Screwball

Totally agree on the Fisher stuff. And how couldn't you love Cab Calloway?

Just a simple car (years ago), for the most part the make didn't matter, if you took it in for a tune up and inspection once a year they were dependable, and didn't cost a lot of money. I've dealt with some car issues recently, and it is a total mess, and not cheap. So much has changed over the years.

Classics, both. I wanted to watch the Blues Brothers movie a while back, and the only way I could was to pay for it. Spit. A buddy of mine featured the soundtrack at his wedding reception. It was a hit.

Why do they continue to try to do stupid things. This is baseball. It isn't difficult.

I had a Rambler of some kind, don't remember what year. 70s probably. It had air conditioning when that was a thing, but this was old when I got it. It didn't work. There were buttons on the dash for air, maybe 5 of them. One setting said "desert only." Too funny. Cars are a perfect example where a simple task like getting from point A to point B departs from the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) to product life cycle and making a **** load of money. You could design a car to last a lifetime and save a ton of money over the years, but they don't do that and never will. We also like all the bells and whistles. A good buddy is a retired Mercedes mechanic. They have car seats that make my recliner feel like a park bench. The electronics in cars today is off the charts as well. All stuff that can **** up - and cost money to fix. Lots of it, and usually not a fun experience. ON EDIT: appliances are no different.

The Gremlin was a POS too. A buddy had one. He loved it, even though it was broke all the time. That said, it was a different era. Back then you could work on cars, and preventative maintenance really helped. The cars were similar, but different. Chrysler and AMC were kind of the odd balls. In those days there were big thick manuals on how to fix them. So many times they would explain how to fix something in a detailed way, and then the disclaimer; except Chrysler. Their starters were a POS. So were the front suspension. There was nothing worse to align the front end than a Chrysler, and you always had to replace the ball joints first. They were always bad. At least someone with some tools could work on them. Not today.

The Pacer...I was an auto mechanic in 1975 and I can attest they were a POS.

Another interesting chart. Incoming chart porn. I'm not sure what's driving this. Silver is on a real tear, especially since the low back on September 4th of $41.065. Hit a high of $59.47 earlier tonight, but has given back a touch of that. A three month rip of about %45. Cha-ching! Compared with gold (purple line). They usually trade similar. I wonder if some of this money is coming from crypto?

The rest of the Enron story. Excerpt From "The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" Asshole <---link Great read by the way. On a conference call (see link for conversation) when pressed to show the books, Jeff Skilling of Enron called analysis Jack Grubman an asshole. The was the beginning of the end of Enron. Ticker ENE. Eventually the accounting firm Arthur Anderson fell along with them. Some were sent to jail (Skilling) (hey!, what a concept) and some died while waiting (Ken Lay) and another main player committed suicide (John Baxter). The whistleblower Sherron Watkins does speaking tours on business ethics. I went to one of her talks, it was excellent.

Speaking of Paul Volcker, I watched some old clips of him in front of congress years ago. It wasn't pretty, or fair. He made them look like fools. Dude was a smart guy. There isn't too many people who could carry his jock strap. Another was in 2010/2011 after the banksters blew up the world (in 2008/2009) and congress decided to bring them all in to explain. From Jamie Dimon of JPM, Lloyd Blankeinn of GS, on down the list of about 8 CEO's of Wall Street's largest banks. Hilarity ensued. The banksters exposed these idiots for the worthless frauds they were, and it wasn't even close. A Robinhood day trader could have asked better questions. And of course, if by chance, one of them did (and some (not many) ARE capable) they get shut down pronto - because we can't have that.

I would make Paul Volcker look like a piker. 🙂 There would also be an immediate market crash. I have not followed close, but odds of another cut next week? Looks so. The news tomorrow might be the Hassett guy for the next Fed chair starting in Feb?, a dove who wants to lower rates. He's only one vote, but they work for the bankers so it don't matter anyway. He's just the head of the bull**** machine. I don't know that the Fed deserves as much blame as they get, given congress has to spend the money to be monetized. At the same time, they are a bunch of bull**** artists presented as experts. I worked with a guy who's son worked for the Richmond Fed. He told me about some of the research projects he worked on. They really do good stuff when if comes to collecting data, but they have proven to be quite inept at their two mandates. If the economic numbers, which they have, were properly evaluated, they tell a much different story than the numbers the Fed uses to make their decisions. They should know that - and they do - and don't care.

Always interesting to watch the futures after a long holiday weekend. We are also now into what they will call the Christmas rally time of the season. I'm sure Jim Cramer may bring it up next week, or Bubblevision in general. If someone can stomach to watch long enough to see if that is true, please report in. 🙂 Chart porn, and once again back to the 10/10 candle. The market is a traders dream - volatility - cha-ching. 3 month chart by day of the S&P. Nice little profit in only five trading days, but if you stayed long over the weekend and can't do squat until the market opens on Monday morning... For those who play the market this way, they are taking quite a risk over a long weekend. Which is why many of them go broke before they get rich and live on their own island. And there is nothing worse than watching things take a **** and can't do anything about it. So what's the market look like on this fine Sunday night? Not too far above these levels are the all time highs. Which way do we go? ON EDIT: The futures market (chart above) is the cash market. The S&P is the index. They trade the futures market (you need a margin account with a brokerage) so what they call the e-mini (S&P futures) is a more accurate visual of what is going on with the money than the index.

Issues with mine too. As off 10:46.

An adult wouldn't steal from us or teach us how do do so, but that horse left the barn years ago. We are at FUBAR. 🙂

A tax we don't see which will be paid by us serfs like we always do. Brilliant!

I'm sure they will fix it anytime now. 🙂 I want some of what you're smoking.

I was always a Jim Northrup fan.

The latest S&P chart porn. Up and down. Wall Street is making a killing. Not sure what's it's so happy about the last few days. The support/resistance is getting tested. Wall Street will go on stop hunts and **** the day traders.

And think of CNBC, otherwise known as Bubblevision. They still put Jim Cramer in front of a TV camera. The best in business TV they used to say.

I can feel the pain, and with something like that you know there is no way. It looks corny to have a lanyard so us old and stupid people don't lose our phones. 🙂

I have a stack of old phones. I go through one every couple of years. Not because there is anything wrong with it but because I broke it in some way - like sitting on it - or dropping it. This one was the best. I was rewiring my furnace so I have a way to plug it into an electrical outlet hooked to an inverter so I can run it if I lose power - emergency situation only. Not far from my furnace is a drain. A simple 4 inch drain in the basement floor with a little grate on top. I had the grate off because I have plugs I put in there to keep the water backing up from the sewer (during spring raining season). For some reason I had the grate off (and no plug), not sure why. While working on my furnace, my phone slipped out of my pocket, bounced nicely a couple of times and disappeared down the drain, which of course is full of water. Nice! I got it out, but since it took a swim... This is why I buy cheap phones.

Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy That's the one you were talking about. I started reading it the other day and gave up. It is from CNBC also known as Bubblevision.

It is all fixable, but they don't want to deal with it, so it will continue to get worse until it fixes itself. That will be the great deleveraging, deflation, and demand destruction. The alternative to that is a planned deleveraging, but nobody wants to be blamed for the pain, so nothing will happen. We can see this over our lifetimes. Carlin was right in 1991 with The American Dream - you have to be asleep to believe it. That was 34 years ago. About a half a generation.

Interesting look at the costs of living put in different terms. In the end I think he's naive about the solution, if that's what he thinks it is, but interesting just the same. It Works, If You Work It. For our economy to provide a nice life for all we will need structural reform. How bad is it? This bad.

Yea, I'm with you all the way. Another, with the RV stuff, or maybe a camper, around here anyway (no lake but maybe a pond), is the campgrounds. Some are really nice. But you still have the upkeep, weeds, mowing, ect. The campgrounds do have a lot to offer, you don't get too far off the grid, even a store. I had a buddy who I've known forever who sold his house and bought a kick as motorhome and spent the winters in Arizona, and the summers here (NW Ohio). Towed his car and paid rent at two different campgrounds. Worked for them. That's choices people make and there is nothing wrong with that.