Campbells once again making the news! Woooo! :)

UNC students, twins pose for Playboy magazine

<smugness>I should chuck software and go into finance.</smugness> Read this:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081112/best_buy_outlook.html

I'd say it's optimistic to think we'll still see those big blue price tags and hordes of untrained, just-hired blue-shirted recent high school grads pacing nervously around on the floor for too long into 2009. My money's on them not making it past Q1 of 2009.

They're not alone, though. SBUX will survive, but they will never be the huge giant of overpriced questionably-obtained caffeine drinks they used to be. The only thing that will save them is the fact that they sell a popular but legal and highly-addictive drug.

In contrast, the only thing propping up the USD at this point is the fact that every other major currency is also sucking canal water. If it weren't for the fact that the EUR is falling even faster than the USD, we'd be polishing the shoes of visiting French businessmen right now instead of smugly continuing to make jokes about them. Speaking of which, here's one: This Frenchman walks into a brothel, and... :>)

I was in Circuit City yesterday looking for a 5 volt DC adapter. Needless to say they didn't have it. The stuff they did have was marked 20~50% over what you'd pay on-line for it. The stuff they had on their "clearance desk" was priced 200% of market value at least. I thought, "This company will not live to see 2009. Not with the Holiday Season of Death and Misery we're about to stumble pitifully through." (Side note: the rest of mall was almost deserted, relatively-speaking. I mean, I could have played ice hockey in some places in that mall and no one would have been hit by a puck or probably even noticed.)

So today, guess what I read? This. Now apparently I have been out of the loop on Circuit City; this has been predicted for some time now, it seems. Even if, like me, you have been ignorant of this arising in their fortunes, you can still tell just by looking at them that they are toast. I will say the same now for Best Buy, as they have the same problem CC has. Only, they have it worse in that they seem to have loads of heavy stock that will be hard to store even long enough to dump it for 25% of its current price, as they also sell such warehouse-hogs as entertainment centers and large TVs. I also went into a sporting goods store to see if they had any weight gloves and I saw stuff that had been priced at $2000 now going for $800, like such absolute necessities in life as hybrid squat racks and 45-lb. bar and rack plates (how come no one sells the 100 lb plates? That is so dumb!). They also didn't have my size gloves or brand, either. (Again, the Internet has retail utterly pummeled.)

But today, I also saw this. I thought, "I recall those days. I mean, really, why go to grad school unless you absolutely have to?" That is what compelled me to go. That, and I had no marketable skills to speak of. Well, I had a few, but these were illegal to exercise. >)

I will also proffer yet more unsolicited advice re The Market. It's this: 'Tis not safe to go back in the water. Not at all here in 2008. I'll tell you why: Mutual fund managers make their dump or buy decisions in late 4Q of any given year. This means December, usually the last 2 weeks of the month. This is because they want to lock in gains and write off losses for the new year. So if you were one of these idiots, what would you do? It's a 4-letter word starting with "s" and ending with "l" with an "e" and another "l" in between them. Get it?

The current sucky prices not just for funds but individual issues (US Steel Corp is now trading at ~$34. In July, it was at almost $200. And US Steel is a time-proven bellwether of demand for industrial production) will decline as what's left of the money goes back into cash and bonds (and only certain kinds, too. Not safe to "just buy bonds" anymore. Elmer says "Must be vewy careful, huh huhuhuhuhuh...") So if you are in cash, stay there!

Caveat: If you are not yet in gold, go there only if you can actually collect the metal itself. Claims of ownership in gold and gold stocks are fine only as long as they are exercisable to collect the gold itself and also reliably managed. Aside from that, remember that all sorts of weird things can and do happen when a fiat system gets stressed. The US gov't outlawed the private minting of gold coins during the Civil War simply because the war's expenses couldn't be met by just transactions in gold bullion. And last century at one point they seized all the gold they could from everyone they could catch and outlawed the commerce therein for years; this was part of the recovery plan from the Great Depression and this new rule lasted longer than that. The same can happen now and there is reason to think it will not, simply because fiat systems are just that: inherently, they don't like competition from fall-back commodities like gold and silver.

We are in a large-scale 2-front war that is draining our economy, and at this time we can't get out of it, nor can we seem to stop through the usual means the financial meltdown me and millions of others have talked about now for months, if not years. The gov't will need to ensure that the USD remains valuable. The only way it can ensure that is to forcibly stop the commerce in gold and re-invent the currency. That is the plan. [I think that is also what our new VP-elect was referring to when he said that the new president will have to make some tough decisions in 2009 and his current supporters will have to stick with him. Also, I think it may be referring to the passage of the National Service Act (ie, the draft), but both remain to be seen.]

So getting some gold will help maintain the value of some of your savings as we head into a new iteration of fiat currency. But don't get too much of the stuff. Trading gold for goods is impractical and even dangerous when there is a severe depression afoot; people start getting irrational and in the history of the human race, murder to get someone else's gold is a classic motivation. So you might want to get some gold just to keep the value of a common currency some, but if you plan on getting your hands on (assuming you could) a large amount if it, be forewarned: You are making yourself a target for thieves, some of whom may be quite desperate for some kind of valuable currency and not beyond murder to get it. Think I am being alarmist? People murder all the time just to get ahold of some fiat money. Imagine what they would do for actual gold if the heat were on, if they had kids needing food or medicine? As for using a custodian-- keping your gold in institutions is fairly ensuring the gov't will indeed be able to seize it.

In times like this, when the actual medium of exchange is in danger, the value of things becomes truly apparent. At its core, no inert object holds any real value (ie, money, gold, diamonds-- all worthless when the chips are down). That is because the value of things is tied to what they can do to sustain your life and the lives of people that mean anything to you. For the most part the one thing all of us have that is true wealth is our ability to trade our labor or even our very presence (eg, Hollywood stars are doing this and making a good living at it) for something we need. Working for food. Having a skill that is needed and trading that for money, food, etc. To illustrate, if I have a mountain of cash and gold and live alone though on a desert island, is that cash and gold worth anything? No, not really. That is because it can't be used for anything other than perhaps as kindling for fire and to make weapons or tools that could be used to get something to eat. Which leads me to this point: If you can't stay alive, currencies/mediums of exchange are useless. Food, shelter, clothing, and love itself-- this is what people really need. They need other people for life to be meaningful or worth living ("One man is no man") as well as the other skills that others have more of, some of these skills being indispensable. When dumb stuff like currencies go ker-flooey, you quickly find out what is really valuable and what can really be used as an exchange medium. And I am not just talking about the world's oldest profession here, either. :)

So with all that babbled, I'll get back to my real job.