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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Picture of the Day - 2



Maamoun Sami Rashid al Alwanu, US installed governor of the "restive" or "volatile" Anbar province.

A suicide car bomber rammed into a convoy of U.S. and Iraqi vehicles accompanying the governor of the volatile Anbar province through the city of Ramadi today, leaving a number of casualties, police and hospital officials in the provincial capital said. Gov. Mamoun Sami Rasheed's condition was unknown.

posted by mikevotes at 8:42 AM

4 Comments:

  • I know this is off topic, but I thought you'd like to take a look at this post.

    Note interest rates at the far left of the chart:

    http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/05/chart_of_the_we_1.html

    By Blogger Greyhair, at 11:07 AM  

  • I never mind. You always leave good links.

    I'm not a big tech analysis guy, more a fan of hunting good situations, but those are some major long term trend lines we're pushing through.

    In the same area, I'm also a bit concerned in a macro sense about the fragility of the "service economy" if we do undergo economically trying times. The elasticity of the "service" type purchases is much greater than manufacturing products, whether it's putting off a manicure or not hiring business consultants, and in economically trying times, I fear that there will be a greater potential for big fluctuations. The repurcussions of a downturn could be much more rapid than was felt when people held more stable manufacturing jobs. The opposite "markets" argument is that the service economy would be more responsive and thus more precise, although I don't know if I buy that because it doesn't take fear and irrationality into the argument.

    That possibility is way out in front of where we are, but when I see people with so little faith in the economy and the "wrong track" numbers so high, it gets me a bit more fearful of market irrationality.

    Don't know where all that came from.

    Thanks for the link. Also, in the past, you've sent me Plame stuff before I found it. As we're entering the RoveWatch period, if you come across anything I don't have up, I'd appreciate it of you'd throw it my way. I don't know where it's going to break, but there are a lot of organizations working it right now.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:01 PM  

  • I hate to keep beating this, but Billmon does an excellent job summing up the situation in economics:

    http://billmon.org/archives/002423.html

    By Blogger Greyhair, at 1:01 PM  

  • You're not beating it at all. I appreciate it. This is an area I often I try not to go too far into, at least in my writing because I'm very prone towards economic apocalypticism. I find that I have a great deal of trouble viewing economic data outside my own perspective.

    Other feelings and emotions I have about the state of the world tend to bleed into my judgement and forecasts. I'm one of those people for whom an investment advisor makes alot of sense as I find it nearly impossible to find a middle emotional ground on my investments. I tend to act irrationally.

    That being said, I appreciate the updates, because, like a burned alcoholic I'm often tepid about going too far into the data.

    But the gold price spike has poked through my self imposed bubble. I just can't get a sense if this is smart money fleeing, or just kind of a rush to a dollar hedge. I have a sense that it's a world tension reaction, Iran, terror, Russia/China/ oil problems, but again, I don't fully trust my judgement.

    I do find myself in some growing trepidation, but I just can't be sure if it's just me.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:33 PM  

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