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Showing posts from October, 2008

Q: What's worse than leaving your window open

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What's worse than leaving your car window open on a rainy day? A: Leaving your door open.

Stock markets have gone down over the last 10-year period

I'm surprised no newspapers have picked up on this, so I'll post it myself. Many people have talked about risk in the stock market and have used this phrase to sum it up: "There have been no 10-year period when the stock market has lost money" Let me be the first to announce that history has been rewritten: Closing price 1998-10-22 2008-10-22 Change S&P 500 1,078.48 896.78 -181.70 Nasdaq 1,702.64 1,615.75 -86.89 DJIA 8,533.14 8,519.21 -13.93 Nikkei 225 14,295.56 8,674.69 -5,620.87 FTSE 100 5,229.90 4,040.89 -1,189.01 Some people have been using the DOW to refer to the stock market. This is wrong . But interestingly enough, ALL of the indicies have dropped in 10 years. Sites like these will have to be updated: http://www.mutualofamerica.com/articles/CapMan/October03/longtermreturns.asp http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/07/20/mglass20_ed3_.php Happy investing.

Unlimited FREE money from the US Mint (not a scam, link to .gov sites)

Order $2500 in $1 coins, free shipping (order 5 different coins in $500 quantity) Receive coins, deposit to bank, pay credit card bill Get 1% cash back from your credit card Here are the items, add two each to your cart: http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14598 http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14590 http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14589 http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14588 http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14596 Do this over and over, till you max out your card. I'm not joking. Also, you'll be building your credit, by making large, on time payments with you...

Maximizing your clean with Old Spice or other alternatives

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I didn't even know it was possible, but now you can get 3x as clean with Old Spice body wash. And as you can see, it's guaranteed. It stands to reason that everyone who doesn't use this is, at most, 33% clean.

Protein Bars and Whey Protein - Which ones have Melamine?

The Optimum Nutrition website does not explicitly state whether their products contain melamine. Questions of same have gone unanswered by their online email form. Their phone voicemail box is currently full and is not accepting new mail. I assume this is a bad thing. ------------------ Clif Bar (also maker of Builder Bars) confirmed they did not/d not use products with from China. An excerpt is: The recent incidents involving melamine in Chinese milk products have been investigated by our quality assurance team and we can confirm that none of our products contain dairy products sourced from China. ------------------ Met-Rx (makers of Ultramyosyn Whey) have denied the existance of melamine on their homepage. I recently sent in an email to ask them: ... Our dairy based protein suppliers have confirmed the absence of melamine in their ingredients. ...

Q: How do you pass a $700B bailout bill?

A: You don't, you pass a $900B bailout bill

H.R. 1424 - Votes by people up for reelection

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Regarding: H.R. 1424 - Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Was there different voting behavior based on whether the senator was up for reelection? No Data: Cells the middle represent percent of that Party/Reelection group voting Yea. Sources: Roll call: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213 Reelection: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/2/194434/9353

Oil Prices and Election Years Regression Analysis

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I have heard that oil prices are affected by an election year. After some analysis, this is clearly not the case. Here's the data, relative oil prices on election years and non-election years:   Methodology: Collect oil spot prices from http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rwtcd.htm Divide each day's price by the previous day Take the geometric average across combinations of months and election/non-election years Visually see that the results are not statistically significant P.S. The blue line is the election years and the red line is non-election years. The vertical axis represents average daily price change during the month (1.00 = 0% change) This is based on Cushing, OK WTI Spot Price FOB, from 1985 to today.