Noticed that Swaggs and Active are flitting in and out today; Hope you both had a nice Christmas and Best wishes for a Prosperous New Year in 2013...

Got to agree with a lot of what oldCHUM is saying...We got a can-kick on parts and there is plenty of work to do yet....It involves cuts, and many; OTHERWISE this was just "window dressing."

Glad some have explained what we(they) have accomplished so far...Read a little in other places,

some is important to us, and plenty might be important to others...THEY are far from done, YET.

The VOTE of 257-167 is not what I called comfortable.....We'l​l see.

As I called a few to a dozen days back....Expected "11th. Hour" and a "300-500 up for the week..."

But we still have the Profiteers, lurking in the shadows..And a few pennies are just that, a few pence.

Just seems like a good day to sit back and SIP...Fine whiskey...Got a few bottles for Christmas..

Have a few friends...That drink...And a couple good kids or g-kids.

As I wrote elsehere......Just sit back and muse about what has happend.

Your Congressman and Senators are probably all Gathering for expensive luncheons,in small groups.

I'm sure they are backslapping, all saying they did what they could; And won their Points..

All sitting around giggling about how they GOT their way...And the other guy was an idiot.

And we will all get this hammered out in a few weeks, and all be winners...except..

Yup guys, light up the Cigars;  Time to get the "top shelf" booze out..

Thank you to Active RIA for pointing out what this bill does that is very good;

1.  this provides a measure of short-term certainty over both income tax and estate tax policy

2.  this provides a big stimulus of another year of federal unemployment payments

3.  this fixes the whole alt min tax (AMT) mess permanently so it doesn't have to be fixed and kicked around every year

4.  this shows that when it comes to a real crunch, and when obama takes the time to actually provide leadership instead of doing the hulu in hawaii, the congress can actually come together and compromise to get something done

It seems that only you and I have read and liked this bill LOL.  I agree it is a solid first step, everyone on here complaining about this bill not addressing spending cuts seems to miss the point.  Immediatly after the bill passed every member of congress and the president  all said we now have to tackle spending but the tax issue has been solved, a first step.  They are not saying they are done and admit there is tons of work ahead. 

This bill does everything you wrote and maybe as importantly it will 1 less complication or issue to hide behind when negotiating spending cuts.  The cuts in the cliff that will happen in 1 month actually seem less scary now without the tax increases, might be the only shot at decreasing military spending.

in the end, this was a concrete advance from the fear gripping the market based on past actions of the conservative roadblock in the house of reps.  it is indeed a good beginning ....  

And this morning when anohter commentator asked what about the fed being the biggest buyer of our debt by prining money, Mr. cramer smugly said "Go buy some gold".  These pundits who are legends in their own minds are really something.  They remind me of people who laughed at me in 2006 when I said you had to be a dummy to buy a house especially in places like Florida or Phoenix. We cant default on our debt. The only thing the U.S can do is keep doing what it has been doing and that is printing money to buy bonds to try and keep interest rates at zero. But even the fed has warned that will be coming to an end in 2014.  A one percent increase in interest rates will eat up the entire obama tax increase. How come people like Mr. Cramer dont talk about that??? But in five years or so Mr. Cramer will have forgotten his smugness just like he cant remember his smugness during the internet boom when he was telling you to buy companies like Yahoo in the hundreds pers share.

FIRST OFF.....You have to have a plan.....Then if it all goes to shidt...You have to have another plan.

Let's call that Plan"B".....If that falls into the proverbial manure pile....Try Plan "C"...

If you have went this far, you probably don't need anoher Plan, because you are pretty much done OR

COOKED, TOAST, FINI........SCREWED.​