You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2008.
Buy for $36B and sell for $7.4B. Or buy for $5B and sell for $1.7B. From 4-Block World’s Automotive Investments.
Mises.org has a PDF of Henry Hazlitt’s What You Should Know About Inflation originally published 44 years ago.
They excerpt a portion:
No subject is so much discussed today — or so little understood — as inflation. The politicians in Washington talk of it as if it were some horrible visitation from without, over which they had no control — like a flood, a foreign invasion, or a plague. It is something they are always promising to “fight” — if Congress or the people will only give them the “weapons” or “a strong law” to do the job.
Yet the plain truth is that our political leaders have brought on inflation by their own money and fiscal policies. They are promising to fight with their right hand the conditions brought on with their left.
Inflation, always and everywhere, is primarily caused by an increase in the supply of money and credit. In fact, inflation is the increase in the supply of money and credit.
There is a one-page summary here (PDF).
The recent run-up in housing prices which is now biting mortgage companies is a perfect example of inflation due to massive expansion of credit in the last decade.
On this day in 1956, Alf Dean landed a 2,664-pound great white shark with a fishing rod.
That’s a damn big fish. Simply amazing.
Today’s header image is an annoying mess, just like the US tax codes.
Another April 15th comes and goes.
Only 8 more days until Tax Freedom Day this year.
The editors of Wired magazine assembled the Wired Index many years ago. I never paid much attention to it, and assumed it had gone defunct. Turns out, it’s still alive, though I haven’t looked at any historical data yet, so I’m not sure at this point if it can be considered well.
If I have some time this weekend, I’ll do a little digging and see if I can find some performance data.
Update: The ticker for the Wired Index is IWIRX. Compared to the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ, it’s done a bit better over the long haul, but not much. Compared to the Dow, it’s basically a wash. Now, compare them all to Apple, over the life of the Wired Index.
So, what does this illustrate? Well, for one thing, we know that the editors of Wired are no better at picking stocks than anyone else. It’s also a fine example of Chebyshev’s inequality, which, in essence, says that if you average a bunch of things together, the result is about average. It’s also a painful reminder that I should have bought Apple when I was thinking about buying it about 10 years ago.
Best Buy has the US Postal Service pitching ads for them, via a monthly online coupon for 10% off Best Buy stuff. This article from CyberNet news lists the items to which the 10% discount applies (although one commenter notes the staff probably won’t check the coupon details), and describes how to manipulate the URL from month to month, so you can effectively get yourself a coupon any time you want to, that is, until BB and USPS figure out what people are doing.
Here’s the latest coupon, which expires May 31st:
https://moversguide.usps.com/img/coupon/bestbuy/200804_clientarea.gif
And the previous one, good until April 30th:
https://moversguide.usps.com/img/coupon/bestbuy/200803_clientarea.gif
Via Lifehacker.
I ran across the “Belief-O-Matic” today. It’s a 20-question quiz that attempts to determine your religious tendencies. The Belief-O-Matic tells me I’m a secular humanist. After skimming the Wikipedia entry, I guess that’s a fairly accurate assessment. I also hadn’t previsouly considered this distinction, made in the Wikipedia article:
Secular humanism is a broad philosophic position and not simply a statement about belief or non-belief in God. Accordingly, it is inaccurate to identify secular humanism as being the same thing as nontheism, atheism, or agnosticism.
It’s an interesting quiz, but some of the questions are a bit repetitive. Takes about 5 minutes.
Some folks at UC-Irvine decided to study human-blog interaction:
What they found is that reading blogs has become a habit integrated into Internet use for many people, akin to instinctively checking e-mail.
I can attest to that. There are many blogs I read every day, and some multiple times a day.
This is interesting as well, but not surprising to me:
One key feature for most users was a sense of community. Even though blogging is an inherently one-to-many activity, most readers felt a personal connection to the author. This could foster the feeling that the reader belonged to the community even in the absence of participation…
Like-minded people naturally gravitate to one another.
This, on the other hand, did surprise me:
Only one of the study participants said they enjoyed triggering flame wars; most of the others felt their comments were a form of appreciation for the blog author, and worked hard to make them insightful and cogent.
Maybe I’m reading the wrong blogs.
Via Arstechnica.
Last night’s game seemed like 2 games in one.
Innings 1-3: the Tigers looked like the Bad News Bears (before they gelled and got good just in time for the end of the movie). Bonderman had control problems – again – racking up his pitch count and giving free passes. “Bad luck” plays: hot shots to Lowell and Youkalis that turned out to be amazing plays to record outs against the Tigers. Polanco and Guillen are supposed to have “soft hands” – each made errors (Guillen wasn’t charged with the error – Miguel Cabrera was – but I think that was scored incorrectly). Soon enough it was 2-0 Red Sox, and it looked like Bonderman might only last 4 innings.
Innings 4-9: It’s the names that aren’t well known contributing the most. Thames with the 2 run homerun to take a lead the Tigers haven’t seen most of the early season. Renteria, well known with baseball ethusiasts, isn’t a household name…he’s been fairly consistent/productive in these early games had a solid 3 hit game and racked up a few more RBI. Clete Thomas – in AA Erie last year is doing most of the little things right, including a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt. Brandon Inge has adjusted his batting stance this year and it’s producing. He shouldn’t even be playing and he’s leading the team in RBI including 2 more last night that helped put the game out of reach for the Red Sox. The bullpen was solid: Bobby Seay (who?), Francis Beltran (who?), Denny Bautista (who?), Todd Jones (Mr. Rollercoaster – typical outing but got the job done).
Observations:
- I miss Sean Casey being on the team. Nice he’s got a new home in Boston.
- Pudge has been trying to hard to get his 2500 hit. He got it. Now relax and produce.
- Sheffield. He’s still able to draw walks, but WTF…he’s been swinging at junk and looking foolish.
- Polanco. For a guy that is automatic at the plate, why is he struggling so much?
- Cabrera. Same.
- Most of the hitters are getting jammed inside. Make the adjustments already!
- Starting Pitchers. Hit your spots already! These walks are ridiculous. It ruins your efficiency and puts more pressure on your offense to constantly produce for your mistakes/laziness/fear.
It’s Robertson v. Wakefield tonight. A bit unusual for the last game of the series to be at night since the Tigers have to catch a flight to Chicago. Could be a little nasty for Friday since there’s supposed to be high winds in the area. The Tigers, if the weather cooperates and they play, may have a tough time getting the win due to the travel schedule. Which makes getting the win today that much more critical. I wonder if Pudge will catch today. He usually doesn’t in the last game of a series. So will it be Inge behind the plate and Clete Thomas in centerfield? Has Clete ever faced a knuckleballer? Nice test for the rookie. He’s delivered so far with every test. Wait and watch!
I heard this morning that NO team that has started a season 0-7 has ever made it into the playoffs. For a season of 162 games, this seems like an incredible statistic. I wish I had the time/resources to see who those teams were. Were they a team of jokers? Or did their lineup and pitching rotation seem worthy of competition?
Interesting, too, is odds makers have already cut the Tigers chances of winning the AL Central from around 50% to 26%.
Dang.
Other notables around the league…seems like everything is upside down.
The 4 highest payroll teams in the MLB: the NY Yankees, Detroit Tigers, NY Mets, and Boston Red Sox are not playing to their salary roll potential. Yankees/Red Sox both 4-4. Tigers…0-7. Mets are 2-4.
Teams much lower on the list (and typically not expected to contend over the past few years) are doing quite well. Orioles – first place. Royals – first place. Marlins (total team payroll is less than A-Rod’s salary) - first place. Cardinals – 2nd place (6-2 record). Diamondbacks – 1st place.
Maybe 2008 will be a year when General Managers start to realize that overpaying players and trying to fill a team with former All Stars doesn’t equate to instant success. Nah – who am I kidding.
