patrick.net

HelloKitty Says:
Now you are OUTED as the pre-internet BBSing geezers that u r , grok them apples!!!!

Huh? This is hardly the first time I have mentioned usenet in nostalgic terms - in fact I (being elitist, after all) think the internet used to be better when most of the folks on it were from .edu and .net domains. Less noise back then, even with the tradeoff that one had to uudecode the files from alt.s.p. :-)

SP

justme Says:
ROT13, anyone?

Ah, yes - many a time on rec.humor. (Whatever happened to Henry Cate III?)

In fact, IIRC, I think the first shell-script I wrote back in school was:
tr 'A-M N-Z a-m n-z' 'N-Z A-M n-z a-m'

SP

I bet the kids today think "Archie, Veronica & Gopher" are just comic book characters. Wait... do they even know what a "comic book" is?

Shit, I feel really old now. Maybe I should start hanging out at MySpace & Woot.

HARM Says:
I bet the kids today think “Archie, Veronica & Gopher” are just comic book characters.

I actually have a 11 year old niece who thinks these are comics for 'old people' at the supermarket. She reads some other (post Ranma) japanese comics that I cannot grok - most of which seem heavy on fantasy and girl-power themes, and very low on original plot.

SP

"US Out of the Middle East AND San Francisco"

http://www.brumm.com/antiwar/jan18/07.html

When you consider that roughly 50% of SF residents are renters (and thereby unAmerican), and combine that with non-US citizens who own property/mortgages there, then the U.S. is sort of out of SF already. Or vice-versa.

In many ways, the charge of "un-American" levied these past several years against anyone who isn't completely behind the war in Iraq, is very similar to attitudes towards those of us who did not take the creative loans, did not participate in the bidding wars, and stubbornly continue to rent. I realize the post is tongue-in-cheek, but I do see a corollary. The sentiment of "if you're not with us, you're against us" is quite evident in the reaction to HARMs posts to the SDCIA Jeff thread.

Hey, if logic, reason and making informed decisions are unAmerican, then I wear the scarlet "R" proudly.

Thanks Peter P for another thought provoking contribution.

If you look through the 'GO-Zone' thread at the SDCIA message board, you can find a post from the FB-du-jour indicating he got most (9, including the 3 FL turkeys) of his properties via an organisation fronted by a Marshall Reddick.

Does this name ring bells with any of you guys/gals? As an Australian I have a vague recollection of seeing the name in relation to some RE Investment Seminars, but nothing past that.

Randy H,

My bad. I had no inkling SL was making those types of claims. A 12,000 % return is realistic though, right? Gotta go, see you "loosers" later!

Jon,

I've been following the "7-11 of financial services" for some time. They get slammed over at www.rrmag.com in the broker forms w/ regularity. Perhaps Amway would be more appropriate?

DinOR

It's just a bit obfuscated, that's how they get away with it. It's not the SL makers who promise these things directly. They just use the hype they've fanned to promote themselves (increasing demand for their fake-money printed and sold with a click of the mouse). And they enforce a system of rules that perpetuates an internal pyramid economy. But they claim it's not their doing, it's what all the players have determined to do themselves.

Not unlike if the NYSE were to allow companies to self report, do anything they want, so long as they agreed to only trade in NYSE printed money. There'd be a small group of companies that would quickly end up controlling everything, and the NYSE would profit wildly so long as they could convince newcomers to list, for the hope of also being one of those select rich winning companies. But of course, the game is rigged from the outset by the rules (only big companies can exchange NYSE bux for USD bux at a fair rate, for exmaple; everyone else only gets to take out amounts smaller than they put in, after which their exchange rates spike to "tax" away all their winnings and redistribute them back to the big boys).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_inflation

Food and Energy are demand inelastic. In other words, people cannot substitute and will buy the same amount (in aggregate) regardless of price in the short term. (They will adjust over the longer term by finding near-substitutes. But near term, people just pay more).

This means Food and Energy are highly volatile and suffer lots of short-term price shocks. Since inflation measures are intended to measure long-term future inflation trends, short-term noise must be eliminated. Otherwise you'd have the Fed changing rates every 22 days.

Since people do adjust over time, if price shocks aren't shocks, but permanent, the inflation gets captured by downstream price inflation in other items that are measured.

> WHY is food and energy excluded from inflation calculations?

Food and energy prices are more volatile, i.e. they change often and faster up and down, depending on harvest, world crisis etc. It would be unwise to try tuning a policy so that complete inflation is in a certain interval, like 1 to 3%, because events outside the policy influence the outcome so much. Instead an index is chosen for the tuning, from which food and energy are excluded. Not excluded are the consequences of higher food and energy price: When trucking becomes more expensive, for examples, retailers would like to give their increased costs to the consumer. If they have that pricing power, it's a sign for inflation, too.

Randy H,

I stand corrected. Perhaps the "disconnect" (for me) was that HYIP's were SO deceptive that an initial purchase was all that was required of the "investor". No further manipulation needed. Just sit back and watch those bucks roll in!

SL OTOH, further deludes participants into believing their "market activity" will somehow change their end result.

Jon,

This is simply a way for citigroup to go after the low end of the market without bigger investors knowing they'll take anyone's money! Just as a number of "those sleazy subprime lenders" are actually subsidiaries of large publicly traded banks.

There was a huge test case brought against another "main street" firm (no not Edward Jones) where the firm insisted that their agents were totally independent, yet remarkably all of these "independent agents" had placed their clients in oddly the EXACT same mutual funds/investments. Funny, huh? So it was clear that these guys/gals were taking their "marching orders" from corporate! The bottom line is that everyone in mgmt. in retail securities views the broker's client's (and their money) as "their" money. Gets old don't it?

DinOR

Maybe it's more of a case of Linden Lab running a pool hall, where the back room is used for poker. They don't specifically say it's for poker. But everyone goes in there to play poker. And, you have to pay the pool hall to go in that room. And, the fat cats who are there every night get special seating by the little windows that reflect the other player's cards.

Person Said:

Re: core inflation, I understand the point about food and energy being more volatile, but you don’t need to remove them to eliminate noise. You can use another trick called a “running average”.

My post got cut off for some reason, here's the rest:

EXACTLY (to "Person's" post). Why is it that anything that might RAISE inflation measurements automatically disqualified, while anything that LOWERS inflation is A-ok? The boyz at the Fed/BLS don't know how to do moving averages/data smoothing? Please...

I stand by Barry Ritholtz's definition of the CPI: "inflation ex-inflation".

@Randy H,

Yeah, and "looser" racks!

HARM

They don't put food and energy back in when they go down in price either. Energy went down quite a bit in price recently, yet they still excluded it from the core metric. In fact, that demonstrates the reasoning.

I will agree that they'd be better to leave it in and instead apply a smoothing function. But then we'd all be fighting about the smoothing function, wouldn't we?

I'm reporting this fellow to the Housing UnAmerican Activities Community. He is trying to ruin housing values with his small homes.
Point your Mosaic browser at the link below and check it out (my first tiny url, I am going to like internets 2.0)
http://tinyurl.com/349mlh

I’m reporting this fellow to the Housing UnAmerican Activities Community.

Your co-operation is most appreciated. We will take action to ensure that our traditional values are preserved and American Dreams are fulfilled.

Should this committee overlook public transportation as well? It is also highly un-American.

Jon,

This may seem a little provincial but Oregonians assume at the prices CA's are paying that ALL homes come standard with a "Hot Chicks Room"?

Jon,

Here's what is even worse. I've seen this on a number of occasions.

Older more established AE (account executive) with rather large book of clients (50-100 mil.) has been with the firm for years. Only does transactions when necessary (bonds mature/called etc.). Creates decent income for firm and self. So far so good.

Then Mr. New Guy arrives on the scene and decides that the ROA is way too light. Since his huge salary depends on bilking every possible dollar of gross out of a branch/region/firm he decides to "motivate" Mr. Established. Long story short, this valued and long term employee suddenly becomes a "problem". Paper work is lost in the shuffle and in no time at all he's no longer compliant. Then Mr. New Guy sets about lighting fires behind this guy's back in an effort to force him out (so he can get the commissions!)

I have NEVER seen this work and it usually costs the firm a TON of money to compensate the old rep. and frequently clients as well but the just won't give up on it! Now THAT'S sad.

Kudos Jon for not succumbing to the pressure.

I have a friend who bought a 1970's POS, replete with orange counter tops, olive green appliances, and shag carpeting, for 3/4 mil, on an I/O loan. He spends every weekend fixing it up, all in a desperate attempt to out do his ex-wife. He'll say he's trying to be a good parent by giving his part-time kids a 'nice' home to live in, but it really comes down to something much more selfish. How a pool or Pergo makes you a better parent is beyond me. Poor thing. He's going totally "Baldwin" and is losing his mind one Heloc at a time.

I don't dare tell him about ass pennies. He may start paying the alimony that way!

LSR,

Ewww! No explanation required.

However many economists prefer the less volatile “core” numbers because they believe that they more accurately reflect long term trends.

I believe the number 2.0% more accurately reflect long term trends of hedonized inflation target of 2.0%.

Social Security adjustments do include food and energy costs.

Super off topic, but if you love chocolate, you need to read this and may need to take actoin:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602824.html?hpid=topnews?hpid=topnews

Red Baron,

? I'm hoarding pesos as we speak!

Thanks, I stand corrected. The question still remains whether the SS adjustments reflect the true increase in cost of living …

I'll be a lot more interested in giving an accurately adjusted cost of living annuity to seniors about the time they are willing to give up Prop 13. Hell, I'll even entertain the idea if they're willing to just give up Prop 13 Legacy Transfers.

I'll bet I get no CA takers. As for Seniors in rural Ohio. Their adjustments are just fine.

I believe seniors should be responsible for hedging their own future living expenses. At least, they should hire competent managers to do so.

http://tinyurl.com/23elhj

One, unsurprisingly, is legendary value investor Jeremy Grantham -- the man Dick Cheney, plus a lot of other rich people, trusts with his money. Grantham, chairman of Boston firm Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo, has been a voice of caution for years. But he has upped his concerns in his latest letter to shareholders. Grantham says we are now seeing the first worldwide bubble in history covering all asset classes.

Interesting

I came into some cash recently.

Any good inflation beating investment ideas?

Not investment advice disclaimer understood.

Any good inflation beating investment ideas?

>>Answer is in the article quoted in the post immediately before yours. Quality stocks, bonds, and managed lumber.

Guy here in Baltimore raised my co-workers rent from $1800 to $2200 because "interest rates increased". The co-worker moved 1 block over to a better place. His old place has been vacant for 5 months now!

Note to moron investor: no one cares that your interest rate resets/ option arm is starting to amortize/ rent doesn't cover mortgage. Also, $1800 > $0.

Michael Anderson!

Long time, no see! How are you? Hope things are well in "Oregon's Carmel"! Managed lumber? You and I gotta talk. Do you still have my e-mail/number? What about these guys trading the fake lumber like Trex (TM) etc? Ben Jones (more expert than I) tracks the building materials pretty closely. Are you a "Random Lengths" subscriber?

We've been "up" 19 of the last 21 trading sessions (as I'm sure you're aware) and the money keeps coming in! Trust me, I'm open. :)

Have I ever been more open about *not* knowing what comes next?

SAM,

Oh that's TOO much! LOL!

Get that man a beer. :)

Salk,

You mean that "ownacondo.com" in Right Field (and at times over A.J's right shoulder) isn't working?

Anybody else gettin' the CHISOX on the west coast?

I tried WGN on Charter Cable and all they usually have is Da' Cubs. What's up?

No disrespect to Cubs fans.

DinOR,

Yeah, been busy. How the heck are you people? I do still have your number. My investments are still on track. I'm not set up as a pro, yet. Just my own money so far. :-)

I'm Subcranium over on the SDCIA board. I post there now and then.

I'll probably post here now and then, too. Mostly just lurk all over the place in various financial blogs.