Unconventional: not conventional; not bound by or conforming to convention, rule, or precedent; free from conventionality.

Notions: opinions, views, beliefs, conceptions, or ideas.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

More on QGRI

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





Monday, January 26, 2009

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).

Saturday, January 24, 2009

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.

Friday, January 23, 2009

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....

Thursday, January 22, 2009

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