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Goldman Sachs back 8-10 years ago charged ahead with superior profits and assembled a super duper hedge fund team led by Mark Carhart. They called themselves the Global Alpha team, sounds so Fantastic Four like.  If you are Mark Cahart, you almost have it all your way for most of your life. Mark Carhart looks out over the packed New York conference back in 2005 and tells investors that Warren Buffett has it all wrong. Carhart, 40 then, co-head of the quantitative strategies group at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., uses his July speech to poke fun at Warren's penchant for investing in market-leading brands like Coca-Cola and Gillette. He cites study after study showing that big-name companies with high price-earning multiples or rapid growth rates make poor bets. Traditional stock pickers like Buffett, a fabled raconteur, do have one redeeming quality, Carhart jokes: ``They tell great stories.''  (Lesson - Don't fuck around with people who have done better and longer than you...

Health care costs have gone through the roof since Massachusetts adopted its own version of Obamacare during the reign of Governor Mitt Romney.  The original legislation was bi-partisan.  Now, a bi-partisan majority of the Massachusetts legislature is poised to 'fix' the cost problem.  Pay heed, because this is where the national Obamacare is headed. The legislature will vote today to remove $ 200 billion in costs over the next 15 years.  How will they do this?  By simply telling hospital and doctors that they are now going to pay less for health care services.  Seems so simple doesn't it.  Why don't we do that with everything?  Heck why not just make health care free in Massachusetts by telling hospitals and doctors that we just won't pay anything at all.  That way, Massachusetts' version of Obamacare won't cost anyone anything.

This week, the European Central Bank (ECB) is going to announce policy measures to bolster the Euro and the bond markets in Spain and Italy (among others).  All of the available measures "Europeanize" the problems of Spain and Italy.  The real significance of this will be a disaster for Germany.  This won't be apparent in the immediate aftermath of the ECB policy announcements.  The instant reaction will be joy in Euroland and rallies in world markets.  That happiness will gradually give way to the realization that nothing has changed in Europe.  The problems in Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal will continue to get worse, though, briefly, yields on their sovereign debt will be lower.   The idea that simply bringing in one more guarantor will solve the problems of Europe is almost laughable.  The media and the world's economists should be ashamed of themselves for believing that there is anything that ECB can do by itself to solve Europe's p...

Casual conversations can sometimes elicit the roll of our eyes, and sometimes I have to stop myself wanting to explain an investing issue further among friends as it could drag on and on. However, when you can add logic and persuasion into an investing issue,  we musn't be stingy.  There are again two types of people in the world when it comes to  knowledge and information dissemination . Group one are those who will try and get by by hoarding as much knowledge and information for their advantage  (what the rest don't know would benefit me, I have leverage and the edge).   Group one are also those who are likely to "lord over people" with their "extra knowledge and information". For example, they are the ones who may have a passion for wines and would read up voraciously on it, and in social settings will snigger and gently shake their heads at any  faux pas  or shallow commentary on certain wines - that's lording over people. Get me away fro...

The NY Times has an article by Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear today on the growing shortage of doctors in the United States.  Now, logically, if you had a shortage of something what would you think is causing it?  This article seems to have no clue. Let me offer some suggestions.  Try medicare and medicaid for starters.  Whenever the government gets involved, people tend to head for the exit.  Basically medicare and medicaid funding is based upon the premise that doctors would prefer to lower their own standard of living in the future and take on more patients.  These programs assume that doctors would much prefer to deal with patients who cannot afford to pay them and have little or no incentive to take preventative health care seriously. Why is there less interest in becoming a doctor?  The combination of a future dealing with folks that cannot and will not pay, a government that is supposed to pay but is broke, a job that is overburdened with governme...

Put about 100 bricks in some particular order in a closed room with an open window.  Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze the situation.  If they are counting the bricks. Put them in the census taking department or the estimator for the number who turned out for Bersih. If they are recounting them. Put them as returning officers for election votes. If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks. Put them in MCA. If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order. Put them in Pemandu. If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in MIC. If they are sleeping. Put them in civil service. If they have broken the bricks into pieces.   Put them in ETP Tender Committee.   If they are sitting idle.   Put them in VP positions of any top political parties. If they say they have tried different combinations, yet not a brick has been moved.   Put them in PDRM. If ...

Sandy Weill is wrong.  Separating commercial from investment banking is not a good idea.  Glass-Steagall was always foolish and the 1999 law that overturned it was an intelligent move.  The financial crisis was not related to the abolition of Glass-Steagall. I agree that taxpayers should not backstop proprietary trading.  I agree 100 percent with that and yet I think the Volcker Rule is ridiculous.  How do you reconcile those views?  Simple, get the taxpayer out of the way.  It is one thing to guarantee $ 10,000 checking accounts, but the Fed guarantees, effectively, all the creditors of our banking system.  No creditor, including unsecured bond holders, has ever lost a penny when an FDIC guaranteed bank failed.  They bail out everyone, even though there is absolutely nothing in the law governing the FDIC guarantees that sanctions such activity.  The FDIC puts the taxpayer at risk -- after the fact -- with no legal authority whatsoever....

It's amazing what people will believe. With the US economy sledgehammered by an unfriendly legal, tax and regulatory environment, the Fed is going to be able to do something about it?  What?  Lower interest rates?  Buy bonds and expand the nation's indebtedness?  Are our debts too low that they need expanding by the Fed?  How do you convince a businessman to hire someone in this environment?  Have the Fed buy Treasury bonds?  Is this a serious discussion? How about Europe?  Mario Draghi announces that the ECB will do everything in its power to keep the Euro from falling apart.  Really?  By lending countries more money?  Is that the ticket? No macroeconomic solutions will solve the problems in the western economies.  The microeconomic situation is not favorable for hiring.  Employees are, relatively, far too expensive compared to other factors of production and compared to countries in Asia where labor is not loaded up with...

He is creative and funny. He uses real life situations and basically inserts his own wackiness into that situation. Good stuff. The first one sees him at a tennis exhibition match between Yannick Noah and Henri Leconte. He basically psyches himself up to go down to court and just wants to play a point or two with them. Great guts. Its to create the Tour de France dream for normal people, and on a normal Sunday, he spots casual riders on their own and creates a scenario as if these people are about to cross the finishing line of a major cycling event. Tons of extras. This is a brilliant spoof of Rocky, self explanatory. Sometimes we just need to not take things so seriously, have a laugh or two, life is hard enough.

It is so hard to start a blog, do you have something to share, will you be able to post regularly, will you run out of things to say after a few weeks? I think 90% of all blogs close within 6 months, most will just give up. It takes passion but also a desire to share something. If it is just an ego trip, you will also tire of it easily as it takes a couple of years to build traffic. I have know Fui Ping for a while. I know of her blog and have been reading it for some time. Its an excellent health and beauty blog. She takes care in research and uses the blog as a platform to sell some of the more effective products as well. This is obviously not her full time job and she handles the blog very well. I have included just the front page of her blog's previous few postings, that in itself is so concise and thoughtful in its research. Check it out and do your own research as well, it is good to hear things from a very passionate person about health and beauty. http://www.pingofhealth.co...

Thanks for all the comments on rude Malaysians. I do agree, we can rid of most of the problems if we have strict enforcement and no bribing, much like Singapore. That will certainly cure the bad behaviour but it does not change the very make up of the person.  Malaysians are generally the nicest people when you go to their homes, they make you feel welcomed. They offer you drinks and food even though you have obviously just eaten. They are the most gracious hosts. If you come into my circle of intimacy or closeness, be they family, friends of my kids, friends of my family ... and I have been introduced to you - we certainly treat you much better. One of the issues lie with our neighbourliness. We sometimes rubbish some Western society for being overly friendly in striking up conversations with strangers, we seemed averse to bid a smile and wave to our neighbours even when we do not know them. Why is that? I believe Malaysians back in the 50s and 60s were much friendlier, yes, small...

The Obama Administration policy of forcing loan foregiveness on private market lenders began in the mortgage market and is now being extended into the student loan market. Such loan foregivess essentially rips up legitimate contracts and replaces them with the arbitrary whims of government, deciding who should pay up and who needn't bother.  Lenders aren't stupid and they have memories. It is incredibly difficult now for middle America to get mortgages thanks to Obama Administration loan foregiveness policies. Why? Because lenders know that politicians can, at their pleasure, rip up the contracts and deny the lenders the payments they are entitled to. So, why lend to the class of Americans that the Obama Administration seems to want to provide loan foregiveness for? No reason I can think of. The next group that will find themselves out of luck when seeking loans will be students, especially the demographic now escaping their obligations thanks to the President.

This is an indication of how IHH is being viewed by global market players. Health Care is breaking out to new all-time highs.  The S&P 500 Health Care Index is breaking out to new all-time highs above the  December 2000 high near 445. Unlike the S&P 500, which is 14%-15% below its  all-time high of 1576, Health Care is breaking through the upper end of its 11-to- 12-year trading range and has the potential to establish a new secular bull market  trend. Health Care joins Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples as the  only three sectors to reach new all-time highs in 2012. Prior to that, Health Care  broke above the highs from 2007 near 425 – the only other sectors to break  above 2007 highs are Discretionary, Staples and Technology. Taking a look at the S&P Healthcare index (a defensive sector) versus SPX we can see how this sector underperformed (trended down) during the October – April advance in the S&P 500 just as we would expec...

Halfway through the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney, American target shooter Josh Lakatos and teammates had finished their events, and the US Olympic Committee and team officials had ordered them to hand in the keys to their three-story house and head back to the States. But Lakatos didn't want to leave. He knew from his experience four years earlier in Atlanta, where he had won silver, that the Olympic Village was about to erupt into a raucous party. So he asked the cleaner at the emptied-out dwelling if she would kindly look the other way as he tampered with the lock. "I don't care what you do," she replied. Within hours, word of the nearly vacant property had spread. Home to more than 10,000 athletes at the summer Games and 2,700 at the winter, the Olympic Village is one of the world's most exclusive clubs. Popping up once every two years, it's a boisterous city within a city: packed with flats, mid-rises and houses as well as cafes, arcades, discos and TV l...