MONEY: Polish Ponzi hurts; a lesson for the USA and the Federal Reserve System “dollar”

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/and-why-you-always-demand-physical

Aaaand It’s Gone: This Is Why You Always Demand Physical
Tyler Durden’s picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/14/2012 21:09 -0400

*** begin quote *** 

We have said it over and over, we’ll say it again. For all those who for one reason or another would like to boycott the broken markets, yet trade gold in paper form, please understand that all the invested capital is at risk of total loss and can and will be lost, commingled and rehypothecated, not necessarily in that order, with little to zero recourse and the residual claim on liquidating assets pushed to the very end of the queue. Because if Lehman, MF Global, Peregrine, and countless other examples were not enough, here comes Amber Gold: a gold-based investment ponzi scheme out of Poland, in which it is likely needless to say that the gullible investors never had actual possession of the gold. And when they tried, it was gone. All gone.

*** end quote ***

Why do you trust that someone else is watching your assets?

Argh!

Ponzi is the meme.

Social Security Insurance, fiat paper money that channels John Law, and any promise made by politicians and bureaucrats!

Cynical?

Nah, realist.

Save your nickels!

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SERVICE: GIST goes bye bye; don’t depend on anything in the cloud?

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Gist
We started Gist in 2008 to make connecting with your key contacts faster and easier to help you create stronger business relationships. In February of 2011, we become part of Research In Motion (RIM) to bring the Gist vision to millions of BlackBerry customers. Since our acquisition we built the BlackBerry Playbook Contacts app and more recently, our team has been tasked with creating the native address book/contact manager for the next generation platform, BlackBerry 10.

In addition to our core focus on the Contacts app, we have been given expanded responsibility for everything social at RIM including BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook and Twitter apps and instant messaging as well as much of the identity platform, location services and user analytics features.

With all this responsibility, we feel even more empowered to deliver a truly unique and amazing experience for aggregating, enhancing and connecting you deeply with your key contacts. All of this feels pretty exciting, but you may have noticed limited innovation on the core Gist product offering over the last year. In an effort to make the most of our new focus, we have, with heavy hearts, decided to shutdown the stand-alone Gist service. Sigh.

As of today, we are no longer accepting new users and Gist.com will officially be closing on September 15, 2012. Click here to read the blog post and learn how to get your data out of Gist so you can transition to another service.

Thanks,
The Gist Team
http://www.gist.com

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Argh!

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MEMORIES: The Grand (Central) Hyatt; the visit makes me sad

Monday, August 20, 2012

This past week end I had occasion to stay at the The Grand Hyatt in NYC over Grand Central Station for work.

It was in the Fall of 1967 that I attended the Injineer’s Ball in that very same hotel with my beloved.

Made me very sad.

What can I say? If I knew then what I know now, would it have made a difference? If I knew then what I know now, could I have changed the course of history? Would I have lived with more zest knowing that the end was fast approaching?

Or, would by knowing, would something different have happened?

Argh!

In my Great American Novel, CHURCH 10●19●62, I postulated an etherial “probabilities” machine.

*** begin quote ***

(Upon having his name invoked, Saint TAQ checked the Eternal Possibilities Machine, which generates all the possibilities for use in creating the alternative worlds. In all those probability lines where those three survived to lead the survivors, everyone died. Marie never was in a place and motivated to open the water valve. No one else would have found and read the directions. Saint Taq petitioned the Lord to soften Jody’s heart to Marie’s pain. And vice versa.)

*** end quote ***

— CHURCH 10●19●62 (volume 1) page 45

Were I had such a thing to “know” the difference?

Argh!

Sadly, we’ll never know.

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INTERESTING: Sleep is not the cousin of death

Sunday, August 19, 2012

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-three-ss-you-must-get-right/

The Three S’s You Must Get Right

*** begin quote ***

You hear it all the time: “It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change!” or “Fitness is something you live!” It seems like every health guru out there with a diet and/or workout plan says something to that effect. Unfortunately, if you fully subscribe to their prescriptions and do so for life, you’re still only changing what you eat or how you work out.

While that’s most of the battle, it’s not enough. Diet and exercise are simply vital components of a lifestyle. If you make a permanent modification to your diet and exercise without addressing the other things that encompass a “lifestyle,” you’re selling yourself short.

Which is why I believe it is necessary to focus on the other stuff, too. I’m convinced that good health, longevity, happiness, and weight management come down to far more than just diet and exercise.

*** and ***

Sleep

Sleep is not the cousin of death, and no, you shouldn’t hold off on sleeping until you’re dead. Sleep is restoration time. It’s when your body repairs itself. And, chances are, you’re not getting nearly enough of it.

Are you? How often do you get a “good night’s sleep?” Do you regularly wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day?

If you are like most people you are not getting good, regular sleep. You’re hitting the snooze button several times, fumbling for your coffee fix, and yawning at work. You’re staying up late with the TV going or you’re taking your laptop into bed.

It wasn’t always like this. For millions of years, up until about a hundred twenty years ago, humans all over the world enjoyed restorative, refreshing, regular sleep. When the sun went down, they either went to sleep or started getting ready for it. Life would wind down. Candles and fire were too costly to burn all night, every night, so nighttime meant bedtime.

*** end quote ***

This will be the hardest part of going primal.

I am NOT a good sleeper.

We’ll see.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal

Friday, August 17, 2012

From: WSJ.com Editors <access@interactive.wsj.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:10 AM
Subject: WSJ NEWS ALERT: Watchdog Offers Mortgage Rules
To: reinkefj

__________________________________
News Alert
from The Wall Street Journal

A federal consumer regulator is expected to propose Friday the first set of national standards for the mortgage-servicing industry, which has been riddled with problems in the wake of the housing bust.

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal, loan servicers would be required to evaluate homeowners’ applications for loan-assistance within 30 days of receiving an application and would be barred from going ahead with a foreclosure until a final decision has been reached on a borrower’s application for help.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444900304577579591114136230.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

 

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Talk about locking the barn after the whole herd has left the building!

I can’t wait to see the details of this.

Does it “charge back” the originator with the costs. IBM used to have a commission back out program when a Customer was “lost”. Needless to say, they lost very few Customers and, when they did, a sales team exited with the Customer.

Does it set standards for downpayments, ARMs, negative amortization, and balloons? In the “old days”, home mortgages were 50% down and 5 years max. Needless to say there were few if any defaults. Compare that to the NIJA no down no income no job applications of the subprome mess. Clearly these protections should apply to the Donald Trumps. He can stand the loss, but the “little people” need to be taught the lesson.

As a little L libertarian, if I have to have Gooferment, let’s at least try to pretend it can do something.

Argh!

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RANT: Obama White House’s cronyism

Thursday, August 16, 2012

http://news.investors.com/article/621355/201208071855/white-house-takes-workers-pensions-and8212-and-lies-about-it.htm

Did White House Commit Perjury About GM Bailout?
Posted 08/07/2012 06:55 PM ET

*** begin quote ***

Cronyism: In recent days, the scope of the Obama White House’s cronyism has become shockingly apparent. A trove of emails shows it deprived thousands of workers of their pensions to benefit unions, then lied about it.

The news site The Daily Caller has obtained internal government emails that show the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, pushed in 2009 to end the pensions of 20,000 non-union employees of GM’s Delphi auto parts unit as part of the auto bailout.

What’s truly outrageous is that, while those workers were cheated of their full pensions, union employees of the same Delphi company got their pensions paid.

This financially ruinous favoritism of union workers over nonunion workers is blatantly unfair, illegal and a violation of Constitutional guarantees of equal treatment under the law. And the reason is political.

By its own reckoning, organized labor spent nearly $400 million to get Obama elected in 2008, more by far than any other interest group. So it’s no surprise the White House punished nonunion workers and rewarded union members when it came time to “bail out” GM.

Total value of the auto industry bailout to the unions was, by one estimate, $26 billion. For the unions, their $400 million was money well spent indeed.

What’s disturbing is it now appears several White House officials may have lied about how this obvious favoritism came about. Looking at the record, Treasury and White House officials appear guilty not just of political malfeasance, but of perjury as well. On this, the Daily Caller’s email cache is damning.

*** end quote ***

Frau Reinke was always enraged about “losing” her 5k$ GM bond to the Gooferment bailout. 

We knew it was a corrupt bargain, but there was no recourse.

The public, bondholders, preferred stock holders, … … everyone got <synonym for the past tense of the procreation act.>!

She didn’t loose her “lunch money”. But it still hurt her.

The pensioners lost their “lunch money”!

That’s not right.

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MONEY: What is the value of a fiat currency?

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

http://www.silverdoctors.com/cnbc-are-fiat-currencies-headed-for-a-collapse/

Are Fiat Currencies Headed for a Collapse?
Published: Friday, 27 Jul 2012 | 5:27 AM ET
By: Lisa Oake
Anchor, CNBC Asia-Pacific

*** begin quote ***

Shockingly, CNBC even points out in the article that “Every single fiat currency in history has collapsed, this time will be no different.”

*** and ***

A fiat currency derives its worth from the issuing government – it is not fixed in value to any objective standard. That means central banks can print as much money as they want. If an economy is struggling, injecting more notes into the system juices activity but lowers the value of the currency in question.

Mark Mobius, Executive Chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, says investors will soon start to demand fiat currencies be backed by gold or other hard assets.

“It’s already happening, you’re beginning to see that trend with central banks stocking up on gold. The estimate is that at least half of the buying is central bank buying. They are looking to the day when they can say okay, our currency is backed by gold and therefore we’re a strong country,” Mobius told CNBC Asia.

*** end quote ***

Argh!

All one has to do is study a little history and you have to be afraid.

Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, Iraq — come immediately to mind.

We’ve been the guinea pigs in a hundred year experiment in a fiat currency. Now the free ride is coming to an end.

The fun question is how does it unwind?

With a thud!

Does the Carter-style inflation return? Or does it just start to accellerate, continue, and never stops until the value is zero?

When the wild ride starts, it’s too late to covert to hard assets.

Argh!

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SOFTWARE: Peanut Butter PC; better than nothing?

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/peanut-butter-pc-trying-to-keep-kids-safe/6428?tag=nl.e101

Peanut Butter PC: Trying to keep kids safe

*** begin quote ***

Bottom line

In summary, although Peanut Butter PC as a product offers a good idea for making the computer safe for kids, some youngsters with more crafty hacking smarts could get around the confines of the custom desktop and back into the cruel, unprotected world of regular Windows. Although this application serves as a decent roadblock for some that aren’t familiar with computers, it cannot be considered a replacement to parental supervision. It is always important to monitor your child’s usage of the machine, just in case someone does end up finding a way around the fence. At the price of $24.95, it might be worth considering after you give the software a test run via Peanut Butter PC’s 15-day trial.

*** end quote ***

Putting computing power in the hands of children is at best a calculated risk.

Perhaps, by putting it in their hands earlier, with instruction, examples, and SUPERVISION, can make it safer for all involved.

If I had a family, I’d put OPENDNS in the family’s router. That’ll help.

Reviewing logs is a good way to get to sleep at night.

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HARDWARE: Retire old hard drives?

Monday, August 13, 2012

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=31811.msg295493#msg295493

Should we pre-emptively retire old hard drives?
« on: August 02, 2012, 01:52:50 AM »

*** begin quote ***

We all know that hard drives can and will fail eventually, and often unpredictably and without warning. That’s why we make sure we back up regularly.

But here’s is a question I’ve been thinking about lately, and I don’t know the answer to:

Should we pre-emptively retire old but perfectly-working hard drives, and migrate data to a new drive? If so, after how many hours?

Or should we just run them into the ground until they fail?

Here’s a screenshot of one of my favorite tools (CrystalDiskInfo), showing smart data of my oldest drive, with 39,000 hours powered up:

*** end quote ***

What a GREAT question?

I’ve have NEVER heard it asked before. (And, I’ve been in and around it for a LONG time!)

I’ve been burnt by hardware failures a few times. Couple of times the hard disk died. Couple of times it was the supporting hardware.

(The disk might have well died. Thanks, DELL, for using a proprietary motherboard / disk drive combination. Couldn’t just take the good drive from a dead mother and slap it in another DELL as a primary or secondary. That consumed a HUGE number of hours of me, my hardware savvy tech friend, and DELL “technical support”. That one HURT! Turns out most of the backups I’d taken were corrupt. Good thing I’m a “belts ‘n’ suspenders” kinda guy. Had PRINTED copies of data. Paperless society my <synonym for donkey>!]

Cloud is the ultimate backup.(Another great business idea missed thanks to my “huevos muchos pequeño”!) But even that cloud solution can fail. What do you do if you can’t connect?

Argh!

Two of my more SPECTACULAR failures were, both times in a corporate setting — different employers — where I was REQUIRED to depend on centralized IT back up service, when I depended upon those others and … (wait for it) … one time my platform was “overlooked” and at the other place “ALL my backups for THREE <synonym for the act of procreation in real time> YEARS were corrupt”.

Double Argh! or is that (Argh!)**2?

Just writing this I’m now getting crazed because my current employer is another of those “you must use the centralize backup service” kinda places. 

(Note to self: ask them to restore some random file every week!)

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FUN: Tongue-in-cheek advice for Taylor Swift

Sunday, August 12, 2012

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/04/advice-for-taylor-swift-for-her-romance-with-conor-kennedy.html

*** begin quote ***

Do: All the driving. Leave aside whether you believe in the mythical Kennedy Curse, thought to have plagued the family for generations. Think not of Mary Jo Kopechne, the would-be lady friend to Ted Kennedy who died at the bottom of a tidal channel in Chappaquiddick in 1969 after he took a wrong turn and drove them off a bridge. Think not of JFK Jr., who died in 1999 while piloting his own plane, taking his wife and sister-in-law with him. Think not even of Kerry Kennedy, who blamed a recent car wreck on a seizure. Teen boys are the most dangerous drivers in America, accounting for 30 percent of the total cost of motor vehicle injuries in the country. Why tempt fate? Better yet: Hire a chauffeur.

*** end quote ***

In my earlier “advice”, I was worried for “America’s sweetheart”, the poetess laureate of puberty. The Kennedy’s are not what I’d call a “model of faithfulness”. How they are labeled “Catholic” defies my common sense? But, then if I was a bishop, I’d be suing for false advertising. 

I pray that she comes through this with a worst some good song material. 

Argh!

Being an old “SWIFTIE” has its angst.

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