Ouch My Head Hurts!

When confronted with a problem you have several choices:
Consult an expert and accept his decision.
Become an expert an make your own decision
Become a partial expert and judge the validity of the expert's decision.

All three choices have problems.
Consult an expert and accept his decision: blind acceptance of authority

Become an expert an make your own decision: It takes enormous amount of time in book learning, but that book learning is valueless without field experience.

Become a partial expert and judge the validity of the expert's decision: You know just enough to make bad assumptions. (Just have an intern look over your shoulder for a week to fully experience this option. Remember to hide his body afterward)

Considering the stories listed below, I have to wonder about the future of Rail projects and Coal to liquid. I've been worrying about how the credit chaos would ultimately affect big ticket projects.

Well, here we go: Municipal Market Is Beset By Wave of Auction-Bond Failures

The Port Authority was forced to pay a rate of 20 per cent after the sale of $100m bonds failed at an auction on Tuesday.

Along a different track:

Looks like energy stocks have the best chance of success in the current market.

Here are a some graphs showing that as the fed lowers its rates, the real world rates keep going up:

Pushing on a string.

Failure of Borrowing Costs to Fall

30 year mortgage rates

How SubPrime Really Works: An amusing little power point presentation.

Warren Buffet accepts Peak Oil? (Ignore the political talk it starts with.) At time stamp 5:30 he starts talking about the tar sands. He thinks its the best chance to "fill the gap that will otherwise develop in the next decade or two."

Here is a interesting site that takes all the economic data and combines it into one number. Their slogan is, "A chart is worth a thousand words of high fallutin' economic mumbo-jumbo"

Interesting post on how the Fed influences interest rates and the stock market. Turns out the the "Plunge Protection Team" has been operating in full view all this time (if you know were to look).

Here are his two links to support his arguments. "Slosh Report" and "federal funds rate". Once you understand the these two links, it's like peaking behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ.

Here are two interesting threads from tickerforum.org:
Funding the Bank of Sealy (Hiding money in your mattress.)
Safest banks to keep money?

Safe & Sound ratings By Bankrate.com seem like a useful item. How accurate the ratings are is questionable.

CNN money has a couple of nice pages where you can view the Pre-Market and After hour stock activity.

This should give you a giggle. A economy parody of the song "Cherish", it's called "Bearish".

Traders Narrative has a nice graph (1957 to present) of long term fed funds rates.

Totally oblivious to the Fed's magic helicopter, Initial Jobless Claims are at Highest Levels Since Katrina, Bespoke has the graph. (2003 to present)

For those who want to keep up with the latest economic data, here are three really nice links for the latest data releases: Yahoo, Marketwatch, Barron's.

Another interesting graph is the Baltic Exchange Dry Index. "The Baltic Dry Index is an index covering dry bulk shipping rates and managed by the Baltic Exchange in London." (Wikipedia) Looks like things are slowing down. Why the Baltic Dry Index matters

For those interested in the price of gold and silver, Kitco has two very nice pages that follow the price around the globe. I use a local mom & pop store to make my purchases, but kitco seems to have a good reputation.

For those wondering how the current round of banking problems will go down, Beat the Press talks about the US Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s.

While Jim Jubak wonders if the USA is repeating Japans mistakes of the in the early 1990s.

The Big Picture notices the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics problem with statistics.


Then there is the disturbing trend of central banks trying to hide failed banks. Although the current fuss is about the Bank of England. Hasn't the Fed been doing this since last December, with its anonymous Term Auction Facility? (wikipedia link)

The Ron Paul War Room talks about bank solvency. Very wordy but worth reading.

You also might want to take a look at this tread from tickerforum.org. As the try to figure out what the reserve numbers really mean.

For those not already aware, STONELEIGH and ILARGI have opened up shop at The Automatic Earth. Quoting lyrics from a Paul Simon tune "The Boy In the Bubble".

A wild week for the finance sector.

Infectious Greed crunches the numbers and compares it to panics of yesterday.


While Bespoke looks at past recessions, bulls and bears.


Don't be fooled by the stock markets “recovery”. That was just the orchestra tuning up for the 1812 overture. (or is that the 1929 overture). Jim Jubak has a warning about bear markets.


Naked capitalism counts up the layoffs on Wallstreet.


Existing home sales continued to be ugly (pdf warning)


Calculated risk graphs it out for us.


While Washington tries to re-inflate the housing bubble.


Ben Bernanke showed what he's made out of (turns out, it's that paper they use for oragami).


Yet Wallstreet thinks it is going to get another .5% next week?


And everyone wants to know how you lose 7.2 bilion dollars. Certainly gives me confidence about what the big banks are doing with our savings accounts. The whole thing seems kind of fishy.


George Ure and Halfpasthuman released more of their predictions for 2008, based on computerized analysis of web “chatter”. (pdf warning) It looks pretty grim. All that's missing are flesh eating zombies and alien parasites.

And does anyone really think the “stimulus package” is anything but an election year public relations stunt?

And then there is the little problem of food prices.....
The USDA has a nice page summarizing world grain production.


Of major interest are tables 14, 15 and 16. (Wheat and Coarse Grains, Corn and Barley, and Rice.)

Wheat and Coarse Grains
Corn and Barley
Rice

Why I left the Centerfield group blog.

I found the last post I made on Center field (about climate change and hurricanes) very draining and disheartening. I was not a polite conversation between open minded friends, and it was the not the kind of conversation I am interesting in having any more of.

It's one thing to say “I disagree and here is why”, it is quite another thing to harass and abuse people into submission. I feel that I was driven from the blog, like so many other past contributers.

Another contributing factor is my high blood pressure. I have been controlling it with minimal medication and by avoiding situation that aggravates it. Fending off vicious attacks definitely aggravates it.

I have repeatedly said that reality gets the final say. I no longer feel it is my mission to point out to close minded people the error of their way. Alnon has an interesting phrase that I have grown attached to, “let go and let god”.

Strange words for an atheist to use, but it fits my current mood.