Unbelievable line of the day

“As of 14 November 2008, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate was 89.7 Sextillion (10²¹) percent.”

Zimbabwe Inflation

LIFE photos

“Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Words fail me

How low can it go?

Calculated Risk has a chart showing the four stock market crashes of the past 35 years.

Update: Calculated Risk now has a later chart showing the Four Bad Bears, the stock market crashes of 1929-1932, 1973-1974, 2000-2002, and 2007-present. The chart uses the S&P 500 for the three most recent events, the Dow Jones Industrials for the the 1929-1932 crash. Click image for larger version.

They also had this line, allegedly heard on the NY Stock Exchange floor at closing today:

“This is like a half off sale at Nordstrom … it is still overpriced!”

[My friend Donna calls me Mr. Doom & Gloom. I prefer to just think of myself as a disaster junkie.]

Jackasses

The three auto company CEOs each flew from Detroit to Washington this week IN PRIVATE JETS. Three private jets.

About $20,000 EACH instead of first class air fare for maybe a grand apiece.

First contingency for any federal rescue money, their resignations.

No happy endings

So now we have deflation.

It seems the consumer price index dropped one whole percent last month, the most in one month since NewMexiKen was a toddler.

Now anybody that drives a car or truck knows that a big part of that — indeed most of it — was the drop in fuel prices. They’re half what they were four months ago — and still going down.

But even when food and fuel — the most volatile costs — are factored out, the index still dropped one-tenth of a percent and there is no reason to think it won’t drop again in November.

Great, prices are lower. Hip hip hooray.

Except.

Say they continue to drop so that a year from Social Security recipients get a cost-of-living decrease instead of that annual increase for inflation they’ve come to expect. Say your bosses decided to lower your wages because things cost less and they aren’t making as much money either.

Will your car loan get lower? Will your mortgage go down? Will the property tax assessors keep up with the curve? Will health care costs go down? Will the things you bought last year cost any less on your credit card balance? Not likely.

And there aren’t many remedies for deflation like there are for inflation. Even if the Fed decreases interest to stimulate investment, who is going to invest in a new factory when demand is going down?

But what do I know.

Another idle thought

I don’t care if Obama puts Kim Jong-il in his cabinet if we get healthcare reform and a forward-looking energy and climate program.

Idle thought

AIG, a friggin’ insurance company, has gotten over $100 billion in federal (our) money.

What’s the problem exactly with aiding the auto companies?

Best line of the day, so far

“Who knows if President-elect Barack Obama will someday blow up Iran, but the good news today is this: He wants to blow up the BCS.”

Mike Bianchi

What President-elect Obama said on 60 Minutes:

I think any sensible person would say that, if you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear, decisive winner, that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams, that would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would — it would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.

Scary line of the day

“The market for debt used to finance hotels, offices and shopping malls tumbled Tuesday on worries that the long-feared rise in defaults for commercial mortgage-backed securities had begun, possibly ushering in the next phase of the financial crisis.”

Wall Street Journal

Here’s how scary. On this chart up is bad (it measures a spread). Each segment is six weeks.

Explanation: A significant fraction of loans for commercial development are funded on the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Security market. That means the loans are bundled together and sold as securities in much the same manner and to the same buyers as the now infamous sub-prime loans. The chart indicates the difference between the 10-year Treasury rate and rate that makes the security attractive. In other words, the line (the spread) indicates the perceived risk.

The Gettysburg Address

President Abraham Lincoln, 145 years ago today:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Library of Congress Exhibition on The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication (PowerPoint Version)

Zion National Park (Utah)

… was established on this date in 1919.

Zion is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary. Protected within the park’s 229 square miles is a dramatic landscape of sculptured canyons and soaring cliffs. Zion is located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert provinces. This unique geography and the variety of life zones within the park make Zion significant as a place of unusual plant and animal diversity.

Zion National Park

NewMexiKen photo, 2005

November 19th

Today is the birthday

… of Larry King. He’s 75. Before CNN, King was one of the first stars of national talk radio. He left his keys on the table of a fast food restaurant in Crystal City, Virginia, near where I was staying during a business trip in 1983. I noticed the keys and called after him. Only when he thanked me did I hear his voice and know who he was.

… of Dick Cavett. He’s 72.

… of Ted Turner. He’s 70. Turner is America’s largest individual private landowner. Turner owns about 1.8 million acres in 10 states, more than one million of it in New Mexico (though he is not New Mexico’s largest private individual landowner).

… of Calvin Klein. He’s 66.

… of Ahmad Rashad. He was born Bobby Moore 59 years ago. Rashad proposed to Cosby TV mom Phylicia Ayers-Allen on national TV during halftime of a Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day game. O.J. Simpson was his best man. Rashad and Allen were divorced in 2001.

… of Ann Curry. She’s 52. Daughter of an American father and Japanese mother, Curry was born on Guam and raised in Oregon.

… of Allison Janney. She’s 48. Six Emmy nominations for “West Wing,” four wins.

… of Meg Ryan. She’s 47. Ryan has been nominated for best acting Golden Globes, but no Oscars.

… of Jodie Foster. She’s 46. Nominated for the best actress Oscar three times and best supporting actress once, Foster won for “The Accused” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was born on November 19, 1921.

A star with both the bat and glove, Roy Campanella was agile behind the plate, had a rifle arm and was an expert at handling pitchers. He was named National League MVP three times, including a 1953 selection when he set single-season records for catchers with 41 homers and a National League best 142 RBI. Before signing with the Dodgers, the broad-shouldered receiver starred with the Negro National Leagues’ Baltimore Elite Giants for seven seasons. His career was cut short by a tragic auto accident prior to the 1958 season.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Bandleader and trombonist Tommy Dorsey was born on November 19, 1905.

Though he might have been ranked second at any given moment to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or Harry James, Tommy Dorsey was overall the most popular bandleader of the swing era that lasted from 1935 to 1945. His remarkably melodic trombone playing was the signature sound of his orchestra, but he successfully straddled the hot and sweet styles of swing with a mix of ballads and novelty songs. He provided showcases to vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Jo Stafford, and he employed inventive arrangers such as Sy Oliver and Bill Finegan. [Dorsey] was the biggest-selling artist in the history of RCA Victor Records, one of the major labels, until the arrival of Elvis Presley, who was first given national exposure on the 1950s television show [Tommy Dorsey] hosted with his brother Jimmy.

VH1.com

Evangelist Billy Sunday was born on November 19, 1862. Sunday played professional baseball for the Chicago White Stockings, Pittsburgh Alleghenies and Philadelphia Phillies 1883-1890. Following a conversion in 1886, Sunday became the most influential preacher of the era.

In the early 1900s, Billy Sunday sold what was then a unique brand of muscular, testosterone-laden Christianity.

Today, ministers in some of the country’s largest churches preach in shirtsleeves and talk about God in terms of football or golf. Billy Sunday was one of the first to do this. He was a professional baseball player turned tent preacher who became the richest and most influential preacher of his time.
. . .

Sunday, says Martin, was “one of the most acrobatic evangelists of the age.” One newspaper columnist at the time estimated that Sunday traveled about a mile during each sermon.

NPR : Billy Sunday, Man of God

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fist less and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!”

Best line of the day, so far

“Same-sex polygamists protest outside Mormon temples.”

Extreme Sport