Its been a while since I’ve had the time to put up a weekend linkfest. Its a 3 day holiday weekend, so in light of a possible dearth of reading material, what the heck! Here’s a monster holiday linkfest for your surfing enjoyment:
• Barron’s Alan Abelson advises incoming Fed Chair Ben Bernanke that "whenever faced with making a critical decision, think, What would Alan Greenspan have done? — and do exactly the opposite." Why does that sound so familiar . . . ? (if no Barron’s sub, go here)
• People seem to misunderstand both the New Home Sales, as well as
Housing Starts and Permits. The reported data is statistically complex,
but as a leading indicator, it means much less than you think;• Part of my Bearish thesis for ’06 is that Real
Estate, the prime driver of the 2003-05 economy, slows with little
else filling the void. Consider these five articles, and draw your own conclusion;• The Business Week Forecasts for 2006 are out, and the crowd is rather Bullish. Extremes: I am the outlier to the downside, while Elaine Garzarelli is my counterpart to the upside (I’ll take those odds!);
• The flattening of The Yield Curve has been much talked about lately ; Here’s what you need to know about it;
• Lots of people have drawn a Parallel between 1994 and 2005. Doug Kass calls that bunk;
• I normally steer clear of politics (except when it relates to science and technology). But I had to sit up and take notice this morning when the normally conservative-leaning Barron’s Editorial Page called for an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of domestic surveillance as a possible impeachable offense (if no Barron’s, go here);
• I give the recent ‘Strong Jobs Recovery’ meme a thorough going over, and find find it wanting (be sure to see the correction here);
• We’ve heard for "decades that small business was the nation’s growth engine for job creation;" A new report concludes that thesis is an urban legend;
• Slate thinks that Moore’s Law may be coming to an end; They are wrong — Moore’s Law actually died years ago;
• I understand these are merely probabilistic analyses, but: What are the odds of 2006 being a positive year?
• A fascinating look at Economics and Evolutionary Psychology;
• Be Careful with the Contrary Indicators!;
• Here’s an ominous sign: China recruiting is U.S. IT grads;
• Federal Judge John E. Jones III (appointed by President Bush) administers to "Intelligent Design" the thorough bitch slapping it so richly deserves;
• There are a huge number of free downloads legally available from Amazon.com
• Strange Activity Afoot in Rove Indictment Futures;
• Am I the only one who doesn’t much care for CNBC’s redesign? May I also puh-leeze request a return the clock/futures bug/Indices back to its rightful spot in the lower right hand corner!
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Have a happy and healthy holiday, and successful and rewarding New Year!
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That’s oughta hold the little bastards!
Thank you very much for the thought provoking and informative posts, Barry.
Hmmm, the new CNBC visual format. IMO, the game-like graphics are a big distraction that has caused me to reduce my viewing time. I am wondering if there are any adults in charge who actually approved it.
Also, I find the huge green bird now placed in the middle of each chart another big distraction.
I hate the new CNBC format. What is with the cheesy chronograph stopwatch thing? Plus, the new wake up call gets rid of the bantor that made it worth watching. CNBC sucks: I now watch bloomberg tv.