WEALTH MISER

Gold.

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:17:26 PST

I have been doing some research into the 1920's London Roaring 20's scene... (think “Brideshead Revisited”) for a piece I am working on… Besides Waugh, there was Mitford, and other writers who captured the antics of the rich and crazy world

of the British flinging themselves into the nonstop world of bespoke elegance and legal debauchery in the aftermath of World War I.

Our silly experiment with Prohibition which actually exacerbated binge drinking rather than curbing it never hit the shores of England… They partied hearty through most of the decade.

What finally stopped the music? In a word, gold.

Yes, Astaire and Rogers notwithstanding, the dancing stopped once the Depression hit. It stopped literally on the morning of Monday, Sept. 21, 1931, when the British government took the pound off the gold standard.

As many of you know, back then wrestling over the gold standard was a cause of passionate debate much like what we heard this past week concerning Spain and Italy.. The significance for the average British citizen who had, up to this time known solid Edwardian prosperity was in for a nasty change of fortune. Alec Waugh, Evelyn's brother said: "For me, and I suppose for most Britons born before 1910, the announcement that Monday morning was the biggest shock we had known or were to know."

Given what's going on in Europe today, the gridlocked status of the debt ceiling, and the gloomy media coverage of it all, I thought the parallels were a bit interesting.

And look what gold did this week.

Don't know about you but, taking a page from the Brits, the sound of a tango and the sip of a sidecar sound awfully nice right about now.

Cheers, Thimble Long GDX, GDXJ, GG, EXK, and DGP.

Resolute for a new year

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:17:26 PST

To choose elegance over luxury.

Honesty over its illusion.

To know there is no honor in struggle, there is only struggle
and to pursue excellence instead.

To seek refinement over the superficial.

Solitude over friction.

To accept that my history becomes me.

To remind myself scar tissue eventually heals, especially the ones over memory.

To ignore what angers me and embrace what thrills me.

Celebrate a small triumph more than a bigger mistake.

To be more appreciative than worthy.

To study harder and think less.

To act more and talk less.

To be more comfortable in the spaces between then and now.

To listen to the smallest things around me

To look for the moon every night and to watch the birds everyday

To smile when it is the hardest thing to do.

To be brave when I feel the coldest.

To do nothing in a hurry.

To be more patient with the world, but not expect too much.

To soften the rough animal in me.

To choose the feast over the hunger.

To keep the music playing always.

To be silly more. And love those that encourage it.

To never forget the voices that said the important stuff to me.

And to let the unfettered child my father loved run wherever she wants.

A Proustian Christmas Memory

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:17:26 PST

The year was 1958. And while everybody else was tapping their feet to The Little Drummer Boy, and The Christmas Song by Alvin and the Chipmunks, and humming along with Johnny Mathis singing Winter Wonderland, my father was kicking and screaming his way thru this most joyous of seasons. You see, he was a wholesale florist, and it was the busiest worst time of the year for him. He owned the largest warehouse in Buffalo and was expected to decorate the city every December. Banks, department stores, schools all used his wreaths on their doors, windows, offices, and hallways. And in order to fill all the orders, he had to hire extra help at holiday time.

His warehouse was located in a black neighborhood on Sycamore Street, and was not safe during the day or at night. It took up one square block and was basically an unheated space where trucks would drop off bales of cedar, rhododendron, scotch pine, white pine, eucalyptus, and holly. In Buffalo an unheated space with the outside temperatures at 20 degrees was a refrigerator. My poor father only had a small space heater in his office to keep himself from getting frostbite. So in order to make 500 wreaths in two weeks and get them on the doors of all those stores and banks and schools, he turned our basement at home into a cottage industry of wreath makers. My mother hired about fifteen women from around Buffalo to come and make wreaths in our basement by placing an ad in the Courier Express. Our phone rang off the hook as hundreds of women answered the ad. Money was always tight but at holiday time, it was particularly tough to come by. Men were always laid off at holiday time if they worked at Bethlehem Steel or Ford or GM, the main employers in Buffalo at the time. And it was an excuse to get out of the house for few hours and do something different and get paid to boot.

We lived on Lafayette Avenue at the time in a big two story two family frame and brick built during the 1920‘s. My grandparents who owned the house lived downstairs and we lived upstairs. The basement was where we did the laundry, hang the clothes to dry during the winter, make preserves, (we had a huge old porcelain stove down there), and it was where my sisters and I practiced our tap dancing since it had a nice cement floor. It was very dusty down there due to the old coal bins and the two huge furnaces that they used to shovel the coal into. But it was also the warmest place in the house. So my mother set up several long tables and chairs in a friendly style assembly line so the women could sit while they made the wreaths. I was put to work by making sure they had enough baling wire, and metal hoops around which they would wrap the evergreens around and secure them with the wire. They all had to wear gloves as the pitch from the evergreens would stain their hands black after handling it for awhile. But the place smelled glorious! It was easy work, and after the first day, they all became very chatty, talking mostly about their kids and their husbands and their holiday plans. It amazes me to this day, how you can take fifteen women, put them in a room together, and in the space of an hour, they are talking up a storm, and act like they have known each other all their lives. It was fun to have this wreath making party in our house and I enjoyed their company. We would make pots of Eight O-Clock coffee for them on our big old percolator. They worked a full day and my Mom paid those cash. Every night we would collect the wreaths and load them into my father’s station wagon and he would put on the final decorations such as bows and pine cones and deliver them the next day.

Every year our family made our trek to downtown Buffalo to see the famous Victorian Christmas windows in AM&A’s, sit on Santa’s lap at Sattler’s, and then go to see the Christmas decorations along Elm and Main Street. Then we’d go to the Quaker Bonnet on Elmwood Avenue for hot chocolate and elephant ears.

But what I liked most was the incredible pride I felt knowing that just about every wreath I saw on the M&T Bank building, the windows of Berger’s, Kleinhan’s Music Hall, the Park Lane Hotel, Hens & Kelly’s, and the Franklin Building all came from our little basement on Lafayette. Even my father had to smile.

Mark Madoff Offs Himself

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:17:26 PST

I never believed for one minute the sons weren't in on the scheme - they just weren't as smart as they thought they were -or- the people they swindled weren't as dumb as they thought... did they actually think these people who lost fortunes weren't going to go after them with all they had? I say you don't buy a house in Nantucket no less for 60 million cash and still get to call yourself a boy scout. That he off’ed himself on the anniversary of his father's sentence tells you he was delivering a message to papa. Shakespeare could not have written a more appropriate ending... not wait... Tolstoy might have been a better fit— Mark Madoff as an Ivan Illyich for the ages. Only Tolstoy, in order to underscore the theme of the meaninglessness of a life lived chasing all the wrong stuff, would have had him drive to North Carolina in a blizzard, walk over to the facility his father was in, locate himself outside of Mr. Madoff’s window and blow his brains out. I am sure someone is writing the teleplay for the Lifetime Channel now.

Shoveling Off to Buffalo

As a little Buffalonian who didn’t own a shovel, I used to dream of days like this. I would wake up all excited and run into the kitchen to catch Clint Buehlman on the old Zenith radio that sat atop the refrigerator. He would deliver the school closings that morning. My mother was already dressed in her signature red insulated underwear all cold and miserable from moving the car to the other side of the street. We had alternate street parking, and in Buffalo, your car would get plowed along with the white stuff if it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You don’t mess with Mother Nature when she decides to blow in off Lake Erie. When Clint finally got to my school, School 19, I would shriek with joy and my mother would recoil thinking what she would do with me and my two sisters for a WHOLE day at home. Needless to say, our first order of business was to get in our snow gear and run outside to make snow angels. I refused to wear leggings because they were made of wool and to this day I still hate the stuff. My mother finally made me a pair out of corduroy after losing the battle to get this forty pounds of skinny strong willed fashion savvy to do otherwise. Besides, wool was “pinchy”. My sisters and I would be weighed down with so many layers of scarves, coats, boots, and hats, our snow angels always ended up looking like big snow blobs! And of course having a good rousing snow ball fight was always an excuse to let loose a little pent up sister rivalry. We knew it was time to come in when we heard my mother knocking on the kitchen window.
But it was all in fun, the sheer amount of snow was always dramatic, and it was Buffalo as we remember it now. Buffalo does winter like much of Upstate New York, which meant the maximum snow days allotted by the state were always met. It kind of made us feel special! It meant hot chocolate with marshmallows and hot buttered toast when we came inside. It meant reading our favorite books or drawing or playing the piano in the middle of the day as the snow continued to fall, and as evening approached, were fed big bowls of homemade hot chicken soup filled with pastina, carrots, onions, celery and chunks of plump chicken. We monitored the snow outside our upstairs windows and by the time we crawled into bed all toasty warm and in our flannel pajamas and heavy socks, we, along with our usual prayers, sent out a special request that the snow did not let up so we could repeat another snow day tomorrow. Oh to be in Buffalo when winter hits. There’s nothing more wonderful. And yes. It does helps to be 8 years old.

Homemade Chicken Soup

This would be cooking on the stove when we came inside - the smell was intoxicating. It was reheated for dinner.

It was served with a salad and homemade bread for dipping of course! The first one to get a bowl was our poodle who ate everything but the carrots. He neatly would pick all the carrots out of his bowl and make a circle of carrots around the bowl before he ate his portion. He loved the chicken and we made sure there were no bones in his bowl.

We had ours with a fresh green salad and some of grandma's homemade bread that she would send up from her kitchen downstairs. If we came in from outside when the bread came out of the oven, she would slice a hot piece of bread and dip it in oil and a little salt and give us a preview of the coming meal.

Ingredients

1 cut up fryer

2 each carrots

2 each celery stalks

2 medium turnip

1 large onion

8 cups water

1/3 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/8 teaspoon thyme

1 cup pastina

Directions
Put the chicken in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven.
Layer the carrots, celery, turnips and onion over the chicken.
Add water, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and thyme.
Cook, covered over medium heat until mixture boils.
Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes or until the
vegetables and chicken are both fork tender.
Remove chicken; cool.
Remove the chicken meat from the bones; discard the bones.
Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces.
Heat mixture to boiling; stir in the noodles.
Cook, uncovered, for 5 to 7 minutes or until the noodles are done.
Stir the chicken back into the soup -
Simmer for two minutes, and serve with homemade bread.

Attention Kmart Shoppers!

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:17:26 PST

Forget Football. Shopping is the sporting event of Thanksgiving…Get those running shoes on and hit the mall. Work off that tryptophan and fourteen pounds of breast and thigh you ate last night! Work out that plastic til it breaks a sweat..Trample anyone who gets in your way!!

Pump those Ipads. Crunch those Kindles. Zen out on Lulu. Carbo load on Keurig.

Have at it America, I got a lot riding on your ability to debt your way into oblivion this Christmas.

Please don’t let me down. Spend your college money. Spend your mortgage money you don‘t pay your mortgage with anymore. Spend your parent’s money. But above all spend the money you don’t have!

Okay so this isn’t the parking lot of the Mall of America.

For the record, this is a picture of the annual Turkey Trot where thousands of spunky (translation ;drunk) silly Buffalonians do a run down Delaware Avenue every Thanksgiving.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article265206.ece

Don’t even ask. You’d have to be from Buffalo to understand. Home of Genny Cream Ale and Lake Erie fish whose main diet consists of chewing on old buried World War 2 radioactive isotopes. Talk about eating leftovers!

So Happy holidays, ye fellow shoppers.

And remember -the last one out of Walmart gets to kiss the old geezer greeter goodnight!

Mrs. Buttons

Turkey Day? Stuff It�

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:17:26 PST

Remember when you spent the week prior to the big day helping your mother make the cranberry sauce and the pumpkin pie, and spent Thanksgiving Day making sure your relatives didn’t get drunk, or start arguing over the game, before your father stood at the head of the bedecked table with the fresh evergreen centerpiece and sliced that first steaming morsel of succulent white breast meat? Or how you as a child were allowed to wear that special pink taffeta apron stored in the Lane cedar chest in the dining room that was carefully unfolded for this one day? And then was summoned into the kitchen to stuff the turkey because you had the smallest hand in the house and could get into the deep recess of the carcass? Or watched your dear father mashed the creamy white Idahoes’ as he stood in the kitchen for that one day of the year to share his special secret to great spuds with you? (Hint…heat the milk before adding it to the mixture)

Well welcome to Thanksgiving 2010. Where the memories of past Thanksgivings are best left to old 1940’s Jane Wyman movies and old dog-eared photographs of Thanksgivings past.

Tomorrow, if you’re lucky, you can grab a nice sliced pre-cooked turkey sandwich at Panera bread in between the lines at Macy’s and Best Buy. Where you will drive around the resurgent suburban mall looking for a decent parking space and hope you don’t get robbed or downloaded on camera from store security for hogging a space and a half?

Who has the time to cook when there are iPads to fight over and Kindles to fondle at checkout? Just check off one more holiday tradition gone the way of retail. Yep. We sure have our priorities these days. I was in Walmart last week and no one was shopping the holiday food aisles. They were all in electronics fighting over those other “apples.“

Just think of all the lucky kids who will get to look back on Thanksgiving 2010 and recall getting sneezed on and yelled at while in line at Target dropping that turkey sandwich onto the floor. And then getting the transaction rejected by the credit card company Daddy was remiss in paying on time due to a tiny glitch in his employment status.

Thanksgiving is now Black Thursday. Seems appropriate. Those that live by the plastic die by the plastic. Just as well, Thanksgiving 2010 will be a forgettable memory come Friday morning.

More’s the better. A for me I will stay out of stores and cook like it was 1952.

A Republican winter of our Content.

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 13:17:26 PST

So we dipped our jeweled toe into the Socialist bath, yelled ouch and drained it pronto sending the likes of Pelosi, and Emmanuel down the drain with it.

We’re back. And ‘badder’ than ever.

Our work has just begun. Obama was neither contrite nor humbled by the political beating he took. Being the typical narcissist he is, he blamed everybody else including Bush and didn’t address the fact that he has thrown us further into debt, governs over more unemployed people than Bush, and has completely been thrown to the wolves by every businessman in America.

You can throw in the farmers too -our new capitalist anti heroes. A colder wetter winter is forecast by the changes in barometric pressure according to the weather people. SO with oil hitting 86 dollars and on its way to 100, be prepared to eat the high cost of home heating with that cold duck aspic and pinot noir. Your mother’s Blackglama can come out of the closet now that the PETA types have crawled back under their cheap overleveraged condos. Revenge will indeed be served cold in the months ahead.

But there is a 14k lining out there - every naysayer so far has been dead wrong. Double dip recession is coming! Wrong. Famine in the third world because we ran out of wheat! Wrong. Stock market crash in Sept-October! Wrong. Your dollar is worthless! Hoard gold! Wrong. The only thing the world doesn’t seem to be running out of is fear. Fear and more fear. Apparently it doesn’t need any expensive potash or nitrogen as it grows like a weed. And they all farm it and sell it for profit.

From CNBC to the President to Glenn Beck: Fear sells. Look at the top ten best sellers. Look at the top rated news shows. Your choice is whether or not you’ll buy it. So far it’s been all sizzle and no steak. If you sat out the market you were wrong. If you bought physical gold you’re down as I write this. If you walked away from your mortgage, your credit rating will never recover. If you only hold cash you’re losing every day. And all the fear aimed at the tea party is coming from the naysayers that have the most to lose if this party ever takes off.

I think the difference is those that stuck their heads in the sand and are unaware as they say enough is enough and those that have been following this crazy time we are in and still say no, I chose not to cave in to the fear card. The latter are the ones that get it. So far they have been in the drivers’ seat. And I don’t mean one of those stupid little electric things - I am talking serious Euro gas guzzler. The bigger the better. The winners have been the ones that said the sun will come out tomorrow and I want to greet it from this mountain view 4000 sq ft house I just stole out from under Mr. Overleveraged - and I looked like a hero doing it! Before inflation rears its ugly head - and believe me it will, now is the time to use that useless cash to buy what you need now.

The only thing to fear now is not finding that Cartier ruby at your local pawnshop.

The good Old Days are Back�

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:17:26 PST

The markets are up today as investors view a big GOP win as a net positive for stocks. So oil and retail stocks should do well, if the Bush tax cuts are extended. As you know, the GOP loves fossil fuels, so buy that big old Mercedes and dump all things solar. IF you want to flaunt your wealth do so with wild abandon. Flash those diamonds. Dust off the furs. It’s okay now. Normal people can come out now. Obama has lost the entirety of the country save the two pathetic coasts. The South belongs to us. It shall rise again. The Yuppies have prevailed. Old money trumps new money. Trust fund kiddies are clicking their topsiders tonight. All is well. Ahhhhhh…what a relief!

The Tea Party Steeped in Our Collective History.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

My father’s shiny Sunday scrubbed face with a generous dose of Burma Shave. My Grandma’s Chanel number five. I’d sit cross legged on the floor, Archie, Veronica, and Betty at my feet, I would balance the plate of pancakes and make sure I didn’t drip the Canadian maple syrup all over Prince Valiant which I would lick off for fear the pages would stick when my older sister came downstairs to honor us with her presence. She would rip the paper out from under me. She was mean. She was what you would call a real party pooper.

And today I sit here with my bialy oozing with butter that I lick off my fingers mixed with the newsprint off the Sunday New York Times. The paper cruelly reminds me of who is running the country right now with headlines that make me want to crawl back under the covers. I find nothing funny in the paper today. A man who is ripping my future right out from under me suddenly casts a pall over a sunny day. And suddenly I am back at that moment when my sister poops on my pancake party.

Hmm. What can I do? What can one person do to reclaim what is missing. What I have been robbed of. And I think about joining the tea party. I want to reclaim the sanctity of Sunday's past. I want it to be like it was. I don’t like “now”. Hell, I want it the way our forefathers said it should be. And that’s what the tea party is all about. These are not crackpot crazies the media would have us believe. They are not anti-intellectual or town hall loonies wearing those scary snake pins – Nor are they holdovers from the 1985 Lyndon LaRouche’s. The media has painted them with a broad stroke that is biased. I am not saying all the reporters should come from Provo Utah but I am saying that their attempts at making the tea party look like a bunch of loonie hacks will explode in their faces on election day. Statistically, the Tea party people are the most educated, wealthiest, and anecdotally the nicest political group ever assembled. The tea party actually started long before Rick Santelli uttered those immortal words from the CBOT floor that morning.

The tea party started during Bush’s tenure. That’s right. They were assembling against the Republican shenanigans. Grass roots citizens that saw the runaway spending of a free wheeling government as the death sentence to the future of this country. (So much for painting them as racist against a Black president!) They are simply put, Libertarian in nature. Small government is better than big. Debt is bad. Don’t mess with our social security. Don’t force feed us a healthcare plan. And before anybody signs it, read it first!

That’s why they showed up at all those town hall meetings. They wanted to confront their elected brethren as to what was in the bill they all signed. When they found out NO ONE read the bill, the Tea Party got very serious. And the numbers grew through the outrage at this irresponsibility of BOTH parties. Radical extremists they are not. Like any populist movement they want to reclaim America just as I want to one day wake up on a Sunday of pancakes and laughter, not full of nasty surprises. Not full of fear for my future. And so far the Tea Party has successfully affected the outcomes in NJ and Massachusetts without hysteria or bloodshed. From the likes of those results, I’d say they’re on a roll.

I am tired of the monolithic reaction from our present day cartoon characters like Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz. The Democrats will be in a world of rejection come November and they know it. And if we’re lucky well be back on the road we never should have left. I pulled out my grandmother’s old percolator the other day and put it on the counter. It looked very cool. I gave myself a healthy spritz of Chanel. And I hear Thomas Jefferson was crazy for pancakes, too.

Buckwheat Pancakes…
An egg yolk, 2/3 cup vanilla, low-fat yogurt, ¼ cup flour, ¾ cup buckwheat flour, 1 cup low-fat milk, 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt.

Beat egg yolk and yogurt until creamy. Add flours and milk, beat smooth. Mix in the remaining ingredients. Beat egg whites until white and foamy, stir in. Let stand 5 minutes. Heat a fry-pan over medium heat and drop spoonfuls of batter in. Cook about 3 minutes per pancake, flipping half-way through cooking.

Old MacDonald Trades in his Deere for a Bentley

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

Think white trash extraordinaire Bill Clinton when Hillary is out of town. Donald Trump when nobody is looking... Think Neiman Marcus catalogue items. That’s right. The price of cotton has exploded. The price of corn skyrocketed. And where corn goes, so goes beef. The 21 club has a 24 dollar hamburger. You think a 26 dollar corn dog is far behind? Hey, why doesn’t Orient Express International just buy up all the Seven -11’s and make them all reservations only restaurants?

This is likely the end of cheap clothes as you know them. The Party is over. Suck in your gutt and suck up to the likes of speculators run amok in the cotton pits and a bunch of Chinese newly minted middle classes who won’t sew for 3 cents an hour anymore. I hear Turnbull & Asser is talking to Walmart as soon as they figure out how to put French cuffs on a t-shirt.

I can’t decide if this picture is prettier than the dress. www.express.co.uk/posts/view/

Instant Weight Loss Craze - The Poverty Diet
Look at the plus side you plus sizers’ - soon you’ll be able to see your feet.* This is also the end of cheap food or in this case cheaper food. I bet that the about to be disenfranchised middle class will miss that can of spam when they fight kitty for the Fancy Feast on the road to hyperinflation. The cat ran away when you downscaled to that mobile home anyway.

While agriculture is forecast by Goldman to be the only commodity group to drop over 12 months, the bank raised its three-month forecasts for corn, cotton, Arabica and raw sugar. *Someone please alert the Barefoot Contessa that perhaps she will in her lifetime actually get to see hers too!

Merde! Goldman in bed with the pigs?
Goldman increased its three-month corn estimate to $4.65 a bushel from $4.15 and said the market will have a “further tightening” because of demand for ethanol and animal feed. Wheat prices, which as much as doubled since June, may decline in the “medium term,” Goldman said, crying wee-wee-wee all the way back to Wall Street. Time to retire the feedbag, couch potatoes. Your days are numbered.

Cup of Joe about to blow…
The bank also raised its Arabica-coffee forecast to $1.80 a pound from $1.55 and raw-sugar to 20 cents a pound from 15 cents. The cotton estimate increased to 90 cents a pound from 85 cents. The cocoa forecast declined to $2,700 a metric ton from $3,100. Goldman raised its live-cattle forecast to 105 cents a pound from 93 cents.

C’est tourjours le meme chose, baby.
The irony is that, while there has been a modest widening of the income gap in recent decades, inequality has remained mostly unchanged since the early 1990s – regardless of which party is in power. Obama and his preoccupation with inequality is actively harmful because it leads to economic policies that inhibit growth. He is punishing business and the wealthy, and this has produced anemic growth. But worse, it is also punishing the poor and middle class. Obama claims that everyone pays his "fair share," but so far this agenda is producing more poverty. In his obsession he is ensuring only one thing - that there will be less wealth for everyone to spread around.

Speaking of spread… anyone have a tape measure? Or a side loader? Perhaps there is an inverse proportion to our shrinking GDP and her ass. Anybody want to plot a chart?

Michelle must be doing overtime in her taste ktichen making sure her chef gets all that flavor to savor and let them eat cat food.

Wealthmiser

Shake, shake, shake

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

The stock market; shaken by greed run amok and robots from New Jersey. The economy; shaken not stirred by the 2 o’clock cocktail hour Congressional Democrats and a narcissist at the freewheeling White House. Our beliefs and trust in our government shaken to its core.

Our fortunes shaken out of us; the bad actors, wannabes, and recently unemployed shaken out of their houses. The world shaken by; hurricanes, earthquakes, and oil disasters. And let’s not forget, the salt of the earth, confiscated at restaurants for our own good. We are all treading on very shaky ground. Even those of us who are usually unshakeable are shaking. I thought about this on Saturday as I tried to shake off the zeitgeist.

So what’s “shaken” in your world?

Fresh off the Labor Day weekend I wake up and try to smell the first whiff of autumn. For some reason it can’t come soon enough this year. Oh how I want it to be Fall! And so impatiently, like a kid who can’t wait to get back in the classroom, I went out in search of fresh apples. I thought I would spot an orchard on my trip into town and gamely sprint up to it while the owners weren’t looking and give it a little shake. No such luck. Not an apple tree in sight. Not to let an ironic moment slip by, amid all the shaking of things I don’t want shaken, I couldn’t shake the thing I wanted most… a small perfect apple off a willing tree. And with that I can’t shake off an intense feeling of homesickness for Upstate New York in apple season.

The mighty apple…http://www.nyapplecountry.com/varieties.htm

In the Middle Ages, the English said "To eat an apple before going to bed will make the doctor beg his bread." And nothing goes better with an apple than some kind of crust. When we lived in Canada, we’d pick our own apples at the end of the summer - no need for a first frost. My grandmother would make the most wonderful galette from these fresh picked beauties. I can’t separate my memories of those days with the first bite of a fresh apple to this day. One bite, and I am back in that most wonderful place -with my sisters carrying the apples from the tree in my skirt and dumping them in the back seat of our old Buick as we headed home eating apples and arguing over who picked the most.

Celia’s Apple Galette recipe:
One and a half pound of apples cut into thin slices… drizzle a little lemon juice. Grandma used lard but you could use butter. She swore the key was how cold the water had to be for the perfect crust, so my job was to run my hand under the faucet until it was cold enough. I wasn’t allowed to peel or chop as I was not allowed to use her sharp knives. So I’d watch and then help her mix the crust with her big wooden fork…Here’s the recipe…served warm with a little cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on just before serving…

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water
In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds. While machine is running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream through feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time. Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month.
Topping:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 tbs butter, cut into small pieces
Preheat oven to 450°F. Toss apple slices with zest. On floured surface, roll out dough to 11 inch rough circle (or roll out half of dough to about 6 inch circle). Place dough on baking sheet. Cover dough with apples, leaving about 1 1/2 inches around edges apple-free. Combine the topping ingredients except for butter in a food processor. Add butter and pulse until crumbly or makes a ball. Crumble over apples. Fold up edges of pastry over apples, pleating sides. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and apples are fork tender. Serve warm. Serves 4-6.

The Big Shakedown:
Isaiah weighs in with, “The Lord said, in a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory.”

If I really wanted to shake things up…I’d buy this cottage in Lewiston NY, a small town across Canada on the Niagara River. Charming no?

The Tea Party deconstructed.

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

The Orange Pekoe People - The Blue State hardliners. Old-time mainstream types. You know the off-the-shelf black tea leaf drinkers. (If Lipton was good enough for my grandfather, it’s good enough for me!) Anti SS and Medicare. These are the old line Newt Gingrich followers with true Republican orthodoxy. The Republican Party opposed Social Security when it was founded seventy-five years ago, and have never supported the notion the government should be running a middle class handout pension program. They believe in what President Bush referred to as the "ownership society." Basically that means that the "private market" should take care of it, and if you didn’t plan ahead, tough nuts to you, loser. If we had our way, you wouldn’t have the electric to heat that water much less throw in a tea bag. “Now where’s that Jack Daniels? This tea needs something.”

The Green Tea people…These are the “far out” types who are actually telling you what their plans are! Unlike the aforementioned, these newbies are saying things before an election you’d never hear the Pekoe people say. No innuendo a la Bush or Dole. Think Scot Brown and his truck. People like Congressman Paul Ryan, who would be Chairman of the House Budget Committee if the Republicans were to take back control of the House, has drawn up a roadmap on how he would privatize Social Security and abolish Medicare and replace it with vouchers for private insurance.

Seniors and the middle class may find both groups and their agendas hard to swallow. And if they turn out in numbers in November, the tea party may be in steep trouble.

The White Tea totalers -This one’s obvious -it has the highest amount of antioxidants with the least amount of caffeine… it’s the drink of the Libertarians. Accomplish more with less no? The new hotties are shaking the leaves in Washington and Wall Street by taking aim at Obama and his free handed spending spree. Think Rand Paul the libertarian ophthalmologist from Kentucky leading in the polls as I write this… http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/09/05/rand-paul-leads-in-kentucky-polling/

This last group clearly has the Democrats very nervous as November quickly approaches. Pelosi looks like a jangle of nerves, and Barney Frank can’t seem to not lose his temper at every interview. Obama’s numbers are dwindling, he can’t keep his wife’s spending under control much less our country’s, as he keeps spending like an over caffeinated kid at the mall.

Perhaps the java junkies on the hill should switch their liberal libations to the leaf variety. They sure don’t know beans about tea.

Apparently being a coffee drinking Democrat has its downside these days. Here’s an excerpt from the Grey Brigade…“Well, don’t worry youngsters, the Grey Haired Brigade is here, and in two months we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we’re going, and in November we’re going to the polls by the millions. This land does not belong to the Muslim in the White House or to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It belongs to We the People, and We the People plan to reclaim our land and our freedom. We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren.

So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the Grey-Haired Brigade.”

Tea celebs: Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingram, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Sara Palin, Ritch Santelli, Mike Huckabee etc… Besides Doug Hoffman, and Christine O’Donnell, who else on the hill has the Tea Party’s backing?

So there ya have it. The Tea Party according to Wealthmiser.

With coffee futures heading thru the roof and the Democrats headed out the door, perhaps tea is an appropriate symbol for what ails us as a country whose time has come. As the Byrds would say “to everything there is a season”… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LSTc-5Fn_Y

Hey Glenn, put down the diet coke, here’s how to make a perfect cup of tea.

While I wouldn’t take my cues from how the Brits handle their sovereign debt, I do bow to their prowess with the pot. Teapot that is….
http://www.veg-world.com/articles/make-tea.htm

And of course no cup of tea is complete unless you wash it down with a fruited scone…we had these everyday when we were in London…I could have moved into Fortnum and Mason just for their tea service sitting amongst the voracious white gloved British Grey Brigade. Heaven!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/fruit-scones-1684424.html

Japanese Macha. Darjeeling a close second.

The Wealthmiser.

The Tempest in a Teapot

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

Does Michigan hate all tea drinkers or just the ones that vote Republican?

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20100904/ELECTIONS/9040323/Michigan-high-court-keeps

What does this guy who writes for Vanity Fair and claims to have wanted to write a good piece on Palin have against her, er I mean Lady Macbeth...18 pages of vitriol and all of it from second hand sources - he never got to meet the woman herself.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Vox-News/2010/0901/Vanity-Fair-publishes-18-page

From Lady Macbeth to Lady Gaga... Earl wusses out on Fire Island

Okay boys your pink Speedos are safe for now. Earl is just a distant memory. Turn off your gaydar. You can go outside and play. Run naked thru the Labor Day Parade! How positively gaga.

http://www2.wnct.com/news/2010/sep/03/3/goodbye-earl-obx-crystal-coast-spared-direct-hit-ar-

Even he looks gay!
What's with the girl's bike? And the helmet! Did they mug some poor little girl on Martha's and swag her stuff? He looks positively erkle-esque.

The ultimate biker chick....

A little wine with your chai?

Food "engineering" on the pairing of this duo working overtime -why not try some of this gay blend with your barbecue instead of the usual Bud, bud.

http://chaiwine.com/

Looks like this labor weekend is working it overtime... life is a catwalk, no?...
The Wealthmiser

That cuppa Joe jolts the futures market

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:17:26 PST

That's the buzz du jour. So far the Starbuck’s and Peet’s say they won't have to raise prices just yet but we all know where there's steam there's a hill of beans about to go boom.

I remember past coffee price hikes. In the 70's my grandmother stopped drinking it altogether and became a tea drinker and that's saying a lot. The Italians live for their espresso. We used to grind our own beans at the local A&P - I could barely reach the grinder, but she would lift me up so I could pour the beans into the "little house" and watch it come out a fine black powder. My grandmother always chewed the first few beans to make sure they were fresh. ‘Eight o’Clock Coffee.’ She would then make it in a stainless steel percolator that sat on the stove all day til liquid mud poured forth from the bottom of the pot. Not a drop was ever wasted. At Grandma's I was allowed to drink coffee and hot milk. It was part of our history together. When she switched to tea, so did I.

But years later, I opened a coffee supply store in Washington DC where I custom ground from beans that were roasted four blocks away. I bought my grinder - a 1930 antique during a trip to Italy. And speaking of the Italians, there goes another tradition. I just found out the first "to go" espresso bar is about to open. Yes, alas, they are buckling under the pressure to adapt just like the French have done. But the cafe experience in France was always different from the Italians. The Italians always drank their espresso standing at the bar, not lingering over a cup for hours socializing and lingering. I hate to see traditions die especially one so particular to our ‘Paisans.’

I still don't drink coffee today. There are times when the smell of it really gets to me though. I love walking around Starbucks and places like Dean and Deluca. And for some reason I associate coffee with the change in season from summer to fall. Sometimes when I smell my husband's fresh brewed cup, I get tempted but I settle for the buzz I get off the fumes. I am very caffeine sensitive. I get light headed just inhaling the stuff! And there are times when certain foods beg for coffee. Biscotti. Scrambled eggs. Apple Pie. Hmmm. I better stop there. I am starting to get hungry!

Glenn Beck sweetened the tea party.

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

Hundreds of thousands came to the mall in Wash DC this weekend to hear the nouveau historian of all things conservative implore America to remember its history — Kudos to him for making his audience a little smarter during his Friday’s shows.

Things were not so sweet in Jackson Hole but Ben gave the market a pop. The economy is in desperate need of a good shot of sustainable glucose to get it rip roaring again…and I don’t mean high fructose!

Getting the old sugar time blues…

For all you sugar junkies out there, time to horde the white stuff - looks like sour grapes for us as sugar heads higher and higher. Meaning that sugar high buzz we crave is going to behave like carbo cocaine.

What to do? …talk to me mama... Ella Fitzerald might know a thing or two about it...
(Glenn Beck, not exactly bird-like himself, admits to this nocturnal rite*)

Hummingbirds are the earth’s pre-eminent sugar junkies. As such are they endangered or about to become nasty should the price of sugar sky-rocket?

The poor dears must eat more than their weight in food each day, by eating often. Because their survival depends on this more than any other animal on the planet- they continually face starvation. Not so unlike what Benanke is doing to keep the economy rolling, energy storage or sugar consumption keeps a hummingbird from starving, but not for long. The energy at the end of a day usually is just sufficient to survive overnight. Unless they lower their body temperature overnight, they could die. Can you imagine a horde of hummingbirds on a low blood sugar rage? Think Hitchcock.

So when you grab the cookie dough at 3 am *just think of yourself as a small red bird and go tweet around your kitchen as you stick your fingers in the sticky stuff and lick off every tasty morsel – Unless of course you’re Michelle Obama.

California could run the grid off her stored energy for years.

Horde some granular now or pay dearly for those sugar pumpkin cookies this fall. When you see the future price of sugar you’ll need all you can get to calm yourself down.

Soft pumpkin cookie recipe…

Tweet.

Michelle Getting Fat On a Vacation Binge?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

Let’s see, she was doing the tapas tango in Spain two weeks ago. And there she is on Martha's Vineyard today…maybe we should ask when is she NOT on vacation on our dime? While the rest of us are belt tightening she appears to be letting out her seams and has given up the ridiculous camouflage fat belt look. While the rest of us are putting less on our plates, she is probably gorging on lobster, and ice cream on Martha’s Vineyard, where all the wannabe wasp soul sista’s hang. And all the wannabe wasp soul daddies play bad golf.

So what do you want on that blimpo burger, Michelle? Ketchup? Pickles? Or a dollop of malaise perhaps? As in the US Economy? Yes, Michelle! As in the stock market is still open this week! Surprise… world is still working to fund your trips. If you ever lift your head out of the buffet table, you might take a look.

As the market grinds down toward the end of the summer, we're seeing the typical seasonal malaise when companies quietly drifts down to 52-week lows. And the selling may not be over. The S&P 500 has historically been the weakest in September, dropping an average of -1.3%. The good news: stocks really build a head of steam after that. The S&P 500 typically rises +0.7% in October, followed by average monthly gains of +1.5%, +1.9% and +2.1% in each of the next three months. Fun in the Sun is Over. Thank Heaven.

As far as I am concerned the summer is officially over. Put away the beach balls, the white belts, the seersucker, and the books you didn‘t read at the beach... I think half the Southeast never left their air conditioned media rooms. Any hint of summer they got from the weather channel.

So get out the canning jars, and start to plan for fall. Think Vivaldi. Hopefully the DJIA doesn’t mimic the leaves.
Think Apples. ADM?
Think Apple. AAPL?
Think Cider. JMBA?
Think Doughnuts. PNRA?
Think Hayrides. DAL?
Think Tweed. RL?

If you buy any of those you will win the hang out with Michelle contest where you get to pay her food bill for the week. The US taxpayer thanks you.

From StockTrade to Night Shade

As in that eggplant in your garden…One summer in Connecticut I had more eggplant than I knew what to do with… I was trying to outdo my Italian neighbor who blew me out of the topsoil with his 14 foot zucchini so I had to win the eggplant war. Suffice to say, I put so much fish fertilizer on my plants, I swear they tasted like they already were laced with anchovies... It was an eggplant explosion, so I found that they cooked down beautifully in a mélange of tomato, onion, garlic, and celery. So for the nightshade lovers among us, this recipe for caponata is wonderful. Alas, I could not find my grandmother's so this will have to do for now. You can either freeze a batch or can it. I did the latter being the retronaut I am when it comes to all things food or thread. Mangia!

The Don Draper Syndrome

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

Right now my life is very… For all you Mad Men lovers you know what I mean off Sunday‘s episode. That’s as far as he gets- rips the paper out of the typewriter and tears it up refusing to deal with how dicey it is for him right now. He’s living in a hovel, his wife divorced him – he can’t connect on an emotional level to anyone including himself so he just gets drunker and passes out on the bed.

How would you finish that sentence for where you are right now? Full? Happy? Content? Fun?

Didn’t think so… know why? My theory is that people, like the stock market, don’t perform in a bubble - when there is so much uncertainty now, fear mongering, worries, instability, mistrust, pessimism, who’s doing cartwheels? I tend to be optimistic but when there is so much angst popping around out there, it’s gets harder and harder to party on. I think when the going is fuzzy, we all tend to stop the momo and sit out of most stuff except for the necessities. Shopping? The numbers are telling us we’re only buying what we need right now. Food. Toilet paper. Barest of Walmart necessities. Forget Whole Foods. That’s for people with jobs or trust funds - or their very own hedge funds.

But there are pockets of hope and the latest back to school craze - the skinny jeans.

I see these as THE fall item - and of course all the accessories to go with them. They say they are going to save retail this quarter… hmmm we shall see… perhaps they’ll squeeze a little fun back into our lives…

Need more reasons to be glum like Don? How about the Hindenburg Omen? And how come Lakehurst New Jersey where the real Hindenburg crashed doesn’t have a Hindenburg Day?

No even the poor over-taxed people in New Jersey don’t need that PR spin. They have had enough hot air from their politicians so far this year. Haven’t we all. Let’s all hold our breath til November.

Speaking of hot air… http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/best-ever-popcorn-balls/Detail.aspx

Now I ask you how can you not smile at one of these? An instant angst blocker!

No Belle Michelle Feeding-Off Your Tax Dollars

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

Congratulations my dear, on your latest PR disaster du jour.

I hear from Karl Rove that nobody throws their Richter scale weight around the White House like Michelle - you just don't question what this heffer does or she'll wipe the floor up with you.

Beyond arrogance we just spent 178,000 to fly her beyond Beyonce ass and her kid on our dime when the poor working class are out of work and can't put food on their table. They are thrilled to afford the iceberg on sale for 99 cents and Obama asks for arugula in Iowa.

Michelle dines at five star hotels in Malaga and he's got a 59% disapproval rating because they don't care what you think... but thankfully they are running what's left of the Democratic party into the ground.

Perhaps she may burn some calories in the process.

Hey Michelle I 'll buy the running shoes! Don't let the double wide doors hit you in the… oh never mind...

Pretty in Pink?

Okay, 178,000 to fly to Spain and nobody packed a steamer to get the wrinkles out? You'd think she’d send one of her ladies in waiting to Cortez Inglez and buy one before the paparazzi came. Seems you're either First Lady material or you're not.

Walmart Shopper in Aisle 8

Woops! Actually some Walmart shoppers look better than poor Michelle If you pick carefully you can actually do pretty well.

The wrinkled khaki cargo pants don't even match the top! Her fat cankles are literally exploding out of those horrid shoes. She has a saddle back (curved vertebrae) and thinks she looks smaller with these empire waisted tops and belts that sit high on her torso which do nothing but call attention to how fat she is in all the wrong places. Not to make the point but... you can dress casually and still look elegant - it comes with a certain pedigree that alas seems to have eluded this present first lady much as she would like you to think otherwise.

Only hopes she did not fall in love with the churros in Spain or I fear even the fat belts and high cinched waists won't obscure the obvious excess she carries.

Bacca de chocolat..

I was literally addicted to these when I traveled thru Spain...

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups whole milk (540 ml)
1/4 cup water (60 ml)
1/3 cup granulated sugar (67 grams)
1 cinnamon stick
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted (113 grams)

Heat the milk and water just to a boil in a saucepan. Turn off the heat.

In a separate saucepan, heat the sugar with the cinnamon over medium heat. Leave the sugar undisturbed until it begins to caramelize and take on color around the edges. Gently swirl the syrup around the pan at this point until the sugar is completely melted. Continue heating the caramel until dark amber.

Watch out for sputtering hot syrup and steam in the following step. Pour the milk over the caramel and cinnamon (the milk might foam up as it boils). Stir until the caramel is completely dissolved.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the melted chocolate. Discard the cinnamon stick.

Using an immersion or regular blender, whip the hot chocolate for about 1 minute.

Serve immediately or store in an airtight container and refrigerate. Caramel cinnamon hot chocolate can be made up to 2 days ahead.

What I miss most about New York.

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

You’re walking down a street. It’s early morning. You pass someone who looks like Francesco Clemente. That’s because it is Francesco Clemente out for a morning stroll in 90 degrees looking so dapper in a worn linen jacket and scarf. You stop with your camera and ask if you can take his picture. I have always loved Francesco Clemente's work and his personal style (notice the frayed sleeve of this olive drab jacket which looks like 80‘s Armani). He is a real icon of the New York art scene.

Man and clothes with soul like a fabulous old worn Oriental carpet.

Catalogued under the style isn't fashion mantra. This is the real artist, perfect and unique but not showing the least effort. I always loved a bit of wear and tear on a garment – Looks so casual and elegant. His interview with Charlie Rose is a must if you have even one creative bone in your body…

In the interview he talks about “waiting” as being a big part of the creative process. I am sure the chap who waited for just the right morning to be out with his camera would agree.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed…

Maybe it's a left brain right brain split between two people?

On the one hand you have the artist. On the other you have, well, you have a no less brilliant quant.

Someone once said art is not about the “what” but the “how.” Maybe the reverse is true for Bernanke. Saving us from the ravages of a depression may well be considered a "work of art" when the history books are written.

I wonder if he owns a three button linen jacket.

You think Mad Men is Hot?

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:17:26 PST

It was so hot in Tennessee yesterday ...

I was playing my Frank Sinatra White Christmas CD en route to getting some sorbets and frozen fruit at Kroger’s - I pass on the local fruit as it looks more like confit these days.

Prices were sky high on produce as the price of water skyrockets in heat soaked California. I suppose if I was schlepped in a truck halfway across the country, I wouldn’t look particularly tasty either.

So here's my inflation story…

I get to the checkout counter and the woman in front of me has several cases of diet coke - the college kid checking her out is a wise guy type. This Saturday part time gig is clearly not his career path. Anyway, he tells her the amount, She starts to violently shake her head “no” and asks him to double check the price.

I chimed in and said to her, "Didn't you hear? The government has taken over the cash registers at all Kroger’s to help pay for Obamacare.” College Boy, interrupting me, says he overcharged her by like twenty dollars, kinda shrugs it off and gives her change.

She leaves and I start to put my items on the conveyer.

I said to him, "I guess Math isn't your major."

And with that he looked me straight on and said "No, I am a liberal."

It seems I had bruised his ego.

From that point on, I watched to make sure he didn't bruise my bananas.

The uncooling of Don Draper…

What the hell is happening to old Don. Suddenly he’s starting to get very uncool. Getting roaring drunk, Sleeping in hallways. Throwing hissy fits at paying clients. And worst of all starting to look dorky in those suits. More on this later….

I heart Larry Kudlow

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

You know the one that used to come to visit every summer. The one that got away. Lives in a better place than you and your parents. He’s the exotic one. The one that looks like he could go Hollywood. Dresses well. So much so as a child you wonder why he’s not your father. He brings you presents. He doesn’t smoke. He takes you to the movies and buys you ice cream. He tells you will be beautiful. We love those uncles. They are so optimistic. At least for the summer everything is rosy. They bring hope that things will get better. That there is a better world out there.

That was my Uncle Al. And I thought about my Uncle Al while watching Larry Kudlow tonight. While everyone was screaming 115 sizzling degrees of a bummer of a summer, he has steadfastly been holding to the eternal optimistic view. St Exupery would be impressed. He too was a free market capitalist, non?

Larry gave us his optimistic checklist tonight on his show …corporate profits up, market up 7% in July, savings rate going up, interest rates down, GDP growing steadily month on month…the elections in November, King dollar.

I heart Optimism!

Flying in the face of all that’s wrong with the Obama Administration and what it is doing with our debt, the pace of legislation for the past 18 months was unprecedented. We will never see this level of spending again in our lifetime. The decoupling of the class of middle America. Our economic freedom ripped out from under us. Citizen armies armed to take the country back from the Socialist crazies. We are in decline. As the balance changes in Washington (the Repubs will take the House) we must get out of this highly regulated environment and this ridiculous fiat money crack house. And Larry has been there all along screaming - literally - to get us back to our roots of hard work, entrepreneurship and incentivizing hard work rather than handing out free money for the mass class of big ass America who don’t pay squat in taxes and expect to get a free ride. And Larry’s our man.

He’s Glenn Beck without the chalk board. In 5000 years of recorded history the greatest nation on the planet will not go down the tubes as long as Larry has one last breath in his body. Let’s get behind that bespoke suited wonder and do whatever it takes to push back the tax increase - someone has to sign this bill and extend the Bush tax cuts. 20% is still too high. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley before all of NYC business leaves these shores. And repeal Obamacare and repeal everything Pelosi got her greasy fingers on.

Reform Reform Reform Reform. He screams his rhetoric at the top of his lungs. Why isn’t Kudlow on Fox anyway? He’s the only real non Liberal on CNBC.

He continues.... No more bailouts. It’s called Bankruptcy moron! - ever heard of it? You screw up- it’s on you. And get the government off our backs! Did you know 2/3 of businesses are now under the control of the Fed government? Yikes....

And oh yes, to the rest of the world - tell the UN the party is OVAH. That window is closed.

Larry’s show is always entertaining. He does his market take and then has his minions split screened and then lets them all talk at once …highly irritating but strangely entertaining all the same.

“The market is still deciding whether it wants to consolidate or breakdown here. The battle of 1100 continues, and is proving profoundly futile to try and trade until it resolves in either direction. Therefore, a better use of time is to take a sneak peak into the future, with your good friend and great American, Larry Kudlow of CNBC, as your guide. “ King of King Dollar, the Mustard Seeds, and beating up on midget economists, he takes on guys twice his size like Joey - fat neck- Battapaglia and Don -don’t remember the tech bubble I lost my fortune in- Luskin. Goldilocks is back and Larry doesn’t need the cocaine anymore to see Alice and the White Rabbit. He’s got Big Butt Bertha and 30 hotel rooms and her free wheeling spender of a husband in the White House to rail against. Yeah, you go Larry.

And don’t get those French cuffs dirty tangling with those tawdry democrats. We know you went to Ivy League schools and wear the BEST clothes on cable. And that’s saying a lot. Love the tie, sweetie.

You’re like a relic out of the forties. I can see you now on your boat sailing off the coast of Block Island with a sidecar in one hand and a Cohiba in the other. Enjoy Larry, We love ya…and please adopt me! I am in the market for an exotic uncle.

Is This Where the Old Money Lives?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

When it comes to wealth, these haunts have the highest earners:

Wealthiest by top 5% Household Income:

1. New York, NY: $857,643

2. Fairfield, CT: $822,708

3. Westchester, NY: $793,134

4. Somerset, NJ: $625,869

5. Marin, CA: $624,762

6. Montgomery, MD: $567,190

7. Hunterdon, NJ: $554,015

8. Morris, NJ: $546,982

9. Nassau, NY: $538,307

10. San Francisco, CA: $523,744

Heat wave alert!

You burn more calories eating protein
so eat this instead!

The Veggie Burger Meltup…

YUMMMMMMM!

Some people were meant to wear hats…
Ah the definitive Panama!

Okay so it was a lousy movie - but who
could forget that hat? It put Jane March
on the map - whatever happened to her
besides being miscast with -urp -
Bruce Willis!!

Some people were not
meant to wear hats...
I rest my case.

Cheers!

Back to school if only in spirit.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

What is it about this time of year that makes us all kids shopping for squeaky new shoes?

Do kids even wear shoes anymore? I guess today it’s new sneakers iPhones and tattoos.

Sorry but I go all Luddite when it comes to school gear. Old wooden pencil boxes. Howdy Doody lunch pails. Hand cranked pencil sharpeners screwed into door jambs. Eberhard Faber erasers.

Fountain pens with chrome tops.

I went down the "back to school" aisles at various stores and was appalled at what passes for back to school items – Cheap plastic Day-Glo Chinese garbage.

We boomers had a RITUAL and for me that started at Woolworths. The first day of school was a half day and so the afternoon was spent at Woolworth’s filling the list.

My list was usually a new blotter for my desk, a pencil case for my Schaeffer fountain pen, pencils, erasers, magic markers, (back then they really smelled great!), Elmer’s glue (I never used) a binder - usually denim, dividers with colored plastic dividers, college ruled thin blue lined paper, and BIC pens. A slide rule, a wood ruler, and a three hole punch to put all the mimeographed pages (the ones that really smelled bad unless you were into getting high) into the binder – And some folders for special projects. My text books were covered in old Loblaw’s brown grocery bags. I never had a book bag. I did have a lunch pail but I think someone stole it and my mother put my lunches in brown paper bags after that. She never bought the small bags. I carried my lunch in a big Loblaw’s used brown bag!

Our Woolworths was on the corner of Grant Street in Buffalo New York, with doors at a 45 degree angles. It took up a good third of the block, and had some nice window displays as I recall. Outside at the entrance, there was a small black and white tile floor, with big double doors and shiny brass door pulls. Inside the smell of hot dogs, grease from the grill, and buttered popcorn filled the air with anticipation and excitement. The tile changed to checker board red and white tiles. To the right was a small counter run by an old cranky woman. The stools were low and red leather and swiveled. Your feet did not touch the floor. The counter was tan Formica with a stainless steel edge. Someone’s half drunk coffee cup was usually still on the counter, then removed as soon as you sat down. I think there were about twelve stools as I remember. The waitress always wore a white outfit with a little waitress head piece. The nut stand was next to the candy counter, I loved the black licorice buttons, served in a small white bag. But my favorite was the whole baked apple in a domed crust with hot vanilla sauce. I either ordered that or the grilled cheese and tomato soup. Sometime after my dance classes, I would get the 3 foot long bag of buttered popcorn - I can still smell the aroma of that hot buttered corn.

The lunch counter was toward the right side, and always smelled of burgers on the grill. The toy section was toward the back on the left side with sales ladies watching every move you made. I bought almost all my school supplies at Woolworths. It was a mainstay at our house. When I got older I would be given permission to buy my first pancake makeup there too. And nail polish! Woolworth’s had the best selection of nail polish in the world. My grandmother and I would spend hours going over all the colors. She always chose some shade of red. I gravitated between the Persian Melon and Tawny Port. I loved Woolworth’s! It got me. It knew what I wanted and rewarded me every time I went there. It eventually closed down as did the rest of the stores from that time - Kresge’s, WT Grant, and Sattler’s. Years later, I would be living in New York, and discovered the Woolworths on 34th street where I and every gay guy in town coveted the fiesta ware and all things Woolworth.

Who is more hated -

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

Neither is winning any popularity contest of late. And both seem to be the poster children for the “what’s to not like crowd.'

France, fresh off the heels of a lousy unemployment number and riots erupting all over their fair country ,world markets fell Tuesday after lower than expected earnings from U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs said its second-quarter net income fell 83 percent to $453 million because of lower trading revenues and a one-off charge for its settlement of civil fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The CAC-40 in France was 51.84 points, or 1.5 percent, lower at 3,434.49.

But then there’s the inveterate French culture - you know the thing that drives Americans crazy because it’s so cool and so not American. Let’s face it - you hate the French because they don’t think we’re the greatest thing since sliced fromage. And that’s pour quoi or ...Why you are not French

The New York Times recently wrote a cute piece about the French.

I know the biases we Americans have against the French are mostly political and a bit cultural but there's a reason why it’s the number one destination in Europe for the world so stick that in your citaines and smoke it. It's that je ne c'est quoi that we just can't get enough of!

What would Diane Lane have given to be more French and ten years younger in the movie "Unfaithful"?

And with that, I give you the 14 "raisons d'etre" and why you are not French my little pamplemousse…

1. You have allowed yourself to gain weight. The French word for fat is "gros". Need to know more?

2. In order to correct number 1, you spend hours sweating like a pig in a gym instead of walking more, eating pamplemousse, and slathering on de-cellulite creams the gov't pays for.

3. You ride to and from the mall in a gas guzzling SUV instead of renting a bike by the hour and riding your tush off through the Fauxbourg St. Honore in a pair of stiletto Manolas.

4. You eat large portions of garbage food the French wouldn’t feed their hogs – (think anything like corn on the cob dripping in

butter)

5. You don’t look particularly chic in black.

6. The minute you hit 40, you think Joan Rivers kind of kabuki face work.

7. You actually care what the twenty-something’s think about anything.

8. You have never had cheese for dessert.

9. You think drinking red wine is being French. (It’s not – they actually drink less wine than you’d think)

10. You embrace anything ten years younger than you and think it’s cooler than you just because it’s newer. Like a Lindsay Lohan-mediathon. It is very un-French to miss the younger version of you versus the you to be.

11. You haven’t been getting facials since the age of twelve.

12. You don’t spend the equivalent of the country’s GDP on creams, soaps, and capsules nor does your health insurance cover these expenses. Hey, the country invests in looking good. Must help those tourism industry numbers!

13. You will not embrace aging in a spirited, eccentric madcap way.

14. You will slowly become more anonymous and less acknowledged as you get older rather than more loved and appreciated. Pauvre enfants – we Americans who dare age.

And vive la difference as they say.

Roast chicken a la Chez L'Ami Louis

famous Chef bistro in Paris, he died at 98 choking on a slab of fois grois. Doesn't get more French than that. Best pommes frites on the planet.

Summer! Ba Humbug!

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

The extremes.

Too many degrees

Too much moisture

Too many children

Too much yang

Too many lawn mowers

Too many leaf blowers

Absence of clouds

Watching someone with a pool in their backyard on a hot day when you don’t have one

Owning a pool

Gay summer fruits

Smelly shellfish

Garbage

The sweat outside a glass of iced tea that drips
on your clothes

Too many days thinking that wherever you are
and everyone else is having more fun

Pretending to have fun
doing something “summer” out of guilt.

Too much skin showing on too many people
that don’t own mirrors

As soon as you get your wardrobe right,
the season’s over

The various shades of white that never match

Spending two months wondering why summer
was so great when you were younger.

Fumbling with sunglasses.

Not going to the beach.
Not reading a summer book.
Not having a summer fling.
Not having a tan.
Not getting rip-snorting drunk.

Going to stupid places you’d never consider
in better weather.

Freezing in air conditioning

Sweating

Other people’s feet.

Crox.

It procrastinates Autumn

Smart Guy.

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

Just think of the millions he won’t have to pay by residing in Florida.

Just like small business and wealthy people have been fleeing NY and CA and other high tax states in droves – Art Laffer has said as much in the past. High tax states are going bankrupt and low tax states are thriving. That said - taxes should not be the deciding factor but a consideration. Because at the end of the day, you have to put your head on a pillow that had better feel like home.

And that brings me to: What is home?

Is it exclusively the province of birthplace? I wonder. I have traveled to many places. On arrival, some felt like home. Like taking that deep breath of surveying the area, and doing that inward nod, “yeah.”

Other times, I felt an ache for my birthplace that only a trip home would quell the fires of. Damn that rust belt of a forgotten place that had me my first 18 years. The Nazis say; “give me a child the first eight years and I will own him.”

Buffalo New York had an extra ten to Adolf’s 8. And I hated half my life there. I love Buffalo with both fists. Doesn’t matter what it has or has not. This is not rational. It matters not. Thank God I am not acting on it like a case of puppy love. You hope it passes before you make a fool out of yourself. Just let it runs its course.

Would that I was born in a civilized place like where I live now – where the people are kind. The winters are mild and but for a few tornadoes that rip thru every now and then, the friendliest place I have ever lived .But going on four years, it feels no more like home than when I arrived.

Do you have to leave a place to experience homesickness?

I haven’t left it since I arrived. Maybe a couple of trips to Los Angeles might do the trick. Hell, hell would start to look good two weeks into LA.

Places I’d move to tomorrow if price were no object - meaning I could afford a 3400 sq ft home like I live in now… In New England: Greenfield Hill, Fairfield CT, Berkshires, MA. Then New York City, Carmel CA, San Francisco, Palm Beach FL. My adventurous list: London Paris, Florence, Venice.

I haven’t really found home yet.

The Wealthmiser.

What I eat when I am homesick:

There is an art to eating a muffin of such magnitude. If you are obsessed with lemony baked goods like I am, I highly recommend trying this recipe. These take me back to afternoons with my grandmother and our ritual afternoon teas on cups and saucers only – Never mugs. We would sit on her front porch sipping hot black tea she brewed like coffee and I would go right for the muffins fresh from the oven. I'd lick the sugar glazed frosting off first because they were too hot to eat right away. And then of course I'd pick off the poppy seeds – one by one. It drove her crazy! We needed the carbs after our serious shopping sprees on Grant Street in Buffalo - just two girls out to get glamorous and holding hands all the way.

Help wanted? Not in your lifetime.

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

James Juback had an interesting article on the job market. He basically said that during our most prosperous period during the Clinton and Bush years, the job market was in bad shape even back then.

George H.W. Bush created 2.5 million net jobs in only four years. What's really important isn't just the top-line number but the huge job hole that the U.S. economy dug during George W. Bush's administration. So the United States went into the recently ended recession about 10 million jobs in the hole, and then things got worse.

According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. lost nearly 7.5 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007. In that same period, the institute calculates, because of a growing population, the United States needed to add 3 million jobs just to stay even. From the December 2007 start of the recession, the U.S. has dug itself an additional hole of 10.5 million jobs.

The great puzzle of the Bush administration, given the stimulus and extremely fast growth in the money supply, isn't why it created a bubble in housing and other asset markets. The real puzzle is why this stimulus didn't generate faster economic growth or create more jobs.

So we experienced a great boon to our economy with a lackluster job sector. So, how important is it to our recovery? If we get our financial house back in order and begin to meaningfully cut the deficit, perhaps not as much as the conventional wisdom would have it. Stop looking for a job and start looking for work. Corporate America is not going to start hiring when its old Bush tax cut is about to go away. He’s hoarding cash. So is the bank. Take you banker out to lunch and convince him to start you up in a business.

Invest in yourself. That’s where the real growth will come from. Take heed. You are no longer an employee. And that should be good news.

Ditch the smoothie. The surest way to cool off to step up the heat meter with the red pepper flakes…you know the kind that every pizza place in NYC puts on the counter to mask what their sauce and cheese lacks - personality! I sprinkle it on everything. It boosts metabolism and clears the head.

The devil is in the details… it‘s the devil cake… this is really easy. Just add a quarter teaspoon of chili powder to your cake batter and your icing and voila…

The Ju-liars

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:17:26 PST

1. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank on the bill challenged by Gregg and Coker (yeah!)

2. Most bankers and congressmen with a special hi to Maxine.

3. The guys that ran BP from the get go.

4. Larry King on why he got kicked off

5. The produce guy at Walmart

6. The last guy that worked on your car.

7. The sales person who sold you those jeans

8. Anybody that tells you aspartame is okay.

9. 95% of the population of Los Angeles

10. Jim Cramer on any given day.

11. The Scarborough mica bobblehead chatter

12. CNBC throughout the day.

13. 99.9% of all real estate agents.

14. Somebody that sneezes and says it’s just an allergy

15, Any kid that tells you he just washed his hands.

16. Anyone who’s ever written a diet book.

17. Everybody who uses a dating site.

18. Obama and his cohorts on just about everything.

19. Sara Palin on just about everything.

20. The Clintons and the Gores still fudging on absolutely everything.

21. 99% of the salespeople at Best Buy.

22. Anyone at a call center that says how important you are.

23. Anyone that tells you the Chinese are lying.

24. Jim Chanos on how transparent short selling really is.

25. Greenspan and Bernanke.

26. Geithner and the Fed chiefs.

27. Churches and Casinos

28. Sellers on Ebay

29. Advertisers.

30. Hollywood

The Market in Ugly Shorts

We are clearly very oversold by the shorthairs -- Clearly a bad start to a long hot summer. So get your fat wet ass out of that salt water pool and get back to Wall and Broad… we need volume, and from the looks of it, these guys clearly have it. And then some.

Spiking a Fourth of July Tea Party – Going short ribs and long booze this weekend?

The G20 world leaders called for universal austerity and belt tightening.

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

So they ate ramen, cold pizza and twinkies for their “working dinner.” Not really.

What they accomplished at the summit was lean at best. Zero sizzle.

Disunity was on the menu. The Europeans one size fits all austerity package was hard to swallow. So was Obama’s “not so fast Guido” lecture back at them. And of course, while everyone zigged, Germany zagged. Hmmm, when was the last time we saw Germany break with the group and go their own way?

Merkel may be saving her ass with all that austerity talk, but perhaps at the expense of her country.

Then again the Germans have always been more comfortable with a less is more culture. They are the biggest savers, most “miserly” of the euro-trashers. Few own homes, and are not into debt – personal or national.

Need more proof? Go listen to some German lieder, i.e. Schubert… Or read some Thomas Mann. We are not talking verbosity in the latter instance, or an Italian over the top sensibility in the former. I happen to love both.

Maybe they should have taken a tip from the terminally hip and got drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon. Now see? That would have sent a message since everyone knows hipsters started drinking PBR because some bar in Portland sold it for like 50 cents. Anyway the sale was completed last week.

If they’d asked me, here’s what I would have served at the G20

Chocolate chip cookies. I mean how can you argue when you’re chewing on a warm from the oven cookie with chocolate dribbling down your chin? Surefire world agreement! These cookies were found off a twitter cookie smack-down – they’ve already made the rounds to Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan as US soldiers, sisters and lovers have all sent these abroad on desperate request.

Your Mac And Cheese Is About to Hit the Big Board

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

If you think the market stinks this summer, you ain’t smelled nuthin yet.

The CME is about to launch cheese futures! Ah the lowly fermented curd elevated to trading status. And not to shoot holes thru their logic – cheese has a huge world presence from the lowly cheddar slopped on your Big Mac to that wedge of White Stilton Or Double Gloucester you washed down a German Hefe-Weisse with in Germany last summer.

The US’s dairy trade with China has tripled in the past three years, according to the International Dairy Foods Association, a US industry body. (Hmm - General Tso's Mozzarella?)

US dairy exports reached $3.8bn in 2008!

Domino’s, one of the US’s biggest pizza restaurant chains, reported that in the first quarter it saw a “historic” 14.3 per cent jump in sales at its outlets that have been open for at least one year, one of the largest quarterly same-store sales increases ever recorded by a big fast-food chain.

And if you don’t want to trade the futures, there’s always Kraft. The company that makes Mac and Cheese (urp!) Chucky Cheese, Pizza Hut and of course the Cheesecake Factory with that cute stock symbol CAKE. But if you buy any of those aforementioned cheese plays may your arteries congeal.)

So if all this talk about cheese has you salivating, why not entrust your gastro-cravings to the Brits and indulge in a Ploughman’s Lunch? It sustained us on our London theater trips as it was quite filling and got us thru the Noel Coward sans stomach rumblings and well onto our 11 pm dinners at Rules.

Our favorite store was Paxton and Whitfield in London www.paxtonandwhitfield.. and luckily we had more luck in assembling our alfresco lunches than John Cleese did in this Monty Python Classic! Who cut the cheese?

Not the Wealthmiser!

Ploughman's Lunch

Ingredients (you can order the Branston on Amazon)

4 slices crusty bread, thick slices or 2 large crusty bread rolls or 1/2 baguette
1-2 ounces fresh butter
8 ounces mature farmhouse Cheddar Cheese or Stilton Cheese or Wensleydale Cheese or Cheshire Cheese or Lancashire Cheese or Double Gloucester Cheese or Red Leicester Cheese
4 large pickled onions
4 tablespoons chutney or pickles (such as, Branston Pickle, Pan Yan Pickle or ploughman's pickle)
2 tomatoes
4 spring onions
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Directions

1. Arrange the buttered bread on a large platter or plate; you can also leave the bread unbuttered, and place a pat of butter on the side instead.

2. Cut 4 ounces of cheese per person, it is nice to have a choice of two cheese, such as 2 ounces Cheddar and 2 ounces Stilton - arrange these on the same platter/plate.

3. Put the pickled onions and chutney or pickles on the side of the plate, along with a fresh tomato left whole and the spring onions.

A happy Father�s Day to all the men with no children

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

So you managed to dodge that “baby bullet” twenty years go… or maybe two years ago, or maybe two hours ago.For whatever reason, you are spawn-free today and I and the planet thank you for that.

And it’s not like your progeny would not have been terrific, but I am of the opinion that most parents don’t do the mommy daddy thing particularly well. Or worse – They became parents for the wrong reasons. Pictures like these really bother me. One wonders what some who can’t even pay the rent or get out of their parent's basements are thinking. Octo mom redux. Oh sure the thought of having two of these is indeed intoxicating. But for every two of those there are two of these. And one never really knows which way the little X's and Y’s are going to go.

So before you get all jealous eyeing your neighbor as he hits the Pinot Noir with the grilled rib eye, know WHY he may be hitting the Pinot so hard these days. The total cost of having a baby in the first 2 years falls somewhere between $12,462 and $26,612. Better get that extra bottle out of the cellar.

So while you might not be the guy today outside flipping those Omaha Steaks with all the new grill tools junior just bought you at William Sonoma. Or the guy out on his yacht (think Hayward!) with that new Orvis Creel the little woman ponied-up for, or slicing that ball off the end of your new Callaway FT-1Z, you’re also not the guy out $413,000 that raising ONE little rascal will cost you if you send just ONE child off to private college.Not that you can put a price on parenthood. Nah.

So enjoy your day doing what you normally do. Visit your parents. Help a friend. Smile at a stranger. Let someone else in line in front of you. Hold a door. Give up your seat. Pay it forward. And yes, kiss your dog.Sometimes the best parents out there are the ones that don’t have any kids.And hit the stores tomorrow when all the aforementioned gear will be half price!

My Father’s Pierogies

These were his favorites. I used to eat them so fast, he'd say, "When are you going to come up for air?"I would make them today in his honor if I had the patience and the time. Alas, that was then, this is now.

When I lived in New York in the 1980's I found a place in the East village that made the most authentic pierogies. It was called Vaselka, My father and I went there once on one of his visits. He seemed to enjoy speaking in Polish to the recently transplanted waitress/actress from Warsaw as much as he liked the pierogies. I wish we had gone there more often.

It is still open today but under different management. Pierogies are like Italian ravioli sans the tomato sauce - But you won't miss it with all that butter. My father's addition was that he liked to chop up chives and throw them into the butter just before serving. Do it quickly or they will turn brown and bitter. A very cold Sonoma Chardonnay is a great accompaniment with a simple arugula salad – Perhaps lemon biscotti and sorbet for dessert.

Happy Father's Day Pierogi Recipe

Brits Losing World Cup To USA

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

No, not the one in South Africa, silly. Who cares about a bunch of leaf blowers beating the frogs? No I am talking about the cup worn by BP CEO Tony Hayward as he was relentlessly kicked in the nuts by our unsportsmanlike statesmen. Waxman kicked the loudest. Stupack kicked the dumbest.

Score – Brits 0 US Thugs 2

It must have been the coldest nastiest loneliest day Hayward ever experienced. It’s very scary when you’re the smartest guy in room 2123 of the Rayburn Building. Be the ball? Not today. Not if your name was Tony Hayward. He was playing for his honour, We clearly were not.

Foul Play

This is from a travel blog Dated May 19^th 2009 - one year ago. The beaches apparently were already a mess – so please don’t tell me BP ruined our beaches.

17, 2009 at 5:01PM

BEACHES of Mississippi??? What a joke! They are great if you can stand the filthy water and fishy odor.

And last but not least…The Lazy Sunbathers. I played this over in my head today. I wonder if Tony did. Morrissey seemed fitting to the occasion.

Fowl Play

I love quail. Just gamey enough to not be chicken. More anorexic than a hen. Easy as hell to grill. You can get them at Whole Foods. The birds or the dogs. WFMI. The store with the weird CEO. Buy some shares while you’re at it and the birds will be free eventually. Freebirds, get it? If you buy the stock on this rec, Waxman will show up at your door with a cheap ugly Red.

Obama Biggest Recipient of BP Cash. Surprise surprise…

Kick-em in their Tory arse?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

It seems our increasingly unpopular and desperate President is looking to start a Bull and Cow (argument) with the British government. Why? I haven’t a clue. They would never do anything to thwart their businesses in the GOM. Nor will they toss Tony Haywood to that pack of wolves running the show in Washington either. Even though he admittedly is a complete “I want my life back” tosser that even the Brits dislike.” BP is an Anglo American company nonetheless, and a hugely profitable one at that. One would expect a commensurate and equally large boo-boo such as the one we see now, no?

Besides, the wankers are still stuck in Afghanistan, and basically broke while waiting for WW 3 to break out like the rest of the world. Not exactly a time to be playing fast and loose with the GBS.

Oval Office Rat Pack Hates Brit-speak - I don't even think they like all those Labor party liberals and British PM's that wanted Obama elected. (What's douche-bag in English?) Cameron and Clegg will simply dismiss the immature rants of an adolescent President as they should. Why Obama is behaving this way is mind boggling. His posse actually said things like say things like "Anyone who speaks with a British accent is a liar" is wigging out both sides.

Lawyering-Up for Dummies - Seize the assets of BP? Huh? Need a court order genius boy. Did this guy call himself a lawyer? Whatever happened to due process? Where did he go to law school? Venezuela?

President Avatar - I realize Obama the legend in his own mind narcissist has done a fairly good job of pulling the wool over the eyes of anyone with an IQ under 50 but it appears he has now CGI-ed his entire existence into one of complete and utter fantasy. Perhaps he should be talking to the other Cameron.

Who cut the cheese? - What’s so maddening is that all this bloviating is that it is not getting the job done — Stopping the flow. Reimbursing the dead families and restoring the local economy. And please, don’t try to plug the hole with yet another slice of your populist government Swiss cheese.

First, remove foot from mouth… So who’s ass to kick? Perhaps we should all send him a rear view mirror. But I will be kind. I will send him the mother of pearl sterling silver handled beveled that fetches 400GBS at Asprey in London. After all he is Obama!

Money Hungry: What’s more British than pommes frites and vinegar? Make your own and save on the airfare. Plus you don’t have to remove your shoes or get x-rayed to eat these…

Guilt-free French Fries? It sounds too good to be true, but Barry Bluestein and Kevin Morrissey, those culinary superheroes of 99% Fat-Free Cooking fame have done it again. Barry says that soaking the potatoes first (as directed below) draws out the starch and firms them up.

Ingredients:

2 baking potatoes, about 1 1/4 pounds, total
3 cups water
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon canola oil
Salt to taste

Instructions: Pre-heat oven to 400°F
Cut potatoes lengthwise into 1/4" slices, then crosswise into matchsticks. Combine the water and the 2 tablespoons vinegar in a large bowl. Completely submerge the potato matchsticks in the mixture and allow to soak for 30 minutes.

Drain the potatoes on paper towels. Transfer to a clean, bowl and toss with the oil. Arrange the potatoes on a heavy-gauge, non-stick baking sheet in a single payer. Bake until the potatoes are just beginning to brown. Turn and bake about 10 minutes more, until completely browned and crisped.

Remove from oven and toss with the remaining 2 teaspoons of vinegar and the salt.

Dear President Obama

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

Oil and water don’t mix. Neither does the government and energy. As if it hasn’t become glaringly obvious, the government has no clue as to how to stop the spill. And instead of working together, they are drawing lines in the sand, talking like the incredible hulk, and threatening to kick ass. (Doesn’t Obama look like the guy in the ad “Don’t let them kick sand in YOUR face this summer!”

First off, a President should not be using that language. Secondly this man could not even throw a ball the first day of baseball season. Now if Michelle made the threat…

Obama and Haywood – Ha. Obama already wrote him off as an evil-greedster – I answer only to the shareholder CEO type. I guess the glaring difference is that he was not like all of the other OB’s best buds at Goldman Sachs who helped elect the president.

And while we have our heads up that far here’s… Another horse’s ass of a hedge fund – Literally. These guys are playing the ponies.

Are you able to pick the fifth at Belmont? Do you have a penchant for silly hats and mint juleps? Step right up! The Platinum fund requires a minimum investment of $500,000 and has a standard "two & 20" hedge-fund fee structure, meaning investors pay 2% in a management fee and a performance fee of 20% if the fund is profitable. Investors must keep their money in the fund for a minimum of three years. Sounds like the perfect place to put that extra cash burning a hole in your jodhpurs.

Money Hungry

And what with Potash getting some love these days and sugar futures starting to move up, the stock cosmos agrees. Ditch the Pita Pocket. Embrace your inner Pitta Dosha..

To stay in tune with the four seasons the transition from spring to summer is known as Pitta Dosha. So while the old adage in the stock market is go away in May, those of us who are hanging around for the summer rally need to stay in top kick ass form. We can’t afford a brain fog in the middle of a selloff.

For all of you yoga followers, you already know all this; The concept of eating with the seasons to maintain good health. Right now we can eat a reducing low-fat diet in the spring, followed up by an energizing high-carb diet in the summer and a toasty high-protein hibernation diet in the fall and winter.

The ideal summer diet then is one that is cooling, moistening, nourishing and refreshing and has a balanced action. Think leafy greens, nasturtiums, and watermelon and beans. According to taste, summer foods should be sweet and bitter, and acidic.

Lime Rice: V0 P0 K0

Ingredients:

1 Cup            White Basmati Rice
2 Cups          Water
1 TBS.           Urad Dal (Black Lentil) or Mung Dal (Lentil)
1/2 tsp.          Mustard Seeds
1/2 tsp.          Turmeric Powder
2 TBS.           Ground Coconut
1 Pinch          Hing (Li Hing Mui = salty dried plum)
1 tsp.             Whole Cumin seeds
1 tsp.             Fresh Lime juice (or more to taste)
2 TBS.           Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1 tsp.             Salt

Directions: Cook rice and dal with water for 10 to 12 minutes. Sauté spices (except for salt) in melted Ghee (clarified butter). Then mix rice and sautéed spice mix together (along with lime juice). Add salt. Before serving you can add cilantro and grated coconut to make the dish more colorful.

Benefits: Balances all three Doshas. Both ginger and cumin stimulate and aid in digestion. Cocoanut (cool, sweet) balances the Pitta raised by lime juice (sour).

Good! Ohmmmmmmm…

What� you missed National Doughnut Day?

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

Too busy watching the gulf implode to let your stomach happily explode with one of the many lowly doughy concoctions that we American have loved the last 100 years?

And what else exploded on Friday was Krispy Kreme’s stock – time to buy into that turnaround story – or maybe load up on some carb-free shares of Dunkin Doughnuts or Tim Horton’s?

Things you never knew about the doughnut...

Female Salvation Army workers became known as “Doughnut Girls” on the front lines of World War I, where they fed doughnuts to the homesick American soldiers in France, ergo known as the doughboys.

The first doughnut cutter was invented by a Russian émigré in NYC in 1920.

Doughnuts were being proclaimed as the “Hit Food of the Century of Progress,” lauded as the perfect union of fresh ingredients and automated preparation during the 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair.

Doughnut Dollies replaced the Doughnut Girls in World War II, and fed the sweaty balls of dough to our soldiers.

The doughnut – is as American as apple pie – only more so.

The High Art of Doughnut Dunking
Nobody was dunking doughnuts til Gable did it - in 1934, in "It Happened One Night.”

Red Skelton also did a nifty take on the dunk…

Glenn Beck weighs in on doughnuts and proposition8.

“BECK... because that's what makes everybody all upset, so let's just take that out. Let's just say that California wanted to - what do I love - ban donuts and M & Ms. And they wanted to ban donuts and M & Ms. The people said, "We want to put this into our Constitution." The people have a right to do that.

Can this doughnut get more fans than Oprah?

So far, the answer is no… hard to swallow up 1.2 million fans.

Obama opens his pie hole over closing the doughnut hole in medicare

And fat-cankled Michelle ironically fingers doughnuts as carb terrorism

And isn’t this the lady that allowed doughnuts to be served at their inauguration? Let her eat cake, eh?

And on a personal note…

Here’s what happened to many local doughnut “holes” when the big franchises moved into town… my mom used to go here after our piano lessons to load up on peanut sticks, my favorite doughnut in the whole world.

Our doughnut shop

My parents ran a small doughnut shop on Grant Street in Buffalo New York back in the 1950’s. They used to bring me there while they ran the store. Apparently I got into all kinds of trouble. It was hard to watch a kid and fill cups of coffee and run deep fryers especially at 5 am in the morning.

I disappeared one day. They called the police. They thought I wandered out by myself, or that I was kidnapped when in fact I had crawled up, and had fallen into a giant vat of peanuts.

I still love peanuts to this day. My Dad sold the business shortly thereafter.

The to-die-for all time doughnut recipe… these are for baked doughnuts and they are wonderful!

Cheers!

Obama out did himself this week

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

Let’s see there was the Arizona snafu, then there was the alleged let’s use Clinton to do our dirty work cover-up, and of course seeing him and his fat wife partying and singing alongside geezer rocker Paul McCartney while the Gulf dies, was really a dumb move. His lack of empathy is astounding. Can’t his advisors keep this guy from embarrassing himself further? It all looks like he doesn’t even want to stick around for a second term. Talk about self-sabotage. I used to think he was just your garden variety narcissist. Now I think he’s just plain delusional.

Don’t quit your day job… on second thought… here Obama embarrasses himself further by making us miss Michael Jackson even more than we did. And just a suggestion; Clinton looked mega lame trying to do a white boy cover of Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow. You are a ditto head. Invite this guy will-ya and take notes, brother. It’s called rhythm dude. You and Michelle ever hear of it?Maybe you and your Chi-town posse could cobble a vid in between those bribe allegations.

Money Hungry Obama’s dine on Wagyu while the shrimp die

The menu for the crowd of a few hundred included Wagyu steaks sautéed in white wine truffle butter. Eat like the rich -- That would be the Obamas’.

Making the perfect steak…

There is a difference between you and the rich

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:17:26 PST

1. Rich people believe "I create my life."
            The Poor believe, "Life happens to me."
2. Rich people play the money game to win.
            The Poor play the money game to not lose.
3. Rich people are committed to being rich.
            The Poor dream of being rich.
4. Rich people think big.
            The Poor think small.
5. Rich people focus on opportunities.
            The Poor focus on obstacles.
6. Rich people admire other rich and successful people.
            The Poor resent rich and successful people.
7. Rich people associate with positive, successful people.
            The Poor associate with negative or unsuccessful people.
8. Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value.
            The Poor think negatively about selling and promotion.
9. Rich people are bigger than their problems.
            The Poor are smaller than their problems.
10. Rich people are excellent receivers.
            The Poor are poor receivers.

11. Rich people act in spite of fear.
The Poor let fear stop them.
12. Rich people constantly learn and grow.
The Poor think they know all there is to know.

The first step is perception. The second is perspiration.

We used to be the home of the free

Mon, 31 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

From the backyards
in Brooklyn
To the Joshua Tree
Now we are hostages
of our own fate
A lesson in our arrogance
We got too little too late.
We’ve given up.
We’ve lost the race.
Brought to our knees.
Running in place.
Gone are the steel mills
and fields of grain
Paradise lost in a bath
of acid rain
We fed the world grain
from fertile land
Now we fight an angry war
on bitter sand
But our real enemy
was ourselves
The battles born from within.
We watched as the Gulf
went up in flames
While the powerful played
their money games
We were Lehmanized
and cannibalized
Wall street’s apology to us
For being a scam,
An unrepentant
I am who I am.
So the game is up.
Cash in your chips.
But that ATM window
is closed for good.
Even the immigrants
are jumping ship
For all it was worth
It wasn’t worth the trip
Our future on hold
the border in peril
but bailouts continue
for Goldman and Merrill .
All we see now is
crash and burn
But, the soldier in Iraq tonight
does not rest easy
he reads the news back home
in the stillness of his bed
Wonders why fight
for what is already dead?
Some say
Our outcome
came to us deserved.
A bitter lesson reluctantly learned
Some say we asked for our demise
For stepping down giving it up
to our nemesis’ turn.
But I say when the last breath on earth is taken
Our resolve must not be shaken
our red white and blue
may now be unglued
But we’ll never be comfortable
Being called number two
So we've got to get back to the land and the life
We broke our backs for
and so did our wives.
We will man up
to our mistakes
And let the healing
take place
Nothing is worse than not
having the chance
to change course before
it’s too late.
We will do it for them
the kids in our place
We will do it for ourselves
from a humbled state of grace.

No part of this shall be used or copied without permission by the author.

The novelty of poverty is wearing off

Sun, 30 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

While America is focusing on BP and Gulf Coast mess, another story is bubbling underground.

They’re Baaaaaaaack. The rich that is – And not a moment too soon. We need them and their gold Amex cards, Maybachs, and McMansions.

That recession induced frugality exercise was getting pretty boring I guess. How many times can you forego the foie gras without losing a sense of purpose? Look at the numbers coming from Walmart versus the numbers coming from Tiffany’s.

I can tell you – if I never see the inside of a Walmart again, I won’t cry. I felt like a space alien walking thru those huge endless aisles. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia in a desert of nothingness looking for a morsel of quality I might want to own. It never happened. I can’t tell you how much money I didn’t spend shopping in Walmart but it was huge.

Anyway back to the rich and what they’re up to these days… I love the Breakers –Like the shoppers at the Burberry shop in the Breakers Palm Springs, who "may spend the same amount as they once did," according to hotel president Paul N. Leone. "But if they do, they will get several items, rather than one thing."

One distinction however. The wealthy are still zealots when it comes to bargaining. They hate to overspend just like the rest of the world. So they are still on stealth mode when it comes to how much they pay for something. It’s just that the ticketed item has moved up a notch.

Now if only the Obamamats don’t start with the tax hikes we could see a nifty recovery underway. OB’s numbers are so low in approval, I doubt even he can be that stupid at this point.

The rich employ people. They start companies. Attract talent. Make America a place we can be proud of once again. We need a flat tax rate, we need to obliterate the capital gains tax. And we need to wake up and smell the Jamaican high mountain not the lowly Columbian.

Go kiss a millionaire. They’re the best friend you’ll ever have.

Good grief, I’m starting to sound like Kudlow.

A time honored tradition on the Friday before Memorial Day!

Fri, 28 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

Every year I laugh my head off when CNBC tells me the market will be quiet ahead of the holidays because the big goombahs head to the Hamptons and their boats for the weekend. Well I got news for ya pal — Those greedy bastards may head outta town, but turn off the iPhones and their trade desks for some stupid holiday celebrating (if it honored our soldiers I would think differently)? war Not on your Jimmy Choo’s – You know the ones their girlfriends did lines of blow out of when they got all those 4 second Crash margin calls two weeks ago. But today it’s all is rosey… so far. The BP oil-free shrimp is on the grill, the $5000 bucks a magnum of Cristal Rose is about to be poured, and it's time to party like its 1959.

Market Ker-plop or High Hopes? Definitely bullish action today - Bidu was a beauty, The FXI and CTRP partied along. If Sinatra were around this weekend you would know he'd have a barbecue fired up with Sammy and Dean and Peter. Thick steaks, cigars and big curse words all around.

Remember you can get away with anything as long as you do it with elegance. Except maybe pumping your self full of Viagra and bourbon and running naked thru your local Memorial Day parade.

Have a great weekend you kwazy traders...

In the Land of the bespoke Geithner mis-spoke

Thu, 27 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

I guess the US Treasury Secretary didn’t take his foot in mouth shots before he left for the UK… Like Noel Coward said, only the truly desperate go out in the midday sun to be nice to the Huns.

Perhaps old Noel should have been sent instead of the Treasury Secretary. He gets it. Hahaha. Too bad he's dead. What's Mr. Geithner’s excuse?So far Timmy has been to Tianeman Square begging with a tin cup – asking; “got any extra Yuan you can spare?”

Not exactly looking like the bespoke set either is he? One hopes he gets over to Bond Street and pick out a few natty threads. I still say he looks like one of the Keebler Elves. Only more demented.

And President Obama, his thin-skinned boss, appears to be falling apart at the seams here at home. They say he needs some Valium … Or can it be time he finally grew up and accepted the responsibility of the office. What a whiner, and with the White House press corps all calling him the Thin Skinned One (not to mention all those Repub’s he loves to diss) “O” seems to be zeroing his cool by the minute. And there's no rehab for that.

Six Degrees of Separation Anxiety?

The resemblance is uncanny, no? The parallels eerie - both have issues with the press...both are under the influence - drugs and power. Have we even seen these two at the same time? Aha! I rest my case!!!

Will Timmy play by their Rules?

The oldest and some say best restaurant in London. We loved it. I never had Teal before. A rather obscure lame little bird that obviously does not fly very fast and or very well as it seems to end up on a lot of plates here at Rules Restaurant… Never had to pick buckshot out of my teeth either. Oh those kwazy wankers. I wonder if they'll take Timmy's U$D's???

Merkel is a hottie

Sat, 22 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

The news that she flew in the face of the insanity that has been gripping Europe of late seems like it was ripped right of the pages of Brecht as the political establishment in Germany is and has been so out of touch with their voters to a large degree. Mrs. Merkel has some serious political damage to undo, let's hope she has the balls to stick to it. For the record, to me she is the first to face the hard truth.

"They are in this mess because nobody faced reality. Loaning funds to persons/nations who can't pay it back is hardly a prudent or intelligent way to run a country. Their 'bailout' was transparently a joke from the get go. Go mama go.

Brecht was a very cool little fella. Brecht never wanted anyone to feel any ?emotion towards the characters. He wanted to distance you from them. Fiona Shaw thought otherwise.

Mack the Knife. No he's not a stealth rogue trader. Kurt Weill wrote this tune for his wife Lotte Lenya. She sings it here.

Hop to it. I used to make a version of this when I lived in Connecticut because Stu Leonard carried Waskily Wabbits.

Hasenpfeffer (German Rabbit Stew) Recipe

Gute Nacht

The Short Order Cook at Money Hungry Headquarters

Sat, 22 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

Ahhhh, Shortbread - the odd buttery sweet salty gritty combination of decadence and comfort all at once. The Scotch make fabulous shortbread. Who hasn't tried Walker's famous shortbread cookies? I used to scarf down a few for extra energy when I walked the 52 blocks to work everyday when I lived in New York.

I fell in love with shortbread on various trips to England. The tea-sized squares of shortbread at Brown's Hotel in London were incredible. I brought many beautiful decorative tins of shortbread home with me over the years. I am reminded of this as I still use them to hold thread, stationary, and scarves.

The Scotch, bless their hearts, are also notorious spendthrifts which makes them the world's most decadent penny pinchers! The Wealthmiser approves.

Two bites of this and you might even go long some butter futures.

Eat away, shortie!

8 ounces butter
4 ounces sugar
12 ounces plain flour
8 ounces butter or margarine
4 ounces sugar
4 tablespoons syrup
1 (410 g) can sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces chocolate
1 ounce butter

Cream fat and sugar. Add the flour and stir to make a mixture that is soft and will go together when squashed. Lightly knead and then roll out or place into a deep Swiss roll tin and press into place with the palm of your hand until even. Bake in the oven for 25mins.

Place the filling (middle 4) ingredients into a pan and bring slowly to the boil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. The caramel should be thick and golden. Cool. Pour over mixture. Leave to set. Melt chocolate and butter over pan of simmering water. spread over top of caramel - then cut at once into squares.

The Gulf Oil Spill or Deep Fried Shrimp?

Thu, 20 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

They sure grilled McJay the BP chairman and president on the hill today. He sounded as clueless as ever. Get a taste of this gulf specialty before they are all gone…

Memorial Day Cheap Gas A Memory? Nah....They're saying this will be the first Memorial Day with cheap gas! My, my how things changed since las year. Suddenly SUVs are back in vogue and the Prius is poison. And the Colt is about to bolt from Ford.

Gas in my area is 2.65 a gallon. The Gulf disaster has all but insured cheap gas for the near term. For all the talk of natural gas, and solar, and alternative energy, suddenly all that is off the table with gas so cheap...Get this - This was written in June of 2008 -

"…be aware that black gold is still the engine for the world economy. We've lifted 400 million Chinese alone, out of dire poverty. Only America could do that. To continue, we'll need more and more oil, coal, and NG. Pickens is not advocating a move away from carbon based fuels, just a redistribution of existing reserves, to reduce our foreign dependency. So what will delay or stop, or stall this program, this initiative from taking hold, going main stream right away. Call me a skeptic but to initiate the NG cars, GM, FORD, HONDA, TM and others would have to cooperate with Pickens plan not with just a few cars but millions. Also upon initiation of the program NG would become expensive like oil. I have doubts about such a program.

America would forget all about the oil problem as soon as prices cam down. They would be back to their old ways driving SUV's. Short sighted, OIL must be eliminated, and I realize this will take time but it must be taken like a pacifier from a baby! That is the truth." And this too came to pass. The guy was pretty accurate.

So while you're filling up on hot dogs, and hamburgers and all that, know your SUV is happily belching along on some pretty cheap greasy food too...how kewt.

And don't forget to throw all your rubbish along the highway, or better yet, leave the garbage you didn't eat at one of our state parks! Maybe some poor little bear will come along and puke on your leftovers...

What does your car say about you? Prius? Geekmeister? Hey Brad Pitt drives one... go snicker. No wonder Angelina hits him. Z3? Definitely a Smoooth operator... Me? I'll never tell. But it's white and shiny and would look perfect in front of the Breakers. At least I don't have testicles for an excuse.

I used to live across the street from an engineer who owned a Viper. Now Earl tipped the scales at a good 220 - he loved good wine and a good story. He was about fifty five, married with four grown kids so I guess it was his male menopause car. Every Sunday I would wake up to "Abbey Road" on his souped up sound system as he fired up the car. He'd put on his baseball cap and put the top down. And for the next few hours, Earl was eighteen and 145 pounds and feeling every inch of that puppy.

By the way… Check to see if your parade in your area is still on. Parades have been cancelled across the country. No moolah in the coffers for a parade this year. Here's one... eastcarolinaradio.blogspot.com/

Just take a minute and think about this. The number of US soldiers who have died in the Afghanistan. Sickening. And nobody is screaming this as a headline. What John Lennon said about war… When we say "War is over if you want it," we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace.

Peace out

Short on Cash, Brains, or Both?

Sun, 16 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

They are starting to rear their pointy little heads at the market.

So before they self-immolate once again (this is still a bull market you short braniacs) I shall take it upon myself to trash the little bastards and celebrate all that is short.

Taking it up the Shorts

They and the uptick rule did more to exacerbate this mess of a market than anything else I can think of.

They are the cause of the 300 point up and down days. They will tell you we need them to balance the market. That they are punishing bad companies that trade higher than they are worth. They are the voices of Truth. And that the longs are all Pollyanna’s.

I can’t disagree more. I think it is positively un-American to short our companies. Bear Stearns said as much. The naked shorting made any ray of hope for survival nil.

The Shorts are about to get hosed again

They just never learn. They make the worst kind of traders. Too self righteous. Too arrogant. Too pig headed to get out of the way of that Mack truck of a bull market heading their way. Hell, they could smell the brake linings and still wouldn't budge, cause well they're RIGHT damn it, and they'll scream it from their soggy little graves.

Soros shorting the dollar. Chanos shorting China. Goldman shorting itself. - All those hedge funds, black boxes, dark pools, boiler room boyz, thugs in Joisy, and on and on.

I think the hedge funds should have their own market! Lock these guys in a cage and lt them self destruct. That way they can simply steal from each other and leave the rest of us alone.

The Up-short of all this

At the end of the day it hurts our economy because that company’s stock is worth less and it can’t borrow as much to grow its business, hire more people, attract seed money, participate in M&A’s, etc., etc.

But as long as the greedy shorts make their lunch money, what do they care that they just ran a company into the ground? Did they ever do an honest day’s work before they discovered trade station and “shorting for dummies”? Do they make anything? Build anything? Contribute to our GDP in any way? No, no, no. Perhaps they were simply not chosen for the baseball team as children.

I betcha George Soros was never picked for the soccer team. Not all short ideas are bad…And speaking of lunch…

The Short at the Carlyle…

The one the only short I would gladly welcome in my home!

Here he’s singing with a 9 foot tall Juliette Prowse!

I hear she used to bench press ol blue eyes short boy toy Sinatra just for yucks.

Robert Atlman’s long career takes a short cut

These are the outtakes from the Lily Tomlin Tom Waits scenes.

Money Hungry is asked… What is a short espresso?

Answer mi figlia…A ristretto is a short espresso, usually between .5 and 1 fluid ounce. a double ristretto is the same as a ristretto, but double the coffee grinds and double the volume.

Coco Saves fabric for the war effort et voila!

The perfect short cocktail dress.

The Short Order Cook at Money Hungry Headquarters

Recipe: Caramel Shortcake or "Millionaires Shortbread"

I fell in love with shortbread on various trips to England. The tea sized shortbread squares at Brown's Hotel in London were incredible. I brought many beautiful decorative tins of shortbread home with me over the years. I am reminded of this as I still use them to hold thread, stationary, and scarves in.

The Scotch, bless their hearts, are also notorious spendthrifts which makes them the world's most decadent penny pinchers! The Wealthmiser approves.

Two bites of this and you might even go long some butter futures.

Eat away, shortie!

A Mother of a Market

Sun, 09 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

But how many were smart enough to see it coming? Mrs, Ritholz's kid. That's who. Barry went 100% cash on May 6th. Hmmmm... she didn't raise no fool.

Mother's Day Tab – that's a lotta roses and hallmarks – Makes me all gushy inside. My only play was a little FLWS… lol

Percentage of Men who still live at home with mum – My heart goes out to all British women. Now I know why a chick runs the country. Sorry Pete!

I hear Lloyd Blankfein is taking his mother out today. I also hear she's paying. A mother of a mother.

Happy Mother's Day to all you little xx and xy's!

A special thanks for showing up at my birth to my own Ma who turned 90 yesterday and celebrated it doing a tango at a dance competition at Arthur Murray’s in Niagara Falls Ontario - she didn't win but got some flowers, a champagne toast, and 150 fellow hoofers singing her a happy birthday. She's a pip. Two pins in her hip but still gets into her sequins dance outfits and black shoes – Doesn't look a day over 80.

It's been a mother of a Mother's Day

Sun, 09 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

The mother of all markets…

Crash to trash, we’re all still reeling from it. It truly sucked to be us.

Dylan Ratigan’s mother must be really proud of her son! Look at what her little boy thinks caused the 1000 point drop. Irish boys are really tight with their mothers.

They all weren’t June Cleaver.

Do you know the muffin man?

It was my mother. My mother’s muffins…

My mother always thought her muffins rocked. When I moved back home, what was the first thing she made me — A bag of banana muffins that she left on my doorstep. She always made them from scratch. She liked making the mini muffins. They were her signature dish. Not that I ever saw her eat one.

She did however like eating the crumbs as I recall. Being a chronic dieter, she was a real hoover! When it came to real carbs made with sugar and fat. When I lived in New York every coffee shop used to make two types of muffins – corn and bran muffins. I must had my fill of both since I have not had either since leaving NYC.

But after this week I am seriously wanting this triple chocolate muffin. When you make something as dense as a muffin you better have enough chocolate in there to make the butter, flour and eggs seem like an afterthought.

The Betty White Muffin bests Betty Crocker.

Every now and then SNL does something funny. If they were consistently this good, I might buy shares of GE.

There isn’t enough chocolate on the planet to calm the jangled nerves of investors everywhere.

Come to think of it, maybe I should be buying cocoa futures on Monday.

Happy Mother’s Day

High Carbs after Stock Market Plunge

Fri, 07 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

“With today's nearly 1,000 intra-day drop in the Dow, investors and traders will be clamoring for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NYX) to bring back computer-program trading curbs, which were removed in late-2007.”

It was over before many realized what happened so vicious was the attack. The charts looked like someone just kicked the market in its solar plexus.

CNBC up to that point was busy feeding us a nonstop diet of riots. When the police advanced on the mob our market reacted. Then the plunge happened. What’s Greek for doughnuts, by the way?

Back to the crash. It wasn’t a fat finger. It was a trading fat cat that did it… welcome to the wonderful world of HFTS where they lunch on huge profits everyday with very little risk. We got a taste of it today. Yum…

Alas, crashes are not life threatening, but exceedingly gut wrenching. And while the first impulse is to reach for the vodka, may I suggest a gentler alternative?

Vegetable Hash Browns!

And for dessert, I’d go with something soothing mild and reassuring that the world will go on despite the stupidity and greed of a few. Vanilla Muffins, all crumbly and warm from the oven and a soothing cup of earl gray.

The perfect antidote for a flash crash that lasted only 90 seconds but will unfortunately be quite unforgettable.

How to be your mother's golden child on mother's day

Tue, 04 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

Every year you give it you’re best… shopping for the perfect gift and card. Lovely home cooked dinner or a fancy overpriced brunch.

Everybody trying to enjoy the day and avoid any hint of any "issues" rearing their little pointed heads.

Well, no offense but your mother told me your taste is dreadful and your cards require insulin.

The brunch gives her agita, and the shoes you bought her pinch her swollen feet.
So here's how to get it RIGHT this year.

Instead of buying her some cheap piece of overpriced made in China gold "MOM" pendant she only wears when you come to visit, buy her a few shares of GLD - if gold continues its run, she can eventually buy herself a jewelry store.

Instead of taking her to an overpriced brunch, buy her a few shares of YUM where she can bank on the Chinese falling in love with the Colonel's Kentucky Fried Chicken and can treat herself to a heaping plate of Yuan.

And rather than buying her an outfit she'll wear only once to make you feel better, buy her some LULU. 100 shares and your hips will immediately start to look thinner to old Mom. And if you buy your mother any of the stock mentioned above, you and the little woman will be headlines on Dr. Phil in about a year.

Money Hungry

Phat cupcake uptake

A Blondie cupcake

Filled with chocolate chip cookie dough filling

Cheers!

Bank in a slow burn in a crock pot.

Sat, 01 May 2010 13:17:26 PST

What a stew they're in... they are sitting ducks and the air is hot and sour around them. Salon.com has a great article that references Rolling Stone's Mark Taibbi who first got to the GS story before the street acknowledged it. Now that rocks!

No wonder Lloyd is looking a little paranoid these days... looking over your shoulder much are ya munchkin? The republicans dragging their heels on signing off the finance bill should stir things up a bit… too…

What's your favorite oil? extra virgin? sesame? I like to dredge my vegetables in a little olive oil and as you know nothing ruins a good stew better than too much oil. I guess that's why British Petroleum finds itself in a big cast iron stew pot as Obama says it will pay for the oil spill and not the government.

I guess oil companies are not too big to fail. The entire fishing industry there is being threatened. So cancel that bouillabaisse you were planning for your Mother's birthday. You can't afford it now.

Speaking of rocking, the GDP numbers were good today but we sold off anyway due to the oil spill spewing gunk all over the big board. Still I couldn't resist dipping into the correction in pursuit of my own pot of gold (GG). Or pot of crude (NE). Or pot of copper (FCX).

You know with all this bad news coming at the end of the month I am thinking I need a comfort weekend. It's supposed to rain here. So I will turn off the clock and turn the world off this weekend. Too much goldmanglennbeckobamareaaltimefacebookscreamingmediastuff. Deep breath. I shall sleep late and get out the book I have been meaning to read. Get thru the Bach with fewer missed notes. Make this good looking sweet bread. And on Turner this weekend – Ah –my weekend beckons where I am happily a walking placeholder to another time in my vintage satin bed jacket.

Keep out world - at least til Monday.

How to buy a house in Greenwich, eat chocolate, be thin and beautiful.

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Go to Harvard. Ignore the news. Go to work at Goldman Sachs. Slam dunk.

Get the boat, the house, it's still a sure bet - that Wall Street sins and wins in the end regardless of politics.

Do it with the bravado Fabrice like.

The tone of his emails say it all - this ironic hahaha – I can't believe I am making all this insane money off the backs of the clueless as I laugh all the way to the bank. Hey wait - I AM the bank! Soul intact.

I see it for what it is.

I can walk away after this and be a whole person untarnished from the experience. La la la.

Ain't life grand? Have we learned anything here class?

You betcha.

The fine line between Levin and Blankfein

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Ironic isn't it? That the very laws that allowed Blankfein to hang himself were crafted in the very room that now plays the moral high card.

And poor little frogger Fabrice. The only guy that got his emails released by the company he works for. The government didn't even ask for them! Hey Goldman, what do you do for an encore? Did you photograph him in the bathroom? Put a wire on him? Ha! And I thought Fabrice was something that took the static out of my underwear wiht a fresh lavender scent.

Mr Jobs will fill his plate at D8.Will be sitting alongside Balmer, Cameron and Mr Facebook. Zuckerberg. Hmm, should I buy more AAPL, MSFT, DW OR IMAX? I vote IMAX and AAPL.

Sovereign Debt - Is it worth anything anywhere?

Old Friendly Germany offers no olive branch... says Greece is failable - Portugal default next - let's all learn to Fado. The whole EU is looking at another double dip recession of this debt crisis.

After watching the Goldman hearings today, I have had my fill of alpha males to last me awhile.Watching it had an eeire vibe to it. It reminded me of that line in Updike's Rabbit is Rich... "It makes Rabbit feel rich to know the world is wasting." And America goes down the rabbit hole.

Bo Obama pigs out with Michelle

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

"Obama and first lady Michelle Obama landed in the Blue Ridge Mountains and made a quick stop at Twelve Bones Smokehouse on the way to their resort. The White House said the first couple ate ribs, macaroni and cheese, greens, baked beans, corn bread and corn pudding and washed it down with sweet tea."

Cankle alert! Black clad Michelle can't hide the saddle bags lurking beneath... but I give her a D for trying.`

It figures he'd pick the San Francisco of North Carolina to spend our tax payer money in… how much is THIS vacation costing us?

Chubby Michelle hypocrite of the year, will no doubt spend plenty while he embarrasses himself on yet another golf course.

I don't know about you but I think these two are conflicted - they eat Black soul food but wear preppy clothes play golf, and vacation on Martha's Vineyard.

He is the most socialist President we have ever had according to Newt, but he's tight with Wall Street. Maybe that's what politics is all about- be all things to all people by being dishonest with yourself. Nice trick. Have an extra helping of that artery clogging food will ya? LOL

Hot Property from Diane Keaton

Lloyd Wright digs up for grabs...somehow I don't see Lindsay Lohan in this classy reno from old Annie Hall.

A couple that Gets It. Style. Remember what that looked like?

Should Obama give back the Goldman money?

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

What are the details, is it pure campaign money?

The truth shall make you squirm.

William K. Black...this is the guy that put Keating away, and now is hitting the nail on the head. Who ever invited him – yay, but I wonder where that poor slob will be working next week… hahaha.

Look at the guy fidgeting in the background, and that idiot tapping on the microphone to try to shut up the truth.

Obama. The Ego Landed on Wall and Broad.

Kabuki prime time. Hey I know. I will talk like I am giving them a warning i.e. tough love - you know what America wants to hear! Because we know this bill is all ready a done deal.

Gasparino said on Fox tonight that the fat cats are behind this bill because they bought and paid for it. It has a permanent TARP provision for the next one so they can sleep at night knowing they can steal billions again and have the tax payer bail them out. Obama gets more executive privileges sans judicial oversight.

So Obama arrived for his narcissist fix. Minus the pitchforks. Instead, I offer Obama will be using the double silver fish fork while he dines with the fat cats on Wall Street tonight maybe @ Le Bernardin? ...After all, they both pray to the same God – The Dollar Almighty...

Hey soul sister

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Get on this train.

Obama's people ruining retail!

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

This is not a one size fits all economy - the same kind of segmentation that occurs on the internet is occurring in the retail space as in salsa over-sells ketchup...

Ethnocentric plays into what Ross will put it its stores. I merely report on what I see out there so don't get your shorts in a knot. And don't go all populist on me as in we're all just one big happy family here on planet Obamaland.

Why is there so much sequins on day wear? Duh... Euro Asian fung shui culture imposed on me. As a Christian, I was never encouraged to blatantly wear a large cross - not so the Mexicans. Why is there so much sodium in McDonald’s menu? Because the Mexicans and the Blacks like it that way… am I being a bigot by pointing this up?

It is what is. Brisket offends me. Does that me a culinary bigot? I worship at the plate of the clean and the healthy. My refrigerator is a sanctuary of unprocessed food. No Dos Equis no guacamole. No greasy cheese or Refried beans. I am sure my refrigerator would offend the average Mexican as it would the average Texan. I make no distinction. It was not my intent. What we eat is an economic event as well as social. When ethanol was hot, corn prices went up. Banks were loaning money to cattle ranchers - My focus is purely about investments and what impacts them.

Big drug companies are investing in fast food companies to make sure they have a growing segment for their cholesterol lowering drugs. They are the problem and the solution - Perhaps small Mexican children go screaming and running thru department stores without any parental supervision due to their high glycemic diet. How much Coke did they have that day? Hispanic cultures eat large amounts of sugar. Body shaping underwear is being marketed directly to Hispanic women.

There are significant differences and it's not being indelicate to point out the differences. Are the Jews prone to being diabetic? Blacks’ to sickle cell? Malteses with luxated patellas?

We are all inexorably interdependent. And I think it's time some of the overly sensitive types loosen the leash a bit. It's getting a bit tiresome to deal with those who get offended by the nuance of a phrase that may cross the line when these new cultures are making so many changes in our lives both good and bad. Re-focus and see the bigger picture. Change is change. I make no vote either way. The idea is to recognize what is happening to our culture and identify how we can benefit as investors.

God Bless all the Indians who wrote the iPhone code... and pass that plate of tandoori chicken ovah heah will ya?

Rush, O'Reilly and Beck would agree.

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

I posted this on the Value Forum site concerning the sad state of retail after my weekend trip to Ross, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls...Hadn't been to any of these stores in a while and was shocked with what I saw...

Retail stocks have been on a tear. The consumer is back. They took their mortgage money the bank gave them a pass on and went back into the stores. The recession is over they are told. Let's pretend 2008 never happened. I see ROST and TJ MAXX and Best Buy on everybody's list. I did well with BKLE and TRLG, and hope to do with JOEZ (I hear they could make even Oprah's bum look beautiful) and even bought more on the dip last week. But I have a nagging feeling all's not well in retail-ville. So I decided to do a little windshield reporting. I took the Baroness out and cruised the landscape. Business was booming everywhere. Parking lots were full. Restaurants all had long lines. Shoppers were lined up in Maxx, TJ's but not Marshalls.

I am a retail snob.

I grew up wearing Lilly Pultizer. I still have a skirt from high school that I like to wear from time to time only because I still can. When I lived in New York, I used to pay my friend to get me into the showrooms where I could buy the size four samples off the racks at or below cost. (Samples are made far better than the actual line… hahaha)

When I live in Los Angeles, I went once a month to the sample sales in the Cal Mart in downtown LA, and then to Chinatown. So to say I am challenged here in the Baptist Bible Belt is no understatement. To actually walk into discount retail hurts.

That said, I went into shock yesterday. I had not been in Marshalls, TJ's, or Ross for months. I nearly fell over!

My observations? Inflation is HERE... I didn't see a dress under 40 bucks - I used to pick up stuff around 15 bucks two years ago. And the quality is hopelessly trashed. What garbage. Cheap polyester. Shoddy workmanship. Mass China crap made by mindless drones probably drugged on some type opiate. The styles that completely eluded me. The stuff I saw yesterday in Ross reminded me of stuff I saw maybe twenty years ago in the back racks of a department store in Barcelona. Weird Indian ethnic retro sixties Sgt. Pepper’s era. There were long lines buying this crap. And they were mostly Hispanic, and third-worlders. A pit stop to the shoe department had yours truly talking back to the tags in colorful four letter words which seemed to clear the aisles in a hurry. The native Tennesseans in the stores were fewer than the imports, much like the clothes.

Seems retail today is selling imports to the imported. And this is in a small town in Tennessee! Next week I shall go back to my favored haunts - the church owned second hand stores where I sometimes luck out finding black label vintage Lauren tossed out by maybe a wealthy old Southern lady who spilled her scotch on it at one time and is ready to part with it.

Screw the widows and orphans chit chat Prime Minister

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Imagine Gordon Brown using the M word in dissing GS saying THEY were morally bankrupt...right and like the wankers that run the FTSE are all Episcopalian priests? Look Gordo, nobody twisted your arm to load up your dufus bank with bad GS paper.

Caveat Emptor and a pip pip cheerio!

In the meantime you can dine on bangers and mash and forego the fois grois. Or book a trip to the Rose Garden and see if Obama snubs you again..in the meantime stay off the high moral ground as in we're better than the US. Now go kick yourself in the polo pony. Cheers!

President Obama New Takeover Targets the Volcano.

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

President Obama in his weekly radio address yesterday pledged a US government takeover of the volcano currently spewing tons of ash into the atmosphere in Iceland.

Citing a recent rash of cancelled flights, choking pollution, and general negligence, Iceland was issued a harsh warning this week, saying we would no longer endure the half-assed performance of their country. The president was quoted as saying, “If I wanted to see this kind of action, I would have sent Charlie Rangel.”

“There’s gonna be hell to pay if my Blackberry goes out due to their incompetence,” were his last words.

And to underscore his commitment to this issue, he is sending Joe Biden as his personal emissary despite warnings from the Dutch Geological commissioner Arkvaat Zaner who said “the volcano is still very active - any plane engine flying into this volcano would have catastrophic consequences."

Several world leaders, including Obama, had to abandon plans to attend the funeral of Polish president Kachinski because of ash-related disruptions, but Obama pledged to send several cases of California vodka to the services.

“Michelle and I will miss the Pierogies and the polkas.”

So Goldman's clients are all horse's asses?

I think that's what this wanker in a pink shirt thinks!
Man how the Brits love to dig in!

Goldman Sachs; Lambs, Scapegoats, Black Swans or Sitting Ducks?

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Wall Street is suddenly Salem Massachusetts!But scratch the surface of the SEC filing and you have to ask yourself - where's the real crime here?

Guys like Hank Paulson and Sandy Weil and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and yes Greenspan, set the stage for guys like Blankfein to take the ball and run. He’s a trader by nature, not an old school CEO. And he ran it ruthlessly and brilliantly.

I think that at the worst, GS gets a slap on the wrist. Obama’s numbers go up (how much did GS give his campaign for Pres?) And anybody with half a wit will throw new money at this company - what a great advertising campaign they got off this for free.

For the CDO challenged...

Here’s the Cliff notes explanation by none other than MSNBC hothead Dylan Ratigan, that feisty little Irishman who explains it for all his drinking buddies. Warning: Ratigan comes off too self righteous - is he using this to launch what's left of his career as the Wall Street version of Beck? Good luck Mr Ratigan… I think he's seen his best days... he even quotes Spitzer as support!

Don’t bite the Hand that feeds you foie gras...

SO he thinks Mario's boy Andy Cuomo going to go after GS?

How much lost tax money is that by putting them out of business or busting them up? Dream on, kiddies.You don’t bite the hand that feeds you – even if it’s covered in blood.CNBC spends all day on this trying to grab back all the eyeballs that moved over to FOX...

Mark Haines and sock puppets Melissa and Erin yap endlessly about Goldman.

Caveat emptor. They will fine GS for not telling these German banks they were buying crap. That’s the crime. Paulson has and can still put together these toxic packages without repercussions.

How stupid is that? And who knew German banks can’t read a freaking balance sheet. You know that in any trade there is always a buyer and a seller – One usually at the expense of the other.

You don’t like it? Buy a CD.

Kotlikoff on Blommies said OB’s economic teams have too much history on Wall Street to make any meaningful policy change.President dumped on Goldman this morning in his report. Surprise! Another lame attempt at capturing the populist votes he's losing daily. What about the software that Sergei Aleynikov downloaded from Goldman for another job that could potentially manipulate the market?

Seems like that could be worth a lot right now...

As for the future of Goldman?

Goldman knew the charges a few weeks ago. That gave time to short so they could profit from their own bad news.

How smart are they? They probably made enough over the past few days to cover the fines.

Cheers

Glenn Beck smarter than Tiger Woods.

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

He keeps his balls where they belong. In his pocket.

That's right. The 32 million dollar man, Glenn Beck, solved the tax bite problem tonight. He had Art Laffer on.

This tax the rich nonsense has GOT to stop. History proves it doesn't improve life in America if they raise taxes on the wealthy.
Glenn and Art for Art's Sake...
Okay so Laffer may not be everybody's cup of tea but he does have a modicum of street cred. He was on Glenn Beck (don't laugh - he's doing our homework!) tonight and said that in a nutshell, an ACROSS the BOARDS ON EVERYBODY 11% tax increase is the magic number. He brought Browns CA platform and that the 13% Brown suggested for CA was too high as he was trying to balance the budget with the 2% cushion - and he almost won!

The second best solution he said is to tax the middle class - they don't have the toys, options, or expensive accountants to get them off - they are sitting ducks - the wealthy are not and they will WALK if they are targeted. Since Glenn is building a 32 million dollar media empire I guess he more than qualifies.

Unfortunately it is politically popular to say you're going to sock it to the rich. And if you'd personally feel better writing a bigger check to the government, knock yourself out...I am sure your benevolence will earn you brownie points in Karmaville

But riddle me this... why was the first tax imposed by the meritocracy averse a Zero tax on smokers?

I guess because they too are sitting ducks. They can't quit. And he smokes! lol....

Banks kicking billion dollar butts to the curb

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Granted the rich don't foreclose like Joe the Plumber. What could be sadder than seeing your neighbor's Louis Vuittion trunks lined up alongside a Bekins moving van? Watching ex-felons wrap and tape the Renoir’s, Pollock’s, and Remington’s, or wrestling with a concert grand Steinway down the driveway... and all those bottles of wine.... it's tragic I tell ya... I cried for hours as I watched the shrinking inventory -first the boat disappeared, then the two cars, then the wife.

SO is this what a house-a-holic looks like? Hi my name is Nick And I like houses. Yeah, not since that classic comic romp, Leaving Las Vegas, has Cage had a better excuse for hitting the bottle. This time I think he's taking the short bus back.

Check out the wine cellar on his Bel Air digs that got zero bids at a recent auction. (Gosh why do I think his fat old geezer Uncle Francis Ford Copolla's wines are amongst the subterranean potables?)

He only paid Tom Jones -the one that used to get panties thrown at him at his concerts - 6.5 mil in '98 for the Colcord House… and no takers at 10?

Okay so it's haunted (that's the story). Okay so it's overpriced. Okay so his decorating isn't Moss. (It isn't even post Kmart Martha.)

I'll take it off his hands. $750k in as is condition. Not sure I would keep the 8 ft Mickey Mouse sculpture in the dining room however, don't take it personally. Mice that large scare me.

Hell, I am a sucker for tudors. Nick, gimme a call. 750k bro - that's a lotta hair plugs.

Walmart Claims to Cut Prices Bogus?

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Wall Street Journal article says so...despite signs that scream Unbeatable, and Rollback, some analyst from JP Morgan went shopping and his total bill was up 2.3% from the previous month! Walmart is losing its customers to the cheaper guys so it's pretending to cut prices in an attempt to hold onto its middle class customer who left the Krogers-ish places postCrash.

Yep.that sure is how to keep customers. Pretend to cut and hope they don't notice. Look if I want to get ripped off, I'll go to Wholefoods. At least I don't need track shoes ,Kevlar, or have to endure people the size of refrigerators and their screaming brats.

Hell ya gotta throw me a bone for that kind of suffering. For sheer convenience I slumshop Wally and I can tell ya, the prices compared to last year are still MUCH higher. Who are they kidding?

It is now official. China owns your ass.

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Better start practicing now.

Saudi Arabia announced recently that it had sold more oil to China last year than to the United States, previously its largest and most pampered customer. "We believe this is a long-term transition," said Khalid A al-Falih, president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant. "Demographic and economic trends are making it clear - the writing is on the wall. China is the growth market for petroleum."

So does owning shares of XOM instead of CNOOC make your ass look big? And whats going on with NEP and PTR?

PetroChina Oil Leases:

Pursuant to a 20-year exclusive Cooperative Oil Lease (the "Oil Lease"), entered into among PetroChina Group, Yu Qiao and the Company in May 2002, the Company has the right to explore, develop and produce oil at Qian'an 112 Oil field. Pursuant to the Oil Lease, (i) PetroChina is entitled to 20% of the Company's oil production for the first ten years of the Oil Lease term and 40% of the Company's oil production for the remaining ten years of the Oil Lease term; and Yu Qiao is entitled to 2% of the Company's oil production as a management fee. The payment of management fee was stopped following the acquisition of Yu Qiao by the Company in 2007.

Getting older and not wiser

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

I seem to be growing dumber as I age… yeah-yeah-yeah… and I don’t mean senility… I mean that whenever I think about what I was doing a year ago or 2 years ago or when I was twelve, I seemed to have the answers back then. And now I don’t. Before the market crashed, I was naïve and making dumb money like crazy. Now that I am burned and informed, I am much more cautious and feeling I have bled for every penny earned.. Implied stupidity is a high price to pay and so far I have not found any charts that plot it. Are we supposed to be aspiring to full-on moron as the year’s progress? Here’s the upside… next year I can appreciate my present brilliance (which completely escapes me at present)!

Deconstruction ZONE – Anybody else wanna take Gen of the guiltless gourmet cable and hold her head in a bowl of chili oil? Just asking… I simply must watch her deconstruct perfectly good recipes by cutting fat and sugar as it inspires me to try and best her as I am an expert at making healthy fat free food and I LOVE MY COOKING… hahaha… check out my bread…

Dumb and Dumber Deconstruction

When is Liberty of London dumbed down beyond recognition? When Target deconstructs it for our domestic retail white trashers. These dresses are so god awful I doubt even the Chinese are involved. And let’s not forget the floral Wellies and bucket hat. Even a Japanese school girl would have a diabetic attack wearing one of these infractionistas. Perez Hilton -where art thou?

Those poor miners in West Virginia – What the hell did Massey do? Layoff the canaries? China became a net importer of coal last year, and Massey is ramping big time. Such is the cost of competing with the Aussies for a piece of the coal pie. Four and twenty canaries baked into this scenario I am afraid. I did manage to look beyond the tragedy and think about buying…still waiting for MEE to come down.

Kindred Spirits...

This blogger is my sista when it comes to what she likes and what I like… we should meet for sweet southern tea under the magnolias - I will be holding my copy of Look Homeward Angel…

As I continue my preoccupation with all things Zooey Deschanel (I give this another week) here’s some more She and Him… I think my fascination with her is how similar we are in the "quirky" arena as half of what comes out of her mouth I have already chewed. Sarcasm makes strange pajama partiers. She is the sister I wish I had.

Cheers

Obama is a bad pitchman.

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Taxes. Right arm. You pick. HE Throws like a sissy. Steps right ON the freaking foul line. How Washington. Maybe Rosie O’Donnel can give him some pointers..

Onward... If not paying your bills was the answer, Nick Cage would be the question.
Maybe he will run for mayor of LA?

And poor LA had a mini boom-boom on Sunday… I hear it lasted awhile too.

WHERE DID YOU ORDER THIS MONSTROSITY?
Golden Burger
2301 East 4th Street, Long Beach, CA

Win a half million dollar house Contest!

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

That's right folks - step right up... here's the house... a real charmer...

"Cozy and priced right, or overpriced in Echo Park? "Great first home," notes this new listing near Elysian Park. A two-bedroom, one bath home, with gentle canyon view, the home on Avon Terrace has "20s details, hardwood floors and light-filled spaces. Large garden room with fireplace opens onto a glorious patio and private, newly landscaped yard." A 890-square foot home, it last sold in 2004 for $450,000. Today's price: $525,000."

Okay so it's not a real contest… unless you think of this as a giant come-on brought to you by the friendly gov’t folks that brought you the bubble.

Here's one take... "First off, "people" aren't buying a home like this. The federal government is buying a home like this and letting "people" live in it in exchange for a nonrecourse obligation to make a few mortgage payments at absurdly low Fed-engineered interest rates. The only real player in town buying mortgages is the government-owned FNM and FRE, and the balance sheet lenders can't compete on price.

As long as the government is actively supporting housing prices through these mechanisms, houses like this will be snatched up quickly. If these artificial supports are ever removed or cut back, look out below.

My advice to the buyer who "wins" this contest: take a higher rate in exchange for making as small a down payment as possible, because you will be walking away eventually…"

Echo Park used to be such a bargain… but now it's become a destination address for the Williamsburg hipster crowd fleeing the high taxes and bad job scene in NYS... want to know more about Echo Park and how ungentrified it still is?

Party On, Eastsiders’… but be warned, I make low ball offers!

The Resurrection of the Wild Inner Child.

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

You know as an Episcopalian, I am reminded by how heavy duty Easter really is. I mean if Christmas is an intermezzo, Easter is the Menú de Degustación. Think about it - you have drama, death, and rebirth. Now that is a mouthful.

All this and Easter continues to be the fourth largest holiday after Mother's Day and Valentine Day. You want to know what's wrong with our country you can start there. With all due respect to Mothers and lover boys, I am afraid next to the rebirth of Christ you don't even rate a same breath mention.

And for all you doubters, if you want to experience the Death by Chocolate version of the Easter Service, hop on a plane and go to NYC and attend the Easter Mass at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue. I guarantee nothing on Broadway would even come close to the drama and spectacle. So in honor of the day, I will forfeit the chocolate bunnies, the Peeps, the hardboiled eggs and the babka and instead herald my own rebirth of sorts.

Maybe it was the over night explosion of the dogwoods in full bloom that signaled me. Or maybe it was because I turned off the computer today and the TV. Maybe I heard one too many Glenn Beck editorials. Maybe it was too much Obama and Washington in my face or one too many market crashes, real estate bubbles, recessions, inane infomercials, the ever present global obsessions with food and obesity the burgeoning blogsphere or maybe my own bouts with insomnia that finally did it.

That finally caused me to say to myself that for all that made so little sense outside of me, there was this untapped wealth of possibility that lay within me — the inner muse that lay dormant. That, like Jesus I was going to re-invent myself, and yes re-invest in myself. That the answers to what was missing from my life so far would not found in an email or sound byte or from a vitamin. That it was a-political, and anti-cultural and did not belong to any religion or political party.

It was bigger than all that. Who do I really want to be? What do I really want to do over and above anything else. Not what I think I should do. Or what is expected. Or what I am capable of doing. What is the over-riding passion that will consume me? The thing I can do that no one else can? The pieces of me that are supposed to be running with the wolves – Screaming at the moon. Constantly requiring it be heard. Loudly.

Right now, I know what I am not. Like the three women who gaze into the tomb of Jesus only to see it is empty, I see that something is missing in my own hood. Jesus didn’t die just to free us of sin. He died so that we take ourselves to our fullest richest selves. And who am I to argue with Him. I know that he has my back. I am ready to do the Lazarus on my inner wild child. I am ready to do the heavy lifting. Unleash the feisty little beast.

Who killed the Easter bunny?

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

Went into Walmart yesterday and absolutely NOTHING was yellow or lavender! There were no potted plants at the door like last year. No Easter displays of gaily colored tables rife with baskets of breads, and Easter bunny cakes. No pre-made Easter baskets covered in cellophane wrap… it was downright eerie. It might have been Good Friday at the Vatican but not here in middle America. Not in the breadbasket of our retail epicenter. No large bins of Hershey Easter candy. Large bags of jelly beans. Or Cadbury filled cream eggs. Or Peeps!

I read a piece the other that suggested sales of candy will be down this year as Moms across America have waged war against sugar. I went into the produce department – there was no sign of Easter anywhere…

Have the Chinese secretly bought Walmart instead of our debt. (Hey if they can hide all that gold, and stockpile iron ore, and what’s a little Walton empire more or less?

This year they segregated all Easter stuff to one area of the store – and while it was busy, I saw no fireworks. Maybe it’s a combination of the economy and the scary sugar headlines. Maybe it’s the waning of the nuclear (and extended) family. I looked in the shopping carts of those around me for clues.

The generation that remembers Johnny Carson had the most Easter stuff in their carts. Strangely, the younger people did not… even the large Hispanic and I assume mostly Catholic shoppers had very little if any Easter stuff in their carts.

Easter is the fourth largest retail event of the year after Christmas, Mothers Day and Valentines Day…and this year it appears the tail-wagging poor Peter is a lot smaller.

I can remember that for me at least Easter was THE holiday. It was the only time of the year I could eat candy for breakfast and not get yelled at. During Easter break, every morning I would sit on the floor in front of the old zenith black and white with my little sister and we would eat jelly beans and chocolate Hershey eggs with our baskets between our legs laughing thru another episode of I Love Lucy until our Grandmother called us for breakfast ...tee-hee-hee. Somehow I always had room for her pancakes or scrambled eggs with pepperoni and homemade bread. Oh how I loved that week - As each day drew closer to the end of the holiday, I tried to make the candy stretch until the very last day. I was pretty good at it. My little sister-not so much. So she usually ran out of her stash early and then tried to glom off mine. I used this to my advantage. I used the candy as a currency for making her do all sorts of things like - if you make our bed, I'll give up a Cadbury Cream Egg. Clean my closet for four Hershey marshmallow bunnies. Hide grandpa's Camels and I'll give you ten jelly beans. She was very malleable when she was in chocolate overdrive.

Come Sunday, we would lay out our Easter outfits the night before – Went to confession on Saturday and to get our baskets blessed by the priest during services. Then we came home and helped Grandma make the sausage - she used an old meat grinder and I got to hold the casing over the nozzle as the pork and beef wound thru the machine and out the other end. When it got long enough she stopped turning the handle, and cut the casing, and with my little fingers I tied knots on both ends. One Easter we made homemade horseradish. We all sat at the kitchen table and took turns grating it into the bowl. Our eyes teared and we thought it has so funny that we were all crying over the horseradish. We colored our Easter eggs with Crayola’s writing clever little eight year old witticisms and then dunking them in the colored vinegar bath. Those that didn't make it turned up in a salad later in the week. The ham baked in the oven and was covered in brown sugar and cloves. (I hated cloves!) My Grandmother usually made a babka and hot crossed buns. One year she made a cake in the shape of a lamb and covered it in a white cream icing and coconut – Quite yummy as I recall with her signature black as mud Italian coffee. Yes, even as children we drank coffee. Especially in Buffalo when it was cold – Which was all the time as the winds off Lake Erie never took a holiday.

So it was always chilly in Buffalo on Easter Sunday but I still wore my frail little pink Sunday nylon dress with puff sleeves, a crinoline underneath and anklets with patent leather Mary Janes’. My Grandmother took me on the bus to Berger’s, a high priced clothing store in downtown Buffalo to buy me my Easter coat. The coat was always tailored for me there and it was always wool and always pinchy. The hat tied underneath my chin and I carried a white straw purse with flowers on top and white gloves to match. I was stunning! Or so I thought no matter how cold or uncomfortable the wool was. My Grandmother who cinched herself daily in a corset the size of an accordion usually wore a pastel worsted wool suit for Easter with a very large matching felt hat and a very large patent leather handbag and black gloves. Grandpa wore his heavy tweed coat, his watch fob dangling out from beneath his suit and wearing his foppish hat, always holding his Camel between his thumb and his pinkie.

The church service was always standing room only. Annunciation Church on Lafayette, just five blocks from our house, was full of morning glories, incense, and fear. The priest spoke with a Polish accent, and the sermon was about the seriousness of the afterlife and how Christ was waiting for us on the other end. And all I could think about was all that chocolate waiting for me back home.

Such were my Easters as a child and what I can recall. I think about those days and how different it is now And I try not to be saddened for those of us that no longer celebrate what was Easter.

But I feel doubly sorry for those that will never get the chance to look back on an Easter holiday.

Obama from screwing to drilling.

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:17:26 PST

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced his intentions to remove a ban on offshore drilling in most areas surrounding the shores of the nation. The reversal could allow companies to place new drilling platforms in areas along the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the southern Atlantic coast as well as an area of Alaska.

During his announcement that was given at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, Obama noted that the decision was necessary in order to handle the nation’s high demand for fuel and that environmental protection is still a top priority in regards to the decision.

“We’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources,” Obama said.

The decision is part of the administration’s broader plan to expand energy production within the country in effort to reduce reliance on foreign products from other countries and Obama made it clear that there were few other alternatives.

“The only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and the long run,” he said. “To fail to recognize this reality would be a mistake.”

Also, many analysts are pointing out that the decision was partly made in order to muster up support from Republican lawmakers for the administration’s climate change bill that is currently gathering dust in Congress. During the 2008 campaigns, the slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill!” was a common chant echoed by crowds during GOP Senator John McCain’s rallies.

“I know that we can come together to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation that’s going to foster new energy – new industries, create millions of new jobs, protect our planet, and help us become more energy independent.”

Though numerous GOP members are embracing Obama’s announcement, some however still believe the proposal is too limited and that more could and should be done. In particular, the proposal still does not allow companies to drill in waters off the West Coast or in Northeast waters where there is believed to be large reserves.

“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but a small one that leaves enormous amounts of American energy off limits,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said to the press.

Still though, many analysts see the proposal as a generous attempt to meet the needs of a fuel-craved society that is also environmentally aware. The oil companies are also filing very few complaints regarding the announcement reported J. Green from an article...

Okay so let me get this statement right. He finds a little hell hole nobody is going to go all nimby on to free us from world oil dependence! Bwahahahahahaha. Even he can't spin this one to look good. Can't wait to see what's next in his little toolbox... so far we have a screw ( healthcare) and a drill (oil refiners) ...will he nail the banks next? hammer in housing market? Take a set of pliers to our collective wallets and take the few dollars we have left for some new taxes? What a tool.

Wistful for what was...

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

The ink isn't even dry on the Obamascare and your next door neighbor is selling his house that isn't worth the ink it's written on, and you were just told that sugar is the enemy. Anybody else ready to time capsule back to a time when none of this mattered and if it did, your parents had the answer, your boyfriend had a job, and you had white convertible, a blonde flip, and a mean backhand nobody could return.

The WealthMiser looking for the answer.

Pelosi Turned 70 On The Day America died

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

It took a narcissistic egomaniac and the most inept charlatans to have ever graced elected office to do it. He did it with an ideological machete that wielded the first blow with many more promised to follow… 60% of the new 32 million handouts will be subsidized by the govt… that's what's sickening... socialism entitlement versus a now forgotten work ethic - What little there was left in our culture this bill will wipe out until the next elections. The Dems sold themselves out in the end. They deserve what they will reap. One of my Dem friends was so outraged after seeing what transpired over the weekend, she no longer has any affiliation with the party.

You know folks, if I wanted Western Europe I would move there - at least they know how to make a decent espresso and baguette. What upsets me is that the shoved an ideology down our throats and we are choking on it. Like Glenn Beck said tonight - in the clear light of day, we finally got to see how low they can go so for now, give them their due... they won a battle but now it's time to win the war. I have never seen our country so divided… there is really no point in discussing the details of the plan because it is fundamentally wrong and symbolizes a milestone in American history, albeit a rather sad one at that. Most hated 11% Pelosi said that this healthcare bill ranks up there with the passing of social security - and we know how that turned out...one can only hope.

To think they are calling her the most powerful woman of the past 100 years is a truly disturbing thought.

12 States are about to challenge this in the geezer courts. We know this is far from over. Let the games begin. Bring it on as they say.

("The never ending season of our discontent...")

The Bully Bribe Presidency a la Obama and his Posse

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Obama must have really hated Scott’s truck I guess -- Made sure he never gets to vote on the bill due to reconciliation scam.

He is re-interpreting the law to justify his ends. And he taught constitutional law?

Where? On the back of a cereal box?

So it prevents the bill from going back to both houses for the vote.

End of story. The goom-bah’s outsmarted the system. Kids take notes.

This is how you get what you want. Do what the president does – make it up as you go along. Bribe and bully your way to whatever you want. There are no ethics. No sense of fare play. Please consult Vito’s playbook on Chicago politic tactics for guidance. Brass knuckles are going for 5.99 on Ebay. Good luck!

Democratic Senator Stabenow comes from Mich with 14% unemployment. She voted for the bill. She said it will get coverage for all her voters. She fails to see that it will create more unemployment because all those companies that have to pay for their employees if they have over 50 workers will close their doors and just layoff enough to get out from under the 50…hahaha Florida Senator Nelson’s ass is cooked… his voters are sharpening the blades on their hover-rounds

Medicare is going to be used to fund this bill…your Medicare is going to pay for this – you will see a lot cuts to your service. OB knows this. He lied – Because he is too shrewd to know otherwise. I say shrewd not smart. He is NOT smart. He is merely glib and clever - skills he honed to survive his seedy childhood. Read his books. It’s all there. He cooked his future on this and at the expense of the Democratic Party.

He showed the American people how the arrogance of power starts at the top with help from Pelosi and his posse of Chicago thugsters..

Fox poll survey tonight -91% of respondents hate this bill - so what. They don't care. They won.

The amount of bending over this past weekend in Washington must explain the acrid stench floating over the Potomac tonight. They bent over passing a bill to save his ass not the country’s. Too funny, no?

Thank God I don’t live in Arlington anymore. I believe it was downwind from DC.

We saw history made on March 21, 2010 – the vernal equinox. The first day of the lunar calendar began the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it. On the Sabbath no less. The irony shall not be lost.

Perfect Antidote to the sickening healthcare bill

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Make money off the Sunday lunacy Monday morning...I expect the healthcare names to improve particularly the pharma stocks like , MRK & LLY… The Obama party boy posse is driving this market to 12k and the Nazz to rip up.…The losers will be the hedgies still on tap for the big market correction. Buy and Hold is back. Nothing like getting to service the extra 40mm. The biotech’s and med device manufacturers not so lucky.

What it means per segment.

"Health Care Reform: Impact of Pending Bills on Various HC Industry Segments

Health Care Reform Stance by Industry:

Hospitals (CYH, HMA, LPNT, THC, UHS) - Positive: Broader coverageshould exceed impact of Medicare cuts. Our favorites are HMA, CYH, andTHC. Bill has deepermarket basket cuts, largely offset by smaller DSHcuts.

Home Health (AMED, LHCG, AFAM) - Long-Term Negative; Short-TermPositive: Re-basing of rates will hurt but won’t be implemented until2014. Clarity onreimbursement should spur consolidation in the nearterm.

Inpatient Psychiatric (PSYS) - Positive: Broader coverage should
outweigh Medicare cuts.

Transport (AIRM, EMS) - Positive: Broader coverage should outweighproductivity and market basket adjustments. AIRM the biggestbeneficiary.

Physician Staffing (EMS) - Positive: Physicians should benefit fromtreating more covered lives. Long-term fix to Physician Fee Schedulestill required.

Long-Term Care Hospitals (KND, RHB, SEM) - Positive: Likely two-yearextension of moratoria on the 25% Rule and new development activitiespromote stability. KND is our favorite.

Skilled Nursing Facilities (AVCA,ENSG, SKH,SUNH) - Positive: Potentialdelay of switch to RUG-IV from RUG-III and manageable market basketcuts are favorable. Our favorite is SKH.

Clinical Labs (DGX, GXDX, LH) - Neutral: Potential utilization boostunclear, while Medicare rates kept flat.

Medical Devices (IMA) - Positive: Reform should boost volumes, promoteearlier diagnostic efforts, wellness and prevention, offsetting increase in annual fees. Changes in bill: The annual fee increases to2.9% (now an excise tax), up from 2.5% with an effective date of 2013(from 2011). IMA has the best position.

Are Botox overdoses covered ? How about excessive liberal stupidity? What's the antidote to that?

I am heartened by the fact that this is the beginning of a long battle and won't be over for a long long time, and in passing this with the majority of America gritting its teeth, the Dems have signed their own death warrant.

Til then, I think we will see an increase in drug use and I don't mean the pharma kind.

Be well. Literally.

The great thing about having a birthday today --

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Is that I get to share it with Johann Sebastian Bach and NPR will be presenting an all Bach program that was originally played by Medelssohn in 1840 in Leipzig Germany… (Can't wait for the 'Introduction and Fugue in E Flat')

That said I indulged in some thinking on the heels of being a lifelong investor. Would my time have been spent better writing the great American novel?

Here's my take - if you love doing what you're doing, you'll do a good job… if you don't your results will be mediocre at best. So don't push yourself. Find what you love and go for it. For me, I love to write but I NEED an antidote to writing. A left brain - right brain thingy. I find the work that goes into investing wonderful. Reading posts from my learned colleagues have made me so much smarter in so many areas I feel doubly blessed. I get to increase our net worth and get a lot smarter to boot! I even scare my husband sometimes and he's really smart… hahahaha.

I let loose this avalanche of learning on numerous occasions... I can remember sitting with my mother and sister and the subject of their sky high gas bill came up (they live together - yeah sis moved back in with Mom…lol)

Anyway, before long I was expounding on the finer points of coal and the differences between MET and thermal, BAKKEN and powder river, the shale players, and very excited about sharing all this with them… and before my sister could interrupt me with, "Mom do you know what she's talking about?" – I had this kind revelation of myself as I even impressed myself with how much I knew on the subject all thanks to my investments! (I also unfortunately mentioned I was long National Fuel Gas but did not encourage them to fire up the old heater on my account…hahaha.)

This has happened over and over with real estate agents and REITs, or buying cosmetics or organics - talk about a wealth of information. All I am saying is that there are added benefits to just making money. It changes you as a person. I think it makes you more well informed and unfortunately less trusting about what you read and hear. Because I went thru what we all did the past three years, I am much more cautious, skeptical, and jaded too. And that's a good thing.

Fool me once, as they say... well you know the rest.

I am more risk averse. I understand leverage now better than ever. And I have enlisted a lot more hedging techniques in place to protect myself for the next time.

I think that the world of investing attracts some of the smartest thinkers out there and spending time on other well respected sites affords one a free education I could never hope to achieve without the time and effort spent. I don't think I have wasted time here or missed opportunities elsewhere but then again I don't aspire to the golf course or traveling. (I did my share of traveling thank you very much. I hate hotels to this day!)

If I go to Europe again, chances are I will move there if and when the time is right. (I should have bought that monastery I saw in Marbella for 4000 bucks 25 years ago )

...I don't see this as a trap at all unless you want the results without doing the work and hope (a bad word) you'll get lucky. You can't spend all day on the golf course and come back and look at your portfolio and expect to do as well as someone who worked all day at a job that IS their portfolio.

If bungee jumping off Machu Pichu gets you gaga, go for it!

It takes hard work to do anything right and I didn't have to read Gladwell (although I did) to get that concept.

If you're willing to go that far, you will be rewarded. If not, then you'll be a lot happier doing what you wanted to do anyway. And that's a big reward in itself.

There's room for both pursuits I think. One year older (ouch) and hopefully wiser vernal equinoxer wealthmiser

Kill Bill says Eric Cantor

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

150 billion will be added to the deficit. Eric Cantor says the real hoax is not the memo but the hoax on the American people - the CBO gets to the score by the numbers the Administration supplied - they are putting bogus numbers in front of them and so a whole thing is a sham… 17 % of our economy is going to go into the big RED column and we will be taxed on investments and annuities to pay for this... 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired to go after your capital gains. Ryan was on Charlie Rose...here are my notes... the president is using the healthcare plan to save his administration - and telling the demos that they are saving their party by passing this... The public knows this... and only they can beat this thing - the republicans are clearly outnumbered now. 6 million seniors will lose the coverage they have… the new bill will allow employers to dump all their employees healthcare plans into the "pool" and the employee will pay a lot more under the new plan… he says the president is a LIAR. Nothing could be further from the truth from the OB claim that if you have the plan you like now, nothing will change. Medicare is a 38 trillion dollar unfunded liability... and it isn't even complete - you have to pay for any surplus… 75% of respondents of the MSNBC poll want to see this bill scrapped and start from scratch.

Health care showed relative strengthahead of an anticipated weekend vote for health care reform. The sector finished flat.

I played WLP this week..not sure how it will all play out... we will see Monday morning. We will be paying higher taxes. WLP's business may end up under constant government watch. Or they are in on the same side with the government. OB in speeches singled out WLP on excessive rates but who knows what goes on between Washington.and wall street.

Kill Bill says Eric Cantor

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

150 billion will be added to the deficit. Eric Cantor says the real hoax is not the memo but the hoax on the American people - the CBO gets to the score by the numbers the Administration supplied - they are putting bogus numbers in front of them and so a whole thing is a sham… 17 % of our economy is going to go into the big RED column and we will be taxed on investments and annuities to pay for this... 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired to go after your capital gains. Ryan was on Charlie Rose...here are my notes... the president is using the healthcare plan to save his administration - and telling the demos that they are saving their party by passing this... The public knows this... and only they can beat this thing - the republicans are clearly outnumbered now. 6 million seniors will lose the coverage they have… the new bill will allow employers to dump all their employees healthcare plans into the "pool" and the employee will pay a lot more under the new plan… he says the president is a LIAR. Nothing could be further from the truth from the OB claim that if you have the plan you like now, nothing will change. Medicare is a 38 trillion dollar unfunded liability...and it isn't even complete - you have to pay for any surplus… 75% of respondents of the MSNBC poll want to see this bill scrapped and start from scratch.

Health care showed relative strengthahead of an anticipated weekend vote for health care reform. The sector finished flat.

I played WLP this week..not sure how it will all play out... we will see Monday morning. We will be paying higher taxes. WLP's business may end up under constant government watch. Or they are in on the same side with the government. OB in speeches singled out WLP on excessive rates but who knows what goes on between Washington and Wall Street.

Forget Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, Obama, and Healthcare

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

The market is no jangle of nerves for this guy and although I don't know what roast he drinks, it's Arabica thinking all the way...

If you have not been bullish over the past several weeks, than you’re likely not a technical trader. The market will always throw reasons to be cautious at us, but we’ve had many strong buying signals thrown at us. Sometimes there are good reasons to be cautious. Other times to use the term is quite cowardly. I hear so many pundits telling people “we’re being cautious here.” Ultimately, you have to pick a side. How much of your capital is invested and in what direction? If the pundits are cautious now, does it mean that at other times they’re comfortable? When do those times occur? When are traders ever comfortable and not worried? No matter what is going on with the economy, there is always the fear of an exogenous event. That never goes away. Especially after 9-11.

1. Price. Price continues to move higher. Still the best indicator of all.

2. Internals. I usually use TRIN as my measuring stick. I’ve seen several days where the indicator has been below .5.

3. Key Breakouts from Momos. AAPL blew out of a multi-month consolidation to make a new all time high. It is a big deal when a highly followed high volume stock such as AAPL prints a new high and holds it. Another key breakout was Visa.

4. Key Breakouts from the Abyss. Stocks such as Citigroup which were once untouchable by CNBC folk have been moving strongly. Moreover, the fundamentalists are even getting on board with C. There is talk of a “turn around story.” Vikram Pandit has been getting good press. Likewise, many of the junk regional banks I have discussed are taking off.

5. Euro. I mentioned that I thought EUR/USD would find a bottom and that call is looking good. This is important because it will be difficult for the market to move higher if USD is going up. Even better, after a big EUR/USD drop, if the Euro were to strengthen, the market mind have the wind at its back again with respect to USD.

6. China. If you follow this blog, you know that China is the centerpiece of my portfolio these days. I don’t have a fundamental opinion on China, it is just that I don’t believe the market can move higher without the China story in shape. The China ETFs (FXI and PGJ) were falling apart for several months. This is the primary reason I was generally out of the market towards the end of 2009 and early 2010. From a technical point of view, FXI and PGJ still need to do some work to prove this leg higher is not a bearish throwback (especially FXI), but with everything else looking rosy I like the chances of China getting back on track.

7. Low Volatility. Low volatility in the long run can evidence complacency and can be a bearish indicator. But as I wrote last week, I believe that until a trend change occurs lower volatility fuels demand for stocks. Low volatility also means that other than an unpredictable exogenous event (e.g, terrorist attack, major earthquake in Los Angeles), an instant market crash is off the table. I’ve studied market crashes some,and in almost all cases I saw high volatility and price trading below long term moving averages before the crash. You can never account for the exogenous event, but at least I know I’ll have time to hit the exits before a major down day. That is safety that I don’t have when the VIX is at 30 and price is struggling to hold or below its 200 DMA. I’m not the only guy to figure this out. Low volatility causes portfolio managers to need more bang (more stock) and it also makes portfolio managers more comfortable (I would argue that complacency is a good thing until it gets too extended – it is good until it is bad).

The O'Wealthmiser says Conan O'Brien scores on St. Partick's Day

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Poor Ireland - its economy almost makes Greece look healthy! The Index is down 70% from its all time high… if any country has an excuse to get plastered it's the emerald isle... seems to be the only thing green is the grass.

I wish them all the luck of the Chinese to get their fiscal hut in order in 2010..the Irish govt issued a ton of debt yesterday... hopefully the banking and construction turn around... actually they have lots of foreign investment in a friendly 12 and a half percent corportate tax rate environment so the Intel’s and IBM’s, and HP's continue to invest there. Their biotech area is healthy. And they sure do make a mean Guinness and Bailey's Irish Cream!

And lastly, some of my favorite O'Pictures…

Maureen, F.Scott, Flannery, Scarlet, and the hounds...

Now how do I make an Irish hot and sour soup?

Happy St Patties!

Are women better investors than men?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

In that it's Sunday night and I lost an hour anyway thanks to the daylight whatever time, I indulged myself and ask your forgiveness ...if you have to use the john, or pop that Dominos in the zapper,- toodle oo...

for the rest of you...Thanks to all for those great comments ...I posted the article because being one of the few women here at VF I have seen both sides of the "coin"...

A fellow by the handle of Morlock says he'll believe women rock when he sees a woman win the contest...that's funny because the contest wins are more a state of luck than skill..who knows what the market is going to do by the time t it ends and that is what is the final determinant - not the individual skills of the participants.

Would Yamada win is she were here? Would Crystal if she entered? Who knows? Would either win because they're women? It's too silly a question to answer. Chicken or egg time. Are they better because they're women who bring their woman skills to the table or are they who they are because they sat down and learned how to do what they do to the best of their own desire to win?

The article says that women, because they are more protective of their offspring, are more careful with money. Hogwash I say. There are plenty of child free women that are great at making money. If anything, being childfree actually frees women from being too careful. That said, I don't think women are better investors than men. It is an individual vote in the end. But I can tell you this - because I thought long and hard about it. I have investing skills from the 22 years I have been doing this. But I have a lifetime of experience being a bargain shopper - a true Diana of the Hunt.

Honed from a wee tyke, I learned at the hands of my grandma and mother how to get a bargain. We trooped all over the savannah looking for our "kill."

I learned how to negotiate. I learned how to hold my ground. I learned how to comparison shop. I learned from experience that I never felt richer than when I came home from a day of shopping having scored a few real bloody wonderful deals. Yes unless someone lost "blood" on the deal, it wasn't worth doing. I can remember several instances when the poor guy on the other end of the deal was practically on all fours or mumbling something about needing a drink by the time we were through with him. But hell we got that washer and dryer! Even if he had to make it up on the next four sales that came thru his door ...hahaha.

And I think it is that skill - or that desire to WIN is the one skill I don't leave at the door of the stock market - I take that one with me at all times- it is a part of me like my lungs. I breathe the hunt everyday I trade. I sniff out the possibilities weigh the risks, weigh the probabilities, and then go for the throat. Yes, attitude has a lot to do with it. I want to win. Sure I have gotten my come-uppance in the market. I have been humbled. But I have learned thru the pain of it all to use it for the next time around. Just like after having paid for a pair of shoes only to see them cheaper the next week, you learn to say to yourself - ha - they'll never do that to me again.

After all is said and done, before I pull the trigger, it is all this (some might call it intuiting) that I bring with me everyday in the market.

Then there's the tricky unseen and sometime unaware stuff that happened to you as a child where you learned attitudes about money that you may not even know are there. You play them out everyday and wonder why you are not getting the results you want. Those are a lot harder to find. They take a bit of digging. And they are gender blind.

The greatest enemies of success are the things that happened to you along the way that are keeping you now from winning. They are buried so deep you can't even see them whether you're a John or a Jane.

Almost all failure is generated within a person’s inner self. Sure you want success but your thoughts and attitudes are playing counter to that desire with you not even being aware you are your own worst enemy.

What did Aristotle say to Alexander? Look within your own ranks to see who is selling you out... And few are willing to confront their own inner Macedonia! Success is blind to gender.

I was taught by three vets of the Depression. They knew what it felt like to lose their house and had to live with relatives. It was my grandma that left her two kids at home to go to work in a sweat shop til she was able to buy her own house and she worked til the day she died. But they used that experience to turn things around. Just like many of us did when the market exploded. Their strength came from opposition, problems, failure. Did they succeed because they were women? Hell no! They succeeded because they had the balls to stare down that inner voice that said you can't. There's no way out of this. Instead, in the face of what seemed to be utter failure, they did the Teddy Roosevelt, thing. They started acting brave. Not thinking brave. But, being brave. Everyday little by little they confronted their inner self doubt by acting brave.

Was THAT gender specific? Hell no. My Dad did the same thing. Left Buffalo where there was no work and moved to New Jersey to work in the dockyards so his mother and four younger brothers could eat. He taught me to be frugal. He taught me all about the stock market. He bought me my first shares of stock - but I got to pick it- and it was Revlon because I loved going to the five and dime with my grandma and test the lipsticks - funny I could own a share of stock but I wasn't old enough to wear Persian Melon!

None of this has anything to do with gender but everything to do with the individual. Everything I learned as a child, everything I learned in kindergarten, and everything I learned thru the humbling experience of what they call daily living is played out in my trading. Guess you'd call it experience. Yeah, genderless.

Have a great evening my little x and xy chromosomes.
Cheers!

Help Un Wanted.

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

But neither is skilled and in debt...
The great education scamola…
They say experience is
the best teacher…
Unfortunately for those thinking
that skills alone get you a job -
well dream on...
Better that kid took the 40k
and bought a franchise...

Rahm. Man noodles the soup he's in.

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

So how come he doesn't call Glenn Beck's red phone for the answer?Interesting stuff uncovered on Mr. Friendly… like he wants to be mayor of Chicago? Well I guess if Blag can be a governor - anything in that crazy state is possible…

As for the Washington tango a la OB, I guess it all started to unravel for twinkle toes when Scotty took Beantown. Apparently he hates to fail… who knew?

Amazing how these two titans of the Ego manage to work together. But according to the article it's still Zero who runs the show. Perhaps Rahm does have a chance in Chicago with Zero calling all the shots. So is the honeymoon between these two over?

And who knew Pelosi is pushing 70? That's a lot of botox, baby.

Cultcha not so shock:

Stiller mortifies himself into a multi-miilonaire. Who knew being a cinematic fool had such currency? Stiller's new movie is about a displaced unlucky New Yorker who moves to LA and can't swim or drive a car… uh… didn't Woody Allen already cover this schtick ad nauseum?

The again Stiller has made 100 million bucks regurgitating old ideas. I guess there's a market for movies that feature guys who "mortificate" with ease.

His formula appears to be putting himself in untenably painful social situations with a high squirm quotient. Audiences love to watch him suffer I guess and he's just game enough to go there. I am sure the salary doesn't hurt...

And lastly this: Are women better investors than men?

How Men’s Overconfidence Hurts Them as Investors... Get off your tuches ladies!

Do not hate the rich or their jobs.

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Yes, the voice of the little people lives in a four million dollar house - how does he reconcile his anger for this country when it's been so good to him? Does he really think that the USA that made him so wealthy is going away? Are we really supposed to hate the founders of Google when they took all the risks of starting a company that now employs thousands of people at great starting salaries? Methinks the anger is displaced. What makes me angry is hearing about all do nothings that are country has encouraged by social programs that virtually guarantee they will never get up off their fat asses and go to work. The Asians that come to our shores for work are appalled at the opportunities our country offers that are not taken advantage of by so many native born US citizens. It is something they culturally cannot understand. Neither can I. Anyone willing to work should have a job – Any kind of job. And that’s why guys like Brin and Jobs, and Gates deserve our respect and admiration. It takes wealth to create wealth.

Our country is changing. There are going to be the new haves and have nots. We will see a wider disparity between the two in the future. You get to decide now which side of the train you want to be on.

I await tomorrow to see if China raises rates. Let's hope they can cool things off without that nasty bit. I sure would hate to see them apply those brakes so soon…so please Mr. Premier whatever your name is - cut us some slack, and keep the rate where it is... my little Chinese Ag plays thank you in advance.

The more I read about China the more I am impressed with their plans for taking their country to the head of the class. I respect their work ethic. I respect their drive. I think we need to take a page form their book this time.

IBM got the Tiger by the tail

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

IBM is opening a multi-million dollar lab to develop technologies for China's burgeoning smart grid market.

The $40 million dollar Energy & Utilities Solutions Lab will be located in the IBM China Development Labs in Beijing. The company says it expects the lab, the first for IBM worldwide, to generate $400 million in revenues over the next few years.

"We want to get close to the marketplace so we can work day in and day out with our customers in China," said Matt Wang, vice president of IBM China Development Labs. "China is one of the largest markets for energy and utilities in the world."

State Grid Corp of China, the largest electricity transmission company in the world and the sole power provider for all but five Chinese provinces on the Chinese mainland, has pledged to invest $37 billion in smart grid technologies. Full Story>

Help Wanted Or Pizza and Games?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Out of all the economic reports, the monthly Jobs Report is by far the dumbest. This report comes out at 8:30AM EST on the first Friday of each month CNBC calls this report the "Grand Daddy of them all." I rest my case. AT 5 AM doofus interruptus Joe Kernan will start yelling over bad 1980's rock music all about the jobs report… The jobs report comes out and the Dow drops 100 points by 10AM EST. The Yahoo headline "Market tanks due to poor Jobs Report." 3PM Closing bell: the market recovers and turns positive. Bartiroma: "Market rallies on strong Jobs Report." These idiots get away with this shenanigan every month as if the stock elves changed the numbers intraday. duh...

Leading indicators are more important than lagging indicators (like this bogus report of jobs)... How can a number have credibility when it's revised the next month? What if Apple reported earnings one month and then changed it the following month? When a report is revised a month later, it is no wonder why people think the number is "manufactured by the government."

And this time poor weather could affect the report. Look, folks if you're hungry you'll schlep thru 8 feet of snow for a job - I know I did. If you're happy on the dole, you'll sleep til noon, and order a double cheese pizza and go play on your X-Box.

So don't over analyze, play the stocks you planned to play ignore this noise unless it gives you a buy opp in the early hours of trading. If the market is healthy, it will ignore the bad number. If not, we're going to get kicked down the open manhole cover.

Stocks setting up, breakouts working well, market above the 50-day, nice negative sentiment as put buying increases… hey, it sounds like a recipe for higher prices soon!

I need chocolate and champagne.

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

I am posting this because for the life of me, I can't understand what motivates people's behavior these days. My neighbor is having his house interior painted. The painters have been taking their rollers and brushes and rinsing them off with his hose outside on his lawn next to mine. The paint leeched into my lawn and created a lovely white lake. I called his cell phone and home phone and got his answering machines. He and his wife were both home at the time. He never returned the calls.

I finally called the sheriff and the building inspector for the county. I love my state. In a matter of 30 minutes both were at my front door. They spoke to the neighbor. About fifteen minutes later I see the neighbor with his wellies on, and about ten towels and a pail and he is soaking up the mess. A half four later he is out there with his wet vac finishing the job. It pains me to think that in order to be treated fairly, I had to call the authorities. HE never would have done this otherwise. But why would he have let it happen in the first place? –Toxic paint contaminating run-off right under everybody's nose.— If I ever want to plant vegetables there, I can forget about it now. And he has two kids that play in that area! Our garbage service won't even take paint as collection… we have to take it to a special site and everyone in the area knows this.

The good news is that my concerns were dealt with fairly and quickly by the county. If I were still in NYS I could wait til never to get anyone to come out and take care of any problem.

When I got up yesterday I saw a sign on his front lawn. I thought, a for sale sign! Unfortunately it was only the sign for the painters working on the house - I guess he gets a discount for the free advertising. Funny thing is, who would use a painting company that contaminates the neighborhood? And oh by the way, the phone number on the sign doesn't work . I called. I got a psychic network. Go figure.

The real Gold Olympics

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:17:26 PST

Edward Meir MF Global on Bloomberg

I took notes off these stories and the BMO metals and mining conference.

One-fifth of copper supply was at risk and now the lights are back on in that region… $3.50 is the HIGH...They buy under $3.15

Newmont Mining

Opportunities: Copper is the 2010 story metal… the market looks terrific - CEO says he sees copper higher... margins are GREAT on copper... Gold jewelry will drive gold prices… his mining in Ghana is a big deal for Newmont

Met Coal and Cliffs Natural Resources

Clifs Nat Resources; CEO says met coal has some supply problems - the world supply is not enough to keep up with China's demand metals figure into a greater part of their GDP than ours... any excess goes to build infrastructure not consumer discretionary like the U.S.

Their iron ore pellets markets are their US based strength and almost all of it is sent to China… their iron business is mainly in large infra plays versus small manufactured products

Gold Corp

The Goldcorp CEO is very bullish on 2010 And this is the worlds second largest gold producer and says its Mexican miner acquisition will supply it with 500,000 ounces of gold a year all of it free because of the other metals mined along with it. He says to buy his company versus the ETF – there is greater upside owning the company because its growth is organic

Royal Gold

The story was very bullish on gold. I own this company. Great team. Acquires companies with lots of fingers in many pots... instant exposure to the top gold reserves in the world that pay year in year out

Obama move over

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

Okay maybe at least a run for governor of New York.

Congratulations again on a great Olympics and hockey game. Wow 14 gold’s... Both countries did great. I love Canada, and it was such an exciting and valiant effort from both sides. Glad they grabbed the gold. There aren't a lot of places that could get me to move. But Canada is definitely one of them… if only it didn't snow so much… and while I am on the subject, it's not a bad idea to park some money into some of those nifty Canadian miners, oil and exploration companies, the tar sands plays, and even a few of their banks.

Let's see if I were in Canada tonight I would toast with a Molson and wash it down with some nice Canadian bacon.

The Bernanke Syllable Show

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

I am sure someone will try to chart some squiggly lines against his every word today but the bottom line is that he is going to say we're going to keep rates low...so chill America… keep intermediate bonds not more than 5 years and statistically these will outperform the S&P 500 - but you must keep your eyes on inflation… rest assured the CPI dipped into neg territory and we have not seen this since 1982 - so where does that leave us ? The Fed is moving off their own theoretical models -we are in uncharted territory here… The MBS mystery -who will start buying that paper? A lot of unknowns.

What happens when they start selling again? A hundred basis points? Who knows?

And that supplemental financing deal? What was that all about?

One guy on CNBC said he was watching Blackstone - debt has not been the place to be..so they are a tell for the rest of the year. Smart guy. Really smart. Nobody got it more wrong than private equity...

FED is form over substance now... He must talk about the banks though... Fed funds rate is not where we want to be… he must make the distinction between a general tightening mode - which we are not in and a " we just want to make banks miserable" yada-yada

Be a willow. Stay limber.

A wealth of health tip of the day...

A technique used by both yoga and Ayurveda to improve flexibility is Nadi Shodhana (Alternate Nostril Breathing). In this pranayama practice, herbs can be used to enhance the cleansing and opening effect upon the nadis (channels of energy), which course through the body's muscles and joints, bringing prana, nourishment, warmth, and moisture for better flexibility with less discomfort. The herbs are also thought to cleanse the muscles and joints of inflammation.

Two common herbs used are turmeric and cinnamon bark. Turmeric has analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties and can help you avoid discomfort associated with strength-building postures by reducing the buildup of free radicals that occurs as your muscle tissues consume oxygen; this also reduces post practice pain and recovery time. Research published in the 1993 Journal of Ethnopharmacology (vol.38) showed turmeric to be a nutrient for connective tissue, stabilizing the collagen fibers and preventing adhesions caused by stress and overstretching.

Who loves cinnamon… and did you know it is considered an aphrodisiac but only when tested with men?

Is Glenn Beck the new Rush Limbaugh?

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

I think he could run for Obama's job and win at this point.

The best Rush can do these days is call Obama “Dumbo” because he has big ears. And poor Rush has gained all that weight back. He looks simply Goodyear Blimp. The man needs to go on the WealthMiser diet – just worry about the market.

Speaking of which here is the list of the great institutional ownership stocks. I am proud to say I own very few!

1. MERCK CO INC (MRK) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 95.83% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 936 – Accumulated Shares: 1571639808

2. CAREFUSION CORP (CFN) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 92.98% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 273 – Accumulated Shares: 144441616

3. CITIGROUP INC (C) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 38.31% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -53 – Accumulated Shares: 2681434624

4. E*TRADE Financial Corporation (ETFC) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 21.79% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 26 – Accumulated Shares: 212750816

5. FORD MOTOR CO (F) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 15.54% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 33 – Accumulated Shares: 284454016

6. NEW M&I CORPORATION (MI) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 14.24% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -32 – Accumulated Shares: 44258968

7. BOEING CO (BA) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 14.08% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -310 – Accumulated Shares: 73447904

8. FIDELITY NAT INF SVC (FIS) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 11.64% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 56 – Accumulated Shares: 26298826

9. AVERY DENNISON CP (AVY) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 10.21% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -103 – Accumulated Shares: 9957930

10. Huntington Bancshares Incorpora (HBAN) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 9.38% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -52 – Accumulated Shares: 38880160

11. PFIZER INC (PFE) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 8.8% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): 405 – Accumulated Shares: 462945664

12. GENWORTH FINANCIAL (GNW) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 7.96% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -51 – Accumulated Shares: 34242976

13. PULTE HOMES, INC. (PHM) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 7.77% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -74 – Accumulated Shares: 23089916

14. HONEYWELL INTL INC (HON) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 7.32% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -178 – Accumulated Shares: 44098976

15. TOTAL SYSTEM SVC INC (TSS) – Percentage of Institutional Ownership as a result of recent Accumulation: 5.75% – Net Buyers/(Sellers): -73 – Accumulated Shares: 7227507

Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Hmmmmmm.

I guess we can't all look like Gary Cooper.

(How could Ayn Rand keep her hands off this man?)

Cheers!

Taking the Tiger by the Tail

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

The Chinese markets are closed this week so now's the time to think about would will happen if we find ourselves in a Rising Inflationary Environment and its Impact on companies:

In a rising inflation environment, you can expect many things on the 'cost' side of the balance sheet to get more expensive. Materials, labor, energy, etc...

Take a company that has a fairly low gross profit margin... Say 8%. Lets say its cost go up by x% due to inflation. The company has two choices:

1) Eating that x% cost increase which will come close to making its new gross-profit margin (8-(x*0.92))%...

2) Try to pass the cost increases to its customers. These companies will, of course, try to do #2 if they can. The problem of course is that if they raise prices, demand for their product could very well drop. Depending on the elasticity of demand for that specific industry, this could cause overall revenues to go down.

Thus for low-margin businesses, the critical component will be their ability to pass on price increases without demand destruction.

A high-margin biz has a much easier problem. Say its gross profit margin is 50% instead of 8%. The formula for its gross-profit margin with a x% cost increase would be quite different at (50-(x*0.50))%. Take an ever higher gross-profit margin business like 80%. The formula for the new gross-profit margin with an x% cost increase would be (80-(x*0.2))%.

Thus a high-margin business has much, much less 'cost increase' as a percentage of its CURRENT price that it needs to 'pass along' to maintain the same margins. Thus it is much easier to do.

I hope this has made some sense or maybe I'm diving deep into economic-madness. That's the reason that I like Chinese companies that fit the bill right now

Glenn Beck is a very funny tea party guy

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

Nial Ferguson was on Glenn Beck the other night. He is a Harvard professor who wrote a great book; The Accent of Money.

I noticed Beck is getting some heavyweights on his show now. Perhaps --Beck's audience numbers are seductive especially if you have a book to hawk...anyway Nial said we either inflate it away or default the debt which are the only two options we have...Ferguson accused Beck of being out in Calif trying to find the next Reagan. Ferguson said America does not want socialism shoved down their throats unlike Europe (sans Calif- the most "euro" state in the US) All the guests all trashed the unions which they blamed for the Europe's troubles...we cannot use Europe as our role model.

The US desire for small government is a lagging indicator i.e. after we see the government we have fail first. We really don't want Europe.

We really don't want big government we have now either. So...Do we lose our rating first and spiral out of control before we see some real change? Is change possible? Would it have changed already if the printing presses broke? Do we need to see a collapse before change happens?

Doherty said every morning 5 billion people wake up with a skill and or product that 5 billion other people need. That is what will save us.

It was an interesting show...

by the way Beck is a very funny man… he does this elite versus the everyday man segment which he does a Charles Laughton kind of takeoff on a pipe smoking tweed type… if he is doing this unscripted - he is very good. In a debate with OB he'd make mincemeat out of Mr. Teleprompter. Regardless of your politics, he was pretty spot on and funny. He is a TV personality for our times, whether we like it or not and Mr Zeitgeist is certainly full of opinions and it is those opinions that are going to make him a very, very wealthy man. Isn't America great?

Michelle Obama of french fries, her diet, and the Chocolate Police

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

Speaking of Glenn Beck featuring heavyweights on his show, perhaps he should have Michelle Obama and her Chocolate Police (read more) ...Who is she to preach about weight? She is on record as saying french fries are her favorite food, looks to be about 30 pounds overweight herself.

Can’t they afford mirrors in the White House - you know the three way kind that you can see your butt in? And honey, those belts do not make you look thinner - they make you look ridiculous.

Yeah I know she's BIG BONED... hahaha... she is hardly the proper spokesperson for telling parents they have fat kids... first of all it looks like she's gained about 20 pounds since taking office... and not from eating WH veggies... it's those Air Force One fat carbon trips to NYC for fancy meals on the taxpayer's dime and those posh 6 course dinners... she listed Hamburger Helper and Cracker Jacks as their favorite snack food... ahem... and she appeared with Paula Deane (the fat queen of butter) where she ate a load of french fries, and never challenged the old greaser. She should hit the treadmill and get her cankles out of our kitchens... is there anything these people DON"T think is their business? What's next - the chocolate cookie dough police?

The Chocolate Confession

Glenn Beck's popularity soars, the Bears slammed on the cheap japanese brakes and threw the market into reverse

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:17:26 PST

I knew the plunge yesterday was a joke - there was zero volume ... how deep was this correction you ask?

Here's one take.... The S&P 500 is now nearly as oversold as it was at some of the worst points of the financial crisis. Below is a chart of the S&P 500's trading range using 3 standard deviations above and below the index's 50-day moving average. The index is currently trading right at the bottom of this range, which didn't happen that often during the last bear market. It definitely hasn't been this oversold at any point during the rally. The index is now down 9% from its closing high on January 19th, which is very close to the standard 10% correction.

Market today was like a sheet of glass. You couldn't walk thru it without feeling every inch and making a lot of noise in the process.Materials, Energy, Technology, and Financials are the four sectors down at least 10%. The Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, and Telecom sectors have held up the best throughout this decline.

I did not make any drastic adjustments to my portfolios basically because I did not have a lot of gunpowder..I did manage to add to my CCME, CTRP, and TSTC, because I know one day I will look at these prices and get all nostalgic. I also bought back my FORD, LVS,WYNN and MGM. MY dips included BIDU and GOOG. The xlf bounce was kind of fun.. gave the all clear on the financials... I am long GS again...lol

I am steering clear of gold for awhile and here's why..used to be gold was the default setting for all things non greenback.Yeah, dollar down, gold up...world currencies in freefall, they all used to buy gold. War, pestilence, pay-lin, you bought gold when something made you nervous. But all that seems to be history since gold is now a speculative metal and traded as such..it just isn't all that "stable" anymore...plus when Glenn Beck runs ads for buying gold continuously throughout the hour, you just know it's a whole new ballgame out there for gold...at least that's my take.

I still have gold in my portfolio but not sure for how long. I really prefer the other metals now....

My new positions are PKX (yeah!) PBR, JCI, and CNYD.

My biggest coup of the day however was NOT a stock..I found a gorgeous mahogany Federal style buffet on craigslist and it was just delivered this afternoon while the market recovered. It felt like Xmas times two! I could not believe what I bought it for. I was knee deep in murphy's oil soap, as the truckers held the piece mid air while I scrubbed it down...it was in flawless condition and actually didn't need a bath after all...I was pushing furniture around (amazing what I can move when it has to be moved - I swear I could move a refrigerator if it was driving me crazy ) til I got it in the perfect spot. BTW I bought these "sliders" on QVC that are great -felt on one side plastic on the other... I had the movers slip them under the feet of the buffet so I could push it across the hardwood floor.

I have been checking my new addition every few minutes to make sure I wasn't dreaming the whole thing..the people I bought it from were in the antique furniture auction business which they lost along with their house.Now they run auctions throughout TN for businesses that are going bust like hair salons, and restaurants. Sad really, but in a way I was glad to bring some revenue their way.

My 2009 predictions for 2010

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:17:26 PST

The dollar will stabilize - no extreme move one way or another.
Treasuries will go to sleep on the dollar boredom.
Emerging markets will make ours look anemic.
Timmy gets fired. Zeros numbers go down further.
Nancy goes back to picking grapes in NoCal.
There will be one black swan event.
Copper will go thru the roof.
Housing will bottom, but home builders will take off.
GOOGLE will hit 750.
Gold may do the same, but end the year a LOT higher.
Unemployment will drop below 9% because they will lie about the numbers.
Other states will get California-ed.
China will lead the way in alt energy.
CNBC, Cramer and Kudlow et al. will continue to irritate and we will continue to complain.

Cheers and Happy New Year...

Prediction 2010 on the US Dollar

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:17:26 PST

The concurrent dumping of our dollars will cause a monetary collapse. A new world currency will foment and be managed by the big banks and central bankster’s. Not next year or even the year after, but the next few.... and by the way... the Chinese are very smart.

The “Cash for Clunkers” program — wasn’t about jump-starting our economy. Ya see, China didn't want any further exposure to our crappy currency and refused to accept dollars as payment for financial credit to the US Government. Better to have steel, copper and platinum as payment. And so our beloved clunkers were crushed and sent to China in exchange for Chinese loans.

I wonder what that steel will be reincarnated and sold back to us as.

Our markets continue to power higher… tis the season to be selling puts... fa la la la la la la la... gold seems to be correcting - lets hope it trades down a bit now and takes a breather as the dollar makes like Donner and Blitzen.

Is it just me or is the idea of sitting out these holiday gyrations gaining appeal?

The Bah Humbugger

And a Merry Holiday Retail Event to You

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:17:26 PST

As an adult I am convinced both are now myths. I think they can now arrest you in certain states for saying Merry Christmas anyway. And retail is now a national sporting event with the Chinese in the bleachers cheering us on.
Instead of celebrating the birth of Christ, we now celebrate the birth of GDP numbers on the 26th.
And this year we seem to be totally focused on the economy and if the retail customer will deliver the goods sans reindeer and all that chimney stuff. Mention coal and it's all about your carbon footprint or an invitation to invest in a coal plant in Kentucky. Don't ‘ya know all kids are good now anyway?

So how is this year shaping up?

The NRF seems to think that shoppers are delaying purchases waiting ‘til the last minute to get better deals. The stores stocked for a lower then expected Christmas and will run out of selection. So we'll see flat to higher prices and better than expected margins on the reports in Q1 of 2010. The reports of frenzied buying and out of stock items this coming week because we have almost an entire week the brats are out of school before Christmas arrives.

None of it sounds particularly appealing. I am sitting this one out. The only ones getting coal this year are the shorts.

Tis the season for selling puts... la la la la la la.....

Picture courtesy of "Christmas in Connecticut"

Goldman Sachs just bought Santa Claus

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:17:26 PST

If you are wondering what will drive stocks higher over the next two weeks, Santa Claus and the end of year window dressing. If you are curious about what can drive equities higher over the next three months, M&A activity, share buybacks and continued improvement in the economy, including employment.

Commodity related stocks are trending higher for two reasons: Asia and cheap dollars. At some point, the dollar will go up, which will kill the price of gold. However, if growth continues to strengthen, industrial commodities will continue to be bought in size.

Technology stocks have led the way higher, during this recent bull stampede. In total, corporations have approx. $800 billion in cash, which can be used for mergers and acquisitions, dividends, buybacks, etc. and M&A activity will explode into mid 2010, but what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Basing your investment philosophy around the dollar is dumb. Granted, it has been a tell, of the last 19 bull markets lasting 9 months or more, 95% of them continued to trade higher over the next 12 months.

Yowza.

How about a nice cup of gold bullion?

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:17:26 PST

It's the most wonderful time of the year as we all get ready to part with our plastic and proceed to outdo the neighbors decorations, last year's electric bill, and last but not least our unfulfilled expectations of Christmas’s past. Just as Ebenezer get visited by his ghosts of past transgressions, I think we all get a dose of the Christmas wrath, er I mean wreath.

Who can forget the Christmas you didn't get the Howdy Doody lunch pail you specifically pointed out to your mother, or the hula hoop and poodle skirt with the red rhinestones? Well I say bah humbug this year and break with tradition...now put down that sugar cookie and get yourself a bit of GLD gold on this temporary non fattening dip. Silver is also taking a breather here, so instead of buying some overpriced piece of Indian crap on Gem TV, get yourself on to the SLV train. And after working up a thirst running thru malls and such, order yourself a Keurig coffee maker and enjoy the bliss of the one cup kingdom of joy to the world... And besides I own a boatload of GMCR!

Okay, you can finish that sugar cookie now....and if you buy any of the aforementioned stocks, I will stuff your stocking full of coal that Obama is selling really cheap on eBay... Happy Holidays!

The White House Party Crashers

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

The latter allegedly occurred trying to escape a domestic squabble over a National Enquirer story concerning "another woman." And America crashed on their couches, spilled gravy on their Snuggies, and slept off an overeating binge of turkey, booze, and bad football.

The Black Friday numbers look terrific - outdoing the hordes from last year. And nobody got trampled!

As for the Salahi’s who pushed their way thru the gates of the White House, I hope they press charges against those two wannabe poseur freeloaders that got face time with Obama - turns out nothing on her Facebook is true… but on the plus side, retail sales of saris should be healthy

And as for Dubai, an Arab country that needed cash decided to pee on our drumsticks?

First they overbuilt a bunch of ugly buildings, then they pick the most capitalist of holidays to explode their debt issues. They pick the one day America celebrates its bounty, the fruits of its labor. The "I made it, I get to enjoy it" day of the year.

Where Christmas is about giving, Thanksgiving is all about taking and extra helpings.

Ayn Rand would approve of such a holiday. She would not however, approve of the Arab's recent behavior toward it. Or their architecture.

A Fred and Ginger tonic

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

One of those days that at 10 am it looked like dusk.(I just loved days like that as it reminded me of so many childhood days along Lake Erie and the gorgeous dramatic lake effect snowfalls.) The city looked like 1930 all over again.

I was between jobs and attending the New School's writing workshop and woke up feeling I needed a boost or a divergence to too many hours of writing with not much to show for it. So I wrapped myself up in my fur coat (a vintage looking sheared beaver I recall) and indulged in a cab ride over to the west side to see "Flying Down to Rio" at the Regency, an old theater on Broadway that still had the old organ an old gal was playing before the movie big dusty red velvet curtains and gilt edged balconies that saw more than their share of mid afternoon trysts I imagine. It's amazing who you see at a matinee for an old Depression era movie on a Wednesday – Mostly much older modestly dressed Eastern European types who live in rent controlled apartments and wear large lapel pins on their cloth coats. And who were probably around to see this movie when it first came out. Also a few artsy type film buffs, a couple of kids playing hooky from Dalton and yours truly.

Seeing Fred and Ginger time stepping to the Latin rhythms and the silly libretto of unrequited love were delicious. And those Busby Berkley numbers on the big screen where they are dancing on the head of the old airplane is I am sure worth at least three hours of intense therapy with the city's best shrinks. I came out of that movie totally enthralled and energized. I even treated myself to a cappuccino and a biscotti at the Cafe des Artistes before hailing the cab home to Murray Hill (yes I went slumming on the west side!) in just enough time to start fixing dinner for my husband.

I thought about all this tonight as I watched it again on Turner this evening. Not only was it just as enjoyable viewing it on a much smaller screen, it was a wonderful whiff of nostalgia laced between the dance numbers that made me appreciate the time I spent in New York and that dark snowy afternoon watching a Depression movie that certainly was anything but.

Cheers!

Putting the thankful back in Thanksgiving...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

Rather than ruminating on about fried or roasted T-Birds… or Obama, or the economy, or early Christmas bargains, or football, I'd like to thank the following in a random stream thinking...

My husband for being my best friend and my right arm for the past twenty some odd years, and for thinking that even my wildest ideas were always within reach.. my grandmother for my childhood... my father for learning how to be my father before he died... my first grade teacher who wanted to adopt me, to my mother who finished my jumper in high school so I didn't flunk Home Ec… my sisters for not killing me, my first boy friend for TS Eliot, James Joyce and John Donne, to my second boyfriend for getting up at 7 am every morning to drive me to my theory class in 7 feet of snow in Rochester NY... to Buffalo and the Peace Bridge and the old houses on Elmwood and Linwood that I sought refuge in… to New York City for being the best playground a dreamer could imagine in… Bette and Kate for giving up New England and becoming actresses… whoever invented dairy free frozen yogurt… the Rue Jacob where I will build my bunker if the world gets too ugly… Carol Reed for almost losing his mind shooting the Third Man… to Tennessee for being friendly and asking nothing in return… and to my dog Chauncey who taught me how to smile and a special thanks to chocolate, butterscotch and all things hummingbird...

Now about that turkey...

Comsumers flip Walmart the bird

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

Puhleeze! Who shops the week BEFORE Black Friday? We know now that the consumer has been trained Pavlovian... And hell this isn't our first Thanksgiving is it? We know the drill. It's becoming less about the bird and more about the hunt... when the last bite of pumpkin pie is swallowed on Thursday evening, fats ass America loads its collective girth into belching SUVs and heads to the front of the line at the mall waiting for the doors to open. Do these pundits really think we're going to sit out the sporting event of the year? Why sit on the couch watching another boring football game when you ARE ESPN if only for just day? Why it's un-American!
I think this Christmas is going to surprise a lot of people. Shopping is our national pass time- you don't think something like an old job gone bye-bye is going to mean squat do you? (Personally I have found jobs to be way overrated anyway) Besides, we all know grandparents spend up the wazoo for their little darlings and how many of them are employed?

From Pavlov’s Dogs to Their Own Worst Enemies

Here's the drill -the reason there is some much sh$#^%$%^t out there is because the consumer has told the manufacturer based on previous holidays just how much she is willing to spend of said item… He then goes back to the drawing board and thinks, well there's no way I can make this for that price so I will dumb down the product to be able to sell it for that - cheap labor, cheap out the materials, yada-yada… and low and behold, there is agreement - the consumer is happy and so is the manufacturer… they play this little game at retail wherein said manufacturer or store sets the price higher than they know the consumer will spend. Then they start the mark-down sham - it's almost a bid & ask kind of game… I overheard one guy who challenged the 40% off sign was the price on the shirt at 40% off already or could be take an additional 40% off? Consumers have learned how much wiggle room there is in that price and everything is negotiable... If a purchase order is written for 100k the factor makes the money on the 100k but the store will only make money-off the discounted price...maybe 80k if he's lucky. But the lucky factor charges 5% on 100k not the 80k… Not bad for a day's work. And of course all of this raises the cost of goods and merchandising - the factor is just a bank, and the store must raise the price or lower his costs to make a profit. Unfortunately, the consumer has made the former nearly impossible making for a real conundrum. So the bottom line is basically that it sucks to be in retail. Unless you're a factor - who gets a nifty 5% every thirty days - even GS would like that kind of action.

Everybody wants to get something for nothing. Bragging rights. Ego gratification. Feeling smarter than the next guy. But everyone is so shocked to drive by the malls and see out of business signs! You can't have it both ways.

Retail is great. There just isn't enough money these days to sustain it. Just one of the little perks of living in the “me” first world. Rock on.

Obama freezes his butt off in Seoul

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

See - this is where Michelle should have stepped up to the plate and gone in his place - she has a lot more "insulation" around the derriere - I betcha she would hardly feel those sub zero temps whereas he could barely walk down those Air Force One steps… do you know he's taken more trips than any other president to date save the old fart Bush? How big is this guy’s carbon footprint? Remember when Gore flew around the world polluting the air with his private plane pumping his global warming movie? Well this is worse - Mr. Cap & Trade Obama is talking both sides of his wallet here... I am surprised he didn't insist on one of those fancy airbus planes - you know the caddy-lack of planes....
Besides, are all these trips really accomplishing anything except giving him a larger audience to feed his massive narcissism? That and the fact that he gets all these neat state dinner invites for him and the not so little woman... I'd go so far as to say, they probably went to China just for the food. They seem like the type that shows up whenever there's a free meal - holdover from their leaner on the road to riches days.
It's not like he moved the ball any with the Chinese… they at best drew their lines in the sand, or to use another metaphor agreed on which trees they would pee on… Obama wants China to support them with regards to Iran and China want the reciprocal with their deals with Taiwan... Russia has weighed in on North Korea versus China still dancing around that grenade. Getting China to agree to reduce their collective carbon footprints at the expense of the Chinese economy? – Never gonna happen.— China will never agree to anything that would threaten their growth. They would never agree to anything that would isolate them from the rest of the Asian world. They hate being singled out. They want to be looked upon as a player even if it's not true. It's all about appearances ya know. They want respect and acknowledgement. They proved that during the Olympics. The US and China have each other in the cross hairs with regards to the currencies - it's a dead heat standoff so nothing was settled on that score. And to make matters worse, Obam-Mao is anything but a symbol of capitalism and Western thought… the Chinese people view him as more Marxist than some of their leaders! The only question I have is how clever will the Chinese be on the gold hording? Wait til their central bank does an India. Can you say 2 grand an ounce?

What a useless trip. What a waste of time. Obama should have saved some taxpayer money, saved the planet some pollution, and took care of his healthcare mess here at home. Clinton, another freeloader who never turned down a free meal pretty much stayed home his first two years and took care of business. Obama and his ego however, will do anything for a photo op and a free meal. – Ditto, Queen Michelle.— They only seem to be happy when they are out of the White House eating off someone else's dime. What a perfect politician mindset. And from the looks of his approval numbers it looks like the voters can't stomach this kind of behavior either.

The latest CBS News poll shows that Obama only has a 38 percent approval rating.

Has the middle class in NYC fallen down a collective manhole?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

I recently read an article that said the city has fallen victim to the recession with massive layoffs in the financial and real estate and tourist businesses. Restaurants are hurting and so are retailers across the boards and no where is that felt more than in the middle class. And now the city is in a financial fiscal crisis and is planning on cutting services across the boards and raising taxes. The Democrats in their state senate are denying there is even a problem and blame the governor for inflating the crisis to cut spending. The rich are fleeing before the taxman comes, and the middle class are struggling daily to stay afloat hoping the economy recovers before they run out of unemployment benefits.

This is from the article — The global financial crisis began in Manhattan, and its effects are being felt far more strongly there than elsewhere. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the situation is critical. Millions are fighting to keep their jobs. Is what is happening in New York today a harbinger of the fate of the rest of the world?

They still remember how things used to be. That's part of the problem. New York's heroes, the men and women who only yesterday considered themselves the knights and conquerors of Manhattan, remember all too well what New York was like in the 1970s -- the era before seven-figure salaries came to the Big Apple.

They remember -- and they see the signs. That's why they're afraid.

Tom Birchard, the owner of the Veselka diner, says he adopted the New York walk in the 1970s: fast, determined, always scanning two blocks ahead, looking behind you every 10 steps or so, staying more than arms-length away from doorways, and crossing the street or even turning around altogether if two or more black men came towards you.

I had to laugh when I read that last sentence. I used to live in NYC and I remember “the Walk” – it was just something you intuitively did to the rhythm of the city. It was like a dance, Someday you could even hear the music of the city – horns, traffic, construction, voices. One didn’t just cross the street – you danced to the beat of the city’s cacophony. People refer to it as “energy” of the city. Whatever it was, it was fun. I miss that. I felt my “edge” when I lived there. True it wears you down after awhile, but I digress…

Of all the cities I lived in, nowhere do the poor and rich rub elbows as often as they do in NYC… And that’s good and bad. When I was a starving artist, I used to envy the rich as they darted out of their limos on the way to expensive lunches and places like Bergdorf’s. Being a have-not in NYC bordered on the cruel, because so much wealth was literally under your nose. So I can understand why if you lost your job in NYC you’d have to leave as it costs so much just to survive month to month.

I am sure NYC will come back from the dead. It’s just going to do it minus a lot of worker bees who can live a lot better for a lot less with a much less stressed gait to boot.

I know I did, and never looked back. NYC is one of those experiences that you are glad you did it when you did because you sure wouldn’t do it now.

Glenn Beck is a recovering alcoholic

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

They say you never fully recover from alcoholism. You learn how to manage it. In Beck’s case it looks like he’s doing just fine drinking in his millions in royalties… In my case, I am addicted to my past – and I can’t shake it.

I think I know why they call it high school now. It’s the high point of your character development.

Not necessarily the high point of my life however. It’s not like it was downhill from there. Hardly.

It’s that I can’t stop thinking of myself as that kid sitting in Science class tossing pez at my girlfriend in the third row, worrying about the biology midterm I was not prepared for, and wondering what it would be like to kiss Mark Lesniowski. All 75 pounds wrapped in Villager box pleats and oxford.

There must be some unwritten law that reads that no matter what you maintain later on in life, you never get to cross that line if you were not cool in high school. I would say that at best, I was pseudo cool – Left of center cool versus mainstream peer accepted cool – I was where they put all the creative types versus the jock types.

How un-cool was I? I never went to the finals for Junior Varsity cheerleading thinking I didn’t have a chance only to find out later from my gym teacher I would have been selected had I shown up.

My first lesson in not quitting.

In some way I thought I was spared the immense responsibility for a fifteen year old of being expected to be totally cool 24/7. Kids are very unforgiving, and they don’t miss a thing. At least there were days when I could be off my game and get away with it.

I recently got to see pictures of my high school reunion and was amazed at how differently people aged. Some looked like my grandmother! A few of the chosen cool did fall their perch thru the years, and became fat middle aged golfers. But for the most part, the mainstream A list cool kids looked amazing for their age. So maybe there is something to this “you are your destiny at fifteen” theory after all.

If I could go back and do it all over, I’d do it right the second time.

As it were, one guy from my high school emailed me recently after we all posted our pictures and bios on the reunion site . It said, “you probably don’t remember me, but that’s okay. I just wanted to say that after all these years, I think you should have been home coming queen and not Barb Fallis.”

It made my day.

A recovering fifteen year old WealthMiser.

Why wasn't I born in Paris?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

I was watching "Mon Oncle" last night on TCM and thought about how it would feel to live in a small apartment in Paris perhaps over a bakery run by a kindly Boulanger who used me as her guinea pig, And where everyday I would walk to the market and have pleasant exchanges with the locals, stopping for a café au lait and a brioche while reading Le Figaro. I’d have a small apartment filled with antiques and books and red Czech crystal chandeliers.

Or perhaps I would live across the street from a couterier who would let me play at her feet with yards of muslin

I have always felt a kinship to Europeans even before I made my first trip. I always thought if things got really bad at home, I would just go to Europe and buy a villa as they were very cheap back in the late 1950's. I might have been the only ten year old in Buffalo to regularly check the prices of villas on the Mediterranean. It was my safety net. I just had to figure how I would get there, and fleeing my parents.

It's their fault anyway. I fell in love with Europe after my parents too me to see Lili with Leslie Caron. I ached to go to Europe and begged my mother to send me to the Sorbonne!

As a teenager, when all my friends were gaga over the Beach Boys, I was paying homage to Jean Paul Belmondo with a large black and white poster I hung over my bed. The way that cigarette dangled over his enchantingly swollen lower lip was intoxicating. I studied French in high school and tried desperately not to get a crush on my French teacher. I must have seen the Umbrellas of Cherbourg five times. The lives that came to me via the movies was the fodder of my future life – or at least as I wanted it to be… Polanski’s Knife in the Water, the Italian classic 8½, La Dolce Vita, The Ipcress File, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and so many others. I got to see all of these at a small local movie theater I would either drag my poor mother with me to see or my girlfriend who lived across the street and was equally seeking anyplace that wasn’t the suburbs in 1966.

I made my first trip after high school and by the time I got there I felt like I knew the place already. I realize now how those early films had such shaped me for life.

I found it all very familiar in a strange way – perhaps I lived there in another life – or at least that’s what a fortune teller told me once. How else could I explain being on streets in Paris that I knew my way around yet was never there before? I rarely got lost in Paris. (But put me in Los Angeles and I could barely find my way home after 7 years of living - if you want to call it that - there.)

Maybe I am thinking about all this now because of the current zeitgeist of fear and loathing anything American. The ugly American has risen once again. And every page of every newspaper is singing death to America - a nation of various factions of morally bankrupt subsets of corruption.

Losing faith in our ability to carry on as before has set the stage for musing.

I like where I live but it seems these days everything around it is not to be trusted.

I watched a recent episode of Mad Men where Don and his bored wife go to Italy. While there, they play out this fantasy of being lovers and not husband and wife to the amusement of the locals.

I guess that’s my point. There’s Westchester. And then there’s the Via Sistina.

As they say, vive la difference.

Halloween horror under a full moon

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:17:26 PST

Anybody else notice the something for nothing-ers were out in incredible force last night? Look, I am all for helping the destitute - I give to charity both in hours and dollars, but this is something different. This is a gimme-gimme scam. I'd say the numbers were easily double that of last year. I turned up my street just as it got dark and the traffic was horrific… every old broken down clunker was ambling up our street (upscale where all the "good" candy is) and dropping off their kids who looked more like characters out of some Dickensian nightmare... (Can you tell I don't like Halloween?) In years past I would set out a spooky table where on the honor system you were asked to take two pieces of candy and be on your merry dental way. I could imagine what that would have been like this year… I also noticed the "kids" this year were a bit older - okay not as old as Gore Vidal - but close! It almost seemed like they just walked off a tea party and came over to our neighborhood!

Halloween is now a victim of our economy... a self - imposed food drive!
As I was turning into the "estate" section of our sub, I was having a hard time maneuvering around the umpteen pickups and SUVs… I drive a large car, and as I passed, someone rolled down their window and yelled something (I assume unpleasant) to me I did not hear... but suddenly this new social order they are talking about literally hit home.

This year, Halloween was not a holiday. It was an imposition for me and a get something for nothing for others.

OTHER BOTG observations...
Walmart candy aisle was empty - not of people - of candy! I actually saw two mothers fighting over the last jumbo bag of Reese’s mini-cups... The veggie aisle was also empty and I caught the produce guy talking to a head of lettuce.

BTW - Walmart is no longer Walmart. This recession has driven the sub middle class out and the middle class in - and hence the prices are higher now in Walmart to reflect the new demographics... the stores have all been revamped. the greeters are forty, and the carts now have a wipe station. It's almost civilized... what's this country coming to when you can't even trust Walmart to undercut their competition and put ma and pa out of business… too bad about ma and pa - they would probably be able to get their old customers back now.

So Walmart gets knocked off the Saturday list.
What's the point of shopping there of you can't go slumming and get a great bargain? One whiff of inflation spooked me silly.

Real Estate - my sources tell me they closed five mortgages this week, and fifteen refi’s - end of month ya know - they said business has been GREAT.

My girlfriend that runs the church consignment store says sales have doubled, but inventory is low.

By the way did you know that Halloween is one of Pizza Huts best holidays for orders? And under a full moon tonight, say mozzarella.

Do you have a depression mentality?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

My mother has it. I think I inherited it from her… or perhaps imposed upon me by her behavior.

I think it's; kept me out of trouble most of the time. I hate being taken advantage of and I so love a bargain more than anything else. I watched TCM last night all three movies that dealt with that theme and was shocked at how timely they were. My favorite was “Faithless” with Bankhead, and of course the Match King – brilliant movie. Going forward was sweet –I do love Barrymore. And they were all so amazingly spot-on with today's tone. Anyone that says this time is different is quite potty...

Check out what the Misses says about the GD:

Also the Lords of Finance is another great read on the subject… and the author clearly says there is no way we ever see another depression again... whew!

Guess it's safe to get some gold on eBay, but alas the price per gram is not user friendly to this depression-minded shopper...

Calling Glenn Beck on Socialism for the Wealthy

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Let's flip this Obama Joe the Plumber share the wealth idea, shall we?

Look at the banks - they played with the unwashed 's money, lost it, and got bailed out once again with poor joe the plumbers paycheck... so there's your model - just pretend your are Goldman Sachs!

Joe the plumber can't make ends meet because he just lost his job so he stops buying big gas guzzler cars. And with that, the large 1996 mercedes 500 sec coupe on eBay sees a nice haircut in its price and folks like me buy it on sale.

I need some work done around the house... there are so many construction workers out of work I can name my price - four years ago these guys would not even return my phone calls.

More houses go into foreclosure causing price decay... I am looking for a vacation house, and second homes are the first to go from any household looking to cut back. Once again I am in the driver's seat.

A long as Obama does not raise taxes for awhile, it looks like there is something to this silly socialist stuff. Am I exploiting poor Joe? Nope - just doing my share to keep the economy going - a girls' gotta do what a girl's gotta do - now about that gold charm bracelet on eBay...

Cheers

The ugly side of the global marketplace

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Guess they didn't want those Kronas with that side of fries eh?
"Costs had doubled over the past year because of the fall in the Krona currency and high import tariffs on imported goods, Ogmundsson said, making it impossible for the company to raise prices further and remain competitive with competitors that use locally sourced produce.

A Big Mac in Reykjavik already retails for 650 Krona ($5.29). But the 20 percent increase needed to make a decent profit would have pushed that to 780 Krona ($6.36), he said.

That would have made the Icelandic version of the burger the most expensive in the world, a title currently held jointly by Switzerland and Norway where it costs $5.75, according to The Economist magazine's 2009 Big Mac index.

Eh, what's Icelandic for "rip off"?

So it's back to washing down sardines with the Grey Goose instead of a greasy burger.

Fox Wins the War

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

More people watch Fox now than any other channel.... I guess that makes it the most powerful channel in the world... and Obama, the media darling, is not invited to the party... The man who wants to control what you watch and read on the internet has shot himself in the foot.

The republicans wants Ailes, head of Fox, to run for President... this is a good start.... maybe Rupert runs his cabinet!

Poor ex-jockcaster Olberman is talking to himself I guess… so his impediment heavy Chris Matthews… so O’Reilly is numero uno, and Beck boy weighs in at number two. Paddy Chayefsky could not create a more perfect media character. The 25-54 demographic has voted with their remotes - if the election for Obama was re-held today, ya think he'd still win? I don’t.

Like Newt said - it's bad enough he got the Nobel for doing nothing… what's worse, he got elected President on that platform too.

UK conspiracy uncovered

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

My remote accidentally landed on -egads - network station ABC....and I can find no other explanation for the existence of Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, and whatever else made it over here form the pond-scum that passes for entertainment in the UK... Why don't they use their own waste management facilities instead of dumping their garbage onto our visual landfill?

Yeah I know the vox populi loves that stuff - explains why they get away with murder in Washington - everybody is too busy watching Donnie Osmond do the jitterbug to notice.... ha-ha-ha......

Could Glenn Beck Be A Woman

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

I pondered this the other night watching him go toe to toe with the White House. Would a woman be so bold as to take on the entire government and call them a bunch of whiney cry babies?

He does no less than make a mockery of his red phone alert (he has begged them to call him). He even has enlisted carrier pigeons! Clearly he is not afraid to show his emotional side – he has cried on more than one occasion, not that I think that’s more female than male but it’s not everyday a guy cries over healthcare issues.

And given his show’s high ratings, will we see more upswing of emotional reporting and newsfotainment... instead of objective, balanced journalism?

Come to think of it, Glenn Beck makes Ann Coulter look positively butch.

Considering burning your dollars?

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

This British chap seems to think the dollar is just fine - he'll take yours off your hands if you don't think it's worth anything...and he's got a Noble Laureate in his corner to boot...read on mes amies...

By 2030, the two dominant economies in the world will be the U.S. and India, not China. Europe is toast. Forget the Euro as a threat. China's agriculture, technology and medical advances will keep ramping for the next twenty yeas at least. But for now I tend to agree with Pritchard basically because who wants to buy groceries with Euros at Kroger?

Get a little richer idea: save those dollars don't spend ‘em.

Get a little smarter idea: Watch Charlie Rose on Bloomberg.

Get a little thinner: Find an alternative to fast food… now! Or do what Rush Limbaugh did - cut the amount of calories consumed per day - he looks fantastic!

The war between the Hound and the Fox

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Is Obama so thin-skinned he can't tolerate the fox attacks? How can the president wage war against one TV station – isn’t he supposed to be the president of all the people? How myopic! How narcissistic!

The hound being Glenn Beck who keeps sniffing out the neatest garbage on the whole sleazy story.

Yet Obama is willing to bail out the newspapers, turning all newspapers into a version of NPR - a government run control the content enterprise… now that's scary....all at a time when the blog sphere is rife with opinion - even OB can't stop the vox populi... although they are going to try from what I understand...his internet czar is one person to watch...

OB and the wife are glib speaker/ex-lawyers who think they can talk their way thru the pesky parts of their presidency cause they are so much smarter than the room… so I say both are narcissists with a big dollop of money grubbing and celebrity mongering and contempt for anyone who has more than they do.

From an article "Fox Reaches Across Party lines" –
Monday, October 19, 2009 9:59 AM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

Could it be that the Obama Administration is concerned about Fox News not because it is “an arm of the Republican Party” but because it is so widely seen among Democrats and Independents?

That the two top spokespeople for the administration this Sunday (Emanuel and Axelrod) both chose to attack Fox News – showing how obsessed this thin-skinned president is with his coverage. It is truly amateur hour at the White House from the top down.

The phone survey was taken from a statistically valid national sample of 800 registered voters. Some 36 percent of the respondents said they voted for more Democrats than Republicans while 32 percent said they voted for more Republicans. 24 percent said they voted equally for each party.

Get a little richer today - too late - AAPL earnings already out... is rimm next? hmmmm

Get a little smarter today - watch less TV - and read more - (my past posts!!)

Get a little thinner today… eat a banana. They control hunger...

Nader says

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

The blast from the past thinks he is weak, ineffectual, a wuss to corporate America, and thinks he loses Congress in 2010 if he doesn't change soon.

But the worst offense - Obama has "turned his back on the very people" who voted him into office. They can't get in the front door of the White House , while there's a nonstop revolving door for the hordes of corporate execs, speculators and criminals that have received invitations there."

The media darling however has been rather decisive in one area - he is committed to having lots of parties in the White House (the latest being some kind of Latino Festival where he was photographed dancing the night away with chunky Michelle as she worked off those tacos.. . This was clearly a Nero fiddles while Rome burns moment since on that particular day he made zero head-way on his healthcare mudslide and continued to downplay the Nobel nod... and from Nobel to no belle we have Michelle! Clearly for a woman who dug up all those organic veggies in that photo-opp spread, that Amazon doesn't look like she's been within 20 feet of an organic turnip lately. How many vegetarians do you know that look like a middle linebacker in designer duds?

Could I have a gold bar with that chocolate truffle?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

The move comes as gold prices have been going through the roof. On Wednesday, they hit another record high of $1,072 an ounce. I guess the Brits are just as nervous as the rest of the world and are ready to spend $462,440 a bar for the pleasure of sharing the wealth.... Who do they know that is THAT special? Quite a gift to find in your stocking... Customers can buy the gold through Harrods financial arm Harrods Bank, which is located in the central London's department store.

And I thought I was splurging when I used to buy champagne truffles in their delightful food halls. So much for passing the wedge of Stilton and a glass of port to celebrate the holidays. The bar -- has been raised!

What are they smoking in Norway besides the salmon?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

"Some people say — and I understand it — 'Isn't it premature? Too early?' Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us." I mean come on... they are shaming the guy into not invading Lichtenstein (my personal favorite as I can never spell it.)

Alas, for a glib narcissist ex lawyer, OB is just full of never realized good intentions - add another one to his arsenal of non - accomplishments. Let's see, I wonder if I can get a peace prize for trying to mend fences with my crazy relatives...lol

If Everyday were Saturday

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Saturday is the day you do what you want... when the muse beckons, ESPN is yours for the taking, or you can flex those creative muscles in a thousand different directions. If you are unhappy with your 9-5 life all the other days, look to Saturday for clues as to where you might be happier... for instance I know a lot of people that would trade the stock market full time if they could. They are sure they would be more profitable and yes, a lot richer if given the opportunity. And so they struggle between full time job and the true love of the markets…

The bittersweet taste of what we must to do versus the lure of what we desire… Next time they make Earth, perhaps we should have 100 weeks in a year, 90 minutes to an hour and oh yes, a body clock that needs three hours of sleep!

Me? I am filling up on TCM this weekend starting with Bette Davis in Juarez... how can you beat that?

Get a little richer by getting a little happier? Perhaps... perhaps...

Best get a little richer today idea... Cash in your gold scrap while the going's good.

Best GLR investment idea today - watch Google... it reports this Thursday... Should be quite a ride

If you buy any Google on this note, they will send out your email to a bunch of demented 8 year olds.

Cheers!

The Swine Flu

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Gold's new all-time high territory $1041 an ounce was a shocking morning event - and I ma sure Bernanke was none too pleased and suddenly no one cared about buying masks or getting vaccines as the gold stocks took off and never looked back. Mr. Dollar plummets once again to its paper grave… we can now use the dollar when we run out of Angel Soft. Why that green paper with Ben Franklin on the front won't get you much at the pump soon or on the world gas station (OPEC) Me? I am thinking shelf liners or wall covering... make yourself a little richer... buy a bit of gold… i.e. AUY GLD or nay other gold stock - just throw a damn dart... if you do any of this you will be visited by the gold devil... helter smelter...

An Opinion of Obama

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Moore calls him the future Roosevelt of the 21st century! ...says he's faking right and going left like any decent basketball player does... and the jury is still out... says if he does what he elected him to do, he's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt... when he said we overthrew the democratic government in Iran, he got Moore's vote for being so audacious... blames the spineless Dems in Congress for Obama's ills… and that they are worse than the Repubs... also said if he still is sending troops to Afghanistan in 5 months he will inherit it as Obama's war.

He also admitted he cried the day he voted for Obama he was so relieved to get the chance to finally vote for this guys after so many years of persecution Of course this comes from the guy that got booed off the stage at the Oscars in 2002 for questioning the war he says we invaded illegally and immorally...

But here's the best part of this love fest - guess who is Michael Moore's agent? Why none other than Ari Emanuel! You know who's brother!

Why what a coincidence!

I decided to put in Gary Coopers pic instead of Michael Moore because he looks so much better than the Pillsbury Doughboy on helium look Moore seems to favor these days… uhg... put down the raw cookie dough will ya?

Get a little richer...

GS anointed the banks today… need I say more, compadre?

My best bargain...

ebay has some nifty free shipping offers right now… check em out… oil is going up...

Cheers!

Is Glenn Beck:

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:17:26 PST

Katie Couric in a recent interview asked him what party he was with and he couldn't give her a straight answer because on certain issues he's conservative, but felt he was leaning towards libertarian the more Obama opens his mouth. It got me thinking how useless these labels are becoming.
Labels are so over-simplistically" either/or" especially with what's happening right now ...most of us fall into the gray area of none of the above... Glenn Beck never really did answer but in his case I think it had more to do with not offending any end of his readership as his books are number one on all the lists right now… anyway getting back to the liberal conservative difference - what difference does it make in the end anyway?

We all end up in the same cesspool of unrest… an unregulated market is the road to prosperity versus you need a government controlled fiscal policy to stimulate the economy equals a messed up capitalistic system that will breed a lot of social unrest at a time when the world will have its own fish to fry with the same issues.