Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Greece Lightning……….(Evil Plan 35.0 by BDI)
My fellow Slope-a-Dopes, after my last two epic failures, I have formally requested that Tim Knight strip me of at least two of my highly valued, well earned stars. I am certain several of you would like me to be demoted further to a corporal, or perhaps an even lower rank. However, as long as I am not thrown out of the military all together, my dear brothers in arms, I will continue to do what it is I do. As an Idiot Savant, what that is, I am not exactly sure…..let's get to it:
Jealousy, Perspective, and Peace
I am a middle-aged man, but in the years I have lived, I have at least amassed enough wisdom to know intuitively that I am still naive. We're always learning and, hopefully, getting wiser, so in an absolute sense, I'll die a naive man.
But I'm not as dim as I was as a teenaged-Tim, so allow me to start this essay with a couple of background facts.
Close Fumbles in the Markets
This Coca-Cola commercial for this Sunday's Super Bowl game reminds me of the markets…
…as the bulls (secretly disguised as one thirsty NY bear) pushed the markets higher from their 2011 lows, while nearly fumbling and losing control of the ball several times, to score yet another higher weekly close.
The Trickle-Down Effect
I am already looking forward to about a week after the Facebook IPO. The onslaught of press at the time of the IPO is going to be stomach-churning. If you're not sick of Zuckerberg's face already, by God, you will be by then. So once they are public, give it about a week, and we can all get back to our lives.
It will also stamp out all this horniness for tech stocks that's running rampant. This Valley has gone into bubble-mode again, and it's hard to take.
Zuck lives three blocks from my house, and the only benefit I'm personally going to get out of the thousands of newly-minted zillionaires is that the value of my house will go up. Indeed, I just took this photo of an advertisement in my local paper showing what Palo Alto home prices have been doing lately (the most recent year is in black; the year prior is in orange).
So asset appreciation of something I actually own is something I can "Like."
Heh.
