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."

Taking "doing the laundry" for granted

Friends of ours are in Holland and we received this bit of "life info" comparison from them the other day . . . .

"Doing laundry is a major hassle. They don’t have ANY laundromats. There is one washer and dryer for all the boats tied up in the marina. It only takes tokens that we get from the harbormaster and it took us days to get him to remember to bring some to us. We got four, for two washes and dries. All our clothes were dirty. Then I put a token in the washing machine and it didn’t start. Rob came down and looked. The light was on, but it just wouldn’t start. We had to use another token. Then another in the dryer. After 35 minutes I walked the block down to the machine to check to see how dry they were. They were not, and if you open the door, the coin drops in the box and turns off the dryer. I pulled out the last token and it was in fact a fifty cent piece that is the same color and size as the token. It didn’t work in the machine. I had to take the clothes out, put them in a box and hang them on the clothes line back at the B&B that evening. While eating dinner it started raining. Great. They are still out there as today is to be cold but clear. It’s all part of the adventure."

Volatile Markets

I left around 11 am yesterday morning for Parkfield to be there for the opening act of the Parkfield Bluegrass Festival and didn't return home til late today. On the way I home I listened to the NPR news at 6PM PDT to learn of the chaos in the markets over the last 2 days! Unbelievable. And thankfully I wasn't at my computer watching the action as I might have made some mistakes but alas all turned out well as I was pretty short the market when I left . . . whew.

On the subject of Spain

Too big to fail is one thing; too big to bail is another.

Inflation is rearing it's ugly head

From the Washington, DC area:

Metro is moving ahead with plans to impose the largest fare increase in its history this summer, as the financially strapped transit agency prepares to make its riders shoulder the majority of the $189 million operating budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Boistrous Bravado of a Politician

"Holy Godfrey? What Fun?" Teddy Roosevelt leaving office to invade Cuba.

His war cry? "Rough tough, we're the stuff/We want to fight and we can't get enough?/Whoopee!"

Campaigners continue to lie

Just in case you thought things were going to change . . . ahem, "Back when Jerry Brown was governor nearly 35 years ago, in his first day in office, he gave public service unions the right to collective bargaining," Governor Candidate Whitman said. "Then a number of years later, his chief of staff, Gray Davis, who became governor, actually gave away the store to the public service unions."

Brown did not actually give collective bargaining rights to state workers on his first day in 1975, her campaign later acknowledged. Her comment apparently referred to a statement Brown made that was supportive of such benefits.

"Once again, Whitman has her facts wrong," said Brown's campaign spokesman, Sterling Clifford. Clifford noted that collective bargaining measures were approved in 1976, 1978 and 1979, covering different workers.

Confusing Regulation with Supervision

"The crisis that engulfed the world was not a failure of regulation, it was a failure of supervision. It annoys me that people seem to use 'regulation' and 'supervision' interchangeably when they are in fact two different things. Those who failed miserably at supervision now think regulation is the answer to everything." To which all I can say is: Amen, brother.

Bill Fleckenstein

Inflation or Deflation

Many "experts" are worried about deflation . . . . that's not the problem. Prices of everything are going up. For example, furniture . . . click here

Jackson Metzler shooting hoops

My grand nephew, Jackson Metzler is quite active with all sports and related activities and cars and trucks and . . . here he is a home practicing.

Gay Taenzer Kincaid 1922 - 2010

She passed in her sleep yesterday morning in Los Osos, California. What a great mom, aunt and grandmother and friend. Creative, loving and friend to all.

Michael Burry on Alan Greenspan

In his own words, Michael Burry recounts how he forecast the demise of the subprime market and how he made a fortune because of it . . . . disavowing any of the Alan Greenspan's ridiculous comments that no one "saw it coming". Click here for the NY Times op-ed piece.

Healthcare and the Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court has recognized a right to medical self-determination, notably finding it within the 5th Amendment's due-process clause.

Think inflation isn't coming back . . . read this

Steel, I large component of many products is going up in price and you can bet that the increase will be passed along. . . if you don't own some gold yet, better belly up to the bar on buy some. It's you prime protection. click here to read the story in the Financial Times