Bleg: arrghh!

You know? I thought my stock portfolio was recession proof. I'll describe my holdings, but no names: I'm still not sure if I'll discuss specific stocks next year or not, but I sure as shoot won't recommend stocks that I own. (For a number of reasons.)

1. A major bank. (One that has received multiple bailouts, BTW.)
2. A high-yield equity firm.
3. A discount airline.
4. A brokerage house.
5. A discount retailer.

In a recession, folks will still need to borrow money. And seek out high-yield investments. And fly cheaply. A sell stocks. And buy stuff at good prices. Where am I going wrong?

got whiskey?

Let me translate the November jobs number for you:

1. The real number? Of 533,000 lost jobs? In a single month? It out-does any Beyond Worst Case Scenario numbers that would have gotten your Favorite Loony Economic Forecast Analyst laughed out of the room a day ago.
2. Few employees in my company -- and only one employee in my department -- were alive when we lost more jobs in a single month. Reported monthly job losses have only looked this bad 3-4 times. Ever.
3. Leading indicators are bad. Lagging indicators are bad. Concurrent indicators are bad. This is not a case of the news media exaggerating the downturn to sell advertising space. In retrospect, the news media have acted with restraint.
4. "So what do we do?" I've heard one idea that both (a) doesn't involve a dollar sign, an integer, and twelve zeroes, and (b) might actually work, and (c) actually addresses more than one problem. A one-page law, effective immediately: you buy a home, you're a U.S. citizen. You own a home, you're a U.S. citizen. You're shopping for a home, here's your visa. Come up with your own clever acronym. I'm off to get hammered.
   

For that matter, postmodern postmodernism

Joe [the Plumber] reads economics:

The Theory of Money and Credit (Ludwig von Mises): "It brought monetary theory into the mainstream of economic analysis. It is important reading for these troubled times."

My theory is that someone in Ron Paul's camp told him to say that. Here is the full list of his favorite books.

Thus Spoke Tyler Cowen. Read the rest here.

Postmodern terrorism

The Mumbai terrorists may have pumped themselves full of drugs to keep going during their murderous three-day rampage.

Indian police sources say tests on the bodies of dead Islamic fanatics revealed traces of stimulant drugs.

One said: “We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood.

“There was also evidence of steroids, which isn’t uncommon in terrorists. These men were all toned, suggesting they had been doing some heavy training for the attacks.

Read the rest here.

Instamusicpunditry

"Daddy? Can we hear something else?"
--My four-year-old son, Sunday night, while we listened to The Flying Cup Club by Beirut. You might recall that I awarded -- and would still award today -- the LP with Best of 2008.

When does one say "ethical dilemma," and when does one say "moral dilemma?"

Let me take a crack at it before I simply hyperlink to dictionary.com.


***SPECULATION ALERT***

Ethics is the study of moral dilemmas, or, more precisely, the system through which moral dilemmas are discovered and resolved. Meaning the general term "ethics" is analogous to a judicial system, while the specific term "moral dilemma" is analogous to an individual court case. Meaning an "ethical dilemma" is sort of a meta-dilemma, or a dilemma regarding dilemmas. To continue the judicial system analogy, an ethical dilemma is analogous to a dilemma inherent in the court system itself.

An example might illustrate better. "Should I eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day or not?" is a moral dilemma. "Is eating turkey on Thanksgiving actually a moral dilemma or not?" is an ethical dilemma. Who knows. I'm probably way off. Let's take a look.

***SPECULATION ENDS***


Who knows if I was right or not? "Ethical" defined: "Pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct."

"Moral" defined: "Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes."

Clear as mud?

Another heartbreaking piece from Christopher Hitchens

Do not refer to "Bombay" as "Mumbai." To do so colludes with...

...the Hindu chauvinists who had tried to exert their own monopoly in the city and who had forcibly renamed it—after a Hindu goddess—Mumbai. We all now collude with this, in the same way that most newspapers and TV stations do the Burmese junta's work for it by using the fake name Myanmar. (Bombay's hospital and stock exchange, both targets of terrorists, are still called by their right name by most people, just as Bollywood retains its "B.")

This may seem like a detail, but it isn't, because what's at stake is the whole concept of a cosmopolitan city open to its own citizens and to the world—a city on the model of Sarajevo or London or Beirut or Manhattan. There is, of course, a reason they attract the ire and loathing of the religious fanatics. To the pure and godly, the very existence of such places is a profanity. In a smaller way, the same is true of the Islamabad Marriott hotel, where I also used to stay. It was a meeting point and crossroads for foreigners. It had a bar where the Pakistani prohibition rules did not apply. Its dining rooms and public spaces featured stylish Asian women who showed their faces. And so it had to be immolated, like any other Sodom or Gomorrah.

Read the rest here.

Origins of the meltdown?

During the fury and carnage of World War I, little thought was given to two shots fired from a small pistol on a leafy suburban street in Sarajevo that killed Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Gavrilo Princip acquired fame as the man who started World War I only after the upheaval was over and historians had the leisure to trace causes from effects.

Years from now, when the tumult of World Depression II (what is known today as the Great Depression will, like the erstwhile Great War, acquire the number I) seems to lie in the past, an accurate account of its beginning will place the assassin's pistol in the hand of Charles Schumer, Democrat Senator from New York and Chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee. He fired the shots on June 26, 2008 in the form of a public letter he sent to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of San Francisco and other regulators. His target was Indymac Bancorp of Pasadena, Cal. and, as must have been his intention, he killed it. After the largest bank run since the Thirties resulted from his stunt, federal regulators took the bank over and shut it down.

Keep reading here.

Building a case against high fructose corn syrup

Step one, as is always the case, is to bring out the rats...

If you suspect rabies, just go get the shots

We've all heard that the treatment for rabies is a series of two, maybe three dozen shots, all in the abdomen, all terribly painful. Apparently now it is only five shots, and apparently it isn't that painful. From Ann Althouse:

Jogger runs mile with rabid fox locked on her arm.

After the fox bit her on the foot, she decided to catch it and bring it in for testing. This led to additional biting. That was a bad move. She had some hope of avoiding rabies shots, if she successfully brought the animal in for testing and it was not rabid, but do you know that if you are bitten badly enough, the rabies shots might not save your life? I learned this from expert doctors who interviewed me at the UW Hospital after I was bitten by a bat. I wanted to know if the shots ever failed, and they cited some cases in which a person received large, tearing bites from a wolf. Don't tangle with a wild animal. Just get the shots. They are not that bad.

Track of the day

"Stocks are now cheap, but not exceptionally so"

Follow the logic of that statement here.