An Interesting Premise For A Novel

Congress, to solve the financial crisis, abolishes Social Security payments.  Imagine tens of millions of senior citizens like the character that Clint Eastwood plays in Gran Torino, taking revenge: people with only a few years left at best, and nothing to lose.

USA Today Actually Checking Their Sources: Excellent!

This is what journalists are supposed to do.  From December 3, 2013 USA Today:

When USA Today started investigating mass killings, it seemed a fairly straightforward thing to count: How many times have at least four people died at the hands of another in a single incident?

Yet marking the death toll of mass killings in America is anything but simple. It’s hampered by the FBI’s voluntary reporting system that gets it right a little more than half the time, and by advocacy groups who may count only incidents that support their cause, ignoring killings that don’t involve a gun or did not get heavy media coverage.

It is an amazing story -- it means that the data that the FBI released on mass murders 2006-2011 was pretty much worthless (only 61% accurate), with multiple individual murders lumped together into a single mass murder; a mass murder that was not:

In another incident, the FBI data included the deaths of two adults and three children in a Cleveland suburb in 2009, shot to death by a 28-year-old man. There was a drive-by shooting at that date and time, but no one was killed. ...

In nearly a dozen cases, USA Today — searching media reports and interviewing local law enforcement agencies — could find no record of a murder, even when the FBI data showed as many as seven killed. Among them: a quintuple murder in Newark in 2010. What actually happened: Police arrested two men in connection with the murder of five teens in 1978 — 32 years earlier.

Encouraging Guesses From Schwab

They seem to think that bond yields are going to rise substantially next year:

We would not be surprised to see 10-year Treasury yields return to the 3.0% to 3.5% range in the year ahead.

Which means better than 4% on 30 year Treasury bonds.  My guess is that we might well see 5.5% or even (dare I hope) 6% yields on municipal bonds.  And then the wild dancing frenzy starts at my house!

Shoes For Old People

I have been disappointed at how difficult it seems to be to get some solid black walking shoes.  Target used to supply a basic shoe -- nothing fancy, and nothing flamboyant.  But now, all that the local Target and Fred Meyer stores stock in athletic shoes seem to be black with fluorescent green, and similarly silly colors. 

I wandered into Big Five on Sunday, looking for a warm winter coat, and discovered that this is where the basic solid black walking shoes have all gone -- and at a reasonable price.  Yes, they are all made in China, but at least I don't have to dress like I'm fabulous anymore.

Disappointing Bond Yield Curve

One of these days (or is it months, or years?), bond yields are going to really take off.  When they do, I can retire.  But in the meantime, I am really frustrated.  At times like this, the correct solution is to buy short and medium term bonds, constructing a "bond ladder," which gets you better return right now, but because the bonds are relatively short maturity (say, 2-5 years), when bond yields really do take off, you don't have the capital value of those bonds drop like stones.  Worst comes to worst, you just wait for those bonds to mature, and reinvest the capital in long-term, and by then, high-yielding bonds.

But what can you do when the Treasury bond yield curve looks like this?

Both the nominal and real yield are so miserable until you get out to ten years that you might as well stay in cash.

UPDATE: Many years ago, there was a very amusing article in Car & Driver about how the lowest cost car to own was actually a Ferrari, because instead of depreciating, they appreciated.  I don't know if that was actually then, or if it true today.  It might be an amusing alternative investment strategy, assuming the car insurance costs didn't destroy the appreciation.

UPDATE 2: To hear this website tell the story, there is something that has appreciated 115% from purchase: "Ferrari Enzo - Gained 115% or $750,000"

Telemarketing Calls: Where To File Complaints

Something called "Cardholder Services" robocalled me again on Saturday trying to get me refinance my credit card with them.  I never carry a balance, so calls like this are annoying, and for all I know, they are probably frauds anyway.  But I punched 1 just to tell the person at the other end to put me on their "Don't call" list.  I already have my cell phone and home phone on the "Don't call" list at FCC -- but what the heck, I thought that I would try to be polite.

And the response from the other end was, "Whacha still doin' on the line, cupcake?"

Anyway, I get calls from "Cardholder Services" every few months, and it is getting annoying, so I filed a complaint with the FCC.  Here's the online form for doing so.

Another Fake Hate Crime

From November 27, 2013 Daily Caller:

Reports of bias incidents at Vassar College that involved hateful messages left on students’ doors were actually elaborate hoaxes — and the perpetrator is none other than the student member of the Bias Incident Response Team, The Daily Caller has learned.

This fall semester at the liberal arts college in New York saw a curiously high number of bias incident reports. On Nov. 14, the college sent a mass email to students advising them that Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) had received at least six reports in the last few months of hateful and insensitive messages being scrawled and spray painted on student residences. Messages included “Avoid Being Bitches,” “Fuck Niggers,” and most prominently, “Hey Tranny. Know Your Place.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/27/exclusive-shocking-discovery-in-hoax-bias-incident-at-vassar-college/#ixzz2mExFMcXW

Of course, one of the students was the transgendered Genesis Hernandez.  There are so many of these fake hate crimes, it makes you wonder what is wrong with people that feel the need to fake them.