Do you feel safer?

"Security theater" refers to security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security. An example: the photo ID checks that have sprung up in office buildings. No one has ever explained why verifying that someone has a photo ID provides any actual security, but it looks like security to have a uniformed guard-for-hire looking at ID cards.

But there are literally millions of potential targets in any large country -- there are 5 million commercial buildings alone in the United States -- and hundreds of potential terrorist tactics. It's impossible to defend every place against everything, and it's impossible to predict which tactic and target terrorists will try next.

Security is both a feeling and a reality. The propensity for security theater comes from the interplay between the public and its leaders.

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Blue Moon on New Year's Eve

Thursday night there will be a Blue Moon, the 12th of the year but a Blue Moon falling precisely on December 31st is very unusual. The last time it happened was in 1990, and the next time won't be until 2028. Click here for more info

The Generations

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Video - Fatso dies in From Here to Eternity

Violence

"Weapons are instruments of misfortune. Those who are violent do not die naturally." Lao-tzu

Is the Gerrymandering finally going to be over in California?

Go this link and see We Draw the Lines

RSVP

Répondez s'il vous plaît, a French phrase that translates to "please respond". It is with this meaning that invitation cards and similar documents are often marked with "RSVP." In Western culture, not replying to an RSVP request with a confirmation of one's attendance or absence is often considered rude.

Gift Cards - my take

Nothing says “I am both thoughtless and inconveniencing” like a gift card. They let the recipient know that you couldn’t be bothered actually picking out a present, so here is a cash equivalent — only so much less convenient than the crisp paper kind of cash. And, you can only spend it in one place. That's assuming you don't lose it.

Patience

Patience before acting is far more important than patience after acting.

Solving Problems using Heuristics

Heuristics are "rules of thumb", educated guesses, intuitive judgments or simply common sense. A heuristic is a general way of solving a problem using experience-based techniques that help in problem solving, learning and discovery

They care . . .

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

On the subject of consumer spending

Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) do indeed make up about 70% of US GDP, making total US PCE or household spending about 15% of the global economy and bigger than the entire Chinese economy. How then can the US economy and the rest of the world grow with the US consumer in retrenchment? To answer that, we take a closer look at the composition of PCE.

Only 25% of personal consumption is discretionary spending

What many investors fail to realize is that the majority of PCE is not made up of iPods, handbags and dinners at the local Outback Steakhouse. Instead, about 75% of household spending is non-discretionary in nature, such as housing, healthcare, energy, food eaten at home and other household staples. We think it is worth noting that most of these non-discretionary items are made in the US.

While there is certainly room to reduce non-discretionary spending, the areas of consumer spending feeling the brunt of higher household saving rates are cars, travel, apparel, restaurants and other discretionary items that make up about 25% of PCE, equivalent to 20% of US GDP (Chart 3) or less as many of these nondiscretionary items are imported. 20% of US GDP is still significant, but far less than the 70% figure that makes the headlines. Another figure sure to make the headlines this time of year is retail sales. The contribution to US GDP from retail sales has actually been declining for over ten years. Excluding supermarkets, retail sales are under 40% of total consumption, or about 25% of GDP.

Tiger should . . .

sit down and bare it all with OPRAH!

Video - Orsen Welles masterpiece ending

The latest from Bill Gross of PIMCO

The Fed is trying to reflate the U.S. economy. The process of reflation involves lowering short-term rates to such a painful level that investors are forced or enticed to term out their short-term cash into higher-risk bonds or stocks. Once your cash has recapitalized and revitalized corporate America and homeowners, well, then the Fed will start to be concerned about inflation – not until.

How does the Eurozone go about dealing with it's debt?

Like many countries in the euro, Greece has the potential to actually have credit risk, because it can no longer print the currency with which to pay off its debt. As ugly as debt levels are in the United States, Japan or other non-euro countries, downgrading their credit is silly, since they can pay what they owe by just printing the money, but those in the Eurozone are going to have bigger problems dealing with their debt.

Aaron Schroeder's passing

Let's all pause and remember the life and career of one great songwriter and producer, Aaron Schroeder (1926-2009). Aaron wrote 17 songs for Elvis Presley, now that's getting some exposure! Beginning in 1940, Mr Schroeder wrote over 2000 songs; he co-wrote five #1 songs for Presley, one "It's Now or Never" which #92 on Billboard's 2008 Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs. He wrote Gene Pitney's "Only Love Can Break a Heart" and "Town Without Pity". He wrote Bobby Vee's "Rubber Ball" and the Staple Singers' "Hammer and Nails". He also wrote more but you can search for further information on your own. Have you used Bing yet?? Try it.

Picasso's Guernica

An amazing history in it's own right. Franco didn't want him or his painting and Picasso kept it in Spain until Franco was verifiably dead. If you want to see an amazing 3D look at the piece click here

Bill Fleckenstein

I've long been a follower of Bill Fleckenstein, he's saved me a lot of money in the market and made me a lot of money by alerting me and follow subscribers to the non bubblevision nuances of the markets and it's meaningful events and noise. You can read his comments for free on MSNBC. Here is a link to the page that describes his terminology click here

Open Space of SLO

Among the many attributes of SAN LUIS OBISPO that we value is the Open Space. There aren't many places in the world where you can stand atop a 20 million year old volcanic plug called Cerro San Luis and look in one direction and see a nicely planned out city next to one of America's great centers of learning and turn around and look in two directions and see the Pacific Ocean and look down and see a park with a lake in it . . . . all within the City Limits.