Everything Else
Want a Bailout? Really?
Just One Bailout Thought: As Congress continues to debate whether they are going to hand over $700 billion of your money to the wealthy who screwed up Wall Street and the banking industry, you will be relieved to learn that top executives of the bailed-out firms temporarily will be limited to a strict $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income. Surely you receive $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income, don’t you? Anyway, supposing we assume the bailout is required, here is what bothers me about the plan so far: Taxpayers don’t get stock, what they get is warrants that can be exchanged for stock, and nonvoting stock to boot. This means that once media attention switches to the next crisis that everyone will claim in retrospect to have seen coming, the Wall Street rich can quietly lobby to have the warrants never called, thus keeping the entire bag of gold for themselves. Even if the warrants are called, taxpayers get no voting positions — meaning the boards of directors of the bailed-out firms can do anything they damn please with taxpayers’ money.
A week ago, Warren Buffett rescued Goldman Sachs by injecting $5 billion in capital. Did Buffett bargain for warrants that can be exchanged at an unknown later date for nonvoting shares? No: He is not a fool. Buffett gave Goldman Sachs $5 billion in return for senior preferred stock, the kind that votes and also is more valuable than ordinary shares. That is to say, he used his money to buy something. Goldman can now employ the cash to fix its liquidity problems. The United States Congress and the White House should use the public’s $700 billion to buy something, namely senior preferred shares. Why are Congress and George W. Bush not simply following the road map laid out on this problem by the smartest investor of our era? Either Congress and the president are a bunch of blithering fools — or what they actually want is to insure the public’s money is never seen by the public again.
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Investment advice:
Follow this non-secret strategy that turns on buy-and-hold — buy-and-hold being the strategy endorsed by Warren Buffett. Place $100,000, the maximum federally insured amount, into a CD, to have some money that will always be secure; max out whatever retirement instrument you qualify for; ignore gold, art and similar investments that are volatile; ignore commodities options, short selling, derivatives and similar complex investments that often trip up even specialists; ignore anything that’s “securitized” (assets packaged into securities, there is no chance you can evaluate the underlying assets); buy real estate or real property only if your plan is to hold it for many years; place the remainder of your funds in a plain-vanilla 60-40 Standard & Poor’s index fund (one that invests 60 percent in blue chip stocks, 40 percent in corporate bonds and Treasury bills); buy that fund from any reputable investment firm open to the public; let the money in the 60/40 fund simply sit there, regardless of what’s happening in the markets. For goodness sake, don’t make frequent stock trades trying to “beat the market” — studies show that only about a third of investors and brokers who actively pick stocks do better than simply buying and holding the Standard & Poor’s. For goodness sake, hang up on anyone promising “confidential tax avoidance strategies” or “a once in a lifetime opportunity.” For goodness sake, never deal with any funds or money managers who say they use “secrets” or have “exclusive information.” For goodness sake, don’t purchase real estate, or any form of real property, thinking you will “flip” it. For goodness sake, don’t panic and sell just because the market is falling. If the market is falling, do nothing — at some point the market will rise. A few years ago, Buffett had his brokers calculate how Berkshire Hathaway would have done had the company not made a single stock trade all year, and merely held its positions. The answer was the company would have come out ahead. This paragraph contains all the investment advice most people will ever need. Send TMQ a one-third percent commission when you get a decent return and don’t lose any money.
You Get Mad
This song is from way-back-in-the-day Sesame Street - sung by a goat. It is begging to be made into death metal. So I will do that.
Narrator: A goat can feel happy
A goat can feel sad
A goat can feel wonderful
A goat can feel mad
Goat: Feel mad! Feel mad! Feel mad!
It ain’t bad to feel mad
N: If someone pulled the hair on his chin
Would a goat say nothing, stand there and grin?
Goat: NO! I get mad! I get mad! I get mad!
It ain’t bad to get mad
N: And what if someone gave him a fright
Would a goat laugh, “Ha, ha, it’s quite all right”?
Goat: NO! I get mad! I get mad! I get mad!
It ain’t bad to get mad
N: And what if someone does something unkind
Would a goat pretend he doesn’t mind?
Goat: NO! I get mad! I get mad! I get mad!
It ain’t bad to get mad
N: And if a friend lets him down
Pig with ice cream cone: (snorting) Forgot to bring one for YOU.
N: Would a goat say, “No matter, don’t worry, I couldn’t care less”?
Goat: NO! I get mad! I get mad! I get mad!
It ain’t bad to get mad
N: And in the end most folks are glad
To find out what makes him mad
All: He gets mad, he gets mad, he gets mad.
It ain’t bad to get mad!
Goat: Yeah!
Drop Back Ten and Punt
Why does it feel like the Government is kicking the ball away, hoping to pin it back near the end-zone till they can figure somethign else out?
*sigh*
The Bullet Points
- Came AWFUL CLOSE to getting smashed into the Jersey Barrier by a bigass pickup truck. No signal, no look, no brain. THE MIDDLE FINGER to the guys in that truck. Adrenaline made me feel scrappy enough to fight both of ‘em. Also, Firefox recognizes the word bigass as an actual word. Neat.
- Tiny kittens are dirty.
- Bush touted the easy of obtaining a house as part of a strong economy now he’s blaming it for the current crisis. Which is it? Talk about mixed messages…
- Skipping my 5:30am cardio this week for a recharge. Actually slept through the night for first time in forever.
- ATTN: Postal delivery technician - the package has “please leave on porch” written on it, so why did you leave it at the post office? It’s just some fat-burners, but still. Still.
- Trying to get my guitar chops back after nearly two years of not playing much at all. Still have what little skill I had, but need to regain riff-writing ability. ‘Get Up” (below) has new drums, but I couldn’t re-write riffs - not yet.
- Forgot my cellie at home. Feel detached, and yet free.
Kraf
The bullet points
- Squatted 455 x 2 yesterday after doing 405 x 6. Back is sore. Body hurts. Being over 30 - crud.
- Tiny cat still really loud. She weighs less than one pound and my 16 pound cat is terrified.
- Wife still trying to kill me. She didn’t turn on the fan last night. More melting.
- Woke up with headache. Hooray for STL Sinuses. Boo to meth heads that make it a pain in the butt to get real sinus pills. Tylenol + not-pseudoephedrine for me.
- I need a day off but I don’t get one. Ever. Contracting rocks (not)!
- THE MIDDLE FINGER to the lady who undercut me on the way into work - barely got over in time thanks to you and messed up traffic (Manchester / Des Peres - you gotta get over like 4 lanes after exiting 270. Poor design). Hope you’re late to work.
Grunties
The bullet points:
- Kittens have voices many times their physical size
- Got to work early, but computer was horked. Working now, but still - can’t win.
- I think my wife would be fine if I melted overnight. Keep that comforter to yourself!
- Traffic reports are bunk. Get slow when they have no warnings, and zoomed in today when they were harping about two along my route.
- Death Metal makes me smile - those guys are so angry! It’s silly, but I like it.
- I think I’m going to take the day off on the day after election day. (That’s a lot of days in one sentence). Why? To celebrate (please!) or grieve (no!).
Fudge
Y’ever see the the old Tom & Jerry cartoons where Tom is really tired, but needs to stay awake? So he takes toothpicks and props his eyelids up with them, but his lids become to heavy and snap the toothpicks so he ends up asleep anyway?
That’s me today.
WAKE UP
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