Not A Mystery
Thoughts
It’s Time To Regulate The Soapbox
I have a modest proposal for the health care debate. Only those of us who have actually shopped for an Individual Health Insurance Policy would be allowed to get up on their soapbox and let fly with their opinions. This leaves out all current member of Congress; any retired members of Congress who served more … Continue reading
Hail The Recluse, A Much Better Citizen
Why would a recluse turn out to be a better citizen than your typical politician? Aside from what’s obvious about politicians, the answer is in the Dunbar Number. Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships … It has been proposed to lie between 100 … Continue reading
To Bundle Or Not To Bundle, That Is The Question
Airlines and Cable Networks, two of our most popular industries today. If you ignore the Banks. Sign up for Cable and you get more channels than you need or want. You’ve been bundled. Get on an Airline and nothing is included in the price of your ticket. You’ve been unbundled. And yet, as a consumer, … Continue reading
It’s Hard To Argue With Gravity While Ordering A Hamburger
Being an expert must be harder these days. Nobody seems to have any good answers to tough questions about the economy. Morningstar pundits are usually pretty good when it comes to personal financial advice. But in is a recent answer on how to maintain yourself in retirement, they managed to coin the phrase ‘pre-tire’ when … Continue reading
Anniversary Favs And Big Green
Hard as it is (for me) to believe, we began our blog one year ago today. And this is our 178th. post. But who’s counting. In honor of that Anniversary, I’d like to suggest that you check out some of our FAV posts. F2U Rio Linda, FAVS are items that I had the most fun composing, … Continue reading
A Dead Hand Bounce For Our Stock Markets
The good news is that if a catastrophic event destroys mankind our investments will be extremely well managed after we are gone. The bad news is that the computers doing it may be trading for their own accounts instead of ours. This theater of the absurd scenario might be more plausible than you think, and occurred to me last … Continue reading
Stretched For Income? Invest In Gatorade [Bottles]
Get a grip, because I’m about to tell you how to double your money with no risk. While simultaneously bringing new meaning to the phrase, “go green”. Let’s talk recycling. Like me, I’m sure that many of your beer-drinking friends go on about the hundreds of dollars they ‘make’ by taking their crushed aluminum cans … Continue reading
Lobbyists Do It In The Dark, Bankers Post It In The Cellar
In a nutshell, the way financial institutions (Big Bank) make their money is by knowing more than the other guy (that would be you). They will famously say that their priority is to serve their customers, and that capitalism depends upon them for the efficient allocation of capital. Also, that they are all in favor … Continue reading
A Very Serious Look At “Assistance”
My father’s name was Jack. When I hear someone say “You don’t know Jack”, I think of him. This coming Saturday, HBO will air a film starring Al Pacino titled, “You Don’t Know Jack”. But it’s not about my dad, it’s the story of Dr. Jack Kervorkian and the end-of-life debate. Last week Anderson Cooper … Continue reading
The Real Skinny Is Not Delayed For A Month
I’m a fan of Skinny Cow products. Not only do they taste good, but their ‘spokes-cow‘ reminds me of the old Gateway computer boxes and appeals to my inner geek. If you scan through their product line-up you’ll notice that they have a great variety of flavors. But even more importantly, they deliver them to … Continue reading
Tragedy And Butterfly Wings
Now that speculation has begun on the cause of Saturday’s tragic plane crash in western Russia that killed Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski and many of the government’s leaders, it’s tempting to imagine that the pilots were pressured into landing against their better judgement. Investigators examining the crash appeared to be focusing on why the pilot did … Continue reading
