Posted By RichC on February 10, 2018
Here is the short take from the guys who wrote #thememo. No matter which political party is using the FBI, Department of Justice … or for that matter IRS or other agency … in order to stack the deck to achieve their favored political outcome, it has to stop. Those abusing power need to be held accountable, if for nothing else, a deterrent.
Posted By RichC on February 9, 2018
With the rapid drop in oil prices, and equal "10% correction" in the overall stock market, will improving wages offset by falling
commodities (oil) cause the Federal Reserve rethink their concern that inflation is picking up?
Current thoughts were that we could see three quarter point rate hikes in 2018 if the economy continues to pick up. But until inflation starts to really be a concern, three hikes could be premature?
My thought is that cheaper energy reduces the inflation concern and may relax the Fed’s concerned that the economy is overheating. We’ll see.
Posted By RichC on February 9, 2018
As a Fox Business addicted viewer, I keep a live-feed running much of the day just as others do for music, talk radio or sports. One of the challenges is that it isn’t convenient or available, especially in a low bandwidth, "just" audio feed … unless I’m in the car and listening on SiriusXM Radio. 
Old CPP building in 2009 (or more recently)
Since I no longer drive as many miles/hours as I did in previous decades (back and forth from NE Ohio), I planned on dropping the SiriusXM subscription this year figured I could just run the Internet streamed FoxBusiness video on my phone. This works well, unless the higher speed LTE service drops (often when traveling) or I need to use my iPhone for calls, navigation, apps, etc.
So, when calling to cancel my service this week, the customer service rep did his usual best in order to save a customer; he succeeded in talking me into a 6 month promo that included their streaming package to my phone through their iPhone app. WOW … it is impressive and streams beautifully behind the scenes and even offers a buffer to pause or replay something I may have missed. It is still early, but so far I’m sold and wondering why I waited so long to give the SiriusXM app a try.
Posted By RichC on February 8, 2018
So much for the "good news" that tax cuts will eventually providing revenue by helping the economy grow. The "hope" is that over time the economy growing will put more people to work (it is) and that the snowball would eventually grow paychecks (it is) AND that we could begin to reduce our country’s yearly deficit (yet to be seen, but doubtful).
Dow Jones Industrial Average 3 month chart at market close 2/8/2018
But after today and Washington DC’s budget talks and interest in spending more money on the "needed" military, last years "natural disasters," the "entitlements" and the latest big wish … "infrastructure spending" it is starting to look like Washington DC wants to borrow more money. Nothing new, but investors and traders are seeing the big picture … neither Republicans or Democrats are serious about balancing a budget or controlling spending. What’s worse is that neither side sees eye to eye, nor do the parties themselves see eye to eye on controlling spending.
Add to that … the concern that the Fed is talking about more interest rate hikes and perhaps sensing some inflation on the horizon … and investors are losing their confidence that the growth will continue.
What to do, what to do in order to prepare for our future. Pensions are drying up and Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security remain underfunded.
Social Security is in even WORSE condition that the State of Rhode Island’s perilous pension system.
We talk about this a lot in our regular conversations.
According to the Board of Trustees for Social Security (which includes the US Treasury Secretary, the US Secretary for Health & Human Services, and the US Secretary of Labor), the Social Security trust funds “become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2034.”
Once again– that’s the Treasury Secretary of the United States saying that Social Security will run out of money in 16 years.
You’d think this would be shouted from the rooftops, especially given how long it takes to save for retirement.
Yet instead the news is ignored or flat-out rejected by people who simply want to believe either that it’s not a problem, or that the government has some magical solution.
Posted By RichC on February 8, 2018
One realizes just how old in the tooth their cars technology is when taking a car in for service and driving something new.
This past week, BMW customer service pulled a few strings to get both airbags into my local dealer in order to do a one stop service of my 2010 BMW X5 35d. Since this recall is relatively time consuming, 
they sent me back to work with a new 2018 BMW X5 loaner. Wow … a few changes immediately were noticed. An amazing heads up display was perfectly visible on the windshield (photo above – note centerline of road) and incorporates the GPS "posted speed limit" to the left of the current speed. The SUV also has "Americanized" power steering, a complaint by many who find the heavy power steering on older BMWs too much to handle – personally I’m use to the "heavy feel" but the new lock to lock easy spin was impressive.
Another initially annoying feature quickly notable is the lane departure steering wheel vibration. Probably a great safety feature along with the blind side detection, but it also vibrates when changing lanes, etc. (could be tweakable?) The interior seems top notch as the leather is soft and billion way adjustable seat enjoyable. I was amazed how tight the SUV handled on the bumpy roads … solid handling without body roll, yet potholes and bumps were soft and quiet. Well done.
All in all it was a tease to drive a new X5 that feels much smaller than it is … but I still like my diesel.
Posted By RichC on February 7, 2018
This ain’t my first rodeo (was looking for an excuse to use the idiom) as it pertains to stretching the life of my favorite pair of Sperry Topsiders.
The idiom this ain’t my first rodeo is generally traced back to the movie Mommie Dearest, in which the character Joan Crawford says, “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”
This time, as compared to the past couple epoxy repairs, I’ve added a blend of ground rubber within the epoxy mix. This time I’m hoping the "wear bars" will have a little more softness than 100% epoxy. So far so good, but I can tell the days are numbered for these older shoes. It might be time for even me to shop for a new pair and retire this old pair to "hinge duty."
***Speaking of idioms, my subject line reference A Bridge Too Far … for those too young to remember … to do with a 1970s book and movie based on the unsuccessful allied World War II military operation.
Posted By RichC on February 6, 2018
Watched an excellent SpaceX launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this Tuesday afternoon as Elon Musk’s private rocket company is only second in payload capacity to NASA’s ancient SaturnV rocket. Everything, including the landing of their twin booster rockets were fantastic. We are definitely entering a new era in space exploration. Well done.
When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, with the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)–a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel.
Falcon Heavy’s first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.
Posted By RichC on February 6, 2018
There is good money in collecting garbage, but I don’t see many high school guidance departments "guiding" students into choosing it as a career aspiration. Perhaps owning or managing the company isn’t too bad, but the hours and pitfalls facing those doing the grunt work isn’t all that appealing.
Monday morning our trash collector cut the bend in front of our house too tight as he was backing down our street. "In the dark" hit one our home owner association’s lamp posts. This is the second one in so many years. Hopefully this one will be a easier fix than last as this particular post is no longer made — matching is difficult. I called Rumpke, our trash company and took a few photos for documentation. The customer service rep, Sarah, said "an investigator" will be out to look?
The incident reminds me of one by a FedEx driver a few years ago … LINK
Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018
Well, well, well … perhaps this is the correction many watching the financial markets have been looking for as a 4.6% drop on the DOW in a day is a rather large one.
It was another day of selling on Wall Street helped by computerized programmed trading and likely the relatively new ETF broad based trading instrument. An ETFis a preferred low cost way to participate in a broad basket of stocks or an Index and once they are sold, requires the underlining individual stocks to be sold.
There was a point in the afternoon that even regular market watchers, who are often waiting to pick up shares at a discount, started to show a bit of nervousness. The challenging part for those of us who study the economy, is that there really are few bad news stories contributing to such a sell off. Besides the nonstop gains of 2017, the recent comments coming from the Fed has people worried about interest rates rising as they attempt to get ahead of any possible sign of inflation. A robust economy is good news, but too much blind buying is a concern.
Personally I worried more back in 2008 when we had a serious banking crisis than I do today. Yes, the growing debt and lack of fiscal controls when it comes to the Federal government spending is a big deal … as is health care, an ill prepared aging population (social security and Medicare) and excessive borrowing by students for there education.
For now … those wanting to grow their investments, stocks just got quite a bit cheaper … but who knows just where the bottom is?
Here’s a list of the 30 Dow Companies closing on Monday, February 5, 2018:
Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018
Although there are quite a few reservation holders starting to doubt whether we’ll ever see production (last update was 2019 deliveries), the marketing team continues to tease (update) on this small commuter car. The original low price has been inched up, but it still will be a bargain if Elio Motors can afford to put this 3-wheeled vehicle into production.
This week, a few of the “how big or how small” questions were answered:
From the Elio Blog:
With our configuration and design, the Elio can be a bit of an optical illusion. As we’ve said in the past, the Elio can comfortably seat two 6’2 adults comfortably. The dimensions of the front seat are comparable to the 2017 Honda Accord.The Elio has 39.8” of headroom and 42.7” of legroom, while the Accord’s same dimensions are 37.2’’ and 42.2’’. The Elio also has the same amount of headroom and legroom as the 2018 Toyota Corolla [corrected].
At first glance, the Elio may look slightly low to the ground.Actually, our ground clearance 5.75″ which is consistent with other vehicles on the road such as the Honda Accord EX and the Mercedes S550.
With a wheelbase (which is the center of the front wheels to the center of the rear wheel) of 110,” the Elio is similar to the Toyota Corolla, which has a wheelbase of 106. As far as length, the Elio, at 160.5”, is the about the same length as the 2017 Honda Fit, the 2017 Chevrolet Sonic Hatchback, and the Mercedes SLC.
With our front-to-back seating, the space where the door opens is a very important area of the Elio and one that is quite popular with people that have yet to see the Elio in person. To help you visualize the ingress for the Elio, we took three different measurements of the door opening and compared them to other vehicles that you commonly see on the road. (more…)
