I'm shocked,

The rich work internationaly and have no allegences. The very wealthy should not be in control of our country.

A person who bets against the US to make money should NOT be the VP.

Yeah, but Clinton got a Beej in the Oval Office.

/Just striking a match.

Not a bias site at all. Why do you guys hate worldnetdaily and newsmax? Ah, I see; their bias isn't the same as yours. Gotcha.

what a Dick.

Honestly. Can someone please get these arseholes out of office already?

"He could make more money if the country was a flop!" -the producers

Landofmiddlegirth

Editorial content aside, the facts speak for themselves:

http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/features/archives/2006/05/president.h tml

People with lots of money who wish to stay wealthy will diversify their investments. Please put away the tinfoil already.

The article is called "Cheney's betting on bad news" and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in "a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation."

Confused?

First two?

Landofmiddlegirth

There's a difference between bias and outright falsehood. This site is the former, Newsmax the latter.

The Cheneys' total assets could be as high as $94.6 million, according to the disclosure form. The vice-president's advisers say the vice president pays no attention to his investments. His lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell, says outside money managers supervise the investments. "He has nothing to do with it," O'Donnell says.

What?

Pays no attention to his investments? Gimme a break!

Hey, as long as I got my refund check for $300 in 2001, why should I care?

Of course, gas was a buck cheaper then, but who's counting?

Well, if they actually told the American people the economy is going to be farked up for a next couple decades that might shake us out of our self-imposed malaise and Lord knows we wouldn't stand for it. Better to be ignorant and blissful than worry our pretty little heads about things like the eoncomy. Bush will let us know when to worry. He's looking out for us, didn't you hear?!

that site is for leftwing morans who don't understand economics;
newsmax is for rightwing morans who don't understand compassion.

Okay, hands up who knows what the word satrapy means? No?

Got an American education did you ..

/Not kidding

This is just disgusting...

The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.

This country needs an enema.

For an article featuring actual content rather than angry bloggers rattling their keyboards, check out the original article on Kiplinger's

Diversifying his investment and bet hedging? Why no serious investor would ever think of doing such a stupid thing like risk management? SHOCK SHOCK HORROR HORROR

ingvar:

Sounds like it's a word from a terror supporting nation, to me!

Old Gil: For an article featuring actual content rather than angry bloggers rattling their keyboards, check out the original article on Kiplinger's

The Cheneys also had between $10 million and $25 million in American Century International Bond. The fund buys mainly high-quality foreign bonds.

The Cheneys' relatively few U.S. stock fund holdings include $1 million to $5 million in GMO Tax-Managed U.S. Equities III.

I feel much better. Thanks.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

LOOK, OVER THERE! GAYS ARE TRYING TO GET MARRIED!

coachwdb: LOOK, OVER THERE! GAYS ARE TRYING TO GET MARRIED!

And, I heard fer-in-ers were hopping the border.

Dammit. Damn the economy. Let's get 'em.

Alexander Cockburn? What the hell kind of name is that!

Will someone with more of a stomach for such a blatantly ignorant and biased knee-jerk leftist site read the article and tell me if there's anything worthwhile in it?

Excellent...

When Cheney gets citizenship for another country, then you know its time to run.

blutnerd :
i think we both know the answer to that, a lucky name

I'm honestly surprised there are so many close-minded, isolationist fools who know jack shiat about economics here on Fark. Oh wait, no I'm not.

Of course, the inclusion of Cheney in this story is an automatic trump card no matter what... all logic is discarded when the player is wearing their level 12 "War 4 oil LoL" robe.

vliam

I feel much better. Thanks.

Not saying you have any reason to feel better - just wanted to provide a more credible / less vitriolic source for the info.

What's the problem? That asset allocation looks about right for somone of Dick Cheney's age. It's absolutely ludicrous to imagine him solely invested in American equities. In fact, the problem is most people aren't diversified enough. You don't hold only American securities in your IRA/401(k) do you? (You probably shouldn't).

You hold short-term bonds primarily because they're not risky (as definied by volatility). If you're worried about inflation being an issue, you should stick your money in GOLD. There are risks involved in using TIPS as a hedge vs. inflation (the inflation adjusted portion is taxable, the CPI may not be an accuracte gauge of inflation, etc.).

Maybe he's native american. Named after his conception or something.

Kenshiko, I agree there is a difference. I am curious to what exactly has newsmax falsely reported on? Specifics and links would be nice.

Keep them printin' presses rollin', Benny!

Uh, where's the proof?

Is Cheney controlling his assest or are they in a blind trust like most pres and vise pres do?

I'm not an investor, I just don't have that kind of cabbage, but I can see the wisdom in diversifying internationally. Hell, were I one, I would've done so starting around Nov. 2000.

This website and their sponsors are about as "unbiased" as CNN.

Hmm... i take it some of you would think a CEO who bought puts on his own company's stock was just being "a smart investor" and was "hedging his bets".

Fart_Machine: Please put away the tinfoil already.

(pops)

But...the tinfoil comes in such snazzy styles(pops) now!

/freaking sweet

To the people saying "Hey, he's just hedging his bets..."..you are missing the point. He is the vice president of this country saying one thing to the public, yet his investments prove that he doesn't believe what he is saying but believes something completely different. The issue isn't whether or not he is diversified enough...the issue is whether or not he is lying to the public about our financial health while quietly betting on our financial ill health.

Golly.

The author has discovered that companies from the US, Europe, Japan, etc. have been building manufacturing plants in China?

And that IT and other jobs have been moved to India?

Wow. That's news.

And this all started under Bush-Cheney? I'm astonished. Prior to Y2K, all cars, cameras, TVs, oil, electronics, textiles, chemicals, etc. were produced locally. George & Dick must have pointed some guns at the heads of corporate America, demanding they go global.

And there was a time when Congress actually controlled the budget, not the Executive Branch. Dick must be mighty powerful to shift that power.

But how did he & George convince the American public to buy all those cars from Japan, electronics from Korea, Oil from the Middle East, agriculture from S. America, etc?

Them are two smart dudes.

I'd email the author to ask how they did all of this, but he uses an MSN email address. And as most know, Microsoft has invested huge chunks of money in China & India, so I can't support his patronage of this third partner in the Bush-Cheney world domination plan.

that_other_internet: Uh, where's the proof?


People have posted the links to the proof farther up the thread. Cheney is required to disclose his investments.

But yeah, it's a liberal conspiracy.

mr0x

First two?

The article was poorly phrased. I think the author was going for something on the lines of - inflation is a problem, and thus, the Fed will raise rates in order to fight inflation.

Short term muni-bonds and money markets are both short term debt instruments (money markets especially). As a result, they both have very low durations. Duration is a rule-of-thumb indicator for how sensitive a bond is to interest. Lower duration, less interest rate risk.

To provide a more concrete example:
Imagine you have two bonds, one that matures tommorow and yields a 5% coupon, and one that matures a year from now, yielding 6%. Let's say the fed funds rate is currently at 5%, but the fed decides to jack it up to 10%. The price of the bond that matures tommorow isn't going to drop that much, since you're only losing about one day of interest (you get 5% instead of 10% you'd get if you bought a bond today). The one year bond gets hit far worse, since you're stuck getting a crappy coupon - thus, its price will drop until its yield becomes attractive.

Thus, short duration bonds give you a hedge against interest rate rises.

I just have a hard time reading anything that sinister into all of this, especially the whole low-interest rate thing. Anyone in the late 90s with rudimentary self-awareness could see that the economy was bound to tank in 2000, because of the insanity of the "new economy" and the dot-com tulip mania. This wasn't some kind of disaster engineered by the Bush administration, it was just inevitable. To help the economy recover from that, the Fed -- led by the same Alan Greenspan who ran it under Clinton -- lowered interest rates.

This worked, but it had the side effect of causing lots of people to buy into the whole "buy a house you can't really afford / watch the price rise / borrow against the equity you just received due to the price ballooning" thing, and now that the housing market is cooling and interest rates are rising, they are saddled with McMansions that are worth less than they owe on them and are up to their ears in refinanced credit card debt. That sucks for those folks, but the information required to make the correct decision is out there and they chose no to use it.

Personally I'm really happy with the economy of the 2000s. I bought my house in the fall of 2000 and financed 90% of the purchase price with a fixed-rate mortgage. I never borrowed against the equity, because I live within my means, and the house is now worth easily two and a half times what I owe on it. Even if the market cools down and the house is only worth twice what I owe when I sell it, I'm still doing a lot better than I would have in a normal housing market.

And specifically regarding Cheney, it's obvious that interest rates are going to rise, so I don't understand what is so bizarre about him making investments that hedge against or take advantage of that. I guess he's evil if he does and stupid if he doesn't?

Why is it so hard to fathom that Dick would screw you over? Partisian politics aside, you have to admit that no one up there has your best interests in mind. Bush and Cheney will screw you over for money. Kerry and Edwards would have screwed you over for money too. Hell, I would screw you over for that much money.

The veep has a diversified portfolio. Let's figure out how we can use it to attack the Bush administration.

ingvar: Okay, hands up who knows what the word satrapy means? No?

Got an American education did you ..

I now know what it means. I looked it up. Yes, government schools suck. That is why I've sent my kid to a private school.

She needs a better start than I had.

I looked at the title quickly and thought it said "cockpunch" which is what Dick needs.

Can I ask why this is a non-issue and yet Clinton's real estate investments in Arkansas required a multi-million dollar Congessional investigation?