Sir John Templeton: Requiescat in pace!

His book "The Templeton Plan" is a must read. I have got it in a paperback edition from HarperPaperbacks from 1992. Very astonishing is John Templeton' s Select Bibliography on page 187, it could have saved speculators many losses.

I did not find it at amazon.com. Try looking at used book shops (For example here). It is definitely a must read.

This is the first announcement of books that are beacons in troubled financial times. Some will be in English, some will be in German.

Do yourself and your money a favour: read Sir Templeton' s "The Templeton Plan".

Thanks to the GTR Register for the scoop

A recent Onion News article has hit dead on what is wanted right now by the masses of the American public. As ridiculous as this article sounds, this type of mentality is exactly what's been behind many "investment decisions" of the average American in recent past.

Read the article here, and then keep reading my blog if you'd like a more sound approach to investing.

###

P.S. Just to be on the safe side, I'll give you a heads up that The Onion is a satirical, "fake news" organization.

I spent a few days last week pootling around southern Belgium, escorting a certain VIP to various historic sights (and rather nice restaurants as well). We shot to Brussels in less than two hours by Eurostar, and then used a rental car to explore.

Belgian law obliges you to carry a warning triangle, reflective jacket, first aid kit and fire extinguisher in every vehicle. Perhaps a desperate legislative attempt to compensate for their consistently horrific driving? This is the extract that most interested me from my Lonely Planet guidebook to Belgium & Luxembourg.

'Aggressive' is the word generally used to describe Belgian drivers, and many foreigners who take to the roads here find it apt. Whether cruising on a sleek highway or bouncing over potholed inner-city streets, drivers have a reputation for being fast, impatient and at times abusive ... anyone idling at 120km/h in the fast lane of a motorway will be flashed from behind by speed demons doing 160km/h ... One peculiarity that ensures adrenaline-pumped journeys is the voorrang van rechts / priorité à droite (give way to the right) law, which operates in both Belgium and Luxembourg. Thanks to this rule, cars darting out from side streets sometimes have right of way over vehicles on the main road (but not always - signs with an orange diamond surrounded by white mean the main road has priority). Recent figures show that 250 people die each year due to this rule ... Statistically, Belgium has double the rate of road fatalities of most of its neighbouring countries (France is the exception) ... And if you think all this is a bit exaggerated, have a read of Pisa Test's recent study of 3000 European drives in which the Belgians came out as the worst drivers in Europe. Just 48% are capable of passing their driving test ...

Leanne Logan & Geert Cole, Lonely Planet: Belgium & Luxembourg (2007)

1. Blok teks yang tidak beraturan:Kita bisa melakukan blok pada teks yang ada dihalaman web secara acak. Lakukan blok pada salah satu baris teks, lalu tekan tombol Ctrl (Cmd untuk Mac) untuk menambah teks yang akan diblok tanpa menghilangkan bekas blok yang terakhir tadi, sehingga kita bisa menyalin beberapa kata yang penting dengan mudah.
2. Duplikasi tab:Tekan tombol "Ctrl" di keyboard saat melakukan drag sebuah tab ke tempat kosong untuk menduplikasi tab yang ada beserta sejarahnya. Fitur ini tidak ada di Firefox versi Mac.
3. Memindahkan tab ke jendela lain:Cukup dengan melakukan drag tab yang ada dan drop ke jendela browser lain. Jika tab yang dipindahkan merupakan tab satu-satunya di jendela tersebut, jendela browser tersebut secara otomatis tertutup.
4. Merubah ukuran search bar: Kita dapat mengubah search bar dengan melakukan drag pada garis pembatas yang berada di antara search bar dan address bar (tidak terlihat pada Firefox versi Windows dan Linux, tetapi tetap trik ini tetap dapat Anda lakukan).
5. Menambah keyword pencarian: Pada search bar klik ikon mesin pencari untuk membuka dropdown dan lalu pilih "Manage Search Engines...". Pilih salah satu search engine yang ada kemudian klik "Edit Keyword..." Masukkan kata kunci tertentu untuk mesin pencari tersebut, contohnya untuk Google kita menggunakan keyword "go."
Setelah menambahkan keyword, kita dapat menggunakan Google melalui address bar dengan mengetikkan keyword mesin pencari yang ingin Anda pakai, spasi dan kata kunci yang hendak kita cari. Contoh "go berita komputer" (mencari kata kunci berita komputer dengan Google). Fitur ini berguna untuk Anda yang sering menggunakan beberapa mesin pencari yang berbeda.
6. Mesin pencarian add-ons terintegrasi: Sekarang kita tidak perlu lagi mengunjungi situs AMO (Add-ons Mozilla), karena sekarang sudah fasilitas untuk mencari dan mendownload langsung add-ons yang ada di Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons.
7. Menonaktifkan plugin:Salah satu komponen yang sering menyebabkan Firefox crash adalah plugin yang tidak ditulis dengan baik. Sekarang Anda bisa menonaktifkannya salah satu plugin yang ada melalui Add-ons Manager di Tools > Add-ons > Plugins. Walaupun sudah ada sejak Firefox 2, tetapi fitur ini tidak banyak digunakan.
8. Melacak penyebab crash: Pada address bar ketik :about:crash" untuk mendapatkan daftar kejadian crash yang dikirimkan oleh Breakpad (reporter Mozilla khusus crash). Klik salah satu laporan crash untuk mendapatkan detil informasi yang disediakan oleh Socorro (server Mozilla khusus untuk melaporkan masalah crash).

Sumber dari sini dan sini

It took 30 minutes for my sleep-fuddled mind to realize - it wasn't headlights.  It was lightning.  The complete darkness was because the power was out.  The 3 dusk-to-dawn lights were off.  I had to go to the bathroom.  The house was in darkness - but - I reasoned, the lightning would light my way.  My luck.  The lightening stopped as soon as I groped my way to the kitchen.

I banged and crashed into everything.  Why does the furniture in your own home seem to jump out and attack when the electricity is off?  There was a heavy downpour of rain.  Oh, great.  At 5 a.m. I have to put something in the mail box.  A neighbor is picking it up at 5:30 a.m. on his way to work.  I wasn't keen on going out in that downpour.

Walking back from the mailbox, I noticed a 3 pound spider in the corner of the door frame.  'I'm going back to bed.'  I told the ugly thing.  'When I get up - I'm going to kill you.  You have 3 hours to pray.'  Geesh!  The spiders around here are getting big enough to shoot.

Trouble persists for some IndyMac customers

Some of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds are seeking to reduce their exposure to the US dollar in a sign of global concern about the currency.

One big sovereign fund in the Gulf has cut its dollar-denominated holdings from more than 80 per cent a year ago to less than 60 per cent, while China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has been looking to strike deals with private equity firms in Europe as a part of a strategy to reduce its dollar holdings.

Wie wollen sich die USA finanzieren? Sie sind dringend angewiesen auf tägliche neue 3 Milliarden aus dem Ausland. Wer soll die noch geben?

Spain drops reassuring gloss as crisis deepens

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Spain's finance minister Pedro Solbes has stunned the markets with an admission that his country faces the worst economic crisis in its history as the full effects of the property crash spread through the economy.

"This crisis is the most complex we have ever lived through given the plethora of factors on the table at the same time," he told Punto Radio in Madrid, breaking with past efforts to put a reassuring gloss on events.

Mr Solbes said the Madrid bourse had suffered an "earthquake", crashing 27pc since the start of June. He blamed the toxic cocktail of high oil prices, the global credit crisis and the sharp slowdown in the key export markets of North America and Germany.

The comments follow this week's bankruptcy of Martinsa-Fadesa, Spain's biggest corporate failure. The property developer - with an empire of housing estates, hotels, shopping malls and hotels - collapsed after failing to refinance €5.1bn (£4bn) of debts. The company's demise was a textbook story of aggressive over-expansion at the top of the cycle, driven by high debt gearing. It has €11bn of assets.

Mr Solbes has pursued a rigorous "no bailout" policy, saying Martinsa-Fadesa took "excessive risks" and must now face the consequences. He has reportedly clashed with cabinet colleagues, who are now searching for any means to stop the downward spiral in the economy.

El Pais reports that house prices crashed by 20pc in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, based on 183,000 completed transactions.

The Martinsa-Fadesa collapse has sent tremors through the whole property and construction sector. The share price of giant developer Sacyr has halved over the past month.

The two banks with most exposure to the Martinsa-Fadesa are Caja Madrid, at €900m, and Banco Popular, at €400m.

Goldman Sachs has issued "sell" recommendations on a clutch of Spanish banks, including Bankinter, Banco Popular and Banco Sabadell, warning that the sharp turn in the credit cycle could prove worse than the recession in the early 1990s. "The consumer is more leveraged today than in any of the previous cycles," it said.

The ratings agency Standard & Poor's has not yet taken a decision on whether to downgrade Banco Popular and Caja Madrid.

In reality, this is unlikely to be the worst economic crisis in Spain's history. Philip II defaulted on his sovereign debts three times in the 16th century after he bankrupted the Spanish Empire to pay for his Counter-Reformation wars against Protestants. He crippled the Italian banking system in the process - much to the benefit of London and Amsterdam.

Which, if the soaking Brit GP was anything to go by, is Lewis Hamilton's to lose...

I sent Gamefly the following complaint:

I am a long time member and am considering canceling my account for this reason. As a mother of two children, I am disappointed with the graphic advertisements on your website. I can't even watch the game trailers with my kids because the previews before them are sometimes horrifying (shutter for example). My children like to go on Gamefly and pick out their games, but this is not possible because the advertisement pictures have BLOOD and GRAPHIC IMAGES. After this month I will be canceling if this is not corrected.

UPDATE  I'm satisfied with Gamefly's response on this matter. Here it is:

Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding our recent advertising campaign. While we screen the advertisements before they appear on the site, we do understand your desire to shield your children from inappropriate content. We will evaluate future advertisements with your concerns in mind.

If you would like your account to present GameFly Advertisements only, you can use GameFly's Parental Controls. To activate this feature, please visit the "My Account" link, http://www.gamefly.com/member/account.asp, and select "Parental Controls". By adjusting the game and UMD movie ratings, the only ads displayed will be ones promoting the GameFly service.

We would like to thank you again for bringing this to our attention in a thoughtful manner. Feel free to contact me if you have any further issues or concerns.

Sincerely,

Terri - Vice President
GameFly Customer Service
Email: support@gamefly.com

A year and a half ago, the Probst and Walker families buried five of their children after the car they were traveling in to school hit black ice and careened into a pond across from Black Canyon Reservoir.  If you were around, it was hard to miss the story. 

Well, now, a local kid named Prestin Apsley, who was friends with one of the crash victims, has written a song about these 5 children and is selling it online in part to help raise money to erect a guard rail and a permanent memorial to the Probst children.  You can buy the CD or donate to the cause at http://theirlastgoodbye.org/  Tell a friend.

I highly recommend watching the tributes to these children.  They could be yours.  If nothing else, this emphasizes the fragility of life, and importance of spending time together and making lasting memories.

Kudos to 16 year old Prestin for taking the initiative on this and inspiring so many!  People like him are what make the Treasure Valley such an incredible place.

Check it out!  Saturday (July 19) Downtown Boise!

For more info visit: http://www.boisetwilightcriterium.com/

Youtube video:

Das bleibt potentiellen ausländischen Investoren nicht verborgen.

Schon im Mai haben ausländische Investoren Kapital aus den USA abgezogen.

"Netto verbuchte die grösste Volkswirtschaft der Welt einen Abfluss von 2,5 Mrd. Dollar, wie das US-Finanzministerium am Mittwoch mitteilte."

Das wird jetzt noch schlimmer.

Wir - und der US-Dollar - dürfen uns auf etwas gefasst machen.

Update vom 19.7.2008:
Jim Rogers, Milliardär, regt sich auf: "An einem Wochenende wurde die US-Staatsverschuldung um 5 Billionen (5 x 10¹²) erhöht".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rcIBFLSmVGA&feature=related

When I posted "Hot Summer Albums" on July 2nd, my top 5 list of summer releases did not include two major artists dropping studio albums early this fall.

T.I. - Paper Trail

Ludacris - Theater Of Mind

Both artists are currently working on movies, and have frequently ventured onto the silver screen. You might remember Luda in the Academy Award winning "Crash" (Crash, the TV series drama premiers this fall on Starz) and T.I. as one of Denzel Washington's brothers in "American Gangster." Ludacris also recently signed a multi-million dollar deal with AT&T for an upcoming marketing campaign for the U.S. phone company. However, the music these two put out this fall will generate a lot of attention and keep the rap game going strong. Be sure to check out T.I. songs off the new album (No Matter What, Swing Your Rag, and Whatever You Like) and the upcoming mixtape by DJ Drama and Ludacris The Preview coming later this summer.

In conclusion, a youtube haiku:

Primorsky (5 days ago)
It's reminds me sky over Vietnam, when american B-52s fell like snow being shot downed by soviet S-75 SAM

NJRocks281 (4 days ago)
you wish ya Russian fucker

... even better times:

At the peak of my television obsession (high school when I would record and keep episodes of various shows on VHS), I remember when I would wake up at 5 in the morning to watch the live feed on E! of the announcement of the Emmy nominations. Sadly, time passed and since premium cable never existed in my life and the popularity of TV shows on DVD was still something of the future, watching nominee after nominee from The Sopranos or Six Feet Under didn't mean anything to me.

However, in most recent years, proven with today's nomination list for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, major network and basic cable television shows are making their marks as places to find good television. HBO-style gratuitous sex, bloody murder, and f-bombs are out, cute piemakers are in. Well, perhaps the sex and murder aren't completely out (re: Cagney of Cagney and Lacey's guest starring role as the obsessed agent/teddy bear maker on Nip/Tuck).

Highlights of This Year's Nominations

Complete List of This Year's Nominations

Since all the nominations for Mad Men and 30 Rock are a given, I'd like to congratulate and highlight some of the surprises:

Lee Pace, Kristen Chenoweth, and Costume Designers Mary Vogt and Stephanie Fox-Kramer for Pushing Daisies - Ms. Vogt and Fox-Kramer, you two deserve that Emmy. I have never wanted a television character's wardrobe more than Anna Friel's.

Amy Poehler for Saturday Night Live - I don't even remember when someone was ever nominated for an emmy for their cast role on the sketch show

Sharon Gless on Nip/Tuck - You scared the beejeezus out of me.

Christina Applegate for Samantha Who? - Yay for first season nominees. You made me actually not hate the guy from 7th Heaven and Jennifer Esposito.

The nominees for lead actress in a miniseries or movie - the lineup looks better than the best actress nominees for the Oscars

And the nominees for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics - Flight of the Conchords' "The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)" and "Inner City Pressure" plus Jimmy Kimmel Live's "I'm Fucking Matt Damon"

Flight of the Conchords - Inner City Pressure

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/02-flight_of_the_conchords-inner_city_pressure.mp3]

Flight of the Conchords - The Most Beautiful Girl (in the room)

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/12-flight_of_the_conchords-the_most_beautiful_girl_%28in_the_room%29.mp3]

Sarah Silverman - I'm Fucking Matt Damon

]]> http://spokencontract.wordpress.com/?p=55 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:10:54 +0000 spokencontract http://spokencontract.wordpress.com/?p=55 Towards the end of work yesterday, I took a little walk to pick up dark-and-stormy supplies for my office mates and I, which is a sure way to turn a good day into a great one. While we sipped our delicious concoctions, I realized that it had been one year, to the day, since I started work here at IMN. A rousing cheer erupted from the office, and we finally decided to pop the magnum of Dom that had been waiting for just the right moment, and closed the office early to enjoy the sunny day. Although, that sounds less and less likely the more I think about it. What is likely to have actually happened is that I topped off my drink while noone was looking.

The ride home went quicker than usual; we rolled the windows down and laughed as we shouted jokes to each other over the blasting Lil' Wayne. Not a bad little Wednesday, huh? Once we got back into town, I took my time riding home. I've been consciously trying to ride slower in lower gears to avoid the knee pain that has been threatening me, but also just to enjoy the summer a bit more and be able to take it all in. Then it happened: the black Saab in front of me cut into the bike lane immediately in front of me and I nearly wound up slamming into his trunk. "How dare you do that to me on such a beautiful day?" I thought as my brakes locked, and slid to a stop inches from his bumper. I caught his eyes in the rear-view mirror, and rather than curse, flip him off, or smash his taillights with my U-lock, I let out a big sigh and started back up as traffic moved forward.

I approached a red light at the next intersection and noticed the same black Saab stopped for the light, and wouldn't you know it his window was down. "OK, time to choose your words carefully. Do I let him have it? No, that's not my style. Do I give him the "we're all in this together bro" guilt trip? What about the simple "careful back there" or I could even stop and try to engage him in a conversation?" As I neared his passenger-side window, I noticed him lean over "Looking for a fight, are we?" I pondered as my thoughts immediately went into self-righteous cyclist mode.

"Sorry I almost hit you back there." he yelled through his window.
"...it's cool." I stammered though complete surprise and disbelief.

The 'five years' is quite arbitrary - the crash could catch me with my pants half-down, and my new nobbly skin not quite in place. Now if I choose to put my trust in the latest set of figures from the UK Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform [BERR] here:

- then everything will be all right. They assure me that oil will cost 85 dollars a barrel in a year or so.

But if I put my trust in the experts at TheOilDrum.com - then all is not well.

Oil costs nearly 150 dollars a barrel already. And the rate of flow is not keeping up with demand. It's fairly simple : a planet over-loaded with people all wanting a better life, is finding it harder and harder to meet its fuel demands. If we can't stop the population explosion and we can't pump more oil - then we have a crash.