DBKP - Worldwide Leader in Weird: 4/25/10

Monday, May 3, 2010

In Case You Missed it: May 4, 2010

Here's a quick look at some stories we wanted to cover in greater depth, but ran out of time. At least they get a quick mention and now we're almost caught up. A two-fer!

Everybody's busy these days--even hobos and Hollywood celebrities.

Here's some stories DBKP was going to comment on, but didn't--because we were too busy!

Just in case you missed them.

The Best Quotes From Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals.”

John Hawkins, Right Wing News, read Rules for Radicals and distilled a bunch of good quotes from the book. Very good reading for those without the time to do the Full Alinsky.

Alinsky deeply impressed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been nothing if not our community-organizer-in-chief. Both took the book and its lessons to heart.

The tenth rule of the ethics of rules and means is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral arguments. ...the essence of Lenin's speeches during this period was "They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet." And it was. -- P.36-37

However, on foreign policy, it is wished that both Hillary and Obama had substituted the quote below for their fabled "smart power."

The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means. It is this species of man who so vehemently and militantly participated in that clasically idealistic debate at the old League of Nations on the ethical differences between defensive and offensive weapons. Their fears of action drive them to refuge in an ethics so divorced for the politics of life that it can apply only to angels, not men. -- P.26
I Own the World has a two-fer:

First, they publish some contact info to let Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer know that she should keep up the good work. Support Jan Brewer

Buycott Arizona lists businesses based in Arizona so you can counter various and sundry liberal boycotts.
American Spectator exposes the worms in the Obama administration apple and their eating out of the First Amendment through onerous regulations and sly additions to legislation: Shutting Down Free Speech.

First is the Federal Communication Commission's National Broadband Plan. There is an overabundance of big government programs contained in the plan for Americans to dislike. These range from having taxpayers fund broadband as a universal service to developing a process by which outside entities -- including the government -- can monitor how Americans use energy at home, just to name a few.

The NBP also proposes the FCC recapture nearly half of the radio spectrum used by today's 1,600 broadcast TV stations -- involuntarily, if need be -- and designate it for broadband services. The FCC identifies the swath of spectrum that is ideal for the latest wireless services as that which falls between 225 MHz and 3.7 GHz.

TV broadcasters occupy only five per cent of that spectrum with other actors -- including the government -- sitting on much larger chunks of spectrum, some of which lies fallow. Even Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, whose company would likely be the single biggest beneficiary of the National Broadband Plan, found the FCC's "looming spectrum shortage" claims to not be credible.

You'd think the Left would mobilize to protect Free Speech. But they won't because they are making the rules attempting to muzzle opponents and they envision they will be in charge of allocating who gets to publish on the Internet.
The Barack Obama-Vera Baker Presidential Cheating Scandal: Did the president cheat in 2004? Is the affair on-going? Who is Vera Baker? DBKP has the low-down on the scandal broken by the National Enquirer a few days ago.
* Vera Baker, Obama: 2008 Illegal Foreign Contributions Connection?
* Obama, Vera Baker Affair Rumors: Baker Returned to D.C. Nine Days after Obama Inauguration
* Obama, Vera Baker: Enquirer Stands by Presidential Cheating Story
* Vera Baker, Obama: Enquirer Revises Obama Cheating Story
* Vera Baker: Who is Vera Baker?
* Obama, Vera Baker: Enquirer Uncorks Presidential Cheating Scandal
News Not Fit To Print. A short piece that's well worth reading that perfectly illustrates one reason the American media is not just biased, but corrupt. As if you needed another piece of evidence, but the story is good.
Sarah Palin Is on a Roll. Crazy like a fox. The Left is terrified of this woman. As Don Surber says of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, "She's living rent-free inside his head." (I believe Surber said he was paraphrasing Limbaugh.)
Joe “dumb as” Dirt. HA! Funny picture of the Day.
"Everybody Draw a POSITIVE Mohammed" Day. The People's Cube demonstrates it's not as hard as one might think.
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day? . Maksim says, "Why wait until May 20? Let's get this party started!" And so he does!
2011: The Obama Coup Fails. The online game continues to grow and grow and.... Go to the site and cast a vote for DBKP on their top 40 most popular sites. Help us get back into the Top Ten! (Voting is near the bottom of the page, btw.)
Interesting Beck piece: Glenn Beck – “How’s Your Security?”
Ooops! Obama's real thoughts are popping up everywhere these days: President Obama: GOP Opposition to Stimulus 'Helped to Create the Tea-Baggers'
For more headlines, check out these Right Bias offerings. Updated frequently for those on-the-go-go.
Finally, a little TV time: DBKP's LBG had her revealing article on the Real Housewives of NJ tweeted by two of the people appearing on the show: Danielle Staub, The Naked Truth: An Illegitimate Sicilian Mob Princess Fathered by a Murdered Priest?

That's it and dang!--we're caught up almost!

by Mondo Frazier
image: DBKP file

Back to DBKP Front Page.

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Stock Investing: Much of Today's Understanding is Primitive

Originally posted at DBKP: Stock Investing: Much of Today’s Understanding is Primitive

I Know More About Investing Than John Bogle

-- And You Can Too!

It’s not that I’m picking on Vanguard Founder John Bogle. Bogle is a hero of mine. The point that I want to make is that none of the investing experts know as much as they are portrayed to know about stock investing. Today’s understanding of how stock investing works is primitive. This reality gives you an opportunity to shoot ahead of the experts if you are willing to question a few of the most popular beliefs that we have discovered in recent years are built on sand.

It’s not just me who says that our knowledge today is primitive. Rob Arnott is the former editor of the Financial Analysts Journal, the most prestigious journal in the field. He says that today’s conventional investing wisdom is rooted in “myth and urban legend.” Anatole Kaletsky wrote in The Times that the economic theories on which today’s conventional investing wisdom is based are “on the brink of a paradigm shift." We are where astronomy was when Copernicus realized that the earth revolves around the sun. The academic economics of the past 20 years is comparable to pre-Copernican astronomy, with its mysterious heavenly cogs, epicycles and wheels within wheels or maybe even astrology, with its faith in star signs.”

So you don’t need to take “experts” like John Bogle too seriously. Bogle is a smart fellow. I have learned many important things from reading his work. But when he says something that does not add up, I remind myself that the conventional investing wisdom that he espouses is rooted in myth and urban legend and I think the issue through for myself until I come to an understanding in which I am able to feel greater confidence.

The thing that I don’t get about Bogle’s advice is why he says that there is no need for investors to lower their stock allocations when stock prices go to insanely dangerous levels. Bogle acknowledges that stock prices always revert to the mean; he calls this an “Iron Law” of stock investing. The market was priced at three times fair value in January 2000. That translates into $12 trillion of overvaluation, $12 trillion of money that investors were thinking could be used to finance their retirements that was fated to go “poof!” sometime over the following 10 or 15 years. Shouldn’t we have all been expecting a stock crash as the Iron Law forced prices back to fair value? It sure seems so to me.

I’ve studied the history of the Buy-and-Hold concept to try to figure out what is going on with the strange advice that we have been hearing from most of the experts for the past 30 years. It turns out that there was a time when the academic research really did support the Buy-and-Hold idea. There was a time when the research seemed to indicate that stocks are always priced properly, that insane levels of overvaluation are an impossibility. If that were so, staying at the same stock allocation at all times really would make sense.

But Yale Professor Robert Shiller (author of Irrational Exuberance) did research in 1981 poking holes in the idea that stocks are always priced right. If Shiller’s findings hold up (and there is now 30 years of follow-up research backing him up), staying at the same stock allocation at all times is a terrible idea. If Shiller is right, Bogle is wrong. If valuations affect long-term returns, the risk of investing in stocks is greater at times of high prices. If Shiller is right, the investor seeking to “Stay the Course” (a favorite Bogle admonition) needs to change his allocation in response to big price swings, not always keep it the same.

Why haven’t the experts been telling us this? Buy-and-Hold became extremely popular during the huge bull market. Advocating Buy-and-Hold made a lot of people millionaires. I have a funny feeling that the primary expertise of many of the “experts” in the The Stock-Selling Industry is in marketing. Buy-and-Hold teaches that we should all always be putting most of our money into stocks. Wouldn’t every industry like to be able to persuade the public that its product is a good deal at any possible price? The Stock-Selling Industry actually got away with this far-fetched (and self-serving!) claim during the Buy-and-Hold Era.

Are you depressed? Please don’t be. What I am saying is encouraging news if you look at it from the right angle.

I am saying that the conventional investing wisdom is dubious stuff. That’s bad. But you know what? There is no law that says that we need to follow the conventional wisdom. What if we stopped?

If the conventional wisdom is as bad as I am arguing it is, there are wonderful opportunities available to all of us to invest far more effectively just by taking a little time to learn what the academic research really does say rather than going by what the expert salesmen say that it says. If valuations affect long-term returns, as the research has been showing for 30 years now, we can all easily obtain far higher returns at far less risk. How? All we need to do is to lower our stock allocations when stocks are priced to provide poor long-term returns and increase our stock allocations when stocks are priced to provide super long-term returns.

If Shiller is right, stock returns are predictable. To the extent that stock returns are predictable, stocks are not risky. You can get the great returns available to those who invest in stocks without having to expose your retirement money to much risk of loss. All you have to do is to be willing to adopt a more skeptical attitude to the claims of John Bogle and the other expert salesmen.

More to come!

by Rob Bennett
images:
* Primitive Thinkers
* Canuck Jihad

Rob Bennett recently posted a Google Knol arguing that “The Bull Market Caused the Economic Crisis.” His bio is here.

Back to DBKP Front Page.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Charlie Crist: Crist Leads his own Party of One

Charlie Crist: Party of One™

Ed Morrissey has a few thoughts on the sad state of affairs that opportunistic fame-chaser, Gov. Charlie Crist, finds himself in. The situation is totally of Crist's doing and demonstrates why principles are important things--even more so than technocratic understanding or extreme wonkishness to someone who aspires to leadership.

From Crist: I could vote for a Democrat as Senate Majority Leader:

Many have questioned Crist’s sense in abandoning his party for a one-shot run at the US Senate, and this will only deepen the conviction that Crist has completely taken leave of his senses. Does he really believe that in 2010 the electorate wants to endorse current Democratic leadership in Congress? How many independents does he think he’ll win by assuring them that he’ll vote to maintain the status quo if he goes to Washington?

Crist has become a Party of One, trying to join a Caucus of One. That’s likely to be a great description of the rest of his political career.

"Float like a butterfly, waffle like I.H.O.P."

"I could vote for a Democrat as Senate Majority Leader."

That all the soundbite you need if you're Marco Rubio and looking for way to portray Charlie as the anti-Crist. Crist will be one of those politicians who was successful, not because he did a good job, but because he was in the right place at the right time.

He's now demonstrated his competence by forcing himself into the wrong place at the wrong time and saying the wrong things to give the right impression.

The U.S. Army's advertising handle for a time--it still might be--was "An Army of One." Flip-flopping Charlie Crist already has a great slogan ready to roll:

Charlie Crist: Party of One™

Be all you can be, Charlie!

by Mondo Frazier
image: http://img.metblogs.com/orlando/files/2008/07/72dpicristwin001.jpg

Vera Baker: Enquirer Website Revises, Updates Obama Cheating Scandal

NEW ENQUIRER WEB STORY HAS BIG CHANGES

UPDATES at end of story

NEW ENQUIRER WEB STORY HAS BIG CHANGES

The National Enquirer has revised and extremely shortened their Obama Presidential Cheating Story. The old link is no longer working and a new link to a shorter story is now in place.

The new Enquirer web story is basically the same with less details than the old one.

Both the old and the new articles match up during the first several paragraphs.

UPDATED: Reports out of Washington, DC: PRESIDENT OBAMA has been caught in a shocking cheating scandal after being caught in a Washington, DC Hotel
with a former campaign aide.

A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.

While Baker has insisted in the past that "nothing happened" between them, reports reveal that top anti-Obama operatives are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged

What's extensively revised is the latter half of the story. Where there were once details--mostly of the alleged rendezvous-- now there are none.

Among those being offered money is a limo driver who says in 2004 that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous in where Obama was staying.

An ENQUIRER reporter has confirmed the limo's driver account of the secret 2004 rendezvous.

The "DEVELOPING STORY" tag is still on the story, but the part of the "Enquirer Exclusive" about the independent collaboration of the story by a DC source" is missing.

ALSO at DBKP:
* Vera Baker: Who is Vera Baker?
* Obama, Vera Baker: Enquirer Uncorks Presidential Cheating Scandal

We reported previously that the story was scheduled for an update in the next 72 hours and we were right--just not in the direction it has taken. However, the salient points of the story remain, only the details have disappeared.

What does this mean? One possibility: that the Enquirer wanted to let sister publication, The Globe, have a moment in the sun before taking over the story. The Enquirer has done work on this story and its the Enquirer which has the investigative resources.

What does this mean? Nothing, everything? Let the speculation begin.

There is somewhat of a precedent: During the first hours after the Enquirer released many details of the Edwards' scandal, the Enquirer's website went down and the page with the Love Child info on was inaccessible.

Readers spent 3-4 hours wondering what the heck was going on and wild rumors flew. Some of the speculations:
* Edwards had sued the Enquirer and forced the story down;
* The story was a Clinton dirty trick and after people had seen the post, it had accomplished its mission of damaging Edwards.
* The story was a fabrication and the Enquirer had taken it down before Edwards was able to sue him.

Actually, the Enquirer's website had experienced a spike in traffic. The next morning everything was fine, the story was up--unchanged--and the Mainstream Media pretended they didn't know anything about i and couldn't ask Edwards any questions.

There's more to this, check back for updates.

by Mondo Frazier
image: UK Telegraph