Hot Links: Thousand and One Words

Hot Links for Weekend Reading… An important piece: Ludwig Von Mises (Austrian Economist) gets a profile in the Wall Street Journal.  (WSJ) This one’s clickbait but I don’t care, it’s awesome: The 25 Laziest Cities in America.  (Clusterstock) The Fly has had enough, other internet finance guys beware (perhaps myself as well?).  (iBankCoin) A cool…

John Mauldin on the Latest Employment Data

In the latest edition of his excellent weekly newsletter, this one entitled The Glide Path, John Mauldin touvhes on the latest employment numbers and what they actually mean: From Thoughts From The Frontline: The Ugly Unemployment Numbers The headlines said unemployment, as measured by the “establishment survey,” was down by 190,000; and even though that…

Seven Things You Should Know 11/6/2009

Seven Things You Should Know November 6th 2009 1. 30% of Americans age 45-64 surveyed in late July 2009 have stopped contributing to a pre-tax retirement plan (source: AARP). 2. Total household debt in the US was $13.7 trillion as of 6/30/09, 96% of the size of our $14.2 trillion economy. The debt-to-economy ratio was…

Recession Signpost: 7-Eleven Introduces Their Own Wine

Yes, you read the headline correctly, convenience store chain 7-Eleven is rolling out their own wines, appropriately priced at $2.99 a bottle.  I wonder if it would be considered uncouth to drink 7-Eleven brand wine with an extra-long Slurpee straw.  I also would like to know if it can be quaffed from a 64 ounce…

Fiddling With Climate Change and Healthcare While Rome Burns

Dear President Obama, I did not vote for you last November as I’m not a “joiner” and faux-grassroots movements make me cringe (remember the Ross Perot scare of the late 80’s?). I doubt you will read this as it most certainly will not make Rahm Emanuel’s list of approved reading materials.  On the off-chance that…

Hot Links: Cheetos Chapstick and Other Oddities

Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… The mutual funds that benefitted most from Buffett‘s BNI buyout.  (Morningstar) Denninger’s on the money with this Fannie Mae business.  Despicable.  (Market-Ticker) Jr. Deputy Accountant agrees, calling the GSE’s the world’s largest slumlords.  (JrDepAcct) Its now the reflation trade, not the recovery trade.  (PragCap) Who’s Who of the insider trading…

3 Potential Bubbles for Retail Investors

The “everybody’s a real estate mogul” era started innocently enough, with a distaste for the stock market after the dot com meltdown and an incredibly long stretch of time with 1% interest rates. The leap from trading up in house size to using home equity loans for financing boat purchases certainly didn’t take very long. …

Hot Links: Super-Regulators & The Simpsons

Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… Stocks fall ahead of Bank of England, EU rate decisions.  (Bloomberg) European banks join the Robber Baron train, remember how to make money again.  (NYT) My fave post of the day: The inside scoop on the guys who got it right.  (DailyIntel) Not just the dollar, gold prices are surging…

Love Smoking Crack? AND Investing? Allow Me to Introduce…AIG!

Love smoking crack?  Love investing, also?  Well now you can combine two of your favorite activities, enjoying both at the same time! How, you ask? Simple!  Allow me to introduce you to…AIG, the former insurance company stock that now exists purely for trading purposes: Here’s a “stock” that for any reason (or no reason at all) on…