I distinctly heard Obama say “Now, I don’t like big government” in his speech last night — but it’s not showing up in the transcripts.

Talk about chutzpah.

I didn’t write these, but I did receive them in my in-box, which is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? Anyhow, thought I would share:

New Stock Market Terms

CEO– Chief Embezzlement Officer

CFO – Corporate Fraud Officer

BULL MARKET– A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius

BEAR MARKET– a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING– The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO– The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER – What my financial planner has made me.

STANDARD & POOR– Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST– Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT– When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

MARKET CORRECTION– The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO – What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS– What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo at=2 0$240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR– Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT – an archaic word no longer in use.

I am SO stoked that the RNC has elected Michael Steele as the new chairman. I’ve met the man, and he’s not only a clear-thinking conservative, he has the kind of charisma that the party needs to move forward.

Congratulations, Michael and RNC — you’ve done a good, non-tinyminds kind of thing with this latest move.

GOP elects first black national party chairman.

So the GOP is out in the woods again. Boo hoo. We have only ourselves to blame.

We should blame ourselves for not being conservative in deeds as well as rhetoric. We should blame ourselves for trying to be “compassionate” with other people’s money. We should blame ourselves for allowing the movement to be distracted by wars. Wars happen — but the rest of our economy, our society, our culture goes on at the same time and must be addressed. We have elected leaders in the party who are technicians and networkers, not charismatic representatives of the conservative point of view. We have assumed that money wins elections. It doesn’t. Elections are won by big ideas married to big personalities. We had neither on the ticket this time around.

I could go on and on about what went wrong — but instead, I will be posting on how we can get it right next time and in the future.

What are you finding out about the course? Is it just hype and public information, or is it actually worth $2,000? It never ceases to amaze me that people will purchase absolutely already available information for vastly inflated prices — in this case, am I wrong?

Talk to me.

Part of what I do for a living involves investing in stocks and bonds.

Over the last few weeks, and months, I’ve noticed that markets can be mindless. Long a believer in relatively efficient markets, I’m becoming more and more convinced that they would be, if they weren’t peopled by idiots. I do believe, however, that in the long term (ie not a 24 hour news cycle, or a month, or a quarter, or a year, but rather over actual “long terms” of say 5-10 years) I think that markets are reflective of the values being traded.

At the current moment, however, the Mr. Market is being an ass.

The economy cannot possibly be as bad as the main stream media is making out, obviously for the benefit of their anointed candidate. This is a cycle that’s gone on for a long time; in my lifetime, there has been an alleged recession each time that a Republican (after Reagan) has been running for office. Bush I’s recession was illusory; Bush II’s recession in 2004 was also illusory. I believe that we are not in a recession now, although, due to the recent market crash and manipulated oil price shock, we may have a shallow one on our hands over the next couple of quarters. But it will be shallow, and short-lived.

As hedge-funds and massively leveraged investors were forced to unwind their portfolios due to the credit crisis caused by the sub-prime meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Federal Reserve failing to “rescue” Lehman Brothers (which in my opinion will go down in history as the biggest dipshit move the Fed ever made, bar none), we are seeing retail investors start (too late) getting into the selling party.

Folks, Potter’s not selling, he’s buying. A recent op-ed piece by Warren Buffett referenced in this blog earlier tells you all you need to know: Valuations of companies are at an insane level — they are on sale to a degree not seen since 1974. If you have any kind of cash, you should do like Buffett, and buy, buy, buy.

If you have a portfolio, make sure it’s rebalanced, and then hang on for dear life. If you sell out, you are locking in your losses. Let others do that. Every single time there’s been a market crash, people with cash, and people who held on (assuming they were diversified into a spectrum of companies and bonds) were rewarded. Every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

One last thought before I head for dinner. Think of it this way:

Let’s say you own a house. You’re planning on living in that house for a long time. Let’s also say that the real estate market is down, like it was in California in the 90’s. Or now, throughout the nation.

You bought your house for $300,000. You look on Zillow, you read the “comps”. According to Mr. Market, your house is now worth $200,000. Would you sell it now, seeing that it’s declined in value by a third?

Of course you wouldn’t.

Because you know that you’re going to be living in your house for a long time. And you also know that real estate prices in the long term always go up. Especially in inflationary times.

And just as you wouldn’t sell your house just because prices are lower at the moment, neither should you sell out of your investments. You don’t need to move out of your “investment house” — so don’t. Hang on, ignore the day to day news, and just bloody wait.

Let the morons sell to Potter.

Bill Clinton has once again shown the kind of statesmanship and class that he has occasionally exhibited throughout his “legacy building” phase after leaving office. Of course, he’s had his slips, but nothing like the idiotic rantings of fellow former President Jimmy Carter:

...Clinton told CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Wednesday that he doesn’t think “dumping” on McCain or his running mate, Sarah Palin, is a winning strategy. He said undecided voters aren’t interested in attacks but solutions for the problems they face.

“I just don’t believe that getting up here and hyperventilating about Gov. Palin, or Sen. McCain for that matter, is a productive use of a former president’s time and is not a vote-getter,” he said, adding that he admires McCain even though he disagrees with several of his positions.

Although I rarely have ever said anything good about the former President, I’m happy he’s taking this approach this time around.

First, my man Thompson ends his “electoral vacation trip”, finally putting an end to the farce that was his non-campaign, and breaking my heart, just a little. Now, Mitt Romney has thrown in the towel, leaving the GOP race to McCain — a man who will probably bring back the “fairness doctrine” that his alleged ideological father did away with, who will probably grant amnesty to millions of lawbreaking folks, who will probably do away with the already-meager Bush tax cuts and bring back the death tax, and …. ack. OK, breathe. Oh, and then there’s Huckabee, a man who called the conservatives in HIS legislature “Shi’ite Republicans” because they stood up, a little, to his massive tax hikes and spending increases and in-state tuition for lawbreakers, etc., etc.

Against the backdrop of John McCain running for the GOP, we have the spectre of either the corrupt and insatiably ambitious Hillary Clinton, or the empty-suited Barack Obama — both of whom have insisted that we need to retreat inside our shell when it comes to protecting ourselves from global islamofascism; both insist on socialized health care, massive regulation of industry as well as our personal lives to fight some alleged “global warming crisis”, etc. etc.

After re-reading Barbara Olson’s Hell to Pay, I can’t even come close to voting for Hillary; Obama would be highly amusing as our President, at least for the first couple months, but it’s just too important a job to leave to either Larry OR Curly. Unfortunately, Moe is my only choice.

So I guess I’ll sign on as a McCainiac, and hope, as expressed earlier, that he’ll choose a real Republican as a running mate to placate those of us for whom RINO was not the idea when we signed up with the Grand Old Party.

Apparently, in her 35 years of non-stop public service, Bill and Hillary have accumulated a fortune! I never realized that “fighting for the children” paid so well!

Senator Hillary Clinton confirmed at a press conference in Virginia this afternoon that she’d loaned her campaign $5 million, and said, “The results last night proved the wisdom of my investment..”

Spokesman Howard Wolfson emailed with the news minutes earlier:

Late last month Senator Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million.The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the web stoday and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

As I reported earlier, she’s drawing on a pool of personal wealth estimated to be as much as $41 million, as well as a reported payout to Bill Clinton of $20 million from the Los Angeles billionaire manager Ron Burkle.

I feel a little better now, although I’m pretty sure that “my guy” won’t be the GOP nominee in the end. I can only hope that McCain has the good sense to forget his hot-headedness to realize that Romney would make the best VP candidate.

I have to say, I’m sorely disappointed by the campaign so far of Fred Thompson — seems to me that he’s repeatedly allowed the media portray him as not really interested, engaged, or fired up about the prospect of becoming President. Is this the case, in fact, or is it just a hatchet job? I’d love to hear what you think about this.

I’m getting mighty tired of the press lazily trotting out the same damned stories every two years like clockwork. You know the ones:

1. Surprise that negative campaigning has emerged in a campaign
2. Articles about how somehow we’ve reached a new low in negativity and nastiness
3. Articles about how much “regular voters” hate negative campaigning and will probably stay home.

I would love to have the kind of job where I just trot out a story I wrote 12 years ago, dress it up in a different sweater, and send for the copy boy. That’s some kinda cool gig, imo.

Regardless, let’s talk about negative campaigning for a moment. First, we need to define what it “positive” v. “negative” campaigning means: Positive campaigning is talking about your own record, your experience, your own values, and what you would do if the voters elected YOU. Negative campaigning is talking about your opponents record, experience, values and what to expect from THEM should the voters be dumb enough to elect them.

Riddle me this: How does the press expect a candidate to get elected if he doesn’t give the voters a reason to either fire or not hire the opponent?

I’m not talking about slurs or lies about your opponent — those are bad. But those aren’t negative campaigning; they’re slurs or lies.

One of the reasons Phil Angelides is getting his ass kicked here in California is that he hasn’t done two distinct things: He hasn’t given most people a reason to vote for him, and he certainly hasn’t given most people a real reason to fire Arnold. I would argue that it’s actually more important to do the latter than the former, since I think we can all assume what Mr. Phil would do once elected — all we have to do is remember the Gray Davis years, only with less excitement.

Anyhow, please, MSM, stop whining about the evils of “negative campaigning” — it’s a necessary and required part of the electoral process — one that wouldn’t necessarily be that important if the damned press would stop writing the same tired articles every two years and actually delve into the records, experience, and values of the candidates.

What a concept.

We’re in the middle of changing the name of this blog; for some reason, D-S of the Week is offensive to some. I have no idea why, but since a lot of my friends on the internet, fellow bloggers, and others think that perhaps it’s inappropriate, why, heck, we’ll just change it.

There will be a time of transitions and possible interruptions, so please, be patient. Happily, at this point, we have 10’s and 10’s of people who visit here daily, so I don’t think too many people will be affected by the transition.

What’s the new name? Why, Tiny Minds, of course. We’ll be implementing the URL http://www.tinyminds.net, and will change all the appropriate references.

Thanks for your patience.

I have received a couple of emails from friends in various places saying basically “Hey, Tiberius, I like your blog but it’s hard to link it when my readers are objecting to the name of your site showing up in the blogroll.”

I’ve been thinking about it, and well, I can see their point. So just now, I went to Godaddy.com to see about buying the name “DSOTW.COM” — after all, a number of linking sites have already renamed my link “DSOTW”, makes sense to me. The LAST thing I would ever want to do is offend anyone, as all who’ve read my musings can tell.
Anyhow, imagine my surprise when any number of permutations of DSOTW were taken. Alas, the site is in Norway, and (my “norwidgjin” is a little rusty; I can barely pronounce lutefisk although I still remember the horrid smell) it’s apparently either a fan site for Norse Floyd fans, or it’s a “tribute” or cover band that would probably be a lot of fun to see, called “Dark Side of the Wall“.

Perhaps one of my Norwegian friends, of whom I probably have fewer after this post, can enlighten us on what it’s all about. In the meantime, at least they have another link.

And I was just kidding about the lutefisk, you North Dakotans, I realize that it’s the state dish. Just because I’d have to be down to the last possible thing to eat, with the SS and Quislings breathing down my neck, before I’d eat that stuff. At least without drinking at least half of a bottle of aquavite first.

But getting back to the subject — I guess if the word Dumbshit is that offensive to some people, they really haven’t looked around the Internet that much lately – but if anyone who links here — and I appreciate you all, believe me– wants to change the link name to anything they’d like, that’s totally OK by me.

I recently encountered a paragon of self-loving-ego-driven bloviation over at the Anti-Semitic Cartoons Blog, who goes by the name of Tony Malone. There’s a link to his blog imbedded in his name, and he’s posted many thousands of words over a couple of days no doubt intended to offend Jewish people but more likely just causing everyone to skip over his drivel.

In one post, he claimed that he wrote such long screeds because he’s a “writer”. So, being curious, I googled him and found that, indeed, he IS a writer. No doubt self-published, his 2-volume masterpiece is called “The Bible for People Who Hate the Bible”

According to Tony’s publicist (no doubt the same fellow he looks at in the mirror each morning): “In the end, Judaism and Christianity are left in tatters and the reader is challenged to think, and to question everything that we have been taught for millennia about “God” and religion.”

I’m sure you’ll all join me in trembling in fear at the incoming demise of the Judeo-Christian ethic.

EDIT: An example of Tony’s superlative bloviating can be found as the lead comment to this post. While I’m just screwing around, one gets the feeling that to Tony, this internet stuff is deadly serious.

Real Ugly wants to know what I’m listening to lately. I listen to a LOT of music, in any number of genres, so this selected 7 are just some that come to top-of-mind:

1. Warren Zevon — Lawyers, Guns and Money
2. Oingo Boingo — Capitalism
3. Larry Norman –6 O’Clock News
4. Garth Brooks — Standing Outside the Fire
5. Peter Gabriel — Book of Love
6. The Who — Cut My Hair
7. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy — Zoot Suit Riot

For the record, I own them all. As tempting as p2p is, I don’t bother. There’s so many sources of good music out there now, there’s no reason to risk the wrath of the copyright lawyers. See www.pandora.com.

We have finally found the “Perfect Storm”, of sorts, to help the Democrats get some sort of traction in the coming midterm elections.

Republicans have jumped off the President’s wagon faster than ever expected, and the Administration is spending its time calling “racism” and “isolationism” more stridently than they villified the right-wing critics of the Myer’s nomination. Rather than gracefully accede to Congress looking into the matter, especially given that top Administration officials including the President were unaware that there even was an approval of the deal, they’ve gotten their back up with veto threats (yeah, right, the President who never saw a bill he couldn’t sign will suddenly veto a mere delay in inking a deal with a UAE company?)

To call the whole mess a clusterf*ck is a huge understatement.

But if anyone can grab defeat from the jaws of victory, it’s people like Hillary and Chuck. We’ll stay tuned.