Deadman's blog

The Fed's ultimate hubris...

Deadman — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:25:25 +0000

So the powers that be on the Federal Reserve Board have decided to engage in round two of their little quantitative easing experiment, basically agreeing to purchase $600 billion in government debt over the next 8 months in order to keep interest rates artificially low and hopefully juice the economy in the process.

That $75 billion a month isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, and the markets are certainly acting as if all is copacetic, but I still find the hubris of the Fed incredibly alarming - though not incredibly surprising.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke of course considers himself an astute historian of The Great Depression, and he remains firmly and forever convinced that the primary cause of that debacle - or at least of its depth and duration - was the Deflation Boogeyman. He is determined to avoid repeating that experience at any and all costs.

(Is there anything scarier than a historian/academician who is so convinced in the righteousness of his beliefs and cause?)

Unfortunately, the costs this time may end up being a permanent debasement of our currency and an economy so out of whack it will take generations to recover. Meanwhile, people like me who have put way too much of their nest eggs into dollar-based savings accounts just get screwed.

I don't want to get into a debate about the necessity of the Fed as an entity at all (does the idea of eleven men and women setting market prices really sound wise?), or the silliness of their wildly conflicting dual mandate (low, stable inflation and high employment) that they are charged to work under, but this latest move is pure madness.

Bernanke says that the Fed's first round of quantitative easing a couple of years ago did its job - helping stabilize a free-falling economy while keeping inflation at low levels. Never mind that QE1 led to one of the weakest post-recession recoveries in history. Never mind that many measures of incipient inflation have been soaring (price of TIPS bonds, sugar, oil, gold, corn, etc. etc. anyone??). Never mind that many of the assets the Fed purchased were trash mortgage securities not worth the paper they were written on and that the Fed never engaged in shrinking its balance sheet as it planned on doing once the crisis had passed (When all is said and done after QE2, the Fed's balance sheet may equal a mind-boggling 20% of GDP according to some estimates.)

Look, I'm not a trained economist, so I don't know whether the economy has the excess capacity to absorb another round of quantitative easing as Bernanke suggests it does. What I do know is this:

1) The first round of QE did little to stimulate the economy, suggesting that the root of our problems wasn't a lack of too little money sloshing around (the contraction in available credit was a normal and appropriate response to the destructive debt orgy that preceded it)

2) The Fed is quickly running out of bullets to fire to juice the economy

3) Continuous quantitative easing hasn't worked in Japan

4) Other countries will respond to our attempt to debase our currency and it won't be pretty

5) In his quest to defeat the Delfation Boogeyman, Bernanke is ignoring many key signals of incipient inflation (The soaring prices of gold and government bond just cannot continue. One of these markets will prove to be spectacularly wrong).

Bernanke even says in the Washington Post article linked to above that QE2 has already begun to work because interest rates have fallen and the stock market has risen since the Fed signaled its plans to the market. Are you kidding me? Bernanke is so obsessed with stock prices, it actually seems like a rising stock market has become a third part of the Fed's new mandate. But it's no shock that the stock market will perform well in a high inflation environment - anything priced in dollars will go up on a relative basis.

And in yet another stunning display of hubris, Bernanke also says that the Fed is fully prepared to reverse QE2 should conditions warrant. I hope he's right but I have a hard time believing the Fed will have control over the situation if inflation becomes the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill as I suspect might happen. (Try reversing QE when the Chinese government is trying to dump hundreds of billions of dollars of our debt at the same time)

Look, I understand why politicians never get religion when it comes to entitlement reform and deficit reduction. In good times or bad, they are always trolling for votes, and passing out free money is the quickest path to re-election.

But the whole point of the Fed was that the wise and thoughtful men and women who populate this independent entity would know better. The problem is when you put a small group of people - and one man in particular - in such an enormous position of power, they just end up thinking they know better. And God help us all if they don't.

Topics:

Politics

Business

The dagbuzz for 10/20/10: (Wolraich Blows Smoke)

Deadman — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:18:58 +0000

The one and only Genghis - all freshly scrubbed and shorn - stopped by the dagbuzz studio to discuss his book, Blowing Smoke: Why the Right Keeps Serving Up Whack-Job Fantasies about the Plot to Euthanize Grandma, Outlaw Christmas, and Turn Junior into a Raging Homosexual.

Next stop: Oprah's couch.

Topics:

Politics

Series:

dagbuzz

Deadman: A quick reintroduction and quicker lament

Deadman — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:05:46 +0000

Wow. This is dagblog, huh? I don't even recognize the place. Readership is flourishing, the pace of posts is snowballing. Frightening dagger logo be damned, it even looks like an official bloggy thingy now.

It's like I left the neighborhood right before they legalized prostitution or discovered massive amounts of shale oil under dagblog's hallowed grounds. If I was a more insecure man, I might even say there was a causal effect involved here, and that everyone had been lurking on the outskirts of town, waiting for my departure, but I'm quite confident my body odor has been under control since my junior year of high school.

In any case, given all the new people roaming the dagways, let me just quickly re-introduce myself. My name is Deadman, and I am a co-founder of this place. Awww yeah, I am the D in Dagblog. And I once pontificated quite often here, spewing hot air on topics ranging from Tiger Woods to Terrestials (of the extra kind) to Twitter to theology. With my day job as a mutual fund co-manager, I admittedly liked to discuss financial matters and make spectacularly poor (or at least spectacularly early) market predictions most of all.

Over time, however, my urge to spew lessened and my posts sparsened (should be a real word, dammit). Part of the reason for my lack of production was just life getting in the way - getting engaged, married, having a kid and redeveloping a serious online poker habit all in the span of a year-and-a-half will do that to you.

But the main reason for my disappearing act is that I'm one lazy mofo when I don't feel passionate about what I'm doing, and I developed a whopping case of the 'Who Really Gives a Shit Anymore' blues. Shiny new, well-spoken POTUS or no, the system was still irrevocably broken, full of hate and hostility, the only difference being that now we had to deal with the tyranny of the minority.

Of course, I had always envisioned that dagblog would be an eclectic place where all matters of modern society - politics, business, sex, pop culture, art, sports, health, technology - would be discussed and debated (with decorum), and all intelligent opinions welcomed.

Yes, politics would be a part of the content, and given that we launched dagblog right during the heat of the 2008 presidential election, probably the main part. But even when I still believed that Obama would actually deliver the hope and change he was promising, I never wanted dagblog to become an ideological soapbox fixated solely on politics.

Alas, aside from a few scattered posts, that's kind of what this blog has become, especially since the refugees from Talking Points Memo arrived on dagblog shores.

Of course, this isn't really a bad development. It's actually a good thing as I think the original vision for dagblog may have been flawed from the start. The most successful blogs need a passionate, dedicated community to thrive, and focus may just be a necessary component for that to happen.

I get it. I really do. I mean, I never wanted to become the kind of dad who always is showing off pictures of his children, or updating his facebook status with the latest new kid development, or abandoning all other interests and hobbies, but I fear this is where I'm headed.

In any case, it really does thrill me to see how robust a blog and community this site has become, even if it's not exactly in the way I had initially envisioned. I definitely plan on being a semi-regular reader, and an infrequent contributor (Genghis has asked me to revive my Questions columns, something I'm all too happy to do, and I promise only one of them will be about fatherhood!).

And I truly hope one day I'll once again believe that my opinion matters and that my words might make a difference.

Topics:

Potpourri

Personal

Series:

Questions

Lucky: A lesson on living, loving and loss.

Deadman — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:43:22 +0000

My brother put his 18-year-old dog to sleep yesterday.

My sadness today is profound, almost overwhelming, and I am trying to figure out why.

Obviously, the dog himself, a terribly sweet, ridiculously cute cocker-beagle mix, is the primary reason. He was my brother's dog - there's no denying that - but he was really my first pet as well, my roommate and companion for the nine-plus years I lived with my brother after college.

When I came home from my first real job, he would greet me with that wagging stub of a tail and the butt jerking uncontrollably from side to side. I would lie on the floor, and he would pin me down, licking my face til I could stand it no longer.

I took him for walks every day. I taught him roll over - a trick we had to retire several years ago when it became too demanding for his aging frame - and play dead - which he did pretty well, except for that dang wagging tail, which couldn't help but anticipate the forthcoming treat.

Lucky gave my life joy and meaning, structure and responsibility.

However, I moved out on my own five years ago, and while I saw Lucky at least once a week and would occasionally watch him when my brother left town, I was no longer much of a caretaker for the dog.

It was my brother who really had to put up with Lucky's growing eccentricities - like the way he would whimper for hours on end and his increasingly picky appetite (a sure sign of sickness as this was a dog, after all, that would once eat the grossest things the New York City streets had to offer) - and who near the end had to give him the daily injections of IV fluid and clean up all the household accidents as his kidneys started failing more rapidly.

So while some of my connection to Lucky might have been lost over the years, I'm sure some of my sadness also stems from how intensely I feel my brother's loss. I was there with my brother as he made the correct but horribly final and painful decision to give Lucky a peaceful end, and as he held the dog's body in his lap one last time. And at least some of my pain and sadness must stem from knowing how badly my brother is hurting right now.

And I think there is something else that is making me sad. Something a bit more esoteric, a bit more selfish, and yet just as deeply felt: Lucky's death in a certain way marks the passage of an era for me. I first met that dog when my brother, who had adopted Lucky a few months earlier, picked me up at the San Francisco airport when I moved there after college, armed with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothing and a journalism degree from Northwestern University. It was such an exciting time. My life and all its wonderful possibilities seemed ahead of me.

And for the next decade and then some, from one coast to another, from one job to another, Lucky was a part of that growing-up experience. It's been fascinating to see all the people who've been part of my life the past 14 years - high school and college friends who came to visit, new friends, co-workers and colleagues, family members I got to know for the first time - who met Lucky and felt compelled to express their own connection to him on Facebook.

All those people who have been in and out of my life, and all those days, it seems to have flown by in an instant, and I wonder sometimes if I've made the right decisions in my life, if I've taken full advantage of the opportunities given me, and whether i am happy with where I've ended up.

Yes, I am married with a great wife, have my own awesome dog and am expecting a baby daughter in the fall, and I know that challenging and exciting moments are ahead of me. But that special post-college time - when my life and its direction seemed a complete mystery, even to me - feels like it now has passed forever along with Lucky.

Yesterday, my brother, his girlfriend, her sister and I took Lucky to the park where he had spent so many happy moments. It was such a beautiful day, with a bright sun and mostly cloudless sky giving off the gentle warmth of early spring. Lucky seemed very happy, taking in the familiar smells, feeling the soft grass beneath his paws, enjoying all the extra attention he was getting (though I'm sure all of the petting was a bit uncomfortable on his sore body, he took it like a champ, there for others until the end.)

Keenly aware of how easily we can take time, and loved ones, for granted, I told myself repeatedly to appreciate these moments, absorb them fully, take it all in, the beauty of the day, the pain of the impending loss. We would never have it back. Not the dog, not the day, not the emotions. None of it.

Now, as I sit here less than 24 hours later trying to recapture those moments, the memories are already fading. Pictures are blurred, hazy, insufficient.

And if that isn't a reason for profound sadness, I'm not sure what is.

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Personal

Amazon caves to Macmillan

Deadman — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:48:21 +0000

Just read that Amazon has decided to give in to publisher Macmillan's demand that the online bookseller sell its books under an agency model for the price the publisher sets (which for the new books that make up most of the market will be 30-50 percent higher than the $10 Amazon currently charges).

For a few days, Amazon tried to play tough by removing Macmillan's books - both physical and digital - from its inventory (tho the titles were still available from third parties). But that didn't last long and the company has put a statement on its Web site that it "will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books."

To be honest, Amazon's decision to cave was a no-brainer. By showing some defiance, Amazon was able to get press to show that they were trying to be an advocate for the consumer, and now if the price changes stick and other publishers even adopt a similar strategy, Amazon could actually make money on its e-book sales as opposed to the losses it currently incurs when selling new titles at the $9.99 price point. The decision by Apple to agree to the higher price points for its imminent iPad tablet made it even tougher for Amazon to play tough.

Of course, Macmillan's decision is a complete joke. The idea that digital books - which have a near-zero marginal cost of production (printing, transportation and distribution costs are all basically de minimus) - should cost the same as a printed copy is laughable. i don't think other publishers will play along here, but even if they do, the higher prices will only lead to people buying fewer books or pirating more content.

When will old school, offline companies learn the lessons of recent history? Book publishers - which in the end are mere middlemen - should be trying to do whatever they can to embrace and encourage legal consumption of their content in the new medium and not go down the same path as the music industry.

I have no doubt that the wholesale cost of e-books will eventually be cheaper than their physical counterparts. And over time, more and more authors will take advantage of the opportunity to go direct (Amazon offers authors a 70% split on titles sold without a publisher), bypassing the middlemen completely.

For the truth of the matter is, neither Macmillan nor Amazon will in the long-run be able to set what they think the ultimate fair price of a book should be. Assuming competition is allowed to flourish and regulation remains minimal, the market will be the decider.

And trust me, the market - and time - is on the consumer's side.

Topics:

Business

Technology

2009 MOFT of the Year: Mrs. Deadman (of course!)

Deadman — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:19:07 +0000

It's been a long time since I've done one of these, but it's that time of year when I must bestow the coveted My One Favorite Thing award of 2009. Last year, you may recall, Cottonelle Wet Wipes Toilet Paper won the 2008 MOFT, just edging out Barack Obama.

This year, there are so many worthy candidates. Certainly Obama was in the running again, as his January inauguration provided one of the more stirring moments of the year. But while infinitely better than what we had at this time last year, the Prez has been just a bit disappointing to me, so he'll have to settle with his consolation Nobel.

Other early notable contenders for the 2009 MOFT included Reddi-Wip, the Oster Electric Wine Opener, Scramble (a perennial favorite), Phil Ivey, the St. Louis Cardinals, Dexter, our housekeeper Gloria, and Ingrid Michaelson. Meanwhile, a number of late dark-horse candidates in recent months have emerged, including the Wii (finally got one and it rocks), Modern Family, fantasy football, and even in the last couple of days, this hilarious, mind-fu** of a video.

But in the end, to be honest, it really was no contest. By far, My One Favorite Thing of 2009 is my brand shiny new wife! (She may in fact be even better than the Wet Wipes!)

For those of you don't know, I married the now Mrs. Deadman on Halloween in Saratoga Springs, NY. It was quite a lovely and fun event if I do say so myself, with almost all of our closest family and friends in attendance.

While I so far am very glad I took the plunge, overcoming the commitment phobia that's plagued me my entire life, i do have a couple regrets from that weekend. One is the DJ, who sucked so hard I am surprised there was any air left in the reception hall (she will certainly be a top contender if I get around to doing My One Least Favorite Thing of 2009 sometime next week).

Another thing I regret was not taking the time sometime during the night to give this little speech about my new wife. It was something I planned on doing, just like the Mrs. and I both planned on taking a brief moment to thank a bunch of people, but we wanted to try and spread out the speeches and toasts and let people eat and have fun, and then it just never seemed like the right time.

It really is amazing how crazy weddings are when you're one of the key participants. The night just flies by, and you really feel like you have no control over anything. (Apparently, it wasn't just the wedding night that didn't go exactly as planned - Sorry Genghis!). No matter how many people warn you to try and appreciate the moment and be truly present, it's basically impossible. You feel more like a character in a movie than a real live human being making perhaps the most important decision of your life.

But the truth is, we just should have done what we had planned. It was our wedding and our party, and we just should have found time to thank the people who helped make it all happen, and I should have delivered my little ode to Mrs. Deadman (which to be fair I had thrown together very quickly the week before.)

I guess instead, I will have to settle with posting it here and hoping people read it. So without further ado, here it is:

I just want to say a few words about my beautiful, brand-spanking new wife. Keri and I had our first date 2 years, 2 months, and 2 weeks ago from this very day. And I knew very early on, I had stumbled upon something special.

In fact, I remember one day, no more than a couple of months into our relationship, getting ready with Keri to go out and I found myself just staring at her for a few moments before eventually blurting out 'How in the world did I get so lucky to have found you?"

"No seriously," I asked, "how in the world have you stayed single long enough so that I could find you?!?"

I mean, here was this incredibly smart, extremely sexy and cool girl. Sensitive and sweet - with just enough spice and even a touch of the occasional vinegar to keep things interesting. Pretty and funny - not only appreciating my own sense of humor, which is tough enough, but also constantly making me laugh. And it all came bundled in this one little enticing skinny package!

So of course i thought there had to be a catch.

Now it turns out there was no catch, but as I said, this was very early on, so my question might have been a bit naive.

Because the truth is, it's just that relationships are hard, very hard - and I think people in general - and especially as we get older - are too quick to throw our hands up in the air and throw in the towel when things get a little tough and the inevitable concerns arise. It's so easy to just give up and move on.

But I think it's OK when two people in a relationship sometimes have differences of opinions, competing philosophies. It's healthy. Would be boring otherwise. It's when we accept and maybe even embrace the differences that we grow as people and couples.

And there is no doubt I have learned so much from Keri over the past two years, especially about how to live a good life and be a better person. And honestly, it would have been impossible to move on because even during tougher times, there were certain things about Keri that stuck with me.

Like how genuinely scared and concerned she looked when she came to visit me in the ER after I had a little heart scare, tears welling in her eyes as I was hooked up with all these wires (probably worrying what the hell she was getting into).

Or like how she is with our dog, Oliver, the love and affection she showers on him - and this was most certainly not a dog person when we first met.

Or how she makes me laugh by breaking out into one of her silly godawful dances, such as the infamous one-legged south-facing boogie (which perhaps if you're lucky enough, she'll share with you tonight).

Or how warm she is with all of my family and friends, who will invariably come up to me after meeting her and warn me, "Don't you dare F this up, Darren!!"

It was just always so easy to envision Keri as my wife because she is exactly what i've always pictured when I thought about my life in this stage.

And the more I think about my original question - "How in the world did you stay single long enough so that I could find you? - the more I wonder if the answer is not just that relationships are hard, but that perhaps, this is the only way it could have possibly been.

That it, and us, and today were always going to be. Had to be.

And I am just so happy and thankful right now, so excited about our future ... and I love you very, very much!

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Personal

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My One Favorite Thing

Tiger Chasing Tail Just Par for the Course

Deadman — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:19:08 +0000

I'm shocked by this whole Tiger Woods scandal. Not by Tiger's behavior, of course, but by the silence that seems to be accompanying it, at least in my circle of friends on Facebook.

I really expected to be bombarded today with status updates addressing the emerging Tiger Woods scandal. I expected them to be mainly from women expressing some degree of disappointment or outrage. Instead, I only saw one status update that fit the bill.

Maybe my Facebook friends just aren't indicative of society at large, but to me, this lack of response is a much bigger shock than anything that's happened in TigerWorld over the past week.

I mean, let's be real, on the surface, this is a fascinating story - on a 1-10 scale rating the salaciousness of celebrity scandals, this rates an 11 at least. This is Eliot Spitzer, plus Kobe Bryant, plus Nick Hogan, plus Hugh Grant, all thrown into one juicy mixing pot.

You've got your billionaire sports hero, a rare breed of athlete at the top of his game, one of if not the best in his sport ever, beloved by millions and the beneficiary of a squeaky clean public image. You've got your super hot chick for a wife, a couple of cute kids, and a seemingly perfect life.

And in the space of a week's time, it's all come crashing down, literally, with a late-night car accident that allegedly followed a particularly intense marital dispute, which allegedly followed a series of affairs Tiger has had with one or more women (The specifics are still annoyingly vague, but Tiger has admitted to 'transgressions' on his Web site - note the plural use of the word).

Usually, in these kinds of situations, the outrage you hear from America's peanut galleries is deafening - which to my ears resembles the sound of thousands of glass houses falling down as judgmental people throw their sad, schadenfreude-filled stones.

But maybe, just maybe, we're starting to learn that perfection is a myth, and idol worship a waste of time. That no matter how superhuman Tiger is on the golf course, that off of it, he is just like the rest of us, utterly flawed and remarkably human. Monogamy may or may not be the most moral path for humans, but it certainly is not the natural path. In my opinion, it would be more shocking if Tiger actually hewed to his carefully constructed image and didn't succumb to the temptations that must surround him at every corner.

Is Tiger a hypocrite because he actively helped cultivate that sparkling family man image? Of course.

Should his behavior in anyway take away from his accomplishments on the golf course? Of course not.

Does Tiger really have a right to expect privacy at this time when he has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from regular folk who bought into the Tiger mystique? That's a much tougher question to answer. Tiger made the vast majority of his fortune off the golf course, selling not just his athletic prowess but a story and image that he was incapable of living up to. If he wishes to keep raking in the sponsorship millions, he may have some 'splainin to do.

But it's also past time we question why we fall for these obviously man-made mythologies in the first place. For now, I'm considering the relative silence on this issue a small sign of progress.

Topics:

Sports

Potpourri

Personal

Ennui's a bitch ... and then you blog

Deadman — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:53:48 +0000

With a couple of exceptions, I've been gone from dagblog for several months. I've rarely posted. I've barely commented. Heck, I've even stopped visiting the site on a regular basis.

I have a number of legitimate excuses - and some not-so legitimate excuses - for my time away. I did a lot of wedding planning. I picked up online poker again. I broke a wrist. I got married and had a minimoon. I fell behind work at my paying day job. Fantasy football started.

But mainly, my prolonged absence boils down to something much simpler, and in many ways, much more disturbing: I stopped caring.

I don't know if it's a case of issue fatigue or too much self-absorption, but I found myself getting increasingly uninterested with the world at large. Iranian election fraud? Hmm ... Health care reform and town hall madness? Whatever. New Palin book? Of course. 10% unemployment? Them's the breaks.

Lots of things going on right now that should have my hackles raised, my blood boiling, and my fingers typing in a mad blogger's rage. But instead, all I feel is complacency and blahness. It's not just dagblog.com I'm avoiding - it's basically all news. The one event I got most excited about this week was Adam Lambert's blatant display of homosexuality on the American Music Awards.

I'm trying to figure out why this is. My best guess is that the biggest news items of the day seem so familiar. The issues may be new - health care reform and Afghanistan strategizing, for instance - but the underlying themes - nasty partisanship and silly wars - seem so depressingly repetitive. I guess in some ways I feel cheated out of that change I thought I had voted for last year.

I'm not blaming Obama, of course, for my hacklelessness. I'm blaming myself for getting seduced by high and ultimately unreasonable expectations. Believing in change is a fool's game. We are who we are - as people, and as a society.

It may not sound like it, but I'm pretty content personally. Sure, I wish I was doing something more fulfilling in my life (and is it cool for me to cop to both a healthy amount of excitement over Genghis' new book deal and also a wee bit of envy??) but still, its Thanksgiving weekend, and I have a lot to be thankful for. Good friends, a decent-paying gig and a cool boss, lots of loving family members, a nice apartment, a winning fantasy football team, two new video game machines (wedding gifts that we still haven't played yet - talk about complacency!) and especially a lovely brand-shiny-new wife.

So I figure this is as good as time as any to try and get back in the blogging groove. My Muse isn't back yet really, but sometimes I guess you gotta force it. After all, being productive in life is mostly about establishing - or re-establishing - habits.

Now how about that Dubai debt crisis? That's some crazy shit, huh? ... Sigh, this will take some time. Ennui's a bitch.

Topics:

Politics

Personal

World Affairs

I'm back ... and the Bear will be joining me shortly

Deadman — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:23:26 +0000

OK, I know I've been a bad, bad, bad dagblogger for quite some time, but seeing as I'm getting married in less than four weeks, I'm giving myself a pass. (Today's key word: ELOPE!!!)

I'll be back more regularly by the end of the year, but for now, I just wanted to give you a ballsy prediction:

The market is nearing a significant short-term top. Nailing the exact timing is always difficult, but I expect we'll be significantly lower by the end of the year, and certainly by the end of the first quarter of next year, I expect we will see market averages at least 15-20% lower than we have now.

Way back in March, on the day after the stock market bottomed, I wrote a piece predicting the rally could have legs. Now before I go patting myself on the back too hard, I must admit I've been surprised by how long the rally has lasted and how ferocious it's been. But I suppose that's the kind of combustible response you get when you combine a recovery from a near-death economic experience with trillions of dollars in government stimulus and bailouts and near-zero interest rates.

So why do I now believe the party is about to end? Well, for several reasons. First, my prediction is obviously influenced by my overall negative view of our economy. Employment is still ugly, consumer debt levels are still too high, the dollar is getting perilously weak while commodities like oil and gold are rising on an almost-daily basis. To stimulate the economy, we've pursued short-term measures like foreclosure relief, tax credits, and Cash for Clunkers, which have done little to resolve the structural imbalances in this country. The only thing we've really accomplished is burdening future generations of Americans with crushing levels of national debt. We may in fact see decent GDP growth for the next few quarters but that's only because the comparisons will be so weak.

The overall bullish reaction to this better-than-expected - but still rather grim - drumbeat of news we're getting is another reason I'm worried the good times are about to end. Take today for instance. Retail sales rose 0.1 percent for the month of September, according to a survey.

This is the first sequential rise in sales in over a year, and apparently a cause for massive celebration according to the chief economist of the group that led the survey. "Let the retail recovery begin," said Michael P. Niemira of the clearly unbiased International Council of Shopping Centers. "This is the start of a better performance and better fundamentals."

Hogwash. With unofficial unemployment rates still in the teens and rising, I guarantee you this holiday season - and many holiday seasons to come - will be a big disappointment.

Speaking of unemployment, by the way, the market is also cheering the fact that the Labor Department reported that new claims for jobless benefits fell to 521,000 last week, the lowest level since January and, yes, 'better-than-expected.' Meanwhile, this still means that more than a half-million Americans lost their jobs, above the rate where overall unemployment would start falling.

i wouldn't say the pundits and experts are universally bullish - which would be the ultimate contrarian indicator - as I do still see some skepticism out there, but I believe investor complacency is rising to dangerous levels while most of them try desperately to chase the market.

The final reason for my growing bearishness is more technical, but basically comes down to the fact that many of the stocks I look at are now approaching their 2008 highs. This is a little inside baseball, but basically it's often the case that old highs for a stock end up being significant resistance points as investors who bought at those levels look to get out close to even. You see these 'double tops' often when looking at stock charts.

Since I believe that very little has been done to fix the economy structurally, I feel that 2008 levels will serve as a high watermark for the market for years to come.

Now don't get me wrong. We've done a few good things to justify these higher prices. Inventories have been drastically reduced. Many companies have cut costs and yet kept efficiency and productivity levels high. The emerging markets like China and Brazil have shown a great deal of resiliency. And certainly the prospect for a total economic collapse - which seemed almost inevitable at the height of the panic - now appears very remote, at least for the foreseeable future.

But mostly what we've done is comparable to giving a sick, lethargic, malnourished patient a shitload of sugar and then celebrating the fact he seems more energetic. The sugar high crash is coming and it won't be pretty.

Topics:

Business

Questions: The Wedding Edition

Deadman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:19:25 +0000

Oh man. I used to love weddings. I really did. I thought they were fun affairs where you got to see family and friends, drink and dance, and just have a good ole time. Plus, when I was single, I almost always got lucky at weddings - something in the air lends itself to sex and romance I guess.

So i always thought I wanted a big wedding because then it's all the good things about weddings but you're the center of attention and getting all the gifts!! What's not to love?

Of course, now that I'm knee deep in planning my own wedding, I understand. They are awful, awful things. My family and my family-to-be are doing more than fair share in helping to plan and pay for the wedding (big shout-out to the parent-in-laws to be here!) and still the list of things to do and pay for is just about endless. Is it too late now to elope???

Anyway, in the spirit of wedding frustration, I present this edition of questions. Now in some of these, I'm appealing for advice, so please help a brother out.

1) Playlist

2) Best Thing/Worst Thing

3) Ideal Size

4) Ideal Type

5) Wedding Vets: Advice?

6) Fu-- Tradition

7) The Food

8) Ethnicity Rocks

9) Groomsmen Gift

10) A or B

Topics:

Personal

Food & Drink

Series:

Questions