Zack Shepard's blogSanity

This is one of the funniest skits SNL has done this year.  I’m glad someone is trying to pay attention to the reckless spending spree our government is on.  Feel free to discuss.

Check this out.  This is a graph that shows how little experience the President and his cabinet members have at running a business compared to past President’s and their cabinets.

So, let me understand this.  The President wants to hold a jobs summit to really think about how to add jobs in America.  He plans to tell entrepreneurs how to add jobs, but he and his cabinet have little to no business experience whatsoever. What?

Better bring your “A” game Mr. President.

Think social media is a fad? Check out this video.

Here is a great clip of Alan Greenspan discussing the unpredictability of markets and the economy.

We haven’t posted anything from Jon Stewart in a while here, so let’s change that with this installment.  Here is a clip from The Daily Show this week where Jon discusses the ACORN debacle (you know the one where ACORN uses tax payer dollars to help criminals commit crimes).  Props go out to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles for their great undercover work in these investigative videos which could be a gamechanger.

This is absolutely incredible. Do you want capitalism and free trade or socialism and government control? In the first image, you have North and South Korea at night with North Korea looking dark and desolate and South Korea thriving with lights throughout the country. Now for comparison, the second image is the United States at night thriving as well. I think the answer is easy especially after seeing this, unless you like dark and desolate places.

This graphic is very interesting and telling. Let’s put this in perspective. There are currently roughly 8,400 stocks in the US market. If you exclude the Top 10% of performers each year (840 stocks this year), your return suffers 3.4% annually.

What this means is that if you go back to 1926 and invest $10,000 in all US stocks and compound annually with no additional investment, you end up with $17.3 million. If you try to pick the best performing stocks (of which there is no data supporting anyone’s ability to do so) and you miss the Top 10% of performers each year, your $10,000 investment only grows to $1.2 million. You miss out on $16 million! If you miss the Top 25% of performers each year, your return drops to -1% per year. I don’t think the math is needed for that one. Stock picking is a risky proposition. I wouldn’t try it.

What does cutting $100 Million from the federal budget actually do? Check out this video for a great visual representation of the reality.

This is the classic example of, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.” As you can see from the graphic, financial fraud is increasingly being committed over the past couple of years in the US. As investment products become more and more exotic and overpromising, so to comes exposure to fraud. There are no magic beans when it comes to investing, etc. Own the market, stay disciplined and rebalance. It’s as simple as that.

Be careful out there.