Three American crew members are killed as a cargo plane crashes on take-off at China’s Shanghai airport…. From BBC News. Full story

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Three American crew members are killed as a cargo plane crashes on take-off at China’s Shanghai airport…. From BBC News. Full story

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Three American crew members are killed as a cargo plane crashes on take-off at China’s Shanghai airport…. From BBC News. Full story

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Three American crew members are killed as a cargo plane crashes on take-off at China’s Shanghai airport…. From BBC News. Full story

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Two men are killed after the stolen car they were travelling in crashes in Ballyclare, County Antrim…. From BBC News. Full story

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After yesterday’s fiasco, I was thinking maybe I’d make a partial derivative list of my most memorable bike crashes. I realize other people have more and worse stories, but they don’t blog it. Therefore, I win. (These all ended in blood, a hospital, or replacement parts. I’m not counting the times I’ve fallen because of my shoes/pedals.)

1. While in high school, I vaguely remember trying to ride at night without feet or hands and crashing spectacularly. Chris Glenn may be able to back this up. I sort of remember being with him at the time.

2. The next two were in Germany. Once, being late to class, I took a corner too fast and ran into a wall. I scraped my forearm from wrist to elbow and got bloody knuckles.

3. Vodka. That’s pretty much all the explanation you need, and pretty much all I remember.

4. Somewhere on the back roads near Clemson, I was drafting a cycling team member on a windy day and sort of ran into his back wheel. I flew. That cost me a new wheel and fork.

5. We all remember the car accident in Austin. Most Expensive Crash Award.

6. And most recently, lost my balance and ended up with the lovely bloody elbow you see below.

Should I be riding bikes? Seriously, in eleven years of gymnastics, I remember crashing, with a blood or hospital result, only three times. If I count all the sprained ankles, rips, and straddled beams, maybe the number would be more appropriate, but I just don’t remember how many there were. The average rate of serious injury with bicycles is much higher.

I’ve never been shy about admitting that I love watching crash comps. But most of the time, the screaming engines, buckling metal and general noise of the wrecks is buried under some of the crappiest music imaginable. Really, you don’t need tinny European techno beats or ridiculous American rap metal to add drama to a rally crash. When the focus of a shot is a high-performance car spinning like an alternator pulley while shedding sheet metal, any additional elements are going to make it less compelling. And that’s why Crazy Finns Crashing is so killer. There’s no extraneous editing, no insipid soundtrack, no trippy title cards. All you hear is what the camera heard, and it’s perfect. Prepare for an exciting ten minutes….

[streetfire id=e1e3a544-676d-41e2-a8b1-9cc001136288 w=428 h=352]

So to the first of Jud and Mike’s named character assassins…the assassin of character creep.

It’s basically all about how the small things that cross our moral boundaries can build up and up until you lose your integrity big style.

First of all I have to confess that the first page of the chapter I found a wee bitty ironic…

“We don’t make an entry in our diary one day: Dear Diary, today I plan to commit fraud which will eventually lead to the demise of my career, a nervous breakdown, and ultimately jail.”

Deadly Viper Character Assassins p. 24

Now. I could take the uppity high road on that one, but here’s the thing. I work for a charity. And one of the things that Sarah and I feel really weird about is that we have to write the cheques for our wages. Especially me. I would rather not be tempted to follow in my father’s footsteps and my seemingly constant financial battles definitely put me at high risk to do it unless I’m really careful. How do we act transparent about dealing with the charity’s monies when we could so easily steal money?

We double sign every single cheque. And every cheque is photocopied with the receipt/invoice of what we are paying and why.

Our accounts are doubly checked – first by an accountant, then by an auditor, then by the Charities Commission (OSCR).

So we would never get away with it. Exactly the way it should be.

And I can say hand on heart that there is definitely too much at stake to lose…

When my Dad got caught out…it destroyed his family. We’ve been very broken in all sorts of ways I never expected possible. His career is totally down the toilet. He will never be allowed to have his own business ever again. And he could have made such a huge difference – he was getting the chance to do that.

I had to apply some ‘kung fu’ action the other week on this assassin.

I’d been ill our last few days in Cornwall, and wasn’t feeling particularly great driving back up. I’d pulled into a service station off the M6 about 4 hours from home. It was pouring with rain, cars everywhere, people running across the car park. As I pulled into a parking space I heard a horrible noise.

A severe lack of spatial awareness had caused me to crash into the side of the car next to me. I got out in the pouring rain to discover I’d scratched it in 2 places.

And not just any car. No, no.

In a car park full of old bangers I could potentially crash into, I had of course crashed into the posh, shiny Jaguar.

Way to go BK.

There goes your 5 years no claims on car insurance. You’ve just used all your remaining cash to go on holiday to Cornwall so that’ll be fun trying to pay damages you’ve just caused.

A thought crossed my mind…I could just leave the service station now, and no one would ever know it was me that crashed into the car. They’d not be able to find me or track me down.

I was shocked that I could even think that. But I did. So I gave myself a talking to, something along the lines of…

“Laura Anne, you are a Christian, and it is completely your fault that their car is scratched up. If you don’t own up…How Jesus like is that? You’ve just been reading about being a leader with integrity…well, time to prove it“

So I sat and waited. And while I waited I tore a page out my diary and wrote my name, address and mobile number down on it.

20 minutes later, a woman and kid appeared at the car. I got out, and asked if it was their car. It was. I began apologising profusely as I explained what I’d done. And handed over my details.

She was shocked that I’d stayed behind until they’d come back or that I’d even admit what I’d done

“Most people would just drive away and not say anything” she said

Gulp. If she knew that had crossed my mind….

Then her partner came back. I repeated the apologies to him. He was equally surprised at my honesty and really nice about it.

A week later he called me to say that he thought the quote he’d got back to fix it was ridiculous (over £1000), and said he had planned to get a paint job next year, and did I just want to give some money towards it so I wouldn’t have to get insurance companies involved?

Guys, that is grace.

They could have been really stroppy and angry. I wouldn’t have blamed them.

But they weren’t.

And I’m thankful that I didn’t do the loser thing of sneaking away hoping no-one would find out. I admitted my huge faux pas, and was repaid by kindness in return.

Now, I’m extra careful and super paranoid about parking anywhere near shiny cars…(well, I try to avoid crashing into any cars, people etc…but especially not the shiny ones as they are more costly to fix)

But being faithful and having integrity in the small things? It counts for sure.

Swimming legend Michael Phelps fails to make it past the 100m freestyle heats in Stockholm after finishing the 16th fastest…. From BBC News. Full story

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“I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”

– Sir Isaac Newton after losing £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble

Bubbles and their subsequent crashes have confounded historians, economists, financiers and the general populous throughout history.  Examples, often categorized as bubbles, include Tulip Mania, the South Seas bubble, the Dot Com bubble, and the recent housing bubble.  The importance of bubbles and crashes cannot be overlooked in the macroeconomic sense.  The housing bubble is a prime example of this; where, as a consequence of the crash,  global GDP (cumulative GDP of every country) was severely affected. Much of the literature in macroeconomics ignored the consequences of bubbles by ignoring financial intermediation and associated frictions.  In light of the recent crises, the literature is now shifting toward an approach that brings together financial economics, monetary economics, and standard macroeconomic techniques.

An asset bubble is formed when an asset’s price is significantly different from its fundamental value, also known as its intrinsic value. In practice it is sometimes calculated as the discounted sum of expected future income; however, this may not be a good proxy to the actual fundamental value. In order to calculate the true fundamental value, we must first construct a general equilibrium model such as Milgrom & Stokey 1982 or Tirole 1982. This construction will be discussed in more detail in some future posts. Unfortunately, the theoretical definition of bubbles is not easily applied since the fundamental value is difficult or impossible to observe.  For this reason, some alternative operational definitions have been proposed.  Jeremy J. Siegal, proposed an operational definition of a bubble as “any time the realized asset return over a given future period is more than two standard deviations from its expected return” (Siegel 2003).  Though this  definition implicitly implies that asset returns are normally distributed, or Gaussian,  so that virtually all returns should lie in the range of two standard deviations from the mean.  Notable authors such as Benoît Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb have argued against using normal distributions for assets since fat tails are often observed in many assets. Along these lines, Didier Sornette offers another operational definition; bubbles are “caused by the slow build-up of long-range correlations leading to a global cooperative behavior of  the market and eventually ending in a collapse in a short critical time interval.” (Sornette 2001). Note that this definition concerns asset market bubbles which occur, in theory, when an underlying process inflates all of the assets in that particular market above their fundamental value.  We will discuss this definition, if it coincides with the theoretical definition, and Sornette’s work further in future posts.

In order to address the existence of asset bubbles, as theoretically defined, we must first examine the fundamental properties of prices.  More specifically, we must discuss the validity of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.  The definition as provided by Fama (Fama 1990): “I take the market efficiency hypothesis to be the simple statement that security prices fully reflect all available information. A precondition for this strong version of the hypothesis is that information and trading costs, the costs of getting prices to reflect information, are always 0 (Grossman and Stiglitz (1980)). A weaker and economically more sensible version of the efficiency hypothesis says that prices reflect information to the point where the marginal benefits of acting on information (the profits to be made) do not exceed marginal costs (Jensen (1978)).” We will take Jensen’s more sensible definition and additionally consider the the three different forms of the efficient markets hypothesis: weak, semi-strong, and strong.  Each form is designated by the specification of  the information that is reflected by prices.  A rigorous definition of the EMH and its forms will be given in the next installment of this series. Moreover, we will discuss whether any of the forms of the EMH allow for the existence of bubbles as theoretically defined.

In our next installment, we will review and analyze the following papers:

1. “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work” by EF Fama – Journal of finance, 1970
2. “Efficient Capital Markets: II” by EF Fama – The Journal of Finance, 1991.
3. “Efficient Capital Markets and Martingales” by  SF Leroy – Journal of Economic Literature, 1989.

In addition, we will briefly discuss the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) from chapter 1 of Cochrane’s famous Asset Pricing book to tie many of the concepts above to a commonly used asset pricing equilibrium model.

“I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”

– Sir Isaac Newton after losing £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble

Bubbles and their subsequent crashes have confounded historians, economists, financiers and the general populous throughout history.  Examples, often categorized as bubbles, include Tulip Mania, the South Seas bubble, the Dot Com bubble, and the recent housing bubble.  The importance of bubbles and crashes cannot be overlooked in the macroeconomic sense.  The housing bubble is a prime example of this; where, as a consequence of the crash, global GDP (cumulative GDP of every country) was severely affected. Much of the literature in macroeconomics ignored the consequences of bubbles by ignoring financial intermediation and associated frictions.  In light of the recent crises, the literature is now shifting toward an approach that brings together financial economics, monetary economics, and standard macroeconomic techniques.

An asset bubble is formed when an asset’s price is significantly different from its fundamental value, also known as its intrinsic value. In practice it is sometimes calculated as the discounted sum of expected future income; however, this may not be a good estimate to the actual fundamental value. In order to calculate the true fundamental value, we must first construct a general equilibrium model such as Milgrom & Stokey 1982 or Tirole 1982. This construction will be discussed in more detail in some future posts. Unfortunately, the theoretical definition of bubbles is not easily applied since the fundamental value is difficult or impossible to observe.  For this reason, some alternative operational definitions have been proposed.  Jeremy J. Siegal, proposed an operational definition of a bubble as “any time the realized asset return over a given future period is more than two standard deviations from its expected return” (Siegel 2003).  Though this  definition implicitly implies that asset returns are normally distributed, or Gaussian,  so that virtually all returns should lie in the range of two standard deviations from the mean.  Notable authors such as Benoît Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb have argued against using normal distributions for assets since fat tails are often observed in many assets. Along these lines, Didier Sornette offers another operational definition; bubbles are “caused by the slow build-up of long-range correlations leading to a global cooperative behavior of  the market and eventually ending in a collapse in a short critical time interval.” (Sornette 2001). Note that this definition concerns asset market bubbles which occur, in theory, when an underlying process inflates all of the assets in that particular market above their fundamental value.  We will discuss this definition, whether it coincides with the theoretical definition, and Sornette’s work further in future posts.

In order to address the existence of asset bubbles, as theoretically defined, we must first examine the fundamental properties of prices.  More specifically, we must discuss the validity of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.  The definition provided by Fama (Fama 1990): “I take the market efficiency hypothesis to be the simple statement that security prices fully reflect all available information. A precondition for this strong version of the hypothesis is that information and trading costs, the costs of getting prices to reflect information, are always 0 (Grossman and Stiglitz (1980)). A weaker and more economically sensible version of the efficiency hypothesis says that prices reflect information to the point where the marginal benefits of acting on information (i.e. the potential profits to be made) do not exceed marginal costs (Jensen (1978)).” We will take Jensen’s more sensible definition and additionally consider the the three different forms of the efficient markets hypothesis: weak, semi-strong, and strong.  Each form is designated by the specification of  the information that is reflected by prices.  A rigorous definition of the EMH and its forms will be given in the next installment of this series. Moreover, we will discuss whether any of the forms of the EMH permit the existence of bubbles as theoretically defined.

In our next installment, we will review and analyze the following papers:

1. “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work” by EF Fama – Journal of finance, 1970
2. “Efficient Capital Markets: II” by EF Fama – The Journal of Finance, 1991.
3. “Efficient Capital Markets and Martingales” by  SF Leroy – Journal of Economic Literature, 1989.

In addition, we will briefly discuss the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) from chapter 1 of Cochrane’s famous Asset Pricing book to tie many of the concepts above to a commonly used asset pricing equilibrium model.

A Russian military plane with at least nine people on board crashes into the sea in the country’s Far East, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

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A Russian military plane with at least nine people on board crashes into the sea in the country’s Far East, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

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Drivers who think other motorists pose the biggest hazard might want to think again — and pay more attention.

Single-car crashes cause most of the deaths on Delaware roads, and the large majority are blamed on distracted drivers, the AAA Mid-Atlantic mototists? group reported today.

Its analysis of newly released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on roadway statistics also shows such deaths are on the rise. Single-vehicle crashes caused 47 percent of the state?s road deaths in 2005, 49 percent in 2006, 54 percent in 2007 and 56 percent last year, when they accounted for 68 of the 121 fatalities.

Catherine L. Rossi, the group?s manager of public and government affairs, called the findings ?troubling.? She also said overall road fatalities in Delaware rose by about 3 percent over the year before.

Most people think single-vehicle wrecks are just ?freak accidents,? she said, but ?drivers can lower their risk of a crash by avoiding distractions, not speeding and staying alert to road conditions.?

While every crash has singular circumstances, she said, federal studies show inattentive driving in 80 percent of all kinds of crashes involve some form of driver inattention, which includes distractions from eating or putting on make-up to talking on cell phones or sending text messages.

In the region, Delaware has a higher percentage than one state, lower than two. Maryland had 53 percent of its 591 traffic fatalities occur in one-vehicle crashes, while Pennsylvania had 58 percent of its 1,468 road deaths in such crashes and New Jersey had 63 percent of its 590 deaths in such crashes.

Will Cell Phone Bans Work?In Highway Fatalities, It’s Usually Not the Other Guy

Paranormal Activity to Another Black Monday?

Courtesy of Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse, h/t Zero Hedge

Simon Maierhofer of ETFguide.com writes Whats Next – Minor Correction or Major Collapse?:

Over the past few months, every attempt by the bears to depress prices has been met with renewed buying pressure, resulting in even higher prices. What goes up, however, has to come down and some subtle signs are indicating that this decline might be more than a simple correction, much more.

It was after midnight on April 15th, 1912 when the unsinkable did the unthinkable. Built and labeled as unsinkable, the Titanic was the most advanced and largest passenger steamship of its time.

Even though the Titanic’s crew was aware of the fact that the waters were iceberg-infested, the ship was heading full-steam for a destination it would never reach.

Being aware of danger is one thing; acting prudently for protection is another.

Today, investors find themselves in an environment that is infested with symbolic icebergs. For savvy investors willing to pay attention and heed warnings, this doesn’t necessarily translate into a financial shipwreck, while others might soon be reminded of the Titanic when they look at their account balance.

Iceberg cluster #1: Lack of leadership

Throughout the financial meltdown financials, real estate, and homebuilders fell harder and faster than broad market indexes a la S&P 500 and Dow Jones. Beginning with the miraculous March revival (more about that in a moment), the broad market rose while financials, real estate, and homebuilders soared.

Those three sectors led the decline and led the subsequent (mock) recovery. Since it is reasonable to assume that those sectors will continue to lead the market throughout this economic cycle, it behooves investors to watch such leading sectors closely.

The S&P 500 recorded a closing high on October 19th at 1,097. The Financial Select Sector SPDRs reached their closing high a few days earlier on October 15th. Since their respective closing highs, the S&P 500 has dropped 2.82%, while XLF has already shed 5.64%.

A more pronounced performance slump is visible in the home builders sector. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF peaked on September 16th and has fallen 9.97% since. Keep in mind that XHB’s lackluster performance comes on the heels of the biggest monthly increase in total home sales in ten years.

Even though the inventory of existing homes fell 7.5% month-over month in September (to 3.6 million units), the shadow inventory of 3.5 million foreclosed homes is probably weighing heavily on home builders. Shadow inventory represents foreclosed homes that are vacant, still included on bank’s balance sheets, but have not hit the market yet. 3.5 million homes equal about 1 – 2 years worth of supply.

Iceberg cluster #2: Non-confirmation in the technology sector

Apple, Wall Street’s new darling, reported block buster earnings and rallied over 10% to new all-time highs. Microsoft reported better than expected numbers and spiked 7.4%. Investors loved Amazon’s outlook so much that they bid up the stock by over 33%. Combined, the three companies account for nearly 24% of the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), yet the Nasdaq is traded lower today than before earnings season on October 14th. The same is true for the Technology Select Sector SPDRs.

If 24% of the Nasdaq’s components rallied between 7 and 33%, without lifting the index, a lot of tech companies must be hurting. In fact, the Nasdaq’s performance is masking the decline IBM, Intel, and many other once high-flying tech companies have seen over the past 1-2 weeks.

Iceberg cluster #3: Earnings are a lagging – not leading – indicator

Even though expectations were low to begin with (beating earnings forecasts was likened to an A student asked to achieve only a C), there is no arguing that this quarter’s reports were much better than last quarter’s.

Many view this as a sign that the economy had hit rock-bottom back in March. In fact, 80% of economists now believe that the recession is over (probably the same 80% that didn’t see the recession coming in 2007). However, as the chart below shows, earnings per share (EPS) are directly linked to the stock market’s performance at best and a lagging indicator at worst.
 

Alcoa, one of the biggest components of the hottest sector – materials, surprised investors with a positive third quarter. Year-to-date, however, Alcoa lost $0.75 per share. This compares to a profit of $2.95 per share in 2007. At this point, Alcoa does not even have a P/E ratio, since Alcoa has no “E” – earnings.

Considering the relationship between stocks and earnings, it would be interesting to know what caused the March bottom.

Throughout February and March, Wall Street was covered by a veil of uncertainty and worry that the country would slip into another depression. Ever since the Great Depression, there’ve never been as many articles referring to the Great Depression as in March.

It is exactly that kind of pessimism that foreshadows market bottoms of some significance. Such pessimism rids the market of weak stock holders and opens the door for buyers to bid up prices. That’s exactly what the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter predicted via the March 2nd Trend Change Alert.

Below is a brief excerpt taken from the Trend Change Alert: “A multi-month rally, the biggest rally since the October 2007 all-time highs, should lift the indexes by some 30-40%. Tuesday’s (2-23-09) 4% spike may be an indication of the initial intensity of the rally. Beaten down sectors like financials, industrials, materials and consumer discretionaries are likely to see the biggest percentage gains over the next few months.” Many of the recommended ETFs gained triple digits in the upcoming months.

This rise in stock prices and consumer sentiment, along with serious cost-cutting by publicly held corporations, shrank corporate losses and even created profits for some corporations. But once again, it was rising stock prices that resulted in better than expected profits, not vice verse.

Iceberg cluster #4: No demand for products

It seems like companies have boosted their production. The key question is whether this uptick is merely due to an effort to restock inventories, or actual demand by the consumer. Fortunately for investors, there’s an easy way to find out.

If there is real demand by consumers, it will be reflected by shipping and transport companies. Products in demand need to be shipped from the manufacturer to the consumer or wholesaler. A look at the transportation/shipping sector providers, therefore, an easy and logical answer.

UPS shipments fell for the sevenths consecutive quarter. UPS’ profits fell 43% year over year due to lower demand for packaged deliveries. Burlington Northern, the biggest component of the Dow Jones Transportation Average, reported that its freight revenue dropped 27% year over year.

This is exactly the opposite of what you’d expect to happen in a new, sound bull market.

Iceberg cluster #5: (Over) valuation

Would you buy the Dow Jones at 10,000? It probably depends on where you see the Dow trade a week, a month, or a year from today. Many investors and Wall Street gurus are advocating to buy the Dow at current levels.

Let me ask you this: Did you buy the Dow at 7,000? If you didn’t buy the Dow a few months ago at 7,000, why would you buy it today at 10,000? Today’s Dow is 50% more expensive than it was seven months ago, yet more people are willing to buy now than in March. Aside from the stock market, there is no other “salesman” able to sell a product for a 50% premium.

Bait-and switch at its finest

How can the stock market get away with this? The only difference between March 2009 and today is perception. Even though it defies logic, stocks are perceived to be a better deal today than in March.

Imagine what will happen when the perception changes. Once investors start believing that they can buy stocks later at a lower price they will wait, buyers will dry up, and stocks will plummet.

It’s no stretch to expect lower prices. Even though prices have come off multi-decade lows, earnings are lower than any other time since the Great Depression. The S&P 500’s P/E ratio (stock price divided by annual earnings), based on actual reported earnings have sky-rocketed to all-time highs.
 

 Anybody buying the S&P 500 at current prices is paying 138 times as much as reported earnings. In other words, based on this year’s earnings, it would take 138 years of profits to repay your investment.

Would you buy a Subway franchise at 138 times its annual profit if you knew that 15 – 20 is the historical average? 15 – 20 is the average P/E ratio over the past 100 years. Anybody buying now will have to be prepared for significantly lower prices. 

Some things never change

History teaches us that overvalued markets can’t last forever. History also teaches us how far the market will have to drop to reach fair values. The bear markets of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s and 1980s have provided us with a valuation reset template.

Every bear market bottom has seen P/E ratios drop to historically low levels. Investors, however, don’t have to rely on P/E ratios alone. Dividend yields, mutual fund cash levels, and the Dow measured in the only true currency – gold provide another window into the future – a nearly fail-proof composite indictor.

The October issue of the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter plots the historic performance of the stock market against P/E ratios, dividend yields, mutual fund cash reserves, and the Dow measured in gold, along with target levels for the ultimate market bottom. A picture paints a thousand words and those charts speak volumes about the market’s future.

Did you know that the Titanic received an iceberg warning less than two hours before an iceberg brushed the ship’s starboard side, buckling the hull in several places? An angry communications officer responded: “Shut up, shut up, I am busy; I am working.” There are plenty of indicators warning investors today. Will you heed the warning and avoid financial shipwreck?

Given Friday’s action in the stock market, you might be worried about that another Black Monday is right around the corner. Financial journalist Jon Talton writes Echoes of another great crash — and the lessons we refuse to learn:

This is the anniversary of Black Monday, the day in October 1929 when the stock market crashed. The Dow saw a record drop and things only got worse as the week progressed (there was a Black Tuesday, too).

It’s clear now that the crash of that day was not the beginning of the Great Depression but its loudest symptom. Other areas of the economy had been faltering for years and income inequality was near record highs, but this was cloaked by the mania on Wall Street, back in the day when banks could engage in highly speculative trading.

Of course, that toxic environment was rekindled in our time by the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, and we got just what the reformers of the 1930s would have feared.

Milton Friedman made his mark as a great economist (as opposed to a great polemicist) by work with Anna Schwartz showing how the Federal Reserve botched its response to the crash, turning what might have been a short-term panic into a deep depression. This was a lesson current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was determined to implement — and indeed, Fed action pulled us back from the brink.

Where, exactly, "back from the brink is" nobody can say with precision. Average Americans are still hurting and the job market is a disaster, although nowhere along the lines of the Great Depression. We have yet to see the unintended consequences of Bernanke’s "anything it takes" strategy, which was not followed by meaningful regulatory reform.

Time will tell. But the severity of the Depression forced major changes, such as the prohibition of commercial banks from engaging in high-risk ventures. This time, no such overhaul is happening. None of the swindlers who created the bubble have been called to account — Bernie Madoff is penny-ante — and the systemic risks that existed before our crash continue.

In other words, this time things didn’t get bad enough. But the risk of new crashes is if anything higher than ever. And our current predicament seems to have no quick solution or the will to push one through. So we rattle along on a bottom — better, to be sure, than in 1929, but more perilous in its own ways.

I don’t get too excited when I see one on day sell-offs. I was talking to a trader who told me he thinks hedge funds are unwinding risk trades going into year-end. Maybe they are or maybe this is another classic shakedown of nervous investors before they bring this market much higher.

Either way, enjoy your Halloween weekend and try not to think about the markets. I hear ‘Paranormal Activity’ is sweeping America. A good horror flick should help keep your mind off the nightmare on Wall Street.

Sucks….

Plain and simple

Sucks!

Why you may, or may not, ask?

Well a little background. Last spring while making my daily commute from my office in the Twin Cities to my home, in  quaint little liberal town south of the cities, I was drilled by a Chevy 1500 Silverado which did not do my cherished 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis any good. The driver of Silverado immediately apologized, made sure I was okay and claimed full responsibility, giving me his info and taking mine.

That very night I was contacted by his agent and again asked if I was okay and a time was set up for his adjuster to come and check my car, which was still drivable, but…

We set it up, he came, saw and totaled it…sigh…I liked that car! It was big! Had a nice motor, got 24 plus miles to the gallon! It drove and rode nice! But with the frame possibly bent and the best estimate I could get on it more then what I was receiving we decided to accept their offer. So they took the car and we began the now that scramble as we could not really afford another vehicle, the money they gave would have bought one, but we had some bills to pay also! But anyhow we “acquired” a 1993 Suburban for a real good price!!

Now this all occured in April of 2009.

This all while I was at Camp Ripley, teaching MSP Troopers 1st Aid etc., I received a call from Progressive Insurance informing my the “my” Mercury, (huh?!?), had been in an accident amd how was I gong to cover it?

Again, HUH?!?! I explained to the Agent what had happen and she said they would look into it! I got home found a copy if the check from the settlement and gathered any any other info I had, called the Insurance Company, got the resellers information etc and waited…Later in October I received another call from different agent…

Again was asked how I was going to settle this claim I again told them what had happen and was told that they did not see it that way and I was responsible, good thing I am such a calm and reasonable person(twitch). I stated I had spoken (twitch, twitch) to the insurer whom totaled it and that I had a cop of the settlement, claim number and reseller info. Agent told me I would need to fax all of this to her.(twitch,twitch,twitch).

Okay deep breath…returned home , put everything together and sent off a fax…and waited…

Today I received a collection notice, subrogation type thing with a bill of 1683.00!! Okay I am done twitching it is time to go Progressive Agent hunting. So I called my agent and got some advice, tried to call the DMV and got no answer(must have been out, on break, some unknown Gouv’mint Holiday?? golleeee, a government agency that won’t respond!! Just think how Health Care will be when they shove that up our butts!!) !

Finally got through to a Progressive agent was asked 1012 questions to make sure I was who I said I was, was told yep I am looking at the claim, hen I got a bit upset., okay I got f___ing pissed and let this arrogant, snob have it!! After I blew a gasket, when she already knew! She told me claim was closed! CLOSED!!?? Why the hell didn’t she tell me right away!?? At that point, before I reached through the phine line and strangled this dumb little beeotch!! I said thank you and flung the phine into the couch(was thinking! No breakee phonee!)

So now it is over? I hope! I hate insurance companies!! WTF are they good for?

My worse friggin nightmare, a drunk clown driving erratically in Vancouver. The man dressed in a clown costume, who was driving on the wrong side of the road, eventually came to a grinding halt after crashing head on into a police car. See, I keep telling you, clowns are so not funny!

Eight U.S. troops killed in Afghan bomb attacks
Article: Reuters

Eight U.S. service members working for the NATO-led force and one Afghan civilian were killed in multiple bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the alliance said in a statement.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said several troops were also wounded in the “multiple complex (bomb) attacks” but would not give further details of the attacks, which come a day after 11 U.S. troops were killed in two helicopter crashes.

14 Americans killed in 2 Afghan helicopter crashes
Article: Breitbart

Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday—11 troops and three drug agents—in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.

In the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans—seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.

Oh, it’s fantastic to see that BHussein’s actually doing something productive. “OHAI GUYZ LETZ HAVE A MEETING!!!ONeoine11 IF WE HAZ MEETING WE CAN MAKE PROGRESS!” You moron. WE. NEED. BACKUP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THESE SIMPLE WORDS?! BACKUP TROOPS. SUPPORT. WE NEED TO WIN THIS WAR. I can’t break it down for you any more that that, BarryO. Even Joe Biden gets it. You? You’re far too simple. Then again… it’s not lie you’re interested in VICTORY or anything.

In a separate incident, two U.S. Marine helicopters—one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra—collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.

It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16 U.S. troops on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents. The casualties also mark the first DEA deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations there in 2005.

U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province’s Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.

I know, I know. The Taliban are your brothers, but the thing is… American citizens are dying out there. WE DO NOT HAVE THE TROOPS WE NEED. Then again, BHussein loves himself some dead Americans. What a fucking shit. Haven’t your testicles dropped? No testosterone? None? Your testicles are full of dandelion poof? That’s what I thought.

I wonder how gool ol’ BHussein Obama is handling this situation. OH MY? What’s this?

FORE
Source: Politico

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he’s already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

Oh. I see. Way to prioritize, you fuckwit.

NATO forces in Afghanistan are reporting that three coalition helicopters crashed in two unrelated incidents Monday, killing at least 11 U.S. troops and three American civilians.

A NATO statement said one helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan after U.S. and Afghan troops raided a militant hideout and killed 12 suspected enemy fighters.

The statement said seven U.S. troops and three U.S. civilians were killed.  The injured include 14 Afghan troops, 11 American troops and one U.S. civilian.

The cause of the crash has not been determined, but NATO officials said they do not believe the helicopter was shot down by insurgents.

Also see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iE5a5jcIaZFcspGpYcEDgOHnOkoQ

See the story How to sell your dreams

I woke up with a very bad hang-over. And I woke up because my brother and his ex are throwing things at each other. We live by a wall away, and I can hear the bangings and the crashes, adding pain to my hang-over. I planned to stay home and watch DVD last night, but an argument forced me to go out, sing and drink. Well, I only have two reasons to consume an alcoholic beverage, one, when I’m happy, and two, when I’m down, depressed and melodramatic. Lately, the second reason is becoming frequent. Rewind to last night’s activity, my officemates invited me to sing and drink in a cramped videoke bar. Red Horse was already served when I joined the group, and RH tasted like water when it’s ice cold. I never counted the glasses I consumed, and it must have been more than two because it made me numb to what is happening in the road while I’m driving. The anatomy of driving drunk: it makes you feel like you’re Daredevil, like you own the road. i don’t know but for some reasons, when I’m inebriated, I park well and straight!!! That’s the only benefit. But I know that it’s bad, and must never be tolerated. Let’s drink to that!!!