Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Creation of Civilization

Archeology and studies of seeds and pollen found in the earliest villages and cities in the dawn of the Neolithic age - perhaps even in the Mesolithic period - show that the core food staples in these communities were bread and beer. The term, "Neolithic" even denotes the age when early man began to domesticate plants and animals, perhaps around 8000 BCE in the Near East.

Sumeria built the first true cities circa 3000 BCE. The first city, Uruk, had perhaps 50,000 people, traded over a large area and its people had division of labor and skills. Sumeria also invested writing. And what is found in the writings of the common man in Sumeria ? Paeans to his beer.

The staple diet of ancient Egypt was also bread and ... beer.

Today's blog celebrates beer and as a multilingual blog, I've written THE crucial sentence that underlies all civilization in six languages.

English: I want another beer, please.
French: Je veux une autre bière, s’il vous plaît.
Italian: Voglio un’ altra birra, per favore.
Spanish*: Quisiera otra cerveza por favor.
Polish: Proszę jeszcze jedno piwo.
German: Ich möchte noch ein bier, bitte.

[* courtesy of an erudite multilingual reader and commentor as I am just now commencing Spanish studies.]

In case you are wondering, after my success and fun with French and recognizing my advanced age, I've decided to learn slowly four more languages at once: Italian, Polish, German and Spanish. With French and English, this will cover every major language and people in Europe. I realized that if I didn't start them all now, I would be 70 before I got to the last one if I just learned them sequentially, assuming about three years intensive study in each to become literate and fairly fluent in speech. I'll bang away at each and after a year, try to accelerate the learning.

This means the feature, "Le Mot du Jour", may occasionally stray to Germans, Italian, Polish or Spanish.

Markets

The recession is over.

The question is how long this bull market will last and whether a period of stagnation will occur once the economy recovers to its prior level. A period of 1970s like stagnation is quite possible due to the huge and all-encompassing new regulations and laws that Obama is proposing on health care and the environment. I expect a rapid market and economic recovery similar to the 1974-1976 period until the wall is hit. Whether inflation also occurs causing stagflation then is not determined. The more global economy and the growth in the emerging markets may affect this, too. There's no need to take a position on this now. I await further evidence and trends.

Meanwhile, Obama Fund is roaring up as is Fido Fund. I am sitting on and riding the elephant to the next water hole.

Word of the Day

"Poteen" - noun [$10]; a Mencken word
Poteen means Irish alcohol made illicitly from potatoes.
Sentence: As they drive stock prices higher, are buyers drunk on poteen after drowning their sorrows, or are they "efficiently and rationally" evaluating future prospects for corporate earnings ? I suspect neither. Less fear simply means the far negative end of the distribution of investor expectaions is being chopped off, forcing the central mean is up in price.

Le Mot du Jour

"Grippe" - noun, feminine: La grippe.
Grippe means flu. There's a line in that great movie (one of my favorites), "Guys and Dolls" where a "doll" is reading about health diagnoses and says "la grippe", meaning the flu. I never understood that line until I learned some French.
La Phrase: Cette panique de la grippe porscine sera une pagaïe.
Sentence: This panic about swine flu will be a mess.

49 comments:

Bud said...

good morning Bman !!!



ummmm.......where do you plan on using your new lingusitic skills ?? do the members of your country club......uhh.....gun club speak many languages


i doubt it.......them some good ole'boys

Bud said...

buy and hold ??


gimme a break Bman !! i thought after the ass-kicking you took last year you would stop promoting that crap.......you are up this year cuz you are trading.......beefer style

we have had the biggest 2 month rally in history.....of course buy and hold worked in this period



long term long only investing indeed

Bud said...

another great day for the forces of light.........what are all the doom and gloomers saying now???



depressflation..........pffffffffffffffffffft


PS........GS goin to 200 ????

Bunkerman said...

On my European vacations, etc. and just reading classic literature in the original language.

Plus friends & relatives.

Bud said...

welcome home mern .....i knew you'd be back........it's hard to kick the stock trading habit


but where are you ???......stop wasting your time........you know where to find the winners



L'AQUARIUMS DE REQUEINS EST EN FUE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bunkerman said...

I've tempered my buy and hold, yes. BUT my whole Obama Fund strategy was to hold for multi-month periods with just "some" trading.

Heck, I've held those postions for 2-4 months already. That's forever for you traders.

I'd be up a lot more if I hadn't been impetuous with my early Obama buys. That got an F.

I got better entries on the Fido positions.

Bunkerman said...

There is a Pole in my gun club, btw.

He appreciates the 2nd amendment.

Bunkerman said...

doomsters are on the rack getting a "treatment"

Odd I remember Molotova saying to sell JPM at 20.

Bud said...

oh my god A-fraud


he is even a bigger scumbag than i thought.....in fact......A-fraud may be the biggest scumbag in the history of scumbags


tipping pitches ???? what the F !!!!! how can any .....any.....any baseball fan cheer for this guy........well......i know a place where 50,000 douchebags will cheer at his next home run



now we know why A-fraud hits so many 3-run home runs in blowouts to give the yankees a 10-3 lead......cuz he gets the pitches.......in a tight ball game.......A-fraud can't buy an infield single



A-fraud is a liar......a juicer.....a phony.....a fraud.....what a f'ng scumbag to tip pitches off to the other team


wake up yankee douchebags

Bud said...

joba chamberlain .....YES 'player of the game' on tuesday againt the red sox


LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



red sox smacked him for 4 runs before he even got an out........he was the f'ng losing pitcher.......man these f'ng yankee douchebags

Bud said...

joba's mom a drug dealer


oh yeah......i'm sure joba is clean



LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bunkerman said...

well, my strategy was never buy and hold anyway; it's always been buy and re-allocate.

Krypto Fund was down, but outperformed Buy & hold by 10% last year. It's up YTD about 5%.

Buy and hold didn't kill me last year, I got hurt simply by being wrong on how bad is was at C and WB (and GE a bit).

I was right on JPM. Made money trading BAC.

Bud said...

holy smokes....shot an 83 on saturday


yes.....swing coaches don't matter.....shiny new irons don't matter......i am smoking the diablo driver.....225 down the middle......and my short game......thank you cleveland cg-12



feb2010.........will i be the one 'giving shots' ? i think so



'disguised as a pga pro'

Bunkerman said...

front nine, Bud ?

:))))

Bud said...

i don't understand Bman .........are you the president of the Buy and Hold Chmaber of Commerce ??? why are you defending it


your goal is to maximize profits in your accounts........and you did by trading..........is there some extra reward for buying and holding ?? no


you sound like a stubborn old fool defending a flawed strategy that has had a devastating impact on millions and millions of baby boomers



you sound like john bogle.......'can't time the markets'............what a f'ng piece of shit.....another lowlife dirtbag

Bunkerman said...

hey, what about the claw grip ?

Bud said...

nouriel roubini disagrees with you Bman............sees negative GDP rest of the year...........also next year


he gave a speech last nite............bloomberg mentioned it this am



PS.....nasem 'black swan' taleb also saying this ecession will turn into adepression

Bunkerman said...

Buy & re-allocate does work. My results prove it.

And one need not follow the market too closely.

Swensen yes, Bogle no.

Bunkerman said...

I'll stick with Battleship Ben.

Those guys are one hit / one season wonders.

Type a player the Yankees sign for $100 million, then cut the next year

mfl59 said...

"i am smoking the diablo driver.....225 down the middle."

son we wont be playing from the red tees....


good to have you back Bud....your Yankee rants still crack me up...

Spin-em said...

SMOKEDOUT!!!..LMAOOOOO ya want the job done right boyz?...who ya gunna call??? CALL SPIN-NNEEE.....

maverick said...

"i am smoking the diablo driver.....225 down the middle."

ease off a little and you will hit all those par 3s

Bud said...

Bman what is your take on rising oil ??


is that a good sign....or perhaps we will have to deal with inflation down the road

Bunkerman said...

hmm since 12/31/1999, Krypto Fund has outperformed S&P 500 total return (incl. dividends buy & hold) for 8 out of 9 years.

The off year was only off by -0.07%.

Annual compounded outperformance is a bit over 7%.

That was a tough period, too.

Not bad for "buy & reallocate"

Bunkerman said...

That's to 12/31/2008.

Bunkerman said...

rising oil is good, indicated world economic strength.

As long as beefers & pensions funds don't buy all the excess oil supply like they did last year, it should be OK.

OPEC can sell a good bit more now as they cut back.

Bunkerman said...

unemployment claims down again.

Maybe I'm right about recession being over.

mfl59 said...

I wonder if there was even a recession to begin with...

Bunkerman said...

haha, yes, it started in August/September 2008 thanks to the beefer raiders.

Bunkerman said...

I remember admitting that at the time.

Bunkerman said...

nice change-up, mfl, but ... base hit for Bman.

Frosty said...

"The atmosphere right now seems to be that the problems are addressed and we are on the road to recovery."...pig shark needs to start reading your blog bunky...old news indeed...thx jim

Bud said...

manny ramirez tested positive ???



LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



red sox nation is laughing

Spin-em said...

ohhhh its ok that hes on another team NOW...pffttttt what a 2 faced double standard cockblock swilling douchebag u are.....


ROFLMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bud said...

now we know why joe 'scumbag' torre wanted manny........he loves and stick needles in 'his guys'


joe torre............another yankee douchebag

Spin-em said...

NOW we know why BIG PUSSY sucks since Manny left ..Manny was shooting him in the azz on Yawkey Way......nonono..Red Sox are clean..I think sooo.....gimme a fn break

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bunkerman said...

btw, I am shopping for a new car for Mrs. B ... last time I bought a car (GOLD MIST), was a market top.

Just warning ...

;)

mern said...

come on, manny was just prescribed a medication he didnt know was banned. im sure the SOX and terry dont encourage that type of behavior.

i just got an email from dick morris telling me he just invented a new word called depressflation.

"the recession is over"

where? in the united states where another 500k lost their jobs last month?

just watched Religulous. WOW!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1470552690859108147

thats the first 30 minutes.

best quote senator mark pryor
"u dont need to pass an IQ test to get into the senate"

mern said...

BAC still has a bid? y?

Spin-em said...

doesnt even admit it.....LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO..

he is even a bigger scumbag than i thought.....in fact......Manny may be the biggest scumbag in the history of scumbags


....i know a place where 40,000 douchebags cheered at his next home run



now we know why Manny hits so many 3-run home runs



Manny is a liar......a juicer.....a phony.....Manny....what a f'ng scumbag so are the fans that thought he was clean..look in the mirror AZZHEAD!!!

ROFLMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Spin-em said...

PROLLY WASNT HIM..IT WAS HIS CUZZNTT MAAN

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Spin-em said...

L'AQUARIUMS DE SPINNY EST EN FUE !!!!!!!!!!!!! RIGHT BUUDDDDEEEE???

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Frosty said...

Bunky what the heck is going on...TLT in crash mode yet your TIP lays there like an aazzhead prom date....Mrs B a buyer?...she's the best.

Bunkerman said...

TIP can hold up even it TLT goes down due to future inflation expectatrions.

They are not that well-correlated.

Actaully, Krypto wants me to buy some TIP - was waiting.

Frosty said...

Bunky what level we looking at to put that skim to work...I know you suffer with buck fever...perhaps Mrs B could chime in.

Hey where did aazzhead go...jim must have dropped his load on him...I think so.

Bud said...

TIP ......put/call......channels ?? huh ??

why you makin this so complicated frosty ?? i don't know what any of that stuff even means

trading is pretty simple man.........we just buy the mo.......that's what we been doin.....but.....it didn't work for you


winners galore..........sharkinvesting.com totally nailed this move once we cleared 740.......oh i'm sure your stupid ops expo open interest spreadsheet had you fully long at 666



'helluva call bob'



pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

Bud said...

" i was long DNDN at 16 and sold at 22 "



oh wow.......you are such a great trader bob !!!!!!!



pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

Bud said...

still wanna be friends ??????

Spin-em said...

http://ourkitchensink.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/crying-baby-party-56800676.jpg

Feed me jim...feed me