Money | Home Prices | Aspen Daily News

Ready for a dose of unreality? Here's a recent article about home prices in Pitkin County, Colorado ... and of one modest SFR. Comparables? Of a 56K SF home? Oh, yeah!

History | The Fog of War | Google/Sony

KC Thunder, El Gato de Guadalupe

work | where the supply/demand is favorable | wanted

interesting tool to look at supply/demand ratios by location in various occupations ....

music | african thunderstorm + | kim komando

looking for something a bit different ... a well-known tune with a twist?

Health | Healthcare & Ageing Populations | Economist

Another viewpoint on healthcare challenges faced by the US and other developed nations. Do we have the mental toughness to tackle some of the tough decisions that need to be made?

Work | Go West, Young Worker | Slate

The new gold rush ... or maybe I should say the new green rush?

Money | Social Security Strategies | CRR BC

More than one way to finesse social security benefits ... here's the link to a pdf for a summary of some strategies of which you may not be aware. The Boston College Center for Retirement Research has numerous articles, some more academically-oriented than others, available at their home page.

Money | Social Security Strategies | USN&WR

A pretty straight-forward explanation of strategies for dealing with social security benefits for retirees ...here's the link

Money | Possible Savings? | Billshrink.com

A site worth checking-out, especially if you're looking for a rapid way to compare cell plans, credit card plans, even gasoline prices. Claims to be independent. Worth a look.

Education | Reliving High School Daze | WSJ

Many folks say they'd never want to relive their high school years (I sure wouldn't). And this is part of that time that I would not care to repeat. Would you do a rerun of this experience? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124337711110856009.html

Money | Group Insurance | WSJ.com

How big is a group for group health insurance? You might be surprised. Not for everyone, but there's another option discussed in this article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338117660756415.html

Life | Care and Feeding of Network Contacts | WSJ.com

haven't yet made the plunge into social networking sites ... but when I do I'll follow some of the suggestions in this article

Work | Starting Over as an Entrepreneur | WSJ.com

Useful approaches in this article for making the transition from employee to self-employed.

Tech | WinLive 1 Free Scanner | Microsoft

What with all the hype over just ONE of the malware worms out there, it's not a bad reminder that pc security is everyone's responsibility. Give this MS free safety scanner a try ... it will try to sell you a subscription, but that's optional. The scan is free. And, if you can't get to the site, that's a bad sign that your pc may be infected.

 

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah

Money | Mortgages, Refinancing, Info | Mortgage Professor

This is a great site to get lots of informed, unbiased guidance on residential mortgages. I particularly like the mortgage calculators at this sub-site where you can quickly evaluate the worthiness of a refi ... varying interest rates, points, fees, etc etc. With mortgage rates at a low point, now may be a good time to take a 2nd look at your 1st mortgage (pun intended).

Life | Complaining | WSJ

An interesting perspective on complaining. I've sent away for one of the purple bracelets ... then I'll see if it makes a difference.

Money | AIG Financial Products History | TPM

Remember Drexel Burnham Lambert and Michael Milken and the junk bond meltdown of 1990? Surprise, surprise! Guess where the financial whiz-kids that started AIG Financial Products came from? Looks like math skills are the WMD's of the MBA world!

World | When Help Does Harm | WSJ

I heard an interview with the author on NPR and then saw this book review in the WSJ. Interesting case made that Western aid to Africa has basically created completely aid-dependent economies. Why work hard and invest when you can just wait for the check? Not mentioned in the book review but discussed on NPR was PRC's approach which is to do business in Africa (which has 9 of the 10 most hostile business environements in the world) and help local African companies grow, hire workers, push for infrastructure improvements, etc.

Obama, Clinton, Bono, World Bank, UN ... are you listening?

Green | Dorm Room to Wal*Mart | WSJ

Unusual approach by this guy, Tom Szaky. He rejects the eco-chic Whole Foods model and instead goes for mainstream consumers with a combination of environmental virtue and low price.

Money | AIG Bonuses | Scribd

Can AIG hold the US government hostage? Check this white paper. Short answer, yup! So they said screw the taxpayers and pay the bonuses. Our response should be a special, Executive Order driven 150% federal income tax on all bonuses paid to financial companies receiving federal bailout money. Gotta pay bonuses anyway? OK. But we're clawing it back, suckahs!

Money | How to Fix Your Life in 2009 | WSJ

Some useful advice in here.

I'm starting my own project to make our money stretch further. Some simple steps:

• called the cable (TV/Internet) company and said I was looking at their competitors' offers and could they do better on price. Yep, they could. Knocked 20% off the price and made it retroactive for 2 months.
  
• told our insurance agent that with money tight we needed to shop rates (which I did) ... she found discounts and new rates for the same coverage that knocked 25% off our auto insurance ...
  
• took our POTS (plain old telephone service) landline services down to minimum ... no inside wiring maintenance, no long distance ... and knocked about $10/month off that bill ... not ready to give-up that landline yet but that may be sooner rather than later
• will also look at our cellphone bill (have a pretty good plan but may explore the pay-as-you-go services) and our DVD by mail plan (cheap entertainment that can, maybe, be even cheaper)

and more to come.

I don't love this new economic situation but maybe we'll all become smarter consumers as a result. A little silver lining in that cloud.

Tech | Cool Screensaver | Wired

You might like this cool screensaver.

Money | Stocks v Bonds | Bloomberg

Business | Weathering the Storm | Daily Breeze

From a local businesswoman running a small printing business in this economy:"Morales acknowledged the difficulties of running a business amid a recession.

"We feel strongly you have to market," she said. "Instead of huddling through the storm, you have to be out there on deck.""

Right-on. Get busy and move forward. It's not about hunkering down, it's about getting to it.

Money | Who Killed Wall Street? This Guy! | Wired

Hard to believe but seems credible. A brilliant mathematician developed a formula for risk assessment associated with debt pools. It greatly simplified risk analysis in the fixed income world and facilitated an explosion in collateralized debt obligations. And, in parallel with the CDO growth, credit default swaps also exploded. The market for CDS grew to $62 trillion. Yep, with a big T. For scale, the 2007 US GDP was $14 trillion.

Check out the article in Wired.

The formula also apparently over-simplified the analysis and caused ratings agencies to greatly underestimate the risk of pooled debt, especially in the mortgage market. When the economy weakened and mortgage defaults began to grow, the model fell apart. And so did the risk assessment of CDOs. And then Bear, Stearns ... and Lehman Brothers ... and etc etc.

For you conspiracy buffs out there, the mathematician behind this formula was born in China and has since returned there. Put that one in your alt-war pipe and smoke it!

Life | Jaded? | Conan

Check out this video ...

Money | Take Some Control | WSJ

Some good counsel here regarding striking a suitable balance between frozen inaction and panicked frenzy.

Life | Asking Doctors Tough Questions | WSJ

After my own little escapade at the local version of "Kingdom Hospital", I'm going to pay a lot more attention to articles like this one.