Quantitative Easing

I had this all written and then a friend of mine turned me on to this trailer which is the FUNNIEST trailer I have ever seen - I CAN NOT WAIT for this movie.  A Million Ways to Die in the West

http://youtu.be/CXxqG4aqwY4 ----------------------------------

Happy Chinese New Year, The Year Of The Horse

The largest human migration in the world is commencing or is taking place.  Most workers in China have ONE holiday and this is it.  Over 2 BILLION people are on the move as migrant workers get to go home and school let out.
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20 years ago I was contacted by the University to do a Sleep Study.  Just filling out 20 pages of questions and charting my sleeping habits for a week.  Got $40.  I've done this for 20 years and wish I could see what I've been doing the last 20 years.

Last month I filled out another one and thought I was done for a year.  BUT NOOOOO!!

They are so curious why I'm still alive (I guess) they want me to come in for a highly paid sleepover.  Hooking me up to wires and telling me to go to sleep.   Dinner, breakfast and money just to sleep!   BLOG WORTHY!!!
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Quantitative Easing  - the "fed" is doing their thing and starting to reduce buying bonds.  It's pretty interesting as we start to deleverage.

this is explained about the 24:10 area in the awesome youtub video I posted yesterday


http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

For those that refuse to watch the video . . the central bank has been printing huge amounts of money out of thin air and uses it to buy financial assets and government bonds just like how we got out of the Great Depression.  This drives up asset prices and makes people more credit worthy. BUT, it only helps people that OWN financial assets.

So the Government needs to get involved.  The Central banks buys bonds from the gov, the govs gets a bucket load of cash.  The gov in exchange gives money to unemployment and other stimulants.  Giving money to poor people so they can buy things which in turn stimulates the economy.


People with more money spend more BUT, it increases government debt.  HOWEVER, it lowers the Government debt burden.

As said - the last few years have been very very risky.  Printing money is inflationary. So now the fed is taking their foot off the accelerator a little. If they can balance deflation and inflation they can have what is called a Beautiful De-leveraging.         

What about interest rates?  They are as low as they can get which is why the central bank was printing money.  Interest rates are tweaks the Central banks uses but in this case there were no more tweaks to be had.

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Made out of freaking coat hangers!

 Check out Davic Machs coat hanger collection

Have a great weekend - GO SEAHAWKS!! 

Macro economics and Boyd Crowder

When I was a kid 20 years ago I was a baseball card and baseball stat freak.  Then when I got older I turned to SABRmetrics which which is a study of science of baseball stats.  Then the stock market and The Investors Daily and macro economics.

In collage my all time favorite class was Econ,  love, love, loved it, yet a useless class for furthering my career.

Oh - I'm still a sports numbers geek (missed ANOTHER free 10 oz of Fro You BUY ONE POINT last night a friend of mine did win though!!).

Probably not many people have heard of Ray Dalio.  He purchased his first stock at the age of 12 a couple years after my brother (14) tried to talk my parents into buy a new stock in a company called Xerox for like a dime (they didn't).

Ray now runs and invented Bridgewater Investments with assets of over $120 billion.  The guy knows what he is talking about when it comes to economics.   

I urge you, if you are at all curious on how the economy runs, the actual mechanics, this is a very entertaining video - it's a half hour but for me I stopped everything I was doing and watched it.  fascinating.   As I have always said - debt is not a bad thing, borrowing is NOT a bad thing. As long as what you borrow increases your wealth.

http://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

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I was listening to sports talk radio and there was an ad for some fantasy football contest and at the end they said .  blah blah  "Professional Football Players Championship Game".  

 What?

"Professional Football Players Championship Game" ???   you mean the Super Bowl?  Is  "Super Bowl" trademarked or whatever?   I know the NFL is freakishly strict.  My mother in law REALLY wanted a Green Bay Packer symbol on her gravestone - NO WAY was that possible. NFL has strict rules about stuff like that.

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I've always wanted a companion to one of my vertical images and finally have one

 To go with 

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One of my favorite TV shows is Justified (Old-school U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is reassigned from Miami to his childhood home in the poor, rural coal-mining towns in Eastern Kentucky.)

A facebook friend said he watched the newest episode and said my hair was looking more and more like Boyd Crowder's hair.  I took that as a compliment.

 

Cheers - Rod 

  

 

I Will Break You In Half

"I Will Break You In Half" - Now THAT is how you end an interview!  See - we need more of that in Columbus politics.  People saying what they really think. 

 OK OK - I only took part of the quote.  The whole thing was

“You're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

OK OK  so perhaps I'm doing Republican Rep Michael Grimm (no relation to the TV show or the fairy tales) a disservice and should put what he said FIRST

"Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this balcony. You're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

I guess the reporter asked a dicey question about Grimms and his illegally raising campaign fund.

  Seems like a nice guy to run the country! 

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The weather - the problem is not the jet stream that has been in the same place for a month.  We are actually the collateral damage.  The offending situation is a HIGH pressure out west that is preventing movement.  While the west gets drought the HIGH is preventing movement of the Jet Stream which in turn keeps the blasted Polar Vortex in the same area and we keep getting pieces blasting US as they break off.

The HIGH does break down a little but firms up again by the middle of next week which AGAIN gets freaking cold.  

While the Europeans have the best weather models we here in America have some new tools that have come online in the last few months and were developed at UW- Wisconsin Madison.

No one has noticed but temperature forecasts 10 days out have REALLY improved.
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The Columbus Crawdads are an amateur adult baseball club based here in Columbus and are in the Home Talent League (I was in HTL long long long time ago).  This year if all goes well

there will be beer sales and all home games will be at Firemans Park.  Last year was their first year which explains why I had never heard of them before.  By the time I was able to get some photos they were done.

The tentive schedule is

Sunday, April 27 Montello 1pm
Sunday, May 4 @Sun Prairie 1pm
Sunday, May 11 Portage 1pm
Wednesday, May 14 @Portage 6pm
Sunday, May 18 @Rio 1pm
Thursday, May 22 Poynette 7:30pm
Saturday, May 25 Cottage Grove 1pm
Sunday, May 26 @ Poynette 1pm
Sunday, June 1 Marshall 1pm
Thursday, June 5 @Montello 7:30pm
Sunday, June 8 @DeForest 1pm
Saturday, June 14 @Montello 1pm
Sunday, June 15 Rio 1pm
Thursday, June 19 @DeForest 6pm
Sunday, June 22 Monona 1pm
Thursday, June 26 Ashton 7:30pm
Sunday, June 29 DeForest 1pm
Thursday, July 4 @Monona 1pm
Sunday, July 6 Poynette 1pm
Thursday, July 10 Waunakee 7:30pm
Sunday, July 13 @Marshall 1pm
Thursday, July 17 Lodi 7:30pm
Sunday, July 20 Sun Prairie 1pm
Thursday, July 24 @Rio 7pm
Sunday, July 27 @Cottage Grove 1pm
Sunday, Aug. 3 @Portage 1pm

This is great news for Columbus as it brings in people from other towns to experience the wonderfulness of Columbus.  Check them out!  I know I will.

Just envision a warm summer night, soft breeze in small town America cheering on a local team under the lights, craft beer in hand to cool you off, kids laughing and playing and in the distance a dog barks as a train rumbles by in the night. 

Crack!  the sound of the ball hitting the bat as crowds cheer, your beer flies out of your hand hitting the family behind you who were not paying attention because they were swatting mosquitoes.

I can't wait.   
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Did you know that you can not hold a brain in your hands that has not been dead long (or a live one I suppose).  It would just goop through your hand like weak jelly!  WHO KNEW!!  it's not a solid thing I guess.  Brains are weird.  So the above cartoon is not real and could not actually sit on the bed like that.

BTW - if that ever happens to you and you can't get back to sleep?  Get up, take one aspirin and a gulp of milk.  The aspirin thins the blood just enough to let carbs in the milk spike the insulin level just enough to allows the amino acid tryptophan to cross into the brain and before you know it you are waking up.

Or it's a freaking placebo but it always works.

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In case you missed the State of the Union Address you really missed some fun!  things are changing in Washington.   I think our Mayor could take some guidance and make our Council meetings more interesting.  Think of how many people would tune in to watch the Council meetings!! 

Cheers
Rod