Bourdain on Sardinia

"Generally speaking, you don’t trust restaurants around here. It’s a sign of failure or desperation or ignorance to have to go to a restaurant. Laziness would be a marginally acceptable excuse I guess…"

Asset of the Decade?

Lew Rockwell, noted market timer, has declared gold "The Best-Performing Asset of the Decade." While gold has performed well, it would have taken quite a bit quite a bit of conviction to commit assets to a shiny metal that costs you money to own and had lost nearly half of its nominal value over the prior 20 years during the great bull market.

It would have taken a similar amount of conviction to buy dull, boring, metal pipelines that had managed to lose value in 1999 in the height of the tech bull (and they aren't even shiny). An oil or natural gas pipeline, how decidedly "old economy." Little did the investors purchasing these assets know, when they should have been listening to Prince, they were entering the competition for the best performing asset of the decade. Whether, smart, lucky, wisely conservative, or with a perfect view of the coming bull market for commodities, the buyers of both assets did well.

All I know is, buying into a group of businesses that will pay you nearly 11% to own would have been a lot easier decision for me than buying a shiny thing that I have to pay to store. But what do I know?



Data through 10/13/2009 Source: Alerian Capital Management and Kitco.com

Nichola P(L)EASE!

"Nichola Pease, deputy chairman and former chief executive of the division of Credit Suisse Group AG, said companies are scared away from hiring women because penalties for successful sex discrimination claims are unlimited and the U.K. offers 52 weeks of maternity leave compared with 12 weeks in the U.S.

'A year maternity leave is too long, and sex discrimination claims that run into 10s of millions of pounds are ridiculous,' Pease told the Treasury Committee, a cross- party panel of lawmakers overseeing economic policy.

'What I worry about is that legislation and protection turns this into a nightmare,' Pease said. 'We’ve got to be realistic and make sure the protection, which has very good motivation, doesn’t end up backfiring both at a female level and at a U.K. competitiveness level.'"

Bloomberg via stealing the whole quote from Dealbreaker

Drugs are Bad

Rumor has it that:

The DEA has been writing letters to Fox complaining about House's "flagrant use and abuse of narcotics without consequence" for years now, and finally the network, writers, and producers all caved in to the government's demands.

Don't Buy a Car With OnStar

Terrible Movie Already

True Love Revolution?

The head of Harvard University’s abstinence club, reacting to the news that nearby Tufts University is curtailing dorm-room sexcapades, says it’s no laughing matter when things go bump in the night.

Would you hit?

For more information on Rachel's inspirational choice, visit True Love Revolution.