THIS
HOUSE WILL NEVER SELL
Dean Reinemann: “Want to live forever? [Yes! – A.T.] I don’t, but in the NY Times today, a new take on how to do so or at least prolong the inevitable. Don’t miss the three-minute multimedia slide show.”
F It’s beyond silly . . . but
oddly beautiful. A $2 million house
designed to be so uncomfortable as to relieve your
anxieties about losing comfort (by
taking it away to begin with) and to keep you young by making everything
difficult.
“They
ought to build hospitals like this,” one of the designers is quoted.
Reads
the next line:
A reporter, who thinks they should
never, ever build hospitals like this,
tried to go with the flow.
I
laughed out loud at that – and laughter, unarguably, keeps you young.
YALIE, UP 28% LAST YEAR, HAS GOOD ADVICE
Stewart Dean: “Quick, see an orthopedic surgeon! There may still be hope that you could get
your arms un-dislocated after patting yourself on the back (so vigorously! with both hands!) for having finished
the crossword puzzle and acrostic.
[Oops. Too
much? – A.T.]
In the meantime, you might want to share
this link.”
F And a fine link it is, to a story on David
Swensen, who bumped Yale’s endowment up by $5 billion
last year – 28% – and who has been delivering astonishing returns for two
decades. His advice: diversify, keep
your transaction costs low (mainly through index funds), and “rebalance” periodically,
especially within retirement plans, where there’s no tax cost to doing so. If this is in any way new to you, for heaven’s
sake click that link.
FMD
Guru says: “FMD
will not recover until the securitization markets open up (or the markets
anticipate that they will) . . . and when
they do, their business model may need to change a bit (upfront fees taken out
of securitization vs. more traditional spread lending). Like all financial assets, delinquency and
charge-off will be stressed for the next 12-18 months, but this should be pretty
well discounted at this point. Future
prepayment risk (which in many ways is equally if not more threatening than
credit risk to the long term economic model) should actually diminish as home
equity loans and mortgage refinance opportunity recedes. Capital (and potential access to additional
funding) seems to be adequate. Long
term, private student lending is still a huge and quickly growing market, many
of the weaker players have exited the business, removing capacity and
competition.”
F So, while recognizing the risks, he would
not sell, and I haven’t either.
BUT CAN HE DO AN ACROSTIC?
Bob Novick: “This from YouTube is either very cleverly staged or is in fact an
elephant painting a self portrait.”
Tomorrow, perhaps: More of Your Thoughts on Macs, Safari, Mozy and All That