RDR

Expert Commodity Picks for 2009: Jim Rogers and Marc Faber

www.bloomberg.com/avp/...

I think I may have answered my own question. And if this is the clip you were referring to, that would explain why it was removed from Youtube...it's copyrighted material via Bloomberg.

Expert Commodity Picks for 2009: Jim Rogers and Marc Faber

What happened to your link to the Marc Faber video? Why was it removed? Any chance you can replace it, or at least list Faber's picks? Thanks!

Cramer Is Right about Ultrashort ETFs

"I'm not sure if the non "Ultra" (2x) instruments work the same way (the 1xs) - this is something I have to look at during the next week."

I hope you will publish the results of your research. Many of us will be interested. Thanks!

Hershey: The Perfect Recession Investment?

"Chocolate is still cheaper than alcohol, and you won’t get fired for consuming an entire container of Kisses at work."
That's assuming you still have a job. Given the rising unemployment levels, the rest of us will be drinking before noon, while investing in BUD and DEO :-)

Cobalt: More Than Just Blue

Reply to Ray Lopez:

You mentioned the former use of cobalt in beer without stating that it was removed due to the toxicity of cobalt which resulted in the deaths of 25 beer drinkers in Canada; their chosen beer used cobalt a bit too liberally, as a means to form a good head of foam. Cobalt is never added to beer now; this is important to mention now that some home brewers might get the wrong idea. There are numerous mentions of this problem in the literature (google "cobalt beer cardiomyopathy"), but most are decades old or are in the paid medical research papers. Below is a free recent mention of the original incident:
blog.macleans.ca/2008/.../

Hedge Fund Liquidation in Pictures

CHK also fell related to margin calls on the CEO's holdings. CNBC reported yesterday that the CEO of CHK, Aubrey K. McClendon, known for purchasing large amounts of his company's stock, was forced to sell "essentially all" of it during the past 3 days due to margin calls.
news.moneycentral.msn....

Why I'm Closing Atwood Oceanics

Altho I should add that one of the reasons I follow your essays is that you and I think alike. We apparently are investors. Traders (and your moniker is "Trader Mark") usually set closer sell stops (like the 7% rule used by William O'Niel and his followers). But you (and I) unfortunately hung onto these stocks when clearly the market had lost favor with them. Value is set by the market. Yesterday on the Bill Cara website I had a brief discussion about an artist currently featured in this week's Time Magazine. Damien Hurst is the "artist" who placed diamonds on a human skull and attempted to sell it for over $100 million. That didn't sell, but, if you prefer, at his auction next week (where he is expected to make over $120 million) he offers "The Golden Calf" which is expected to sell for between $14.6M and $22M. This "art" is (from Time Magazine) "a white bullock preserved in a tank of formaldehyde that's mounted on a tall marble plinth. His hooves and horns are 18-karat gold. His head is crowned by a gold Egyptian solar disk....The Golden Calf is a nimble concoction, designed all at once to beguile, flatter and parody the big-swinging billionaires who are likely to bid on it."
The value of the above "art" to me is the gold less the cost of disposal of the dead animal and toxic formaldehyde. The value of our oil stocks are likewise set by factors clearly not rational. On the other hand, it is sheer marketing genius to create such "art" and convince someone to buy it for $20M. To me, that ranks up there with some of the greatest stock frauds in history. Remember Bre-X Minerals?

Why I'm Closing Atwood Oceanics

My sentiments exactly. Very well stated. Thank you.

GE May Spin Appliances Unit, Not Sell It

I agree with oldfogey. Unfortunately, I bought a GE refrigerator one week after 9/11/2001 to help stimulate our economy (and we needed a new fridge). Within 4 months it broke. A GE repairman fixed it for 3 weeks. Next I called the repairman from the store where I bought it; he replaced the motherboard and fan and it worked for about 5 years. After the 3rd failure in under 6 years, I fixed it again and it lasted only a month. I presume it is now in the trash, as I bought another brand. After research, I discovered that the side-by-side model GE refrigerators of that year were subject to a recall (after a class action lawsuit). My model was not recalled even though it likely had the same defective electronics and parts. I even contacted Mr. Bill Bower, head of customer relations at GE. Mr. Bower (and GE) could not care less. Check out www.bringgoodthingstol...

The plant that produced the defective side-by-side refrigerators, in Bloomington, IN, has recently closed, throwing people who assembled the poorly designed machines out of work.

To top it off, we kept our old fridge that the GE was supposed to replace. Almost 20 years old, it is in the basement and still works well and has not needed repair; it was our only fridge when the GE broke!

10 Things Not To Worry About

Well, TIRED, if Bush is only 10% responsible and Congress is 90% responsible, then since each voting member of the House and Senate is 1/535th (100 senators and 435 congresspeople) times 0.9, if my math is correct then each legislator is only 0.168% responsible vs. Bush's 10%. And yes, history will further document the tremendous harm he and his cohorts in the executive branch have caused our country.