Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing 08-02-2009

by Mr Juggles

Carp Diem…Roman term, it means, yknow, live for the now…Fish they live a very limited lifespan so by nature they *must* live for the now. It’s basically the basis for the entire expression.
-Sean Garrity on Rescue Me

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing


This Week in Tweets for 2009-08-01

by Mr Juggles
  • Congratulations are in order. For *US* #
  • Although we were given celebratory coal as @LCDnews surpassed us in followers. We'll find a way to crush that bot futurely #
  • Man blogspot was really crappy http://longorshort.blogspot.com #
  • Also fedex's logo may have an arrow in it, but it points the opposite way, I just wanted to point that out #
  • What would be the market price of the avg investment banker's soul? One share of citi seems about right #
  • @crampell same with "cry". You can "cry havok" & you can "cry foul" & sometimes "cry freedom". That's it. One should be able to "cry banana" in reply to crampell #
  • Appropos for today's post http://bit.ly/TtVDJ. Also became a fan of it on Facebook. #
  • @jodiecongirl The best way to make things difficult is to involve other people. in reply to jodiecongirl #
  • classic: http://bit.ly/RHFdq #

The Sewer of Massachusetts

by User Submitted

Submitted by user Straight Cash Homie

The Great State of Rhode Island is a glorious place. 90% of all bridges and tunnels are structurally unsound due to large union influence. Roads are a complete mess with massive potholes everywhere. They have the highest income taxes of any state in the union which correlates with one of the highest unemployment rates (last #s were closing in on 13%). Except for Baller to Mega-Baller vacation areas such as Watch Hill, Weekapaug, Jamestown, Newport and the quaintly named Little Compton, all of which strangely have very, very low property taxes compared to the rest of the state. It’s proper name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, making it the longest official state name as well as the most resoundingly racist sounding.

More or less, it’s like a little Detroit but with a caustic trashy accent, a product called “coffee milk” which is branded Autocrat, and more Cape Verdeans per capita. So how do we solve the Rhode Island Problem? Do we just purge Providence, East Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket leaving the rest a gated community, a solution known as “Connecting a Cutt”?

The problem with that plan is that RI has the strongest third party of any state, a third party who would never lett you “Connect their Cutt.” The Mafia. So that is off the table.

So how do you erect a powerful economy with a powerful shadow party running the show from the champagne room? Sex and its sale.

The Great State of Rhode Island is a “closed door” state.” No brothels per se but whoring (not to be confused with “lawyering”, see whoring (esquire)) is cool so if it happens on a box, or with a fox, in the rain, or on a train, in a boat or under a coat. So long as all those places are enclosed by four walls. Phillip Markoff’s sensual massagecapades (like we said, Never Trust an Off) caused the conception of many prostitution-killing bills in the state senate. But in the greater interest of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the Mafia stepped in, and made sure these new “morality” bills were stillborn.

Their next move was to evolve the sale of sex, putting the cherry on top that will allow RI to increase its competitive presence. Starting next month girls ages 16 and up can find gainful employment as strippers in the state. Can you say stimulus package? Who cares what the drop-out rate is if they can pull down 100k per year at the Foxy Lady or Cadillac Lounge. This is a great way to get kids off the streets and into a trade. On the Bob training, if you will.

“Women work” all suffers from the same humped shape. The fields of tennis, wife, and ex-wife all peak in the middle and suffer a rapid decline in earning power thereafter. Stripping is no different. The very short end has little to no value with a dramatic spike years 16 – 22, moderate decline to age 26, followed by a sharp plunge towards the area known as “thirtysomething”. Strippers, their earning power unfairly restrained by laws and so-called “morality”, were prevented from efficiently supplying their perpetually depreciating assets. The Mafia, first by preventing the closure of “the closed door” and later by advancing women’s labor rights, has increased the efficiency of asset allocation in RI and made great strides to put RI’s economy back on the map.

Recommendation: We’re upgrading RI from “Massachusetts’ Backwards Flowing Cesspool” to “Massachusetts’ Sewer Wherein the Skeevy Roger Williams Made His Home”.


Soul Markets

by Johnny Debacle

When you have nothing, you still have something. At least that’s what Beelzebub likes to tell the destitute before he makes then john hancock some contract he had Skadden draft up. It’s also what a microloan business in Latvia (note that that this country is the home of Dr. Doom) is telling its customers. No collateral, no problem, we’ll throw up a lien on your immortal soul:

Clients have to sign a contract, with the words “Agreement” in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, “that is, my immortal soul.”

Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.

“If they don’t give it back, what can you do? They won’t have a soul, that’s all,” he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.

Wearing sunglasses, a black suit and a white shirt with the words “Kontora” (office) emblazoned on it, he reaches into his pocket and lays out a sheaf of notes on the table to show that the business is serious and not a joke.

This isn’t entirely new. Most of the top of the market LBOs included liens on the souls of KKR, TPG, Cerberus et private equity alia. Unfortunately as many of those very same deals head to filings and out-of-court restructurings, it’s become apparent how lacking in value those very same private equity souls are. Apparently most have preexisting super-priority liens already in place that were used in deals with the devil.

Recommendation: If you’ve ever owned a soul, like I have, then you know it doesn’t make for very strong collateral. For a typical human the ability to seize the collateral is metaphysically impossible, and the legal process of enforcing your rights under the standard Soul Loan Agreement is difficult and arcane. You will likely be forced to sell your claim on the soul to a capable third party distressed shop like the aforementioned Beelzebub or Mictlantecuhtli or whomever at 15 cents on the dollar or less. Now if you already have a preexisting relationship with such a shop to source souls for them, then it makes sense. According to their latest Q, Goldman Sachs’ (NYSE: GS) most lucrative area was their soul trading and acquisition segment.


Four Years of Greatness: Turning Four is Like Turning Japanese

by Mr Juggles

Four years and zero score ago, we conceived ourselves, writing ourselves out of the blogspottian tubes and into the internet with this first post.

Over that time we put out 1000ish posts, we turned thousands into billions and billions into thousands, we shorted human beings and went long Zimbawenomics. We uncovered the value of boobs, legs, and female assets more broadly. We issued our own investing commandments. We warned the world of the coming conquering cephalopods, while never neglecting to incite generational warfare against elderly and newborn alike. We were the first dividend paying blog and we deliberately priced them to ensure that most people wouldn’t bother. We were later the first dividend paying blog to rescind those dividends due to certain aggressive SAAP related measures we employed in our cooked books.

We mocked Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, the ratings agencies, Elliot Spitzer, Barney Frank, most people in unions or who are employed by the Government, lawyers, IT workers, HR women, and consultants. We disparaged 70% of the population of the world by country or regional affiliation. We also took to task most everyone in any way involved with finance.

We did our part. And we made a lot of money for our readers (and ourselves (mostly ourselves)) while doing it.

None of this would be possible without the help of you guys and you girl, so we’d like to thank you all. Thank you all. And now you can thank us, in advance, for four more years of greatness.


Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing 07-26-2009

by Mr Juggles

Eat what the monkey eats, then eat the monkey.
-U.S. Navy survival guidance

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing


This Week in Tweets for 2009-07-25

by Mr Juggles
  • Good stuff has been readied for the week, hopefully there is not a last mile failure. #
  • Dominant RT @TheStalwart : "There are some wines you can drink straight out of the bottle, and some you decant." #
  • still way ahead of that @lcdnews, suck it auerbach #
  • glad that today is not Twitteruesday, it kills a lot of braincells to kill so many reader braincells #
  • amazing from HAM in the comments to this post http://bit.ly/a4ZTL, he left this link the peekaru http://bit.ly/yggSI #
  • @TheStalwart "Fabuless Semi" sounds like something that happens in a gay club. I'm not sure if that would be a pro or a con for naming a co in reply to TheStalwart #
  • Agreed:http://www.scribd.com/doc/17588181/Sprott-Comment-July-2009 #

Baby Carriage Exposé Part 5: Baby Make Me Rich

by Johnny Debacle

Our squid call was right on the money, which is also from where we write this piece: a big pile of money. Winnings from our bet are in such abundance that we find it more efficient to make our chairs and furniture and everything else that makes contact with our ass out of money. But we cashed in for a reason. And that reason is 18 inches long and dumb as a brick — the baby.

Babies aggressively stockpiled weaponry patiently for centuries, waiting for a catalyst that would allow them a point of entry into the world domination game. They are students of history, terribly stupid students who cannot read and lack college degrees, but students nonetheless. They know that this happened before with the Kangaroo, and later with the Indian. And we think that the disruption that will ensue in conjunction with cephalopod ascendancy will be a perfect opportunity for babies to begin consolidating their gains and begin formulating their end game. Our models indicate that in 35-55 years babies will rule the world.

Recommendation: Investing your money in attempts to resist babies is money ill-spent. Just as with cephalopods, we recommend adopting a healthy fatalism — this *IS* going to happen. Let that fact wash over you like a cold shower, wake up to reality, step back, and think how you can profit from this coming calamity.

It’s important to first take steps to ensure that babies do not wickedly crush you under their baby heels. Befriend babies. Nurture them. Learn to speak their language. If you are a politician, you can even kiss a baby. Ingratiating yourselves to them is a strong move.

Second, ask yourselves, “What would Goldman Sachs do?” and then do that. In size.

Lastly, we recommend going long anything that babies will demand. Education, braces, Dora the Explorer, unfortunate hairstyles and fashion trends, and the desire to make more babies.


Baby Carriage Exposé Part 4: Modern Day Mobile Fortresses

by Johnny Debacle

Since Colombus sailed the ocean blue, babies have been growing. Through research and development, they have amassed a formidable fleet, first of prams, then of the early model carriages and now…now they roam the streets in mobile fortresses poised for the right moment to take what in their minds will one day be theirs.

A man of sound body had a fighting chance against a 1954 Sears model baby carriage. The approach would be to avoid the razor spikes on the wheels, attempt to compromise the integrity of the spokes, and then push destabilize the carriage section, hopefully capturing the baby alive for interrogation. The odds of survival for a man in such a conflict were 25%, per the marketing material Sears provided to their baby end customers.

The average stroller-class carriage these days is the approximate size of three and a half golden retrievers. It weighs 10 stone, and it can carry enough rations, supplies and oxygen to sustain baby life in an abandoned freezer or the surface of the moon for two weeks. It most commonly comes outfitted with a camo kit that makes it impossible to see amongst women dressed in sporty activewear.

Modern baby carriages are fully weaponized and packed to the gill with sophisticated systems. Apocryphal tales tell of carriages mounted with sonic weaponry that can incapacitate a man at a range of 100 yards, with targeting systems so advanced that a baby can take down a dozen men without having to do anything but roll around, while squealing, giggling and making a poop.

Research shows that babies spawned from fertility treatments frequently man super-tank carriages. Imagine two baby carriages smushed together. Then imagine two MORE baby carriages smushed into those previous smushed-together baby carriages. One of these massive super-tank level carriages is enough to subdue a town of 15,000 people or to make it incredibly difficult for a pedestrian to get around them in a crowded subway car.

And this is where we stand today. A fleet of millions of mobile fortresses, waiting for the right moment to rise up and seize their birthright, pushed about by their Parent slaves, while most of the masses of Man stare on blankly, their ignorance rendering their greatest threat invisible.


Baby Carriage Exposé Part 3: Pram to Blam-Blam

by Johnny Debacle

With the elimination of the papoose, baby transportation was free to evolve, liberated from the tyranny of ancient Indian wisdom. First came the pram, short for “perambulator” which is latin for “harbinger of doom.” It afforded western babies the ability to be transported by their confederates, so-called “parents”, with enough distance from adults that baby-to-baby communications could not be effectively monitored. The pram was an important baby step, but it bore the fatal flaw of limiting a baby’s ability to survey the field effectively as the baby’s face was oriented to look backward or up, not forwards.

In 1889, William Richardson, at the behest of his baby masters made a breakthrough in carriage tech, the fearfully named stroller. Strollers were able to face either forwards or backwards, depending on what tactical needs the situation dictated. The outward facing position greatly improved the flexibility of baby-to-baby (B2B) communication, as well as the the ability for such communication to be performed in surreptitious fashion. Additionally they featured better handling, higher top speeds and better gas mileage.

Improvements have been realized incrementally since the 19th century, always effected by the baby’s loyal proxies, parents. They couch this arms race in silver-tongued banalities like “We want to do what’s best for the kids” and “Think about the children” or “It’s all about these little guys right here.” Those bastards, do they know not what they have wrought?


Baby Carriage Exposé Part 2: Monsters in the Papoose

by Johnny Debacle

Old Algonquian proverb: “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your babies closest.”
[Translated from the Algonquian]

The earliest form of human was the Native American, or as they prefer to be called, the Indian. These Indians populated all of the land we now know as America, from the Southern tip of Argentina, where lived the giants known as Patagãos, through the Aleutian islands, where Eskimos warmed themselves in their icy igloo homes. Indians were excellent survivalists adept at riding horses, using all of the deer and camping. But they didn’t dominate the Americas and thrive because of any of these things.

The key to their domination lay in a simple apparatus, the papoose. The papoose was a baby-carrier, a sling pouch that an adult could use to carry a child close to to their body. Think a bjorn, but with more feathers and less yuppy. The papoose could be supplemented with a board for comfort, like a babypack, or worn as is to better bottle in warmth. In this fashion babies were transported here and there, across the plains, the pampas and the rivers of the Mexican valley. Or so that was assumed to be the purpose of the papoose.

In reality, the papoose allowed Indian adults to keep close tabs on their greatest threat: babies. They used the proximity the papoose provided to monitor all baby-to-baby contact and communication. Any baby that became a problem could be easily isolated and crushed before the contagion spread. Their legs were wrapped so they lacked the mobility to escape and wreak murderous havoc on the tribe.

Apocryphal tales attribute the death of the Indians to disease (smallpox), dislocation and general rapine. But real research indicates that the contact with Europeans that proved most perilous to the Indians was the introduction of new baby mores and technology that eventually took down Indian empires with no regard to their greatness or size. Inca, Apache, Nahuatl, or Sioux, the babies saw fit to crush all tribes under their boot.

Thankfully this wave of powerful Indian babies was subsequently wiped out by smallpox before they could likewise crush the conquistadors and Christian pilgrims that began populating the Americas. But a new wave has been gestating in Man’s womb, a tsunami 500 years in the making.


Baby Carriage Exposé Part 1: Roo the Day

by Johnny Debacle

Pundits agree that the Age of Man is not long for this world. The Age of Cephalopod is only years, if not months, from its commencement as has been witnessed by the wave of humboldt squid attacks upon San Diego. As the seas rise, and the tentacles of Earth’s future overlords stretch out from the murky depths of the ocean to grasp the land, as they claim the throne for which they have long longed, cephalopods may crush humanity or they may enslave it. This is a question that cannot yet be answered.

But what will be the game-changing event that could shake off the tentacled grasp of our future squid overlords? What next should we fear irrationally? More importantly what next should we irrationally exube?

Before humans ruled the world, by harnessing the powers of the flame and the automobile, before the continents were non-contiguous, before dinosaurs ran around with their funny little arms, the dominant life form was the kangaroo. It had the run of the land, hopping where it pleased, grazing where it sought fit. Any creature that stood in the kangaroo’s way was boxed into obedience and punished in their notorious courts. Scientists indicate this went on for millions of years, a global Kangaroo Kingdom of sorts.

Have you ever stopped to consider why this is no longer the case? Why is the mighty kangaroo only found on a single sparsely populated island continent, a home to former brigands and current obesities? What allowed their long tenure of dominance? And what destroyed them? Was it the walrus?

It was the kangaroo’s marsupial pouch that allowed them to dominate the globe, their greatest bio-technological development. And their civilization began to collapse the day they eschewed their own pouches for baby carriages. Their misguided adoption of increasingly beastly baby carriages led to the Fall of Kangaroo.

Suppose for just one minute that the true future overlords of Earth do not lurk 20,000 leagues below, but instead lurk in our own households, on our own streets, suckling at the teat of our womanfolk and joyriding in their personal transports? This is the lesson of the kangaroo.

In this special five part exposé, we examine the evolution of the modern baby carriage and the implications that evolution has for your portfolio.


Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing 07-19-2009

by Mr Juggles

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
-Jonathan Swift in “A Modest Proposal”

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing


This Week in Tweets for 2009-07-18

by Mr Juggles
  • @jodiecongirl Like to think that the ugly boyfriend from that story is Daniel Hemermesh himself. http://bit.ly/6Ehud poster size plz thx in reply to jodiecongirl #
  • Twitter created the post that is about to come #
  • @TheStalwart Adoration isn't very helpful unless you want to start a cult or get laid. But you guys ARE detestable, while BR is a populist. in reply to TheStalwart #
  • the saddest twitter feed ever? http://twitter.com/LCDNews maybe just pity follow it so it doesnt look so sad #
  • Actually can't be that sad if @eorlins follows it. I mean she was on two different Survivors, so she is legit #
  • AND THEN TWITTERUESDAY HAPPENED
  • By all the relevant metrics, twitteruesday was a complete and total success, we have progressed the medium to the next level. You're welcome #
  • At some point, do unintended consequences become intended anti-consequences? http://bit.ly/ohxBr #
  • I hear you Ezra. Sometimes I have chicken mcnuggets just so I can tell people I went to McDonalds…and loved it! http://bit.ly/AlJrf #
  • @Jakewk grow a pair, you old fogey, just giving you crap and thought it was funny, we like ppl who we disagree with #
  • @kyle_s #pirates is only trending because of some crap facebook game, #squid is for real yo #
  • @eorlins makes sense, it just was random given they just started yesterday and u were one of 60 followers the rest high yield or workout ppl #
  • Fyi just discovered all these messages that had been hidden under Get Replies in twitterberry, hence my tardass entrance into Reply City #
  • Watch better off ted abc 900, good stuff especially the veridian dynamics commercials #
  • Twitterednesday to commence soon #
  • We kid we kid #
  • @pkedrosky Kids are stupid. Not as stupid as babies, but up there. in reply to pkedrosky #
  • @anal_yst watched Man V Cartoon, would definitely short it, tedious and staged. I wanted more science less drawing out #
  • @Anal_yst we're rich now, filthy squid lucre rt : Don't tell @longorshort about the squid attack, they've been predicting this forever! in reply to Anal_yst #

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