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The latest Department of Labor report that shows 240,000 jobs were lost in October alone wasn’t great news.  But if you read the historical data behind these numbers, the picture sounds bleak:

-At a total jobless rate of 6.5%, we’re at a level that hasn’t been seen since March 1994.
-September’s losses of were the largest monthly job loss total since November 2001 – which as you’ll recall was the start of the dot-com bust.
-1,179,000 jobs were cut in the last 12 months – a 12-month loss window that large hasn’t been seen since 2001
-Most economic indicators signaling even more difficult times ahead, job losses will likely deepen and continue through at least the first half of 2009.
-“We may be in a severe recession, in which case these job numbers are not even big yet,” said Robert Brusca, economist at FAO Economics; suggesting monthly job loss totals could grow in excess of 300,000 an unemployment could rise to around 7%
-Interestingly, the female unemployment rate as of October was 5.8%, it was 7.1% for men.

To add more good news, Brian Dunn, president and chief operating officer of Best Buy, was quoted today saying “In 42 years of retailing, we’ve never seen such difficult times for the consumer”
-The Dept of Labor’s report echos this ominous sign indicating retailers trimmed payrolls by 38,000 workers last month – right before the holiday season that typically counts for 50% of yearly profits.

Matt’s Oct 2008 prediction hit rate:
1. Stocks will have a sharp decline, and continue to decline for rest of the year with no meaningful recovery for 2 years.  – After a little bubble in late Oct, it has gone down again and looks like I’m still on track.  Below is the dow tracked since I made the prediction.
My new concern is that we’ll see another big 1000-2000 point drop on/after the holiday as it becomes apparent how bad the retail season is going to be.  Could be another big tumble before Q2 of next year.  I don’t think people realize how bad the holiday shopping season is going to be.  People are already cutting off the credit card use, so with folks just using cash – you better believe there will be a lot less buying.

2. Downward Housing spiral is going to continue – S&P’s numbers for August indicate a continued decline for most cities; but we’ll need to get a few months under our belt to say for sure.  Still, most are seeing a month-to-month decline in value of 0.0-1.0%.  Still, Portland saw a very slight uptick between July and Aug.
3. Job losses will continue – Right on the money with this one.  My prediction to a friend was we’d be at 7% unemployment by Q2 of next year – looks like we might hit it sooner than that.
4. Depression is a real word – and we may just get one – All the indicators are pointing towards a recession in the same range as the dot-com bust a few years back.  And that was an economy without the debt-saddled home problems we have now.  This one is shaping up to be worse by about a factor of 50% by my guess.
5. Days of easy credit and easy ownership are over – well, duh.

So, tips:

1. Cut your discretionary spending as much as possible.   Cash is already king; but if you’re sitting on a pile of cash towards the end of this (whenever that will be) – you’ll be able to buy up stocks/property/etc at fire-sale prices.
2. Save up an emergency fund of at least 3-6 months.  I’d say even more if you can as this unfolds.
3. Hold off on purchases – even if you can afford it.  Right now everything is going down – and the longer you delay your purchase, the better the deal you’ll get.  At least for the next few months.  I’m already seeing this in electronics – and car dealers are likely bending over backwards right now.  Depends on the item you’re buying (houses are different than home electronics); but it’s a good rule to follow.  I predict some amazing after christmas blowouts.
4. Plan your contingencies – are you in a job area that is already teetering?  If so, they will really be getting creamed by early next year when things will be worse.  Start making those contacts with other employeers, friends, update your resume, start getting your linked-in and other networking going NOW.

A coworker just bought himself a brand new Nissan Skyline GT-R – it’s sitting out in the parking lot right now.  The Skyline was re-introduced to the US market this year after a long hiatus.   In their day, they were considered one of the best street legal cars made; and if reviews are to be believed – this version is even better.  The new versions currently run about $75-80,000; and if you’re the first to buy one at a dealership – they’ll try to stick you with a $20,000 ‘retooling’ fee so their shop can maintain it according to specs. (yes, he got this exact grey color)

I actually, seriously, looked into buying one of these the last car purchase, but just couldn’t justify it.  However, to give you an idea of how amazing these cars are for the price, $80,000 will buy you a car that beat every single porche, lambo, and all but 4 other super-cars reviewed on Top Gear by their professional driver.  These cars are simply that amazing.  And they don’t even stand out gaudily in traffic.  They just look awesome.  As a friend put it: “They look like they’ll steal your lunch money – and you’ll happily give it to them.” My hope is that in a few years I can pick up a used one of these for a considerably more reasonable price.

My hat is off to you Marty – you lucky, lucky b@stard.

Well, it’s a bit late for the latest round of voting, but we got into a conversation at work on how Catholics vote.  Contrary to popular belief, there is no ‘vote for this guy  don’t vote for this guy’ list that we all get.  Quite the contrary in fact.  Instead, it’s the duty of the local parish+priest to teach the relevant principles of the faith, and then require each of us to apply those principles ourselves.  There is not to be any mindless following (as many love to claim).

Our bishop simply pointed to the US Catholic Bishop’s article on faithful citizenship.  It’s a very good document that is worth the read if your curious – and good for Catholics to get a good brush up on what principles you’re supposed to be following.  If you’re not interested in all the background – just shoot to the principles on page 12/13 for the basic idea.

Some interesting bits:

1. The Catholic Church does not endorse candidates nor ballot measures as a policy.  Bishops, priests, and church leaders are not to directly promote or discourage voting for any particular candidates or issues from the pulpit or privately.  They’re primary duty is to teach and comment on the principles of our faith relating to the issues, but it is up to the individual’s Catholic’s well informed conscience to choose candidates and measures.
2. Voting your conscience isn’t just a gut-feeling.  It involves going out and becoming well informed on Catholic teaching, current state of the matter/society, and careful reading about the actual candidate/issue.   Then, doctrinal (church teaching) and scriptural research about the matter is to be preformed.  Finally, after careful prayer and quietly ‘sitting with God’ in prayer to receptively listen to His guidance with all this information about the issue, one forms an course of action.
3. Catholics are not to be single-issue voters.  They are also to see beyond any partisan politics and vote on the best candidate based on the issues of the day and what their faith and conscience tell them. Catholics are not Democrats nor Republicans – but faithful citizens that will vote for the best candidate.
4. Due to our particular political situation – one might be able to vote for a pro-abortion candidate in certain cases – but only if they are not voting for the candidate for the purpose of promoting pro-abortion policies (and a few other conditions are met – definitely see the fine print for hows and whys in the document for details – it’s not a blanket clause).

Anyway, there’s some really great stuff in there, and it references all the documents they came from in case you want to read more.

Wow!  Wow!  Wow! (videos are at the bottom of this entry)

   

What an amazing concert.  I was having flashbacks to my teen years to when I would listen to Metallica with friends on our way to farm jobs.  Never would I have thought that 15 years later, I would be close enough to read their tattoos.  My ears are still ringing!

The Good:

• Second row aisle seat – so close I could read their tattoos – epic! (all for $65!) Could..almost…touch…the gods of rock…
• It was Metallica as you’ve always known them.  About half the songs they played were classics – and they played them really well. So well done that I pulled out my old CD’s to listen to them again.  Here’s the set list:
  01. That Was Just Your Life
  02. The End Of The Line
  03. For Whom The Bell Tolls
  04. Ride The Lightning
  05. One
  06. Broken, Beat And Scarred
  07. Cyanide
  08. Sad But True
  09. …And Justice For All
  10. No Remorse
  11. The Day That Never Comes
  12. Master Of Puppets
  13. Fight Fire With Fire
  14. Nothing Else Matters
  15. Enter Sandman
  – – -Encore- – – – –
  16. Last Caress
  17. Stone Cold Crazy
  19. Seek and Destroy
• Energy of the concert was amazing – crowd was great, fire effects were great, lighting and stage was really well done.
• Next day you can download your show! – Go here to download all the individual mp3’s of any concert for $10
• No ‘front’ stage – they all moved around the stage and played at different locations.  So there wasn’t a bad front seat anywhere in the front – very well executed, even had a rotating drum set.  I had each of the band members right in front of me at one point.
• Surrounded by VIPs – I think the reason I got my amazing ticket was it was an unused VIP ticket that opened at noon the day before the concert.  I was surrounded by people with VIP and ‘band pass’ badges. Was that just Hetfield’s wife I saw?  No, really…

The Ugly:  Crowd control – the two guards in charge of our section fail miserably.

• There was a small mosh/GA area below stage level in front of us.  About 1/2 way through the concert in a 5 minute span, about 5-10 people started individually rushing and jumping the fence in our section.  It got bad enough at one point I really feared a general rush/riot might be coming.  People were tackled by guards, idiots refused to take being thrown out like men.  Fortunately the staff popped over with a bunch of bouncers and got things under control – but it ruined two songs while the local theatrics were attended to.

The Priceless:

• 2 old rockers that were clearly not all there (about 40-50, and looked like Ozzie clones) decided to light up huge blunties – only 2 seconds later to realize they were standing right by the guards.  Bye bye guys. 🙂
• The lower mosh/GA area – the most violent offender award goes to a girl in 80’s pink shorts and yellow tank top.  Man, guards had to come in twice and calm her down.
• Friend of mine was up in 300 level – and when a guy got caught toking up, instead of getting caught – flicked the bluntie over the wall to the crowd below.  Somebody down below either got an early christmas present, or a roach burn. 🙂
• The fellows that jumped the railing, then got owned by the mosh guards.

The Awesome:
Wanna see how a concert is from the front?  Here’s clips from a guy using camera video that was sitting right near me.  I gave him my email and he was good enough to give me copies.  Thanks man!

For Whom the Bell Tolls:

Ride the Lightning:

One:

Nothing Else Matters:

(Movies are AVI)

What a week so far:
-Last Saturday: landlady reports the bathroom in the apartment below me just had her ceiling bow, then collapse.  There’s a leak of some sort.  No using shower until Monday when the plumber arrives and confirms the pipes are ok.  Tiler comes on Tuesday and confirms that the tiling was leaking.  Proceeds to rip the wall out and then put a dehumidifier in my bathroom.  So,  I get to shower at work every morning.  1 week later – still drying the wall out – at least 2 more days before I get a shower at home.  Sigh.

-Tuesday: electric shaver dies, get to go to work looking shabby AND stinky

-Thursday: battery in car dies – need to get a jump from cab company in the middle of the night.  Get up super-early next morning to go get another battery and old one is confirmed dead.

-Saturday: while parked outside a cafe – a lady mashes the front of my car.  I wasn’t there, but she did leave a note with a policy number.  Car is still drivable, but now I need to get at least my whole front bumper replaced and one headlight.  more sigh.

So, how did all your week go?

I personally couldn’t care what party you’re part of – as long as you show me that you have a real plan grounded in research/facts, that has a priority appropriate to the funding/time it will take, and is fiscally responsible.

While I didn’t necessarily agree with the ways he suggested to fixed things (but I bet it would have worked just fine – way better than the current proposal anyway), Earl nailed the problem right on the head.  Here’s one congressman who I’ll vote for in the next election because he actually gets it and voted against the current plan both times – calling for more options to be explored.

While the markets are still in freefall (which I predicted), and I do bet that the bailout package did help stabilize things a lot – I still don’t think it’s the right or best long-term solution we can be pursuing.

Anyway, I got a few responses back from my emailing capaigns that I went nuts with during the voting proceedings.  Here’s the response I got from OR congressman Earl Blumenauer(D)

Dear Mr. Fife,

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. During the past two weeks, I have received comments from thousands of constituents deeply concerned about the ‘fiscal fitness’ of our country. Like you, I opposed this legislation, voting against it at every opportunity. My opposition was grounded on a simple concept: that Congress should work to protect American homeowners, not to save Wall Street from a crisis of their own making. As Congress deliberated on the legislation, I worked to include improved bankruptcy protections for homeowners and to include a small fee on financial transactions, so that Wall Street could help finance the bailout. Because the final version of the legislation failed to include these common sense proposals, I voted against the bill.

 

This was difficult because the final bill included several important provisions that I’ve championed for many years. The bill reauthorizes the Secure Rural Schools and Roads funding which is critical for rural communities in Oregon and it prevents the Alternative Minimum Tax from hurting millions of hard-working middle class families. It extends the production tax credit for wind energy and the investment tax credit for solar energy. It includes legislation I drafted to provide a tax credit for the purchase of small wind turbines. These programs will create jobs in Oregon. The legislation also provides tax fairness so employers can offer the same transportation fringe benefits for bicyclists that they offer to employees who commute by car and public transit.

 

Even with these additions, I could not support the final bill. While I’m frustrated that this legislation did not deal with the underlying cause – housing values in free-fall and homeowners in distress, I hope that it is successful. As a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, I will work very hard to oversee the implementation of this legislation. I will closely scrutinize the Treasury Department and will work to contain the consequences of billions of dollars of added debt which our children and grandchildren can ill afford.

 

As a country, we will be dealing with these issues for months to come. Again, I appreciate your advice and counsel. I look forward to working with you to improve America’s fiscal fitness to strengthen our financial systems and economic security.

Sincerely,
Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress

Folks – you should be pissed off – we just got shafted in the largest hosing you will see in your lifetime – and it isn’t even at the worst yet.

So, the House votes down the no accountability, no court oversight giving of 700 billion dollars to an acting fed chairman (who’s really just a Goldman-Sacks executive) – the bill goes to the senate who keeps it roughly the same, fills it with pork, passes it, then gives it to congress to pass – and they do.  They claim they had no other options.  I call complete bullsh*t.  There was never a proposal for a different plan.  It was Fed chairman’s way or the highway.  There were plenty of other economists who said there were way better bailout plans out there, ones that would keep the burden on these companies, and not cost us taxpayers even 1/2 the money.  Ones that might actually work.  Yet the fear mongering that went on in the house left most of them saying, “We don’t have any other options”.  Yes. You. Did.  You just choose not to explore them. You did a 9/11 all over again congress.  You knee-jerk reacted to a war in Iraq when the people screamed to slow down and figure out what happened.  We just got our financial Iraq, because it will do NOTHING to stop the very things they were afraid of such as:

Predictions:
1. Stock market will just keep declining.  Nothing in the bailout will stop stocks from deflating.  Companies are looking to re-entrench, and hunker down for tough times.  That means folks will not be putting money into the markets since no company is looking at growth for the next year or so.  That means the markets at best would be flat.  And with stocks driven by speculation so much right now – everyone is running for security.  Not that congress probably should have done anything anyway.  It was probably time for a good market correction.
Prediction: markets will continue a steep decline for the next month or so, with slower flat to down trends for the rest of the year (at least).  The markets won’t recover in any meaningful way for a year or two.
Because of this, you’re going to find that more people were in more risky ventures with your pension funds than should have.  Pensions and other retirement accounts are going to go bankrupt because of poor management and over-investment in declining stocks.  Our financial ‘experts’ have been playing fast and loose for years – and seem to have forgotten all the rules of exposure they were supposed to be following.  Wait for it.

2. The downward housing spiral is going to continue.  The debt holders to these bad loans likely have not been forthcoming with how bad these debts really are.  One of these managers said that if they just got liquidity, they’d be all able to all sell at face value.  So, those loans for $300,000 homes that are now worth $150,000 will just magically go back up to double (or more) in value?  If this is the extent of the lying they are telling congress – and congress believed them – then we’re all f*cked.
Here’s a graph of housing prices adjusted for inflation over time.  Does it look natural to you?  What level would you guess is more natural?  Guess what the market will do? (yes, this is simplistic, but it shows the extent we have been stretching and inflating the housing market lately)

As home prices continue their declines, more owners will continue to default since it’s better for the average person to take the default and 8 years of bad credit than pay $150,000 in value you’ll never see again .  The BEST we could hope for is that folks stay in ridiculous upside-down loans – which I just find hard to believe.  Even if we could do this, folks will be paying for years and years on homes that are not worth what they are paying.  Everything will grind to a halt for years while we just pour money down holes and sit saddle with debt.  Debt and greed that WE, my fellow Americans, signed with our own hands.  This time the corporations just let us be stupid.  Yep, they hold 50% of the blame because they were supposed to be doing the right things – but we hold solidly the other 50% for not doing OUR homework.  None of this was rocket-science.  It’s been in self-help books and homebuying guides for years.

Prediction: The value of houses in most places will continue to decline by 1-5% every month for the rest of the year and will stay flat for years.  Here’s the data for the current situation from S&P or already charted for you. Obviously some locations will be more than others.  But they will all continue to keep declining – which will continue to encourage people to default and walk away from $100,000s worth of bad debt.  And there is absolutely no reason for folks to buy a house right now outside of moving.  Yes, you can’t guess the bottom – but I can also just wait till it starts going back up and it’ll be safer that trying to catch a falling knife.

3. Job losses will continue.  Nothing in the bill will address the coming job losses – nothing can.  Again, companies are looking at contracting markets – not expanding.  They’re not hiring and won’t until a broader turnaround happens.  Yes, immediate operating loans will become available again, but that’s just a small comfort.  When times get tough – you have to cover your loans much more heavily – tying up cash.  This will probably be the case for a year or two in the broad economy, but some sectors will be slower/faster. Expect job markets to shrink, and lots more layoffs in the immediate future.

4. Depression is a real word – and we may just get one.  I for one am still very convinced we’re in a 50/50 shot for a depression – we’re already clearly recessing.  Maybe not quite like the 1920’s, but it will be very bad times.  Likely the worst any of us have seen in our lifetimes.  Jobs are already starting to declining by 100,000’s per month (159,000 last month alone) for the next few months at least.  The question is where it stops – and I’m not hopeful at all.  There is no immediate positives to turn things around.  I predict an unemployment rate of about 9-10% by mid-next year.
I sure hope you’ve saved up some living cash.  I feel exposed with just 9 months of living expenses saved right now.  I wish I’d saved up 2 years worth personally.  I’m cutting 90% of my discretionary spending and working towards that goal of 12-24 months of living expenses.

5. The days of easy credit and easy ownership are OVER (and SHOULD be)  Some car dealer was complaining on the radio the other day that folks that could get loans before couldn’t get them now.  After giving the sob story, he revealed that folks used to get loans with a score of 625, but now need 640’s or higher.  What?!  That’s cause of us to run screaming for the doors?  Scores below 640 *are* traditionally considered risky bets.  Lending bars are going to go up.  This isn’t harsh – this is the way it always was until the free-wheeling of these last 10 years when we thought we could just throw this stuff out the doors and give loans to anyone.  And look where that got us.  There are good reasons folks have bad credit scores – and for the most part the law of averages always catches up to you.

So – we just paid 700 billion for something that will help slow the decline, but probably cannot stop any meaningful adjustments that need to happen.  Meanwhile folks will keep blaming government and corporate greed when they’re really not understanding the problem.  Congress will continue to oblige with things that look like their helping on the surface to appease the masses – when the truth is NEITHER party will be able to stop the coming slides – just mitigate it.

We’ve been in unhealthy waters for a long time, and it takes a long time to get out of them.  Don’t believe me on any of this?  This guy has a pretty good commentary: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_weil&sid=aMaWyNFImi4o

My plan of action:
-Conserve and save cash: rare eating out, going to concerts/plays/events, stay at home and watch more movies/play video games.  Read more books – anything entertainment that doesn’t cost money.
-Reduce all market exposure: I’ve sold all my stock – and did so about 6 months ago.  I’ve never been happier.  I’m not putting anything in the market until the knife sticks in the ground and stops falling.
-Save up as much living cash as possible.  If you get laid off now, you better be prepared for a long, hard job search.  Better save up a year’s worth of living expenses with a good bit of extra for job hunting costs.
-Don’t bother with any large purchases – unless they’re commodities – and fight for a good deal.  I bought my car a few months ago because I expected inflation.  With inflation – it’s better to buy *necessary* commodities such as cars, appliances, furniture.  Because they’ll all be going up in price.
Look around for deals – take advantage of places that are in terrible shape.  This economy is beating the midwest hard.  I got a dealer in Indiana to drive my car 200 miles to a shipping place for no charge and gave me a 2-year bumper-to-bumper warranty for free.  I didn’t even need to haggle.  He also sold me the car at $3000 less than any dealer around here was asking.  The $700 in shipping was more than worth buying it somewhere else.

I’ve never had more thanks and faith in this mostly useless congress than yesterday.   It was a day that Democrats and Republicans alike revolted against their party leadership to look out for and listen to the people (who voters were rejecting this bailout at a rate of 100 to 1).  And because a bailout didn’t happen – are the stock markets collapsing today?  NO – we’re up by big margins in fact.  The sky didn’t fall (as I predicted) because in its heart of hearts – Wall Street knows a bailout is coming eventually.  I still predict more down days (which NEEDS to happen) but Wall Street certainly hasn’t died by a long shot – and won’t.  I was proud of our Oregon Rep Peter DeFazio – who called it just as it was (OPB interview of his vote – and worth the 5 minutes to hear) – and stood for his principles.  He just earned my vote next go around.

Yes, government intervention needs to happen (see below for why), and I almost half think this attempt was just show to make Wall Street’s immediate fears stop so they could get a breather for a real bill.  Still this was a really BAD plan that we should all be hugely thankful for it not passing.  There was growing evidence this bailout would just be a stop-gap, and in the end would have just deflated our currency and raised inflation (I agree) – and still wouldn’t have worked (did nothing to stop the downward spiral of house prices).  There are other financial experts weighing in on this matter in rapid order as DeFazio points out.  Many of those plans keep the burden on the financial institutes and Wall Street where it belongs – and many nearly or do pay for themselves without giving an acting Fed Chairman complete cart-blanc with absolute freedom without penalty of the courts.  Many of those methods were lessons learned from the 80’s hedge fund bailouts.

So keep writing your senators and reps daily – encourage them to do the *right things* – and not let something get ram-rodded through for the sake of doing something.  The last time that happened we ended up in an unjust war in Iraq.  When crisis’ hit – you don’t knee-jerk react – or you get a knee-jerk solution.  Tell your senators and congressmen to take a breath – because the markets will allow it – and get a correct fix.

 Let it all fail!

Still, it’s amazing how many folks on forums and around the web are dead set against the bailout for the wrong reasons – “Let the banks fail!”, “F* Wall Street!”, “Stop Corporate Greed!” – and other idiotic statements.  “I don’t want to pay for Wall Street’s fat cats” – well neither do I.  But guess what – you’re wrong that we can just let this all collapse now.  Its gotten too big now.  Go read about the collapse of 1929 if you need a little primer on how and why an entire market collapses and what happens to you at home when that occurs.

But another point I want to make my fellow Americans – before we love to start pointing fingers around – this time it was clearly not 100% corporate/Wall Street misbehavior like Enron was – this is different.  Yes, you did have financial institutes lending way too much money on too little capital (estimates were that some firms were leveraged to $5 trillion for every $100 billion in actual assets to back it).  I’ve said it several times, and I’ll say it again – the people not paying their debts this time are US.  WE are the ones not paying our housing mortgages because we got in over our heads.  WE are the ones that did not do our basic financial homework when making the biggest purchases in our lives.  WE are the ones running up record debts that some cannot pay in our own life times.  OUR INDIVIDUAL POOR DECISION MAKING has been feeding into this for years – and now the piper has come due.  Oh yes, banks and financial institutes stupidly let us – and they should have known better.  They did have a job to do and blew it royally. But we are the other half of the equation – and everyone chose to ignore the many financial planners that had been urging restraint and caution all along.  As one blogger put it:

This road to destruction was paved with the best of intentions – that everyone should be able to own a home. Unfortunately, that reality is much more difficult than just opening the doors of loaning to everyone.

The rules of good personal and loan management have been known for years – and we chose to disregard them. And lest you think you have some right to talk, I now, because of my GOOD planning and reading the signs – may get to pay back $2000 for each of your bad decisions. I think that gives me more right than anyone losing their home to b*tch. Next time you don’t think that actions have a consequence, every man woman AND *every child* in this country also just inherited $2000 worth of debt due to this actions. That 6 year old just got saddled with $2000 in debt. Nice legacy folks – well done.

My Aliens Pulse Rifle project continues.  In the process of gathering the parts I wanted, I’ve ended up with enough spares to make a second, much cheaper one using Airsoft parts.  Airsoft makes toy guns that shoot the little plastic yellow balls and have replicas of just about ever gun ever made.  Not only that, they usually have cheap, medium, and realistic versions of each – with the realistic ones being made of actual metal and often costing almost as much as the real thing.  However, the airsoft versions used by folks that build the Airsoft-based pulse rifles are very hard to find.  Especially the Maruzen M870 which hasn’t been made in years and is impossible to find in the US anymore.  Harder to find than the SPAS cages – which are real gun parts – if you can believe it.  In the end, the Maruzen toy version actually cost just a little more than a real 870 express – if you can find it. Crazy.

Anyway – enter Japan.  In Japan, the gun laws are so strict that there is just about no way for the average person to own a gun.  Consequently, the toy gun market is huge over there.  Just a little digging around on Yahoo Japan’s auction site turned one up – and I bought it through a marshalling service that I often bought cels through.  In Japan, Yahoo’s auction site is king – not eBay.  And you can find all kinds of stuff that you can’t in the US.  The prices turn out to be about the same – plus about 10% for the marshalling services and mailing.  So all-in-all not bad.  Tricky part is that everything is in Japanese – so one has to wade through a bit of confusion.  Still – something you might want to keep in mind.

I like most of you, heard Pres Bush’s 15-minute address on Wednesday.  If you missed it, the text is here and along with the audio/video as well.  The most surprising part – he described the situation very accurately, succinctly, and – quite honestly – surprised me with how well he did with it.

He spent the first half of the speech describing how we got where we are now at (and his summary was as good and accurate a summary as I’ve yet heard).  He acknowledged the anger and frustration of folks that did do their homework and pay their bills on time, as well as assure that the Wall Street would be given a stimulus package in order to stabilize the market.  He ended on an inspiring note – which I urge you to read – because I think it’s true.

While I’ve not been a big fan of George over the years on various things (I’m registered as independent as they come) – this is by far the best address I’ve ever heard him make.   If you want a good summary of what happened on wall street and why we now are stuck bailing it out (or facing near depression era market/economy collapse), I now will be pointing folks to George’s speech.  And that’s a first.