Dept of Homeland Security's Incompetence

Yet another reason Homeland Security is America's most incompetent government agency:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/21/60minutes/main4625729_page3.shtml

The American government is spending our taxpayer dollars trying to deport wives of Americans, including dead soldiers, solely because their interview did not occur before the unexpected death of the husband. In the 60 Minutes segment, called "Immigrant Widows Left In Limbo," one mother-in-law tearfully says, "This is America." It's heartbreaking to learn just how incompetent the Department Homeland Security is. I am writing my Congresspersons in both the House and Senate.

And here I thought the federal government couldn't top its previous pinnacle of incompetence, which was improperly jailing an innocent man for seven years. Mr. Lakhdar Boumediene, a Bosnian of Algerian descent, was recently released by a judge--who was appointed by none other than George W. Bush himself. For the legal eagles, there's more about the Boumediene Supreme Court case here: The Most Significant Recent U.S. Supreme Court Case.

For even more on Mr. Boumediene, see WSJ, November 21, 2008, A6. The government jailed him for seven years on the basis of a "single, 'unnamed source.'" Basically, our United States government used secret evidence to jail a man on American-controlled soil for seven years, all the while insisting the man was not entitled to a trial. I'm with the mother-in-law featured on 60 Minutes, but I phrase her sentiment differently: "Is this the America we want, where the Department of Homeland Security appears to have no substantive checks on its powers and very little transparency?"

Ted Turner

I was going to post a review of Ted Turner's speech at the Commonwealth Club last week, but someone beat me to it:

http://weimarworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/ted-turner-on-old-media-plus-economic.html

Ted's book, Call Me Ted, is a quick read. It conveys his man-child personality, which masks a fiercely competitive spirit. Although the book is fun to read, the only real way to experience Ted is in person or on video--the book does as good a job of conveying his personality (several friends call him "crazy," and there's a story about him getting down on all fours at a business meeting asking whose shoes he had to kiss to get the deal done), but Ted is a man meant to be experienced in the flesh. Two interesting tidbits:

1. I am a fan of the San Jose Sharks and although our rivals are the Dallas Stars, I hate the Calgary Flames more because of playoff history. Apparently, the Calgary Flames used to be the Atlanta Flames. (page 105 of hardcover edition)

2. CNBC, the now-ubiquitous finance channel, used to be called the Financial News Network (FNN). The FNN was bought for around 100 million dollars by NBC in 1991. Turner was blocked from buying the channel, which he (correctly) believed would complement CNN's international and political coverage. (page 257 of hardcover edition)

Christopher Buckley

I like David Sedaris, Christopher Moore, and Chuck Thompson when it comes to laugh-out-loud funny books. A friend of mine pointed me to Christopher Buckley, who is featured in this month's Commonwealth Club magazine (p. 39):

You may know of the situation of the teenage boy who has to do a report for school on the difference between hypothetical and reality, so he goes to his father one night and asks him if he could give him a hand with it. The father thinks for a bit and he says, "Go ask your mother if she would sleep with a total stranger for a million dollars." So the son goes off and he comes back pretty quickly [and says] the answer is, You bet. So the dad says, "Go ask your sister," and the boy comes back quite lickety-split, and reports the answer as, "Totally." The dad says, "There you go. Hypothetically, we're sitting on two million bucks. In reality? We're living with a couple of hookers."

I think he's modifying something Churchill said, but it's still funny.

Day Trading

Although I've made many, many short-term trades, for the first time in over thirteen years, my brokerage has officially classified me as a "day trader." The exact definition is below:

The FINRA currently defines day trading as purchasing and selling, or short selling and purchasing to cover, the same security on the same day. A pattern day trader is defined as someone who makes four or more round-trip day trades in a five-business-day period, unless this activity is less than 6% of total trading activity in that period.

What happens now? The only differences appear to be 1) I have to maintain 25K in equity ("Pattern day trading accounts are required to maintain minimum equity of $25,000 on any day in which day trading occurs."); and 2) my margin buying power increases.

New Treasury Secretary

We have a new Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/banks/pres02.htm

What I like most about him? "He has studied Japanese and Chinese, and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan." Wall Street apparently likes him, too. The stock market shot up after the announcement.

Stupidity or Genius?

In what can only be described as Las Vegas style gambling, I bought 1300 shares of Citigroup (C) today and yesterday. My average price is around $3.52. When I last checked, C was trading around $3.18, but had dropped as far as $3.07.

I will now proceed to hide under my bed until next week. I am assuming either the government will do something over in a special session over the weekend to deal with the Citigroup issue, or a merger will occur. If I am wrong, well, it wouldn't be the first time. If, however, I am right, I'll probably make between 1000 and 1800 dollars. I wish I had the cojones to hold onto the stock till next year, when it might be much higher. Sadly, my cojones remember the old saying, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

The information on this site is provided for discussion purposes only and does not constitute investing recommendations. Under no circumstances does this information represent a recommendation to buy or sell securities or make any kind of an investment. You are responsible for your own due diligence.

Update on November 20, 2008: in late-day trading, Citigroup went up to $3.83, and then started to dip. I sold at $3.74 and made around $300. Not bad for 60 minutes of risk.

Gold

From the film, The Italian Job--prescient words from a gold bug?

INT. COIN & BULLION STORE - EVENING

Yevhen is 50 and like many in the gold trade, there isn't a conspiracy theory that he doesn't embrace. As they make their way to a back room, he keeps his mouth in overdrive --

YEVHEN:
All those poor bastards out there putting their life savings in banks and S&Ls and mutual funds. What do they think -- that when the collapse comes they can depend on the government? I don't think so.

Governments are nothing more than puppets on the strings of the Trilateral Commission with their twisted gods.

I mean, it's so obvious that in a world where NAFTA can overturn the Supreme Court, not to mention Microsoft's nefarious financial machinations, this, is our only refuge: gold.

I definitely get the part about feeling like a "poor bastard." Sigh.