Video - 48 Hour Jam in Bakersfield

Enjoy a quick look at what went on during the weekend where bluegrass pickers gathered to do nothing but enjoy each other's company and pick!

Successful Big Family Party 14 or more

Lots of space, so everyone can feel free to stretch out for a break if the need/want to.

A little of what everyone has at home : cut meats in the frig, a keg of beer, a lot of good wine and malted whiskies, mementos of those in attendance or relatives, an environment where everyone feels at ease, good food, close and good accommodations, something to familiarize everyone with the local area : parks, downtown, beaches, hiking trails and walks, parks, golf, surfing, etc.

Mark Twain on the newspaper

"If you don't read the newspaper you're not informed; if you read the newspaper you're misinformed."

Mark Twain

Still lot's of debt - too much to get the economy moving

"With all of the talk of the difficult borrowing environment and de-leveraging, very little debt is actually gone, despite massive write-offs by banks," Andy Matthes, portfolio manager at Matthes Capital, wrote in a recent letter to investors, a copy of which was obtained by MarketWatch. Most of this debt mountain is still tied to the fragile, government-supported housing market. At the peak of the real estate boom in 2006, U.S. households owed $9.8 trillion in mortgage debt. By the end of September, that had climbed to $10.3 billion.

Such high debt levels leave households with less cash available to spend on other things. With consumers typically accounting for two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, this situation should dent economic growth. However, personal consumption currently makes up more than 70% of GDP, well above the average of 66% since 1929, according to Matthes.

Consumption has likely remained high because of government transfer payments, which help people who have fallen on hard times through the social welfare system.

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.

for more click here

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.