisconsin would get pushed below the fold by riots in…Tripoli? And yet, that’s how the news was played over a weekend stretched to three days by a Monday holiday. From a news perspective, one of the most interesting things about both of these watershed events is that their respective outcomes seem predictable. In Wisconsin, as well as in every other state where the issue is put to a legislative vote, the public-employee unions seem likely to lose simply because the states are bankrupt — or soon will be if existing salary and benefit agreements are not either voided or cut back drastically.
http://www.rickackerman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Qaradawi2-e1298343993875.png
As for Tripoli and the rest of a caliphate yearning to be born, the would-be dictator-for-life will fall and Islam will triumph. There is reason to think this could occur, over the next several years, without much further violence. On this matter we cite the public statements of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a charismatic Egyptian cleric recently returned from exile in Qatar whom some are calling Egypt’s Khomeini. While the 84-year-old Qaradawi presumably agrees wholeheartedly with the goal of bin Laden and al Qaeda to subjugate the world under Islamic law, he has argued that this objective and all others dear to fundamentalists can be achieved through the ballot box, since Islamists have been winning just about every election in which they’ve participated.
Peaceful Islamic Revolution?
It would be ironic if the Arab world embraced Islamic rule peacefully even as public-employee unions in the U.S., their backs to the wall, turned violent in a last-ditch battle for survival. The possibility of this occurring is not so farfetched when one considers that it will be impossible for state and local governments to honor supposedly ironclad contracts with their workers. These agreements established defined-benefit pension plans and blue-chip healthcare plans that offer current employees and retirees better coverage than most top-level executives in the private sector receive. Can the state afford them? Definitely not. Will the unions gain the support of the 88% of workers who are non-unionized? Not as long as they continue to enjoy retirement benefits that private-sector workers can only dream about.
It seems equally doubtful that the stock market will continue to climb a wall of worry that by now has encompassed every realm of the U.S. economy save the banks. In making such a prediction, however, we’d prefer to rely on purely technical data rather than on the hearsay of a supposed economic recovery that relatively few Americans have experienced first-hand. On that score, our proprietary indicators suggest that the possibility of a major top in the stock market is as high as it’s been since the Mother of All Bear Rallies began almost two years ago. If you’re interested in our precise targets for the S&P Index, the Dow and other widely followed vehicles, you can receive a free seven-day trial subscription to Rick’s Picks by clicking here (http://www.rickackerman.com/lp/RicksPicks/). This will also give you access to a 24/7 chat room that draws traders from around the world, as well as to Rick’s Picks’ daily trading recommendations and real-time updates for stocks, index futures and commodities.
http://www.rickackerman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Qaradawi2-e1298343993875.png
As for Tripoli and the rest of a caliphate yearning to be born, the would-be dictator-for-life will fall and Islam will triumph. There is reason to think this could occur, over the next several years, without much further violence. On this matter we cite the public statements of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a charismatic Egyptian cleric recently returned from exile in Qatar whom some are calling Egypt’s Khomeini. While the 84-year-old Qaradawi presumably agrees wholeheartedly with the goal of bin Laden and al Qaeda to subjugate the world under Islamic law, he has argued that this objective and all others dear to fundamentalists can be achieved through the ballot box, since Islamists have been winning just about every election in which they’ve participated.
Peaceful Islamic Revolution?
It would be ironic if the Arab world embraced Islamic rule peacefully even as public-employee unions in the U.S., their backs to the wall, turned violent in a last-ditch battle for survival. The possibility of this occurring is not so farfetched when one considers that it will be impossible for state and local governments to honor supposedly ironclad contracts with their workers. These agreements established defined-benefit pension plans and blue-chip healthcare plans that offer current employees and retirees better coverage than most top-level executives in the private sector receive. Can the state afford them? Definitely not. Will the unions gain the support of the 88% of workers who are non-unionized? Not as long as they continue to enjoy retirement benefits that private-sector workers can only dream about.
It seems equally doubtful that the stock market will continue to climb a wall of worry that by now has encompassed every realm of the U.S. economy save the banks. In making such a prediction, however, we’d prefer to rely on purely technical data rather than on the hearsay of a supposed economic recovery that relatively few Americans have experienced first-hand. On that score, our proprietary indicators suggest that the possibility of a major top in the stock market is as high as it’s been since the Mother of All Bear Rallies began almost two years ago. If you’re interested in our precise targets for the S&P Index, the Dow and other widely followed vehicles, you can receive a free seven-day trial subscription to Rick’s Picks by clicking here (http://www.rickackerman.com/lp/RicksPicks/). This will also give you access to a 24/7 chat room that draws traders from around the world, as well as to Rick’s Picks’ daily trading recommendations and real-time updates for stocks, index futures and commodities.