J Larsen

I spent an inordinate percentage of my youth loitering in several of the stores mentioned in that article. Recycled records, Streetlight, Mod Lang, Aquarius (which at the time was owned by the father of the quarterback of my high school's football team - I'd go into the store to see if there was a new record out on Drag City or Merge and he'd kid around that he wanted to trade kids with my mom), Rasputin.... those places felt like home to me. I hope they manage to survive.

I thought there may be some interest in this article:

I always had a strict rule about not doing drugs that were invented in my lifetime, but I will take your word for it.

Well, those LPRs only had a limited run to begin with. I don't have SWEETS in front of me, but each LPR indicated how long each one was going to be in print. March '08, so it was supposed to be around another year. This is especially strange considering that many of these have been avaialble well past their "expiration date". I just picked up about a dozen of supposedly OOP titles the other day, all in one shop.

This company seems pretty good to me: http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/ The wet food is a bit pricet compared to other brands ($1/can in my neighbborhood).

I may be mistaken about this, but I think the session from disc 7 of the Mosaic has yet to be reissued.

Ah, I see. You think stock prices reflected fundamental valuation at one point. That explains it. No, but it used to be a much more significant driver. This is actually becoming a very serious concern in the world of financial economics.

Amen. Unless you replace "expected" with "possible", that's just silly. I meant expected in the statistical sense - the average stock picker would be expected to get the average return. I do far better.

Mutual funds are actually a pretty horrible investment in the long run. I assume you aren't including index funds in that category. Guy Actually I am. After fees, index funds are guaranteed to (slightly) underperform the market, plus there are usually restrictions on when you can pull out. I'm not personally interested in an equity investment that is going to tie up my cash and yield a below-average return. I can see why they are attractive to others, though. Not sure the index funds you are referring to, but I would guess the vast majority do not have restictions on when you can redeem. Further, on average, index funds typically outperform 2/3 of all actively managed funds. Oh, they absolutely outperform actively managed funds, but not the market. An S&P 500 index fund, for instance, is going to earn you a return slightly below that of the S&P 500; ie it will do worse than the expected return of a stock picker selecting from the S&P 500.

I just picked up all but Clubhouse, which I'm not that interested in (I have the box and rarely play this session). None of the music is new to me, but so far I like the sound on the Hill, Taylor and Jones.

my lack of stock knowledge would kill me trying to do that. I realize a lot of people don't have the time to devote to learning the markets, which is why my initial comment on this topic was a bit arrogant. I have to say that it is a little frustrating to me that a lot of stock prices are now driven more by funds that they belong to than fundamental valuation! Does it depend on the broading market? I mean that now you can buy stocks from Pacific Area as well from East Europe. Since the Financial Market became so huge, nobody has the global knowledge of it, not even the "experts". So funds are the easiest and safer way to go also for banks and they sell funds so they have an earning anyway. Am I wrong? Edit: sorry, I misread you the first time. If you want to diversify into an area that you are not familiar with, sure, go with funds. I personally am not that interested in diversification in general. I only invest in what I know. I'm not 100% sure what the banks are doing for their own investments, but I do know that large financial institutions do a lot of stock picking. Also, the big firms have experts all over the world, so they do have "global knowledge".

my lack of stock knowledge would kill me trying to do that. I realize a lot of people don't have the time to devote to learning the markets, which is why my initial comment on this topic was a bit arrogant. I have to say that it is a little frustrating to me that a lot of stock prices are now driven more by funds that they belong to than fundamental valuation!

Yes, and exchange-traded funds are generally a decent way to go, *if* you are interested in trading in funds rather than individual stocks. I realize a lot of this comes down to individual preferences/risk tolerance, but I'm still fairly firm in my personal views.

One of the wines being featured at the bar will be 'Les Caillous du Paradis' (Pebblestones from Paradise), an interesting wine from the Loire valley. Can't miss that! That's a good one! They sell it at one of my neighborhood wineshops.

Mutual funds are actually a pretty horrible investment in the long run. I assume you aren't including index funds in that category. Guy Actually I am. After fees, index funds are guaranteed to (slightly) underperform the market, plus there are usually restrictions on when you can pull out. I'm not personally interested in an equity investment that is going to tie up my cash and yield a below-average return. I can see why they are attractive to others, though.

I guess it's all relative. Many have done quite well for long stretches. Of course, you want to find a no-load fund, and a no-load index fund is going to have the lowest annual fees. The question is whether you would do better with a broker and all the hassle associated with that. I've had pretty bad experiences with brokers and trying to pick my own stocks. Also, I find that with a mutual fund, I am a lot more likely just to leave the money invested and not trying to micro-manage and do market timing, where you almost always end up worse off. I realized after I left my house that my comment was a bit arrogant. I follow the markets as part of my job, so it is much easier for me to develop my own opinions and investment ideas. If I had to do so in my free time, mutual and exchange-traded funds would likely look a lot better to me.

Thanks. I forgot about the medicare component.

Sorry to keep bugging you about this - I just find equity in the tax system to be an interesting topic. It's actually the opposite - you pay FICA on the first $x of income, not on income above $x. Last year I think it was $90K, so that after you had earned $90K you no longer paid FICA. This year I believe it is some random amount, like $92,748 (just made that up). I think the rationale behind this is to make sure everyone puts something into the system, but to not force people who have the means to invest on their own to tie up their money in a low-return compulsory vehicle. I'm not saying I agree with the rationale (I actually strongly disagree), but nonetheless I believe that is the rationale.

Is that a flat tax rate of 25% for self-employed individuals? 15 % of that is FICA ....most people who are employed pay 7.5 % and their employers pay the other 7.5 % self employed pay the full 15 % and then your taxes on top of that , which can vary of course because of deductions. But if you are not self employed, you only pay FICA on the first $x of your income, where x increases annually. Is that not the case for the self-employed? Are the marginal income tax rates the same? Sorry for all the questions, just a little curious.

Is that a flat tax rate of 25% for self-employed individuals?

I grew up extremely poor, about as poor as it is possible to grow up in a major American city. Not homeless, but right on the edge of being there at every moment. There's no way I'd be where I am today without having "sold out to the man". The man has done pretty well by me.

Person Pitch is an excellent record. It sounds like a combination of Brian Wilson and a lot of late 60s garage rock. Definitely a throwback, definitely derivative, but when it's done this well that's all fine with me.

Depends on the field. Plenty of people from my grad program went on to wall street and became millionaries very quickly.

Mutual funds are actually a pretty horrible investment in the long run.

With the qualification that when it comes to classical I really don't know what I'm talking about, the idea of Karajan doing this piece seems odd to me. Karajan strikes me as heavy handed. I don't see how Karajan and this piece could make each other sound good.