Friday Night Ramblings

Three day weekend! The Daytona 500 on Sunday! Valentines Day is tomorrow ladies and gentlemen. In our house I do all the cooking anyway, but the wife has requested breakfast tomorrow morning for her Valentine present. I never eat breakfast, but I will do my part and grant her request. Make sure you do a little something for the significant other, besides if you buy something you are stimulating the economy!

Odyssey Marine Exploration Update
A while back I shared my position in the stock OMEX. I bought in at $3 and the stock trades now at $4. The latest television series show chronicling the exploits of the company called "Treasure Quest" on the Discovery Channel aired last night. I must say that while the technology and innovation displayed has been pretty amazing, the next segment of shows should try and flesh out some real treasure finds.

The company has shown the ability to find all kinds of ships and recover items with consistency. As of last night's show we have yet to see some real finds that can pay dividends. The footage is already a year old, and the company has been amazing with keeping things quiet. Here is one shareholder hoping for a little more excitement in the coming months!
Full Disclosure: I have a position in OMEX stock.

Poetic Justice
There is something positively hilarious about the drama surrounding the passage of the "Stimulus Bill". Late to circulate the final bill, and weighing in at over 1000 pages long, it seems no member of Congress will really have a chance to read even half of the bill. How on earth is that funny you ask? Well I'll tell you.

The reason the credit debacle happened is due in no small part because clueless mortgage borrowers, seduced with dreams of becoming rich, signed for mortgages they neither read nor understood. It seems perfect that the very bill that tries to fix the mess is receiving the same treatment from our elected officials. "Just sign here please". The US Congress is the perfect "mark" for a used car dealer, or a mortgage originator. Funny and sad at the same time.

Best of the Web
I try and make my reading rounds as I compile ideas to present on the blog. Sometimes I run across writings that are so powerful that I find I think about them most of the day. This happens a few times a week on average and I try and make you, the readers, aware of those pieces. Today I was amazed by the great insight and sharp writing of two separate articles in the same day! It is like a two for one day!

The first gem is from the great site "The Automatic Earth". The host who's pen name is Ilargi has the best take on the "toxic asset" question that has Treasury Timmy G all confused. Opening paragraph from this article:

Ilargi: Prior to a sudden surge on Wall Street just after 3 PM EST today, US financials were losing a lot of money. Undoubtedly, many "experts" will say the financials are hurting because of uncertainty about the Geithner plan. Me, I would turn it around, and say they drop like stones because of certainty, the sort that says there's no way the largest banks in the US and the UK can be saved. There's no shortage of smart voices declaring that it's so very hard to put a pricetag on toxic assets. In reality, it's very easy. All you need to do is put them on sale and see what offers you get. And there's no excuse or reason for a government to enter the bidding process with money that belongs to its taxpayers. If the people themselves want to buy the paper with their own money, fine. But no-one else should have the right to spend it for them

In one paragraph the writer encapsulates my position exactly. Simple, clear, and intellectually solid one wonders why normal joes that write blogs "get it" while the upper echelon of academia is so confused.

The second wonderful read covers two major complaints of mine: Big government and Keynesian clown theory. I hate them both. It should be clear to anyone with a brain why both are terrible, yet both are favored by many still.

Paul Mladjenovic, writing in the Gold Eagle editorial section, skewers both big government and Keynesian theory in one piece! I strongly recommend reading the entire article, but here are the two excerpts I like.

On big government:

The $1 trillion dollar stimulus plan will not stimulate growth in the economy. It will only stimulate the growth of government bureaucracy. Please understand that government doesn't invest in the economy; it SIPHONS resources from the economy. Think of the private economy as a "runner" and the government as the "backpack". Can you really make the runner perform better by loading more and more weight into the backpack? Of course not; you just make it worse for the runner.

I wish I had written that!

On Keynesian Theory:

History clearly tells us that Keynesian economics does not work. At best, it can be a short-term bandage but it is not a long-term solution. Even Keynes admitted that his ideas have flaws that are problematic over the longer term. When someone pointed out the flaws and how they would become realized over the long run , he famously retorted "in the long run we are all dead". Well…he is dead and we are now in "the long run".

I REALLY wish I had written that! Awesome.

Friday Night Entertainment
After a super busy week at work, and a government pork spending hurricane during the week that made me want to puke, I need a little entertainment.

Can We Be Friends?
New friend does not taste like bacon!:

more animals

Great Combat Scene
One of my guilty pleasures is the film "Troy". All star cast, great story, and great action. This clip is from the epic battle between Hector of Troy (Eric Bana) and Achilles of Greece (Brad Pitt). Spears, shields, swords; what else could be more exciting!:


Friday Night Rock Blogging
Again, no requests so I guess nobody checks this section out, or you trust my taste! Either way, away we go!

What do you get when you combine raspy, powerful vocals, piano, great background music, and plenty of rhythm changes? You might wind up with Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart":


In general I hate most new music. Only a few songs here or there, or a great band like Audioslave will catch my interest. This one song from Hoobastank has a thunderous baseline and pretty good vocals. The drums are excellent as well. Enough, check out "The Reason":


Before long I will have loaded every song from the Randy Rhoades Tribute Album on this blog. With good reason of course! Here is "Believer" which features some of the best lead guitar work you are ever likley to hear:


From the old school MTV days of cheap videos, take a stroll back in time with Flaco's "Rock Me Amadeus":


Have a good night.

Stimulus Plan: Making Sure Your TV Works So You Do Not Riot

I am very excited for the 12 inches of snow, ice and rain that is coming tomorrow. NOT! I have already taken the day off, so I will have tons of fun shoveling tomorrow.

"Bad Bank" Transfer of Losses to Taxpayer Almost Complete
In case TARP 2.0 and the President's stimulus plan are not enough, the "bad bank" holding company idea seems to be on deck as well. We could debate the finer details of such a plan, but this is all you need to know: The Government will give banks basically whatever they want for bad assets and the government will sit on those assets forever. The banks get "mark to myth" cash to use as they see fit and the taxpayer gets to hold debts and paper that will guarantee huge losses for the foreseeable future. Sounds like a sure winner.

From CNBC:

Plan for Banks' Toxic Debt May Be Unveiled Next Week
By: Steve Liesman | 27 Jan 2009 | 05:04 PM ET
The Obama administration is close to deciding on a plan to purchase bad—or non-performing and illiquid—assets from banks, according to industry sources. The plan could be announced early next week.
The so-called "bad bank" plan, would address the key problem of how to price the assets by using a model-pricing mechanism.
The model would take account of the government's ability to hold onto assets, even to maturity, and pay for the them with cheap funding. Result: the government might end up paying more than current market prices for the securities.

"Might" end up paying more than current market prices? That is a silly statement from the usually reliable Liesman. the whole point of the exercise is to pay much more than market prices, otherwise what's the point? Some more:

In the developing bad bank plan, it's unclear how the government would pay for assets. There has been discussion of a "certificate of net worth" in which the government gives the banks a piece of paper that essentially can be applied to capital levels. But sources could not confirm that funding mechanism for the plan or what role existing TARP money or the Fed would play in funding the so-called bad bank.

This is rich! The government will issue monopoly paper certificates that banks can then use as "cash equivalents" for their capital base. Why print dollars when it is both cheaper and uses less paper to make "certificates of net worth". Maybe some day in the future your company will pay you using such paper. Won't that be nice.

All kidding aside, this is the next logical step in the illusion game. The FED and Treasury do not want to print too much money, it may seem like the US is behaving irresponsibly. Issuing phantom certificates that will never be backed by anything is yet another trick deployed by the smartest men the country has to offer.

Stimulus Plan: Making Sure Your TV Works So You Do Not Riot
The two best ways to grow control over a population are to 1.) keep them stupid and 2.) keep them occupied. Most Americans have done #1 themselves by giving up on real education and free thought. #2 is the job of the government. What better way to hold people's attention than to use the good old television? I mean now with DVR technology, some people spend entire weekends catching up on TV shows they missed during the week. Must see TV indeed.

In the current desperate atmosphere of economic calamity, we have been told that swift action is needed or there will be tanks in the street. If American Idol is interrupted, they may be right. Along these lines the stimulus plan covers the bases by offering 650 Million dollars for digital TV upgrade coupons.

Yes folks, some people out there still have old TV's that are going to be made obsolete in February! The horror! The upgrade costs from $40-70$. What if cash strapped consumers cannot pay up? That is what this 650 Million is for. By my back of the envelope math 650 Million dollars divided by $60 per conversion comes out to around 11 million TV's that will be upgraded. 11 Million TV's. Are there even that many old sets out there? When you are the government, you do not bother to ask.

Some stimulus plan excerpts:

Mr. Boehner cited numbers to counter Mr. Obama’s, saying the House Democratic plan included $600 million for the federal government to buy new cars, $650 million for digital television coupons and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

Shiny new cars for the government that they will buy from American car makers that have received bailout money to survive. You cannot make up material like this. 50 Million for Art? That will create how many jobs? I mean starving artists are only good if they are starving right?

Between the TARP 2.0, "Bad Bank" plan, and now the stimulus bill we see a huge looting of the US treasury. The taxpayer ultimately will be on the hook. Massive giveaways and bank bailouts add up. Sooner or later that is going to matter.

Have a good night.