New York City

Posted on by georgefattell

I’m visiting New York City for a couple of days. The city is beautiful this time of year. I plan on taking quite a few pictures on this trip and I will post some slideshows later. Manhattan seems to be as prosperous as ever. There are gleaming new buildings everywhere, packed bars and restaurants, and high-end retail stores all over the island. The city may be nicer than ever, but I’m not sure that it is better than ever. In my opinion, Manhattan has lost a bit of character, it just doesn’t seem to have the edge it once had. NYC is still a great place, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it is as dramatic as it was only a few decades ago. I will expand on that thought in later posts.


– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:New York, New York

Was Terriers the best TV show to last only one season?

Posted on by georgefattell

I paid a visit to the Ocean Beach section of San Diego yesterday and I was reminded of the 2010 FX series Terriers, which was an excellent show about two rather unconventional San Diego private investigators who worked out of Ocean Beach. Despite the fact that the show won high praise from many TV critics it was cancelled after just one season, much to my disappointment. Terriers definitely developed a devoted fan base, but it seems that the viewer numbers were just too small for FX to green light a second season. It is hard to say if Terriers really was the best TV series to last only one season because that has happened to other quality shows as well, but I have to think it would make any top ten list of such shows. If you have not watched it yet I recommend it. (Warning: Not for kids, adult content in some episodes).

This video gives you a sense of the quirky character of the show.

Mini Cooper Coupe

Posted on by georgefattell

The new Mini Cooper Coupe will go on sale in the US in October of this year. The styling of this car seems to be quite controversial. I have visited several web sites that have posted pictures and/or video of the new Mini and, based on comments I’ve read, most people love it or hate it. I wasn’t sure what I thought of it at first, but you can now put me in the “love it” camp. I think it is a very cool little car and I think it will sell well for Mini, as a niche vehicle. The base model will start at about 21.3K.

There will be three models:

Base with 121 hp 0-60 8.3 sec

S Turbo with 181 hp 0-60 6.5 sec

John Cooper Works with 208 hp 0-60 6.1 sec

To QE3 or not to QE3, that is the question.

Posted on by georgefattell

It will be very interesting to see if indeed the Fed implements, in one form or another, a third round of quantitative easing. I follow the financial markets pretty closely since I am in that line work and I am very curious to see how our markets and our overall economy will perform once QE2 comes to an end at the of this month. Clearly, the stock market benefitted during the periods of QE, but the overall economy did not.

Here is a chart that I have constructed which highlights the periods of QE1 and QE2. Constructing charts of this kind is something of a hobby for me. I have been a student of technical analysis for well over 20 years and in the past I constructed my charts by hand, with pencils, markers and graph paper. I still do maintain a few handmade charts, but I now construct most of my charts using websites, such as Stockcharts.com (which I highly reccommend), that are specialized for that purpose. I do not make recommendations to buy or sell individual stocks or ETF’s on this blog, but I do discuss certain “big picture” economic topics from time to time. It will very interesting to revisit an updated version of this chart in 3 months, 6 months and one year from now.

Robert Gates Retires From Pentagon, Warns America – Newsweek

Posted on by georgefattell

Robert Gates Retires From Pentagon, Warns America – Newsweek.

“Congress is all over the place,” Gates says at one point. “And the Republicans are a perfect example. I mean, you’ve got the budget hawks and then you’ve got the defense hawks within the same party. And so I think there is no consensus on a role in the world.”

 

 

MY VIEW:

Hmmm, I would think the budget hawks are going to win in the end. The U.S. cannot afford to be world’s policeman going forward. The U.S. can’t adopt a totally isolationist foreign policy posture either. That would could be highly destabilizing and spark wars we would forced to enter. However, I think it is possible for the U.S. to very significantly reduce our military footprint overseas and provide adequate protection to the American people and our most important  allies. Our leaders must find a way to do that. Our  economy leaves us no choice.

 

 

NBA Finals 2011: The Dallas Mavericks win!!!

Posted on by georgefattell

Great win for Mavericks over the highly talented Miami Heat. This victory was the result of a very commendable team effort. Dirk Notwitski won the Finals MVP award and deservedly so. Dirk outplayed his All=Star rivals on the Heat. Nice to see Mav’s owner MarK Cuban finally win a ring too.

I also enjoyed this victory because I predicted a Dallas series win in 6 or 7 games (see post below). This victory brings my NBA playoff prediction record up to 10 right and 5 wrong.

NBA Finals 2011

Posted on by georgefattell

The Miami Heat vs The Dallas Mavericks.

Vegas has made the Heat the favorites and I can understand why. Miami’s Big Three have rolled over some very good teams in playoffs thus far. But in Dallas they meet the one team in the NBA that is capable of beating them right now imo.

Dirk Nowitski has been the best player in playoffs going into this series. I don’t think Miami has anyone that can shut Dirk down. With double teams they may contain him, but I think Dirk will make them pay with passes to the open man if they do that.

James, Wade and Bosh will get their points too. Particularly LeBron James. He presents a very tough match-up problem at SF for Dallas, but I think Dallas’ defense can effectively limit the production of Wade and Bosh.

I also think Dallas has the stronger bench and an edge at coach.

My pick to win this series is Dallas in 6 or 7 games.

My 2011 NBA playoff record to date stands at 9 wins and 5 losses.