patrick.net

hmm, just read about the openoffice-staroffice link. They have a built-in PDF writer, I had to get some flaky freeware thing called PrimoPDF to do that...

As Sun said, it was cheaper to buy another office suite company than it was to buy 42,000 MS-Office licenses for its employees...

There's a lot of mess in MS-Office, lack of consistency of interfaces and some funny dialogs and so forth, and MS-Access uses a mess of ADO and DAO technologies etc. However, I use VBA across all apps, especially in Access to automate a lot of stuff for our business, such as processing e-mail attachments and reading them into tables, and automation into our ERP, including producing a whole alternative front-end...

I use Open Office on my new laptop. The interface can be a little clunky for new users, but all the functionality is there. It's good if you're not a heavy Office user at home.

"More than 40% of Newark homeowners spend more than half their income on housing" (NYT)

Uh... that's "normal" right? Sheesh.

Jimbo,

I figured as much. Many times an "investor class" share is offered without ANY load but often reps quote the "A" share b/c it has the longest track record. They rec'd NASD approval as the new share class (while identical) had zip historic data.

1% is actually pretty low in terms of overall transactions expenses, mgmt. and service. Merrill is about 2% and most are in between. My guess is the rep probably feels you are well established in your field, know everybody that's worth knowing and is at least attempting to leverage your referral base. Throw the guy/gal a few bones and see if s/he will negotiate down even a little further?

What is the deal with the death threats!?!

First John at forsakencraft, the Marin site and I think Mr. Overvaluedblogspot was coerced or given "hush money" to cease and desist! HIM, I could see. He had his "Realtwhore of the Week Spotlight" that identified actual realtwhores and the link to their web-site etc.

Mr. Flippersintrouble doesn't name names (but gets the rest of the dirt to a "t"). C'mon perma-bulls, it's only money! Besides it's not like we were insulting your religion, right? :)

Greg Shrock,

Can you source that? My understanding is that the payout process comes after a long drawn out auditing process, and that it could take months or years before a check is cut to the depositor. I know this was the case in the 70s and 80s, but the policy may have changed since then.

Against this backdrop, Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and some other lawmakers said the Fed should be open to cutting interest rates.

"Another reason to be open to an easing of monetary policy is the concern that the housing market adjustment is far from over," Schumer said. "Recent housing data has offered little encouragement that the market might be stabilizing. So it is still too early to tell if the worst is over for the housing market," he added ...

The market is eventually stabilizing (prices going back to the mean) and this asshole wants to pump it further???

That's it DinOR! I've had it with you! If I ever find you...

...I'm going to buy you a Leinenkugel.

astrid:

When Hamilton Bank in Miami failed in 2002 more than $46mm in 3300 accounts were uninsured. Since then the FDIC has been selling Hamilton assets to cover the uninsured deposits. They've restored about 85% to each of them to date.

I don't know how promptly insured deposits were addressed, but the time it takes them to address uninsured deposits may be behind reports of audits and delays.

Politicians bug me almost as much as Realtors.

Leinenkugel? They still make those? Outstanding!

I remember "Little Kings Cream Ale" (those were extree good)

I realize Michelle (Malkin) isn't exactly pop pop popular here but her message is to 1) Report threats to law enforcement, and 2) Keep' on blogging! Refuse to be bullied by anonymous cowards. I think we can all agree on that.

Lex,

A few posts back I kind of dramatized the issue but I think there's little denying that "most" in America just "want this behind them". Personally I'm a little ashamed for them? They've had a decade long run of nothing but flipper profits and MEW extraction yet STILL seem to be against the ropes?

Now durn'it I can see if we had ten years of ever DECLINING values and seeking some form of "relief" but this is ridiculous! What's the msg. here?

Save us from ourselves?

When a bank fails, the FDIC usually taps a healthy bank to step in and take over the insured deposits. Depositors have access to their insured funds the next business day.

Loan terms cannot be changed by a bank failure.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 28, 2007

Bruce,

Thanks, so only the uninsured funds are affected, right?

astrid:

Please note they describe the simplest possible case - a healthy bank.

But AFAIK it's only uninsured funds subject to these particular delays.

How was the sourdough?

Just as Randy predicted, we now have a noticeable peppering from goldbugs and a sense of paranoia creeping into this thread...

Same article outlines strategies and pitfalls of expanding FDIC coverege for married couples. Loners are pretty much SOL:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070305/BUSINESS/703050572/-1/140154

I must look into tinyurl.

Buying T-Bills through a broker like Schwab or ETRADE or TD Ameritrade is the safest way to park your money, safer and more convenient than buying CDs.

I have a chunk in T-Bills as well, but I bought directly through the Treasury. It's actually pretty easy to set up an account and use it, and you can buy multiple product types, including bonds, bills, and TIPS.

"directly through the Treasury"

As a matter of fact I believe it's called "Treasury Direct". :)

DinOR,

Yeah, yeah, always the comedian...

For those interested, www.treasurydirect.gov

skibum,

Well...? It was one of those obvious ones.

I direct clients this way b/c it keeps ROA down especially when it's nothing they couldn't do for themselves. Particularly charitable accts. etc. What escapes a lot of people is that if you start investing early enough in life you really don't have to take much if any risk.

OT, but here's a transcript of Bendover Ben's testimony in Congress that has caused some of the market turmoil today.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/28/news/economy/bernanke_remarks/index.htm?postversion=2007032810

This is getting more and more interesting...

Jon and astrid, Thanks for your suggestions.

I will download OpenOffice and keep Microsoft Office in mind. There is not much of a discount on eBay even for an old version of Office like 2003.

I downloaded something called Star Office once, never installed it… :|

I think StarOffice is similar to OpenOffice. Thanks for mentioning anyway. :)

I need a strong word processor with good real-time spell checking because I am a horrible typist. (I use only 4 fingers to type.)

Benover said that economic expansion would continue and the market reacted badly. Hmm....

Benover said that economic expansion would continue and the market reacted badly. Hmm….

He didn't *really* say that. IMO, he spouted all these reasons for a recent economic slowdown, particularly housing (yeah!), and despite all this bad news, the economy would continue to hum along. No one believed him, is what happened. Who can blame them?

what’s your email address?

I just sent you an email.

Office 2007 is great. The UI is so much better than what went before and what is out there.

I heard great things about it too. However, I do not have Vista. I think it should run on XP SP2 but I am not sure.

This seems like a somewhat on topic hijack. I am considering rolling a 401k from a former company into a WellsTrade IRA. They offer free trades to accounts with certain "combined" balances (checking, savings, CDs etc). Does anyone have any experience with WellsTrade. I currently have some accounts with Wells"There is no subprime problem here"Fargo. Is rolling over a 401k fairly easy to do?

More wheels come off and the sparks from the rims are starting to show.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=alOjASNOLKcQ&refer=home

P.S. Regrettably, DinOR is completely wrong about index versus active funds. There is no evidence that active managers have any timing skills, nor is there any evidence that advisors have any timing skills either. Buy some low cost funds, appropriately diversified among asset classes, and sleep like a baby. If minor fluctuations bother you, then you need to be reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch, expected returns come from taking some risks, and if you really cannot stand it, accept that you're going to get less buying CDs - spreading the money around if you've got more than $100k - or Treasuries.

"appropriately diversified among asset classes"

"sleep like a baby"

"no such thing as a free lunch" (yawns)

Actively managed funds/portfolios don't HAVE to outperform year in and year out to establish their value to clients. Even one break out year can have a meaningful impact to your net worth over time.

Punchbowl, since no one here has shared that they will be inheriting huge gobbs of cash is your position that if we were born without money then we weren't meant to have any? Younger investors SHOULD be more aggressive! Why is that such a revelation to you?

The media has the tail wagging the dog by being solely focused on expenses. If you think starting, operating and managing a COMPLIANT fund is THAT cheap I certainly invite you to do so. Good luck telling the NASD there's no need for auditing or compliance b/c afterall you're just a feel good index fund. Let me know how that works out.

My instinct tells me that a passive, buy-and-hope, index-investment strategy is not very good.

Peter P: You can try the similar route of buying a few good companies and ignore them for a few decades.

In a zero-sum game, you have to go out and (legally) snatch money from other market participants in order for you to have any real growth. Index-investing is quite far from that. True, you will be compensated for puting your money at risk, but that is merely compensation, not profits.

You can try the similar route of buying a few good companies and ignore them for a few decades.

That is not index-investment but a buy-and-hope strategy nonetheless.

Peter P,

I'm not by any means totally dismissing the value (or strategy) of indexing. There aren't a lot of "stock pickers" working at insurance companies. They need quantifiable, predictable returns to manage risk. So they definitely have their place.

Most of our discussions here (where money mgmt. is concerned) revolve around "post popping cash parking". That aside the last time I heard this much debate about the merits of CD's and mmkts I was giving a fixed income presentation at an old folk's home!

We have chocolate chip cookies and (warm) orange juice at the back!

They need quantifiable, predictable returns to manage risk. So they definitely have their place.

Do they invest in "disciplined" hedge funds with focused strategies (risk arb, long-short, etc.)? I think some HFs are very popular among university endowments.

Open Office has a decent spellcheck, it's quite different from Word so it takes some getting used to, especially with the autocomplete feature on.

Is it wrong to believe that a healthy portfolio should include at least some short positions?

astrid, are you a proponent of open source software? :)