Ironstar 2010

My good friend and long time cycling buddy, Mark Nash, has, in recent years, been doing triathlons.  In fact, he has completed two Ironman's - Coeur d' Alene 2009 and Lake Placid 2010.  Last weekend he did the 8th annual Ironstar "half iron" triathalon on the north side of Houston at Lake Conroe.  We always tease Mark about his slow transitions, the interval between the swim and the bike and between the bike and the run.  We figured in the past that if he had simply had the average 'T" time he would have moved up several places in the overall. Hence, the emphasis on transitions in the following write-up.  From the athlete himself...btw, it was around 38 deg F Sunday morning at the start of the race.


This story started last year same race. Last year was almost glory. I missed finishing in the top spot of my age group by seconds, just a few seconds. I knew that last years top finisher aged up so with some hard training this race could be mine. Pre race I survey the competition and it does not look tough. I figure if I stick with my plan this race could be mine.

Race day starts at 3:30am, time to get up and drive to the race. It is cold and dark but I’m ready. The 60 mile trek is uneventful. I eat my breakfast, drink my pre race drink, otherwise make good use of the drive.

I get to the start of the race and set up my transition area. It is still cold, damp and dark. Nothing like being next to the lake to make cold feel colder. I put on my wetsuit just to keep warm. I march over to the swim start with all the other brave athletes.

The start of the race is delay do to fog. My feet at this point are blue. Finally the race starts but I’m in the 4^th wave, more waiting. My wave is finally sent into the water which I’m hoping is warmer than the surface air but it is not. I’m shocked and stunned by the cold which really effected my swimming. I struggle forward. I never really get into a good swimming rhythm and my feet are still frozen. It feels like I’m dragging 2 blocks of ice behind me. I struggle forward. I finally get out of the harbor and into the lake only to get off course and end going really wide. As I attempt to get back on course I see that the main body of swimmers are now walking. We have not had much rain lately and the lake is low. I stop trying to get back on course where everyone is walking thing that I can swim faster than they can walk. At this point both my feet and hands hurt from the cold. I struggle on.

I finally make the last turn and head for the exit boat ramp only to miss the carpeting. I stumble onto the raw concrete trying to balance myself on 2 frozen feet. As I continue to try and get my balance I hear this kind voice from one of the volunteer. She see that I’m having trouble and said "Just follow my voice honey" and I did. I stagger up to the strippers and find the 2 most inexperience stripers possible. They tried hard and it was almost like we were fighting each other trying to get my wetsuit off. I give them credit because they persevered and finally managed to get my wetsuit off. From there I headed to the bathroom and finally to T1. It was a tough swim and challenging transition but eventual make it to my bike.

By the time I got on my bike the weather had improved 100%. I had figured I was going to have to steal some warm clothing from someone but that was no longer necessary. The bike route headed north into the rolling hills of the park. I was riding well and feeling good. At the small town of Richardson we turned west and at this point I realized why I was doing so well earlier. The wind was out of the south heading north and thus I had been riding a tail wind. So much for the easy ride. As I went west I battled the cross wind and eventual when I had to head south back to T2 I battled the head wind. I did manage to make it back for those of you in the know I did not lose one water bottle the entire ride. That was a major victory.

I get back to T2 and drop off my bike and slowly change into my running gear. At this point I notice that there is one bike already in my age group area. I figure I will just have to catch him on the run. As I leave T2 I lose all my electrolytes and all but one of my Gue. I move onto the run course.

The run course is a 3 loop course with about 100 turns per loop. I think it was designed after a formula one race track. It had the extra bonus of running through some freshly cut fields. Nothing like adding a little cross country workout into the event. I ran on. By the 3^rd lap I had it figured out and started to feel comfortable. I started to air it out but realized that the last lap even thou it was the last lap was 4 miles long. It was way to early to start my sprint so I backed it off. This was a wise decision because at that point the heat was starting to take it’s toll on me.

I never did find that age grouper that was ahead of me. As it turns out he was 27 minutes ahead of me. So once again I finished 2^nd. Well there is always next year.

My final report card.

Swim was 38:21, 5^th out of the water in my age group. I guess swimming is faster than walking.

T1 was 7:26, basically last

Bike was 2:49, 4^th

T2 was 6:25, really last

Run was 1:43, 2^nd.

This is my story and I’m sticking to it.

Mark A. Nash

The Hussman Report

Bubble, Crash, Bubble, Crash, Bubble...

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

All rights reserved and actively enforced.

Reprint Policy

"Stock prices rose and long-term interest rates fell when investors began to anticipate the most recent action. Easier financial conditions will promote economic growth. For example, lower mortgage rates will make housing more affordable and allow more homeowners to refinance. Lower corporate bond rates will encourage investment. And higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Washington Post 11/4/2010

Last week, the Federal Reserve confirmed its intention to engage in a second round of "quantitative easing" - purchasing about $600 billion of U.S. Treasury debt over the coming months, in addition to about $250 billion that it already planned to purchase to replace various Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities as they mature.

While the announcement of QE2 itself was met with a rather mixed market reaction on Wednesday, the markets launched into a speculative rampage in response to an Op-Ed piece by Bernanke that was published Thursday morning in the Washington Post. In it, Bernanke suggested that QE2 would help the economy essentially by propping up the stock market, corporate bonds, and other types of risky securities, resulting in a "virtuous circle" of economic activity. Conspicuously absent was any suggestion that the banking system was even an object of the Fed's policy at all. Indeed, Bernanke observed "Our earlier use of this policy approach had little effect on the amount of currency in circulation or on other broad measures of the money supply, such as bank deposits."

Given that interest rates are already quite depressed, Bernanke seems to be grasping at straws in justifying QE2 on the basis further slight reductions in yields. As for Bernanke's case for creating wealth effects via the stock market, one might look at this logic and conclude that while it may or may not be valid, the argument is at least the subject of reasonable debate. But that would not be true. Rather, these are undoubtedly among the most ignorant remarks ever made by a central banker.

Let's do the math.

http://www.hussman.net/wmc/wmc101108.htm

Life Out of Balance

As a tribute to the Tone Poem beneath the economic/ political blog topics I sense a life, a country, an environment, a planet out of balance. Is this simply man's nature, man's fate?

Koyaanisqatsi (English pronunciation: /ˈkɔɪ.ɑːnɪsˈkɑːtsiː/ KOY-ah-nis-KAHT-see), also known as Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.

The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse stock footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. Reggio explains the lack of dialog by stating "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live."^[6] In the Hopi language, the wordKoyaanisqatsi means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living".^[7] The film is the first in the Qatsi trilogy of films: it is followed by Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology. Koyaanisqatsi is the best known of the trilogy and is considered a cult film. However, because of copyright issues, the film was out of print for most of the 1990s.^[8]

War and truth, It's the beginning of nothing.

Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed.

This is the Trip.

Are we all drifters?

Bill Fleckenstein Interview

...ok, now, tell me, which of the two fund managers is highly leveraged?

Giant Steps

No Coltrane original found!

Stevie Wonder playing Giant Steps...what's that all about, what a musician...



...Pate Metheney...what's up with that...takes some time until they get into it, some people call this a Lounge Music interpretation of Giant Steps...oh well, I guess I see their point, but I have such fond memories of Pat when he was pure...back in Bean Town, circa 1976...



..and, the modern version...he, he, he...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Doubts grow about Bernanke's 'super put'

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph, London
Thursday, November 4, 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8111153/Doubts-grow-over-wi...

The early verdict is in on the US Federal Reserve's $600 billion of fresh money through quantitative easing. Yields on 30-year Treasury bonds jumped 20 basis points to 4.07 percent.

It is the clearest warning shot to date that global investors will not tolerate Ben Bernanke's openly-declared policy of generating inflation for much longer.

Soaring bourses may have stolen the headlines, but equities are rising for an unhealthy reason: because they are a safer asset class than bonds at the start of an inflationary credit cycle.

Meanwhile, the price of US crude oil jumped $2.5 a barrel to $87. It is up 20 percent since markets first concluded in early September that "QE2" was a done deal.

This amounts to a tax on US consumers, transferring US income to Mid-East petro-powers. Copper has behaved in much the same way. So have sugar, soya, and cotton.


The dollar plunged yet again. That may have been the Fed's the unstated purpose. If so, Washington has angered the world's rising powers and prompted a reaction with far-reaching strategic consequences.
Li Deshui from Beijing's Economic Commission said a string of Asian states share China's "deep bitterness" over dollar debasement and are examining ways of teaming up to insulate themselves from the tsunami of US liquidity. Thailand said its central bank is already in talks with neighbours to devise a joint protection policy.
Brazil's central bank chief Henrique Mereilles said the US move had created "excessive dollar liquidity which we are absorbing," forcing his country to restrict inflows. Mexico's finance minister warned of "more bubbles."

These countries cannot easily shield themselves from the inflationary effect of QE2 by raising interest rates since this leads to further "carry trade" inflows in search of yield. They are being forced to eye capital controls, with ominous implications for the interwoven global system.

In London and Frankfurt the verdict was just as harsh. "In our view this is one of the greatest policy mistakes in the Fed's history," said Toby Nangle from Baring Asset Management.

"The Fed is gambling that the so-called 'portfolio balance channel effect' -- pushing money out of government bonds and into other assets -- will lift risk asset prices. The gamble is that this boosts profits and wages, rather than simply prices. We remain unconvinced. How will a liquidity solution correct a solvency problem?" he said.

"A policy error," said Ulrich Leuchtmann from Commerzbank. The wording of the Fed statement is "dangerous" because it leaves the door open to a further flood of Treasury purchases if unemployment stays high. "It is a bottomless pit," he said.

Of course it is precisely this open door that has so juiced risk trades, from Australian dollar futures to silver contracts and junk bonds. Goldman Sachs thinks QE2 will ultimately reach $2 trillion, with no exit until 2015. Such moral hazard is irresistible. It is the Bernanke "super put."

Yet the reluctance of investors to leap back into the US Treasury market as they did after QE1 is revealing. The 30-year segment of the Treasury market is too small to matter, but symbolism does matter. Vigilantes sniff stealth default. "If long bond investors continue to throw their collective toys out of the cot, it risks upending the Fed's policy," said Michael Derk from FXPro.

Mr Bernanke is targeting maturities of five to 10 years with purchases of Treasuries. These bonds have behaved better: 10-year yields fell 14 points on Thursday to 2.48 percent. However, Mark Ostwald from Monument Securities said foreign funds may take advantage of QE2 to dump their holdings on the Fed, rotating the money emerging markets rather than US assets.

Bond funds are already restive. Pimco's Bill Gross says the great bull market in bonds is over, denigrating Fed policy as the greatest "ponzi scheme" in history. Warren Buffett has chimed in too, warning that anybody buying bonds at this stage is "making a big mistake."

Fed chair Ben Bernanke uses the term "credit easing" to describe his strategy because the goal is to lower borrowing costs. If he fails to achieve this over coming months -- because investors balk -- the policy will backfire.

No clear rationale for fresh QE can be found in orthodox monetarism. Data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve show that M2 money supply stopped contracting in the early summer and has since been expanding at an accelerating rate, topping 9 percent over the last four-week bloc.

The Fed has used the "Taylor Rule" on output gaps as a theoretical justification for QE, but Stanford Professor John Taylor has more or less said his theories have been hijacked. "I don't think (QE) will do much good, and I worry about the harm down the road," he said.

It has not been lost on markets that the Fed's purchases of $900 billion of Treasuries by June (with reinvested funds from mortgage debt) covers the Treasury's deficit over the same period. The slipperly slope towards "monetization" of public debt beckons.

Global investors mostly accepted that the motive for QE1 was emergency liquidity, and that stimulus would later be withdrawn. But there are growing suspicions that QE2 is Treasury funding in disguise.
If they start to act on this suspicion, they could push rates higher instead of lower, and overwhelm the Bernanke stimulus. That would precipitate an ugly chain of events for the US.

Friday Night Jazz - Carla Bley