Holy crap the bus was full hot guys this morning! I love sitting at the back of the bus and watching them all get on at the various stops on the way into the Port Authority.
I actually biked 12 miles this morning at the gym. I felt like I was going to die by the end of the ride to hell. I was still schvittzing when I sat down at the desk 30 minutes later.
First thing I read was tht apparently the DoD had signed off or agreed it would be in our best interests to sell Blackhawks and Patriot missiles to Taiwan. WTF??!!! Seriously, why now are we deciding it is a good time to jab another eye in the eye of the Chinese? We are starting a trade war with them, have attacked them after how many years of them censoring the internets there, we know they are running a cyber-war against us and now we figure we'll antagonize them just a little more. Sure, sounds like a plan to me for this country when China is also our largest creditor.
I got a great BBRG message yesterday from a guy at a large U.S. bank that currently engages in prop trading. He made the observation that here in the West we get all pissy and uptight when the government takes stakes in banks and then decides they have a say in how the banks should run their business. Apparently Western governments have no point in being involved in the direct business of allocating capital. Yet those same investors are falling over themselves to invest in all and any Chinese bank which are all majority owned by the Chinese government, i.e. a Communists government that believes in and practices authoritarian central planning of the economy. Can someone please explain to me why these investors have more faith in the Chinese Communist party correctly and efficiently allocating capital than our own democratically elected governments?
You have to love how the Fed finally now decides the Fed Funds rate is not the correct benchmark rate and are debating switching to or creating a new benchmark rate. As one commentator put it it is basically a confession of shit, this is the target we set and no one is hitting it or paying attention to it. Let's just make a new one. The problem I have with it is does that mean (which I am inclined to believe) the past twenty years of using the FFR as the benchmark have been a huge waste of time? Also the other option they have is just to raise the FFR tomorrow form zero to 25 bps. Actually they can't do that because the economy is actually in worse shape than they are letting on with all of there massaged statistics. You also have to wonder about all the unintended consequences that will arise form creating a new benchmark. It is another step away from letting the markets. i.e. the supply and demand for overnight interbank loans,set the rate and an attempt to wrest control back. I am not saying it doesn't have merit. It is quite possible that by letting the market set the benchmark rate over the last twenty years that is what helped cause the mess we are in right now. Funny thing though is a lot of people lie having supply and demand set it as opposed to some supposedly objective econometric model which by its very nature has flaws and inherent biases built into it.
For the record I found out today that basil chicken salad will stain a light colored shirt if it comes into contact with said light colored shirt. Just thought everyone should know for future reference.
I was chatting with my cousin this morning. He is the one who got me into this business. He was commenting on or lamenting the fact he will be 50 later this year. I told him he should be psyched as it means he will now got to avail himself of all the AARP discounts. He questioned me on that and I explained to him the first real shop I worked for in my line of work ran all the AARP mutual funds so all of the employees of that shop were automatically members of AARP regardless of age and for free. I miss the days I could use the discounts for car rentals and hotels and when people doubted me I'd whip out my membership card and they had to acquiesce to my demand for the discount.
Apparently I need to give m employer my passport number. It seems we will be getting registered to conduct some non-U.S. business and Big Brother (aka a foreign government) requires that information.
I read about Nancy Kerrigan's father passing away and how her brother is now a suspect in an alleged murder of him. Seriously, hasn't anyone thought to check out Tanya Harding's whereabouts at the time of the alleged crime? She had no compunction whatsoever in hiring someone to take a pipe to Nancy's knee years ago, got caught, did her time. It could be all about revenge and patience.
I debated not using spell check tonight as I am kind of beat from the dojo but figured I should. I may skip it later this week and just let my bad spelling and grammar stay as is.
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