Tuesday Tune-up

Richard & Mimi Farina, "Pack Up Your Sorrows"

Quote for the Week, March 30-April 5, 2014

The belief that wealth subsists not in ideas, attitudes, moral codes, and mental disciplines but in identifiable and static things that can be seized and redistributed is the materialist superstition.
--George Gilder

Ken Lewis Finally Gets His, Sort Of

One of SIGTARP's first cases: Bank of America, ex-CEO Lewis settle NY lawsuit over Merrill http://t.co/zjjSwzwNQx
— Neil Barofsky (@neilbarofsky) March 27, 2014

It only took five years to settle this case, which stems from Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch (refresher here).  Notice that Lewis pays zilch (keeping all $135 million of his deferred compensation) as shareholders pick up the legal tab.  Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil explains here why Lewis wins--and why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke might have been the real culprits.

Oh.  Then there is this, on the very same day:

$BAC Bank of America settles with Fannie and Freddie for $9.5 billion: Bank of America settles with Fannie an... http://t.co/rPD11w1oyD
— FinancePress (@thefinancepress) March 27, 2014

Tuesday Tune-up

Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting, "All For Love"

Quote for the Week, March 23-29, 2014

At the end of the day, fiscal discipline is the fundamental predicate of a free society.
--Jerry Brown, Governor of California

Tuesday Tune-up

The Cardigans, "Live and Learn"

Quote for the Week, March 16-22, 2014

You should never be proud of doing what's right.  You should just do what's right.
--Dean Smith, former UNC men's basketball coach

Tuesday Tune-up

The Sea The Sea, "Love We Are We Love"

Changing of the Guard in Ukraine

Interviewing protesters in Independence Square

Quote for the Week, March 9-15, 2014

And to him war was a thing like earth and sky and water and why it was no one knew but only that it was.
--Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth

Tuesday Tune-up

The Band Perry, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely"

Quote for the Week, March 2-8, 2014

Sometime, in dark quiet moments alone, a Bond King may realize he was just lucky to coincide a career with a secular disinflation.
--Kevin Ferry

Tuesday Tune-up

The Honey Trees, "Moon River"

Quote for the Week, February 23-March 1, 2014

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
--Albert Einstein

Bullets Flying in Kiev

Were the sniper targets armed?

Tuesday Tune-up

Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, "Killing the Blues"

Quote for the Week, February 16-22, 2014

Political labeling nowadays has become virtually a form of abuse, driving one to try to make a political philosophy out of the defense of simple human decency.
--Harold Isaacs, writing in 1951

Tuesday Tune-up

The Cars, "Just What I Needed"

Quote for the Week, February 9-15, 2014

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
--Marcus Aurelius

Here Comes the Sun (Or Not)

Say No to hibernation:  "North of the Sun"

Tuesday Tune-up

Otis Redding, "I've Been Loving You Too Long"

Quote for the Week, February 2-8, 2014

Bitcoin is freedom. It's very American.
--Tyler Winklevoss

Bitcoin Believers

Click here for a 2-minute primer
on the new digital currency.
[from the N.Y. Times]

Tuesday Tune-up

Green Day, "Stay the Night"

Quote for the Week, January 26-February 1, 2014

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation.  The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
--Will Rogers

Tuesday Tune-up

Lindsey Stirling, "Zelda Violin Duet"

Quote for the Week, January 19-25, 2014

Markets will be permanently efficient when investors are permanently objective and unemotional.  In other words, never.
--Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital

Maps That Morph

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
(or, for that matter, the jet she's flying on)

Tuesday Tune-up

Linda Ronstadt, "Down So Low"

Quote for the Week, January 12-18, 2014

The war between the centrifuge of knowledge and the centripetal pull of power remains the prime conflict in all economies.
--George Gilder

Tuesday Tune-up

Everly Brothers, "Let It Be Me"

Quote for the Week, January 5-11, 2014

Bipartisan means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.
--George Carlin

Tuesday Tune-up

Dum Dum Girls, "Bedroom Eyes"

Quote for the Week, December 29, 2013-January 4, 2014

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
--Milton Friedman

Tuesday Tune-up

Rolling Stones, "Paint It Black"

Quote for the Week, December 22-28, 2013

Big government inevitably drives an upward distribution of wealth to those whose wealth, confidence and sophistication enable them to manipulate government.
--George Will

Tuesday Tune-up

Beatles, "Day Tripper"

The Comeback Kid

S.I.'s Sports Person of 2013

Quote for the Week, December 15-21, 2013

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Such a Deal

Former OMB Director David Stockman
on the bipartisan plan to delay federal spending cuts:

The can has now been kicked into "low-earth orbit."

Tuesday Tune-up

Silver Trees, "She"

Quote for the Week, Dec. 8-14, 2013

Human beings, when given means and motive, have a rather poor history of eschewing the easy profit in favour of doing the right thing.
--Grant Williams

Tuesday Tune-up

Paul Simon, "Gumboots" & "Whispering Bells"

Quote for the Week, Dec. 1-7, 2013

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
--George Carlin

Tuesday Tune-up

Tift Merritt & Andrew Bird, "Drifted Apart"

Quote for the Week, November 24-30, 2013

Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience.
--Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer, CMMS, six months before the roll-out of Healthcare.gov

RCA Sold to You

Fifty years ago today, 1:30 p.m.,
floor of the New York Stock Exchange. 
More here.

Tuesday Tune-up

Over the Rhine, "Sacred Ground"

JFK Retrospective on PBS

Lest we forget.

Quote for the Week, November 17-23, 2013

Punishing a company and its many innocent employees and shareholders for the crimes committed by some unprosecuted individuals seems contrary to elementary notions of moral responsibility.
--U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff

Tuesday Tune-up

Heart, "Stairway to Heaven"

Quote for the Week, November 10-16, 2013

Everybody, they just don't get it and they think it's crazy.  But I think what I was doing is crazy.
--John Moffitt on his unexpected mid-season retirement from professional football

Football was fun but my head hurts-haha kidding roger goodell. I'm on to new things, thanks to everyone along the way!!!
— John Moffitt (@Moffitt74) November 5, 2013

Election Day 2014 Minus 364

Back sticker sentiment. LePage rally. #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/PtSofmfGHy
— Scott Thistle (@thisdog) November 5, 2013

It's official:  Paul LePage will run for re-election.

And the 38-percenters haven't gone anywhere.

Tuesday Tune-up

Lily & Madeleine, "In the Middle"

A Step Closure

V-B Day! #RedSox #Champions #NeverForget #BostonStrong pic.twitter.com/TzdkhWuwyw
— Obnoxious Boston Fan (@realOBF) November 2, 2013

Quote for the Week, November 3-9, 2013

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
--Albert Einstein

Red Sox Go 3 for 10

Exclamation point.

Tuesday Tune-up

Chick Corea, "Armando's Rhumba"

Quote for the Week, October 27-November 2, 2013

Is it time to disappear?
Oh babe, can we just get out of here?
You and me love and no one near
Walk me to the edge of the world
Meet me at the edge of the world
I'm waiting at the edge of the world
--song by Over the Rhine

QE Is Destroying Wealth

"The failure of investors to learn from experience isn’t just an inconvenience – the constant misallocation of capital resulting from these speculative episodes is gradually destroying our nation’s economic potential for long-term growth and job creation. We measure our standard of living by the amount of output that an individual is able to command for a given amount of work. We measure our productivity by the amount that an individual is able to produce for a given amount of work. Over time, these two must go hand in hand. Policies that misallocate savings away from productive investment and toward unproductive speculation are the same policies that do long-term violence to our nation’s standard of living. Although the members of the Federal Reserve undoubtedly mean well, their actions are at the center of the assault."

--John Hussman, weekly market commentary (10-21-13)

Tuesday Tune-up

André Rieu, "The Emperor Waltz"

Quote for the Week, October 20-26, 2013

That field, never shall I forget it.  From a selfish point of view it would be so much easier to die than to see all that suffering.
--William Potwin Morgan, officer in the American Expeditionary Forces, following the Battle of Soissons, July 1918

Tuesday Tune-up

Lucy Schwartz, "Gravity"

Grown Men Behaving Deliriously

Watch the dugout empty.

Quote for the Week, October 13-19, 2013

The future is already here--it's just not evenly distributed.
--William Gibson

Tift Merritt Performs in Ann Arbor

@billhine I think he told me this story in person! THANK YOU BOTH!
— Tift Merritt (@tiftmerritt) October 12, 2013

Tuesday Tune-up

Rachel Platten, "Nothing Ever Happens"

Quote for the Week, October 6-12, 2013

The United States is a country of amnesia.  It is obsessed with its future, and Europe is paralyzed by its past.
--George Friedman

Tuesday Tune-up

The Byrds, "Turn, Turn, Turn"

Quote for the Week, September 29-October 5, 2013

I don't know whether we will make history tomorrow, but we will certainly change geography.

--British General Sir Herbert Plumer, June 6, 1917, the night before setting off one million pounds of explosives under enemy trenches on the Western Front

Debt Cycles for Dummies

Bridgewater's Ray Dalio gives us a short, simple lesson on how the economy works.  If thirty minutes is not short enough for you, zip ahead to the 7:00 mark, where begins a four-minute explanation of debt cycles and the difference between good and bad credit.

Dalio makes the case toward the end that deleveraging can be "beautiful."  Color me skeptical.

Tuesday Tune-up

John Denver, "Annie's Song"

Quote for the Week, September 22-28, 2013

A volatile market of gyrating currencies and grasping governments shrinks the horizons of the economy and reduces it to high frequency trading and arbitrage in a hypertrophy of finance.
--George Gilder

Tuesday Tune-up

Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"

Quote for the Week, September 15-21, 2013

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.

--Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

Tuesday Tune-up

Roy Orbison, "Only the Lonely"

Quote for the Week, September 8-14, 2013

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.
--Benjamin Disraeli

Tuesday Tune-up

Traveling Wilburys, "Handle With Care"

Quote for the Week, September 1-7, 2013

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
--Oscar Wilde

Focus on the Fed

Funny money: When the Laughing Stops

Tuesday Tune-up

Jay Ungar, "Ashokan Farewell

Quote for the Week, August 25-31, 2013

There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Tuesday Tune-up

The Milk Carton Kids, "Snake Eyes"

Quote for the Week, August 18-24, 2013

This was not a tempest in a teapot but rather a perfect storm of individual misconduct and inadequate internal controls.
--U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on the failure of upper management at JPMorgan Chase to rein in rogue traders of derivatives

PDO Means We're SOL

Cyclical climate change over the Pacific Ocean is likely to lead to the following:

1. write-downs of homes in some fire-prone areas;
2. brown-outs in the Pacific Northwest;
3. diminished irrigation in California's Central Valley;
4. slow-downs in shipping traffic on the Great Lakes;
5. mark-ups for property insurance along the Atlantic seaboard.

Read the whole story here.

Tuesday Tune-up

Emily Wolfe, "Lion Heart"

Quote for the Week, August 11-17, 2013

All persons who work for an unselfish purpose for little or nothing are incomprehensible to persons who never work for nothing, and who can be hired to work for anything.
--John Reed (1887-1920)

Tuesday Tune-up

Leo Kottke, "Little Martha"

Quote for the Week, August 4-10, 2013

We have a pretty smart group of guys, which is a positive.  Hopefully, they will keep being smart.
--N.E. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on this year's crop of rookies

Tuesday Tune-up

Escondido, "Black Roses"

Quote for the Week, July 28-August 3, 2013

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
--W.C. Fields

Bromance, Unrequited

Tom Terrific & 'friend'

Tuesday Tune-up

The Wailin' Jennys, "Beautiful Dawn"

Quote for the Week, July 21-27, 2013

America has no functioning democracy.
--Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Tuesday Tune-up

Mount Moriah, "White Sands"

Quote for the Week, July 14-20, 2013

If you live in South Florida and you're not building a boat, you're not facing reality.
--Harold Wanless, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami

Beijing State of Mind

rapping at the Great Wall (and other hot spots)...

Cameraman Taken Out

Chilling video from Egypt
[story here]

Tuesday Tune-up

Tift Merritt, "Sweet Spot"

Quote for the Week, July 7-13, 2013

Preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.
--attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi