June 30, 2003
Stupid Baseball Rules
Nothing like a fantasy league to turn yourself into a rules geek. In the Cubs - White Sox game yesterday, Joe Borowski came in to pitch for the Cubs with a 5-2 lead, one out in the bottom of the 9th inning, and nobody on base. He got the last two outs without trouble. Chalk up a save for the team, right? Nope. Was about to write Yahoo! tech-support to bitch about their stat updates but decided to look up the Save rule first. Lo, Rule 10.20.3.a states:
Credit a pitcher with a save when...He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning.
So the blame goes to Dusty Baker for bringing in Remlinger at the top of the 9th to match up with the pinch-hitter Armando Rios, then leaving him in there when the Sox pinch-hit Sandy Alomar Jr. for Rios. All of which was stupid anyway since there wasn't much platoon advantage to be had either way. Could've used that Save, too. Argh.
June 29, 2003
Catchphrase of the Day
I curse the casual brilliance of your life strategy!!!
My bagel will be extra tasty today.
June 28, 2003
Hey, I actually witnessed
Hey, I actually witnessed a practical use for a Hummer! Passed by an H2 towing a boat. Well not really a boat, more like a rubber dinghy, but at least it's doing something to justify the 10 mpg fuel economy (or lack thereof).
June 25, 2003
Working Backwards
5e7 / 11% = 4.54e8
4.54e8 / 10% = 4.54e9
4.54e9 / 34.50 = 1.32e8
A big ouch on the exchange rate factor, especially with the consideration that the RMB is pegged to USD.
June 19, 2003
Sensible Numbers
Wow, a securities analyst saying something sensible about the economy.
Chinese Connection. One of the most aggressive buyers of U.S. Treasuries in recent months has been China's central bank. Data collected monthly by the U.S. Treasury can be used to derive net purchases by all Chinese investors. Over the past 12 months, Chinese net purchases totaled a record $37 billion. Over the past three months through April, they purchased a record $71 billion, at an annual rate (Figure 5). My guess is that the Chinese central bank accounts for most of these purchases. Data compiled by the International Monetary Fund show that China's international reserves excluding gold soared to a record $321 billion in March, up $90 billion from a year ago (Figure 6).
While the trade-weighted dollar is down 18% since the beginning of last year, the Chinese Renminbi remained flat relative to the dollar. Clearly, the Chinese central bank has pegged this exchange rate by aggressively buying the dollar and investing the proceeds in U.S. Treasuries. Apparently, they haven't "sterilized" this increase in their assets by selling Chinese bonds. So monetary base is growing rapidly in China and so is the M1 measure of the money supply, which rose 18.6% last year, the latest available data.
"Ed, when do you expect that the Fed's easing will boost capital spending?" This is a question I hear often from investors. My answer: "It's happening already, but mainly in China!" Of course, the Chinese are reciprocating the favor. Their central bank's actions have helped to push interest rates down in the United States. This has provided a huge boost to housing sales and to mortgage refinancing activity. We in turn buy Chinese made goods to furnish our homes.
On the other hand, he concluded that the low interest rates (i.e. high bond valuations) implies that stocks are undervalued. Um... okay. Sure, the stagnant employment numbers are balanced by cheap goods and cheap money, but there's still the huge trade deficits that nobody seems to ever notice, not to mention the plain old budget deficit. I guess this works as long as China feels like trading stuff for U.S. paper. U.S. real estate works, too.
June 14, 2003
Fast Food is the Debil
Well, it was bound to happen sometime. My food was order 666. Sign of the impending Apocalypse? Or something less sinister?
June 12, 2003
ROFL
Screw the house in the El Cerrito hills. We should've gone for the 19th-century chateau in Brittany (complete with 13.5 acres of wooded park), or maybe Burgundy. Would've been tough to hit the Open House, though.
One of the more fascinating things one learns from the UGE [Unique Global Estates] site is that living in the Bay Area can skew your sense of what bargain means. In terms of price per square foot, almost every mansion, palace and estate is cheaper than property in humble little Albany, California, where little working-class bungalows sell for upward of $400 per square foot.
June 08, 2003
Fry's Electronics opened a
Fry's Electronics opened a new store in north county San Diego, so there was a Grand Opening Sale at the SD stores, complete with One Day Only! specials. The line of cars to get into the parking lot went around the corner of the block, but I lucked into a parking spot and didn't have to circle endlessly. Resolved to only grab stuff I can carry in my hands, instead of pushing a cart. The only interesting loss-leader that would've required a cart was the $129 XBox, which probably sold out within 15 minutes of opening time, and I already don't finish my GameCube games as it were anyway.
Was expecting a madhouse inside the store based on what was going on in the parking lot and I wasn't disappointed. Was also expcting the crowd to have already cleaned out the $5-for-50 CD-R's, the $15 USB flash mobile drive, and all the other advertised specials. Turns out that the good stuff were kept behind the counter of the computer repair area, peopled by employees who handed them out by request. Makes more sense than having piles of the stuff on the sales floor asking to be pillaged by the crowd. My god, customer service at Fry's? What's this world coming to?
If nothing else, Fry's ads are a good way to watch defaltion in action. My original Airport card was $150, Sam's wireless card was $50 after rebate. Now I picked up a WiFi PCMCIA card for five bucks after rebate. Caved to a $10 discount and grabbed the DVD-CDRW combo drive to replace the ancient CD-ROM drive that I cannabalized from an old machine leftover in the lab. DVD-ROM and CD-RW drive prices have both crashed predictably, but the prices for the combo drives have remained stubbornly high. Hated the thought of putting two drives in, though, and I wasn't about to pay the big bucks for the DVD-RW burner. Good thing I had a basket. Could've got a motherboard + CPU combo deal for $80 and doubled my computing power, but frankly I get by perfectly well with the Thunderbird 1200, and having it sit in the junk pile just seemed wasteful. Besides, you know it'll get cheaper later. Sure looks like textbook case of deflation to me. It's not just computer stuff, either. There was a Haier portable AC unit for $599. Last time I looked into this sort of thing for dad during the rare Bay Area heatwave, they were more like $999.
The economy is nominally being inflated by rising prices in real estate and services, especially health care. With rising unemployment (those jobs ain't coming back, either) and stagnant wages, what's left after spending all your money on keeping yourself alive and putting a roof over your head? If real deflation kicks in, God help those people stuck with credit card debt and big mortgages. Heck, with record government deficits looming, anyone stuck with an adjustable interest rate debt is going to get screwed pretty good pretty soon. It's not so bad if you have money saved up, though.
June 01, 2003
You know it's almost summer when...
...the white nectarines start showing up in the grocery store.
On the other hand, you know that summer isn't quite here yet when said white nectarines are "on sale" for one-fucking-ninety-nine a pound.