Strange Sign that there is Lots of Excess Money Sloshing Around in the Economy

I was reading an article on the best performing alternative investments and I came across this line.

The same forces propelling markets are also raising prices for companies private-equity firms want to buy. Dry powder -- buyout money that has yet to be deployed -- stood at a record $1.16 trillion as of June 30, according to Preqin. 

“Prices are very high,” Black said at the Milken Conference. “It’s still not a robust environment for private equity. We are continuing to sell more than we are buying.” 

The combination of too much dry powder and a great deal of demand has created a dilemma for executives such as Blackstone President Tony James, whose firm manages a total of $279 billion in alternative investments. He says Blackstone has been turning away money because the New York-based firm can’t find prudent ways to spend it. 

So there is $1.16 trillion sitting on the sidelines because prices are too high? On one hand that is quite bit of money left to pop things higher. I mean that is a real first world problem to have so much money to be deployed you are turning away new investors. On the other hand if prices are so high that no one will deploy that money then maybe things are just over valued. Hopefully, we can get a nice 10% or more correction and this dry-powder will power us to new highs. 

Windows 9 for Free? Sign me up!

It seems that Microsoft is mulling offering a free upgrade for Windows XP, Vista, and 7 owners.

The company is reportedly considering offering some sort of Windows 9 upgrade deal to XP, Vista and Windows 7 users, with a completely free upgrade option also on the table. This isn’t the first time free Windows 9 upgrade rumors have hit the web, but previous reports suggested that Windows Threshold (Windows 9’s internal codename) might launch as a free download to Windows 8.1 Update, and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 owners.

I think this is a great idea because most people with XP need to buy a new machine anyway because it couldn't run Windows 9. Also most people holding onto Windows 7 and dodging Windows 8 will upgrade for sure if it is offered as a free download. With Ballmer gone Microsoft is like a different company.

Israeli Left Turn on Obama: I guess Barack Has No Friends Left From the River Jordan to the Sea

I guess all of Israel now understands that Obama is no friend of theirs after all this time.

Consequently, the harshest criticisms of the administration’s pro-Hamas position were heard from quarters where rarely a peep of criticism for Obama has been heard.
The Israeli Left went ballistic.

Haaretz, the far-left broadsheet that has seldom taken issue with even the harshest rejections of Israel’s rights, went bananas after its reporter Barak Ravid received the details of Kerry’s cease-fire agreement. As Ravid put it, Kerry’s document, “might as well have been penned by Khaled Mashaal. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.”

Ravid continued, “What Kerry’s draft spells for the internal Palestinian political arena is even direr: It crowns Hamas and issues Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a death warrant.”

The Israeli Right understands that Obama really hates them and can barely hold his anger when he talks with Netanyahu. Now the Left understands that they might need to wait for 2016 before they get an occupant of the White House that will back them up with actions and not just words.

Obamacare More Unliked Than Ever before

It seems that Obamacare has sunk to a new low in peoples' eyes.

Kaiser Family Foundation, which has done arguably the best and most consistent polling on the health-care law in the past four-plus years, found that public opinion on the law sank to a record low in July. More people than ever (53 percent) last month said they viewed the law unfavorably, an increase of 8 percentage points since June — one of the biggest opinion swings ever.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has no idea why it dropped so much from one month to the next. Maybe people are just tired of listening to stories about it?

Strange Fact: Romney Won 19 and 20 Year Olds? Maybe Obama just Let Them Down

It seems that big government failures and Obama had soured them on liberalism.

In fact, there may be more than one Millennial generation: an older cohort that came of age during the George W. Bush years and identifies strongly with Obama’s progressive agenda, and a more skeptical younger cohort, whose political awareness has been shaped by Obama’s first term. Research by George Washington University’s John Sides and UCLA’s Lynn Vavreck shows that younger Millennials went heavily for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. The GOP nominee won 59 percent of 19-year-olds and 54 percent of 20-year-olds. “Only among ‘the oldest of the youngest’—21-year-olds, whose political memories would have been forged during Obama’s first year in office and perhaps during his first presidential campaign—did Obama win a clear majority (75 percent),” Sides wrote. 

Obama's second term we had the White House scandal outbreak (IRS, VA, Bergdahl, Bengazi, NSA. Fast and Furious, etc.) the government not being able to build a web site in 3 years after billions were spent, and 4 different hot wars all going on at once.

A new generation of post-Millennials could be emerging now. They’ve seen the yawning gap between what big government promises and what it can deliver. They don’t trust Washington to protect their privacy any more than they trust Silicon Valley not to exploit their personal information. They’ve witnessed the chaos that results when the world’s most powerful nation leads from behind in world affairs. They were born into a world of on-demand options and personalized services and can’t understand why they only get two choices when it comes to politics.  

I too cannot understand why we have only two choices when it comes to politics. There should be a moderate party as a home for fiscally conservative Democrats and Republicans who don't agree with the Tea Party assholes or the Commies on the far left.

There should be a far left environmental party that is all about solving global warming and helping the environment. Maybe a socially conservative party that doesn't care about fiscal matters and only care about stopping abortion and such. There can even be a technocrat party that talks about more visas for coders, net neutrality and would push back against the NSA when it comes to privacy.

A coalition government would need to form who will be forced to compromise on things to get the support of the various factions. I mean it cannot be any worse than what we have now where compromise is a dirty word and Ted Cruz pretty much runs the entire 234 member House of Representatives with some pizza.

Hezbollah Fighting in Iraq? What?

I guess the Syrian civil war is moving to a new theater of operations.

Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shi'ite Islamist group, has not previously announced any role in the conflict in Iraq, which escalated last month when radical Sunni militants seized large areas of territory from the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Four sources in Lebanon named the Hezbollah commander as Ibrahim al-Haj, a technical specialist involved in training. They said he was "martyred" in a battle near Mosul, a city in northern Iraq seized from government control last month by an al Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State.

ISIS vs Hezbollah? I wonder who gets martyred when they use suicide bombers against one another?

Tea Party Assholes Torpedo Immigrant Aid Bill

Well we have to hand it to the obstructionist/stupidity wing of the GOP again.

But even significant concessions by leadership weren't enough to secure support from a small band of tea party lawmakers reluctant to give money to President Barack Obama without taking steps to rein in his executive authority on immigration.

Those lawmakers were goaded on by firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who summoned them for pizza Wednesday evening to strategize against the bill.

Faced with weak conservative support for the $659 million border bill, GOP leaders agreed late Wednesday to schedule a second vote on legislation to block Obama from extending deportation relief to more immigrants here illegally, beyond the 500,000 that have already benefited from a program he created.

So "Batboy Cruz" had the gall to come down to the House so that they will do nothing on a bill to appropriate emergency money? Even that paltry amount could not be appropriated from the "do-nothing" House. Now they go on a 5-week vacation so they can raise money to go back.What a joke.

Paul Ryan Believes in Climate Change: Well He Believes that the Climate is Changing

I think his stance is similar to mine.

"Climate change occurs no matter what," Ryan said Wednesday, as quoted by CNN. "The question is, can and should the federal government do something about it?"

"And I would argue the federal government, with all its tax and regulatory schemes, can't. And all it will do is end up hurting our country, our people and especially low-income individuals," he added.

The Climate might be changing but what we do about it is the rub. Do we damage our economy and put a "carbon burden" on poor people just to *maybe* slow down warming? This is especially bad if we have to lead by example. The Red Chinese wouldn't mind if we put burdens on our economy to maybe reduce warming by 2 degrees over a 100 years. 

Apple Eyes New Revenue Stream: Turning your IPhone into a Credit Card

I think this idea might have the potential to be quite lucrative depending on how they implement it.

The tech giant is reportedly looking at getting into the mobile payment business. According to published reports, Apple is said to be in talks with credit card companies to create a service that would allow users to pay for items with the iPhones acting as credit cards.

With Apple now trading near its split-adjusted all-time highs, what will such a service mean for its stock? Gina Sanchez, founder of Chantico Global, believes this would be a potentially big deal for the company.

“Everybody is waiting for the next big thing because that’s what Apple is known for,” said Sanchez, a CNBC contributor. She noted that mobile payments are estimated to grow to $90 billion in 2017, from $12.8 billion in 2012, according to Forrester Research.

 
If they can take a cut of each transaction this could build up pretty quickly. It is high margin business as well. If I bought an iPhone6 I would certainly set it up to pay with my debit card instead of having to reach into my pocket.

Sarah Palin Looks Dumb Again: Couldn't name the 12 Democrats it Would take to Impeach Obama

Why is she still in the public eye?

Palin, a Fox News contributor who is launching her own online subscription news channel, responded to this request for specificity, in part, like this: “Who are these Democrats? You gotta know that there are still Reagan Democrats and Blue Dog Democrats, those who will stiffen their spines and do the right thing because both sides of the aisle, both political parties have so many problems that a lot of Americans maybe were registered in a party, we believe in the planks in one or the other party, but we’re independent. And I believe that there are elected, independent Democrats who will do the right thing.”

Okay. “But who are they?” Medved asked, noting that he could think of one potential Democrat — Joe Manchin of West Virginia. When Medved mentioned him, Palin responded, “Yeah, he’s good.”

Okay you have one Democrat. What is more he would probably be thrown out of the caucus if he would be stupid enough to go along with Palin. What is so very funny is that an impeachment vote would take like a year or more to wind its way through the House and Senate. Obama is impeached automatically by term limits just one year later. 

Wait Antarctica's Ice Sheet Expansion is Due to an error that is 23 Years Old?

This is one of the reasons why people have trouble trusting climate science.

But a new study by scientists from NASA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that a processing error originating from a recalibration made to satellite readings made in 1991 resulted in an artificial jump in Antarctic sea ice extent that was not apparent until the data was reprocessed in 2007.

This means that Antarctic sea ice coverage may have not been accelerating as fast as was previously thought, according to the study’s authors.

“Here, we show that much of the increase in the reported trend occurred due to the previously undocumented effect of a change in the way the satellite sea ice observations are processed for the widely used Bootstrap algorithm data set, rather than a physical increase in the rate of ice advance,” writes lead author Ian Eisenman, a climate researcher at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and others.

So this error is 23 years old and was only discovered after this algorithm was used for 18 years? In other words the Antarctic sea ice calculation has been wrong for two decades? This is case-in-point why people have such trouble believing climate science. This begs the question what other decades old errors are in the models that we are supposed to base tens-of-billions of dollars of spending on? Climate science so so complicated that these kind of errors really raise a bunch of doubt on the extent of climate change.   

Satanists Seek Hobby Lobby Exemption

I guess this is what you call the slippery slope.

If Christian business owners cannot be compelled to violate their faith, why should the same protection not apply to Satanists? That's the argument the Satanic Temple is making to claim that, in the wake of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, women who share their beliefs should not be forced to follow some of the more restrictive state-level abortion laws to crop up in recent years.

Specifically, the Satanic Temple wants women to be exempt from having to view legally mandated "informational" materials — which it calls "biased" and "medically invalid" — prior to having an abortion. Dozens of states require women to attend counseling before receiving an abortion, while 10 mandate that they receive written materials before undergoing the procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Obamacare but I guess they can give it a try.

Paul Ryan Unvails new Anti-Poverty Plan: Mixes in some Liberal Ideas

Hmm, could this be a plank in a 2016 Presidential run?

I didn't expect him to tackle criminal-justice reform, for example, but his plan calls for softening mandatory-minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders. 

I didn't expect the plan to include higher-education reform, but it has several worthy ideas, from reforming the accreditation process so more innovative schools can emerge to simplifying financial-aid forms.

Getting rid of mandatory minimum's for non-violent drug offenses have always seemed like a liberal red-meat issue. The law-and-order GOP would not dream of letting people incarcerated for like 1 ounce of marijuana off of the hook. It would certainly get quite a few people out of jail and on to productive lives if Ryan had a chance to implement it.

The second thing might take care of the drop-out factory colleges out there preying on poor kids who just go into debt and receive nothing at all for their trouble. The financial aid form simplification would also help quite a few kids as well. This part might not pass muster with Dems though:

Ryan's most attention-getting proposal would consolidate a range of federal anti-poverty programs into a block grant distributed to the states. The federal government would merely set a few conditions. Perhaps most important, able-bodied aid recipients would have to work or participate in work-related activities (such as looking for a job). I'm skeptical about how innovative state governments would really be with federal money, but it's a good idea to streamline these programs and add work requirements.

I think states understand how to deal with their poverty problems in a better way than with the Federal Government. Like using the money to fix schools and provide meals instead of some Washington bureaucrat trying to figure out a one-size-fits-all solution.

Standing With the IDF Facebook page has women with pro-IDF messages on their bodies? Sounds good to me

Some of these girls are very, very good looking.

Submissions are pouring in from all over the world on the Standing With IDF Facebook page, with women are inscribing pro-IDF messages on their body before snapping pictures. After just two days, the page has received more than 16,000 likes on Facebook.


I wonder if a "Standing with Hamas" Facebook page would have women with I love Hamas written on parts of their bodies. Their bodies would be covered by a burka so you couldn't see the message. So it is basically a number of women in burkas standing around.

Middle Kingdom Set to Catapult Apple Sales?

So far China Mobile has done well for Apple for the most part.

"China, honestly, was surprising to us ... we thought it would be strong, but it went well past what we thought. The unit growth was really off the charts across the board," CEO Tim Cook told analysts on Tuesday.

China Mobile Ltd's <0941 .hk=""> 4G customer growth has been accelerating after a tepid start in February. The number of 4G subscribers rose to nearly 14 million in June, up from just 1.3 million at the end of February. 

"A lot of China Mobile customers have been holding on to old phones, so when the high-speed 4G came out they naturally switched to a 5S or 5C and upgraded. This trend will only become more apparent with the iPhone 6's release," said C.K. Lu, an analyst at Gartner.

It seems that many Chinese consumers are waiting to pull the trigger on a 4G phone until Apple comes out with the iPhone 6. Then they might be off to the races in terms of Chinese sales. From what I have been reading the iPhone 6 might be one of Apples most popular launches in its history. You have excitement from the US and then you have the Red Chinese waiting to upgrade their phones as well. Then you add the iWatch to this mix and that 13.87 forward P/E ratio looks really cheap. 

Darth Vader Wins the 2016 Presidential Race? I'll Vote for Lex Luthor Myself

At least Lex Luthor ran a successful business (Lexcorp.) Darth Vader is pretty much just a mouth-piece and thuggish muscle for the Emperor. Fear does not lower my taxes Mr. Emperor. However, Vader could always choke out Putin and solve the Ukrainian mess. I'm sure many people will prefer the non-denominational Stormtroopers over the ISIS Islamic thugs any day.

In any case it seems that Vader is beating the field going into the 2016 Presidential Horse Race.

The results of a comparison of the net favorability ratings of Star Wars characters and U.S. political figures, published in The Washington Post, suggest Americans would choose a fictional evil villain as president over Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Emperor Palpatine, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Cuomo, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Martin O’Malley, Jeb Bush, Joe Biden, Rick Santorum, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and, of course, Congress — in that order.

Obama Embarks on his West-Coast Money Swing

It seems that no scandal or crisis can deter the President from his sworn duty to raise cash from rich people.

On Wednesday Obama was attending a Democratic National Committee event for about 450 donors at the Beverly Hills home of Shonda Rhimes, the producer of the Washington-set ABC drama "Scandal." Kerry Washington, who plays the lead role on the show, is among the hosts. Tickets start at $1,000.

Earlier Wednesday, Obama was attending events for the House Majority PAC, a committee that can raise unlimited funds for House candidates, and another for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The House Majority PAC event was closed to the press. Obama had once criticized those types of organizations for creating an end-run around political contribution limits, but Democrats have now embraced the system and Obama has agreed to appear before group events but not to solicit funds.

Donations to the DCCC event at the Los Altos, Calif., home of Real estate developer George Marcus range from $10,000 per person to $32,400 per couple.

I guess that is Obama's plan to tackle income inequality one $10,000 to $32,400 donation at a time.

Whats Up with the Ennui? Americans Seem Discontent in the Summer of 2014

I recently read this article about Dicks Sporting Goods firing 200 golf pros because golf is hitting that companies bottom line hard.

Yesterday Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS) announced it would be cutting more than 400 PGA professionals in its stores. Dicks has been candid about the downturn in its golf business before, in its last conference call CEO Ed Stack said the downturn in golf was responsible for the vast majority of the company's earnings shortfall and added that he saw no bottom in sight for the business. Still it's a significant concession to fire these pros. After all, Dicks first expanded heavily into golf in 2007. Golf survived the Great Recession but can't hack the sense of ennui of 2014.

I also saw on ESPN that golf and NASCAR are seriously hurting for viewers and are trying everything to get people to watch and to show up. It also seems that Americans are barely going to the movies.

It's not just weather-related things like golf. Americans aren't even going to the movies anymore either. July box office is off 30% compared to last year. It's the worst year for American cinema since 2011. Hell, it's almost August and we don't even have a song of the summer yet.

Well the movies in July have been fairly substandard so that might be part of it. Last year we had Wolverine, the Conjuring, Pacific Rim and Despicable Me 2. While this year we have Earth to Echo (bombed,) Tammy (Melissa Mccarthy looking gross and sloppy,) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (the first one didn't do much for me,) Sex Tape (which looks like a bomb,) and Hurcules (I'm going to see it but it is the Rock with fake looking hair fighting CGI monsters.) So the slate is very bare and a 30% drop off was not a huge shock.

But there does seem to be a palpable sense of ennui in the country. I think part of it is people are tired of Obama and the scandal/crisis parade. I need a spreadsheet to keep track of the scandals and there is a sense that he has just checked out on America. We have four crisis all going on at the same time. Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza, ISIS has taken over western Iraq and part of Syria, Ukrainian rebels shoot down a Malaysian jetliner, and 50,000 unaccompanied kids entered the country illegally from Mexico. All of those things are going on and the President plays golf, tries to go on Jimmy Kimmel, and jets off to $30K a plate rubber chicken dinners. If he doesn't seem to care about what is happening why should anyone else?

We couple that with the fact that there is no real happy craze in the country to unite us. The World Cup was popular but most Americans kind of ignored it after we were eliminated. The iPhone and the iPad are long in the tooth and won't be refreshed until fall. There are "disruptive companies" like Uber and Wealthfront and such but most Americans who aren't millennials or really tech savvy don't know what those are. Plus some people see the companies as some 20-something kids getting rich off of venture capital money while eliminating cab drivers jobs. There is no beanie babies or Gangnam Style or anything to keep peoples minds off of things even for just a little while.

There is also a sense that the old world of video stores, book stores, computer stores, cab drivers, travel agents, etc is being replaced by a shiny new one on your tablet or smart phone. The ritual of going to the mall to rent a DVD or buy a new summertime best seller has been replaced by a few swipes on your tablet on the Amazon app and scrolling through Netflix. There are so many entertainment choices at your fingertips you are bored of them already. So people stay in their sweltering homes staring at their tiny screens all weekend. Or go to the seashore and stare at their tiny screens while sitting in the sun.

Then we have wages stagnant and the FED punishing savers with terrible interest rates. There was a recession and a housing blow-up and no one went to jail or were punished or anything. Those same banks and insurance companies that were bailed out are raking in the money again. We have just about everyone calling for a correction or a crash. Most Americans seemed to have been gun-shy and missed almost the entire massive stock market move since 2008. So they missed the huge run-up and now that they get a little breathing room and want to get back into the market we get calls for a crash just around the corner. I can see why the American people are just as checked out as the President.

Interesting Article on Why You Should *Not* Go to an Ivy

This is a very thought provoking article on how the Ivy League is not all its cracked up to be when it comes to creating well-rounded adults.

The major reason for the trend is clear. Not increasing tuition, though that is a factor, but the ever-growing cost of manufacturing children who are fit to compete in the college admissions game. The more hurdles there are, the more expensive it is to catapult your kid across them. Wealthy families start buying their children’s way into elite colleges almost from the moment they are born: music lessons, sports equipment, foreign travel (“enrichment” programs, to use the all-too-perfect term)—most important, of course, private-school tuition or the costs of living in a place with top-tier public schools. The SAT is supposed to measure aptitude, but what it actually measures is parental income, which it tracks quite closely. Today, fewer than half of high-scoring students from low-income families even enroll at four-year schools.

This creates quite a few people that are really smart, with awesome work ethic, but you end up with this:

Look beneath the façade of seamless well-adjustment, and what you often find are toxic levels of fear, anxiety, and depression, of emptiness and aimlessness and isolation. A large-scale survey of college freshmen recently found that self-reports of emotional well-being have fallen to their lowest level in the study’s 25-year history.

You have scared kids that think they are a failure if they fail at becoming a partner at a prestigious law firm or a CEO. What is interesting is that these kids will keep the privilege going from one generation to the next regardless of race.

The truth is that the meritocracy was never more than partial. Visit any elite campus across our great nation, and you can thrill to the heart-warming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. Kids at schools like Stanford think that their environment is diverse if one comes from Missouri and another from Pakistan, or if one plays the cello and the other lacrosse. Never mind that all of their parents are doctors or bankers.

So there is no real economic or class diversity. You end up with clueless people that have no idea about the life of the regular working-class person or worse people that look down on them. Case in point is Congress and Wall Street. Many of them are Ivy Leaguers who have no idea what it was like to wait tables or live paycheck to paycheck. They lived in the bubble of privilege and move their kids onto the same treadmill of success that they went down. Also this article has concrete steps to change things.

The education system has to act to mitigate the class system, not reproduce it. Affirmative action should be based on class instead of race, a change that many have been advocating for years. Preferences for legacies and athletes ought to be discarded. SAT scores should be weighted to account for socioeconomic factors. Colleges should put an end to résumé-stuffing by imposing a limit on the number of extracurriculars that kids can list on their applications. They ought to place more value on the kind of service jobs that lower-income students often take in high school and that high achievers almost never do. They should refuse to be impressed by any opportunity that was enabled by parental wealth. Of course, they have to stop cooperating with U.S. News.

You might get more kids that work hard but who's parents are Latino immigrants that could barely speak English. That might improve the compassion that this potential "Ivy League leader" will have toward his fellow man going forward.

Obama Might be Buying a $4.25 million House in Rancho Mirage's Thunderbird Heights

It is all speculative at this point but who knows?

The main house has 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and a "master retreat with gym, tanning and spa rooms" in 6,100 square feet, according to the listing. There's also a 2,000-square-foot "casita" -- perfect for the Secret Service, perhaps? -- with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. Elevators ease travel at the compound. 

The grounds' 3 acres also include a putting green with a sand trap, a 20-foot waterfall, a "rock-formed lagoon," a pool and two spas, and more. 

Because the property is on a hilltop abutting a bighorn sheep preserve, it's exceptionally private and secure, the listing says.

Sounds like an ideal Presidential compound for when he is out of the Oval Office. Rancho Mirage has like 7 Golf Courses in a few minutes drive according to Google maps. Also that privacy allows him to host some nice dinner parties with the literati and powerful elite that Obama will eventually hold court with. I'm sure nearly every Los Angeles based movie star, writer, economist, artist and such will make that pilgrimage to kiss his ring. Kind of the pseudo-intellectual version of the Playboy Mansion where you replace sex with bloviating.