May

11

Nobody asked me, but which recent Wimbledon champion had his role in default due to mother and daughter sanitized to win because of injury in a recent obit?

As usual the bond vigilantes are close to causing a double dip, and a well deserved one at that, in the economy.

The US long bond and German Bund now both at 120 1/3 move together like love and marriage despite their differences in everything, like the S&P and Nikkei now close to the magic 1000 but still flirting with the mid 900s.

Longwood Gardens has the most fun children's garden in the world and had lines of 50 cars waiting to get into their 1500 car parking lot.

There are entire blocks of seaport communities wherever I look vacant before the boom season of summer auguring badly for the state of recreation.

A store offers 10% off to those ripped off by Madoff and another one out of business offers prices reduced by 70% in line with the cold weather of February.

The discount stores continue to do very well with all the Bob Evans and Applebees I went to with big lines outside. Thus the price mechanism works well with high priced items showing much reduced demand and low priced items increasing in line with Walmart and McDonalds performing better than Tiffany's .

The price to weight ratio pioneered by Roger Longman is a better indicator of abnormal, exceptional business than return on equity. The correlation between the price to weight ratio and subsequent return is highly negative during recessions.

The economy would have been in much better shape right now without the interventions than with them. The evidence that bank failures were highly correlated with reductions in output is due mainly to the output's causing the failure rather than the bank failures' causing the output declines.

The fears of crony capitalism that Albert Jay Nock wrote about vis a vis the Secretary of the Interior's being the most important person in the government that everyone wanted to glad hand as he twirled around like a teetotum not being able to sing the last lines of Marching Through Georgia are so resonant with the crony capitalism that is so common in Russia, the old Germany, and places and times so much closer.

Alan Millhone writes in:

Speaking of one of favorite restaurants, I took my mother to the Parkersburg Route 50 Bob Evans today for the last time as it closed for good today at 4 PM. Very unusual for any Bob Evans to ever close as new ones open all the time in America. A good book is out about the life of Bob Evans who began as a short order cook at his roadside cafe in Gallipolis, Ohio years ago. He and his wife lived on a farm in Rio Grande, Ohio and he passed away not that long ago. He gave away much of his wealth to a variety of good causes. It was sad to see today one of his namesakes close. All the workers there knew our names and we knew theirs. We will miss going there.

Jim Sogi comments:

J SogiLook at some past excesses that in hindsight seem so obvious, but at the time seemed, well, kind of high. Real estate of course seemed kind of high, but it wasn't clear the effect of the fallout on credit and bonds. The dot com bubble of course seemed high, but the fall out was bad tho contained. The premature bailout caused the real estate boom. The high teen bond yield in the 80s was outlying. Looking around now, what seems, 'kind of high'? Government spending/debt is the obvious answer. Just as crashing real estate wasn't really comprehensible, government itself crashing isn't comprehensible to many. But look at the Palindrome, the Distinguished Prof, at Russia, at Iraq, at Sarajevo, Japan, Germany, all governments that fell rapidly in recent memory. It's not so farfetched. States and municipalities are stretched. The Feds are painting themselves into a corner. The boomers are getting old. I shudder to think of the downside. To protect yourself, you have to think of the downside. What if?

 Douglas Roberts Dimick comments:

Why Nobody Did…

All the time that Greenspan and clan where being hurrahed, I wondered about the Bob Evans and Big Mac folks.

It seemed he was fixated on the eminence of real estate and stock portfolio managers and their giants of ownership, allowing them to feast and fatten on the depositories of working people post Glass-Steagall.

Meanwhile, Greenspan’s so favored and their legions of bean counters and suits figured new ways to lean out related entitlements and private sector employee benefits.

This article’s taking to task the recent interventions appears well founded in that context of price to weight ratio. Though valid in ideal and policy, two-party, two-administration applications may be collectively recorded as the epitome of the saying that we use to spout out in the Army… “Good enough for government work.”

Therewith, the legalized corruption of the US federal (and some state) electoral processes came to roost.

The question to be answered now: as a society and as a voting electorate, have Americans become too blind (or perhaps jaded or merely reduced in common sense quotient) to see above those well manicured bank and financial hedges, now only pillared a la government bailouts when not political party sellouts?

Will we seek out those who now hide behind well-trimmed bush, so appropriately labeled “crony capitalists” as they are now seen, as the tide continues to ebb outward, to be not only financially and morally naked but quite two-faced about the role(s) of government in business and society?

The time to smell the roses is past. Time to spread their manure and plant our new, hopeful hybrid-seeds for individual and collective wealth generation.

Derrick Humbert writes:

When in the Atlanta area I strongly recommend Callaway Gardens, located 50 mi southwest of Atlanta and 60 miles from Auburn Al. It has so much to offer from PGA golf, to world class bass fishing to butterfly exhibit to herb garden seen on PBS to a Christmas display.

I visited it some years back and the view is absolutely breathtaking. I suggest if you plan on lodging you get a cabin for the week and a restaurant package as there are no real restaurants in the area. Plan ahead as cabin availability is severely limited for the summer.

Nearby is the winter home of FDR, who came for the warm springs to help with his polio.

Much to offer here and the place in not affiliated with the golf company Callaway.

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