Understanding the left and right brain because of stroke

If you really want to know how your brain works, read this book "My Stroke of Insight" and spend some time on this website . . . click here

watch the video on TED

Video - Dillards - Old Home Place

One of my favorite bluegrass songs and also one of theirs . . . .

On the subject of Spain . . . from John Mauldin

"As we have repeatedly said, Spain is set for a long, painful deflation that will manifest itself via a spectacularly high unemployment level, a real estate collapse and general banking insolvencies. Consider this: the value of outstanding loans to Spanish developers has gone from just €33.5 billion in 2000 to €318 billion in 2008, a rise of 850% in 8 years. If you add in construction sector debts, the overall value of outstanding loans to developers and construction companies rises to €470 billion. That's almost 50% of Spanish GDP. Most of these loans will go bad.
"Spanish banks are now facing a very bleak outlook. Spain's unemployment rate reached over 17% last month; there are now four million unemployed Spaniards and over one million families with not a single person employed in the family. Spain and Ireland had the worst housing bubbles in the world and now Spain has as many unsold homes as the US, even though the US is about six times bigger.
"Why are Spanish banks not insolvent? Spanish banks are not marking their real estate loans to market. We've often wondered how it is that our thesis for Spanish real estate and industrial collapse has not created more victims. The answer is simple according to an article in Expansion, the Spanish equivalent of the Financial Times, from the 19th of April titled 'Spanish banks control half of all real estate appraisals.' You can't make this stuff up. We haven't even begun to see the worst in Spain yet."

remembering Alan Bohnhoff

On May 18, 2009 Alan Bohnhoff was killed by a deranged employee at his family's hardwood lumber yard in Los Angeles. Alan was the son of Charlie who was the son of the founder of Bohnhoff Lumber Co in 1918, C R Bohnhoff. The Bohnhoff family and the Taenzer family (my grandfather) have been friends for years as American Hardwood was next door to Bohnhoff on 15th St for over 50 years and I've sold lumber to Bohnhoff.

We watched and tried to help as each other's lumber yards burned to the ground in the 50's and 70's.

Charlie told me yesterday, "He died in my arms". That's not the way it supposed to end. Alan was a good man, father and son. We'll miss people like him, he was too young to die. Today, Alan will be laid to rest. For more information click here

Video - Geithner and Stress Tests and Financial System analysis

Tim Geithner was on Charlie Rose recently and I was impressed by how he explained the vital importance of restoring confidence to the financial system. here is a short portion of that video

Talk about smart kids . . .

Teach Elementary School of San Luis Obispo has a 4th grade class which created a film that won an award at a recent film festival. The film "San Luis Obispo Historical Buildings" was created in the school's digital media lab; the students used Adobe Premiere Elements movie editing software to combine images with narration record on a homemade soundstage. You can buy a DVD for $10 from the school directly. for more information click here

Oh by the way, Teach's API score is 990! For those of you who are not aware of API scores, 1000 is tops!

The Dillards

Back in the 60's I discovered the Dillards at the Ice House in Pasadena and fell in love with bluegrass music, was awed by Doug's banjo playing and entertained by Rodney's humor . . . .

Although the Dillards aren't single-handedly responsible for bluegrass' migration from Appalachia to California, there's no denying they provided vital transportation. Raised in Salem, Mo., brothers Rodney and Doug Dillard jammed in a string of outfits before forming their own in 1960. The newly christened Dillards soon relocated to Los Angeles, where they made several appearances as the Darlings on the Andy Griffith Show. More importantly, the group became a pillar of the burgeoning folk/country-rock scene, along with the Byrds, Gosdin Brothers, Clarence White, etc. In 1967 Doug jumped ship to team up with ex-Byrd Gene Clark in the now legendary Dillard and Clark.

Investing according to Doug Kass - Seabreeze Partners

Rather, I prefer to stick to the discipline of interpreting fundamentals, valuation and sentiment through a logically reasoned, objective and analytical process. This means that I maintain the self-control of sitting on my hands, selling and/or shorting when values are rich and buying (even recklessly sometimes) when values emerge as they did two months ago.

This is, however, easier said (or written) than done. It requires patience and, at times, a variant or contrarian view and strength of analytical conviction. It often also requires one to ignore the business media's staccato repeated sound bytes of bullish breathlessness. Their intentions might be honorable, but quite frankly, the media, with few exceptions, have no or little skin in the game. And it often requires market participants to ignore the delivery of the talking heads whose platform is the media and whom are too frequently theatrical and shallow in their "advice" rather than substantive in their analysis.

Longest insult in Shakespeare

"A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lilly-livered, action-taking whoreson glassgazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamourous whining, if thou denyest the least syllable of the addition." King Lear Act II Scene II

thanks to Jim Cooper, a friend of my sister Sarah's who I met at the Parkfield Bluegrass Festival this past weekend.

Talk about strange accounting, did you hear about Citigroup

Citigroup said it made $1.6 billion in the last quarter. One of the ways Citigroup achieved this gain was booking a profit of $2.7 billion on the decline in Citi's own debt. Say what? Under accounting rules, Citi was allowed to book a one-time gain equivalent to the decline in its bonds because, in theory, it could buy back its debt cheaply and save $2.7 billion over time. Of course, Citi didn't actually do that. Even though more consumer loans went bad in the first quarter, Citi reduced its loan loss reserve from $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter to $2.1 billion in the first quarter, thereby picking up another $1.3 billion of 'earnings'. And the recent change in mark to market accounting enabled Citi to book an additional $413 million in 'profit' on impaired assets. Without theses one-time adjustments, Citi's $1.6 billion in first quarter profit becomes a $2.8 billion loss.

The Edge

Ever wonder what the guitarist for U2's real name is ? Well, he's David Evans and he's buying up Malibu to boot.

Universities overbuilt during the bubble too

Now, the vacant halls are reminders of the new math confounding U.S. colleges. Students, pummeled by scarce loans and savings plans that have fallen as much as 40 percent, are heading for less expensive schools. The perks designed to lure them during boom times -- from hot tubs to dorm-suite kitchenettes, to in-room cable TV -- are crushing universities with debt. Even projects like Simmons’s “green” management building (the $32 million School of Management building at Simmons College in Boston is all but deserted) with its rain-absorbing roof patio and toilets with two flushing modes, can turn into burdens as schools struggle with rising expenses, plummeting endowments and needier applicants.

“The spending binge by colleges and universities was part of the same trend that created the bubble in the rest of the economy,” says Ronald Ehrenberg, an economics professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and author of “Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much” (Harvard University Press, 2000). “Now we’re seeing it burst.”

From Harvard University to California’s 3 million-student community college network, the American system of higher education is in turmoil. The economic crash is upending each step in the equation that families use to determine where students will spend four of their most formative -- and expensive -- years. Today is the deadline that most schools set to receive a decision from accepted applicants.

from Bloomberg click here to read the whole story

Video - Tiger's Masterly Chip

The chip in on #16 at the Masters in 2005 was iconic for so many reasons but here's a new look at the shot . . . . it's amazing and only Tiger can do stuff like this!

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