Longinvestor

Don't be fooled by the sudden recovery, Paul Farrell says - American capitalism has lost its soul and the consequences will be dire: "Use your gut. You know something's very wrong: A year ago 'too-greedy-to-fail' banks were insolvent ... Now, magically they're back to business as usual, arrogant, pocketing outrageous bonuses while Main Street sacrifices, and unemployment and foreclosures continue rising ... "

Same old media liars contest. Here is a link to a more entertaining one on National Public Radio. www.npr.org/templates/...

FPL Ready to Open Nation's Largest PV Power Plant

Very good article and links. In my view, solar power will become a very significant player in the energy sector. Sooner rather than later.

U.S.: Left Behind in Nuclear

"...Left Behind in Nuclear." That is because it is an obsolete technology for anything except its original purpose: making defense weapon material. The massive heat produced in the process is useful for generating electricity.

It's not entirely clear why Roubini's comments in Istanbul are getting so much play this morning, but here goes: "I see the risk of a correction, especially when the markets now realize that the recovery is not rapid and V-shaped, but more like U- shaped."

Roubini, a later day Chicken Little, needs to substantiate his "sky is falling" opinion with some believable data...aka numerical facts.

The Trend Is Your Friend Until It Ends

Nice article. Here is an article that confirms some of the hypothesis of the article:
"how the finance gurus get risk all wrong" by mandelbrot & taleb.
money.cnn.com/magazine...

Battery Investing for Beginners, Part 4

Fact: The Chevy Volt gets 230 mpg in the PHEV mode and 100 mpg in the HEV mode. (HEV mofe means never plug it into an outlet, just run it on gasoline).

As for the cost of lithuim battery raw materials:
Engineers will make History repeat itself (lithium prices will plummet again): "Lithium's boom had begun in earnest just a year before, when Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) launched its first generation of lithium-ion batteries for consumer electronics. By the end of 1991 Sony was making 100,000 a month. SQM began selling lithium carbonate in late 1996,
and within a matter of weeks, lithium carbonate prices fell by a third, to $2,000 a ton. The American lithium industry vanished overnight."
www.forbes.com/forbes/...

So much for the 75% of the battery cost being in the raw materials...that will be a myth at the end of the first year of a lithium battery vehicle on the market.

Meet John Kopchinski, the whistleblower who cost Pfizer (PFE) $1.8B. Here's Kopchinski's qui tam complaint (.pdf).

The expectation of investors and the general public:
media.pfizer.com/files...

Finra says it will increase margin requirements for leveraged ETFs "by a factor commensurate with their leverage" (.pdf). Which, if it means what it sounds like, will essentially neuter the products.

A non problem to those who trade in cash.

In an op-ed for the NY Times this morning, FDIC chief Sheila Bair makes the case against a single, super-powered bank regulator (that would be the Fed): "We can't put all our eggs in one basket. The risk of weak or misdirected regulation would be increased if power was consolidated in a single federal regulator."

She is correct we don't need a single stop Regulator that becomes too proud or cowed to regulate the too big to fail

Distinction Between Positive and Normative Economics Misses the Point

In my thinking, the labelling of something is an abstracting process that has no value added. But to those who need labels, I would ask 5 questions:
Normative
1. Is the policy goal good or bad?
2. Is this a policy goal full of deception and hypocrisy?
3. Is this a policy goal a violation of the golden rule of civilized mankind, i.e., treat others as you would have them treat you?
4. In a world full of known and stealth sociopaths in high and low places, is your scientific prediction model of individual behavior taking those sociopaths into account?

Chevy Volt: How It Stacks Up

"The EPA prefers to measure the efficiency of electric plug-ins in terms of kilowatt hours per 100 miles traveled. GM says the Volt's optimal performance will be about 25 kWh/100 miles. Boy, that sounds efficient, doesn't it?" Rick Newman.

Let's say you never plug the car into the grid, but just use gasoline only, like you would need to do on a long wilderness fishing trip.

Just as a sanity check, an off the shelf portable Honda electric generator rated at 6500w can do this:
6.5kW * 14hours / 4.5 gal-gas = 20.2 kWh / gal-gas
1.24 gal-gas = 25 kWh

100 mi / 25 kWh = 100 mi / charge per the above article.

25 kWh (from a Honda generator) = 1.24 gal-gas

100 mi / 1.24 gal-gas = 80.6 mpg on gas only

Of course you don't need the Honda electric generator because the Volt has its own gas powered electric generator on board.

Copper ETFs Are Shining: Will It Last?

While doing your due diligence, you might look at DBB. It covers three base metals, aluminum, copper, and zinc rather than copper alone. For those not faint of heart there is BDD, a 2X long leveraged ETN based on the same index.

The new American dream: renting. Sociology professor Thomas Sugrue says it's time to accept that home ownership is not a realistic goal for many people, and to curtail the enormous government programs fueling this ambition.

So to whom do we pay for the "home"? Is it to a mortage company or to a landlord? Exactly the same amount of money for rent or for mortgage...don't you think?

Insiders Continue to Sell, Sell, Sell

Insider trading violates two of the widely recommended investment rules:
1. Diversify (if you don't know what you are doing).
2. Learn by experience: buy and hold loses 50% of your nest egg.
3. Decide whether you want to make money by devoting full time to your investments or whether you want to make money by devoting full time to managing your company successfully.

Buffet made rule 1 and I made up the other 2.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Diamler-Chrysler was American?


On Aug 14 08:50 AM ScroogeMcduck wrote:

> It's funny how our American car co. cant turn a profit yet the Germans
> can buy Porsche.