fifteen and counting

one out. bottom of the fifteenth. runners on first and second. jd drew at the plate. longest all-star game ever played. is uggla trying to throw this game? or, rather, let it be thrown? the national league deserves to win this. but history and uggla have a different view. jd drew walked. brad lidge to pitch.

'here we go again'...

here comes everybody

"Fallen-angel bonds typically are illiquid, and potential buyers are put off by the fear of being virtually locked into their investments. Another prerequisite to the establishment of a new-issue junk-bond market then was Milken's promise of liquidity. Milken promised buyers that he would make a market in all of his deals, ensuring liquidity. In the early days of the new-issue junk-bond market a great amount of paper was traded back and forth among a number of Milken disciples. This gave the appearance of liquidity, which was, in fact, only as deep as Milken's various pockets." -- Seth Klarman, Margin of Safety - Risk-Averse Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor

as joe wenderoth writes in his fast food missive...

"There's a point when certain grave emotions are rendered preposterous by their surrounding circumstances. I think the impetus for the Letters was, in part, my fondness for the grandiosity of certain 19th-century poets and philosophers—it seems like that kind of grandiosity is no longer possible, like some great wave of Triviality has made it painfully apparent that all such grandiose Efforts at Truth are ridiculous in the extreme."

a game of war

1.

can we just begin

as he said, "and you will know their names"

* Alan Cranston
* Dennis DeConcini
* John Glenn
* John McCain
* Donald W. Riegle

2.

with an admission thatthe media is anything

but

"liberal"

3.

and now the war is over. whether we want the war or not. the burning rage of texas exhausting its vengeful flare. alongside the biggest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen. and now it's armed and senile and eminently dangerous. even to the boomers. but, i'm afraid, we've already lost:

In normal times, that is in periods in which the government does not tamper with the monetary standard, people do not bother about monetary problems. Quite naively they take it for granted that the monetary unit's purchasing power is "stable." They pay attention to changes occurring in the money prices of the various commodities. They know very well that the exchange ratios between different commodities vary. But they are not conscious of the fact that the exchange ratio between money on the one side and all commodities and services on the other side is variable too. When the inevitable consequences of inflation appear and prices soar, they think that commodities are becoming dearer and fail to see that money is getting cheaper. In the early stages of an inflation only a few people discern what is going on, manage their business affairs in accordance with this insight, and deliberately aim at reaping inflation gains. The overwhelming majority are too dull to grasp a correct interpretation of the situation. They go on in the routine they acquired in noninflationary periods. Filled with indignation, they attack those who are quicker to apprehend the real causes of the agitation of the market as "profiteers" and lay the blame for their own plight on them. This ignorance of the public is the indispensable basis of the inflationary policy. Inflation works as long as the housewife thinks: "I need a new frying pan badly. But prices are too high today; I shall wait until they drop again." It comes to an abrupt end when people discover that the inflation will continue, that it causes the rise in prices, and that therefore prices will skyrocket infinitely. The critical stage begins when the housewife thinks: "I don't need a new frying pan today; I may need one in a year or two. But I'll buy it today because it will be much more expensive later." Then the catastrophic end of the inflation is close. In its last stage the housewife thinks: "I don't need another table; I shall never need one. But it's wiser to buy a table than keep these scraps of paper that the government calls money, one minute longer."

- ludwig von mises