Consumer (ie-Credit Card Debt) as a % of GDP

To quote Victor Borge, "I do not do requests, unless of course, I have been asked to do so." A Cappy Cap reader requested consumer debt as a percent of GDP, which, as you'll see below only corroborates that this country lives progressively more by borrowing and progressive less on working...which is just the kind of country Barack needs to get into the White House.

"Flo" Chart

Ha! Get it "Flo" chart?! Because it's supposed to be "flow" chart, but "Flo" sounds the same, but refers to "Flo" the actress, thus a double meaning? Huh, get it? eh? The pun? The double meaning I mean?


Anyway, as my suspicions proved correct (which they normally do), "Flo" from the Progressive commercials is indeed hot and no less than 81% of the men found her attractive. And when I say "found her attractive" I am understating what they said. Comments were more along the lines of "oh my god, something or other about breaking her name tag."

Once again my charting skills, economic skills and being able to identify hot babe skills have advanced society by proving Flo is indeed a hottie. Now go buy my book!!!!

The Failure of Capitalism

There is much ballyhoo about this financial crisis being the failure of capitalism.

And if we are to be intellectually honest, this is a failure of capitalism, but it doesn't mean it's broke. This is part of capitalism. People and companies who do stupid things get wiped out. The bailing out of these deadbeat losers is purely socialist in nature.

That being said, I know those of you on the left love to see capitalism "at its worst." Which this is.

Of course it pales into comparison to communism at its worst, which last I recall was what, 100 million people dead?

Just wanted to put things in perspective.

Is Flo Hot, or I'm I Just Crazy?

OK, Flo. Stephanie Courtney, from the Progressive commercials.

There is a raging debate in the Captain's social circles about whether she is hot or not.

There are two adamant camps;

Camp 1. Flo is a floosy dumbass bimbo etc. etc., makes men happy, blah blah blah, I hate her blah blah blah, stupid byatch blah blah blah, probably does what makes men happy, blah blah blah slut blah blah blah.

Camp 2. Oh my freaking god, get her into the June Ward apron and heels and nothing else NOW and I will so violate all my morals and integrity to do whatever I can to her.

I am unashamedly in camp #2.

I'm sorry, she is freaking hot. That vintage 1950's lipstick and raven haired beauty had me at "hello."

Now I get guff for this because my colleagues think she is nothing spectacular. That I am a freak for longing to have her in a "manly fashion" in that corporate closet (oh yeah, you know the one I mean, the one nobody checks on and has no files in it but is still on corporate grounds).

Regardless, anybody else out there with me here on this one?

In the meantime, BUY MY BOOK! DO IT NOW!!! Flo would SOOOOO endorse my book!

US vs Chinese Price to Income Ratios

I know you guys don't want to hear it, but I will again, suggest there is a possibility that if housing prices go too high, they can also over-correct and go too low.



The chart above I like because it shows you even if your country is growing at 10-12% RGDP per year, housing prices can still go down relative to incomes. And not only that, could you imagine if housing went from where it is today (indexed at 105) to where China and Japan are (indexed at 65). A near 40% drop FROM TODAY'S PRICES.

Again, if you want your assets to have value, heck if you want the country to have value, you have to (I'm sorry) PRODUCE SOMETHING OF VALUE!

Never mind, nobody listens to me. Heck, how about instead of being a cold-hearted, reality spewing economist, I capitulate, become a politician, and tell people what they want to hear?

I promise warm fuzzies for everyone as we major in peace studies and vote for hope and change! If we care, social security will solve itself! Yea for us! We exist! YEA!!!!!!

The Left Gets SPANKED in Canada!

Seems Harper won somewhat soundly and fell just short of a majority in parliament.

Alas, the liberal, Stephan Dion, now gets to face a leftist's worst fear;

WORKING IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR!!!

NOOO!!!!!!!

But I don't want to contribute to GDP daddy!!!

Brainwashing Your Youth

Well, when you indoctrinate your children with global warming BS and nothing short of Marxism, what do you expect?

When I am king, you will have to be 40 to vote.

New Web Site

For any of those interested, I put up a new web site to be the more or less the hub of my varied interests and activities. More info about your humble Captain in his personal life if you are curious.

Yes, Men Do Leave the Market

As many of you know I moonlight at night in a Bruce Wayne/Dark Knight sort of way as a dance instructor. And as I've aged from 23 to my present day 33 in those now approaching 10 years of dance instruction, I've seen the first wave of Gen X'ers age out of their youthful 20's as well as seen a wave of divorcees coming online and back into the "dating" marketplace.

Now for whatever reason it may be, dance tends to attract more women than men and over the years, I've of course befriended several female students. They vary in ages anywhere from 24 to 60, but the one common trait they have is they are typically (though not always) single. And while not always, most of them took dance class half incented to perhaps find a guy.

But what is becoming a more frequent phenomenon is a question these girls ask;

"Where are all the guys?"

I never paid much attention to this, as it has always been the case that men just eschew dance classes, but it wasn't until an older dance student of mine perhaps refined the question a bit and made it more pointed. It wasn't so much "Where are all the guys," as much as it was;

"I just get the feeling there aren't any men anymore. Not just in dance class, but where are all the men from all the various social activities? They make up half the population, but I can't find any single guys to date. They can't all be married, even my female friends are running into this mysterious disappearance of men. Do they like stop trying after a while and just stay home?"

And that's when I realized what she was asking.

"Do you mean, do men give up and don't bother trying to find women any more?" I clarified.

She said, "Yes. So do they?"

"Yes" I answered.

She was somewhat surprised at my response. She said, "so they just give up? They don't go out anymore? Don't they want to find somebody? Anybody?!"

"Yeah, more or less."

"That's crazy! How do they ever expect to find anybody?"

I replied, "Well...they don't."

Regardless, the point was her reaction surprised me in return to see this was that shocking of a revelation to her. I always thought it was kind of common knowledge, men do indeed give up after a while, but apparently it's not. So allow me to explain.

I don't know when precisely it is, nor is it the same for every guy, but inevitably guys in a sense "burn out." Consider it a staged rocket and as the last vestiges of fuel burn out of the booster, it slowly disengages and disintegrates as it plummets back to Earth. Many things can burn out the fuel;

Divorce and the loss of one's assets
Personal finances/loss of job
Demanding/successful career
Or just plain bad dating experiences (your beloved captain has had suicide threats, gotten punched for refusing a girl sex and unknowingly dated a married woman for three months...you get the idea).

But what ultimately results in the decision to exit the market is more of an economic decision. It is the realization that as you have less and less remaining life you have to make surer and surer bets as to how to spend your time. It's no different than switching from equities to bonds as you approach retirement. Ergo, whereas when you were 18 you would stay at a party all night in the hopes of getting a girl's phone number, when you're 25 you start to think about working instead of partying, and by the time you're 30, you rarely go to clubs, dance halls, bars opting instead to play video games at home or read a book or put some more hours in at the office.

The reason is the expected rate of return of your precious, finite, and perpetually dwindling time. If you go out, hot as you may be when you're 18, you have little to no control over succeeding in getting a girl's number or a date. And as experience will tell you it's a 1/20 shot you will succeed, and that's assuming you have good game. All in all, I would estimate most 20 somethings waste an equivalent to 4 full years of full time work chasing girls to relatively little avail. A significant opportunity cost.

The X-Box 360 on the other hand is a guaranteed rate of return.

Working a couple more hours at work, is a guaranteed rate of return.

Even something as simple as lighting up a cigar with your friends and having a good scotch is a guaranteed rate of return.

And dare the Captain admit he enjoys writing for you honyakers and conversing with you as it is a guaranteed rate of return?

And this is what progressively more and more men turn to as they get older. Now I can certainly see the case where a man gets divorced multiple times, losing 50% of his assets each time as it would accelerate the burning the fuel, but this phenomenon goes beyond married and divorced men. This is merely anecdotal and I'd certainly be welcoming of any other guys out there who have noticed this, but whereas all of 10 years ago nearly 100% of my male friends were looking for a wife, now I think in my group of friends less than 25% of them are, none of which have ever been married all of which are under 45. The rationale is it was too burdensome to go out on the "prowl." The idea of paying a cover to go to a club to yell at some stranger over loud music while paying $10 for parking and having to hike 10 blocks in DT Minneapolis is not appealing.

Going to the local sports bar to feign interest in "Brandi" as she talks about the latest issue of People Magazine or American Idol pales in comparison to shooting Nazi's online with your video gaming buds.

And wasting the hour setting up a Match.com profile because your friend gifted you a free month subscription and swore you'd meet chicks is nowhere near as fun as talking politics over a cigar and scotch with intellectual friends (and I want that hour of my life back by the way Jeff!).

Ergo (and again, this is just what I've personally observed) there is a (dare I say) mass exodus of men out of the dating market and into their own little bachelor worlds and this may go a long way in explaining why you don't really see us out there.

Now again, this is just what I've observed and has been seemingly corroborated by the experiences of many different women I've ran into, but we could be wrong. But I would be very curious of any junior, deputy, official or otherwise bachelor economists out there have seen the same thing.

_______________________________

Aaron Clarey is a mean evil sexist poopey head that tells people the truth and hurts their feelings.  He is also the author of "Bachelor Pad Economics," "Worthless," and "Enjoy the Decline."  He also hosts a weekly podcast full of hate, sexism and meanie-ness solely for the purpose of being a jerk, and operates his own consulting company, Asshole Consulting.

Irish Whiskey

St. Patrick's Day is a ways away, but to tide us over till then, some Irish heritage;


Plus your daily Irish funny for today.

S&P 500 Dividend Yield

I wrote a post showing the S&P 500 P/E ratio going back to 1871. I then said that if you looked at history, a DJIA of about 9,000 or so was "about right." However, there was criticism in that it is not earnings, but dividends that ultimately give a stock value and therefore should be the base by which to determine if prices were overvalued or not. This is most certainly correct as the only form of cash you will ever receive from a stock is dividends (and then when you sell the stock or the company is bought out, a capital gains).

Regardless, it is the abandonment of dividends for capital gains to finance our retirements that has resulted in a bubble. And even in using the dividend yield (dividends divided by price), the picture painted is much worse. Stocks, even with the crash in the past two weeks are still overvalued based on the only thing that matters; dividends. We're still not even close to the historical average dividend yield of 5%. Ergo, why buy stocks now?



Of course in light of today's 600+ point rally, people are suggesting I have egg on my face and that the bottom has indeed been reached (no doubt from hence forth stocks will perpetually go onward and upward as Obama will be elected and we'll all have warm financial fuzzies). But allow me to point out two minor things;

1. What if all the increase in stock prices for the past 30 years was due to cash flowing into the stock market from retirement plans, not necessarily because those stocks were good investments making them fundamentally overvalued.

and

2. What do you suppose will happen to stock prices if not only Obama is elected, but the democrats get a veto proof majority?

Enjoy your cute little rally.

Answer Me These Questions Three

I'm not a big fan of Sarah Palin, nor this election, thus why I rarely comment on it. But I just have three questions;

1. What if this was a group of people with shirts saying "Obama's a (Fill In your racial epitaph here)________? Would not the MSM parade that on their front pages?

2. WTF is it with the visceral hatred for Sarah Palin? My sister, who is a rather rational individual even loathes her. WHY? I want a sane liberal/leftist to explain to me, LOGICIALLY (not emotionally) why I should have such hatred for this woman who as far as I can tell is most similar to the American populous, at least more similar than any senator or career politician. I'm willing to hear it and have it explained to me, but the logic I'm seeing is that "Well she a c#nt because she's a c@nt!"

3. This is an observation I've had, and I mean this sincerely. This is not sarcasm nor a slight, it is something I've noticed, a scientific observation that I am genuinely curious about and would welcome reasoned commentary. Far leftists seem to be less attractive, plain and simple. I look at people driving cars with Obama stickers and while there are certainly some hotties or handsomes, on average they are nowhere near as attractive as the average McCain bumper sticker. Additionally the men pictured above just have that "I've never thrown a punch or gotten in a fight nor swept a woman off her feet, but I'm really good at Dungeons and Dragons" kind of look.

I only ask these questions, because I sincerely believe the answer to the differences between the right and left are exemplified in visual form here. I just can't articulate the thought or connect/complete the theory or rationale. Something about that picture, the way those imbeciles look, the ignorant and inexplicable hatred they have (and aside that, it behooves the question, do you derive some kind of utility from wearing shirts like that- behooving yet another question, how pathetic are our lives that this is what you do with it?)

Theories?

Ideas?

Anyone?

Bueller? Bueller?

Does Management Realize There's a Recession

In my book I regale readers with the story of Frank, a banker who was one of TWO bankers during the debauchery that led up to the housing crisis that had their heads out of their asses.

Frank recommended instead of going after real estate deals (which at the time were now completely falling apart and leading to losses to the bank already) we go after more commercial operating lines, things like lines of credit, equipment loans and so forth - anything that wasn't MORE condo deals. Because of this Frank's volume was lower than the other bankers, but his profits were more than all the other bankers combined, simply because none of his loans were losing money. Frank realized the market for good real estate deals had dried up and there was no point trying to pursue them.

But, because Frank didn't have the volume (even though he was making more profit for the bank than anybody else) management fired him because he wasn't bringing in the deals.

A similar story is unfolding with a female friend of mine. She works at a (to keep her anonymity) "store" where she is a salesperson and sells "stuff" that happens to be of the more luxurious sort. No more than a month ago management sat her down to talk to her about her slagging sales volume. They implied she wasn't working hard enough and not making her sales. She tried to explain to them that the economy had soured and because the stuff they sold was more of a luxury item, demand had dropped. She also pointed out that all the other salespeople had experienced a drop in sales.

"Didn't matter." The reason still remained; my female friend was not working hard enough and would have to try harder.

Ergo, I ask the question of management teams across America out there; do you realize that when there's a recession, especially one that hits an industry particularly harsh, that your sales are going to drop, despite the best efforts of your salespeople? That the problem isn't your staff or salespeople, but the economy? That you and your little company sit within this environment called "the economy" and you are not inoculated from it?

The only reason I ask is because, despite the sarcastic tone of the question for even a 3rd grader would know the answer, I'm amazed to this day to see full grown adults in management, whose bonuses are tied to sales, to keep flogging a horse that is dead and expect some kind of result. Do you PHB's ever take the time to stop and think about why sales are lagging? And instead of just barking ineffective orders at your staff that wont' result in increased sales, maybe sitting down and coming up with a new strategy?

The fact that management only knows one option (push the employees harder) shows just how incompetent these people are. If you are in management, presumably you might have a couple more tricks up your sleeve aside from "work harder." If you are in management, you are presumably smart enough to know that the company is affect by a variable of things, and not just the effort your salespeople put forth. If you are in management and an adult, then shouldn't you at least be mature or professional enough to realize doing the same thing again, but stronger, is not only pointless, but a waste of time and it is YOUR JOB to lead and come up with a different strategy that WILL improve sales?

Alas, this is why people like Frank should have been promoted to management and management be sent out into the firing range. Frank had an idea to diversify beyond real estate (and two years later his strategy would have paid off). My female friend suggested a less luxurious product line. I've always suggested if you have good sales people, you put them on furlough or pay them some basic sustenance salary like $15,000 a year and health care and not have them come back until the economy picks back up. You'd not only save money, but you'd earn the loyalty of your salespeople.

Of course I have a full head of hair, neither side of which is getting pointy. So what do I know?

Radio Interview #4

Hi All,

In between Saturday morning cartoons, if you happen to be awake I will be on the David Strom Show with (obviously) David Strom.

AM 1280 the Patriot. 915AM.

Feel free to tune in! And if you miss your Bugs Bunny cartoons, don't worry, I have them all on DVD (and the unedited ones too, where "Should We Shoot Him Now or Wait Till We Get Home" and Elmer Fudd actually shoots Daffy Duck!)

Picture of the Day

I forgot the blog I found this on, please contact me so I may give you an appropriate hat tip.

Down, Down, Down She Goes

In a horrible movie called "Thunderbirds" starring Nicolas Cage, I remember only one quote;

"I AM THE GREATEST! I AM THE GREATEST!"


You mean that bail out didn't work? You mean, ultimately the country has to produce something of worth in order for our stocks to have value? I thought we could just go to Applebee's the entire time while our children majored in journalism and got a government job while we drove around our $40,000 SUV and feel warm fuzzies about ourselves because we were going to vote for Obama.

Guess for some of you ill prepared lefter-leaning middle aged folk who thought the 60's would go on forever might have to work a little past 65, eh?

Like I said, any banks or governments out there that want to contract me out for my insane wisdom, you certainly may. And it's certainly a cheaper option than $700 billion. Heck, spending $22.95 would have prevented this debacle!

Deposit Insurance By Country

From the progressively lefter leaning Economist;


Of course what really backs up Norway's deposits is the fact the Norwegians spend within their means. But I guess that's just too un-American.

Largest Re-Enlistment Photos

Friend sent these to me and I guess the MSM somehow failed to pick up on these. I like how we get treated to pictures of massive military parades in China and North Korea or thousands of terrorists chanting, "Death to America" but we never really see anything that would instill hope or patriotism in America. Then again, this could be why the old media is dying and seeing their subscribership tank;





The beauty of it is, it's in Al Faw Palace in Baghdad. I like the big US flag there.

The Stock Market is About Where It Should Be

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because it’s true) dropping stock prices are a good thing. Crashing stock markets are a great thing. And the reason why is unless you are retiring tomorrow, you’ll be able to pick up stocks all that much cheaper. Instead of paying $100 for a share of IBM you’re paying $40. Instead of $200 for Merck, you’re paying $125. Ergo why, especially the younger generations, should be cheering for a collapse in the stock market.

But what is interesting is trying to find out precisely when the market will bottom out. When is the “ultimate” or “ideal” time to buy. I know many people have been saying, “Hey, now’s the time, it doesn’t get any better than this” but allow me to pour a little more rain on the parade.

Based on P/E ratios furnished by Dr. Shiller at Yale, the S&P 500 as of August was still trading above its historical P/E average of 16 (the red line), trading roughly around a P/E of 20. Now this does not include the 25% drop in the S&P 500 that has occurred since August. Even adjusting for that (and assuming earnings don’t tank further), the stock markets are at best…

Accurately valued.

Sorry to tell all you people that, but right here is where the markets are in line with their historical valuations. The Dow Jones at 9,500 and the S&P 500 at around 1,000 is where things should roughly be. This is “correct.” This is “about right.”

Ergo, you should not be loading up on stocks now, because you’d be paying the historically average price of a stock which is $16 in stock price for each $1 in earnings. You’re not getting a deal, you’re paying retail. People should wait for the market to REALLY go on sale, and with a recession guaranteed, it’s almost a surety it will. You laugh at Cramer suggesting a 7,700 Dow, just like my big time former employers laughed at me when I said there was a housing bubble (and an Asian currency crisis and a Dotcom Bubble), but you might just want to (for a change) listen.

Post Script - many thanks to Dr. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for the link. For those visiting from Instapundit, I would be immeasurably grateful if you could mayhaps suggest to Dr. Reynolds that he take a look at my book so that I may attain my goal of beating Nancy Pelosi in book sales.

Big Oil Interviews an Economist

How much MORE evil can you get?

BIG OIL interviewing a PRIVATE SECTOR ECONOMIST!

It's just so evil, it's almost guaranteed to be good!