One little sentence a lot of people seem to forget

You've got to admire Bernake and his set of solid brass balls and gall. He actually had the nerve to state that interest rates being too low but it was a lack of regulation. Hello???!!! Isn't regulation of banks part of the Fed's job? So either the Fed failed at that part or actually did keep rates too low for too long or a combination of the two.

This morning some broker sent me a BBRG message commenting on how goes the first week of January, so goes the year. He then went on to cite that this statistic has been 80% correct over the last 50 years. Little quibble here is that last year (that is now '09) in the first week of January saw a ~13% decline in the SPX only to end the year up ~23%. Which brings me to something that is said on every document you get from your 401(k) administrator, broker or anyone else involved in managing money; that would be the following sentence: Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Funny how after two years of fat tail events or black swans or whatever you want to call the events that no one thought would ever occur but did in the past two years you still have people who think that just because it has happened many times in the past it will most likely happen again.

Some bad news for the in-laws last night. The husband's step-father's father has been ill for the past several years and he passed away over the weekend. They flew off to Europe this morning for the funeral. I will send my step-father-in-law (that's a mouthful to type) a card expressing my sympathy. I asked the husband what is the feasibility of sending flowers but we never figured it out.

Tomorrow the husband will be going north to mom and dad's for a few days. His younger sister is on winter break for five weeks and needed something to keep her busy that also fits into her engineering studies. Dad came through in the clutch and got her two unpaid internships for a week each; one at an engineering firm and one at an architectural firm up north. The husband is psyched. It means I won't be able to hit the gym in the mornings but not a big deal.

I totally forgot I am meeting a senior from my alma mater tomorrow for drinks and to discuss his aspirations about getting a job in my line of work. Thankfully he emailed me this morning checking in.