Not A Mystery
Hacks
Hold Those Fries
Walter Cronkite passed away today, so we are down one icon. But thankfully the Economist’s Big Mac Index soldiers on. In a previous post we expressed concern that Big Mac might be supplanted by Big White, but our fears were unfounded. Herewith the latest Index, no ketchup required. Just to review, The Economist has been … Continue reading
Once The Ship Lifts, All Bills Are Paid
The Credit Card guys have a bunch of algorithms to spot fraud. Supposedly, a sure-fire way to set off alarm bells a few years ago were these charges: A gas tank fillup. Another gas tank fillup. A charge at a Sporting Goods store. The idea was that the stolen card is first used to fill … Continue reading
For Those Of You [Not] Living in Rio Linda
As readers of the blog know, I came out of the closet a while back and confessed that I married into a (wonderful) Rio Linda family. Over the past 20+ years I’ve been there more times than I can remember for family functions, holidays, BBQ’s and whatever. As a result, I believe I’ve got the … Continue reading
Big Mac, Stand Aside For Big White
Is it possible that The Economist is moving towards replacing its Big Mac Index with a Big White Index? The Economist has been publishing their (not so tongue-in-cheek) Big Mac Index since 1986. It’s a reality check on world-wide currency exchange rates, based on the concept of Purchasing-Power Parity. Purchasing-Power Parity (PPP) says that exchange … Continue reading
Pensioners Run Wild
This week from the Daily Telegraph of London, it’s reported that a gang of German Pensioners kidnapped and tortured a financial adviser after he lost their money on a Florida property investment scheme. The adviser was held in the basement of a vacation home, and over a period of four days was burned with cigarettes, … Continue reading
It’s Not Gambling, It’s Sophisticated Investing. Right.
A recent sting operation perpetuated on several Big City Banks by a smallish Hedge Fund puts my Schadenfreude Meter off the scales. This one feels even better than a vicious lawyer joke. Let’s see if I can explain what they did. [Note: the following narrative is based on an article in the Wall Street Journal … Continue reading
Your 15 Minutes of Fame Can Be Copied & Pasted
At this point Andy Warhol’s oft quoted “Everybody will have 15 minutes of fame…” (sic) seems hopelessly outdated, what with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reality Shows and, not least of all, blogs. Warhol would probably point out that there is the small issue of dumbing-down the concept of “Fame”, whatever. I’ve noticed a parallel phenomenon which … Continue reading
OMG, I Made Up An Acronym: F2U !
This week was the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s annual meeting in Seattle, appropriately named “SLEEP 2009″. In the midst of some fascinating studies into how we spend a huge part of our time on this earth (sleeping), were some amusing (to me) acronyms. So for example, the following 3 were my favorites: TIB – … Continue reading
All Bog Reading Tips Combined
This post combines our series of tutorials for people new to blogs. Because blogs look like a normal website, but work in some counter intuitive ways, it can be a bit confusing for newbies. Hopefully these Tips will help get you up to speed.
Behavioral Economics: “Got Quant?”
A continuing topic of interest to this blog are time saving ideas. Last post we discussed a way to cut down on your time spent reading, by aging magazines like a fine wine. The example we used was focused on The Economist magazine. While we managed to gain the upper hand over their Editorial staff, … Continue reading
A Fine Read In The Tradition Of A Fine Wine
When I was still working there was never enough time in the day. Now that I’m retired, there’s even less time. Which makes no sense, but there you have it. So I am always looking for ways to save time, or at least waste less of it. One of my major, serious, time sinks was … Continue reading
