As we approach the New Year and ready ourselves to reflect on the past and to ponder, however briefly, the future, it is traditional to gift those with whom we share our lives.
Why not give a gift that will keep on giving? Give them a book.
Some more Friday
I am going to try just thumbnails inserted into the post and see if the thumbnail will allow you to pull up a larger image.
A brief Fall Winterland that only lasted a few minutes. Then it was gone, and so was I.
Friday was a bit different.
Friday morning we awoke to bright sunshine and the remains of a fog that crept in on deer’s feet in the night. It would not last long.
But had left a bit of itself behind.
hmmm, maybe these pics are too big a file size. Let me try some other options.
Cloudy Thursday
Another experiment – Thursday was a cold cloudy day.
And from a slightly different angle
Can you find the hidden critter?
I didn’t even know it was there.
This is a bit of an experiment inserting images into my post. I have some more coming from Friday.
Being Lazy
I just came across this site that gives some guidelines on developing worry-free investment portfolios. They make sense to me and I think I am following them with my own retirement planning. I do like #5 – If you’re not saving 10%, you’re spending too much.
I wonder about this quote:
Albert Einstein put it very simple: “There is no greater power known to man than compounding interest.”
I checked on Snopes and it is undetermined that Einstein really said anything like that. So he probably didn’t. Even though the sentiment is right on.
I don’t worry about what my portfolio is doing these days and I keep telling Elaine not to worry. We have set up a portfolio as best we could and we will see what it looks like in a few years.
My concern about the current state of the market is for the overall state of the US and Global economy. We have to live with the macroeconomic fallout of this meltdown and I don’t see any reliable hands the helm at present. But what do I know? Maybe paying dividends to shareholders of failing financial institutions is the best way to go. Not.
A New Cross Poster
My old Cross Posting application seemed to stop working when I upgraded to the latest version of Word Press, so I am trying a new one:
Live+Press allows WordPress posts to be automatically crossposted to a LiveJournal user blogs. This fork of the plugin is licensed under GPLv3. All contributions and suggestions are welcome. More plugin details and help can be found at the plugin home page on google code. Originally written by Jason Goldsmith By Tania Morell (aka digsite).
The old one was
LiveJournal Comments 1.0.3 This plugin displayes a number of comments in posts crossposted to LiveJournal. You can see how if works here. By Alexander Bishop.
Another Picture?
I am experimenting here. I don’t know if others will be able to link to this picture.
Plus I am trying another LiveJournal cross-posting software app and I need to see how that works.
A World Record Setter in the Family!
My sister Cate recently participated in a World Record Attempt for Wingsuit Formation Flying. And they succeeded! As I understand it, they used the first four days to get folks use to formation flying and then 71 of them made the formation happen on Nov 12.
Why my sister Cate wants to throw herself from an airplane with nothing more than a wing and a prayer is a story from another day.
Congratulations Cate!
Why have the UK papers covered it so well?
The Sun ( with a picture Slide Show, but it is The Sun)
The end is just the again beginning
I found this interesting article by Michael Lewis, the author of Liar’s Poker, discussing a bit of what’s been happening on Wall Street in the twenty years since he left. I liked Liar’s Poker when it came out and find it disturbing that the next generation of Wall Streeters found it to be a useful how-to manual.
There is an object lesson somewhere in all this involving doom-sayers, pessimists, and people trying to see the dreams all the while ignoring the nightmares. How to make reality the nightmare? Ignore it for a while. Wall Street seems very good at ignorance.
Eisman was appalled. “Look,” he said. “I’m short. I don’t want the country to go into a
depression. I just want it to fucking deleverage.” He had tried a
thousand times in a thousand ways to explain how screwed up the
business was, and no one wanted to hear it. “That Wall Street has gone
down because of this is justice,” he says. “They fucked people. They
built a castle to rip people off. Not once in all these years have I
come across a person inside a big Wall Street firm who was having a
crisis of conscience.”
Even I, an uneducated fiscal novice, could see that a house of cards was being built with my, and everyone’s, money for the past decade. And it was being built in an earthquake zone. And I was asking at every chance “how can I protect my investments?” And knowledgeable folks couldn’t help me. Even those that agreed that an earthquake was coming didn’t have any viable alternatives. Now I see, I should have shorted the mortgage/CDO/CDS market.
What do I want in a new Administration
· Habeus Corpus
· National HMO
o All citizens automatically subscribed.
· Sunset Laws – All Federal laws expire after 20-25 years.
· A more representative Democracy – 1 representative per X citizens: X = 100,000 – 150,000 – 200,000 – TBD
· One basic Income Tax deductible – poverty level for your category/location.
o No Itemization
· Linear progressive income tax – up to 40% for income in excess of presidential salary – details TBD.
o Maybe another 10% for every multiple of the President’s Salary?
· A National Service Education Bill, similar to the GI Bill I used through college in the ‘70s
o 3-4 Years of Military, Community, National, Service Qualifies
· Pay for medical school in exchange for 10+ years of service in National HMO or other Public Health Service
· National Guard not activated and deployed outside of US Territory without declaration of war or declaration of National Emergency – by Congress.
· Reserve Forces not called up to active duty without declaration of war or declaration of National Emergency – by Congress.
· Reserve Forces and National Guard not deployed into combat zones without declaration of war – by Congress.
· Recognition that the President is NOT a king, that the president does NOT represent the People, that the president executes the instructions of Congress.
· Anyone with more than 15 years legislative experience in Congress can not hold a committee or sub-committee chairmanship or a speakership.
· No monetary foreign aid to non-democracies, kleptocracies and countries in civil war.
· No military aid anywhere.
· Only registered voters are allowed to donate to political campaigns.
· Revision of Capital Gains Taxes
o No tax paid on selling one stock/fund/security to reinvest in another stock/fund/security
o Tax only when stock/fund/security is sold and is not reinvested
· Revision of Estate Tax
o No tax on physical property, e.g. land, art, heirlooms, private businesses, etc.
o Tax on money/stocks/funds/securities overseen by SEC or its international equivalents.
o Tax on physical properties only when sold. e.g. you inherit a Renoir and don’t sell it in your lifetime- you are never taxed for it – and you can pass it on to the next generation. If they sell it they are going to pay a lot of taxes on it. ($0 cost basis)
o Tax inheritance (as noted above) at something like 60-70% for any estate worth more than 10 times the president’s annual salary. Less than that can be treated differently
· Corporations are not persons – legally
· Corporations must subject to regulatory oversight
o Regulatory oversight requirements reviewed every 5-10 years
§ Regulations shouldn’t be a straight jacket
§ More protection against gaming the system
o If an individual wants to run a business and doesn’t want to incorporate, they are not subject to the regulations that govern corporations, nor the protections.
· If a Federal Agency has certified that a product is safe for public use, then the Federal government is liable for any suits brought against the product
o Strong Inspector General office to ensure against collusion
o Strong certification process – who cares if it takes 20 years to evaluate.
o Vendor may release with preliminary approval but without protection
· Any compensation dispensed in excess of the President’s annual salary is considered corporate profit
· FEMA should set up Emergency Distribution centers at the various large military reservations around the country and pre-stock emergency supplies. Consumables can be rotated through with various international relief efforts. Trailers may be aired out before they are needed.
· President’s Annual Salary equal to ten times the median household income.