HopsGuy

I haven't seen the BBC version, but I heard they were going to do the same with this as they did with the Office (use the exact same script in the pilot and then go from there). I Tivo'd it and will catch up on my Thursday shows tomorrow (Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). It looks very interesting. I was completely into baseball last night. Go Phillies!

Lou Manheim didn't. I guess we're all looking into the abyss, finding our character, staying out of the abyss. The thing is, the abyss looks the same from the edge as it does when you're already in it. The most important story of the day that no one is discussing is the auction of Lehman's CDS book. This will lead to SOME transparency and give us an idea of where we are. The results of the auction should be known around 2 PM today. Then look for some action as everyone will then have an idea of where they stand.

Hey, lots of folks are saying that this is the time to buy. Stocks are cheap. But futures are down another 30 right now. Wow.

It's those damn speculators driving the price down. What is the CFTC going to do about this?

GG is right. Credit has a Latin origin that means "trust". We've all implicitly agreed to trust each other to a certain extent with the remainder being 'risk'. I think DC Tom phrased it pretty well last year we he said something about the price of risk was out of whack. It was, and this is the result. These manias happen from time to time. The hangover (re-pricing of risk, deleveraging) can be brutal, but the benefits of credit have served society fairly well over the years. We'll get through this. In the grander scheme, history has seen much worse.

Fear & Hope in quite a sumo match. I've been bearish (and mostly wrong) since oil cracked (no pun intended) $70/bbl on the way up (~ Spring '06). I, like a lot of people, knew this was coming. I just thought it would come a lot sooner. When it didn't, I thought it would come later. One of the things I track is the percentage of stocks in the S&P 500 trading over/under 5 different moving averages. Yesterday was the first time all 5 were in single digits since I've been following it. I have no idea what it means, though.

Replace 'Countries' with 'Exchanges' and it sounds just like the SEC. It's all very beguiling. Tiptoeing through these land mines, while exhilarating, is taking years off of my life. Too many talking heads jabbering about how this is the time to buy for it to be a true bottom. We need 'blood in the streets' then a nice long base to work this off. By then we'll be France.

Dean Jones: I've been reviewing Darren's internship journal. Doing laundry, mending chicken wire, high tea with a Mr. Newman? Kramer: Well, it all sounds pretty glamorous, but it's business as usual at Kramerica Industries. Dean Jones: Far as I can tell, your entire enterprise is little more than a solitary man with a messy apartment which may or may not contain a chicken.

They did manage to work in concert with other Central Banks to lower rates, which I agree is surprising. Also, this move is completely opposed to their normal "fight inflation" stance they've been in. "The ECB actions in this extraordinary environment will be the basis of study for economists in years to come." Sorry, I slipped into Cramer mode there for a second. I'm much better now.

George: "Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank God that you know me and have access to my dementia?"

Um, what?

Stuck at home myself. How do you pick one Dead song? Discipline! My favorite:

Shredd & Ragan are on line 1. Something about infringement? Actually, they did that bit back when I lived in Buffalo, and (wow!) that was '95-'96. Back on topic. Marshawn is the man! I just love it when he runs over people. Well, except that one time...

A group of cardinals has many collective nouns, including a "college", "conclave", "deck", "radiance", and "Vatican" of cardinals. Link I'll go with "radiance".

Happy b-day EZC. Any friend of tater's is a friend of someone I.. um.. well.. sort of know.

If that had happened to me, I would have horse collared-that guy on the way to his car. That's just me, though. I've been known to overreact. /Andy Bernard

Sad story for a great back. That guy ran like a monster on a broken leg for us. I loved him for it. I worked with a guy that went to the same FL high school as Travis Henry. He said that his brother was the biggest MJ dealer in the area. When Travis signed his deal with the Bills, he came back home and gave his brother a debit card with $100k on it. The brother (who's name escapes me) said (quoting from hearsay), "(N-word), I don't want no credit card! Gimme cash!" The next day, Travis gave him $50k in cash and his brother was more than happy to use it to make capital expansions to his enterprise. Now that Travis is out of the league he probably figured he should be in the family business, but since he's Travis, he should be in NFL of drug dealing, right? Just my worthless theory.

Exactly. I'm not sure how Wade's contract was written, but Ralph claimed he didn't owe the balance because Wade was fired for "insubordination". Ralph told Wade to replace Ronnie Jones. Wade refused to do so, which to me sounds like clear cut "insubordination". However, Wade won his case. In my mind, what Wade did was a clearer indication of insubordination than anything Kiffin did so I would think the Kiffin will get his money. But then again, Old Al is pretty good in the courtroom. I'm glad it's not my problem.

Speaking of bailouts, Ralph Wilson bailed out the Raiders. Link See the 7th bullet point. Ralph should have let them die.

Maybe Manny Derman can divine a model? They do trade in 30ths, though.

The risk can be quantified if you know the zip codes associated with those MBSs. Tom apparently has access to that info. I had this discussion with a guy two weeks ago about how these next few weeks would be the time to start scooping up distressed debt. Warren Buffett is starting to think the same thing. He's also 'betting on America' by buying all sorts of Goldman Sachs convertibles (discounted as though they're not convertibles).

When reading your OP, I thought "I've seen this and I don't like it." I think Aaron Karo's site used to look like that. But when I clicked on the link and read it like a magazine, I have to admit, I liked it. I agree with the Dean that I might not like it as much when the product has more pages. The tipping point is probably around 80 pages. Online reading seems to suffer from the whole "Too Long, Didn't Read" problem.

I really liked JFC. You know that the premise was "What if God came and lived amongst us?", right? There's lots and lots of people betting that He will (again). They base their lives on it. That's what motivated Milch to write the story. I wish it could have continued. A good friend of mine looks a lot like Chandra West.

Beat me to it Dave. #61 He was #77 at OU.

He replied to one of my emails a few years ago, too. I have a lot of respect for the guy, but I don't always agree with him. He was just badly burned by the Tribune Company. He was basically used to inflate the price of the Cubs when they had no intention of selling to him. I would think that he's probably looking at opportunities outside the sports world after that. Always interesting views.