Appreciate your thoughts, keep it up.
Not a problem. Some people don't understand that investing is part ownership of a business (A "C Corporation"). You point out their faults and instead of the other party thinking about what was said, they get defensive. Resort to name calling (troll, F bomb, etc). debt/equity means next to nothing. To a business owner, they care about their ability to pay off debt. Equity does not tell you much about this matter.
I should just give up. To many people treat investing like religion. They believe in EPS and debt/equity simply because they do. Imagine talking about discounted cash flow modeling on your favorite investing TV show. You'd loose 95% of your viewers. Might as well just stick with EPS. That is just division of two numbers. Tell people that there is more than what the media talks about and it is not believable for some reason. The reason that debt/equity, EPS and other simple numbers are talked about is because they have to be talked about to keep viewership. And therefore keep the ad revenue coming in. If a show did not do this, it would not be on TV for long since it is not profitable.
Thinking that the housing market will never turn is just a flaw in human nature. This is in regards to the psychology of human misjudgment. This book is awesome about discussing these points:
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, 3rd Edition (Hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Wisdom.../dp/1578644283
I am about half way through it. It's alot of stuff that is obvious but it points out the fact that these are real flaws in everyone. People see a down trend and think things will never get better. or the opposite happens (like in 2000) and the stock market gets irrationally exuberant.
For what it is worth, my Jim Cramer comment was misunderstood. The point is that Jim Cramer (if you've seen his show) is asked about a myriad of companies. No one knows 500 stocks well, not to mention 5000. He looks at some data on his desk during the lightening round (ya, you can see him do so, it is obvious) and he immediately comes up with a buy/sell recommendation. Cash from ops is a metric that can be found in under a minute. My point was that there is more to USG that cash from ops. Perhaps this type of long winded explanation would have been better. It’s that human psychology thing. Sometimes things are so obvious to ones self, that they fail to notice that it is not obvious to everyone else. Quite frankly, when I watch Cramer I tend to laugh a lot. It really is a funny show if you actually know how to invest intelligently. Then there is the realization that this guy is watched by a lot of people. And a vast majority of people aren’t laughing with you. Then some feelings of sadness creep in. I really feel sorry for people that appreciate Cramer for his “insights”