The Destroyer of Finance

 Life lessons from the Journal of Wisdom According to Awesome: 

 Form your hand into a straight, rigid flipper as though you were about to power chop your way through a cinder block or a 2×4 plank.

 Now take careful aim at your cat.  Any other nearby life form will do as a substitute.

 Lunge at said cat/lifeform and feint an mega death blow attack by thrusting the tips of your flipper fingers in the direction on the target with all undue velocity available to your particular combination of body mass and muscular build.

 Realize that due to an oversight in your scouting report on the local terrain (perhaps, say, your bedroom) you have now speared your hand into the door frame.

 QED: Pain.

 Aleve takes the edge off, so good times for only being in uncomfortable pain.  I’m told it’s most likely a muscular/tendon injury, so it’ll be about a month before it’s completely better, and there’s no point to x-rays because if it were a small fracture, there’s nothing that could be done for it.

 May 8th is an underrated day.  Probably not too hot, probably not too cold.  A fair chance that it might be raining, but not a certainty.  School is not yet out (which is good for everyone NOT in school), but neither are the mosquitoes (the insects… the kids are still in school, remember), or at least not in full force.

 It’s also the day of the year that Robert Heinlein died in 1988.  I’m not to suggest we should celebrate his death, of course.  I just think its underrated as an opportunity to remember one of the foundation authors of modern science fiction.  One of those rare breed of writers that can combine a good story with thought provoking social commentary and a technological prescience that can, from time to time, make your skin crawl.  Not everything he wrote fits in to all three categories.  Not everything he wrote is guaranteed to even fit into one category.  The ones that do, though…

 Yeah, he grew to be a very cranky, very horny old man.  Who doesn’t?  I fit that category right now and I’m under 30.  Give me a wheel chair, a plaid blanket, and some nurses to bother and we’ll see how well I fit into an old folks ranch.  I even play bridge.

 Did he have some hot sports opinions?  The hottest.  Political systems, political thought, social behaviors, social conventions, social structures, economics, personal liberty v. social welfare, polyamory, polygamy, polygynandry.  Oh, did he like the last three.

 Hey, the guy went from being a (not so) closet communist to supporting Barry Goldwater in his lifetime.  He covered the spectrum.  He also described the idea of a waterbed in such detail, and so often, that decades after he wrote about it as US Court ruled that the waterbed was not a patentable invention.

 I’m about to finish his book Friday.  Certainly a controversial work, as pretty much all his later books are.  Some people hate it, some people love it.  I’ve thought that, so far, it’s been an enjoyable read that hasn’t really gone anywhere yet… at least not where I expected it to.  It’s made some points about society that are worth thought… but that’s Heinlein.  What is perhaps more worth note is the stunning degree to which characters use a communications network to research all manner of topics and can find information on anything.. even watch a live concert years after it finished.  He also goes so far as to state in his book that once you put data into this system, it lives forever and can always be found somewhere.

 Sound like anything you know?  Sound like anything from 1982, when the book was published?  The answers are yes and no, of course.  While the internet did exist, it was essentially unheard of outside of military uses, and you’d have to be a sci-fi author to… ah.

 Of course, he also includes flying anti-grav cars, interstellar travel at 18x the speed of light, super-ultra batteries that can power a house for forever, and a some crazy intercontinental travel system, so maybe 1 out of 6 isn’t all that great.  Oh, and genetic engineering/design of human babies and partially human creatures… but maybe we don’t write that one off just yet.

 Heinlein also does have some relevant commentary on energy supplies that, along with his depiction of the interweb, fits right in with today (Shipstone is the name of the guy who invented these super ultra batteries):

…Shipstone saw at once that the problem was not a shortage of energy but lay in the transporting of energy….  Those who spoke of “energy scarcity” and of “conserving energy” simply did not understand the situation.  The sky was “raining soup”; what was need was a bucket in which to carry it.

 It doesn’t take a sci-fi author to make this statement, but it does put it in a frame that most people do not (or can not) put it in.  There is nothing special about the energy of oil.  It has merely been congealed into a form easy to transport and convenient to burn.  Same for coal, although you can’t push it through a pipeline.  Natural gas is harder to transport… because its a gas and it takes up so much damn room.  You can pressurize it and liquefy it, but that’s less convenient… less safe.  The energy is the same in all of it, in the end.

 By the way, Sandworms of Dune?  Come on!  Did Herbert die in the middle of that book and have a couple hacks finish it for him?

 What’s that?

 I was so disappointed by the palpable give up exhibited in the last 1/3 of that book it made me want to dig up an earthworm, mutate it until it became a sand trout and started turning earth into Dune, then wait until a sand worm grew and capture it, torture it and send the pieces encased in a giant bucket of water to Anderson and baby Herbert for their role in that farce.

 Herbert and Heinlein… two cranky old sci fi authors with big opinions that are fun to read.

 Poly want a cracker?

 Stephanie Seymour

 Back in high school I wrote a paper in which I made a claim that the US ought to put more effort into builing our bond with Saudi Arabia and less effort into bonding with Israel.  One of the primary reasons I offered was that playing big brother to Israel was a major ass whipping and they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, so why do we need to catch the flack everytime they take a zippo and an aerosol can to an ant hill?

 In retrospect, I can see the utility of staying close to Israel, even if only to be better able to pull back on their reigns when they start getting too far off track.  Still, it sucks when Iran announces that, because they view Israel as eesentially a US colony, they will treat an attack by Israel as an attack by the US.

 The secret threat in the message is that Iran would try to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event that Israel did something… rash.  The Strait, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean, is a whopping 21 miles wide at its narrowest and, oh yeah, something around 20% of the world’s oil supply passes through it.  Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE (even Bahrain and Qatar) all shiping most or all of their oil out through the Strait.

Above the water is Iran, below the UAE to the left and Oman to the right.

 From the picture, you can probably figure out the problem.  In an age where almost every geographic choke point has been rendered meaningless by technology, we have the Strait of Hormuz.

 Objectively, Iran’s military is really no more than mediocre.  Excluding the land forces, it’s really quite poor.  The air force is not terribly well equipped and lacking in talented pilots and the navy is a collection of jumped up speed boats with only a few frigate sized war vessels of debatable quality themselves.  Oh, and three Kilo submarines.  Ah.

 The rub: to close the Strait, Iran doesn’t have to physically prevent tankers from going through it.  Much like the genius of mining a harbor (which, by the way, Iran could do to the Strait), you don’t actually have to DO it to be effective as the threat alone will bring ship traffic to a halt.

 You’re the owner of an oil tanker.  It’s worth probably no less than $50 million and significantly more than that if it’s one of the really big suckers.  You know all it takes is one missle from an armed speed boat that sneaks by your naval escort, from a jet that manages to come in under the radar, from land even… or a torpedo from one of those damned submarines.  Sure, the subs are one shot weapons sure to be blasted out of the water after the attack, but you probably aren’t anxious to make your boat be the bait.  In addition, your crew is more than likely not going to be willing to man the ship on such a voyage.

 So, I saw a prediction for $300 oil if the Strait were closed, and $8 gallon gas (I guess that would mean, what, $15 gallon gas in Europe?  Just add about $4 to what it is now).  I think they overstate the gas price a little… maybe only $7.50.

 How do you feel about bombing Iran now?

 I really think that if Israel and Iran would go sit in their corners and think about what they’ve done that the price of oil would be ready to come down some.  There are clear signs of demand destruction (both short term and long term), which should help the supply/demand fundamentals, but this other sideline crap is stirring things up too much.  That’s fine with Iran, of course, as they think higher prices are better anyway.

 In closing, please don’t bomb Iran, but if you do, please legalize whale hunting so we can harvest their blubber for oil again.

 I’m going to open up a new Starbucks… oops,

 Rene Lacoste

 My review of the Omaha, Nebraska located College World Series opening weekend.

 In pictures:

 In words:

 The baseball: greatness.  Even if Miami did lose to Georgia (in a panic button breaking atomic meltdown 9th inning that saw the closer throw a routine ball into the outfield and me leaping out of my seat screaming “Oh no! FUCK!”)

 The atmosphere: greatness (thanks to the LSU crowd for Sunday night especially)

 The chaos: greatness.  A total carnival… outside the stadium felt like a state fair with twice as many people partying as were inside the stadium watching the game.

 Did I mention there was T and A everywhere you looked?  Oh, to be back in college…

 Imagine this true life re-enactment of a conversation I actually heard while in line for a hotdog.  Principles: a person I never saw (behind me) and to the side, a cute college co-ed with short denim shorts and a red halter top.. around her waist, as she’s untied the top in order to better expose her bikini top.

 Coed: What the FUCK!  I totally didn’t even see you there!  blah blah blah… and I’m sitting next to this guy who’s, like, “I have my 5 year old kid with me” (ed note: apparently objecting to her attire) and I was like, “Look mister, the is the COLLEGE world series!  And what’s college about?  Drinking and Fucking!  And I’m here to drink and fuck!!!”

 I couldn’t even begin to make up that story if it didn’t happen word for word.  I swore to myself on the spot I would remember the whole statement.  I memorized it.

 And let me tell you, there were plenty of people (dudes and dudettes) who were there for those two items primarily.  As close to spring break in Panama City Beach as you can get in a baseball stadium.  This may shock some of you, but I’ve been there, too.

 Some notes:

 A) What’s the deal with tube tops?  Pay attention girls: the odds of you looking good in a tube top is so remote as to not be worth it.  If you’ve got too little up top, it doesn’t work.  If you’ve got too much, it gives you saggy pointy boob.  Plenty of other attire works better to exhibit your wares.  Of course, if you’re looking for easy access, nothing works better.

 B) Dudes: Shaving a six pack into your belly hair IS funny, but so is a drunk hobo.

 C) To the ball girl: if you stand right next to the netting, the ball is going to roll off of it and go over your head and the stadium WILL boo you.  I would have thought you’d catch that after the first few times.

 D) To Kyle Shelton, the North Carolina left fielder who out-sprinted a member of the grounds crew to rescue a beach ball from certain death and throw it back into the stands:  We salute you.  (He also got perhaps the loudest ovation of the night).

 E) What’s the deal with short skirts and shorts?  More, plz.

 F) Stanford scoring 11 runs in the top of the 9th made a long game last an eternity.  It WAS warm/hot and sunny, by the way, which made a 4+ hour game uncomfortable.  Also, a word to the Florida State coach: what the hell were you thinking taking your best hitter and good defensive catcher OUT of your lineup after catching for 8 innings (wearing catching armor and squatting in the sun while throwing the ball back to the pitcher over and over and over) and making him pitch in a TIE game?  Sure, I understand he can throw gas, but he was clearly gassed after catching all game.  The result?  Single, 1-base error (shortstop), Sac Fly (out #1), intentional walk, single, walk, 1-base error (shortstop).

 If you like baseball, you should go at least once.  If you like college sports, you should go at least once.  If you are single and of roughly college-esque age and want to plow some turf/get plow, you should go.  If you just want to party, you should go.

 Omaha seems to be a nice city, too, by the way.

 My power is pure;

 Daniel Ludwig

College World Series = awesome

Glacier National Park = awe incarnate

ATT cell service in NW Montana <> good

Blog update = forthcoming w/ CWS review, GNP review, and finance (of course).

 First, a correction: SINO (Sino-Global Shipping), which I covered a few days ago, has significantly more shares outstanding than I initially believed.  I’d like to revise my targets from $12 to about $7, or $8 if you are feeling more aggressive.  Since SINO dropped 10% today to $13, I hope no one bought in at $14.

 Second: man, are the US auto makers screwed.  This might seem obvious, of course, but why don’t I add a little detail to the pornography.

 A carmaker, generically, makes cars and/or trucks.  The US automaker has a business model (all three use the same model): sell cars for little to no profit and sell trucks for big money.  See, those crazy import companies, they price their cars so cheap the good patriotic American companies can’t really get a good profit in the car market.  They could have tried something radical like justifying a higher price by creating a better product, but that’s one of them dangerous communists would do.

 Better dead than red, I say.

 Anyway, the US makes elected to essentially tread water in the car market while exploiting the truck market for big margins.  Think it costs GM/Ford/Chrysler much more to make a pickup truck (think Ram/F-series/etc) than a car?

 Shiiit son.  Heck, naw.  Hell, they be easier to build, don’t take much extra metal, and aren’t legally required to do so good on all that fuel efficiency, e-missions, and safety bull crap.  All you’s gotsta do is take a big shitty metal box, slap some gaudy pastic moulding on the sides, drop in the biggest, baddest, loudest engine built on 1960’s technology you can find, then mark up the cost so high it makes every chaw dippin’ roper dump a spittoon on his head tryin to get one.

 Or you can close up the back of the pick up, bolt in some extree seats, and make sure the dern thing be so big that it’ll crush any car (and associated fellers inside) that it happens to run into.  Then mark the pricer up even higher and you’ll make every broad with a pack of brat-devils soak their panties with lust.

 Shucks, and everybody knows only a real ‘Merican can build a truck.  Can’t trust them foreigners to do it right, ya hear?

 Yee haw!  Boy howdy!

 ‘Course, now-a-days don’t no one want a pickem up truck.  That’s a problem.  A conversation with one of my stalwart coworkers, late of Detroit:

 Coworker: “What’s it going to take to turn this thing around?”

 Me: “A lot of pain.”

 CW: “Think they’ll have to break free of the unions?”

 Me: “Sure wouldn’t hurt.”

 So, sorry to anyone that is in or related to an auto workers union, but the unions are part of the problem now.  I’d say about 40% of the problem, with the other 60% going to past and present strategic management of the US auto companies.

 I understand all the great things unions brought to the labor scene.  As a supporter of the free market, I identify the labor unions as one of the great achievements of the development of the western market economy.  The fact of the matter is that without the US government, the auto union would fail because the big three would drop all the union workers like a rock, and that for years now the unions have stifled competitive innovation and economic growth in the US auto scene in particular and the Midwestern economy in general.

 I enter into evidence the state of Michigan.

 I digress.  Just don’t look to the auto industry to save us.

 Bernanke and Fed are now more worried about inflation, suggest more rate cuts are not forthcoming.  This gives the purchasing power of the dollar a little bump, making imported items a little cheaper.

 The essential story of the day, however, was more fretting and hand wringing about the health of financial institutions.  Today it was Lehman’s at center stage, but it could be a different bank tomorrow.  Never know these days.

 Still a good read: day 2 of visiting the Nordic education system.

 Also, the primary season sort of ends tonight with the voting in ethnically diverse Montana and South Dakota.  Regardless of the outcome, the AP reports that Obama has won the necessary number of delegates for the nomination.

 I’ve got your value right here,

 The great Rafael Nadal

 Secret fun time recipe:

-          start with one party, heavy on the dudes

-          add booze

-          shake

-          now add one (1) single girl

 Presto!  Instant Comedy and good times for all!

 Wachovia (x) CEO and (x) Chairman Ken Thompson will have lots of time to hang out with his dudes after the board of directors “asked him to retire.”  For that matter, maybe he’ll have a wingman soon, as Washington Mutual strips Mr. Killinger of his title of Chairman, requests that he focus more on the CEO part of his job.

 Honestly, if I were CEO and Chairman of Washington Mutual (a bank/thrift that’s seen its stock decline 80% in the last year), I probably would have scouted out my retirement vacation a while ago.

 And, oh. My. God.  Did you see what Lohan wore last night?  What a tramp.

 One of the major issues facing the US going forward is the… uneven quality of high school education today.  The Economist sent a writer to Finland to find out what makes there school great, and he stopped in Sweden on the way, were apparently the Swedes have decided that pandering to kids’ self esteem is bad for education.  The things these norse pagans come up with… next thing you know they’ll be throwing a squad of bikini clad blond bombshells out of a plane to promote beer.

 And in case you were wondering, construction spending both present and anticipated is down (again), while material costs for supplies makers are up (again).  I’m looking at you, USG.

 Speaking of construction, here’s some funny.  Can’t blame a guy for trying.

 Speaking of funny, here’s some over-reaction for you.  I’m not offended by the t-shirt, I’m just shocked he would be flying so close to the end of his pregnancy.

 Speaking of pregnancy… well, ok, I’ve got nothing.

 To of the morning to you,

 Tex Schramm

 Let’s begin…

 I’ll be moving cubes sometime soon, and escaping the camera.

 In oil, we have another one biting the dust as Indonesia plans withdrawal from OPEC.  See, there’s this thing with OPEC: you have to be an EXPORTER of petroleum to be in the club.  Dropping output from mature fields + increasing domestic consumption = now net importer of oil.  Good times, no?

 Also, in Australia we have a demonstration that you don’t have to know what you’re talking about to get media coverage.  Despite the protestations of this Aussie, the theory of “Peak Oil” has almost nothing to do with reserves being depleted.  Further, any good “peakist” (ahem) would tell you that we’ll certainly have oil for the next 30 years and beyond.  The only question is how much will you pay for it.

 I know you’ve heard that here before.

 One of the Fed governors is resigning… Mishkin wants to go teach.  It’s not really all that newsworthy, but it’s a bit of curio.

 Oil is still holding strong around $130, despite surprising drops in American driving.  OPEC ministers insist that oil OUGHT to be selling for only $60 or $70, but much like distraught homeowners in California, it’s worth what people are willing to pay for it.

 On the market today, the boogey man jumped out of the “Financial” closet and made everyone crap their pants as a Citi analyst said that AIG might need even more fresh cash after just raising $20B (Citi said that?  Pot, meet Kettle.) and Midwest regional bank Key Corp upped its expected loan writeoffs for the year by about 50%.

 Also, I came across a new Chinese company through my DryShips following: Sino-Global Shipping (ticker: SINO).  It just had its IPO (debut) on the stock market about a week ago.  It’s not really technically a shipping company, but rather a shipping services company that facilitates port services in Chinese ports.  Keep an eye on it.  I think it’s too rich right now, but around $12 a share would be a strong deal.  If you can hold on for a ride and you’re big on China, then you might be willing to take a look at $14.

 Also, if you’ve been requesting that I highlight a small cap company and/or not catching my cues on DryShips (you know who you are) then don’t say I’ve never responded.  SINO’s market value is a mere $28 million.

 On government, here’s a fun game on balancing the budget.  It does a good job highlighting the difficulty of balancing the national budget, but I can’t say I really agree with the limited scope of your budget options and the lack of side effects from various decisions.

 Want to know how to balance the budget according to this thing?  Tax everyone to damn hell and cut military expenses big time.

 Still, it’s entertainment.

 Side note on Bank of America:  I forgot about their little cash kitty on the side called China Construction Bank.  The holdings are worth at least $21B, and even accounting for the sensitive nature of dealing with the Red Chinese gov’t, they could tap that ass for $10B in funds if they really needed to without being forced to dilute their shareholder base.  I’ll go ahead and say with that remembrance being remembered, BAC at under $34 is looking pretty solid.

 New blog title?  Inspired by Dr. Oppenheimer quoting of the Bhagavad Gita after the nuclear test success, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”  I don’t wear long tattered black robes, so I am obviously not death, but if I’m real lucky maybe one day I can wear spectacles and be the destroyer of finance.

 Plus the new title is a lot shorter,

 Morgan Fox

 When the boss is away, the peasants stockpile axes and spears.

 First things first, on crotch rot: it sucks.  I don’t really have any factual research to base this conclusion on, but I feel confident that my bold declaritive position will remain unchallenged for all eternity.  It sounds uncomfortable, and it makes all your gear gross and stuff I’m sure.  Studies show that crotch rot = no bangin hot genital collisions with the other sex, therefore I conclude that the condition is caused by a lack of bangin hot genital collisions.

 Everyone, makes sure to maintain a high volume of bangin hot genital collisions to protect yourself from grossnasty crotch rot.

 Second things second, you’d think a big (relative to me) corporation could manage a move without forcing all its employees to be stabbed in the anus with a poker forged from blazing hot solar plasma.  I’m in freaking Texas, for god-lord’s sake:

 Turn.

 On.

 The.

 Airconditioner. (yes it’s oneword)

 Also, were is my printer?  Is it with my printer paper?  I don’t know, because I can’t find either of them.  Excuse me, have you seen my printer.  It’s about the size of a really obese 4 year old child.  It’d be sort of a sickly looking grey color, and be very unpleasant to deal with.

 No?  How about some printer paper.  There’d be about 6 boxes of regular and 3 boxes of legal sized paper, white on the bottom with green lids.  Be great to use for some freeweights if you were really really strong.  And didn’t have any handy weights already.

 Well shit.  At least my laptop works great after IT abducted it while I was away and re-imaged the hard drive.

 No?  Excuse me, have you seen my files?  You know, the ones with the excel macros built into them that I spent quite some time torturing my extremely primitive VBA skills to create?  I’d like to issue an Amber alert for them.

 Oh, and can some one figure out how to make this brand new flourescent light stop flickering?  Great demon lord, I summon you from the pits of the maintenance department!!!

 Third things third: Detroit Tigers game Wednesday night.  Hope I don’t get mugged on my way there/back. 

 Sup?

 I regret to announce that blog service may be interrupted this Thursday and Friday, as I voyage to New Mexico.  I thought about staying home and using a lighter to burn a dollar bill about every 8 minutes (but saving the gas and pain of sitting in a car for 8 hours), but decided that wasn’t a workable option.

 Why 8 minutes?  Assuming $3.75/gal, 33MPG (presviously observed), and avg speed of 65MPH, you get an average fuel burn of 12.3 cents per minute.  Factoring in parts wear, a dollar every eight minutes is probably overly generous.  And while gas can still be had for $3.60 here in Big D, out in the Styx (and in New Mexico), you’d have to provide sexual favors to get gas for less than $3.80 or $3.90.

 And yes, fun with numbers is fun.  And excessive.

 Also, based on a really expensive consultant’s advice, there may be format changes forthcoming.

 In China, the Earth decided to make some format changes via a nice 7.9 magnitude earthquake.  Here we learn that shoddy construction methods + crowded urban environment + big bad rumble shake shake = indiscriminate population control.

 Continuing the lessons of population control in Asia, we seeing further what having a terrible government in charge of a poor populace leads to in Myanmar.  The military rulers in Myanmar ought to cast an eye over to pre-WWII China and remember that if you take away enough from the people you rule, eventually the threat of death isn’t a deterrent.  Maybe we need to throw some history books in with the aid shipment.

 Along the same lines, things still not looking great in Lebanon.  To recap, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Myanmar: all off the vacation list.

 Coming back to the domestic side of things, we see that tomorrow Mrs. Clinton expects a big win in West Virginia.  Why the big win?  Well, since it’s obviously not due to a lack of ethic demographics at the voting booths, it must be because of the sophisticated electorate.

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls.

 It seems I should insert some sort of biting, curt commentary here about reaping what you sew, but surely I am mistaken.

 What does this do for Clinton’s presidential bid?  Nothing, of course.  It’s still about as alive as that woman in Florida a couple years ago.  All that’s left is a lawsuit, some bitter tears for the media, and then turning out the lights.

 Clinton for VP?  If you want Obama to win, you better start throwing Holy Water on Clinton to make her go away, but rumor has it the Mrs. Obama isn’t to keen on the idea to begin with.  Clinton brings Obama nothing, and brings me only typos that I have to constantly correct.

 I’ve been waiting to see who my leader will be, and a new front runner has emerged: Mr. Barr.  He still has to beat the former anonymous Democrat Mike Gravel, but I’m not sure that will be such a hard thing to do.

 I can’t wait to throw my vote straight into the toilet in November.  It’ll be grand.

 By the way, did any democratic supporters of Gravel realize he supported the general equivalent of privatising Social Security?

 So, yeah.  Go world, and everyone have a happy stuff.