Archive for August, 2010

  • Negative Alpha
    Posted by on August 31st, 2010 at 7:57 pm, Comments: 0

    If I told you that I saw the license plate: +ALPHA on a 7-series BMW in Chappaqua, you probably wouldn’t be surprised.  I was somewhat [...]

  • Wine Country – A Case Study in Customer Service
    Posted by on August 30th, 2010 at 9:59 pm, Comments: 0

    Thursday, the Wife and I headed out to Sonoma county to build a long weekend around one of her friend’s weddings.  I think this was [...]

  • Stuff You Should Read
    Posted by on August 30th, 2010 at 8:18 pm, Comments: 0

    -Via Dealbreaker, quarterly letters from1) Ackman (Pershing Square)2) Loeb (Third Point) – sizzling! “So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them [...]

  • Back in The Saddle
    Posted by on August 30th, 2010 at 1:41 pm, Comments: 0

    I’m back from Wine Country – I have a lot of catching up to do; on both sleep (after my red-eye flight home) and readings. [...]

  • Warren Zevon – Lawyers Guns and Money
    Posted by on August 28th, 2010 at 12:17 pm, Comments: 0

    “I went home with a waitress, the way I always do.  How was I to know she was with the Russians too?   Gambling in [...]

  • Springsteen – Wings For Wheels
    Posted by on August 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm, Comments: 0

    I hadn’t heard this until a few years ago, and as a huge Boss fan, it blew me away.  This video below is audio only, [...]

  • Phish – Killing In the Name Of
    Posted by on August 26th, 2010 at 12:57 pm, Comments: 0

    I’m out in Sonoma for a few days for a wedding, but I’ve scheduled some auto-posts:  mostly videos to keep you entertained.  Current offering:  Phish, [...]

  • Revisiting the Citigroup-SEC Story
    Posted by on August 24th, 2010 at 3:21 pm, Comments: 0

    Last month I wrote about the strange disparity between Citigroup’s $75mm SEC settlement and Goldman Sachs’s $550mm settlement.  Please read my prior piece on the [...]

  • Existing Home Sales – LOL
    Posted by on August 24th, 2010 at 2:18 pm, Comments: 0

    This really shouldn’t be a monster surprise – it’s been discussed at length how the tax credit pulled demand forward, how crappy the economy really [...]

  • Are Readers Having Format Problems?
    Posted by on August 24th, 2010 at 2:00 pm, Comments: 0

    A friend of mine told me that as of a few weeks ago my blog wasn’t formatting correctly in his Blackberry Column View.  Now, I [...]

  • Readings From the Past Few Days
    Posted by on August 23rd, 2010 at 6:25 pm, Comments: 0

    Over the past several days I’ve read a lot of stuff which was Tweet-worthy but that I didn’t blog about.  I rehash some of that [...]

  • It’s That Time Again – Which Of These Stories Is From The Onion?
    Posted by on August 23rd, 2010 at 1:19 pm, Comments: 0

    An old favorite feature here on Kid Dynamite’s World is “Which of these stories is from The Onion?”  Here are today’s choices: 1) “LA Unveils [...]

  • As If On Cue, More on Property Taxes
    Posted by on August 22nd, 2010 at 3:33 pm, Comments: 0

    Leaving the grocery store this morning, I happened to glance at the cover of the Boston Globe and see this story about property taxes rising [...]

  • Unions vs Business: The Mott’s Plant Strike
    Posted by on August 19th, 2010 at 9:21 pm, Comments: 0

    I’m surprised, yet somewhat relieved that I haven’t read much about this Mott’s strike story.  Steven Greenhouse at The NY Times actually did a pretty [...]

  • Clemens to be Indicted on Perjury Charges – NYT
    Posted by on August 19th, 2010 at 5:12 pm, Comments: 0

    NYT has the story. I will simply refer readers to my classic blog post on the subject, from back in February of 2008, expressing my [...]

  • Yes, Of Course Bank Bond Investors Should Absorb Losses!
    Posted by on August 19th, 2010 at 12:23 pm, Comments: 0

    The first story I read this morning was “Basel Committee Says Bank Bond Investors Should Absorb Losses.” “The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is proposing [...]

  • How Do Your Town’s Property Taxes Work?
    Posted by on August 19th, 2010 at 1:57 am, Comments: 0

    Several readers have mentioned that a reason “we” need home prices to remain elevated is because property taxes depend on home values.  That’s true in [...]

  • Interesting Idea, Idiotic Example
    Posted by on August 18th, 2010 at 3:21 am, Comments: 0

    Ron Lieber in the NY Times writes:  “Coming soon: credit and debit cards that cut you off when you disregard your own monthly budget.  In [...]

  • The Problem Is that Home Prices Are Too High
    Posted by on August 18th, 2010 at 2:34 am, Comments: 0

    Karl Denninger nails it in his post today about the housing market, responding to Bill Gross’s recent comments (Gross said that as a private investor, [...]

  • Garden 1.1
    Posted by on August 17th, 2010 at 11:40 pm, Comments: 0

    In our first iteration of garden improvement, we pulled out our broccoli plants and peas and replanted both of them: In the pic above you [...]