The falcon cannot hear the falconer... but GE is 7%

Okay, maybe this should be a footnote, but first let's review the darkest words of Yates, just after WWI and right before the dawn of the roaring 20's:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

Now, let's look at what's trading at yields higher than 7%, which is a good place to be if you want to double your money sooner than later:

GE (nuff said?)

Okay, fine; how about yield, PE ratio and PEG? Yeah, I know, who is figuring out the growth rates on these companies, right? After all, figures don't lie, but liars figure. But, let's say they are wrong by double, the flip side of an engineer's standard design stress test/benchmark for building a bridge, for example).

GE
Div & Yield: 1.24 (7.00%)
P/E: 8.90
PEG Ratio (5 yr expected): 0.84

So their may still be diamonds on the beach, which are looking a lot like the diamonds on the shores of Thomas More's Utopia, I admit. Sure, the economy and people's retirement funds are looking more like an awful distopia. But is it better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, and maybe folks like Hank the Tank Paulson, Goldman's 1/2 billion dollar man who retired to finish the ponzi scheme at the US Treasury department.







VZ
VERIZON COMMUN
7.30%
12.29
1.22




PFE
PFIZER INC
Yield: 7.70%
PE: 10.61
PEG: 1.82 (high PEG, but strong brand, in spite of pipeline issues...)

PAG
PENSKE AUTOMOTIVE (Moving vans: when you gotta go, you gotta go)
6.40%
3.61 (WTF?)
0.4 (come on!)

JNY
JONES APPAREL GP INC
6.70%
2.19
0.87

VIP (Russian on cellphones)
VIMPEL COMMUN
6.40%
3.96
0.25

TK
TEEKAY CORP (waiting for a shipping rebound)
7.40%
8.70
0.2 (absurd PEG ration)


Will fundimentals ever be in fashion? Maybe when who is ever left with cash starts buying businesses for pennies on the 2007 dollar, fundimentals may matter. But for now, sorting out these TGTBT yields and picking a few places to park cash seems better than a kick or a poke, right?

Now for something stranger than fiction: