Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, June 29, 2011,
In :
Culture
I guess I should have watched this video before I allowed a friend to climb up our telephone pole and hook us up with premium cable back in the 80's. Of course, back in the day, premium cable meant like 25 channels. My friend, whom I will call Like Pietz to avoid revealing his true identity, was quite the master at this move.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, June 29, 2011,
In :
Culture
You know this guy left his ATM receipt in the machine on purpose. I'm also guessing, unlike the rest of us, he didn't get too upset at the $2.75 ATM fee.
Holy crap, NPR reports the air conditioning bill in Afghanistan is $20 billion per year...
The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq
and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion, according to a former Pentagon
official.
That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has
paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has
pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.
"When
you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most iso... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, June 28, 2011,
In :
Personal Finance
Yesterday I turned in my rotary phone and bought a fancy Verizon Android Smart Phone. At the end of the lengthy transaction (I've bought cars in less time), the question came up do I want insurance? The salesman Verizon team member made it sound like such a no-brainer...if you drop your phone, if it gets wet, etc. just come back to the store and get an exact replacement. Of course, my inner-frugality kicked in and I told him I'd do some research. Here's what I found.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Monday, June 27, 2011,
In :
Gold and Silver
COMEX is the futures and options exchange where the price of many commodities is set, including silver. As you can see in this chart, the level of COMEX silver inventories has been falling sharply for three straight years. Currently, there's about 98 million ounce of silver inventory. However, a good chunk of this inventory is not for sale. If this rapid fall in inventory continues, there is going to be a flat-out shortage of silver on the COMEX, at some point. When/if that happens, the ... Continue reading ...
Lawmakers are considering changing how the Consumer
Price Index is calculated, a move that could save perhaps $220 billion and
represent significant progress in the ongoing federal debt ceiling and defic... Continue reading ...
Every month, I publish updated data on food stamp program participation. The continual march upwards in participation numbers has been relentless. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal detailed one reason why the numbers have been increasing so steadily: fraud and abuse run rampant.
Earlier this month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that
Wisconsin food-stamp recipients routinely sell their benefit cards on
Facebook. The investigation also found that "nearly 2,000 recipients
claim... Continue reading ...
This is hard to believe, U.S. Courts report that in 2010 it cost $28,284 to keep someone imprisoned in a federal prison for a full year. As you probably know, thanks in large part to idiotic drug laws, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world...per Wikipedia, 743 out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. is incarcerated.
According to a December 2009 report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the total number of inmates in 2008 was 2,424,279 if you include fe... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, June 21, 2011,
In :
Gold and Silver
All precious metals investors know that gold and silver almost always struggle during the summer months. Since May, however, gold has held its own and is only a few dollars off it's all-time high. Unfortunately for us gold mining company investors, the shares have badly lagged the performance of gold. In this Frank Holmes article, he argues that now is a good time to buy undervalued and unloved gold mining shares. I agree...at some point these mining shares are going to reflect their hist... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Monday, June 20, 2011,
In :
Politics
Congratulations to Ron Paul on his straw-poll win at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. Unlike four years ago, he's starting to get interviewed on mainstream news program...here's an interview from this morning on NBC's Today Show:
If you truly want to change the direction of this country, Ron Paul is your only choice.
The Reinwasser Middle-Class Index (RMCI) was built to more accurately
measure the month-to-month improvement or deterioration in the economic
health of the middle-class. The RMCI captures data in the Jobs,
Housing, Wealth &
Spending, Confidence and Inflation categories and compares current data
to the average over the previous four months*. If a data point is
better than the four-month average it is scored a +1, if it's worse it
is scored -1. As such, RMCI scores range from +10 to ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Sunday, June 19, 2011,
In :
Gold and Silver
This short video is a chronology of the hyperinflation that destroyed the national currency in Zimbabwe a few years ago.
"On July 4, 2008 a can of Coke cost $50 billion Zimbabwe Dollars for breakfast, $100 billion Zimbabwe Dollars for lunch and $150 billion Zimbabwe Dollars for dinner. Their inflation rate was approximately 10 to the 27th power." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Saturday, June 18, 2011,
In :
Culture
This is pretty funny...you've got a minor-league pitcher who throws with both arms, but in the bottom of the 9th a switch hitter comes to the plate and they both keep switching sides to try get an advantage on the other guy.
Jim Jubak gives us an update on how the deficit reduction negotiations are coming along. Big surprise, they're going nowhere fast... --------------------
There’s big progress in deficit reduction talks in Washington. Not.
The prospect of a U.S. default if Congress doesn’t raise the debt
ceiling by August 2 hangs over the U.S. economy and the global financial
system.
The goal, according to Vice President Joe Biden, is a credible down
payment on reducing the U.S. budget deficit over the l...
Another feather in the cap of George Bush's legacy... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Missing Iraq Money May Have Been Stolen by Paul Richter
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush
administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay
for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit
of measurement was born.
Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, June 14, 2011,
In :
Culture
Easily the best commencement speech I've seen. Hilarious, classy and honest. The first 10 minutes are the funniest, if you don't have time to watch the entire speech.
He has also offered a startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.
Grantham concludes that the world has undergone a permanent "paradigm
shift" in which the number of people on planet Earth has finally and
permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.
Grantham believes that the trend of the last 100 years, in which the... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Saturday, June 11, 2011,
In :
Culture
This video does a great job capturing the most memorable moments in sports history in the U.S. It's hard to believe they packed in so much in just 7 minutes! From Bobby Knight's chair incident to Mary Decker falling in the Olympics to Doug Flutie's historic TD pass, it's all in here. Enjoy!!
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Saturday, June 11, 2011,
In :
Politics
In an interview with Capital Exploits, the intrepid Carlos Andres discusses the crazy political history of Peru. This reads like a novel... ---------------------------------------------------------
Carlos Andres: Going back in time to 1990 you had the rise to power of the
right-wing candidate Alberto Fujimori. Yes, a Japanese man raised as a
roman catholic, became the president of a Latin country with indigenous
Incan roots. You can’t make this stuff up.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Thursday, June 9, 2011,
In :
Politics
Our country was founded on the principle of not getting involved in foreign wars. It wasn't a policy of isolation as so many republican friends argue. Rather, it was a desire to trade and be friends with all foreign lands but not choose sides and get caught up in the peculiarities and complexities of local politics.
That wonderful gift from our founding fathers has officially been crushed like dropping a limestone boulder inside a Jaw Crusher. The NY Times reports our illegal secret war ... Continue reading ...
Textbook example of why investing in Russia is such a dangerous proposition... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Steal a Russian Airport by Joe Nocera
It is no coincidence, of course, that the best airport in Moscow is the
only one in private hands. The management company, East Line Group, took over Domodedovo
in 1996 when it was “a small, rundown airport,” according to The Moscow
Times. It poured en...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, June 7, 2011,
In :
Economy
What's all this talk about a double-dip in housing? According to Zillow, the online real estate tracking company, there hasn't been an increase in housing prices for nearly five years. As such, it's just one long, ongoing, horrific drop in housing prices.
Zillow's Single-Family Home Value Index shows single-family home values fell in April
for the 58th straight month. According to their database, the last time single-family homes rose in
value was June 2006.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, June 7, 2011,
In :
Culture
These incredible images show the full force of Mother Nature. The eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano, located 600 miles south of Santiago, was the first major eruption since 1960. Click here to see more images.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Sunday, June 5, 2011,
In :
Culture
What a neat story this is, AP reports June Gregg of Chillicothe, Ohio has had the same bank savings account for 98 years!
An Ohio woman who just turned 100 years old has taken customer loyalty
to the extreme: She's still using a bank savings account that's been
around almost as long as she has, since the year before World War I. Like many of us, her parents were integral in teaching her about personal finance:
Gregg still has the little blue passbook from when the account was
opened with an... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Friday, June 3, 2011,
In :
Politics
If you're a terrorist with a sweet-tooth, it's your lucky day... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MI6 Attacks Al-Qaeda in Operation Cupcake by Duncan Gardham
The cyber-warfare operation was launched by MI6 and GCHQ in an attempt to
disrupt efforts by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular to recruit “lone-wolf”
terrorists with a new English-language magazine, the Daily Telegraph
understands.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Thursday, June 2, 2011,
In :
Culture
Do you have a viable business plan that just can't get funded? Well, do I have good news for you:
If you want $25K worth of "Chuck's Bucks", watch the linked video, come up with a viable business plan and enter at the EarnChucksBucks website, but Charles warns: "don't be sending me no bull...or books either, I don't want to be reading through a bunch of crap". This should turn out well...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Thursday, June 2, 2011,
In :
Culture
In this Big Think video, Tim Harford explains, using JFK's Bay of Pigs disaster as an example, how differing opinions can help form more effective policies:
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, June 1, 2011,
In :
Economy
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation, commonly
known as food stamps, rose to 44,587,328 in March. This is the 30th
straight rise in food stamp usage and represents a 11.1% rise over
March 2010. Even worse, SNAP participation rose by 388,000 vs. February 2011. Last month, as noted here, SNAP participation rose by only 11,000, month-over-month, and it looked like the long, upward trend would start to reverse itself. We can now take that glimmer of hope off the ... Continue reading ...
