Last week I attended a luthier camp

and began building a mandola from a kit made by Roger Siminoff. Click here to learn more about being a luthier

Home Ownership Info

Today a report is showing that the share of homes empty and for sale, known as the vacancy rate, was 2.5 percent, matching the year-earlier period and down from 2.6 percent in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. The homeownership rate fell from 67.1 percent in the first quarter, the third straight decline. The rate reached a record high of 69.2 percent in the second and fourth quarters of 2004. It was when it was announced in 2004 that homeownership hit a record that I said to myself, "self, who's left to buy?" and promptly sold our home.

Millionaire tax returns

for the tax year of 2008, the IRS reports : "Tax returns of $1 million plus fell by 22% to 321,294"

USC athletic director Garrett out and Haden in

Amen!

How has touring changed?

A question posed to rock legend Pat Benatar . . . her answer - Not that much. I said to somebody the other day when something was going south with the sound equipment, "The entire world has moved forward and we're still in the dark ages." But the soul of touring and the heart of it is basically every day is like putting up a circus tent. All these crew members get up early in the morning, they put the show together, you go out there and you do it and the audiences come and you tear it down, get back on the bus. It's like a traveling road show just like it's always been and that's the party I really really love.

Dave Cox - rest in peace

When we lived in Fair Oaks, Dave became a friend, he represented Fair Oaks in the California Assembly and when termed out, ran successfully for the Senate. He was a good man and a Libertarian at heart. When Denny and I launched our tee shirt campaign, Dave was only too proud to don one of the tee shirts on Arnold's inauguration day.

The Hoover Dam Hwy 93 Bypass

On our trip, we crossed over Hoover Dam via Hwy 93 from Kingman, AZ side and observed the new bridge/bypass being constructed. Click here to read about the project and read why.

Illegal Immigration - what's the problem?

The problem is that no one really knows because no one is keeping data. Many Demopublicans claimed during California's last primary campaign that illegal aliens cost taxpayers and the state tens of billions of dollars each year. Thanks to the New Times, here are recent comments from those that should know because they're supposed to be keeping track of the money related to the cost . . .
“It turns out we really just don’t have the data on undocumented people because they don’t get benefits,” said Tracy Buckingham, assistant director of San Luis Obispo County Social Services.
“The city of Santa Maria does not compile statistics about the cost of undocumented residents,” spokesman Mark Van de Kamp said in a statement. “City police officers do ask the immigration status of arrestees booked into county jail, but it’s up to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to determine who’s undocumented and subject to immigration holds and deportation.”
According to SLO County Administrator Jim Grant, the county collects no data on illegal immigrants and therefore has little data on cost estimates. The county is reimbursed for the costs of detaining and processing such individuals he said. In the 2005 fiscal year, for example, the county received about $200,000 in reimbursement from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Last fiscal year the county received about $249,000 and Grant said it has budgeted to ask for about $275,000 this year.
SLO Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Bryn said the department doesn’t track illegal immigrants. “Normally we don’t track anything we’re not required to track,” he said. “And that’s just a budget issue.”
What about SLO County Auditor-Controller Gere Sibbach? Does he have any idea how many illegal immigrants are in the county or how much it costs the average legal resident?
“No I don’t,” he said. “I can’t think of anything.”

You can read the whole story here

Dead End Kids on Acid -

click here to read the story from Reason Magazine

There is a book entitled "Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love and Acid to the World" by Nicholas Schou.

Making money after death - Michael Jackson style

Since Jackson died at the age of 50, his estate has generated over $250 million, with about $125 million coming from sales of Jackson’s own recordings, $60 million from an advance for the “This is It” theatrical documentary, about $35 million from music publishing, and more than $50 million from merchandise such as video games, one of the people said.

Across the Bluegrass - Country Music Divide

When the Wall Street Journal writes about music, they do a good job click here

Fiery Spacecraft Re-entry video

This is spectacular . . . click here

Some of my fraternity brothers will gather at the College World Series

This is a note from Mike Ball.

Thought that you might like to know that the NCAA is recognizing the 1970 USC National Champ baseball team on the field next Saturday night June 19 at the College World Series in Omaha. ESPN is televising the games, and we're not sure if our introduction (during the 5th inning of the second round game starting at 4PM PST) will be televised...what do you think?....run commercials, or show a bunch of old guys that haven't touched a ball in 30-40 years?

This is the final year for Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, which coincides with the 40th anniversary of our 1970 championship, which also was the first of five titles in a row for SC...never done before and will never be done again! One of my buddies who works at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis (where I lived for 19 years before moving to Florida) said that the NCAA wanted to recognize USC for the 12 titles we've won, and they decided that no other school would be recognized...pretty cool!

The bros that will be in Omaha are Rick Raczka (Most Outstanding Orthpaedic Surgeon/Catcher), Jack Harrington (Most Outstanding Dentist/Water Park Developer/Pitcher), Frank Alfano (CWS All-Star Second Baseman 1970 & 71) and myself...Walt Failor, are you coming, buddy??? (and, I can't even imagine your resume!).

The other bros that were on that team, but not able to make it to Omaha, are Al Rossi (friend of Peaches O'Day), Brent Strom (5-year MLB career) and Steve Busby (only MLB pitcher to throw a no-hitter his first and second year in the bigs....a great trivia question). Hope that I didn't miss anybody.

Steve Allen does Bee Bop a Lula

You have to see this click here

The story of Kaushal Niroula

Boy, you can't make this stuff up . . . or can you? click here to read about murder, fraud, theft in San Franciso and Palm Springs and where else?

For everone who has a back problem . . .

Read about Bill Walton, former NBA and UCLA basketball player click here

Birth/Death employment estimates

I think it is well established by now that I am not a fan of the birth/death employment estimates in the establishment survey. That is where the BLS estimates the number of new jobs created by the birth or death of new businesses. It is often a significant portion of the jobs survey and it is a seasonally adjusted guess. There really is no alternative but to make this estimate, but at the beginnings of recessions it always overestimates the number of jobs, and at the beginnings of recoveries it will underestimate them.

What the heck is going on with the markets?

I have felt for sometime that "the market" doesn't behave like it used to, I couldn't quite put my finger on it but as a trader, I've felt that news and earnings and whatever just didn't seem to matter anymore or did it? Clearly the "market" is much more of a casino that it ever has been with computer programs overshadowing fundamentals (except that so many corporations are able to engineer their quarterly reports to "surprise or meet expectations" of analysts so as to make the fundamentals less important than years ago) and all you had to do to be successful was be a little ahead of the programs and you could ride each wave . . . . yes, figuring out what the computer programs are going to do isn't easy but that's where having a sense of tug and push or market wave action comes in, it isn't easy to develop this sense but many years ago I heard Ed Sakota (arguable one of the greatest traders in history) say that all you had to do was go down to the ocean and watch the waves come in and go out and you could learn about how markets go up and down . . . . it was the most important lesson I've ever learned in my trading education and I always love to go to the ocean and watch it do it's thing and remind my self that the randomness and flow of it is what I have to be aware of when trading . . . anyway, here is Bill Fleckenstein's (www.fleckensteincapital.com) comment from today . . . somewhat confirming what I've felt. I have been able to be in sync with the market (excuse me, computer programs) for sometime now.

C

Not Your Grandfather's Panic Liquidation Now I'd like to take a stab at making sense of the recent tanking of the stock market. To me, the decline of the last week or so has been different than any I've seen in my 30-year investment career -- in that it was led by the indices and not individual stocks.

When we have seen what looked like panic liquidation in the past (1987, 1990, 2000-2001, 2008, etc.), that always came nearer to the end in terms of time (though not price); and after stocks -- individually and collectively -- had been roughed up beforehand for quite some time, for very understandable reasons. One reason why I failed to see a decline of this magnitude coming: It did not evolve in a way that showed problems bubbling to the surface, but rather with the indices (and perhaps ETFs) leading the charge lower. This was like the '87 crash in reverse, whereby the panic in the indices happened first.

What I don't know is, what this decline means, whether stocks generically are now vulnerable to a wipeout, or that it's just indicative of the environment we're in -- with so many quants and hedge funds treating everything about the stock market like some kind of a trading sardine. (A derivation of today's electronic, quant-driven markets may be why the market doesn't seem to discount anything anymore, a point which I have made many times in the last 10 years.) It's not clear to me what may come next, other than that if stocks do get pounded from here, I am certain that more Fed liquidity will be forthcoming. (PS: Its balance sheet hit a new high this week, for those keeping score at home.)

Paper or Plastic bags?

Great video to settle the debate . . . click here

Erma Bombeck

She was pretty funny . . . "Housework, if you do it right, will kill you."