"However, to my fellow long term investors it is all just a blip on the huge screen of investment perspective over time."

I love how you take yourself to task (rightly so) for being overly bullish, unaffectedly simplistic and a shameless shill for the buy side machine of Wall street, and yet you still write lies like that which I quoted above. How do you know this is a "blip"? You don't. Nobody does. Put a sock in it.

Oh, and not all of US are losing money. Some of us SAW THIS ALL COMING WHILE YOU SHILLS WHERE PUMPING for the buy side.

Some of you bulls should be publicly mocked for the way you sucker people into the market and put them in danger. Shamelessly.

N,
I love the way you assume I'm on Wall St. - NOT

Assume I was bullish on the overall market - Never

Assume I forcasted DJIA 15000 - NOT,

Assume I'm losing money - over all - Not

Suckered no one, and explained in great detail my thoughts on particular subjects.(although I can sympathise with your Wall St. sentiments somewhat)

You must be that broken clock I hear about that is correct twice a day.

I don't think you're a shill Sheldon, you truely believe in the "buy & hold" myth. I've been trying to convince you otherwise, but no luck so far. Maybe you should re-think your position.
I've been wrong plenty over the last year and had to eat some humble pie myself, but it seems that some things I've been warning about have come true. Also, I've mentioned a number of times that Bernanke & the Fed. are in a "check-mate" situation. They can't save the housing market, stock market & the dollar too. They don't have the power that most people think they do anymore.
Ask youself this... doesn't there have to be a balance for the markets to work? We can't ALL be borrowers, you need lenders too. Lenders want to be payed back, and profit too. They won't continue to accept a low interest rate and currency that's constantly being devalued.

Sheldon,

IP nightly made some good points (though offensively), that you did not address. Just because his tone is combative, doesnt' mean that one or more of his points are without merit.

One point rasied which I agree with, and one I've been thinking a lot of (as a financial advisor with 2 decades of experience), is how it is presented and taken as Gospel that the market will always go up over the long run. Day after day during this "correction" (?), I've been reading and hearing from the "don't worry" crowd...it's a "buying opportunity". Good grief! Heard the same thing in 2000 (gee - that didn't turn out so well). How many EXPERTS were touting the homebuilders just a short while ago ("teh bottom is in"). Uh-huh.

What irks me is how many "experts" present their opinions that the market will always bounce back as *FACT*. Wrong! It is purely speculation. It is based on history. Yes, teh odds are that over the long run stocks overall will give a decent return. What that has to do with the average investor? *NADA*!!! What investors experience, (Dr. Siegal are you listening?) is far, far different from what the market stats show. They are a fantasy. More importantly, few investors seem to realize that the market has gone down, and stayed down, for VERY long periods of time. This "must have what I want this second" culture does not have the stomach for a long-term bear market. Most investors just don't bother to look at the long-term history, and most importantly, the past is NOT the future. Joe Speculator thinks that '87 and '00 are the worst case scenarios. WRONG!

NOBODY knows what will happen. Nobody. It's all based on wishful thinking and historical data.

Next...

The incredible number of people who play this idiotic GUESSING GAME of timing the markets, which is nothing more than a game of roulette, is a bit frightening. Why? Because the vast majority of these people havent' spent even an hour analyzing the BUSINESSES that they invest in. Is it any wonder that guys like Buffet succeed to such a great extent, when so few are focused on the long-term VALUE of businesses? It seems like 99% of it is focused on SHORT-TERM PRICE MOVEMENT - whether a bull or a bear. Blogs like this one are the exception, in that you actually do talk about the business itself - not just timing it. However, you constantly talk about it being the "right time" - rather than discussing the VALUE of the business. It is so rare that I read anything like "I recommend buying Citigroup at this time, because at the current price, it represents a bargain vis-a-vis it's intrinsic value". Nope. Just about all I read are PRICE-OBSESSED bottom-guessers (rather than VALUE). The laziness is astounding. Why should any of these people deserve to make money in stocks, when they don't bother to analyze the business? One huge guessing game. How sad.

How many times have I read in the past few weeks about what a great "bargain" the financials are, etc. Or how wonderful their yields looks. Hello??? How incredibly stupid can they be? Sure, these stocks are all bargains...provided that their earnings haven't peaked. As if. Record high margins, earnings, and stock prices is a recipe for losing money - all the great figures are being extrapolated ad infinitum. As if earnings cycles have ceased to exist? We see this cycle time and time again, and yet so few seem to learn from it.

Me? I'm 100% in cash until I find somethign that I think is worth buying, i.e. 50 cents on the dollar.

I also find Liber's posts very informative. At no point during the past 10 months I have been reading him have I felt he was doing anything other than expressing his views on paper--the views he is acting upon. He has been wrong, but so have many of us.

I find it amazingly refreshing that he not only makes predictive opinions (that he gloats about while they are right), he also encourages people to go back and see where he was wrong.

He seems very accountable. I wish everyone provided such honest advice.

However, I also think he underestimated the terror we are about to face now that each US family of 4 owes the rest of the world over $700,000.

We have two choices: inflation or deflation. Which way will we decide to go?

Slick,
"I'm 100% in cash until I find something that I think is worth buying, i.e. 50 cents on the dollar."

After such a well stated case on business ownership, I was hoping you'd explain to me how the same rules don't apply to cash. What intrinsic value does the $ have? you only have faith in it based on wishful thinking and historical data, as you put it.

Lets see, if you were 100% cash over the past 24 months you have lost 30% in purchasing power over that time. If you were in the market (equities) you would be at least at break even.

If you had gone to 100% cash after following the market to Dow 14,000 than you are amazing.

If you kept equities to a Dow 12,500 and bailed for cash...you are ahead, but a bad market timer.