"Pinsanity," is when Pinterest addiction goes a little too far. Pinterest seems like a load of innocent fun, but what if Pinterest came to life? It's like reliving that bad college roommate experience over and over and over again..
You probably remember how you dressed up and did your best to look awesome for your prom, or to be more precise for the prom camera. While you might have experienced some troubles with your attire or hair, these Wisconsin students went through much more unpleasant experience.
Just before their junior prom on Saturday, a group of students from Kettle Moraine High School gathered on a pier at a friend's house for pictures. However, the picture-taking didn't last long, since the pier gave way and the teens plunged into the waters of Lac La Belle.
As the group crowded onto the pier Saturday, one person called out that he just heard two cracking sounds, and everyone else stopped, said Josh Orne, 17, one of the students. Without warning, part of the pier gave way, and about half the students dropped feet-first into the water.
"The girls starting screaming and basically the guys started laughing. Because it took us no time to get ready, and it took them all week to do it," Orne said. "You know, we all realized right away, this is going to be an unbelievable story to tell."
Orne's mother, Sue, was taking pictures at the time, and didn't stop when the pier gave way. One photo shows all the students in a line. The next shows half of them waist-deep in water or supporting themselves on beams while others look on in disbelief.
Josh Orne singled out one mother in particular for her quick actions Jill Leahy immediately jumped into the water and helped pulled students out, he recalled.
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President Obama calls on Democrats and Republicans to come together and act on his Congressional “to-do list,” which will create jobs and help restore middle class security.
Congratulating the Wildcats: President Obama welcomed the victors of the 2012 NCAA championship – the University of Kentucky Wildcats – to the White House to congratulate them, despite his original skepticism that they’d take the title. “I had them in the championship game. But in the end, I though, they got all these freshman. These guys are too young,” he said. “But let’s face it, sometimes talent trumps experience.”
On the To-Do List: President Obama has put together a To-Do List for Congress, full of initiatives that have bipartisan support and will help create jobs and restore middle class security. The items on the list include eliminating tax incentives to ship jobs overseas and cutting red tape so responsible homeowners can refinance, among others – you can check the full list here.
To-Do List Goes to Albany: On Tuesday, President Obama traveled to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering’s NanoTech Complex in Albany, New York, where he laid out his to-do list of actions Congress should take before leaving for summer recess. The first item on the To-Do List will help spur American manufacturing, an industry that is growing in upstate New York. “At the very least what we can do right away is stop rewarding companies who ship jobs overseas and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that are moving jobs back here to America,” the President remarked.
“I think…”: In an interview with ABC News, President Obama said, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” His statement came after giving this issue serious consideration, which involved conversations with his family, friends, neighbors and people who work with him at the White House.
West Wing Week: Your video guide to everything that's happening this week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Watch here.
"Over there, by the fire, is that a stick or a snake?"
It turns out that humans have been naming things for a long time. If we know that this is a cheetah, or a grapefruit, we can make intelligent decisions on how to deal with it.
Lately, though, we've been naming more than things. Now we classify ideas and opportunities as well.
Getting smart about naming is at the heart of marketing. Calling every single person a 'customer', for example, is hardly a nuanced way of engaging with the public. Salespeople are especially nuanced at this, but often make mistakes as well. Car salesman are notorious for misnaming women who walk in (spouse instead of primary decision maker).
As an investor, are you misnaming the businesses you look at, mistaking a cliff business for a bootstrappable idea? Dozens of book editors misnamed Harry Potter at first glance, labeling it a 'loser from the slush pile' instead of the most profitable book they were ever offered.
Job interviews are nothing but sessions where we try to put a name on a stranger looking for employment. Is she a superstar in the making or someone we ought to avoid?
Most of all, are you misnaming opportunities and calling them risks instead?
When you are isolated or if the world is stable, your need to name new things goes down, and the world might feel safer as a result. Most of us don't live in that world, so our ability to name things becomes critical.
Just because we're not good at it doesn't mean it's not important.
I loved your disability graph so decided to expand on that theme some more and took a look at the relationship between the trend in disability recipients and the roll off of recipients of emergency and extended unemployment insurance programs.
Should we dare say there is a stunning relationship!
Enjoy,
Best, Madeline
Amazing Achievement is Fraud
First consider a few snips from my previous post, then we will take a look at what TrimTabs has to say.
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.
In the last month, actual employment fell by 169,000, but the unemployment rate dropped by .1%.
That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least.
Since Mid-2010 2.2 Million Went on Disability
Notice the jump in claims after the recession was allegedly long-over.
The timing coincides with unemployment benefits expiring at 99 weeks. Supposedly higher taxes will fix the problem. I say "nonsense".
A recent post on the popular ZeroHedge financial blog compared the annualized growth in federal debt to the annualized growth in GDP in Q1 2012. ZeroHedge reported that while U.S. government debt rose by $359.1 billion in Q1 2012, the U.S. GDP grew only $142.4 billion. Durden noted that, "It now takes $2.52 in new federal debt to buy $1 worth of economic growth."
The surprising observation prompted us to examine the relationship between growth in debt and growth in GDP from 1975 through 2012. What we found is both astonishing and frightening. From 1974 to 1980, each $1 increase in GDP was accompanied by an increase in debt of between 20 and 47 cents. Since 2009, however, each $1 increase in GDP has been accompanied by a whopping $2.50 increase in debt. At some point, the amount of debt required to generate $1 of GDP will suffocate the economy and trigger another financial shock.
In Q1 2012, GDP rose $142 billion, while debt rose $355 billion. In other words, it took $2.50 in debt to generate $1.00 in GDP. We wanted to understand how this relationship compared to those that prevailed in previous decades. The graph below shows our findings.
click on chart for sharper image
From 1974 to 1980, each $1 increase in GDP was accompanied by an increase in debt of between 23 and 53 cents. Since 2009, however, each $1 increase in debt has been accompanied by a whopping $2.41 increase in debt. At some point, the amount of debt required to generate $1 of GDP will suffocate the economy and trigger another financial shock.
Another recent post on the popular Global Economic Trend Analysis blog (hat tip to Mish Shedlock) suggested the recent declines in the unemployment rate were due, in part, to the rapid increase in enrollment in disability because people on disability are no longer counted as unemployed.
In his blog post Shedlock reported, "Since mid-2010, precisely the time million of U.S. citizens used up all of their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million."
Mish's observation prompted us to dig a little deeper into the relationship between the number of people exhausting extended and emergency unemployment benefits compared to the increase in disability recipients. What we discovered was interesting, to say the least.
click on chart for sharper image
From July 2010 to April 2012, the decline in the number of people collecting extended and emergency unemployment benefits was 2.46 million. Over the same time period the number of people collecting disability benefits increased by 2.20 million. We suspect the similarity in the inverse relationship is more than coincidence.
Once again Economic Cycle Research Institute's Lakshman Achuthan repeats his recession call, this time saying within three months.
His call is based on coincident indicators, especially income. According to Achuthan, income growth in the last three months is lower than at the start of any of the last 10 recessions.
Once again I tend to agree with him, yet once again I find some things that sound rather disingenuous.
When asked "Can the Federal Reserve do anything about this?", Achuthan responded "no".
Specifically Achuthan replied "It's so ironic. We're all free-marketeers. .... the free market has indigenous inherent business cycles which means ups and downs. It's ironic that we think that the Fed or other policies could just stave off a recession".
I agree. However, the statement represents one hell of an attitude change as the following flashbacks show.
The U.S. economy is now in a clear window of vulnerability, given the plunge in ECRI's Weekly Leading Index (WLI) since last spring. Yet there is a brief window of opportunity within that window of vulnerability to avert a recession. That is why ECRI has not yet forecast a recession. ....
This is why, having correctly predicted the last two recessions in real time without crying wolf in between, we are not forecasting one yet.
ECRI Denial
The ECRI laid it on pretty thick, openly mocking the "best advertised [recession] in history" while claiming "This is why, having correctly predicted the last two recessions in real time without crying wolf in between, we are not forecasting one yet."
The irony is the recession was about 2 months old at the time.
The U.S. economy is now on a recession track. Yet this is a recession that could have been averted. In January, given the plunge in the Weekly Leading Index, we declared that the economy had entered a clear window of vulnerability. Yet we emphasized the brief window of opportunity within that window of vulnerability for timely policy stimulus to head off a recession.
It is a somewhat different story with regard to GDP, because the cyclically volatile manufacturing sector still accounts for 36% of GDP. A mild downturn in that sector should limit the decline in GDP in this recession.
Question for Achuthan
If it was a recession of choice in 2008 (after the recession already started), why isn't it a question of choice now? Of course, it is entirely possible Achuthan has changed his mind about what is or isn't possible.
Then again, is that change of heart a new fundamental belief or simply a necessary statement because his call is now recession as opposed to no recession in late 2007 and early 2008 (while later taking credit for predicting a recession).
It is not my intent to keep bringing this discrepancy up, but Achuthan has come out with yet another reason for his call that is dramatically different that what the ECRI has stated before.
The key point however is the forecast, and on that score I side with Achuthan. I also side with Achuthan that he Fed cannot do much to stave off recessions. History will show who is correct.
In light of renewed banter about corporations being flush with cash following Apple's stellar earnings, I thought it would be instructive to take a look at the top 50 companies by market cap in the following ways:
Debt and liabilities vs. cash
Debt and liabilities vs. cash plus short-term investments
Debt and liabilities vs. cash plus both short-term and long-term investments
With thanks to Ross Perez at Tableau Software for compiling the data for my idea, please consider the following interactive graph.
Note the ability to change the "cash" metric in the upper right of the graph.
Bottom line: net cash on hand at the top 50 companies is negative to the tune of $1.479 trillion. If one considers short-term investments to be cash equivalents, then net cash is negative $1.251. Only if long-term investments are included does the number go positive.
Clearly there is not as much "sideline cash" as most are led to believe. By the way, the notion of sideline cash is bogus in the first place.
The amount of "sideline cash" has been rising for years and will keep doing so unless money supply contracts. Yet the S&P 500 was clobbered in 2008 and early 2009 anyway. Why?
Stock prices rise and fall on sentiment changes every single day, not because money flows into or out of the market.
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