Gas Tax By State

It's Called "Sub Prime" for a Reason

My favorite is the left wing spin on foreclosures. In true leftist form they shift the blame from the person who most deserves it (the sub prime borrower too stupid to take the time to realize what they were getting into) and blames it on "evil greedy capitalist mortgage companies" that took advantage of these poor souls.

Now, I'm no big fan of mortgage brokers. Truth is, I will even go so far as to say some of them probably did outright lie or fail to mention some of the key aspects of how ARM's and reverse amortization loans work, and furthermore I hold them as one of the key villains that caused this housing bubble. But please, could you leftists just once, JUST ONCE tell people they're responsible for their own actions? Huh? Could you just leave the land of "Make Believe" and join us in the real world for 5 minutes? Could you just be truthful and say, "look, numskull, didn't it bother you that you could afford this house and this car for this meager of a payment? Didn't you bother to read or at least understand what you were getting into?"

No, of course not. That would not get them votes. That would be true, genuine leadership, but it wouldn't get you votes.

No, if you want votes, take a class of people, stupid or not, and explain the reason their lives suck isn't because of the stupid decisions they've made in the past. No, blame it on boogie men.

"Big Oil"

"Corporate America"

"George Bush"

"Global Warming."

And then tell them they're victims and entitled to recompense (meanwhile telling them they're incapable of ever achieving true success on their own because the world is stacked against them, condemning them to futility and dependency on the government). It is a classic play from the play book of the left.

Regardless, much as I'd like to rip on leftists all day, I do take some sadistic joy in seeing the banks and financial institutions that made loans to these morons and somehow didn't think it would come back to bite them in the ass. They keep floating around this statistic that the majority of sub prime lenders still pay their bills on time, which is true;

It's just the trend that bothers me (chart from WSJ).

The Middle East's Greatest Hope

Capitalism is an amazing force.

Never has such a force done so much good for society than capitalism

It breeds innovation, wealth, peace and wipes out poverty at a rate and level that socialists could only dream of achieving.

And I am sincere when I say that the more and more I think about it, capitalism is the only force that can quelch the insanity of radical Islam and provide the idiot nutjobs an alternative to blowing themselves up in a fruitless attempt to get to heaven. Heck, look how it's converted all of Mao's "devout" followers, not to mention lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in China. If it can convert communist China, it certainly can provide hope to the middle east, and the UAE is just such a hope.

This is an amazing chart, and I truly and genuinely believe that the solution to the problems of the middle east lie here; letting their people and commerce be free to do as they chose, just not blow people up. Additionally I think the UAE in diversifying their economy beyond oil will position themselves to handle the inevitable time when oil becomes either obsolete or depleted splendidly and will, overtime, soon increase their standards of living beyond their Saudi counterparts.

No wonder Halliburton moved there.

"Housing Will Bottom in 2011"

I've said it before and I'll say it again;

It will vary depending on the region you're from, but housing would have to correct between 20-40% in order to come back in line with historical valuations relative to rents and income (or incomes and rents would have to increase by that much, ha ha ha!)

However, some crafty soul has expanded Robert Shiller's now-famous chart to forecast when and how the housing crash will occur. He forecasts a bottoming out in 2011 and a price drop of 43.5%.


I wouldn't be quite that pessimistic, but it just amazes me how a bunch of yahoo bloggers in their spare time were able to predict this happening long before hoity, toity, big time, and much higher paid Wall Street and banking hot shots did. Similar to how some unknown bloggers brought down Dan Rather. In both instances though I think there was a bias or incentive to ignore reality.

In the case of Dan Rather, it was simply political bias that blinded the entirety of CBS.

But this housing bubble, it was much worse and much more detrimental to the economy and American society; bankers had the incentive to keep loaning out money because bankers are primarily paid in commission, not salary. Therefore it didn't matter whether the loan was good or not, as long as it got through the door, commissions got paid and bankers were happy. Management was happy as sales were up and growing at a record clip. But what amazes me is how wide spread this turning-the-eye to bad loans must have been to even have Wall Street investment banks who bought portfolios of subprime loans didn't pick up on the problems of these subprime lenders that are now bankrupt. And now, that the entire financial services industry has turned a blind eye to poor credit, they have allowed a large (arguably the largest) financial bubble in the history of the world build up.

2011 may not be too far off.

This Shouldn't Be Happening

Remember when Spain elected Zapatero after the Madrid bombings and then Spain pulled out of Iraq as a way to appease the Islamic terrorists? That was supposed to make things all better right? Like then the terrorists would have left Spain and Spaniards alone. Right?

Riiiiiiight.

How Rich Are You?

An observant friend of mine once told a leftist at a college party, "Hey, instead of bitching and whining about how you have it so touch and that the rich in America owe you a living, how about you go and help some truly poor people in Africa or something?"

And he had a good point. Here in the US or any developed nation, we're always focused on the super rich in America. And we tend to forget that just by being born in the West we are fortunate and enjoy such high standards of living it is unfathomable to us how 1.2 billion people in the world live on a dollar a day.

Ergo, if the truly globalist, environmentalist, socialist really cared, they too would argue for not just redistributing the wealth of the richest in the US, but also advocate taxing themselves to help out those in other countries that REALLY ARE in need.

Which is why this web site is a sobering reminder of how we are really lucky and why we should be thankful to capitalism (of course the web site draws a different conclusion, but regardless). I just threw in $40,000 to show how rich the AVERAGE American is relative to the rest of the world;



(Kudos to Visualizing Economics)

Visualizing Economics

I have to admit, these guys have some pretty great charts, and I should give them their due. Here's just a couple;

Just kind of a cool historical chart showing income per capita;



And who can go without their top earning dead Celebrities in 2006 chart?

They seem to theme around income distribution, didn't get the impression that they were pro or anti wealth redistribution, regardless I got lost on their site for a good 30 minutes, which with my attention span is forever.

Will the Housing Market Spill Over into the Larger Economy?

Hard to see how it isn't.

Another Horrible Stock Pick by the Captain

As you all know, I don't make stock recommendations. You can get sued for that. I invest in insanely high risk stocks that you're guaranteed to lose your investment in. That's why I tell you NOT to invest in these stocks. And my new stock pick is just as stupid, risky and insane.

Ergo, you are a fool! A moron! An idiot! If you are to invest in this one.

Woe is you who is so stupid as to follow my advice and invest in such an obvious con.

But no, you won't listen to me. You'll invest anyway even though you are guaranteed to lose your shirt.

Why the chances of you making money on this stock is like Venezuela or Bolivia experiencing economic growth in the next 10 years.

Anyway, here it is.

Verasun Energy.

Yes, I am aware of their distribution problem, but frankly I just wanted to invest in something that might stand a chance of benefiting from high oil prices. I almost feel guilty as it's an ethanol producer and me being the evil capitalist, in a sense have betrayed by evil Big Oil Overlords (gosh, I hope they don't send assassins to kill me for stepping out of line. I can hear their black helicopters firing up now! I mean they're all powerful and control everything, just look at the 2006 congressional election..oh wait..)

Richard Almanac Economics - The Inverted Yield Curve

I was originally skeptical of a recession occurring. And even if one did occur, it wouldn't be drastic.

So what, we're in recession. Suburb Sam, Trophy Wife Trisha and his Bevy of Suburbanite Princesses would have to make do in their palacial estate and 3 SUV's and VW Cabrio convertibles without a home equity loan to finance their family European trip for two years as GDP contracted 1.3%, and Trisha might have to shop at Wal-Mart and get a job!!!

Oh, the horrors.

But as time has gone on and I've seen just how much rot there is in the banking sector, not to mention the bevy of data coming out from different sectors, I'm pretty convinced a recession is on its way.

And then I found this;

It's one of those lessons you learn long ago. "Recessions always follow economic phenomenon X."

They don't know why.

Professors could really never give a good reason.

It just so happens recessions would always follow certain things and inverted yield curves were one of them. Sort of like various superstitious weather predictions found in Poor Richard's Almanac

There are theories that inverted yield curves foretell a recession as the long term future prospects of the economy are so low that demand for long term capital is also low, thereby driving down demand and therefore long term interest rate for loanable dollars.

Or that short term demand for immediate money to make a quick buck to feed a bubble drives up short term interest rates above long term interest rates, only until that bubble pops. But certainly this is not happening (note the heavy sarcasm).

Whatever the case, inverted yield curves tend to precede recessions. And when you combine it with charts like this;

it's getting harder and harder to ignore these "economic superstitions."

I wonder what Ben Franklin would be predicting.

For the Love of Pete

You may not know Commie Pete, but he was one of the original old school bloggers that happened upon my web site long ago.

He's an odd sort, religious, but a commie (of course) because that's just how you have to be if you're living in Canada.

Regardless, you will visit him. You will conform;

Commie Pete.

Lowest Taxed Cities in the US

Wow, and not a one from California or the East Coast. Go fig.

Bahh, Cheyenne, Fargo, Billings, what do they know, they're just a bunch of dumb hicks. They can't possibly know something that the coasts don't.

Your Daily Oil Chart

"Communist" China is More Capitalist than the US

So while our beloved government here takes the surplus from social security and invests it in...

loaning money to other divisions in the government for what amounts to wealth transfers...

The Chinese take their trillion dollar surplus and buy a large chunk of a private equity firm.

"Communist" China is now officially more capitalist than the US.

How One Liberal Can Wreak Havoc Upon Society

I'm always amazed how one leftist, if strategically placed can wreak havoc upon thousands, if not millions of people.

Kim Jong Il comes to mind. One leftist, in a position of power keeps 22 million North Koreans impoverished and in hell.

Hugo Chavez is about the unleash a similar Venezuelan version of hell on his own countrymen.

But these are dictators who have the entirety and infrastructure of a government to unleash their evil. Some leftists are not so fortunate. But every once in a while, one of them gets lucky and finds themselves at the right place and the right time to foist a lesser standard of living upon the masses and detract from other peoples' lives.

This woman is such an example (awesome article here);

Here you have some woman, who no doubt enjoys the highest standards of living in the West, who never starved or missed a meal, who is suffering from some kind of mid-life crisis and looks back at her life and says, "what have I accomplished?"

Now, you can go and become a doctor, start a business, join the police department, or work with orphans or a bevy of millions of other things to add worth to your life and give your time here on this planet meaning. But what do Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers lean towards now as their primary means of making a difference?

Going on some god damned worthless political crusade.

For you see, becoming an activist or picking up some random crusade doesn't require effort. It doesn't require you to do anything.

To become an officer you must go through training.

To become a doctor, you must get some schooling.

To help orphans you need to donate your time.

But to go on some random political, activist-ridden crusade, all you have to do is say you care and BOOM! You have gone from "Middle Aged Person Nobody" to... (drum roll)

INSTANT POLITICAL CRUSADER PERSON!

Forget whether the crusade actually helps society out or not, no, that doesn't matter. It only matters that the newly reborn political crusader feel good about themselves. And ideally, if you can avoid any real effort, sweat, thinking or toil, all the better, because again, it really isn't to end the war in Iraq, or help the children in Africa, it's so you can go hold that sign up and protest because it makes you feel like it's 1969 all over again.

But this professional activist hit the leftist lottery jackpot. In protesting against the development of a larger main port, she's effectively limiting the amount of goods that can be imported into Europe, namely Chinese imports. And in doing so she's choking off the supply of goods and services into Europe which will drive up prices for those goods and services and in doing so effectively decrease the standards of living of 500 million Europeans.

That's got to be a HUGE ego boost to a socialist. I can see her now, "I may not be Lenin, but I just single handedly forced 500 million Europeans to pay higher prices for imported goods by bottlenecking one of the largest ports. I'm a rebel. I'm a crusader!!! I made a difference!"

So for one person's psychological self-worth 500 million Europeans, some of which are poor and could certainly benefit from the increased purchasing power Chinese goods afford them, will be forced to pay higher prices so she and her merry band of professional activists can feel good about themselves. Forget whether that difference is good or bad for society, that's not the point, all that matters is that the crusader get to feel good about themselves (see - "Al Gore")

There is one final thing I'd like to point out, as I have pointed it out before. And that is if you want a reason why China will inevitably kick the west's ass in economic growth and productivity, just look at the highlighted section of the article.

I've mentioned it before, but if you get a dictatorship that knows what its doing (at least economically, not necessarily democratically, and not that I necessarily agree with it) a lot of hurdles, stops and speed bumps are removed from attaining excellent economic growth and that gives you a big advantage over your western economic counterparts. Like the shirt says, "Imagine a World with No Liberals."

I see a world with income per capita of $250,000 and a lot less poverty.

The Housing Market Index

Looks like after a false recovery housing is still heading down. A technical analyst would say that this is obviously the bottom because we've never been this low before. Ahhh, if it wasn't for all that damn gluttonous oversupply in the market.

China Strikes Back

Something tells me we'll be seeing a return to 1820. Wish the chart was extended though.

The past three years alone at 10+% growth in China would show a rapid acceleration. And we get all giggity giggity with 3% RGDP growth. Cripes.

Nicolas Sarkozy Napoleon Height

He's 5'5" or 168 cm already!

Just an experiment I'm working with here aspiring economists. I noticed the most frequent hits I was getting was people google searching for Nicolas Sarkozy's height. "Height" and "Nicolas Sarkozy" were in a post of mine a while back, but nothing about his actually height.

So for all of you looking for his height he is;

5'5" or 168 cm.

In the meantime since I'm getting a lot of traffic to this one post BUY MY BOOK!!! DO IT NOW!!! It's much more interesting than President Sarkozy's height!

FRED THOMPSON IS FREAKING HILARIOUS!

God I wish he'd run for president!

You must read, you must conform!!!!

A Housing Crash Coming to a Market Near You!

Captain's Link Fest

I'm a lazy blogger, I don't know how to set up a blog roll, haven't gotten around to it. So I decided to make a post to those of you that have linked here in the past (this is not a complete list, took a while to compile this one). But thanks for your support!

Regardless, all readers will visit these web sites. You will conform!


http://martinandrade.blogspot.com/index.html

http://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/index.html

http://versusthemob.blogspot.com/index.html

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/

http://greymaiden.livejournal.com/

http://gabriel.mihalache.name/econ/

http://rantsandrefinements.blogspot.com/index.html

http://clamrampant.blogspot.com

http://comfyfur.blogspot.com

http://elborak.blogspot.com

http://swanblog.blogspot.com

Failed Aid

If there is a distinguishing characteristic between those of lefter leaning stripes and those of righter leaning stripes it's that those on the right seemingly and callously only care about results, those on the left care about being nice or polite. Those on the right are the harsh fatherly figures that incentive performance by threat of punishment. Those on the left are kind, forgiving mother figures that incentive performance by rewards and puppies and flowers and unicorns, but it's not necessary you achieve performance, but that you try.

Now while the world needs both it seems the fatherly approach to problem solving is being outlawed and banned as it is too blunt and mean.

And that's a pity because usually the best thing people need is a swift kick in the ass or to have some kid point out the emperor has no clothes. It's an additional pity when for political reasons, ignorance or just being brainwashed into political correctness, we ignore problems in fear that if we address them directly then we'd be accused of being cold hearted, sexist, racist, evil, mean, or just a plain old poopey person. It's a tragedy when 600 million people's lives are on the line and we can't admit we goofed up and change tactics because the resulting change in tactics would be deemed politically incorrect.

Case in point, Africa;








Now I don't have time to go on about how much we've spent in aid and debt forgiveness, estimates I've seen range from $650 billion to $1.5 trillion. But can we at least admit that this leftist-originated "let's all send them money and aid" schtick ain't working? Can we just for once put the actual livelihoods of Africans ahead of our desires to feel warm fuzzies about ourselves because we "tried" (even though it's seemed to make them worse off)? This isn't a hobby folks, it's other people's lives, which is why it's good to see charities like the Bill and Melinda Gate's foundation attaching strings to their aid. If we can admit that, I'll admit things aren't working in Iraq...but that's just because I have this horrible knack for accepting reality. Do you?

Make the Canadian Tax Payer Pay

Don't know if it's true, and maybe some of you Canuck friend up north can tell me, but this angers me and it isn't even my country.

If it is true, how much you want to bet he's of the political belief that tax payers should pay MORE in taxes (so he can get a better bottle of wine supposedly).

"Meanwhile, at the Federal Reserve..."

So you would think the people who visit the Federal Reserve's website would be of the slightly highly educated caliber. The types that are pretty in tune with the realities of today's economy. The types that can objectively look at data and not let their personal biases or wishes affect them.

Well, I guess I was wrong.

They have a poll you can take that asks where you think housing prices are going. I took it, expecting to see a large majority predicting housing prices to go down. When you looked at the results, however, the majority of people think prices ARE GOING TO GO UP!

Here's the poll;

http://www.stls.frb.org/Poll/PollQuestion.cfm?QID=16

Of course only 88 respondents had taken the poll when I took it, but it would be Cappy Cap Terrific if all you deputy, junior, official and otherwise aspiring economists would take the poll and give them you opinion (plus that would just be sweet if the Federal Reserve saw where the hits were coming from, and then they'd call me and say, "Captain Capitalism, the Fed needs you!" Whereby Ben Bernanke and I would work out some kind of deal like Commissioner Gordon and Batman had where they'd send up the Captain Capitalism signal and I'd be the silent protector of the Fed...hey, it could happen!)

Regardless, I found the poll interesting because embedded in nearby research at the Fed they have this chart;

My research shows that prices would have to drop by about 20-40% to get back in line with historic means. Their research shows the same. However, look at California and Florida. Sheesh! The country might not get hit with a recession, but I have a hard time seeing how California and Florida won't.

My Pal Al

Like I said, sure no doubt I'll suffer economically from a recession, but I like being right;

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2077886,00.html

How much you want to bet that when the economy does go into recession they'll blame it on Bush and not the millions of sub prime losers that went and indebted themselves with the help of willing-accomplice banks that triggered the housing bubble?

Holy Old Chart Batman!

As a kid I used to go through my dad's church's old file bins and find old, I mean really old, church bulletins. It was a nerdy kind of neat to see if I could find old fliers that hadn't been handed out since 1963 and what kind of art/style was on the brochure. And so I found a couple of these charts which are kind of neat in that same nostalgic sense, economic charts from the 1970's.

No aid of computers or Excel, it seemed this stuff was done by hand maybe? I can't tell, but it was no less advanced. I could only imagine how long it would have taken to craft a chart like this.

Death to the Private Sector!

I attribute a fair percentage of Captain Capitalism’s origins to Mike Hodges and his Grandfather Reports. Many times I’d be researching for a particular chart or data stream and Mike would show up more than just once.


Pity more people and politicians don’t listen to him. If they did, then we wouldn’t be condemned to end up looking like Italy or Sweden 20 years from now.

And the Winner Is...

AMAZING PETE with his chart that showed those who paid the highest in taxes also voted for John Kerry. Giving further credence to my theory that it has nothing to do with hating GW or the war or abortion right or social right, but socialism is all about the money. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Pete wins;

$15 of the Captain's hard earned money
A signed photograph of the Captain
and
The Captain's ENTIRE instructional DVD suite, retail value of $60! (I've just wanted to say that)

I think I may have deleted Pete's e-mail, but if you could e-mail me Pete with your address at captcapitalism@yahoo.com (remember to copy and paste) and you will have your prizes mailed out as soon as I get off my lazy ass and mail it.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Money Equals Happiness

And if anybody else tells you otherwise, ask them to give you all of their money since it isn't making them happy.

The Banks Will Pay

Oooooh, will they pay.

And they deserve to pay.

The idiocy I've seen in the past 4 years is unbelievable. How banks will gladly throw quality out the window, ignore credit, and finance the most outlandish ventures just to keep sales going like it was 2004. How they will bend over backwards to finance a $10 million real estate deal because they get a 1% commission even though that deal stands a nice-guy's chance of scoring with a girl in college than ever paying back the money. And how they're so desperate to keep the top line of the income statement going up they've lowered their standards to pursue sub-prime people with credit scores of 550 or less which as they're finding out is driving their bottom lines down.

And now the time has come for the housing market to collapse and to slowly erode what banks have been lending on this entire time, real estate.

It was about 4 years ago now that The Economist pointed to the possibility of a housing bubble. I often opine if these financial institutions had hired an economist, or heck, just read the freaking Economist, just how many hundreds of billions of dollars would have been saved, not to mention the more-than-likely-recession we're about have would have been staved off. But the banks have been so obsessed and addicted to the sales growth of 2001-early 2005, they just can't stop and consequences be damned. Like heroin addicts, like Gene Hackmann in The French Connection, they're rabid for new loans. And they don't care about the quality of the loans, they just want volume.

Of course there is a penalty for ignoring the long term consequences for short term gain. As housing prices drop the collateral these banks are holding will become impaired (I even remember recommending to a client that they change their advance policy from 80% appraised value of real estate to 70-75%, I was laughed at). And as these values go down their clients, who are all already over-leveraged to begin with, well be unable to unload the glut of property they now hold and therefore pay back the loan.

Addtiionally, an emergency back up measure for these instances is also no longer available. Primarily used by gluttonous, lazy, non-working "millionaires" is if they couldn't sell the property, in order make current loan payments was to borrow more money from the property as property prices went up, giving them more equity to cash out/bleed out of the property. Well when prices stagnate or go down, this technique won't work.



Thus what is going to happen is the banks are going to be left holding the live grenade. They will be holding a vast portfolio of real estate that they can't unload...or at least unload to cover their original loan amount. And they might as well not even bother repossessing because they'll do no better job selling it than the developers and bulders themselves would. And so they get to play "Japanese Bank Circa 1980's, "perpetually financing a zombie real estate industry that has no hope whatsoever of repaying them back.

The question is how exposed are banks to real estate and thusly how big of a problem this will be for the banks in the next 12 months? I mean, certainly banks have been wise enough to diversify their portfolios. Spreading it across industrial loans, agricultural and other sectors of the economy. Certainly these highly educated and experienced financial gurus would follow this basic "Principals of Finance 101- Diversification" rule? Right?



(I do know that I did adjust the scale on the left side, which I normally am against, but the average was 44% and I just wanted to show how much of a deviation occured from norms)

The piper SOOOOO has to be paid.

And it would have been a lot cheaper to pay an economist.

The Adult Won in France

Good to see the French are tired of having little children in office whose main pillar on their platform is "we hate America" and "let's bribe criminals not to destroy the city" and "35 hour work weeks." Yes, Royal's "let's reward rioters with cake" approach was sure to have solved the problem. Something tells me Sarkozy is going to abandon the nice motherly approach and deliver a more spanking-filled fatherly approach.

I also like the first pro-American words I've heard from France since I've been alive come out of France. Who knows, I might just actually go visit France now! I might even stop slamming on the French!...well, let's not get crazy.


Daddy's home!

Death to the Polar Bears

The strongest arm and biggest weapon of the socialists is the public schools combined with indifferent parents. There they indoctrinate young kids whose parents originally had the kid as an SUV Baby, a thing to have, and really don't care about the kid beyond that, and therefore as long as the government keeps those kids out of their hair so they can pursue their careers thats fine. Thusly, the socialists get to have fresh, brainwashable troops to send out into the real world, and it's only through truly independent thought or an intervention on the part of a smart uncle or friend that these brainwashed dolts are shown the realities of real world economics and they turn into capitalists.

But what I find particularly disgusting is how socialists are so low, so utterly moraless they find nothing wrong with foisting their political agenda on little innocent children. I've argued before that childhood is such a sacred time in a person's life that it shouldn't be destroyed or even tarnished with some granola crunching putz (nor right wing nut job) trying to jam an anti-smoking or all-organic ideology down some poor kindergartner's throat just to get their psychological jollies that they're somehow doing their part to save the world. I would also level the same, arguably more scathing critcism against parochial schools doing their darndest to save these kids from eternal damnation while making their time here a living hell. Childhood should be void of politics and religion all together, but oh no, these crusaders who have nothing of worth to point to or have done not one damn thing to truly advance society need to feel good about themselves so they're going to go and "save" a 6 year old. Cripes.

Which is why this chart set me off. To find out that the polar bears are indeed not dying, BUT ACTUALLY THRIVING AND GROWING!!!!


Nor did I know polar bears were so far south along the Hudson Bay!

Captain Capitalism's Annual Chart Contest - from Rob

And I don't even believe that since nobody is following the Kyoto protocol and China and India are going to dwarf the developed world by 2090.

Bush's Fault!

Just wait for it. Wait. Waaaaaaiiiit! It's coming.

The Housing Market Follows the Stock Market?

This was a little chart I picked up recently. I extrapolated it a little further for I had not the time to track down both data series.

Something tells me with GDP slowing down, sales at corporate America are going to stagnate and we're going to have a little correction in the stock markets as well as the housing markets.

And you know whose to blame for all this?

That damn George Bush.

Why You Shouldn't Listen to Your Stock Broker

Martin had a good one.


Shows why the majority of people who go and get their degrees and MBA's in finance and then go on to be some kind of big time stock broker that claims to make millions in the stock market end up like the guys at Long Term Capital Management or end up selling their "guaranteed way to make a fortune in stock options.

(Hat tip to Martin for the error calling it "Credit Management")

Lot's O' Death

The source is questionable.

Captain Capitalism's Annual Chart Contest - Entrant #9

Kevin makes a good point with this chart.

I often wonder if we'd have the wherewithal today to fight in WWII. Sadly, I think we'd collapse and capitulate just as fast as the French, because, hey, being alive and enslaved is better than being free and dead? Right? I recall somebody saying something about liberty or death in American history, but ah, what did those dumb American founding fathers know anyway? Cripes.

I Need to "Grow Up"

"These men are the real life versions of Peter Pan, flat-out REFUSING to grow up and act their age. And even worse, these are the guys that will string you along the most. The point is, Megan K. and I are on the brink. The precipice of spinsterhood. A No-Man's Land (literally). We want to find The One, settle down and get married (and, for me at least, have babies). But all we're finding is guys who are simply wasting our time."

Holy Super Awesome Powerful Rationalization Hamsterl, Batman! Quick! Let me;

1. Throw away my motorcycle.
2. Give up my freedom
3. Forfeit my 2 months a year of vacation
4. Work twice as hard to pay for her and the "babies"
5. "grow up" and "act my age" by marrying this girl
6. for a 45% chance of NOT getting divorced

Eeeeyish! To quote Rodney Dangerfield;

"Now I know why some animals eat their young."

She even has a neato chart!



What I get a kick out of is what they bring to the table;

"You see, Megs and I -- as well as a plethora of our other fabulous female friends -- find ourselves in a precarious and perplexing position: We're cute. We're smart. We're articulate, well-traveled (her more so than me), energetic, fun and down to explore. And yet, at 29 and 28, respectively, we are still single -- standing on 30's lonely doorstep -- with ZERO reasonable prospects."

Little do they know men would like to hear;

"I am an engineer and Megs is an accountant. We support ourselves and actually are independent. We like to drink and want to find a guy who does his own thing and isn't just an accessory to us or a means to have children that we will value more than him. We want to fall in love with a wonderful man and maybe start a family."

Not the overplayed, "Well, I like to travel."

Run men, run. Keep those courting Spidey Senses VERY sharp to avoid the fates these ladies bring.

As always a reliable and funny hat tip to Dalrock.

Enjoy the decline!