Been too long since I posted -

that being said, I'm wondering if anyone is reading anyway. if so, send me an comment. thanks.

Craig

Thank you Chinese !!!

China in July held almost $847 billion in U.S. Treasuries, more than double the amount it held four years earlier.

CRAZY WEATHER HERE

local weather forecaster reports today . . . .

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITION 10-5-2010 : In one week's time we have transitioned from a late September heat wave, to a North American monsoon condition to a early spring type of weather pattern with strong to gale force (24 and 38 mph) northwesterly winds and much cooler temperatures.
Last Saturday evening a band of thunderstorms developed over the Carrizo Plains and Shandon and stretched westward towards Atascadero, producing lightning and thunder and roughly between quarter to half an inch of rain. However, the majority of weather stations in San Luis Obispo County had no measurable rainfall.

What's more dangerous? texting or being drunk?

Well, it turns out that texting is far more dangerous. A recent study found that on average, driving at 70mph, one man braking suddenly while legally drunk (0.80 blood alcohol) traveled 4' beyond his baseline performance. But reading an e-mail while driving sober, he traveled 36' beyond the baseline result and 7' while sending a text; in the worst case while texting, he traveled 319' before stopping.

HEY PEOPLE, STOP using your cellphone when your driving!

gold mining issues - here come the majors, goodbye to the minors

exploration spending will clock in at $11.5 billion read more here

TARP is over

Well, it's finally done . . . did it do it's job? Only time will tell. read more here

good news on debt of the consumer

Richard Berner, the co-head of global economics for Morgan Stanley in New York, says “The de-leveraging timetable is nearly a year ahead of schedule.” Giving the consumer more room to spend in the future.

for those of you who don't understand owning GOLD

People don't own gold because they want to, they own it because they feel they have to. It's called self defense.

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.”

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

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.

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.

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!