THE CONCERT. A MOVIE THAT SHOULD BRING YOU TO TEARS

enough about finance, econ and political malaise. how about some culture

went to see the movie, The Concert. it should make you cry, laugh, and cry again but with tears of joy. a really remarkable film

please see it

RAISE RATES TO GROW THE ECONOMY

thats right, we should raise interest rates to grow the economy. while europe has been trying to balance budgets and i think raise rates a bit, their thinking, i think, is budgets should be balanced so why not start now and tighten monetary policy to prevent inflation from the easy money policies implemented world wide during the crisis

in the US, we have a totally manipulated yield curve. whenever there is a banking crisis, the feds supply liquidity and often manipulate the yield curve such that short term rates are very low. this initially helps with the crisis but also creates a risk free arbitrage for the banks to repair their balance sheets. they borrow from the feds at near zero and can invest in medium term government securities and make a 300bp spread with no risk and little interest rate risk due to maturity mismatch.

this is all fine for awhile. but no longer. when you can make 300bps risk free why lend to somebody who has some risk? the answer is you dont and that is one of our problems today; lack of extension of credit to small to medium size businesses, sme's and even larger companies that are still too small to access the high yield bond market.

we don't need zero per cent short term rates. if the feds let rates go up to say1.5 per cent, still very low, this ought to force the banks to lend money to people and companies, not this incestuous arbitrage with the feds. for most businesses its not about the cost of money its about the availability of money. they would happily pay 7% for short term debt to fund working capital because their gross margin can justify it.

you want banks to lend, take them off the feds teat.

now long term rates are lower than they should be also, due to among other things the government buying its own bonds and manipulating the mortgage market; but that is a whole other story

MANNING AND ASSANGE SHOULD BE HANGED!

the classified information that bradley manning and julian assange leaked will cause people to be tortured and killed. manning as a US citizen and a member of the armed services should be tried and convicted for treason and hung. julian assange, who is not a US citizen, will be responsible for the damage and should be liquidated.

A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN

illegal Hispanics are fleeing arizona ahead of the new law being implemented. they are selling their things on the cheap and leaving. businesses that cater to them will be closing; real estate they are renting will go vacant. where will the people of arizona get their maids, their gardeners, etc.

there is a great movie available on dvd call A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN; about how all the mexicans in california mysteriously disappear. it is only an ok movie but the premise is brilliant

watch it and then think about a proper immigration policy should look like

ABC; ANYBODY BUT CONTADOR

well lance blew up. bad luck? too old? who knows. still the best but out of contention. so here is the plan. lance makes a secret pact with andy schleck and helps schleck and lances team mate levi leipheimer onto the podium and next year andy and frank schleck join radio shack

its a thought

WE WAS ROBBED!

these were the words from my friend larry klatzkin when i asked him why to US goal vs slovenia was disallowed. now there is much to criticize about the US soccer teams performance at the world cup. you cant keep giving up the first goal and come back. you need to score the first goal; the 2 goals they gave up to slovenia were defensive breakdowns.

however

the go ahead goal was a goal, if anything, Slovenia fouled on the play

the referee should be shot and there should be video playback protests

go world cup!

CATASTROPHES ARE A BITCH

it should be clear to most of us that catastrophes are hard to respond to. 9/11 we were unprepared and i think NYC responded pretty damn well. bush didnt look very sharp caught reading stories to children at first but govt. response wasnt bad. should have stayed just in afghanistan and done it right.

Katrina, we were not prepared and didnt respond very well

BP oil spill, we were not prepared and have not responded well.

catastrophes dont happen every day but they are hard to respond to well. the bush administration did not respond well to katrina and the democrats have pilloried him for years. but obama has done no better. the fact of the matter is the govt. isnt very talented and capable. this is an issue for us as citizens.

when you have a castrophe, you need to assess the damage and come up with a plan to respond. assessing blame should be secondary. it seems that we have spend more time trying to destroy bp, which may happen than fix the problem; which is not easy to fix and may have to wait till the relief well are completed.

putting a moratorium on drilling is not the answer if you care about the economy. immediate safety inspections are the answer.

bp probably is guilty of cutting too many corners and the joint probability blew up in all our faces. we do need better safety requirements and it is now obvious that it isnt easy to do things 5000 feet below the surface.

a thought however, why are we drilling so deep in the gulf? a bunch of reasons but they include and insatiable demand for oil and hostility to on shore drilling combined with there being alot of oil in the deep gulf.

leveraging off of this to promote cap and trade is just another example of not letting a good crises go to waste.