And So It Begins

Today is one of those sacred days on my personal calendar. Baseball's opening day! Woo-hoo!



Go Tribe!!!

Taxes

I just spent a sunny, rather nice Saturday filing my taxes. And I owe both Uncle Sam and Uncle Penn. Pooh.

At least it's over, and I'm getting a refund from Delaware so I guess I came out ahead.

Shout out to Joe F. for recommending Tax Cut to me. Free is good. And I must say that filing on-line with PA and DE was quite easy.

I Still Don't Get It

Just when you think people have finally dropped it, someone writes an article saying the Democrats should nominate Al Gore. Get over it, already. Please. It's kind of embarrassing.

I Once Caught a Fish This Big

It seems that Mrs. Clinton slightly embellished one of her accounts of a trip to Bosnia. If she really wanted to try to sound tough, she shouldn't have embellished her story by saying she ran to the car under direct gunfire. I mean, if you're going to lie, make it good. Say you grabbed a weapon from your Secret Service agent, ran into the woods and came back with the heads of three war criminals or something. If you want to be the one that gets "called at 3 AM", give me something I can work with here, Hil.

Like I Was Saying

Edward Jones has a great little article on the importance of choosing a proper portfolio allocation that meets your needs and then sticking with it through market turbulence.

Bear Market

It is breathtaking just how quickly Wall Street firm Bear Stearns collapsed. Just last August, it was reported,

"Bear Stearns' liquidity is strong and the bank should be profitable in the current quarter, according to S&P."

and in the same article, their CEO James Cayne had commented,

"Contrary to rumors in the marketplace, our franchise is profitable and healthy and our balance sheet is strong and liquid."

Over the last year, the stock was trading as high as $159 per share. Friday morning it started the day trading at $54 per share. And now before Monday even begins, it was just sold to JPMorgan for $2 per share. Yes, that giant sucking sound you heard was $18.5 billion evaporating into thin air. If I'm a JP Morgan shareholder, I'm thinking I'm pretty happy right now. They're buying assets for pennies on the dollar. They paid $236 million for the entire company. As the article points out, their office building alone was estimated to be worth nearly $1 billion!

So, the moral of the story is:

1. It's a really bad idea to lend money to people who can't pay you back.
2. Risk is real and people panic.
   

Maybe She's A Gemini

It seems that Mrs. Clinton can't quite figure out how to relate to Mr. Obama. One day she says that she is honored to be on the same stage with him, and the next she denounces everything he says. One day she wants to be on the same ticket with him, and the next her campaign says that he is "unelectable." Um, why would you want to run on the same ticket with him if you are convinced he can't win?

Religion and the Environment

The matter of religion and the environment has made headlines this week as both the Catholic church and Southern Baptist Convention have issued statements on the need to be more environmentally sensitive and responsible. This may sound kind of new and that the church is late to the game on the green front and there is some truth to that, but there is also a long understanding of the responsibility of stewardship over creation within the church. Even from the traditional Book of Common Prayer, we find these words in the Litany of Penitence:

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, Accept our repentance, Lord

I was encouraged to see these formal bodies make a statement and remind believers to take seriously our responsibility for the environment. Being green is very fashionable and chic right now, but it needs to be more than words. A few weeks ago, a radio show was interviewing a celebrity who was triumphing the need to care for the environment. But when the interviewer asked if the celebrity owned a hybrid car, the answer was no. (Presumably it wasn't a fuel efficient car of any sort.) When asked if the celebrity recycled, the answer was again no. So quickly one could see there was a big gap between what was being preached and what was being lived out. We need to consider if that same gap exists in our own lives and where we may be able to close it.

And by the way, it doesn't really matter where you fall on the whole global warming evidence and arguments and such. Being wise and responsible with the environment by doing little things like "Reduce, Re-use and Recycle" is always a good idea.

Don't Worry, Be Money

You may have noticed a lot of economic events on the news lately. Oil is pushing $110 a barrel. Gold is at $1,000/oz. The Fed is slashing short term interest rates. Delinquency rates are rising. And on and on it goes.

May I make a suggestion? Build a well diversified portfolio suited to your needs and risk tolerance and just stick with it. There is a lot of fear in the markets right now, and people are panicking. Irrational exuberance has perhaps turned into irrational despondency. This isn't the end of the world. It's not even officially a recession yet. And by the way, recessions aren't the end of the world either. They are a natural part of the economic cycle. Being worried because the economy is slowing down after several years of strong growth is like being worried because you're tired at the end of a long work-week. Expansion and contraction. It's part of life. Just go with the flow man.

Of course there are serious economic issues out there. I have talked about them before on the blog (like the trillions of dollars the government has amassed in debt). But don't panic. The average person on the street hears a report on the evening news, gets scared, sales his long term investments now when they are low only to buy them back in the future at a higher price when the same reporter on the evening news says that the economy has turned around. It really doesn't hurt to be a little contrarian as an investor. I remember looking a couple years ago at put options on Countrywide while it was racing over $100/share. (Put options make money when the price of stock goes down.) Today I am wondering about put options on gold futures.

And by the way, if you are suddenly panicking about your personal finances now, it probably means you were living a lifestyle you really couldn't afford anyways. Be thankful this is forcing you to face reality, and that it's a really good idea to live consistently beneath your means, not above them. Then when times like these come, it becomes more of an opportunity than a threat.

Denied

So Obama rejected Hillary's attempts to weasel her way into the general election through a joint ticket.

"I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to somebody who is in first place," Obama, an Illinois senator, told supporters.

Ha, ha.

Hope Springs Eternal

This week has witnessed the subtle thawing of winter into spring. I think it's been over freezing every day this week, and even though it's raining tonight you can still be outside with just a fleece instead of winter coat and scarf. This is simply glorious.

And then this weekend is Daylight Savings Time. I'll gladly forgo that one hour of sleep on one night to have an extra hour of daylight every single day. Moving around in the warm daylight is such a mood enhancer.

The Sound of Desperation?

I laughed out loud when I saw the article where Hillary talks about this primary contest turning into a dream ticket for the general election. Um, Hillary, what makes you think you'll get to have any choice in the matter? It sounds to me like she realizes that despite the (narrow) wins on Tuesday, she isn't going to make up enough ground the rest of the way before the convention, and is vying for the VP nod. But why would Obama want to spend the next 4 years with power-grubbers like her and her husband right behind him? And it's not like he needs her. If anything she would probably be a liability on the ticket in the general election. No doubt she is hoping the party will put enough pressure on him at the convention to choose her. I hope he shrugs it off. Or, barring that, if he does choose her and they win, that his first act as President is to send her to the North Pole for a 4 year environmental study on global warming.

And by the way, I have never felt so ashamed to say I am from Ohio as when the results came back on Wednesday morning.

Oh, and one other thing. If you're going to run an ad to appeal to all the "security moms" out there, you need to make sure people perceive you as the best person to respond to that. I saw an informal survey on CNN asking which candidate you would want answering that call, and Hillary ranked a distant third. Way to play to other people's strengths. Why do people think the Clintons are so good at politics? I think they have been showing that the emperor is naked throughout this campaign.

Huckabee on SNL

This was kind of amusing. I actually appreciate that Huckabee (and even Ron Paul for that matter) have stayed in the race. As Huckabee said, "It should be about making a choice, not a coronation. Part of this whole process should be discussing different ideas and platforms and you have to stay in the race in order to keep that debate alive.