Sorry, Watching Sports is Boring

People often ask me if I like sports.

And I say, "Yeah, I do."

And then they ask me "What sports do you watch?"

And then I say, "What the hell does that have to do with it?"

And the reason I say that is because unlike what is now becoming the majority of my generation, I actually still play them, I don't watch them. And I have noticed the effect. I am in excellent shape, while the elder Gen X'ers are getting guts and getting flabby.

See, what they should be asking is "Do you watch TV?" Followed up by, "What do you watch?"

But they think that watching sports in itself is some kind of activity unto itself. The problem I've found with watching sports is that regardless of the sport, it's still very "John Madden-esque."

Please tell me what sport this commentary couldn't apply to;

"Well you see, Jim, if Bob wants to score some more points then he's got to get the ball to Steve. But you can't score more points, unless Bill gets a little more possession of the ball, which means Mark will have to do more to cover Frank, and until Frank gets traded for Paul, then I don't see how Mike is going to be able to make it around Chad."

And millions of people waste their lives watching this stuff.

What also gets me is this irony of "progressive video game graphics."

I play video games, I LOVE video games. But I only play video games where I can do things I normally can't do in real life.

For example, I will not be in WWII. Sorry, just won't happen. But I can play Jimmy Patterson, the OSS Agent from Turtle Lake, Wisconsin who goes and wipes out Hitler's Nazi regime. Or I can play the Master Chief and repel and invasion of the Flood.

I do not play video games that can be done in the real world. Namely sports video games.

What on God's green earth is the point of playing sports video games? You want really great graphics? Then go outside and pick up a ball and play some sports. The graphics don't get any better than that. But no, there I am with my friends at the bar and we see some frat boy putz with his hat on backwards playing "Golf Tee Professional 2010!"

Alas, because of my indifference to watching sports, I have a hard time caring who is being traded for what, and how much did this guy sign up for. Additionally, I couldn't care less about Barry Bonds, or Mark McGuire or any of the steroids BS going on in professional sports. If you were to look at how much time has been spent wasted on discussing, speculating, and investigating something that ultimately doesn't matter, and if the scores of commentators and millions of Americans had worked instead and contributed that money to the economy or heck, even charity, how much better use of time that would be, I wonder if we'd be facing recession now.

That being said, I found this chart interesting. Article here;

High Gas Prices Might Help Property Values

A friend of mine has a duplex in Minneapolis. I escaped Minneapolis because my property taxes tripled and the rent I could charge in my then-duplex was driven down by all the affordable housing projects they put in. This put me into loss territory, thank you commie bastards of Minneapolis.

However, my friend was able to rent out his one bedroom apartment for almost $200 a month more than he charged the previous tenants.

The reason why?

Two fold;

One, he allows dogs.

Dogs are honorable, noble beasts created in Heaven to protect the good and fight evil. And therefore make better tenants than cats.

Two, high gas prices he surmises is making people think long and hard about how far they want to commute to work or school. And since his property is near the University of Minnesota and St. Thomas and downtown, he was surprised with just how many applicants he received (dogless or not).

Since cash flow is one of the three valuation techniques used by appraisers and cash flow is the true driving value of property, this might provide more upward support for property prices than we previously thought.

That being said, I think my call to mandate corporations to allow all employees that can to telecommute would do more to save gas.

You Will Visit Mark J Perry

I escaped the Carlson School of Management with only my bachelors. They tried to get me to become a full dark sith lord and get my MBA, but I did not. Sadly Prof. Perry got him MBA from the Carlson School.

That being said, don't hold it against him, he posts some pretty good charts. And I find this one befitting as he is in Michigan;


From his post.

No Recession Yet People

Ug, OK, quick little economics lesson here people.

I'm going old school, which is the best school, and using the traditional definition of a recession as two successive quarters of economic contraction. Meaning Americans produced less stuff two quarters in a row than they did last year. That is the classic definition of a recession.

Which means we are not in a recession yet. We certainly could be on our way to one, and I think we are, but until that time comes, do not claim we're in the middle of a "Great Depression" or the middle of a horrible economy. If you want a horrible economy, then go to the Volcker Recession which was the worst economy we had since the Great Depression.

Now below I put together a little jim dandy chart from the Federal Reserve and circled all the recessions.

The reason I'm posting this now is that I forecast something similar to the 2000-2001 economy. Not in terms of economics, but back then the mantra on the left was that "this is the worst economy in 50 years" suggesting it was so horrible and so bad that only the Great Depression was worse. Obviously it wasn't because (even though NBER puts a gray line there around 2000-2001 saying it was a recession) according to the traditional definition, it wasn't even a recession. Regardless, recession or not, it was the weakest economic slow down we had in history.

I predict the same thing going into an election year. The left will jump on the horrible economy as a means by which to legitimize their election to the presidency and will not only blame Bush and Republicans for this to-be-recession, but no matter how weak or whether we even experience a recession or not, they will chant similar mantras to "this being the worst economy in 60 years."

So, before we get all into recession talk, let alone Great Depression talk, can you at least wait until we have ONE quarter of contraction?

Food Stamp Rate

I fully expect this post to be forwarded and linked to not just your buddies, but it better damn well end up on the Rush Limbaugh show or some big time operator, simply because I forecast the left is going to seize on this food stamp BS and try to run with it. So I'm doing all of you a favor in pulling the data on this and posting it. The least you can do is forward it not just to friends, but to somebody with some wattage under their radio show.

OK, like a previous post I had where some report came out and claimed that the nominal number of people that were below the poverty line was proof positive Bush and Cheney were out there knee-capping babies and stealing old people's dentures, I made the clear distinction that to look at the nominal amount of people on any statistic or trait was pointless in a population that is growing.

That's because if a population is growing, you will by default always have "record numbers of people" doing X, Y and Z each and every year.

For example;

Did you know that in 1790 only 3,000 Americans died of cancer.

But under George Bush a "record" of over 60,000 Americans died of cancer! Bush supports cancer! End the pro-Cancer regime now!!!!

Idiocy.

I then suggested some simple 4th grade mathematics that would imply there might be a "poverty rate." That 4th grade logic would imply you would acknowledge the population is growing and a more proper measure of poverty would be the percentage of the population under the poverty line. This painted a much less dismal portrait of what the left was trying to pass on as truth.

And so I find it my job again to calculate a similar ratio this time. For a moronic friend of mine who hates Bush because, well he's Bush, and the Independent in the UK have pointed out the same thing with equally ignorant and moronic bliss (and within 4 hours of each other, so I'm surmising some e-mail is being forwarded in leftist circles as to this latest egregious "atrocity" against the American people).

FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS REACH AND ALL TIME HIGH!!!!

Therefore...

BUSH IS HITLER AND WE MUST KILL ALL RICH PEOPLE!!!!!

But before we start sharpening our pitchforks and cutting the brake lines to SUV's in the fancier zip codes, allow me to tender an argument in the vain hopes some on the left will adhere to some intellectual honesty and agree with me that, yes, we should really measure the number of people on food stamps, not on a nominal basis, but as a percentage of the population.

Food stamp recipients have gone up, but they are not at a record high as a percent of the population.

Now I know this may dismay some of you leftists, socialists and commies out there, but that's the truth. I'm sorry, I don't make stuff up, this is just the census bureau and the department of agriculture. If you don't like their data, go yell at them.

Regardless, as you can see, food stamp recipients as a percent of the population (despite the best efforts of people employed by the food stamp program to do outreach and get more on the program to protect their jobs) has actually gone down from 2006. Albeit slightly, a lower percentage of people are on food stamps as of 12-31-07 than were in 2006. 2008 data is not yet available, and please don't give me guff about how in those past three months food stamps applicants have skyrocketed and I'm not accounting for it.

Additionally, to point out the hypocrisy of the "food-stamps-are-at-an-all-time-high-Bush-must-die" camp, the food stamp rate reached an all-time high under Bill Clinton, yet we did not clamor for his death nor claim the US was in the next "Great Depression" (because frankly those of us on the right couldn't even think of something so stupid as to point to food stamps as a means by which to incriminate an administration).

Now, look, I'm seriously getting sick of this childish nonsense. And that's exactly what it is, is childish nonsense. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who agreed with me completely that it's not even worth having a conversation with your typical leftist by our age, because by our age they have made up their mind and want to believe in what they want to believe. Data, statistics, facts and reality have nothing to do with it. They will take whatever data they can and twist, contort and spin it to their own desires, with no desire to actually follow or care what is the truth. So do me and the rest of the intellectually honest people a favor. Don't even feign some kind of passion or fake adherence to the truth. We know your game. You just will cling on to whatever tidbit of data you can and propagate it as truth to push your ulterior political agendas. I can't even debate with the majority of leftists anymore because it's pointless. Truth and data have no effect on you.

Libertarian/Conservative - "The sky is blue."

Liberal/Leftist - "No it isn't."

Libertarian/Conservative - "Well how do you explain this data from the Federal Reserve that proves it is."

*Liberal switches to default conspiracy mode*

Liberal/Leftist - "Well, obviously Bush is in control of the Fed and all their economics were told they'd lose their jobs if they didn't say the sky was blue."

This is why I just resort to betting most leftists because it puts an endgame to a conversation that no amount of logic or honest would conclude, and saves me an immense amount of time.

So look, at minimum, just please be honest. You hate or at minimum envy people who have it better off than you and want their money. It's OK, admit it, heck, I'll even go along with you at times as I've seen enough nepotism and spoiled brat daddy's boys/girls get jobs they were completely incompetent to receive. But just say you're for socialism or communism because you are just plain envious. Don't go through the shenanigans of trying futile and dishonest shtick like this as somehow providing the "means" or "rationale" as to why its OK to take other's people money that frankly isn't yours.

Maybe if you spent more time working on a business or getting a degree in engineering or computers, or heck, channeled the hate and envy into something productive and stopped protesting "cause x"or whatever the flavor of the week the cause is, you'd have your own money to envy. Which you could then tax from yourself and give to yourself in a weird self-serving wealth redistributing way and claim riches yet "social justice" at the same time. Whatever turns your gears.

The Job Market for Banking Executives

Hope all you Bearn Stearns blue blood, Citigroup mortgage bankers and big time corporate manager types enjoy the job market. Because this it's become.

In Europe, Gas is Only $2.08 a Gallon (Adjusting for Taxes)

Most of the Cappy Cap readers have no idea how many internet trolls I have that I screen out on a regular basis. The most recent one was some idiot that started off good, but then frankly, just started talking nonsense.

And to display intellectual honesty, I will post opposing views, such as Ed Kohler, who, though we disagree on everything, has maintained a civil tone and made his disagreements not only with politeness, but more importantly, with logic and intellectual honesty.

You are more likely to get banned from posting on this forum, not if you disagree with me or even insult me, but if you make outright stupid or blatantly wrong statements. Especially if I think you yourself don't believe them and are just posting because you have an ulterior political agenda and have no moral qualms about you to push that agenda ahead of truth or honesty.

Regardless, just out of sheer "I told you so"- ness, I am posting this chart that utterly obliterates this latest troll's contention that the price of oil has NOT gone up because of the decreasing dollar, but because of big oil (be thankful I spared you his idiotic blathering posts).


As you can plainly see the price of commodities has gone up more in dollar terms than Euro terms. Commodities also include oil (for those of you in Rio Linda).

And if you were to do some interesting mathematics, this means that right now with gas at $3.15 a gallon down the road from me, it would (assuming equal taxation in Europe which is not the case, but for comparative purposes it is) be about $2.08 in Europe.

It's a sad day when the currency markets have less faith in America's productivity than Europe's. Yet, I'm sure if we churn out more communications majors that have work experience in Americorps this will tilt the currency markets into the dollar's favor.

C-R-I-P-E-S

Stop-Loss

Wow, who would have guessed a defeatist film like Stop Loss would have failed like "Lions for Lambs?"

It actually gives me hope that there is some kind of "silent majority" that is sick of the constant Anti-American, Anti-Military, Anti-Success crowd.

No shock it was an MTV movie.

Where the hell are the Indiana Jones and Star Wars flicks? No seriously, where are the moralled, gun toting westerns where a bunch of honorable guys are still allowed to pick up their guns and go kill the bad guys because the local law enfarsement (particular kudos to the crap that is known as the Minneapolis "profleece" department) is too impotent to deal with the problem?

I think of Tombstone where the good guys just up and killed the bad guys, but today, they'd get arrested and prosecuted for murder. Sadly, if I uttered the words to any enemy of mine "I'm your huckleberry" I'd too be arrested and sent to the slammer because of political incorrectness. I'm sure saying "Hell's coming with me" would also be banned.

I'm glad we de-masculinized the United States. Wyatt Earp I'm sure would be proud.

All You Ever Needed to Know About Finance

I tell my students that for the most part, 90% of investment professionals wasted their time to get a bachelors, masters or doctorate in finance. For 90% of them fail to do the one thing they were trained to do and that is beat the index.


A lot of those in the finance world don't want you to know about that because if the average person found out that by investing in the index, they would beat the majority of the "professionals" the majority of the time, then these guys would not have jobs.

Additionally you are paying fees on top of it for sub prime service. Fees that lower your overall return to such an extent you'd have 80% than if you just invested in the index and not paid for fees that provided below market returns;


So, if you want to have an intellectual equivalent to a doctorate in finance, with honors, just invest in the index. No need to waste eight years getting letters behind your name that mean you'll probably fail to beat the index. Plus, everybody should know worship and love Morningstar.

www.morningstar.com

That alone will save you the four years it would take to get your bachelors.

You're Not a Team Player

I remember talking to a recruiter and he was a blunt fellow (which I appreciate). And he said, "Look, you're not a team player."

I then pointed out that most of the banks I was working at were losing money hand over fist and that wouldn't banks or other employers who wanted to make money want a "non team player" from a bank that was losing money than a "team player" that help the bank lose even more money?

"No, it is more important to be a team player than to make a profit."

It was blunt, but depressing at the same time. You don't do what's right. You don't do what's obvious to make a profit. You just be a team player and don't think.

Thus it's nice to see the results of putting "being a team player" above "profit and truth."

Progressive Dematurization

I'm sitting at the coffee shop working on the housing crisis book. I go to the coffee shop because I get sick of being couped up in my house and need a change of scenery. I also go to the coffee shop because the people here are more or less middle aged and quiet. And while the occasional mom will come in with her toddler (which have this uncanny proneness to come up to me and want to talk to me despite my well-known Anti-Child Policy, they're like cats) I am left in relative peace.

Until now, for a group of as far as I can tell, high school girls have entered the coffee shop and are now talking as if they're all from Fresno Valley in California, when in fact we're in Minnesota.

"Like, OH MY GAWD!"

"Did he say that!??"

"That's, like, so weird!"

And thus the writing comes to a screeching halt and I hear nonsensical blather about Jimmy, and Bobby, and Steve and is she going out with him, LIKE OMG, you're kidding!

And every sentence is spoken with the tone of a question;

"So I got in my caaaar?"

"And I was going to call Tashaaaa?"

"She was was like, I don't have time for you????"

Then there is the occasional screaming as a text from some boy or another obviously has come in. I wish they'd just pass notes.

Anyway the reason I'm bringing this up and taking a hiatus from my writing is that it reminded me of an interesting observation I had when I was younger.

When teaching college economics at the local community college, the majority of the students were between 19-23. I was the ripe old age of 28 and with just that 5 years difference I remember listening to all their complaints and watch them behave and realized, "Holy crap, they're children! When I was 19-23, I thought women were so much more mature and I would have done anything to get them. But now that I see them and I'm older, I realize no wonder i was having so many problems when I was younger! They're all insane!"

And the same criticism can be laid square on the men too, but I wasn't interested in men, I was interested in girls. regardless, men of the same age in my class starting every sentence with "dude."

"Dude, she was like totally f#cking hot!"

"Dude! Sweet, I'm like so going to get hammered!"

"Dude, so like when supply kindof, you know, equals demand, that will give you uhhh, equilibrium. Rock on."

And then I realized I must have really sucked with the women in my youth because this was my competition and I still couldn't beat them. perhaps I should have gotten a hat and put it on backwards and said, "Dude!"

Regardless, now I sit here and listen to these kids and wonder how at the age of 16 or 17 I could have ever thought I was the one with the problem. These kids are insane today. They're literally, well, kids.

What scares me though is if when I'm 45 I'm going to look back at 33 year old women and then say, "what the heck was I thinking? They have a My Space page? And they watch American Idol? And Lost? "

Any 45 year old men or women out there that can attest to this????

In any case my point to all you younger, yet more mature for your age, junior deputy, aspiring or otherwise economists out there, realize that in being an economist (official or otherwise) you are a bit wiser than your contemporaries and that chances are any problems you have arising from courting people your own age are not due to you, but the likelihood everybody else is insane.

Trivisonno on Withholding Taxes

Jon sent this link and it's some pretty cool chartage. Matt Trivisonno.

One of the particularly interesting charts is withholding taxes. As the economy slows down and the tax base shrinks, tax revenue slows;

Again, this gets back to the commonsense concept that if your tax base does not grow that your tax revenues, no matter how high the tax rate, will not grow. 100% of 0 is still 0.

This simple concept is seemingly lost on the democratic presidential contenders as their fiscal policy platforms both consist of increasing taxes and letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

We're about to go into a recession. The US is faced with its largest financial banking crisis since the Great Depression. Everybody's net worth is decreasing and the dollar is worthless. And to solve this problem Clinton/Obama are going to ...

raise taxes?

Yeah, that'll get the economy going.

So sad envy and class warfare blinds the masses as to what's truly in society's best interests.

When Markets Clear

There is a dance joint in Minneapolis called "First Avenue." And in all seriousness it is one of the best dance halls I've been to in America. One of the longest running, it's been consistently open as long as I've been here. But the last time I went there I was about 25, maybe even 24. And the reason is that when you go to the clubs you are intending to meet a girl. Ironically, or perhaps even smartly, women are there to get free drinks, not meet a guy. And you realize this by the age of about 24 - 25 and then you just stop going out to the Boomchicaboom Bars.

What's ironic though is that my friends of the female persuasion still want to go to the Boomchicaboom Bars and "party." Whilst my male friends and more refined female friends want to "go to a jazz club" or "sit and smoke a cigar" or something less painful than the Boomchicaboom bars like smashing our toes with a sledgehammer. It was only by accident that I ended up at First Avenue this past year when we all decided to go to their late night salsa dance, where at the old age of 32 I "closed down the joint." That being said there was some culture there, being salsa dancing, not just loud obnoxious music and girls hitting me up for drinks.

Regardless, what ends up happening is that boys and girls become men and women and leave the bar scene and instead just stay home, fall asleep, play video games or go elsewhere. Some roving band of women may go back to whoop it up like they did in their college days and "party" but for the most part you're not going to see any man over 30 at any of these places. The market has cleared and there is no more trading at that 27 + something level.

I was trying to explain this to my female friends that were complaining there aren't just any men their age out partying anymore, until I came across this.

Thank you 'Least I Could Do' for making my job of explaining things a lot easier.

How Can This Be?

Interesting chart I found whilst gallivanting around on Nationmaster.com. Was looking for population data but came across this chart showing not a lot of women fathom themselves as happy as women were during their grandmothers' time.



Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but might it be worth seeking advice from our elders?

When Middle Aged Men Cry

I cried once. It was when the closed down and tore down my favorite hang out in the Twin Cities;

The Manor.

Ah, yes, the Manor.

I was all of 21 years old, still in college and I would bike all over the Twin Cities. As the cities are laid out, two roads and a fair amount of bike trails follow the east and west side of the Mississippi river and so I became very familiar with those areas. But on the east side of the river, right across an old fort called Fort Snelling, there was this 1950's type style place called "The Manor."

It looked like an old fart's place and I was compelled to poke my head in there during a Saturday afternoon. When I got in there was a piano bar, tons of smoke (as this was before the Nazi's took over and banned smoking) and a medieval suit of armor in a glass display case. Most important though was a dance floor sunk in below the seats that surrounded it and paintings reminiscent of the Kramer portrait done in 1960's style.

For the next 8 years me and my friends would go there and take over the place. There was a horrible swing band, but it didn't matter because they were our swing band and we could dance all night long to them. The owners and staff loved us because I think we were the first new blood they had in the place since 1970. And we had a waitress that was with the place when it originally opened. She would repetitively return and ask us what we wanted to drink because I think in all seriousness she had Alzheimers, but to the dismay of my male friends she did remember me and would always remember what I had ordered. Then she would act insulted when everybody reordered their drinks again.

But what I think has to be the coolest thing about The Manor was that Jim Tolck's Little Big Band would go on break and while on break me and Jim (three times my age) would exchange horrible jokes, and whilst Jim got himself a drink, he'd allow me to do stand up comedy (for an audience that was pretty much all my friends anyway). Jokes such as;

"Guy walks into the doctor's office and says, "Doc, there's something wrong with me."

Doctor looks at him, runs some tests comes back and says, "I'm sorry, but I have bad news. You only have 10 left to live."

The guy says, "10? What do you mean 10? 10 years, 10 months?"

The doctor says, "9...8...7...6..."

Another one was, "Hey Jim, you know why when ducks fly in that V shape formation one line of ducks it always longer than they other?"

"No, why?"

"There's more ducks in that line."

Other jokes such as "Where's the rest of my band?" And I would reply, "they're either out collecting their social security checks or they're dead." And the drummer who was an old refined black gentleman would be about to do the rim shot, but on second thought just shook his head and denied us the rim shot on account the jokes were so horrible. It was a grand time.

Of course since it was a grand time, it meant it had to end. And in 2004 the owner of The Manor sold out to some real estate developers who were going to put in (what else?) condos.

And so arguably what was the best venue in all of the Twin Cities was demolished (though I kept a piece of brick from the rubble as a memoir) and in its place soon went condos.

I had a personal grudge against these condos and hoped they'd fail miserably, but this was 2004 and this was when the condo market was hot. Everybody was moving into condos. Why that was the cool hip thing!

"Are you a baby boomer looking to downsize?"

GET A CONDO!

"Are you an up and coming young Gen X'er that doesn't have a family, but wants to not waste rent?"

GET A CONDO!

"Are you just some dumb schmuck who has a pulse?"

GET A CONDO!

But I would have my revenge. For I knew the market was getting flooded with condos. I had seen enough proposals for condos come across my desk. But I had also been one of those foolish analysts that researched the market and knew there was such a glut, that inevitably the condo market would crash;


Sure enough with over 30 times the historical average annual amount of condo's hitting the local market, the market collapsed and soon over night, these "luxury condo developments" were converted into "Luxury rental/for sale/lease/timeshare/helpuswe'resodesperate apartments/condo's/whateverwecanget."

And not just locally, but nationally the condo glut took hold.


Now basic economics, which it seems most bankers and real estate developers were woefully inadequately educated in, tells you that when supply goes up without a corresponding increase in demand, prices go down. And they might go down so much that you can't sell your condo's for what it cost you to build them and you're going to take a loss. Thus I was happy to see when I drove past the old site of The Manor yesterday just how many extra units were for sale/lease/rent/etc. No doubt many condo developers are suffering losses and tears right now.

But that's what you get when you tear down the Captain's favorite hang out joint.

Most Likely to Lose Your Baggage

I was always fly light and if I need to wear a suit, I wear it on the plane. It is because of the fear that they will lose my luggage and my vacation/business will be impaired. So on I go with my laptop and my backpack that carries my deodorant, tooth brush, socks, one pair of jeans, undershirts and boxer shorts. Never can have too little of those.

But The Economist has polled to find out which European airlines are most prone to lose luggage.


I'll still continue to do it my way. Saves a lot of time just going to the car rental and not have to queue in front of the baggage claim.

Another Nail On the Coffin

I was wondering if there are any people still out there that believe it's "big oil" that is controlling prices and exploiting we poor Americans or if the cold hard facts and realities of economics is finally starting to permeate into the American psyche and people are starting to look at who really owns the oil, who produces and, and maybe even launched investigations into how these two things called "supply" and "demand" have an effect on the price of oil.

But just in case you're still running into the sophomores in college who with their professor-instilled new-found knowledge are going to continue to tell you that it's all a conspiracy man and the oil companies are working together to keep us down, here is another little tidbit that should help you quelch those little brats up;


May favorite is when you have them dead to rights and they still try to defend their original position.

Every Generation Has Their Volcker Recession

The Boomers had their recession from 1979-1982. I thought Gen X would have theirs during the DotcomMania days, but it was too weak. This up coming recession will not be and thus will be the “Gen X’ers” recession.

I have a theory about recessions and it basically goes like this. Every generation has to grow up. The more successful an economy is, the longer this takes as mommy and daddy can support their children for longer periods of time allowing their children to avoid the hard reality of economics; that you have to work in order to eat. This happened with the Baby Boomers in the late 1970’sand early 1980’s. One can contribute the recession of that time to the oil crises, but if you look at labor productivity, I’m more inclined to say it was the hippie commie attitude that everything should be free and why should we work (maaaan!) Well because if nobody works, then there is no food to eat. And if nobody works there aren’t any Jim Morrison 8 tracks to listen to.

Bar the horrible fashions of the late 1970’s (though my generation went through that earlier in the“grunge” phase – remember that? Where we’d pierce everything and make ourselves look revolting?) Gen X is repeating the same thing today. Everything should be free, why should we work, dude? I’ll just buy a house and take the equity out of it and avoid working to pay for my stuff. And then I can listen to my Kirk Cobain album, dude. This attitude caused debt to skyrocket during our coming of age and brought even more shame to my generation. Household debt as a percent of GDP is nearly 100%, up from a boomer average of about 60%.

And so now I think it’s time for another generational recession. Where unemployment and hard times befall us, and my generation is starkly reminded of why communist countries fail. Cause nobody works and our parents weren’t just saying it for S’s and G’s when we were kids in that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Just Fed induced inflation. Get ready to grow up, dude.

PS-Kirk Cobain sucked. No really, he did. And he was a loser on top of it too. Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to hit all the emo kids upside the head with that one. Yeah, apparently he did indeed suck. Some scientists over in Russia proved it, something to do with cosines and newtonian physics I believe.

Bad Timing

What I don't think a lot of people realize is just how bad timing this housing crash is. It comes on the precipice of the Baby Boomers retiring where we'll be forced to raise taxes to pay for medicare and medicaid and social security. Seeing raising taxes is the most likely scenario, you can forget lowering taxes as an option to help stave off the recession (which results in the Democrats ironically advocating a stimulus package, only to take it away from you by letting the Bush tax cuts expire). But the housing crash and it's consequential contagion to other areas of the economy is also accelerating another disturbing trend;

the labor force participation rate.

For the past 40 years or so we could rely upon more and more women to enter the labor force and largely keep upward pressue on GDP growth which would minimalize if not mute the effect of recessions.

But women are participating at rates equal to men now, and now that Gen X women are coming of child birthing age, they are starting to drop out of the labor force bringing the trend back downwards. This combined with the discouraging effects of the housing crash, is resulting in an overall decrease in the labor force participation rate, meaning less and less people are looking for work when in order to afford the retiring masses we need more people than ever working in the economy.

Again, you wonder why the dollar is tanking.

Why are All the Protest Signs in English

This is something I've noticed, but why is it, regardless of the country they're in and the language they speak, the signs protesters use are always in English? This is just the latest example in China.


What compels people in China to protest in English when no English speaking government has any say about their transportation policy? Anybody got any ideas on this?