This Wall Street Journal article points out what I’ve been suspecting for years: Pre-paid college tuition is a scam! It’s a scam or rather “ponzi” scheme just like social security, medicare and any other government program with similar characteristics. This poor woman has contributed $100,000 under the false assumption that her grand kids college education…
Month: February 2010
I’m Getting Over $4,000 In Tax Refund!
Wow! For the first time in a very long time, I’m actually getting a REFUND from Uncle Sam to the tune of over $4,000.  And all it took was for me to lose my job for six months and the government to lose about 75k in income tax revenue from me.  I feel like Uncle…
Signs of The Bottom Are As Obvious As Signs of The Top
Remember the housing boom and the rallying cry, “this time it’s different” and of course smart people knew the bubble was just about to burst because the world via media was saturated with pure real estate mania but a funny thing has happened. We’ve now reached “doom and gloom” mania all over the place. Almost…
Can Barnacle Ben Careen Liquidity Off of Titanic?
The financial world is a buzz with the Fed raising the discount rate a quarter point stealthily right before options expiry and it is just the start of a very dangerous careening job. If you’re not familiar with careening, here’s a quick primer: As is well known, as ships cruise the ocean, their bottoms quickly…
Raked in $1,100 Today and The Federal Reserve Raises Rates
The market may be back but don’t confuse that for the end of the recession. I think we may be approaching the bottom of this recession based on what I’m seeing in the energy market and other data coming out.  The Fed announced it was raising the discount rate from 0.50 to 0.75 and that…
Time To Get Off The Bench, Raked in $2,800 in a Day
I’ve been reluctant to do any heavy trading since the great collapse of 2009 but that all changed since two nights ago.  I went out to dinner with a co-worker at a nice steak restaurant and I was completely shocked to see the restaurant packed on a Tuesday night.  I’ve eaten at this restaurant off…
Why Are Markets Pricing Energy Inflation of 20%?
Here’s some food for thought, I looked at the USO and UNG call options for January 2012 (in the money) and I was surprised to see over 20% premiums on these two ETFs two years out.  I checked on UGA and this is showing 11% premium just SIX months into the future! This bothered me…
Why Does KFC Keep Running Out of Chicken?
Last night was one of those rare events where I decided to purchase fast food for dinner.  In an effort to be quasi-healthy I drove up to KFC and requested the family special. As usual, the clerk asked if I wanted Original, Crispy or Grilled chicken. As usual, I responded that I wanted Grilled chicken.   …
More Big Bank Gambling
Did you see this headline? US Banks Have $176B Exposure To Weak Euro Countries That’s a news story from Bloomberg and it discusses the fact that US (Big Banks) have nearly $200 billion dollar exposure to the collapsing economies of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). I love how they downplay the “it’s…
Home Depot Employees Actually Helpful
If there’s one good thing about the recession and millions of people being unemployed it is the fact that people who do have a job are desperate to keep it and as such are going out of their way to help people out.   I went in to Home Depot this weekend to look at grills…