Learning to think...

A very interesting piece by Nicholas Kristoff in the NY Times: Here

Just awesome....

Bigger image available here.

Madoff Parody...

Sick and twisted but oddly funny...

Ritholtz gets it right...again...

In his February 17th post, Hope is a Four Letter Word, Barry Ritholtz concisely explains the danger of being a market sheep...

Flexing financial muscle and why we are in deep sh*t...

In the mid 20th century we the people, through our elected officials, managed through what is historically referred to as the Suez Crisis.  In July of 1956 Eqypt, in response to the withdrawal of an offer by the US and Britian to build the Aswan Dam, decided to nationalize the Suez Canal, which had been built with French and Egyptian funds.

For a variety of reasons, which can explored at a different time in a different post, Britian, France, and Israel attacked Egypt in response to the nationalization of the Canal.  The military operation was a sterling success and a political disaster, specifically for the US.  So why are we talking about this and what does it have to do with debt?  Simple, the US felt that the hositilites needed to end quickly for political reasons.  The strongest weapon we had at our disposal was our economic strength.  So...

The United States also put financial pressure on Great Britain to end the invasion. President Eisenhower warned the British that unless they withdrew, he would order the sale of the United States' currency reserves of British Pounds and Sterling Bonds; thereby precipitating a collapse of the British currencies' exchange rate. Eisenhower in fact ordered his Secretary of the Treasury, George M. Humphrey to prepare to sell part of the US Government's Sterling Bond holdings.

The above is an excerpt from a great Wikipedia article on the Suez Crisis for thos interested.  I would also suggest this posting on Greenewable's Blog for some additional perspecitve.  

Bottom line, economics matters to national security.  In a very big way.  Don't kid yourself or let elected officials convince you otherwise.   The stimilus package currently under debate in Congress needs to be done but lets not lose sight of the potential long term ramifications.

From the state that brought you Huey Long...

According to this CNN article Stormy Daniels, yes the porn star, is seriously considering running for political office.  Specifically the US Senate. Given the, shall we call it, rich history, of politics in Louisiana, this isn't exactly a shocker.  The draft Stormy website states:

"Our grass-roots movement spans the political spectrum and champions Stormy's philosophy of personal responsibility and the promotion of individual enterprise. We eschew partisanship and labels, instead judging our leaders on their integrity, character and effectiveness." 

Could she really be any worse than the current cast of characters?

I can't help it...I love Amazon...

The new Kindle 2 from Amazon looks awesome!  I know I am a sucker for Amazon but you have to admit this thing rocks....

If you are interested check out this Wired blog to see how Kindle 2 stacks up against the newest Sony Reader.  Happy reading...

Gotta Love Duff, Guns & Finance...

Kudos to The Credit Crunch Times for bringing this to my attention.  It appears that according to a recent NY Post article Duff McKagan, former Guns N' Roses bassist, is now authoring a finance column for Playboy.

 McKagan admits, however, he doesn't understand all the technical ins and outs of high finance, but says TV's talking heads don't, either.

"Those boneheads on TV just want to make themselves come off as smart . . . I hope to shed some no-nonsense light on day-to-day money issues," he wrote, closing his salty commentary with a promise: "I will do my best to expose frauds and criminals, one at a time." 

Seriously, how much worse could he do then the current cast of characters...maybe we should give him a quick shot at a TARP suggestion...

Free Congressional Research Service Reports...

As pointed out by the Angry Bear Blog Today Congressional Research Service (CSR) reports are now available for free online thanks to Wikileaks.  The Congressional Research service is a division of the US Library of Congress.

For the full text of the Wikileaks posting click here.

Credit where credit is due...

Tim Ferris's book The 4-Hour Workweek has garnered quite a bit of interest and a hell of a lot of press recently.  In fact, Tim Ferris won a prize from Wired magazine last year for being the "greatest self promoter" of all time."

My guess is that it is true, that he is possibly the greatest self promoter out there.  In fact his website, wildly popular in some circles, is one gigantic self promotion.  

My point about this is, so what?  Who cares.  Give the dude some credit.  He has made some fantastic points.  Yes, the book reeks of self-help jargon in some cases but he also goes a step beyond and gives people real insights into how to impelement his lifestyle and is he completely transparent in that he knows he is operating at the extremes.  

Ferris's thinking and approach to life is unconventional and that, in itself, will draw out the critics.  Unconventional thought though is the only way to lead an unconventional life.  So I say read the damn book (it's a very quick read anyway).  Implement what you like and leave the rest but just like a great conversation with any opinionated person don't dismiss it because it is littered with some self promotion and cliché self help.  Just the tips on limiting email use are likely worth the price of admission alone. The guy wrote a well thought out book with real details about how he accomplished his goals.  He deserves the credit he is getting, even is he is a shameless self promoter.

Email Detox...

The link below is to a great brief story of someone's attempt at giving up email for 30 days along with the results....

Email Detox Story

Damn I need to try this...

Obama's Cabinet and Tax Problems

It seems that over the last few days all we are hearing about from the media is unpaid taxes or the "tax problems" of people waiting to serve in the new Obama administration.

Clearly its a problem and in the case of Tom Daschle he felt it was enough of one to drop out. Obama has also lost other key appointees over these type of issues.

So, what I would like to know is, are all of these people crooks? Or, is it more likely that our tax code is ridiculously complicated and burdensome? I'm not a tax expert but it seems that the tax code which is thousands of pages long at this point is a bit out of control.

Maybe its time we started taking Austin Goolsbee's Simple Return concept seriously.

Uh...Who wants to argue about infrastructure spending?

The American Society of Civil Engineers recently issued their 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. If your kids got this report card you would lock them in their room with the entire St. John's College reading list and wouldn't let them out until they could recite it verse by verse.

Some of the highlights:

America's Infrastructure G.P.A. = D
Total Investment Needs = $2.2 Trillion, (estimated 5 year need)
A = Exceptional
B = Good
C = Mediocre
D = Poor
F = Failing

The actual report card, with definitions, is here.

If you want to entertain yourself I suggest writing a note to your congressional reps daring them to explain to you how we cannot afford infrastructure spending if we want to remain just a wee bit competitive. Just for fun of course, y'know, only if you have nothing else to do.

Dear Mr. Buffett

It's unlike me to recommend a book before reading it but Janet Tavakoli's new book, Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street, has come highly recommended from a couple of well regarded sources.

Review to follow after my copy arrives.

More on QGRI

A who's  who of the government's "welfare" roll....

Nasdaq Government Relief Index, no they are not kidding

In their words:

"This Index allows taxpayers and other investors to measure the performance of U.S. companies that are participating in the government's financial relief plan," said NASDAQ OMX Executive Vice President John Jacobs. "We believe the NASDAQ OMX Government Relief Index will be useful in helping investors evaluate the government's investments and the impact of the relief plan on the economy during this period of historical significance."

The NASDAQ OMX Government Relief Index consists of companies across multiple industry groups that have received a direct investment from the U.S. Government greater than $1 billion. The Index is the first of the Government Relief Index Series that NASDAQ OMX will be launching in the coming weeks.

I generally hate rhetorical questions but seriously? Is this for real? Yup and it's quoted right here.

I'm grateful and perturbed at the same time. I mean, could there be an easier way to short the government's screw ups right before they kill all the equity? However, I feel obligated to be perturbed by its mere existence.

Once again, props to Greenewable for bringing this to my attention.

Uh...yea...thanks for the wishes John..

The lovely chaps at FT.com have posted John Thain's email to employees of Merrill Lynch here. So kind of him to begin with:

"It's been an honor..."

It sort of reminds me of the constant email postings from F*cked Company at the start of this century. Fortunately there are just not enough f*cked banks to support a website as there were dot coms.

Obama continues to outflank Republican Leadership...

It appears that the Republican leadership in congress may be continuing down the road of underestimating President Obama’s mastery of information disintermediation as a tool for campaigning and governing. Looking at House Republican Leader John Boehner’s ridiculous approach to his first weekly radio address it is hard to come to any other conclusion.

As discussed on the Angry Bear Blog this morning, based on an article by Steve Benen in the Washington Monthly, Boehner is praying for a lot of cognitive dissonance. However, bloggers and reporters all over quick to point out that Boehner is full of it (it being what I like to refer to as completely unadulterated crap but, hey, form your own opinion on that one). Benen writes:

In the first weekly Republican radio address under the new administration, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) touted the GOP's vision for an economic recovery.

"Our plan is rooted in the philosophy that we cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," Boehner stated.

The minority leader said the package authored by congressional Democrats was "chock-full of government programs and projects," noting a Congressional Budget Office report that projected less than half of the $355 billion that House Democrats would spend to create jobs through infrastructure programs and other efforts is likely to be used before the end of fiscal 2010.

Let's see, where to start. First, the CBO report Boehner is so fond of doesn't really exist. Second, Boehner has supported nothing but "borrow and spend" policies since the moment he arrived in Congress, which helps explain his votes in support of budgets that produced the largest deficits in American history.

Third, if the administration and the congressional majority listened to Boehner and relied on weak-stimulus tax cuts to improve the economy, isn't that necessarily a "borrow and spend" policy? And if tax cuts were the magic bullet, and Bush and Boehner cut taxes over the last eight years, shouldn't the economy be in great shape? (Indeed, it's this thinking that led the National Republican Congressional Committee to argue, as recently as yesterday, "Thanks to Republican economic policies, the U.S. economy is robust and job creation is strong.")

And fourth, of course the Democratic plan is "chock-full of government programs and projects." That's the point.

Boehner, and the rest of the leadership, are not prepared for Obama on a tactical or strategic level. In fairness, Boehner's address was also a YouTube address which as of this writing has been viewed just over 5,000 times. President Obama’s address has been viewed almost 800,000 times. More importantly, Obama directs viewers/listners to the administrations website, www.recovery.gov, where they intend to offer extensive disclosure on how the money is being spent.

Political maneuvering and spinning of the facts has existed as long as man but Obama's continual ability to get right to the people by sidestepping traditional means continues to astound. Far too much has already been written about his use of technology etc so I will spare the details but, even with all that analysis, its not clear that the Republican party has figured it out. Even with master wordsmiths like Karl Rove and Frank Lutz it's going to take a lot more work than they are used to overcome the information flow that Obama has mastered. Forcing all of these characters to tell the truth (at least more of the time) can only be good for Americans (Dems and Republicans).

A point that is not made often enough....

I was going through some old notes and found an article from a few years ago which makes a fantastic point, especially as it applies to investment management.  Remy Trafelet, manager of The Trafelet Delta funds, is quoted in the Financial Times:

"I recently interviewed a candidate who asked what my policy on 'face time' is," he says.  "I told him: 'If I see your face too much in the office, you're in trouble."

The complete article is here.

A Modest Proposal, Part Two: Stockades

I don't know that I want to get in the habit of quoting Paul Begala but you have to give it to him when he is dead on.  In his commentary today on the Huffington Post he seems to have one hell of a modest proposal.

The first Modest Proposal post is here.

Because I say laughing your ass off is good for you...

Barry Ritholtz's blog The Big Picture is one of my favorites. Not sure what possessed me but I decided to read his disclosures page today and still can't stop laughing....

Click here because you really can afford five minutes for a laugh.

Hello...wake up...unreal...I.O.U.S.A

The movie I.O.U.S.A was released months ago to some positive press coverage but nowhere near the fanfare it deserved.

The astounding reviews can be seen here.

The film is interesting, moving, and really, really damn informative. Check out the trailer below. Before you get all up in arms about not having 90 minutes to watch a film the filmmakers have done us all a huge favor and released a 30 minute "byte-sized" version. Pete Peterson should get a medal for investing his time and money in this film.

Thinking about Facebook....

I like my relationship with Facebook. Pretty straightforward, I like catching up with old friends and I only get moderately annoyed by hearing from people I don't really care to catch up with. However, yesterday, someone I know was "friended" by a 62 year old friend of their parents. Now, I understand that Facebook has long become mainstream but, c'mon, really? It makes me think of going "silent" on all these networking sites. When Mom's friends start catching up...wow! I'm happy for the folks at Facebook but having serious reservations about my future participation....

Becoming an Amazon Shill...

So I'm reading Barry Schwartz's book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less and thinking about the steps I took to select Blogger versus of any of the other blogging options.  Turns out Barry is right, spending time looking at too many options is not useful and can be painful.  So rather than using the time to evaluate multiple blogging sites I picked one and used the free time to set up an Amazon Associates account.  Seriously, the book is great because he really gets you thinking about not only choice but how you spend your time. 

Click here to listen to Barry giving a talk on the book at TED.

A Modest Proposal....

I shared this article from the New York Times with a friend and he suggested that I forward it to House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank's attention...just as a frame of reference of course....

Death Sentences in Chinese Milk Case

You can read my buddy's blog at Greenewable