Spy Lens for SLR Digital Cameras

Hat tip to Will Femia at Clicked for finding this handy little add-on.

While Will is bothered by this lens on a "sportsman level"-but not a moral or sneakiness level. He says, "[T]he challenge of street photography is part of the art." I am not bothered on any level. Having been thwarted taking street photos more times than I care to remember, while living in China, this lens evens the field. And if it works as advertised, it would remove the frustration which comes with being thwarted, at least for me.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Bartering: The New 'In' Thing?

With times getting tough around the good old US of A, one solution making the rounds is bartering. It has been around since before money. In fact, before currencies "bartering was the most accepted form of commerce." Most bartering today seems to be between companies or small business owners looking to save dinero or move old product on down the road. NOTE: Had trouble embedding the video so linked to it instead.

Tradefirst.com operates in Ohio, Florida, and Michigan, while imsbarter.com seems to be open to most anyone-businesswise and operates everywhere.

I can see bartering extending to personal use in the near future. If the economic difficulties are prolonged, bartering could help alleviate hardship for some people. I could see families using bartering to exchange baby sitting duties, or haircuts. Perhaps some people will exchange lawn work or minor repair jobs for groceries, or rent.

The only draw back? If you guessed IRS paper work you are either a MENSA genius or a cynical bastard. Of course the IRS is the biggest pimp in the game, so they always gotta get theirs, any time you're trying to get yours.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Part II of Winning against Wall Street's New Weapons of Mass Manipulation

'Lazy' portfolios beat benchmarks again; here are top performers - MarketWatch

In the first part I talked about the term Behavioral Economics and how Wall Street is using math formulas to take advantage of investor irrationality.

In the second part I once again link to Paul Farrell-click above link-who writes on financial matters at MarketWatch.com Farrell in this article says the way to beat Wall Street rigging the game is to set up "Lazy Portfolios."

Farrell says Lazy Portfolios or "lazy investing is nothing more than the good old "Modern Portfolio Theory" put into action." He suggests investing in 3 to 11 no-load(that means no sales fee in English) index funds, either mutual funds or ETFs. Since Wall Street can't make enough money off of fees from these type of funds it doesn't push this "Nobel Prize-winning strategy" on to investors.

However, Farrell is tracking a few of these lazy portfolios. And they seem to be delivering excellent returns.

There is the Aronson Lazy fund, set up by Ted Aronson fo AJO Partners-they manage about $28 billion-according to Farrel. And his 5-year annualized return of %13.30 is pretty amazing.

Farrell also points to the portfolio set up by Dr. William Bernstein, who has written two books on investing, "Intelligent Asset Allocator" and "The Four Pillars of Investing."

And then notes the portfolio run by Bill Schultheis, who wrote the book "The Coffeehouse Investor."

I am not sure which one is the better portfolio, you should check with your financial adviser. I like these because they run automatically once they are set up, have decent returns, and don't cost alot in terms of sales fees, set up fees, and any other fee Wall Street and its brokers can dream up. Though, I am sure they are dreaming up ways around this. Get educated or get an honest broker.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Winning against Wall Street's New Weapon Part I

Wall Street unleashes its 'weapons of mass manipulation' on you - Market Watch
If anyone wants to handle their own investing, I suggest they learn the term BEHAVIORAL FINANCE. It is also known as behavioral econ, or quant trading, or neuro investing. It has been around awhile but as Paul Farrell points out in the article linked to above, there is a new component to the the study of investor behavioral. A component which focuses on the "irrationality" behind investor buying, holding and selling.

The science of this studying has been "dominated by psychologists studying irrational human behavior.' However, Farrell says the field is now becoming dominated by mathematicians, chiefly, "University of Chicago finance professor Richard Thaler."

In his article Farrell explains that "unlike psychologists Thaler and the quant mathematicians are not interested in WHY investors are irrational." Instead they assume ". . . . financial markets and investors are irrational and always will be" [Emphasis mine].

According to Farrell the quants-as he refers to them-want to take advantage of investors' irrationality as the market goes through its up and down cycle, through use of "sophisticated quant math programs." Only investment banks, institutional investors and wealthy individuals with the resources can afford to implement these "quant programs." And so most of us smaller investors are once again left out in the investment hinterlands.

Part II looks at "Lazy Portfolios" which are Farrell's solution to the game being rigged

Powered by ScribeFire.

Get to Know Oodle

In a June 3rd article on slate.com Chadwick Matlin claims Oodle and its platform together with Wal-Mart may save local newspapers and take on the juggernaut that is Craigslist.

Wal-Mart Classifieds opened last month. Matlin contends that this set-up will open up the playing field when it comes to classifieds. Right now Craigslist is a closed system, "you need to go through its site and manually input your wares for sale. You can't graft your own database into the Craigslist architecture."

However with Oodle, Matlin writes one can see any listing on the Oodle network. "[A]ccording to the CEO [Oodle] partners with 80,000 different sites." So anything posted at the Wal-Mart site is visible on any of the other sites and vis-versa. That my friends is A LOT of shopping.

It will be interesting to see how craigslist responds to this development.