Rush Limbaugh's $1,000,000 bet

I was reminded today about this . . . . Do you recall Rush Limbaugh's offer to bet $1 million that President Bill Clinton's 1994 tax increases would plunge the country into a recession? Didn't happen.

Is it about the oil??

Victor Davis Hansen writes ". . . . Yet it's the anger over the tiny West Bank that in the past caused the Arab patrons of the Palestinians to embargo oil to the West and create long gas lines in Europe and America. As a result, a single suicide bomber from Jericho earns more press than anonymous thousands slaughtered in Darfur."


read more here

Pirated Music

According to BigChampagne, one billion songs a month are traded on illegal file-sharing networks.

A different view of our friends in Iraq . . .

George Packer has written an great piece in the New Yorker Magazine, here is an excerpt . . .

Whenever I asked Iraqis what kind of government they had wanted to replace Saddam’s regime, I got the same answer: they had never given it any thought. They just assumed that the Americans would bring the right people, and the country would blossom with freedom, prosperity, consumer goods, travel opportunities. In this, they mirrored the wishful thinking of American officials and neoconservative intellectuals who failed to plan for trouble . . . . . . . Although Iraqi employees had been vetted with background checks and took regular lie-detector tests, a permanent shadow of suspicion lay over them because they lived outside the Green Zone. Firas once attended a briefing at which the regional security officer told newly arrived Americans that no Iraqi could be trusted. The reminders were constant. Iraqi staff members were not allowed into the gym or the food court near the Embassy. Banned from the military PX, they had to ask an American supervisor to buy them a pair of sunglasses or underwear. These petty humiliations were compounded by security officers who easily crossed the line between vigilance and bullying.

a warning of sorts . . . this is a long article but worth the read
click here to read the rest of the article

Mortgage Fraud

The Treasury Department received a record 37,313 mortgage fraud reports in 2006, 10 times more than in 2000. But the true incidence is almost certainly higher because the government gets reports only from regulated institutions, not including the nation's 53,000 mortgage-broker firms.

What's wrong at Ford???

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.
Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program” with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was a discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year, the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India .
Sadly, The End

Sad, but oh so true! Here’s something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can’t make money paying American wages. Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter’s results: Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

and in a story this morning 4/6/07, Ford announced they paid the new CEO $28.18 million in his 1st 4 months on the job, they also paid $8.67 million for a few months work who to another who retired in July as COO

What's a "Grain"

Whenever you hear the term grain as in a measure of some herb or drug don't you wonder what the heck a grain is? The term originated from the unit of measure based historically on the average weight of a single grain of wheat. It was subsequently set to a more precise .0648 grams or .002285 ounces.

source . . . Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

Short Sales are Hot

``Banks don't want to be real estate managers,'' said Doug Duncan, chief economist of the mortgage association. ``The fact that delinquencies are rising means we're going to see more pre- foreclosure sales.'' read about it here

This is a good thing.

Sub-prime lenders are having no difficulty in finding buyers for their portfolios . . . Santa Monica, California-based Fremont said in a statement. The buyer wasn't identified. The loss reflects a discount to face value of about 4 percent, less than most analysts and investors had expect. read about it here

Rethinking California's Schools

Dan Weintraub is the best op-ed writer looking after Calfornia's taxpayers and citizens agendas . . . he's written another great piece on how the legislature could best handle the public schools . . . . . read it here

Sub-prime mortgage implosion will have dire consequences

Doug Kass at The Street.com is not your typical perma-bull, in fact he's the opposite and his take on the implosion of the sub-prime mortgage market and how it will affect liquidity, spending, profits and more is a good read. It might not come true but it's worth being aware of . . . click here to read the whole article

Government Childbearing Incentives

You just knew it had to be going on but here's some data on the subject.

Germany saw a birth boom during the first days of the new ear, attributed mainly to the government's childbearing incentives (bonuses of up to the equivalent of $33,000, leading mothers to attempt to delay December delivery until the law kicked in on Jan. 1). Meanwhile, in the United States, according to a December New York Times feature, an estimated 6% of the annual 70,000 babies scheduled to be born the first week of January were once again induced early, for late December delivery, to take advantage of tax breaks of at least $4,000 per child.

Interesting thought on God

A local letter to the editor said the following, ". . . As my father, a Navy doctor, used to say: God could have helped humanity much more by merely commanding, 'Thou shalt wash our hands several times a day.' "

Bill Gross "the bond guru" of PIMCO's latest month newsletter is great as always

"Actually it probably is good for something – war, that is. A lot of mankind’s technological advances have been bred in the bowels of wartime – radar and nuclear energy to name a few from World War II. And let’s not forget Iraq’s Humvee with its four-wheel consumer knock-off, the Hummer! Love those yellow Hummers rollin’ down the Coast Highway – 8 miles to the gallon and all – tailgating my poor little old Mercedes and threatening to roll right over it like a Bradley tank or something. In addition, war is usually justified as a defensive move – they did that to us or could do that to us, so it’s only logical we do that to them. And so it goes, and so it goes. But aside from these seemingly logical rationalities that stir jingoistic juices in a plea for our side, and a view that our dead are somehow more hallowed than their dead, I can only conclude from personal experience in Viet Nam, and redundant renderings of history books that Motown singer Edwin Starr was right – war is good for absolutely nothing." read me here

Did the Toll Brothers know the RE crash was coming?

or was that just good timing . . . here's a story about selling at the top (and I don't mean luxury homes) from the Street.com

"Everybody knows that Robert Toll and his brother Bruce, of the legendary homebuilder Toll Brothers are experts at building luxury homes. What we didn't know, until recently, is that they also are experts at selling shares.

Big time.

Back at the peak of the real estate market, when real estate agents and Wall Street shills were claiming the good times would just keep going, the Tolls took one look at the future ... and started shoveling shares out the door as fast as they could swing a spade.

In total, they sold nearly $470 million worth of stock in their company between November 2004 and September 2005, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show.

Nice timing -- for them."

If you think Stonehenge is amazing, check out Peru's 13 Towers

the mystery of the Thirteen Towers has been solved . . . . check this out here

Always consider the source . . .

When it comes to information about the economy, the markets or specific investment advice, it is always critically important to consider the source. Specifically, you need to know if the source of the information you are receiving is independent, or if the information is biased in some way in an effort to steer you toward their particular products and/or services. Likewise, you need to determine if the information or advice is credible.

Garlic doesn't help lower cholesterol . . . ?

What are they going to tell next? the earth is not warming?

Are cellphones necessary or a convenience?

Phil Dirkx recently wrote a piece on the subject in the SLO Tribune, which is right on . . . . read it here I wrote him a letter . . . .
"great piece today about convenience of cell phones. No one "needs" to stay that connected unless they have a serious self image problem. Cellphones are a nuisance most of the time to others. The other day I was on the treadmill at Kennedy and watched the girl next to me check her phone 6 times in 30 minutes! Another time I was ordering some food at counter and during the order the attendant checked her phone, sent a text message then returned to me and asked "what was it you wanted again?"
his response was . . . .
"Thanks for responding. On two occasions I have seen men talking on cell phones while standing at urinals. Keep smiling, Phil Dirkx"

Markets crash around the world . . men or machines?

If you need an explanation as to what happened today around 3 PM EST time read this article. In one minute the DJI dropped 200 points . . . all systems crashed and volume on the NYSE hit 4 billion shares! That's epic.

God violates local codes in San Mateo

Darn, just when I was getting ready to paint some signs on my house announcing the apocalyptic event I had just discovered when overing a "voice" in my backyard I read this story about a woman in San Mateo who is being told she can't paint signs all over her house . . . . guess the neighbors thought it was hurting real estate values.

read about it here