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Crisis, Crisis Everywhere

June 11, 2008

Mark on the markets Mark Patterson


Crisis, crisis everywhere!

This morning’s news featured a story that I believe was in the New York Times, stating that this year’s crops are in danger because of too much rain in the Midwest. A couple of weeks ago a large investment banking house had called for $200.00 a barrel oil, which would equate to 6 to 7 dollar a gallon gasoline and what I view to be a larger problem is home heating oil at 7to 8 dollar per gallon. We can drive less or sometimes not at all but come this winter many of us have no other means to heat our homes. Yes there are alternative heating sources, but many people cannot afford to purchase these sources.
We cannot forget the mortgage crisis, which has been declared as mostly done. However if you look at the landscape of our economy across the country, you see unemployment up, inflation up and the value of our homes down. Let us not forget about the next crisis still in bloom and not in the news yet. The consumer debt crisis; yes retail has not collapsed yet but we are running up our credit cards to pay for our goods and services at a record pace, and the outlook on jobs and income needed to pay these credit cards off doesn’t look that good to me.
What should we do? Recently one of our presidential candidates advocated a windfall profit tax on the oil companies, to subsidies energy cost. This is being touted now because we all hate those greedy oil companies that are making all that money, so this candidate must be for all us poor working people. But if you examine the history of taxation such as this, or even look at the logic of it, it makes no sense. Those lost revenues paid to the government by those companies being taxed seem to always find there way back to the consumer as additional cost. Let us not forget we still live in a capitalistic economy which works better than any socialistic model available.
So let us not rely on anyone to help us, except ourselves. We in this country have a great track record if we stick to original plan of taking care of ourselves and our own, not at the expense of others. Big government has proven to be a detriment to our society, so let’s make it smaller and take responsibility for ourselves, tax less and we will produce more.
We must hold current politicians accountable for spending far too much of our money, and ensure that future politicians, regardless of there party will be held accountable.
Mark Patterson is a registered investment advisor with MHP Asset Management LLC, and can be reached at 447-1978 or Mark@MHP-Asset.com