Just Say Whoa!

Fascinating article in this morning's WSJ discusses the pitfalls of the positive-feedback loop inherent in website popularity rankings. Point in case: a recent study proved people will stare into the sky when they see others staring, even when there's nothing there.

>Point in case: a recent study proved people will stare into the sky when they see others staring, even when there's nothing there.

Haha! This is not a "recent" study...The "Crowd Effect" has been known for years.

I first read about it in a Scientific American article back in 2000 when I was trying to sell my condo.

I used several of the known tricks marketing people use and my condo sold within days.

Like taking candy from a baby....

We've heard the too-big-to-fail argument for banks, insurers, automakers... and now a mall? The $2.3B Xanadu mall, a 2.4M sq.-ft. shopping extravaganza complete with indoor ski slope, is in a financial tight spot that could derail the whole project.

>The $2.3B Xanadu mall, a 2.4M sq.-ft. shopping extravaganza complete with indoor ski slope, is in a financial tight spot that could derail the whole project.

BOO HOO HOO!!

Greedy Capitalists got the timing wrong and made disasterous real estate decisons again!

Who could have predicted this?

Geithner: the government shouldn't cap executive pay, but should examine compensation structures to prevent excessive short-term risk.

No, but Congress should pass the CEO x 64 law.

No CEO should make more than 64 x the lowest paid worker in the org.

If a CEO wants to make more, he's got to raise the lowest wages in the company.

Sounds fair to me.

Hilarious video of the day: Uncle Jay explains deficit.

>You must become self sufficitn in this new era of hypercapitalism

You know, I would try to print my own money up, but I've heard the Secret Service gets very annoyed at that "self-sufficiency"!

Caroline Baum takes a peek back at the crisis of 2008, from the year 2088. "What will the current crisis look like when viewed through history’s telescopic lens? We can only imagine."

I predict in the year 2088 they will have holographic dictionaries.

And if you look up the word "Republican" in the 2088 Websters, this is what you will see:
z.about.com/d/politica...

Madoff's trustee is on the verge on filing lawsuits to claw back assets belonging to Ruth Madoff and her sons. Prosecutors have identified more than $93M worth of homes, boats and cars belonging to Ruth Madoff; sons Andrew and Mark received loans totaling $30M million from their dad since 2004.

Aww, you're going to take the kid's "birthday money" away.

Where is the honor among thieves?

The Dollar Continues to Get Pounded

I'm going to get a picture of myself riding a wagon train.

That will show that I'm a "rugged individualist".

Rugged individualists pay for all of their transactions with little bags of gold nuggets.

Someone who wears buckskin and has flint loading firearms is certainly someone who is up on the latest Capitalistic news, you betcha!

After waiting a half-year, six insurers were cleared to receive up to $22B in TARP funds late Thursday. Hartford Financial (HIG) was approved for $3.4B; Lincoln National (LNC) said it may receive $2.5B; also approved were Allstate (ALL), Prudential Financial (PRU), Principal Financial Group (PFG), and Ameriprise Financial (AMP).

These payouts just illustrate the stunning "success" of Capitalism!

Thank goodness we don't have SOCIALISM here where the Government regulates CAPITALISM to prevent spectacular failures.

Capitalists are perfectly capable of MASSIVE FAILURE all on their own.

They don't need the Gum'mints help!

//snicker

Respected analyst John Browne of Euro Pacific Capital calls a target of 1,000 on the Dow, which is pretty astonishing for even the hairest of bears. Browne recently published Socialism Coming Back To Haunt U.S., which may help to explain his pessimism.

>Socialism has nothing to do with tax rates, it has a lot to do with government control of institutions and companies. I have seen the EU brand of "real" socialism, and I *DID* move back...

Yes, I hope you never get sick here and have to get a letter from your insurance company telling you that the payment for your treatment has been DENIED because it's "experimental".

Then you will realize why a CEO of an insurance company got $1 BILLION in payment when they did a deal back in 1997.

That $1 Billion came out of YOUR health care treatment.

Health care to an insurance company is an "expense".

Cut health care, increase profits.

What part of Capitalism don't you understand?

It's perfectly legal to let people die from lack of health care (or bankrupt them) here in the USA. Thank goodness we don't have "socialism" here, huh folks?

John Lounsbury says the massive mortgage refis predicted for 2009 are at risk, what with top-of-market homes under water, and many mortgagees unable to handle post-reset payments.

But, but, but...real estate always goes up!

The best time to buy is "now", because it puts a commission in the pocket of a Real Estate agent "now"...

Respected analyst John Browne of Euro Pacific Capital calls a target of 1,000 on the Dow, which is pretty astonishing for even the hairest of bears. Browne recently published Socialism Coming Back To Haunt U.S., which may help to explain his pessimism.

Oooh!

"Scary Socialism"

Obama wants to raise the tax rates to less than they were under Reagan.

And they call this socialism?

These people should do some research on REAL socialism and go live in Europe for several years and then get back to us.

They might never move back once they get a taste of the real thing...

Part of the problem with the oh-so-tiresome "green shoots" debate is that's its predicated on a subjective metaphor, Ryan Avent says. Perhaps my green shoots look more like weeds to you. "But," he writes, "I don't really see how people can avoid concluding that the worst declines are behind us."

>The pain may remain with us for a significant amount of time

We need to create 150K jobs a month just to stay even with population growth.

To make up all jobs we lost since Dec 07, might take *six years*, minimum...

NY Times Fed watcher, Edmund Andrews, who penned "several early-warning articles in 2004 about the spike in go-go mortgages," explains how love, subprime lenders and willful self-delusion led him to the brink of foreclosure.

I realized that there was a housing bubble, too back in 2004.

I overheard a trainer at the gym talk about "how much money" he was going to make by buying a house.

To me, that was the peak.

Unfortunately at the time, there was no means to "short" Residential Real Estate (RRE).

But, I happily sat on the sidelines, renting, while my friends all yearned to buy houses "so they could make money like all of their friends were doing".

It's China's world; the rest of us just live in it. "Americans simply do not grasp the competition that is coming down the pike. We are too busy spending our 'stockpile' on bailing out the oligarchs' personal pocketbooks."

By simple mathematics, within a certain period of time, probability says that most people on the planet will be Chinese.

So what's your point? Learn Mandarin? Eat with chop sticks?

Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and John C. Goodman propose a novel solution to the financial-sector crisis: Limit banks to banking. "They would never, themselves, own financial assets. Thus, they would never be in a position to fail because of ill-advised financial bets. No-risk banking? Exactly."

If Banks were as boring as a utility company, then the Hi-Flying Banksters would all have to get a real job, because you don't see many 30 year old utility company execs driving Ferraris...