StockGumShoe

I keep getting teaser emails about the next ten-bagger, 20-bagger stock and an opportunity of a life-time from people/institutions all the time. They are dime a dozen and make you feel bad and wince for many reasons, be it you dont have money, or a trading account or the fact that you will not get rich because you passed on this offer which could be availed at only $100, or $200 or $800 per year...

UNTIL, I found out about "stockgumshoe" - this is authored by what I consider an extremely intelligent and mature individual. As a result, he has been promoted to the links section...you can find a link to stockgumshoe's website on the left.

StockGumshoe, reveals each one of the teaser stocks in the universe of all stock-newsletters, totally FREE OF COST! Check what the fuss is all about here, http://www.stockgumshoe.com/about

Happy n-baggers!

How to spot a bubble(thank Rishi)

You can follow the link to the article by Rishi.

What goes up comes down.
What goes way way way up comes way way way down over way way way too much time(an exaggeration, but you get the point!)

Bye Bye American Dream!

What is capitalism when its constituents are the same, 40 years before, 40 years hence! What is scary is the system was manipulated in such a way that “cheap gas prices” were there to stay, forever!

 

Gas guzzlers, like the SUV’s are a recent phenomenon, of the 90’s. Suburbia – was possible because of this, long commutes dithered none. Freeways were put to the best use…now, with gas prices rising continuously much to our chagrin and shock and showing no sign of abating, the near future is not rosy at all. The distant one does not look good either, with wage stagnation and housing deflation, there is no alternative for people to borrow, against what? Also, I am curious to see just how insane it will get…I remember those days where a popular TV bran “AIWA” was being introduced – “Bring your old television, trade it in for a new”. Now, it is highly unlikely you are going to see the big three in the USA (GM, Ford, Chrysler) do something on these lines…I will be happy to trade in my Honda for an electric car…but, not, wait, they want us to suck dry. First, I will be forced to buy a fuel cell/battery hybrid and enslaved in debt for god knows how many years and when the rest of the world has overtaken us, I will be sold the next solution. There seems to be no impetus to nip the problem in the bud…Just when will the American consumer will say “enough is enough” – maybe, not.

 

The cost of gasoline in Europe/Asia is upwards of $5 a gallon…there are dis-incentives to not use your car in Europe, it’s the opposite here. In India, inspite of the high gas prices, the maximum distance a motorist will clock is no more than 10-15miles(30miles roundtrip). Compare that to the United States, the example in the article below, the gentleman drives 100miles. At the place where I work, there are people who drive 50-75miles one way…

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20080409_Long_commutes__gas_prices_crimping_American_Dream.html

 

McMansion Saga Pro Vs Cons continues

Very illuminating post, the kind of stuff, I personally rue and muse over…if you are not an expert, atleast have one or be under the tutelage of one J. Read “Buyer Beware” below.

~~~

BUYER BEWARE

Many of these McMansions, (and many new homes of all sizes), are very poorly constructed. Under the granite and marble is often a slew of defects and code violations. Even a cheap starter house is supposed to meet code but houses of all prices often don’t!

I bought a modest ranch house in 2000, of about 1800 squ. ft. That was big to me. I didn’t have any fancies, just stated again and again to the real estate agent, “I want quality construction, not frills” I didn’t know what quality construction really was, and learned the hard way that neither did the industry. Don’t know what it is or don’t care.

I got a highly defective house and spent five years embroiled in a construction defect dispute. My lawyer committed took my retainer fee, did no work, and committed forgery, so I was on my own, unwilling to trust a new lawyer just yet. It’s not that easy to find a good lawyer because they know builders fold their company and don’t pay court judgments and debts.

Fortunately for me I did manage to settle, but I learned something that every buyer of a new home ought to be concerned about. Many builders these days take extraordinary shortcuts to plump up their bottom line, and these shortcuts can make your new house essentially “disposable.” The so-called 10 yr warranty policies on some new homes are a joke. The policy comes after closing since the builder buys it, and they exclude almost everything. If you want to dispute a claim you have to arbitrate wtih their kangaroo court. I escaped that problem due to a federal law concerning govt backed (VA and FHA) loans that says the warranty co can’t force you to arbitrate: 24 CFR 203.204(g). If you need that regulation it’s on the Cornell Law site under Code of Federal Regulations, title 24, section 203.204(g).
No thanks to any lawyers I paid, I found this regulation thru free consumer info and was able to use it successfully.

As I go past new developments now I see horrendous examples of shortcuts on house after house. People think that with what I know now I should feel assured that I could buy/build again with confidence but I don’t feel assured at all. It’s obvious that a person has to either be, or know, an expert in construction and law before they have any hope of assuring their new house will be well built, and the contract fair and enforceable. I was supposedly a pretty educated and cautious consumer before but I still got taken. I’m even more cautious now, but the more I learn, the more I realize the scams evolve faster than the consumer protection info. It is truly Buyer Beware. Owners of these McMansions may or may not have construction problems but if they do they’re in for a world of hurt because a junky big expensive house is a bigger financial burden than a small junky house.

Another one from the “Pro-McMansionites”

I just “stole” a 5,000+ sq. ft. very well built mansion on 5+ acres. It’s friggin’ wonderful to have room to hang all the beautiful art I’ve collected in my consulting travels. Also we have a gorgeous pool and the gourmet kitchen that my wife has always wanted.

I plan to finish the 4,000+ sq. foot full sunlight basement that opens onto the pool and jacuzzi, so my elderly Mom can move in with us in 2 or 3 years. The basement is already wired and plumbed for 2 large bedrooms with walk-in closets and full baths, a kitchen, media room, full woodworking workship, see-through fireplace, etc. I figure it’ll cost about $120K to add another 4,000 sq. ft. to the house. The extra heating is really not that bad, since we do take care.

Oh, and mansions certainly are all they’re cracked up to be. I especially love the instant-on and unlimited hot water that comes from our very full water well.

My wife and I currently have our daughter and elderly WWII Marine father-in-law living with us. He loves it.

Yeah, I was going to downsize from my paid-off 3,200 sq ft. house on a creek, but then this fantastic deal came along. Let me tell you…if you have a chance to get a mansion for what a tract home in California or New York costs, take it. I’m diggin’ it to the max.

And some smart not-everyday-everyplace, uncommonly common sense

AISGREEN,

Good for you. Most people will read your post as a description of all this excess, but, in fairness, you have one elderly parent living with you, and are planning on another coming soon. So, four adults, plus your daughter living there is not even all that inefficient. So good luck with the renovations, and enjoy that pool!

To everyone, if you can afford it, I mean REALLY afford it, then live it up, and God Bless! If not, less is fine too.

 

 

 

Ichneumon Wasp - I Bow to thee!

 

The story of ichneumon wasp

 

Read this about wasps - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumon_wasp

 

Last night, we saw a DVD(Life in the Undergrowth, produced by BBC, David Attenborough) about insects and were shocked to learn the story of this wasp. So check this out...

 

It all begins with the blue butterfly in Europe. In Spring, the blue butterflies mate and their eggs are laid on leaves of plants which hatch into caterpillars and drop off to the ground. The funny thing about caterpillars are they emit a chemical called pheromones whose smell makes a very strange thing happen – the pheromones are intentionally meant to confuse the ants - which think that it is one of their own and take it back to their nests and clean it and take good care of them. These caterpillars are so smart they even make the same noises as ant larvae so they can be fed by the ants...the oblivious ants feed them for as long as it takes.

 

In a typical meadow, there are upto 100 ant hills and guess what...The story of ichneumon wasp starts here. Ichneumon pronounced as ick-new-mon, knows the exact ant-nest where the caterpillars are being taken care off - they enter the ant-nest and as you can imagine, the ants realize the wasp has arrived and start attacking it wildly. The wasp produces a pheromone which causes a bizarre thing to happen - the equivalent of "maya" or magic - the ants start attacking each other instead of the intruder. The wasp proceeds to the rooms where the eggs are being protected and finds the caterpillar and injects an egg into each one of them and having achieved its objective, it takes off.

The ants regain their composure and go back to tending to their own and the caterpillars. In due course of time, the caterpillars form the Chrysalis and enter the last stage of metamorphosis…all along being taken care of by the ants. The blue butterfly eventually comes out and heads out into the open to begin its adult life. Soon after, the ichneumon wasp too comes out of the chrysalis having gotten a safe ride through the seasons and food from the host which was the host of the poor ants J.

 

Last night, we were totally shocked to see this exploitation and deception and double deception to see among insects

and we tend to beat our fellow humans for showing lack of morality and character. The wonders of creation, lust for life and the complex intricacies – all showed in this fine example from 3 different species…so much to learn!

 

Another note about the DVD, “the silk spinners” from DVD-1 is mind blowing. Especially the piece about the Gladiator spiders and Bolas spiders…chilling to say it in 1 word. In DVD-2, “intimate relations”, yet another spider + wasp story…where the spider is aware of and does nothing to get rid of its guest…which returns the favour by injecting the spider with a hormone which makes it go loopy and loose its core-competencies, web making and spinning silk. Bizarre, huh? There is also the piece about ants and trees co-operating…a must-see!

McMansions - to make my previous post complete

Otherwise, it wd be incomplete, right.

 

Live in a 4000 sq ft house with wife and 5 kids just outside the city on 5 acres with trees, stream, etc. Perfect size for us, could even be bigger. Only regret is that I did not move here sooner so that my older kids could have enjoyed building tree houses, etc. the way my younger kids have. House is designed to entertain with a large great room and less than 1 mile from the high school, so my older kids bring over a bunch of their friends everyday for lunch… and after school… and on the weekends. It is great to be the ‘hang-out place’ for high schooler as opposed to the mall or whatever. As for the extra work/chores, sure it comes with the turf, but the kids are all expected to help out, so it becomes (mostly) a positive family experience. After kids are grown and out of the house, this will hopefully be a place grandkids will love to visit (and there will be enough space to house them), so don’t see myself downsizing. So I agree with RJS- all a matter of perspective and someone’s lifestyle choices.

Comment by Bigger is better - April 7, 2008 at 2:47 pm

The concept that the Suburbs are dying and no one wants McMansions anymore is pure fluff and folly.

While it IS true that the average square foot of new construction is leveling off, that has as much to do with construction costs as it does with any large trends towards smaller housing.

The one thing that is true is that because of the commutes, more and more people will look to move closer “in”. This trend has been taking place for 10 yrs+ nationwide. It doesnt mean no one is going to buy new houses out in the Suburbs or Ex-burbs. It just means demand will change with that. But it certainly wont collapse. Thats where the least expensive housing will tend to be.

Every decade or so, we get a market correction not unlike were having now. Once the prices get “corrected”, demand will go back to where it was before.

Whoever commented that farmers were going to buy back (which they sold to builders in the first place) land to farm again is clueless. They couldnt afford it, even with the raising of Corn prices.

It’s just part of the cycle we go through.

 

Are you a POOP?

Now, don’t get me wrong, POOP is “Prisoner Of Our Property” as Dan writes in the comments.

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/04/07/are-mcmansions-making-some-americans-unhappy/?mod=MostPopular?mod=fpa_blogs

 

Some interesting comments,

1.       The suburbs will be abandoned in favor of cities and farmers will buy back the land and plow down developments. http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

2.       George comments “McMansions will go the way of previous excessive residences and turn into bed and breakfasts, businesses, nursing homes, multiplexes and communes.”

3.       Loving Atlanta write, “With my most recent home purchase, we bypassed the suburbs and went into the city which meant a MUCH smaller yard and somewhat smaller house. The time savings from lawn care alone is tremendous. We also save with more convenient shops, public transit cut auto costs, and easier time getting together with neighbors. None of this was possible in our former golf course community.”

4.       Matt in Plano, “Also, just because you can “afford it” doesn’t mean you “have to have it”. Living “richly” is not an entitlement, and certainly not all it is cracked up to be, but we cannot seem to learn this lesson well enough to pass it along to our children, who then set out on the same misguided journey. “Less is more” - and our focus should be on each other”

 

Read more in the comments section

 

 

Alan Greenspan defending his position in the WSJ

Greenspan reminds me of my grand-mother, old withery and full of kindness in those eyes and in speech…his oratory and picking the right words for the right moment is unmatched. Here is one gem of a quote,

 

“I am reasonably certain that I am right here. If I am proved wrong, I will change. I do not have a vested interest in holding wrong ideas”

 

Read the full article for free on the WSJ online:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120760341392296107.html

 

The Wire finale on TV(had written this long ago, never posted)

The Wire(TV Series on HBO)

 

What interested me was the lines in bold below, which happens to be my own observation(not conclusion), echoed in the press and in print too. The press seems to have indicted themselves too by printing this.

 

I have never watched “The Wire”, cause I don’t have HBO J…never heard of it until now. Never watched the Sopranos either and the dramatic cut to black when the season ended raised uproar and disappointment among the fans. My taste for the non-mainstream, unsung underdogs perked up after reading this article and maybe, I will request season one from the local library and pack a weekend of “The Wire”

 

Read the entire article here - http://www.newsweek.com/id/84555/output/print

Excerpts”

 

1. Serial killers, mostly. In one of the show's most grandiose storylines yet, a homicidal maniac with a thirst for homeless men is loose in Baltimore during season five—only not really, because the killer is actually a fiction created by McNulty and fed-up fellow Det. Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters). It's all a brazen publicity stunt designed to shame the mayor into funneling a few more pennies into a police force so strapped for cash that it had to shutter its wiretap investigation into a soft-spoken but brutal drug kingpin named Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector). As fanciful as the phony-killer plotline may sound, it is executed with "The Wire's" customary verisimilitude, and Simon's point is never far from the surface. The story is "very much a critique [of] the fixation that Americans have with the pornography of violence, as opposed to the root causes of violence," Simon wrote in a December e-mail

 

AND

2. "Let me indict Hollywood as much as I can on this one," says Simon. "We have more working black actors in key roles than pretty much all the other shows on the air. And yet you still hear people claim they can't find good African-American actors. That's why race-neutral shows and movies turn out lily-white."

None of the actors on "The Wire" has ever been nominated for an Emmy. Overall, the show has earned just one nomination in four seasons. (Pelecanos and Simon, for writing. They lost.) What really steamed Simon, though, was a story two years ago in Emmy Magazine, the Academy's trade publication, about diversity in television. The story made no mention of "The Wire." "Nothing," says Simon. "Not in the whole issue." The silent treatment from Hollywood, though, has cultivated a theater-company camaraderie around the show, a nervy pride in what can be accomplished by unheralded artists in a supposed backwater like Baltimore. "You get a lot of cachet from being the underdog," says West. "And I rather enjoy that feeling—that you're a cult thing, a secret delight. That means a lot more than an Emmy." Simon is less diplomatic. "I don't give a f––– if we ever win one of their little trinkets. I don't care if they ever figure out we're here in Baltimore," he says. "Secretly, we all know we get more ink for being shut out. So at this point, we wanna be shut out. We wanna go down in flames together, holding hands all the way. It's fun. And it's a good way to go out—throwing them the finger from 3,000 miles away

 

 

Slow Down a Little, Save a Lot of Gas

Driving 10 miles per hour faster, assuming you don't lose time getting pulled over for a speeding ticket, does have the advantage of getting you to your destination 50 minutes sooner on that 400 mile trip. Whether that time difference is worth the added cost and risk is, ultimately, up to you.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/104752/Slow-Down-a-Lttle-Save-a-Lot-of-Gas

 

Once again, to summarise, remember this - Driving 10 miles per hour faster gets you to your destination 50 minutes sooner on a 400 mile trip.

sigh, of research and experts!

Well, this is the nation that gave the world aeroplanes, rockets, nuclear technology, internet and a long list. Maybe, I should stop here and you should as well.

 

If you have decided to continue, I will begin with my rant. This is also a police state and a robot nation. What would I do without the movie “The Matrix-1”, just like the movie, the people of this great nation are incubated to be “parts(note inanimity) moving on the assembly line of capitalism, since birth!”.

 

They are told to follow rules and follow rules they will(here is a glowing tribute to what this nation has done to its people, http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7e9bb859-631f-4291-b14a-19b248b235f9), subject of another discussion.

 

When research of any kind is connected, there are so many factors to take into consideration. If a person participating as a research “guinea pig” is considered – then Age, race, diet, hereditary characteristics, acquired and inherited diseases (mutations), geography and so on becomes important. Entity conducting the research, funding it received from vested/non-vested interests is worth consideration. Person(s) conducting the research, their motives, prejudices and leanings to a particular theory and subsequent recourse to do the research is to be thoroughly questioned.

 

Yes, I understand, hope and faith is what we have ultimately. Yes, I pop acetaminophen and ibuprofen on a regular basis too.

 

To make asinine research projects without putting common sense to test, I find, is appalling. What makes us above animals in the wild, I am pretty sure, researchers havent thought about in the first place. This arrogance, is primarily what leads to such shoddy reporting,

Research debunks health value of guzzling water http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0236679720080402?sp=true