Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, March 30, 2011,
In :
Economy
Alan Greenspan thinks the "skill" of banking executives justifies their outsized compensation. Editorializing in today's Financial Times, Greenspan writes:
The
act’s most surprising failure to rein in supposed market-determined
excess may be its stance towards the outsized (to some, egregious) bankers’ pay packages.
Small differences in the skill level of senior bankers tend to
translate into large differences in the bank’s bottom line. Competition
for even the slightly more skille... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Monday, March 28, 2011,
In :
Energy
If you factor in pollution, mining accidents and installation casualties Coal is, by far, the most hazardous energy source we use. Oil, biofuel, peat and natural gas round out the top 5. At the very bottom of the list is nuclear energy. If used wisely (i.e. don't build on a fault line, in a low-lying area) nuclear power is a safe and clean energy source. As you probably know, nuclear energy emits zero green house gasses and can be used as "baseload" power (24/7 energy production) unlike s... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Saturday, March 26, 2011,
In :
Culture
Here's something you don't see everyday when you're out golfing...a family of mountain lions lounging on a Par 5. Thankfully the course was closed at the time, as I can't imagine hitting a golf ball into a family of mountain lions would turn out well. We saw a mountain lion walking across our street a few years ago and I did a little research to see what we were dealing with. It was a little, ammm, disconcerting:
The mountain lion is typically an ambush predator, it stalks through brush and...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Thursday, March 24, 2011,
In :
Culture
Me and Mrs. Solitude Canyon really enjoy watching documentaries. Thanks to Netflix we've found great documentaries on everything from the first road trip across the country to an international break-dancing competition. If you're a documentary fan you may want to check these out. I suck at writing movie reviews so I'm copying a Netflix member review for each movie.
5) The King of Kong - You may never have dropped $0.25 cents into an arcade video game in your
life, but this movie about th... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Monday, March 21, 2011,
In :
Energy
I've read a little bit about Thorium over the years but had no idea we were so close to having functioning reactors. For the good of mankind, lets hope the Chinese succeed with this technology. As you read this, just think how pathetic it is that the lack of political leadership in the U.S. let this technology slip away.
Even by government standards, it's hard to believe this level of incompetency can exist. This story makes the mortgage relief program look like a shining success.
John Peters, a practicing psychologist, just sent me an email
regarding a complete bureaucratic nightmare that has prevented his firm
from obtaining a Medicare Provider Number.
John writes ...
Hi Mish,
I'm writing at the request of Customer Service at Palmetto GBA, the fi...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Saturday, March 19, 2011,
In :
Politics
October will mark the 10th year of the Afghanistan invasion. After a decade of fighting, nothing much seems to have changed. Lives continue to be lost and treasure continues to be wasted. Every spring a fresh wave of Taliban fighters comes down from the mountains to attack the troops and terrorize towns and villages. The minority of locals that support the U.S. military's actions are terrified of showing support for fear of Taliban retaliation. What has really changed in 10 years?
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, March 16, 2011,
In :
Culture
This is a nice story, I had no idea Mike Tyson had turned his life around like this. He's still got the demons inside his head and those will never go away but he has learned how to manage and get past the difficult periods. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Suburbanization of Mike Tyson By Daphne Merkin
The gold caps on his teeth are gone, as are the frenzied trappings of
celebrity: the nonstop... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, March 15, 2011,
In :
Gold and Silver
In this excellent article, Eric Sprott analyzes money flows into gold, gold stock valuations and gold stock equity financing to determine whether gold is in a bubble. He conclusively shows that there is, oddly enough, a lack of exuberance in the gold market...the exact opposite condition that you would find in a bubble.
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Monday, March 14, 2011,
In :
Economy
This video shows the Japanese Earthquake warning system in action. As I understand it, the alert goes out through the radio, TV, internet and text messaging. I hope it saved a few lives...
If you hear a weird noise while you read this, it's the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves... -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mentioning other peoples' websites is now a federal offense
...along with seemingly just about every other innocuous activity these days.
Website owner Brian McCarthy's site has been seized by the feds,
and he now faces charges that could result in five years in prison.
The criminal mastermind's awful d... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Friday, March 11, 2011,
In :
Economy
This is tremendous, a church group rolled-up on JPMorgan Chase's headquarters and asked the almighty Gods to "chase the demons out of Chase". My favorite part is at the 1:00 minute mark when they start sprinkling tap holy water on the building. I guess this is what happens when you illegally foreclose on military homes, rack up 10,000 lawsuits, manipulate the silver market, and steal money from the taxpayers. Otherwise, they're doing a top-notch job...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Friday, March 11, 2011,
In :
Economy
Further proof the economy isn't improving much for the middle-class:
Jobs Returning - but good ones not so much By Zachary Roth
When it comes to jobs, it's not just quantity that matters--it's also quality. It's great news that the economy is finally producing jobs again--even
if it'll take another few years of this kind of growth to get us back
to where we were before the Great Recession. But that also means it's
now time to ask what kind of jobs are being created. And on that front, things ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, March 9, 2011,
In :
Economy
While housing prices continue to fall in most of America, prices for luxury homes in places like Aspen forge ahead. This is further proof that the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing rapidly. A lethal mix of corporatocracy, bail-outs and money printing, combined with a lack of opportunity for the middle-class leads to stories like this...
The lowest-priced single-family home on the market in Aspen is listed for $559,000. It's located in a trailer park.
Hi Matt, Love your blog. I have a question I hope you can answer.
I was debating a friend of mine about the bailouts. He claimed that
most of the money that the government shelled out has already been
returned with interest. Is this true? Thanks Kedar
The Scottsdale Airport was shut down briefly Friday after two men
tried walking across the airport runway as a shortcut, Scottsdale police
said.
Both of the men were arrested, said Sgt. Mark Clark, a Scottsdale
police spokesman. Police are working with federal authorities on
criminal charges, Clark said. The suspects will be booked into
Scottsdale jail.
The men, who police did not name, are both 19 and employees of a restaurant located on ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Friday, March 4, 2011,
In :
Economy
In yet another sign the U.S. economy isn't nearly as strong as the government and the clueless mainstream media would like you to believe, the food stamp program now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), reported that 44,082,324 persons participated in December 2010. The December figure is a 1.1% month-over-month rise and an astounding 13% rise compared to December 2009.
If you just listened to the mainstream media or watched the stock market
you'd think everything w... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, March 2, 2011,
In :
Gold and Silver
To celebrate yet another milestone in my favorite investment, Silver, here's a few short stories on silver...first up is this CNBC video on the history of silver:
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Wednesday, March 2, 2011,
In :
Stocks
This is incredible...
JPMorgan Chase
is a defendant in more than 10,000 legal proceedings and may be $4.5
billion short of reserves needed to cover those costs in a worst-case
scenario, the firm said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
The New York-based bank's legal woes range from individual actions against JPMorgan Chase to class actions with "potentially millions" of litigants to
"regulatory/government investigations." The suits include common law
tort and contract claims, statutory ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Randall A Reinwasser on Tuesday, March 1, 2011,
In :
Permanent Portfolio
Today, March 1, saw broad stock market indexes get hammered. The S&P 500 was down 1.55%, the Dow dropped 1.38% and the NASDAQ fell 1.61%. Meanwhile, the Permanent Portfolio - which is our preferred investment strategy, rose .17%. The Permanent Portfolio hold equal parts stocks, gold, bonds and cash. While the stock portion of the portfolio took a hit, gold and silver more than made up for it by rising 1.5% and 2.1% respectively.
The Permanent Portfolio is built to produce consistent gain... Continue reading ...
