Change?

Change... Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.

Welcome to HELL

OK, studying is my least favorite thing to do and I am about to lock my self in a box for the next 6-9 months doing just that, studying.

I figure it is time to take the plunge. I am going to take the CPA exam in January 2010. (and probably plenty more times after January)

So, you won't be seeing me much in the next couple of months. That is unless you watch the evening news and pay attention to the reports of suicidal men on overpasses.

Also, use this as a notice as to why I will be a little bit more irritable than usual. (Hard to do I know)

---One last thing, If anyone knows a CPA that is looking for cheap labor, let me know, I have to get experience hours...Oh boy, this is going to be fun :(

Unbelievable!!

This will come as a surprise to all that know me, but I think I may have to admit that I was wrong. I am travelling for work in St. Louis and it is actually a really nice place to visit. The scenery is top notch and the architecture is really unique. Of course this could be because today it is 82 degrees with no humidity and there are no clouds in sight.

However, the people are still fat and every place smells like smoke and coal. I think the city might even get bumped up on my list of places to return to if they pass a no public smoking ban (currently on the ballot).

Note to self---dont make an opinion of a midwestern city in the winter.

Dilbert- If we had any money...

Stress test delay- again

The Fed decided to delay the release of the bank stress tests again. They were due out on the 4th.
This can not be good news.

Off to SF today.

quote of the week

When refering to Chrysler's Bankruptcy the big O had this to say, "This is not a sign of weakness but rather one more step on a clearly chartered path to Chrysler's revival."

Not a sign of weakness? That's confusing, I thought only those who couldnt meet their obligations filed for Chapter 11 restructuring. Nobody told me that it meant a clearly chartered path towards revival. Well, now I know.

A Unique Place

Here are some interesting economical things I learned while in Ireland (Quick Version)
- Their equivalant to our sales tax (VAT tax) is 21.5% in the Republic of Ireland and 15% in Northern Ireland. No property tax. Highest incomce tax rate in the UK is now 50%, 35% in the Republic of Ireland.

-Outstanding public facilities (train stations, airport, buses, libraries, etc..) with plenty of ongoing building in downtown areas.

-Belfast is a ticking time bomb ready to send the country back to the 1980's. The relgious divide is apparent in N. Ireland and it is going to come to a boiling point soon according to many of the people I spoke with.

-Despite the tensions between the Protestants and Catholics, many Catholics prefer to remain a part of the UK and fear the economic change that would accompany succession.

-Outside of the main cities, Dublin & Belfast, most of the communities are either self sustained (inland) or are focused around the tourist industry (Coastal Regions).

-Sadly fly fishing is not very popular in Ireland. There are a few die hard old timers, but fishing is looked on as a means to an end, not as a hobby.

-There are a lot of Polish people in Ireland. They mostly came over as mushroom pickers in the 1970's and 1980's and were once considered the gypsy class of Ireland, living out of caravans (motorhomes). Now they are accepted as a part of the Irish working class population.Very similar to the Mexican population in California.

-Polish is the #2 language in Ireland, ahead of Gaelic and behind English.

-Ford has a strong presence in Ireland. GM, although I did see a dealership, I didnt see any of their cars on the road.

...To be continued.....maybe....

Halfway there...

Ken Lewis was removed as Chairman of BofA's Board of directors today. It looks like he will remain in the CEO position until the rest of the crap hits the fan.

:::Flashback:::
February 22nd...Can someone please tell me why Ken Lewis is still employed?

I guess the stockholders are wondering that same question.

Obama & Chavez

Is this a sign of the times to come? I am afraid it is.

Ireland Trip

Dublin Trip

This is going to be a good week!

Gloomy Travel day

Airport is empty on Good Friday!?. That's not normal. According to the admirals club, membership is way down from last year. Businesses are not renewing their sales reps accounts. Makes me wonder why they raised the annual fee.

Off to Dublin!

Relevant- 1934 Comic

GM & Chrysler Can't Cover Invoices

More money to GM, Chrysler
Today the shares of the auto parts suppliers rose dramatically. I thought that was weird because of the state of the industry, so I started to dig through headlines to see why. What I found was that the government has ‘pledged’ $5 billion in guarantees to the auto parts manufacturers for any parts shipped to GM or Chrysler after March 19, 2009. Where does the $5 billion come from you ask? Well, GM & Chrysler borrowed it from the government in the form of a line of credit.

It’s funny the way the news and the Treasury are reporting this. They call it a “supplier support program”. In actuality, GM & Chrysler couldn’t afford to pay their AR, so they borrowed from the government credit line to cover their outstanding invoices.

The total amount of loans for GM & Chrysler YTD =$17.4 Billion!

Bank Stress Tests---Fail?

Today Reuters is reporting that the results of the stress tests preformed on the financial institutions would not be released until after earning season.

Would the administration delay the results if the stress test results were positive? Probably not

The Treasury Dept. says it wants to “avoid complicating stock market reaction.” In other words, our banking system is shit. In delaying the results the Treasury Dept. is trying to avoid a dramatic drop in banking shares. The release of bad quarterly numbers and the poor stress test results would negatively affect the stocks of the banking industry, and in turn, the overall market.

So much for transparency.

Gov't Backed Auto Warranties- Ha Friggin Ha

Baseball is Here

Opening day is today (actually yesterday).
My Picks:

AL Champ: New York Yankees
NL Champ: Chicago Cubs

Teams to watch this year: Billy Beane's Oakland A's & Atlanta Braves

Disappointments this year: Anaheim Angels & NY Mets

N. Korea calls bluff

We threatened, they prepared their rockets, we threatened again, they launched their rockets, we whine and go away.

Last week North Korea launched a LCBM that flew over Japan and crashed into the Pacific Ocean 1300 miles from the launch site. I recall them saying that the launch was in order to send a satellite into orbit, hmmm....ocean satellites, I thought those were called buoys. Needless to say our allies in the region are scared S****less about living next to a mad man that has the capability to deliver A-bombs via airmail.

After the launch the world went into a panic. The end result.....the UN won't even issue a "preliminary" statement of condemnation.

...meanwhile in Obama fantasy land....
A nuclear free world is on the agenda for the week. Hmmmm. If we cant stop Iran from developing a nuclear warhead, what makes him think we could take it away once it is built?

Politically Polarized

So basically if you are a Democrat, you still have "hope". If you are a Republican, the writing is on the wall.

Who is buying this stock? & Why?

GM up 8.29% today despite the impending BK. Do people see value in the BK? I just don't get it.

GM- Doomed

Bankruptcy Awaits...Here is the latest news on the GM debacle.

-Bloomberg reports that GM & the other car makers posted smaller than expected sales numbers for the month of March.
-In an effort to increase sales numbers the same automakers spent a record amount of incentive programs to lure in customers. (Lets see, higher marketing costs & lower sales revenue, hmm...)
-CEO Obama says that there will be no financial support for GM for their June 1st debt payments. (1 Billion at 1.5%)

Newsflash- The UAW needs to make some sacrifices and for some reason they won't come to the table. It makes no sense to me. The UAW has two options, make concessions while they have some political capital with the Democratically controlled DC crew, or sit in front of a BK judge who will take a proverbial weed whacker to the union contracts.

Not So Friggin Funny

OUCH!!

Ha Friggin Ha

Ha Friggin Ha

GM & Chrysler get B^%# Slapped

Today the Big O Administration decided to get "tough" with Chrysler and GM. They figured if CEOs that have been in the industry for 30+ years can't figure out how to turn a profit, well then the US GOV must show them how. (And we know how well the Feds can balance a budget and produce results. ) Today Obama forced the resignation of the GM CEO Rick Wagoner as a stipulation for additional government aide. A similar move to when Hank Paulson forced our AIG's CEO in 2008. Mr. Obama announced the decision in a press conference addressing the "restructuring" of the US auto industry.

What do you call it when a government starts to control private industry? Not just a business, but an industry. GM and Chrysler screwed up, don't get me wrong. But, shouldn't the company's share holders do the hiring and firing of the CEO, not the President of the United States? Where does this path lead us....?
One thing is for sure, with Obama controlling the selectiong of the CEO of GM (and dont think he isn't) he will be able to pursue his green initiative with an American car maker in his pocket.

Heres an idea. Bankruptcy, its coming eventually, why prolong the inevitable?

Frontline

One of my favorite TV show is Frontline on PBS. Although the show is a little on the biased side it provides a great deal of information on relevant topics. Last night's Frontline was no exception.
The episode covered the impact of the Nation's debt and its effect of economic growth. It also covered in detail how we ended up where we are today. It explained how thanks to Bush's increased entitlement spending, the two wars, and the expiration of the pay-as-you-go provision, our nation is saddled with $11 some-ought trillion in debt.

The program also does a good job framing the potential outcome of the Obama spending patterns.

Check it out when you have an hour to burn...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/view/

No More Lenders???

What happens when no one wants to buy your bonds? Ask the UK.
Gordon Brown's government completed a failed auction yesterday, selling 1.63 billion in gifts (UK's terms for bonds) out of a total 1.75 billion up for sale. Although this is not a rare occurrence for the UK seeing how it happened about seven years ago. However, if the US sees this type of lending contraction our economy would be in a state of chaos.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amPQ1sDv8PFU&refer=home

The Buzz

EU President says US handling of this economic crisis is a "road to hell"

--Tell us what you really think--

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-presidency-US-economic-apf-14737788.html

Obama picks Volcker to "rebalance" tax code.

I guess 'rebalance' is the new 'redistribute'.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8yCQsJfpb24&refer=home

Govenor of the Bank of England warns the PM Gordon Brown to stop spending money. "We are out of Money"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5971296.ece

Ha Friggin Ha

The Federal Budget- A Lot of Zeros

The first news story I read today was a piece on Senator Judd Gregg criticizing Obama's budget. If the senator's name sounds familiar it is because he is the same man that Obama picked to head the Commerce Department. He is also the same man who turned down Obama's appointment because he thought Obama's views were too radical. (Surprise)

In the news piece I read this morning Gregg had this to say, “Today’s analysis of the President’s FY 2010 budget by the Congressional Budget Office confirms that under the President’s plan, our debt will increase to shocking levels that are simply unsustainable and will devastate future economic opportunities for our children and grandchildren"

After reading Gregg's statement, I had to see this budget for myself.

Here is the Whitehouse.gov copy of the budget.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
& Here is the Congressional Budget Office's review of the budget:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10014/03-20-PresidentBudget.pdf

...If you decide to take a look at the budget it may give you a headache if you aren't familiar government accounting practices. As a matter of fact, it gave me a headache and I have an accounting background. Never the less they are worth looking over.

There are some major discrepancies in these two reports.
The primary discrepancy in the two reports is the budget deficit calculation. The White House is predicting much lower deficits than Congress. How much lower you ask......oh by about 2.3 trillion lower. In other words, the Big O and the Democratically Controlled Congress are not even close in their forecasts. Is the Big O a little too optimistic??

If you read through the Congressional budget review, which I highly recommend, there sections that are extremely alarming. Here are a few of the things that troubled me:

"Debt held by the public would rise, from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to 57 percent in 2009 and to 82 percent of GDP by 2019." (FYI the Chinese= "the public")

"Spending for mandatory programs would fall in 2010 and 2011...and then rise by an average of 4.7 percent annually (about three-fourths of a percentage point above the growth rate of nominal GDP) through 2019."

"CBO’s estimate of the deficits under the President’s budget are higher each year than those estimated by the Administration—by $93 billion for 2009 and by about $2.3 trillion for the 2010–2019 period"

"The President’s budget proposal would establish a fund to finance some of the costs of health care reform, although the document does not specify the policies that would constitute such reform"

...and there's more. Check it out for yourself.

The Buzz

Todays Buzz

Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski tells Obama to worry about economy, not NCAA picks.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/19/duke-coach-obama-worry-economy-ncaa-picks/

Photo of Putin undercover as a tourist surfaces.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=8140

Will Japan go to war with North Korea? I’m thinking maybe.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/19/if-n-korea-launches-japan-wants-payback/

End of the fake-out week long rally? ?
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/npage/2_3051.html?mod=mdc_h_dtabnk&symb=DJIA

FED Meeting Outcome

The FED decided to buy about $300 billion in longer term US treasuries today, along with another $750 billion in mortgage backed securities.

I am not sure how this will turn out in the long run, but wall street sure seems happy today.

This is effectively going to push down consumer & business loan rates and in turn provide a shot of energy to the market. That is if people are confident enough to borrow, who am I kidding, we are Americans, borrowing is what we do best (or worst).

On the flip side, the dollar will weaken and personal debt will increase. Lets just hope Bernanke can reign in the inflation this type of action will cause better than his predecessor did.

My Ireland vacation just got a little more expensive. Thanks Big Ben!

The Buzz today

-The new administration has laid out a climate plan that could cost up to $2 trillion dollars.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/18/obama-climate-plan-could-cost-2-trillion/

- CPI rose .4% in February. It looks like we might have to hold off on the deflation worries for now. Sorry mainstream media.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-consumer-prices-rise-04-apf-14675456.html

-Lance Armstrong has been tested for steriods 24 times since September 2008. I sure hope he is clean.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=3992009

-The Hybrid fad is finally over...at least until the summer gas price increase.

The Market is Sound?

Obama says US market is sound.

I don't think I even need to write anything else about this, but I am bored, so I will.

I think one thing that is going to piss me off with this administration is the fact that they can't tolerate bad press. Over the last couple of weeks the Obama administration has done nothing but tout our situation as the greatest financial crisis our generation has ever seen, and rightly so. After repeating that mantra about a thousand times Americans are beginning to realize that he and the Donkeys are using a Bush/Republican tactic of playing on the fears of Americans to pursue an agenda. Then, this weekend on Obama's glorified weekend vblog he says that the economy is sound despite the mess we are in. Who is he fooling?

Lets recap, our banking system has imploded, foreclosure rates jumped 30% in February, unemployment is up month to month (CA exceeding 10%), the Dow Industrials are down 40% from October 2008, and our #1 treasury holder (China) is doubting our ability to pay back our debt... The market is anything but sound.

On Meet the Press an Obama adviser Christina Romer said this, "The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology." --Are you kidding me? All of these words and there is absolutely no meaning behind them. American workers are sound...ok I guess if you exclude all the unions, We have good capital stock.... I have no idea what she is refering to (cattle maybe, because its sure not our market capital), and we have good technology...compared to who, the East? ummm not really.

Last rhetorical question, if the market is sound why did the American taxpayers just cut about 3 trillion dollars worth of "Stimulus" and "Bailout" checks?

Mr. Obama vs. The Market

IRA Violence

Are you kidding me? For the first time in 12 years there has been IRA violence in Northern Ireland. Three people have been killed this week in murders claimed by "The Real IRA", two UK Army soldiers and one police officer. All of this comes one month before my first trip to Belfast.
I just hope these are a couple of one off incidents.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/the-real-ira-stands-up/?hp

Dow to 5320?

The bleeding continues today with another ugly day on Wall Street.
Almost down 50% from October.


Jim Cramer made a bold prediction today on CNBC. He believes that it is likely that the DOW will hit 5320 this year.
Hate to say it but, that doesn't seem to be stretch of the imagination.

Volcker has an idea from 1933

Today at NYU Stern School of Business Paul Volcker gave a conference that indicated some one is actually thinking about how to fix the bank problem. Up until today the Bad Bank theory has been the talked about solution. However the “Bad Bank” solution is not a solution at all. The Bad Bank idea was designed to ‘clean’ the balance sheets by transferring the toxic debt to a separate entity, a bad bank. Once the toxic debt is off the balance sheet, the theory is that the banks can get back to lending. The “Bad Bank’ idea is a feasible solution for the near term crisis.

But what about the long term?

Paul Volcker says that commercial banks and investment banks should be separated. Under this idea the commercial banks would be focused on providing depository services and access to credit to consumers. The investment banks can then operate with more risk due to the indirect impact of their actions on the commercial bank customer.

Ever heard of the Glass-Steagall Act?
One of the major fixes of the financial system after the great depression was the Glass-Steagall Act. In 1933 this legislation was introduced to give more power to the FED, while also separating the banks by type of business (commercial & investment).

So what happened?
In 1999 Phil Gramm (R- Texas) and Jim Leach (R- Iowa) drafted legislation that effectively repealed the Glass Steagall Act. This bill was passed on party-line votes in the house and senate, and eventually signed into law by Bill Clinton.

So, it looks as if the Big O and the gang are going to end up with legislation that will eventually put us back to what fixed the first Depression, the separation of banks.

The Republicans screwed the pooch on this one!

What I Read

I have been asked what newspapers and sites I read routinely. Although the list is never the same, it is always extensive. I read a lot of online newspapers, a lot of blogs, and many magazines. Needless to say I am thankful for the innovation of RSS.

Here is a list of the usual feeds.

My online reading:

New York Times & NY Post

LA Times, Washington Post

The WSJ

The Irish Independent

The UK Daily Mail

FT- Financial Times

Jerusalem Post

Spiegel - German Weekly - English Version

BBC

Bloomberg

FEER- (Far Eastern Economic Review)

Drudge Report - The Daily Kos - Slate

My routine magazines-

Fortune

The Atlantic

The New Yorker

The Economist

Backpacker - Nat Geo Explorer - Outside

Inc.

Forbes

---

Before RSS feeds reading all of these online newspapers/sites would not have been possible. Now, luckily, I have all of my news streamed over to my google home page where I can pick and choose what I want to read. & if I really want to I can now access them from my phone.

Technology giving a news junkie his fix.

Obama Snubs UK's Brown

In my daily perusing of online newspapers and blogs yesterday I found it amazing how many UK news sources are reporting that Obama “snubbed” the UK PM Brown in his visit to the White House this week. The reports stem from the White House cancelling a high profile rose garden press conference as well as a routine foreign dignitary state dinner and reception. To no surprise everyone in Washington and on Downing Street is downplaying the supposed “snubbing”. As we all know, it’s not whether or not Obama actually snubbed Brown that matters. What matters, is how the media reports the incident.

It will now prove to be more difficult for Brown to avoid the “America’s Puppet” label that awaits his return to the Isles.

Billionaire Rivalry

One of my favorite newspapers to read online is the UK's Daily Mail. They don't know how to be unbiased and most of the time their columns laughably crude.

Today they had a column on Bill Gates & family. According to Melinda Gates, despite how much she wants to have an iphone like the other billionaire housewives, they are banned in the Gates house. As a matter of fact, all apple products are banned.

That's what I call taking work home with you.

10.25% Sales Tax!

On April 1st the State of California will increase the sales tax rate 1%. This tax increase will put the Los Angeles County sales tax rate at 9.25%. The worst hit cities are Pico Rivera and the City of South Gate, both of whom will now see a 10.25% sales tax rate.

It makes no sense to me that these two cities are paying the highest tax rates in the state. These areas are desperately poor and they have some of the worst infrastructure in the Los Angeles County area. It is hard not to think like a supplysider when I see this type of thing occurring.

Meanwhile, here in a Republican Orange County, we have one of the lower sales tax rates at 8.75% and the County is much more affluent and functioning. It would be foolish of me to correlate the tax rate to the productivity of a geographic area, maybe it's just a coincidence.

Here is a run-down of some of the increased tax rates:

Republican Counties
Orange County 8.75%
Kern County 8.25%
San Joaquin County 8.75%
Riverside County 8.75%
Merced County 8.25%

Democratic Counties
San Francisco County 9.50%
Los Angeles County 9.25%
Alameda County 9.75%
Santa Cruz County 9.00%
Contra Costa County 9.25%
Marin County 9.00%





http://www.boe.ca.gov/news/pdf/l212b.pdf

Great Stuff!

Money Ball - Arizona Style

In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine was a great article on the Arizona Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall.

Derrick Hall seems like a great CEO for baseball. He and his moneyball GM Josh Byrnes focus on maximizing their clubs performance on a Bill Webb type statistical decision making process. Having their team in a midlevel market makes it hard for them to attract solid talent at discount prices. Because of this, like the Oakland A's, they have to get maximum productivity for every dollar spent. As a result, most of their talent is derived through minor league prospecting and training.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/18/magazines/fortune/birger_baseball.fortune/index.htm

Soldiers Coffins to be Photographed

I am trying to give this administration a break on my criticisms until they have shown what they can do with handling the Iraq quagmire and the Afghanistan escalation in violence. In my opinion they made a great decision to make public a withdrawal date for major operations in Iraq. However, they sure screwed the pooch on their next major announcement. The administration has decided to lift the blackout on photographing our dead soldiers. Last I checked every nightly news and Sunday political program runs a list of American casualties during their broadcast. Almost everyone knows how many Americans have been sacrificed for this war. My question is why must we embarrass the Americans who decide to fight for this country by showing their coffins get unloaded from a military cargo plane.

The argument for allowing these photos is that it shows Americans the true cost of war. If that is the case, why not show the video footage of Americans actually getting killed? That would sure show the 'cost of war'.

What happened to decency? I sure hope the President shows more respect to 'his' troops in the future.


--Also, if we are going to discuss the cost of this war, why not discuss the benefits?
I will save that lengthy digression for another time.

Great Stuff

Kentucky Brewery?

Louisville was just taken off of my S**t list.
After spending a the first part of the week drinking boring and watery beers, and sitting in smoky St. Louis bars, I was in desperate need of a good dark microbrew. Bluegrass Brewing Company came to my rescue. Thank God.

Here is the line-up:
-American Pale Ale
-Altbier
-Raspberry Meade
-Dark Star Porter
-Nut Brown Ale
-Frambozen
-Summer Wheat
-Bourbon Barrel Big Brown- *Very Good Bourbon taste, similar taste to GI Bourbon Cnty Stout*
-Cherry Lambic
-Kolsch
-Old St Matthews
-Schwarzbeer - *My first dark lager----Unusual, but I think I could get used to it*
-Nut Brown Lambic-

In addition to the good beer selection they also have an impressive food menu and friendly locals. Who knew I could find a good brewery in Kentucky Bourbon country?

Recovery.gov

http://www.recovery.gov/

I had to check out this site that the BC Obama has propped over the last few days during his post inauguration stimulus campaign. There are many promises being made on this site but very few explanations. The site is downright insulting to the visitor's intelligence.

Tax relief & protecting the vulnerable? Are they kidding? What the hell do these terms mean? Good luck trying to find a good explanation, or any explanation for that matter. I searched for a couple mins and came up with nothing.

Does the big O think we are a bunch of idiots? apparently

Budget Time

This is scary.

I wonder who is going to finance this budget. My guess is that it will be our friends, the Chinese.

...Here comes a tax hike.

St. Louis

In January 2007 I was stuck in St. Louis when their airport shut down as I landed for my layover on my trip home from Atlanta. On that trip, my stay was limited to about 36 hours and was very cold and wet. The upside of that 2007 trip was that I could mark St. Louis off my places yet to visit list. Unfortunately, I didn't see much due to the white-out blizzard conditions that shut the city down.

On Monday I returned to St. Louis, this time with rather fair weather working in the city's favor. Here is a quick list that sums up my opinion of the people of Saint Louis: FAT, SMOKEY, RUDE. However, the city itself was much more impressive then the people within it's limits.

Like most midwest & southern cities, St. Louis is full of people who are bordering on morbid obesity. Taking a back seat in the H.A.I. (Hippopotamus Ass Index) only to Louisville, Kentucky and the entire state of Louisiana. As if the city wasn't unhealthy enough with the weight issue, smoking is still permitted in restaurants and in public areas. Nothing like going to get a beer after work and ending up with a suit smelling like Saint Louis.

The city itself is clean and it appears to have a good amount of ongoing construction. I was also surprised by the amount of large corporations that call Saint Louis home. The downtown metro area appears newly built and affluent, making it a decent place to visit in the summer time, that is if there was something to do in Saint Louis and the people weren't repulsive.

In summary, now I know why the Rams are so bad and I have a greater appreciation for Bo Jackson (the St. Louis area's #1 export).

The Good and the Bad

I figure I better post something other than financial and political blabber in order to keep the disinterested interested.

Four winning beers and one loser.
1. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
-Love at first taste. This is by far my favorite beer of all time. The more I drink, the more I want. This beer is not for the weak. For the unsuspecting the first sip is like a kick in the mouth from this sensory overloading meal in a glass. The 13% makes this stout even more lovable. Caramel, coffee, bourbon & beer in a glass. This beer is all over the Internet as one of the best stouts being sold right now. However, most places are out of it. So, if you want some I will start the bidding at $7.50 a bottle. Suckers!

2. Laguanita Maximus IPA
- A great tasting non-bitter IPA. The color and head on this beer is amazing. I love this stuff.
3. North Coast Brother Thelonious
- This is a great non-acidic fruity Belgian Ale. On the shopping list for sure.
4. Ommegang Three Philosophers
- Only sold in a pricey 750ml bottle, otherwise this stuff would always be packed in my fridge. This is the first Abbey Quadrupel I have tried, and I think I have fallen in love.

The loser.
North Coast Blue Star Wheat Beer-
-I could not get into this beer. Very bitter and boring for a wheat beer. American wheat beers, like this one, often take a back seat to Hefeweizen wheat beers. This one is no exception. Blagh!

Interesting Chart

I found this chart referenced on The Big Picture blog by Barry Ritholtz.



I guess you can say we have overextended ourselves.

My Idiot list--Top 10

1. Alan Greenspan
2. Christopher Cox
3. Sarah Palin
4. Bud Selig & MLB
5. Donald Rumsfeld
6. Sub-Prime home owners
7. Ken Lewis & BofA
8. Tie- Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, & Maxine Waters (Waters probably wins outright if my list was longer)
9. Arnold "The Vetominator" Schwarzenegger
10. The Octodoctor

So it begins...

Well, I have officially started a damn blog. Partly this thing is being created because I have an e-commerce course next semester and having a blog is a requirement, and partly because, well....who knows.

This blog will be focused on a wide variety of stuff. politics. fishing. hiking. the economy. things and people I can't stand. finance. and my travels.

I welcome comments to anything I may write. If you disagree with me, bring it on!

Just so you know where I stand, here is a quick run-down:

1. Someone needs to tell Barack "Blank Check" Obama that the election is over, now get to work.
2. The Republican party is in disarray with no hope in sight.
2b. Conservative Republicans --newsflash-- Pro-Choicers won
3. FYI -Nationalization is not socialism. (BTW... Nationalize the damn banks already)
3b. Can someone please tell me why Ken Lewis is still employed?
4. Despite my view on nationalizing the banking system, believe it or not I consider myself a free market capitalist most of the time.
5. Greenspan is an idiot, finally the world is beginning to realize he is not the "maestro" he thought he was .
6. The Federal Government ruins everything it touches.
7. Stimulus Plan = Are you kidding me?


I have plenty more...