Moody's Suggests US Eliminates Debt Ceiling (@CNBC)

In a suggestion that can only be categorized as ridiculous Moody's chimed in with a way for the United States to maintain the AAA rating on it's debt. Don't raise the debt ceiling... ELIMINATE IT. You can't default on your debt as long as there is a sucker out there who is willing to invest new money in you. (Reminds me of someone who is currently spending the next 150 years of his life in jail). In all seriousness though let's compare this to a real life situation. Let's say I am 45 years old (I'm not), Let's say I have a 19 year old son (I don't), and Let's say that said son has run up $10,000 of credit card debt which for our purposes is his credit limit. Option A: I tell my son that he has dug a pretty deep hole and I would recommend that he gets a job / saves money from his current job to pay down that debt. Option B: I tell him to get a new credit card before the fact that he isn't paying his old one hits his credit score and to spend as he wishes. The fact that the spending of the United States of America can so easily be compared to that of an immature teenager is the root of our problem. At this point 40 cents on the dollar of what we borrow is being used for debt serivce.
    So where does this leave us? Again we have options: A: Raise the debt ceiling, B: Unilateral debt ceiling raise from the president C: Don't raise the debt ceiling, D: Raise the debt ceiling while at the same time agreeing to budget cuts. The options are ranked from most likely to least likely to happen. Only in a democratic society like the United States would compromising and agreeing to a resolution be the least likely outcome to a situation.  I enjoyed Warren Buffet's suggestion for cutting down on the deficit, " You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election." We would have a lot of unhappy congressmen trying to figure out how to get from 60% to 3%. 
    While this is going on you have the U.S. Stock market acting like a child in a messy divorce proceeding while Mommy and Daddy scream at each other. Even if both sides come to some type of an agreement the child still has lasting effects of the battle. We are staring down the barrel of debt downgrades that will forever make it more expensive for us to borrow in the open market. It's time to do what we learned in 2nd grade. COMPROMISE. That is... Unless we just remove the debt ceiling. The easiest way to solve a problem is to remove it correct? Not exactly... What if we remove the debt ceiling and then hit the de facto debt ceiling (100 cents on the dollar used for debt service). I can see the headline now, "Bernie Madoff sues U.S. governement for wrongful imprisonment".   

Kick Off Post

There are a million people out there who would like to give you the next hot investment tip. They want to make you the next penny stock millionare, the next oil billionaire, or they want you to buy Lithuanian dairy farm bonds at 50 cents on the dollar because they know a secret that nobody else knows. You know, I know, and everybody else knows that there are plenty of ways to make a quick buck but many more ways to lose it.

     My name is Andrew Morgasen and I am a 25 year old MBA student studying Finance at Hofstra University. I have my license  to sell investment products (series 7. series 63, series 66, life accident and health insurance) but I would prefer to talk about something (anything!) else. In many ways I am the same as you and in some ways I may be different: I make money trading stocks and options, I lose money trading stocks and options, I trade on solid fundamental information, I trade on technical analysis, I trade on emotion (read: stupidity), I follow my own rules, I break every rule I set, I strive to gain new knowledge everyday.

     If you are looking for someone who is going to tell you exactly what to buy at exactly the right time now is the time to exit this blog and never return (actually never is a really long time especially for someone who is just starting up a blog and would be grateful for any and all interested readers). My point is that I will not be your Mad Money or Fast Money  because these shows do a disservice to their viewers. An excellent trader doesn't follow the herd; the herd follows the excellent trader.

    In Summary, If you are interested in commentary relating to top financial news you have come to the right place. If you like the commentary to be quick witted, amusing, often times sarcastic, and most times playful, I would ask you, kindly, to grant me your attention for a tiny fraction of your day, and you might learn something or even crack a smile. I look forward to people posting opinions both on the topics I address and on my commentary. You can tell me I'm wrong (I have been once or twice in my life), but please do so in a way that fosters communication rather than destroys it (response A: I disagree because blah blah physical silver blah) (response B: You @#$%%$  #!#$%#$ @##$%). I look forward to learning from everybody. 

-Andrew