Ray Floyd - there wasn't anyone better

20 Million Things (to do) by Lowell George

If it's fix a fence, fender dents
I've got lots of experience
Rent gets spent
All the letters never written, that don't get sent
It comes from confusion, all things I left undone
It comes from moment to moment, day to day
The time seems to slip away

But I've got twenty million things to do, twenty million things
All I can think about is you
With twenty million things
Twenty million things to do

I've got mysterious wisteria hanging in the air
The rocking chair I was supposed to fix
Well it came undid
And all the things that I let slip, I found out quick
It comes from moment to moment, day to day
The time seems to slip away

But I've got twenty million things to do, twenty million things
All I can do, is think about you
With twenty million
Twenty million things to do

The Hindenberg Omen is nigh

1 That the daily number of new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week Lows must be greater than 2.2 percent of total issues traded that day.
2 That the smaller of these numbers is greater than or equal to 69 (68.772 is 2.2% of 3126). This is not a rule but more like a checksum. This condition is a function of the 2.2% of the total issues.
3 That the NYSE 10 Week Moving average is rising.
4 That the McClellan Oscillator is negative on that same day.
5 That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than double new 52 Week Highs). This condition is absolutely mandatory.
On 8/12/2020, all five conditions were satisfied.
June 2008 was another such reconfirmed event, and as Barron's pointed out then, "there's a 25% probability of a full-blown stock-market crash in the next 120 days. Caveat emptor." Boy was the emptor caveating within 120 days (especially if said emptor was named Dick Fuld). Which brings us to the present: should the Omen be reconfirmed within 36 days, all bets are off.

Are you a truth seeker, or a truth obscurer?

"When the entire edifice rests on falsehoods, mistruths, faulty assumptions, false premises, future outcomes, as we have seen over the past few years, can be horrific. History teaches us that eventually, the Truth will reveal itself. When that happens, there can be terrible consequences: Economies collapse, wars occur, empires crumble, millions die.

Whenever I read a major policy piece, newspaper article, or OpEd, I ask the following question: Is this person a truth seeker, or a truth obscurer? When you see nasty posts that dissect/shred/fisk these, it is because I was not happy with the answer to that question."

from a piece by Barry Ritholz click here

on the subject of AIG and what should have happened . . .

Barry Ritholz writes

AIG ? There never was an implicit government guarantee that all counter-parties dealing with AIG-Financial Products — a giant leveraged structured finance hedge fund hiding under the skirt of the regulated insurer — would be made whole. But the Bush/Paulson/Bernanke bailout created one. Instead, AIG-FP should have been carved out for dissolution/wind down, while the insurer could have continued to exist on its own. AIG would have had the liability for the government’s costs, but the counter parties? They would have gotten zero. If you go to Vegas and shoot craps in the alley way behind the casino, don’t expect the gaming commission to collect your winnings. But that is what we did with AIG.

read his whole take on the subject here, it's fascinating and really good

Highest taxes in the nation for Californians

A new proposal to help balance California's budget calls for $600 million oil tax which will mean higher gas prices for Californians. As the Majority wants to impose new taxes on oil production in California, this will surely raise gas prices even higher. Californians already pay the highest gas taxes in the nation at 63.9 cents per gallon.

The public sector has become more attractive than the private sector.

Wow, that's a revelation isn't it?
“Anyone who wants to work an interesting job, earn a generous salary, enjoy unbeatable, rock-solid job security and, most importantly, advance the public good in pivotal ways would probably favor the federal sector,” said Lily Whiteman, Federal Careers Expert. Ms. Whiteman continues on to say, “...government employees seem to work shorter hours, have more vacation time, access unbelievable health care, never worry about job security and even make more money than people slugging it out in the private sector.”

Anamorphic Image

Hans Holbein, the court artist of Henry VIII painted The Ambassadors (pictured here) with an anamorphic image of a skull within it. In addition there are several symbolic images and hidden meanings (the sheet music has been identified as a piece composed by Martin Luther. . . read more here

from John Wooden's father . . .

"Make each day your masterpiece."

Insider Trading . . . the political kind

Every knows (or should know) that once elected officials "retire" they immediately go to work in the private sector peddling influence . . . you know, "special interests". Read about what Nassim Taleb is railing about now . . .

"Think about it a bit further: the more complex the regulation, the more bureaucratic the network, the more a regulator who knows the loops and glitches would benefit from it later, as his regulator edge would be a convex function of his differential knowledge. This is a franchise. (Note that this franchise is not limited to finance; the car company Toyota hired former U.S. regulators and used their "expertise" to handle investigations of its car defects). "

to read the whole story click here

Deduction

Deduction is based on inference. you take the evidence given, you call upon experience from past examples and you infer from a combination of this evidence and experience that the past experience will repeat.

How is the CPI figured?

The prices of 95,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way: Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, Entertainment: 4.4%.

Do you think that represents the way you experience prices? I don't. Nothing here about taxes, city, county, state of government fees. Nor does it take into account the size of the product shrinking or getting larger relative to it's price.

thought of the day

"There is no vengeance which maybe be inflicted, as biting and as limitless as regret." Anonymous

Does the Fed really know what it's doing and why we should care

Because, what the Fed announces it's going to do and what it does somehow affects people's emotions about the economy and their pocketbooks, etc. But should it?

As the WSJ article points out, it was only about four months ago that the Fed thought it could exit its quantitative easing program, and now it is looking for ways to restart the process.

Deflation ???

Folks had better be prepared for more food inflation, as the price of grains has been going wild, along with various other items such as chocolate and hogs. It's a good thing food and energy are excluded from the inflation/deflation debate.

The Fall . . . . a visual feast of a movie

Maybe I haven't said it before but I do believe that Netflix sends us DVDs we haven't ordered but they think we'd like to see and the most recent is right on target . . . The Fall, a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it. It is a visual feast from the 28 locations around the world to the sets to the actor's costumes, the lighting, camera angles . . . it's magnificent. The plot is a tough to figure out but the little girl is a star in the making. Click here to see some previews