Dave Page the Cobbler does great work

It's true. A manager at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports recommended Dave Page, Cobbler to repair an old pair of Alp styled Teva's that had both blown out. They were super comfortable sandals and I missed them. Tossed in the back of the closet I stumbled on them one day hoping to revive them. Dave answered questions in email quickly & let me know when he received them & when the work was done without asking. I'm glad they're back. They're super comfortable. Thanks Dave.

Repo market at lowest since 2003

That sounds like it's going in the right direction.
What's the Repo market? It's where:

An investor places its money with the custodian bank, which in turn lends it to another institution, and then assets are pledged as collateral for the loan.

Repos are used to increase leverage. They also usually have incredibly short terms, like one day, or even hours. As such, they are typically viewed as "cash".

In the past, US Treasuries were used as collateral. Obviously very, very safe.

In the last "x" number of years, almost any "asset" was used as collateral. Which increased risk. If the "asset" pledged as collateral become less valuable, and/or less liquid, more collateral had to be pledged or, the position had to be unwound. Either way, that put downward pressure on the value of the underlying "asset".

Add fear, too much risk and massive leverage and you get everyone running for the door to protect their money/portfolios at the same time. While you were watching your Mutual Funds & stocks dropping last year, virtually every asset was dropping like a rock at the same time. Including "assets" that were used as collateral for Repos.

Imagine you loan money to someone who pledges collateral to back up the loan. You view that loan as good as cash. Then their collateral loses value. You get nervous and either want to call the loan or get more collateral. At some point, you find out you can't call the loan as they can not repay and they can not post more collateral as they don't have it, or can't do it. You feel you have to cut your loses now, so you get out of the transaction.

Now imagine that happening with billions & billions of dollars. Now imagine one company going bankrupt causes another to go belly up, etc, etc,etc.

That deleveraging of all assets including repos, while a good thing that will help us get back to reality, can also be catastrophic as it's almost impossible to stop once panic sets in.

The consequences for the repo market are best highlighted by the plunge in dealers financing corporate securities. A common transaction during the boom involved investors lending out Treasuries and then using the pledged cash to borrow corporate securities. They made money on the difference between the higher rate for corporates than Treasuries. This daisy chain collapsed when investors lost faith in using corporates as collateral and the relationship between Treasuries and corporate securities changed sharply.

Standards for collateral used in repo remain much higher and traders say reforms for the repo market, which are still being discussed by dealers and the Fed, should focus on making sure that continues.

The reasons you should care are you want tighter regulations on the repo market and the more intelligent use of risk so the 2008 blowup has less chance of occurring again, and to understand to some extent, how much you risk you take in thinking the stock market will "come back" like it always has. "Come back" to "where & when"?

Read article at FT.com.
Repo, or Repurchase Agreement explained at Wikipedia.

Congressman Joe Wilson of SC, you are a disgrace to your country and your party. Resign now.

During President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight regarding health care reform, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled out "lie" when the President said his health care bill would not mandate coverage for illegal immigrants.

Yes, you could here him yell during the speech.

Julie, Julia and a plan

Saw Julie & Julia yesterday. Really good flick! I'd highly recommend taking someone you know who is an amazing cook, then buying whatever ingredients they want to cook after the flick.

Meryl Streep was perfect. The rest of the cast were just really, really good.

The flick at IMDB.com.
Watch Julia Child at PBS.org.
The blog that was made into the movie.

A speech to kids on their first day of school

From here:

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

Playing with GrooveMaker

A cool groove I made using the iPhone app GrooveMaker is, well, groovy. It's so groovy, you export your track or complete song from your iPhone/iPod, type in the http link you're given and wala, it's on the interwebs . I think. your machine.

Not sure if the link for my groove works for you. Just started messing with exporting late last night. Enjoy. I think.

How economists got it all wrong

Lengthy, readable, excellent article by Krugman:

Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets — especially financial markets — that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation.

Short version:

I. MISTAKING BEAUTY FOR TRUTH
II. FROM SMITH TO KEYNES AND BACK
III. PANGLOSSIAN FINANCE
IV. THE TROUBLE WITH MACRO
V. NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED . . .
VI. THE STIMULUS SQUABBLE
VII. FLAWS AND FRICTIONS
VIII. RE-EMBRACING KEYNES

This seems, however, like a good time to recall the words of H. L. Mencken: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”

A translation?

If you don't understand there are tectonic shifts going on in the field of Economics and you are still investing like you did "in the past", you risk losing far more than you realize. Not being negative. Just sayin'.

Vegitarian yet?

Chooseveg.com.

What's the analogy of fire ants building a life raft out of themselves?

I'd like to think it was all of us "workers" doing what we need to do to resolve our minor, petty differences and to protect our government. That also means our government needs us to stick together, to protect the larger colony so we can continue on another day.
Hattip for the vid to kottke.org.

Great article describing the need for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency

From new deal 2.0:

First, the CFPA will regulate consumer financial products across the board-using the same rules for all mortgages or for all small dollar loans, regardless of whether the mortgage or the loan is issued by a national bank, a state bank or a non-bank.

A research paper is available at CreditSlips.org if you want to learn much more.

From a NYTimes article in June:

But industry executives vowed on Tuesday to fight Mr. Obama’s plan with everything they have, even though banks are still heavily dependent on many taxpayer-supported loans and loan guarantees to get through the crisis.

To me, another reason banks who have been bailed out should not be allowed to lobby for anything until they pay us back. Period. If they didn't want the money with strings attached in Fall 2008, they should have been allowed to fail and sold off. If they wanted the money, there should have been plenty of strings attached to protect us, the tax payers. The previous administration blew it.

Rating agencies can no longer steal their cake and eat it too

Great news on one of the causes of the financial meltdown, the rating agencies can not use the First Amendment as a defense for their, what many term, fraudulent actions.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The ruling is expected to spur more lawsuits and could apply to structured investment vehicles once valued at as much as $400 billion.

Why should you care?

When you, or your mutual fund, retirement plan, City, State etc "invested" in AAA "rated" bonds or securitizations, particularly due to the rule of law, many, many times they were not actually "investing" in less risky, more secure instruments as the AAA "ratings" were in many ways, bull shit.

This ruling will help open the flood gates to hold those responsible, responsible.

Due to the nature of this ruling, the complexity of many financial instruments and the nature of complicated lawsuits, it will take decades to be fleshed out however.

White House to post visitor logs online

From CREW:

The most significant development, however, is the commitment by the Obama administration to affirmatively post visitor records online on an ongoing basis, bringing a historic level of transparency to the White House. CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan praised the White House, stating, “The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise.

Transparency good.
Hattip Huffingtonpost.com.

Cardboard Knights, the movie

Check out some pics from the Cardboard Knight Director's blog.



I got to help with the costumes, I mean armor, for the White Knight on the left, and the Ninja on the right this past Saturday. About 50 people were on the set that day. Actors, cameramen, gaffers, grips, ADs, catering, tents, port-a-lets, costume designers, etc. Huge crazy fun.

I was helping my buddy, Chris Groffman. Contact him any time you're working on a movie project. You'll be happy you did.

Check out the site for the flick, Carboard Knights.

Pfizer pays $2.3B fine for illegally marketing drugs

From DOJ.gov:

As a part of today’s resolution, six whistleblowers will receive payments totaling more than $102 million from the federal share of the civil recovery.

It's the first-Ever Qui Tam Whistleblower Settlement of its type. In common law, a writ of qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution can receive all or part of any penalty imposed. From Wikipedia.

From Reuters:

The government also discovered that Pfizer offered and paid illegal compensation to health care professionals to induce them to promote and prescribe Zyvox in violation of federal kickback laws.

It was the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind ever.

Cast:George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey

Why would you see a movie with a cast like that?
It'd probably be better than staring at goats though.

Another take on the pending cybersecurity bill

Read the entire article at Wired.com:

So why write the bill if it doesn’t give the president any more authority? I’ve heard two reasonable theories. Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic suggests that the goal may be to give power to the president on these issues at the expense of the less-open NSA and DOD. Under that theory, the bill is actually designed to keep potential channels of dissent in a crisis more open to the public, rather than less.

The second theory is that it’s just a senate jurisdictional battle.

Previously here.

Chrysler Museum admission is free starting today!

From their website:

Chrysler Museum of Art announces free general admission to all visitors all the time starting Sept. 2.

And:

The launch of the new “Free to All” policy is made possible by special gifts from a number of generous donors and foundations. Membership retention and recruitment are vital to ensure the program is sustainable.

Wow! This is a terrific museum with great programs we don't spend enough time going to. Membership info.

A $592T unregulated market needs regulated, do something!

From Bloomberg News:

Wall Street is suiting up for a battle to protect one of its richest fiefdoms, the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market that is facing the biggest overhaul since its creation 30 years ago.

And...

The five biggest derivatives dealers in the U.S. -- JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. -- held 95 percent of the $291 trillion in notional derivatives value of the country’s 25 largest bank holding companies at the end of the first quarter, according to a report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. More than 90 percent of those derivatives were traded over the counter, the OCC data show.

Have you attended a town hall meeting about regulating derivatives? Get your legislator to have one! Don't want to deal with this, then you shouldn't be able to sleep at night if you're still contributing to your IRA/401(k).

Spend 4 minutes watching this video

...instead of 4 minutes texting while driving.

Watch it over at ShareShoreDriveDay.net.

Aliens from outer space could abduct you if they know you read this. Does this possiblity concern you?

On a related note, from a Republican National Committee mailer entitled "Future of American Health Care Survey", this question:

"It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?"

Read entire "push poll" mailer at The Washington Independent.
The Columbian of Clark County Washington broke the story.