Still Alive (But Just Barely)

Winter colds have laid the Unknown Family low. We seem to take shifts - Unknown Son and I are in charge of the 11:30 p.m. -2:00 a.m hacking and coughing shift, while Unknown Daughter and Mother handle the mornings. And Unknown Son stayed home from school today with a fever (gee, I wish I could).

I managed to make it through 3 hours of teaching CFA last night, but today should be tougher - I have my regular classes today in the morning (and then another round of CFA teaching tonight). I'll make it through, but it won't be pretty.

After that, I think I'll just pass out for about 12 hours.

Ninja Bunny

This reminds me of the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail.

HT: Mike Munger

I actually had some serious links to post, but I got the "Blue Screen of Death" and my computer crashed before I could post them. The computer's back up, but Blogger's "recover post" option didn't work. So like Seinfeld, this is all I got.

Fama and French Like You've Never Seen Them

The grad students at Dartmouth's Tuck Business School aren't just a bunch of grinds. They also regularly publish a pretty funny spoof "newsletter" calledThe Tuck Profit. In this piece, they "expose" Eugene Fama and Kenneth French:

"I hired Ken French in 1990 when he was a driving instructor in Winnetka. Chicago was pressuring me to partner with another researcher; I couldn't stand the idea so I hired a stooge. The man has never contributed a single idea to my research, and yet his name is constantly mentioned in the same breath as mine. On top of it all, the American Finance Association has nominated him as president-elect! That's a travesty and I won't have it."
- Eugene Fama

Read the whole thing here.

Washing Your Cat

This last summer the Unknown Wife and Unknown Kids adopted a stray cat. He's outside during the day and stays in the garage (at night) since I'm allergic.

I'm not a cat fan, and I'm not in favor of abusing them.

But this is funny - kind of like a washing machine for cats. My kids thought it was hilarious.

Friday Link Dump

No, I haven't died, gotten sick or fired - just temporarily dropped off the face of the earth due to my having bitten off far more than I can easily chew.

The first week of the semester brought with it a paper deadline, preparing for some topics in the CFA program I'm teaching for the first time, teaching the new modules in a city I had to Amtrack to (twice - I teach for two nights a week), and prepping for and teaching my regular class load.

It wouldn't have been so bad, but of course my computer chose this time to crash Sunday afternoon. Ah well, in any event I'm back, reasonably well rested, and done teaching for the week. And since I did my class prep correctly last semester, I don't have too much to do to get ready for next week. So the rest of today is for catching up on research. Here are some links to keep you busy while I torture some data. Some of it's a bit stale, but I haven't been blogging as much lately and stuff has accumulated in my bloglines account:

The New York Times has a good piece on different approaches to "“fundamental indexing."”

The folks at Red Herring examine whether PE and the tech industry (where long-term perspectives and high R&D expenses abound) are a good fit.

TheStreet.com highlights some mutual funds that invest solely in ETFs.

The Capital Spectator is discussingng the odds of a recession.

The Wall Street Journal reports on some cases (maybe a trend) where companies are trying to extract more of the LBO premiums from PE firms. And in a second piece, they discuss "empty voting" - voting with borrowed shares (Larry Ribstein has some very insightful comments here).

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture chimes in on The Infallibility of The Markets - as he says, they're not always completelyly right, but they are mostly right.

This week's Carnival of The Capitalists is up at David Maister's blog.

Geoff Considine writes at Seeking Alpha: Outperforming the S&P says nothing about efficient markets. All undergrads should read this - it says what we try to tell them that above benchmark returns could come from higher risk, so you have to correct for risk when measuring returns.

And now, for some non-business items:

Craig Newmark links to two pieces:"13 Things I Wished I Learned in College" and how to think like a genius.

According to CNN, caffeine makes you smarter. That's depressing - it means that without all the coffee I drink I'd be in even worse shape (HT: Mises Economics Blog)

And finally, the weird news of the day (compliments of Hedgefund Guy). This is information I probably didn't really need to know, but having read it, I'm stuck with (and now, so are you).

Enough bloggery - back to work.

The Beginning of The Semester - Murphy's Law Edition

I haven't posted much the last few days because of a combination of poor planning, deadlines, and an attack of Murphy's Law. I had a deadline of Monday to submit a paper to a conference (actually, the deadline was last Wednesday, but I know the association people, so I got an extension). In any event, here's what happened:

- The paper was on some aspects of seasoned equity offerings. My coauthor, a graduate student, did the analysis around the date of the actual issue. It should have been done around the date of the ANNOUNCEMENT of the issue. I figured this out on Wednesday, of course.

-So, I ended up redoing his analysis myself. Luckily, I've done a lot of SAS programming (SAS is a statistical software used by a lot of finance academics, among others), so I was able to redo 7 tables of analysis in 4 days.

-I also had to re-write the introduction and results, and conclusions. I should have made him do it, but there was no way he could have gotten it done by the deadline. This isn't bragging -- it's just that I've been doing this a lot longer than he has, I've got a lot of resources (programs to reuse, background in the literature, etc...)

-Classes started today. So, with the paper deadline looming, I figured I'd do my prep on Sunday after the paper was done.

- Of course, that when Murphy struck-- when I opened up my laptop Sunday afternoon (after church), the screen was so faint it was unreadable. Just Damn! I hooked the laptop up to an external monitor, spent about an hour in "Dell Hell" with their technical support folks, and figured out that it was the monitor, and not the processor or hard drive. So, I copied all my data and programs to my office desktop and worked off it.

- I finished the paper around 11:00 Sunday night, and finished my class prep at approximately 1:30 Monday morning (this was after staying at the office until 1:00 the previous night). Then I got up at 6 (thanks to the kids), and taught classes today.

Doing things last minute really makes things interesting. Not easy, but interesting. But everything got done - the paper and the class prep. And I didn't embarrass myself in class (luckily, both classes met before 12:00, so I finished before I ran out of gas).

I even got to have lunch with the Unknown Wife - she just started taking classes in a library science program with a goal of becoming a Media Specialist (what they call school librarians nowadays). Her class ran from 9-12, which is also when mine are done. So we did lunch, paid her tuition bill (the part that wasn't covered by my being a faculty member), bought her textbooks, and set her up on the WebCT system.

But now, it's time for sleep. Then I start all over tomorrow -- I get to finish my prep for the CFA class I teach tomorrow night. I would have done between Wednesday and Friday if the paper hadn't taken all my time, but as they say, "Stuff" happens.

The Divine Silliness of the Book of Mormon

"The Only True Church"

Hopefully you won't be able to tell if I am praising Mormonism or defaming it, speaking Good of Joseph Smith or speaking Evil of him. Hopefully you won't be able to tell if I am praising all religion or defaming all religion. Hopefully your mind will be blown beyond thought.

A few weeks ago some Mormon missionaries came to talk to me. Of course we talked about the Book of Mormon. I also spoke of the truth in all religions. So far we all agreed. Eventually they said that, despite truth in other religions, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Only True Church. This is when I shooed ‘em away.

The late Joseph Campbell pointed out the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City as a prime example of how the place of worship used to be the central and highest point in most any town or city in the world. But in modern times, he points out that the financial institution has become the center of devotion, dwarfing the temple. MK Gandhi observed that you see no greater reverence & devotion than on the faces of people in banks.

People like to joke about the Brigham Young statue turning his back to the LDS Temple, outstretching his hand to the Zions Bank building. Yes, it was Brigham Young who founded Zion’s First National Bank in 1873.

Somebody else (I forget who) pointed out that banks are looking more and more like churches and churches are looking more and more like banks

[Zion's Bank, left; Evangelical Mega-Church, right; Tokyo Buddhist Temple, below].

Joseph Smith's Question
In the early 1800s in New England, an adolescent name Joseph Smith questioned why there were so many religions, each calling itself The Only True Church. So he asked God for wisdom. Eventually he saw visions telling him none of these churches were right. Then came the Book of Mormon. It caused a big stir. Mormonism was born. Later Mormonism split into sects, each calling itself The Only True Church. The largest sect of Mormonism is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), the brand we get here in Utah. Now we have another Only True Church added to the pot, playing with more adolescent heads.

Organized religion is Ego. Collective Ego! Droves of Collective Egos the world over each call themselves The Only True Church. I grew up in a Collective Ego called Evangelical Christianity, again calling itself the Only True Church. The Only True Church I belonged to literally called the Mormon Church “the Synagogue of Satan.” The Only True Church hates the thousands of other Only True Churches.

People tell me that Buddhism is not bigoted like Christianity. It definitely has very little bigotry compared to Christianity. However, about 7 years ago I spent time in a Theravada Buddhist Monastery in northern Thailand. Here I heard a sermon by a prominent monk. He said the Way was taught by the Buddha and only the Buddha. This Way, he said, was passed down in direct lineage from the Buddha to monks like he himself. And only this Way could bring us salvation (Nirvana) and that all other religions missed the mark. I had flashbacks to being in a Christian church.

Then there is the ongoing war in Sri Lanka, where the right-wing Buddhist majority, with the wealth and political power, has been persecuting the Hindu minority for centuries.

And when I visited near Dharamsala, India and taught English to a Buddhist monk, he assured me that the Theravada Buddhist Way in Thailand, unlike Tibetan Buddhism, missed the mark. However, I did attend talks by the Dalai Lama near Dharamsala, in which he advised most us Westerners to stop grasping for truth in other religions, like Tibetan Buddhism, and find the truth in our own. This was the first religious leader I'd ever heard try to encourage folks to grow where they are planted.

Again, I spent time hanging out with Hari Krishna Devotees. Like the Mormons, they at first made themselves seem open-minded, saying that all religions teach truth. But their agenda eventually came out. They told me the Hari Krishna movement is the Only Pure Faith, that the Hindu scriptures, especially the Bhagavad Gita, are the only purely God-inspired scriptures. Prabhupad also says this in his comments in his translation of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Ego is a clever Snake, eh? Clever, but ridiculously not self-aware.

The Snake Called Ego

Ah, the Grand Practical Joke! Each Collective Ego, Each Religion, ironically states that Ego (Pride) is the source of all evil. “Ego comes before fall,” the Bible says. Each Organized Religion in the world indicts itself. Ego’s manifestation is materialism, greed, love of money, attachment to Credit and Debt – all called idolatry. Could it be more obvious?

The Snake chomps its own tail - perpetually!

An ancient, common myth you've probably heard in some form is that of a Serpent who guards a treasure, coiling around it. This Dragon himself cannot enjoy the treasure, and he won’t let anybody else near it. Then some Hero, like Siegfried, Saint George, Heracles, or Baal slays this Dragon and everyone rejoices. Jesus alludes to this idea, talking to the Religious leaders of his

own religion, the Scribes and Pharisees (whom he happens to call snakes):

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against people; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13)

Jesus said, "Woe to the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor lets the cattle eat." (Gospel of Thomas 102. Here Jesus quotes Aesop’s Fable of the dog in the manger).

And It Came To Pass

Anyway, back to Mormonism. I once had a Jack-Mormon boyfriend who told me a great secret: "Joseph Smith was a Trickster." This intrigued me.

Over the years I tried many times to read the Book of Mormon. But I couldn't help but see it as the silliest book I’d ever read. I couldn't get past the first few chapters. And I couldn't get past my view of the LDS Church as one big Financial Corporation posing as a religion. But I live amidst Mormon culture, and millions of devoted people feel deeply about the Book of Mormon. Just out of simple Golden-Rule respect, I must see through their eyes.

So just a year ago I picked up the Book of Mormon again. This time I resolved to take on the Zen mind, the mind of no judgement, the mind of the infant. Forget about everything I’d heard about the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith or the LDS Church! Read it with a soft heart, an open mind.

Lo & Behold, I heard the Eternal Laughter of the Universe burst forth!
The silliness of The Book of Mormon is its Divine Genius! The silliness is its Gargoyles, its Nagas, guarding the Temple, the Cherubim guarding the Tree of Life: only the ego-less mind can enter! The silliness is the Serpent coiled around the treasure, the blind Church of Greed sitting in the manger – you know, the one that calls itself The Only True Church!

A big point of ridicule of The Book of Mormon is that folks feel it is poorly written, in Old English, and it repeats whole tracts of scripture, usually word-for-word, from the King James Bible. It especially repeats the phrase “it came to pass” to the point of absurdity. “It came to pass” is the laughingstock of the Book of Mormon. It keeps respected scholars away.

Just a few weeks ago I found a new translation of the Book of Mormon into plain English, Modern Revelation, translated by Thomas Johnson, a non-Mormon pragmatist, actually published here in Moab. He simplified its verbose-ness and deleted “it came to pass”, condensing it to a very small book. Mormons don’t approve of it. Strange, but in my deepest core I agreed with them: I felt its strange mystery had been stripped away.

Then one day I got an epiphany:

“And it came to pass”

Could it be that “It came to pass” is the very theme, the Holy Mantra, of the Book of Mormon?

I followed my hunch. I picked up the Book of Mormon again, focusing on this most common phrase. By “chance” I stumbled upon the clue in 1 Nephi 20:3, which quotes Isaiah 48:3. After pages of “and it came to pass” ad-nauseam, why, all the sudden, would Nephi delete “and they came to pass” from Isaiah 48:3? Look:

I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. (Isaiah 48:3)

Behold, I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them. I did show them suddenly. (1 Nephi 20:3)

The mystery deepens. Every sub-book in the Book of Mormon is saturated with “it came to pass” – but then it is mysteriously absent in the last sub-book, Moroni! Not a single instance of “it came to pass” in Moroni! Why? The mysterious answer is there, if you look.

The words of Zen Poet Ryokan came to mind:

If there is beauty, there must be ugliness;
If there is right, there must be wrong.
Wisdom and arrogance are complementary,
And illusion and enlightenment cannot be separated.
This is an old truth, don’t think that it was discovered recently.
“I want this, I want that”
Is nothing but foolishness.
I’ll tell you a secret:
All things are impermanent!

Then, the words of Zen Master Eihei Dogen:

Lack of firm aspiration is caused by being unaware of impermanence. Ultimately speaking, we die moment by moment, not residing even a little while. (From Shoboghenzo Zuimonki)

“I die daily” (Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:31)

"If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Why does the universe exist?
It came

to pass.

Heaven and Earth shall pass away,

perpetually.

With our possessions, our possessiveness, we fool ourselves into thinking that it came to stay, that we came to stay. We trick ourselves into believing our petty edifice is the Only True Church Eternal -

but it came

to pass.

We came

to pass.

One is the way that leads to Possessions,

the other the Way that leads to Nirvana.

One is the way that leads to illusion of permanence

the other the Way that leads to Reality.

"There Are Only Two Churches"

Yes, young Joseph Smith’s questions: Why are there so many religions? Which religion is right? Here we have the clue:

“But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.” (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 26:31)

Only illusion perishes.

Only illusion comes to pass.

Yes, the Book of Mormon states what the Christ and the Buddha state:

“One way leads to wealth. The other way leads to Nirvana.” (Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada v. 75)

“No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:24)

Yes, we have the answer to Joseph Smith’s question about which is The Only True Church:

Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. (1 Nephi 14:10)

This is a direct reference to the Whore of Babylon in the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation in the Bible: the Whore who is the Religion of Commerce. The Book of Mormon states that the Whore Church is dominant, huge, & universal, not limited to any single culture or denomination. And we see that the One True Church is small, yet also universal, not limited to any single culture or denomination. If the Book of Mormon is true, the huge, wealthy, and powerful LDS institution simply cannot be the One True Church that it says it is!

If you look up the words whore and whoredoms throughout the book of Mormon, you see that whore always refers to greed mentality. Throughout the Bible, too, greed is spiritual adultery, called whoredom. Yes, Joseph Smith’s question is answered in the Book of Mormon. One is the Church of Greed and the other is the The One True Church. The church that loves to call itself the One True Church cannot be the One True Church:

For it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which are built up, and not unto the Lord, when the one shall say unto the other: Behold, I, I am the Lord’s; and the others shall say: I, I am the Lord’s; and thus shall every one say that hath built up churches, and not unto the Lord . . . . They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and they persecute the meek and the poor in heart, because in their pride they are puffed up. They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone stray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men. O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell! . . . . But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof. (2 Nephi 28:3-18)

This Whore Church is characterized by greed, by deleting the teachings of its own Jesus from its doctrines:

…the Gentiles do stumble exceedingly, because of the most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church, which is the mother of harlots…” (1Nephi 13:34)

Aren't the basic teachings of Jesus (summarized in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, 7) missing from "Christian" churches? Here's the challenge: ask yourself if you have ever witnessed any Evangelical leader or Mormon president or Apostle even go near Jesus' basic teachings with a ten-foot pole, much less actually follow them! Wouldn't hell freeze over before you ever saw Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham preach the basic teachings of Jesus? The Bible itself calls the baskic teachings of Jesus the Gospel, and these imposters claim to be ministers of the Gospel.

Anywone who dares follow the teachings of Jesus cannot help but see that they are the teachings of the Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Muhammad. The Quran itself states that if Christians and Jews simply followed their own religion, they would also be following Islam. Islam means "Surrender" (Quran 5:69).

Notice how those who harp the loudest that Jesus is the only way don't even begin to follow his teachings. Blind eyes cannot see that the One Way is Omnipresent, Universal.

You Can't Get Around It:

The Book of Mormon and the Bible Are Incompatible With Capitalism

Because the LDS Church is The Bastion of Capitalism, it blew me away when I read passages like this:

And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift . . . . There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God. . . . And now I, Mormon, would that ye should know that the people had multiplied, insomuch that they were spread upon all the face of the land, and that they had become exceedingly rich, because of their prosperity in Christ. And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world. And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them. And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ. And it came to pass that when two hundred and ten years had passed away there were many churches in the land; yea, there were many churches which professed to know the Christ, and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel… (4 Nephi 1:3-27)

The above passage is a direct reference to these two verses in the New Testament, ingeniously showing them as One Single Concept:

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. (Acts 4:32)

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)

Yes, Nephi speaks the Profound Message: there can be no unity, no one-ness, with possession. With possessiveness comes duality and divisions, the separation of male and female, the birth of “isms” and “ites”.

But it came to pass in the twenty and ninth year there began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions; For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers. And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. Some were lifted up in pride, and others were exceedingly humble; some did return railing for railing, while others would receive railing and persecution and all manner of afflictions, and would not turn and revile again, but were humble and penitent before God. And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, insomuch that the church began to be broken up; yea, insomuch that in the thirtieth year the church was broken up (3 Nephi 6:10-14)

Notice how eerily similar the the above words are to the words of the Lakota Sage Lame Deer:

“Before our white brothers came to civilise us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilised to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilised society." (Lame Deer, from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)

A Religion's Very Own Scriptures Are Its Worse Indictment Against Itself

For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world? Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads? (Mormon 8:37-40)

The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, like the Quran, promises that wealth and blessings come to the spiritual seeker. Seek first the Buddha Way, Zen Master Dogen says, and all that you need comes to you. Seek first the Kingdom of God, Jesus says, and all you need shall be added to you. "Yippee" say the John Osteens, Gordon B. Hinkleys, Pat Robertsons, Jerry Falwells, and George Bushes as they build their own coffins. Religion, which denounces greed, is twisted to justify greed.

Only when we possess nothing are we rich, their own sages teach. Only the non-possessive can enjoy things. Only those who let go can know love.

A bizarre mystery of the Book of Mormon is that it contains a perfect prophetic description of the LDS church in the first three chapters of Jacob, as well as the 6th chapter of Helaman. Again, it speaks of the church blessed with wealth, leading to its own corruption. They even begin practicing polygamy, which the Book of Mormon strongly denounces. In Helaman 6, and throughout the Book of Mormon, it speaks of the wealthy, corrupt church practicing secret society stuff. No other church in the world fits this description so precisely as the LDS church itself. The strange mystery is that all these practices began in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, promoted by Joseph Smith himself! It’s as if the Spirit of both Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot both are rolled into one, battling each other in the enigmatic person of Joseph Smith, the Trickster, the Stealer of Fire. There's another enigmatic clue in the Book of Mormon. The word “Smith” is found once in the Book of Mormon:

3 Ne. 22: 16 “Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.” (quoting Isaiah 54:16)

In the prologue of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith states in his testimony:

…that my name should be had for good and evil among nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

Simple observation shows that it is the Organized Religion (whether called Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Mormon, Evangelical, Muslim, whatever) that promotes greed, war, hypocrisy, genocide, bigotry, environmental destruction, extortion, nationalism.

Yes, there are only two religions in the world: One is the Church of Reality, the other the Church of Illusion, servant of Mammon. The Church of Illusion is so good at illusion it can disguise itself as thousands of religions, each calling itself The Only True Church. Each seems in conflict with the next; but don't be fooled - they all work together pefectly as one single destroying machine.

Spiders on LSD

You've probably seen photos of webs made by spiders on caffeine, LSD, or cocaine.

Here's a pretty funny YouTube video on the topic (note: may not be work safe)

Back Home and In the Office

We made it back from Philly, and Unknown Son is still in remission (yeah!). So that's a huge load off our minds. It's been almost two years since he was "clean", but the quarterly checkups continue, and can still make us a bit nervous.

In any event, it's back in the office to finish up a few things before classes start on Monday. In the meanwhile, here are a few links for your reading pleasure:

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture notes that total margin debt on Wall Street is up 22% since 2005. And he has a chart here.

Professor Andrew Gelman blogs at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. He's got a book out titled Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models, and it looks promising. The guy knows his stuff.

Lew Sichelman at Marketwatch.com has a good piece on mortgage scams.

Cynthia Koons had a good piece on the market for junk bonds in last Friday's Wall Street Journal. She reports on how lower rates and other features have made LBO companies prefer bank debt over junk bonds as the financing vehicle of choice.

And last but nit least, Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has posted the latest installment of his Yak Shaving Razor series.

Enough blogging - I have syllabi to write and research to finish.

On The Road Again (part 2)

We made it to Philadelphia without incident, but unfortunately the Ronald McDonald House was full. So, we had to stay down the street (we still got a reduced rate - just not as cheap as we would have had at the RMH).

After we checked in to the hotel, we went to the RMH so the kids could unwind for a bit. Then tomorrow, we get his injection. Since I'm working feverishly on a paper to present at the FMA (our national conference), I'll probably camp out for the rest of the day at the UPENN library so I can have access to journals I might need. It's sad - no matter how much time I have, it always seems to come down to the last minute for conference papers. The good news is that we have some nice results, and with luck my Ph.D. student coauthor will have his first "good" conference presentation to put on his vita.

In the meanwhile, here are a few links to keep you busy:

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Endless Gibberish. I'm pressed for time, so no pick of the week this time.

Mark Hurlburt notes that the January Effect is now 22-2 over the last 24 years.

Irwin Kellner of MarketWatch asks whether the inverted yield curve is bad news of good.

Finally, they had ice in Portland and Seattle. Click here to watch what happens when you mix ice with drivers who aren't used to driving in winter conditions. But don't if you're an insurance agent like my brother - it's too painful.

Enough blogging. Time to put the kids to bed.

On The Road Again

As I've mentioned a couple of times before, Unknown Son was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma (a relatively rare form of childhood cancer) on his 4th birthday.

He went into remission in late 2005, but we still go to see his oncologist every 3 months for a checkup (this stuff is known to recur). So, we drive the clan to Philadelphia tomorrow and stay at the Philadephia Ronald McDonald House for a couple of days while we have tests done at Children's of Philadelphia.

There's wireless at the RMH, but I'm also trying to finish up a paper to submit to the Financial Management Association annual conference (the national meeting for pointy-headed academic nerds like me). Of course, the deadline's Wednesday midnight.

This is all to say, blogging will probably be light for the next couple of days.

I Have a Dream

Since It's Martin Luther King Day, here's a video of MLK's famous "I Have a Dream" speach.

It's 17 minutes long, but worth every minute.

Salaries For Finance and Business School Faculty

People often wonder what salaries are for Business School faculty. In fact, Google searches on faculty salaries are a common way people stumble across this blog. So, here's a brief rundown on what the current state of affairs is for finance professors. I don't have nearly as much info on other business school disciplines, but I'll link to a study at the bottom of this post with more info for those who are interested.

The good news for those considering a career as a finance professor is that you'll make more than almost any other academic discipline (nowhere near what someone on Wall Street makes, but still not bad). Every year the AACSB (the b-school accrediting organization) does a survey of business school salaries. In the most recent survey (for academic year 2005-2006), the average salaries by rank were as follows:

Assistant professor - $109,000 ($111,000 for "new hires")
Associate professor - $107,000 ($126,000 for "new hires")
Full professor - $134,000 ($142,000 for "new hires")
New Ph.D. - $113,000

If you're not an academic, a little explanation is probably in order. First, it's important to understand that once a person is hired, they typically don't experience much in the way of raises (usually a couple percent a year at most) if they stay at their current university. This is because universities realize that once tenured, most faculty won't leave (and take another, likely untenured position) for a few thousand dollars more. So, salaries for faculty hired years ago often lag significantly behind those of new hires. In fact, it's not uncommon for new assistant professors to be hired at salaries that are higher higher than those of existing associate or full professors (this is known as "salary inversion").

Also, in what seems paradoxical, new Ph.D. candidates often have better job prospects than those have been out a few years. This is because they have what's commonly referred to as "option value." Research schools (that generally pay higher salaries than teaching-oriented schools) want candidates that will publish in high-quality journals. A new graduate (particularly from a top school) is probably more likely to publish in top journal than is another candidate who's been out for a few years and has already published a few times in lower-tier journals. The reasoning is that the "seasoned" candidate has revealed his type - his publishing in lower-tier journals signals that the'll likely be a consistent publisher, but not at the journals that the better schools want. As an example, for the 2005-2006 year, while new assistant professors averages $111,000 in salary, new Ph.D.s averaged about $2,000 more. If you asume that new Ph.D.s make up half of the new hires, this implies that non-new Ph.D. hires actually averaged about $109,000 (about $4,000 less than new Ph.D.s).

Because of salary stagnation, the only way a finance prof can keep his salary marked to market is to move schools occasionally. Even if a prof decides not to move, having an offer in hand from another school is often a good way to get a counter-offer from their existing dean. In fact, this has happened to several of my friends in the last few years.

Finally, and this is extremely important, there's a LOT of variation across schools, and average salaries can be misleading. Salaries differ significantly between "teaching" and "research" schools. From conversations I've had recently, a "research" school in the upper tier (not the very top of the heap like Harvard or MIT, but still in the top rank) will likely pay $150k-$160k this year for new faculty. In contrast, lower tier research oriented schools will probably pay more in the $125k-$135k range, while teaching oriented schools will pay nearer to the $90K-$105k range.

There are also differences in "summer support" between teaching and research schools. The salaries I've quoted are "nine-month" salaries (although most faculty elect to have their nine-month salaries spread out over 12 months). Research schools typically pay faculty an additional stipend for the first few years (called "summer support") so that they can take the summer months to concentrate on research. This summer stipend is usually in the range of 1/9 to 2/9 of their nine-month salary. In contrast, teaching schools often pay little or no summer research support.

The numbers I've given are for finance faculty. Typically, accounting professors make similar salaries (in fact, this year they might even be a couple thousand above those for finance profs), while management and marketing professors often make 10-20% less.

Once tenured, many faculty do outside consulting (either for companies or as expert witnesses), which can also be pretty lucrative. ut that's a story for another day.

For a little more info on b-school faculties, here's the promised link to the 2005-2006 AACSB salary survey.

Finally, in case you're interested, I've written a series of posts about the field of academic finance:

What's Involved In Getting A Ph.D. In Finance?

What Does A Finance Professor Do All Day? - Part 1 (Teaching)

What Does A Finance Professor Do All Day? - Part 2 (Research)

Classic Bugs Bunny - Kill The Wabbit

A friend of mine just reminded me of how the guys in my dorm would all watch Bugs Bunny on Saturday Mornings. You haven't lived until you've heard a dozen guys singing "Kill The Wabbit."

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, here's the original Bugs Bunny Wagnerian Opera Spoof.

Yeah, yeah, I know - stop wasting time and get back to work on that paper.

If You Knew How To Beat The Market, Would You Tell Anyone?

I'm always amused by financial seminars that offer to tell you (for a fee) how to beat the market with no risk.

The question to ask anyone who tells you they can do this is "If you really knew know how to do this, why would you sell the information?" Why not just use it yourself? After all if it's so profitable, just pay employees to do it for you.

There's a direct parallel in financial economics research. Let's assume that you discover a market anomaly that provides abnormal risk adjusted profits (like, "markets are slow to adjust to positive earnings surprises", or "small firms have abnormally high risk adjusted returns in January").

If you found this, why would you publish it? If you didn't, you could trade on it and make a lot of money. On the other hand, if you publish it, others will start trading on it and the abnormal profits will disappear.

Colby Wright (a Ph.D. student at Florida State) examined this question as part of his dissertation. Here's the abstract of his paper "So You Discovered An Anomaly... Gonna Publish it?":

If publishing an anomaly leads to the dissipation of its profitability, a notion that has mounting empirical support, then publishing a highly profitable market anomaly seems to be irrational behavior. This paper explores the issue by developing and empirically testing a theory that argues that publishing a market anomaly may, in fact, be rational behavior. The theory predicts that researchers with few (many) publications and lesser (stronger) reputations have the highest (lowest) incentive to publish market anomalies. Employing probit models, simple OLS regressions, and principal component analysis, I show that (a) market anomalies are more likely to be published by researchers with fewer previous publications and who have been in the field for a shorter period of time and (b) the profitability of published market anomalies is inversely related to the common factor spanning the number of publications the author has and the number of years that have elapsed since the professor earned his Ph.D. The empirical results suggest that the probability of publishing an anomaly and the profitability of anomalies that are published are inversely related to the reputation of the authors. These results corroborate the theory that publishing an anomaly is rational behavior for an author trying to establish his or her reputation.

A link to the piece is available on SSRN here.

This basically means that a newer untenured faculty will more likely publish the anomaly because

1. It builds his reputational capital, thus making it more likely that he'll be able to "trade up" to a better school/higher salary/lower teaching load, more research support, etc...
   
2. It increases his chances of getting tenure
3. He really doesn't have the capital to take advantage of the anomaly anyway.
   

On the other hand, a tenured senior professor at a top school is more likely to keep his mouth shut and trade on the information.

This also implies that the stuff that tenured senior faculty publish is less likely to be really, really useful in generating abnormal profits.

HT: Hedgefundguy at The Alpha and Omega

Update: Barry Ritholtz makes a good point that I hadn't considered in the comments:

...some identified anomalies work better as marketing for products than they do as true trading insight. Consider a well tested investing advantage that provides an annualized 50 or even 150 basis point advantage versus the S&P500 over 10 years. What do you do with that? They may outperform, but any advantage to the discoverer is contingent on attracting significant assets. So you write a book ("Dogs of the Dow"), sell a newsletter (StockTrader's Almanac "Sell in May"). Maybe you can even create a mutual fund firm (Wisdom Tree) for it.

Friday and Home With A Sick Kid

Today started off well - I got up early, swam at the YMCA, and had a good breakfast. The kids got on the school bus, Unknown Wife went to the mall with her sister to do some retail therapy (be afraid -- be very afraid). So I had high hopes of having a very productive day.

Then on the way into my office I got a call from school that Unknown Son was running a fever. And Unknown Wife is now 80 miles away spending money. So, it looks like work from home day.

I'll put up some linkes later. In the meantime, vegreville just pointed me to the 8 types of creative critics.


As he says, they have a lot in common with referees at journals.

Hallelu-Jah

My big report for the day: I just scratched an itchy on my cheek.

Does a hand require anything in return from the cheek for scratching an itchy on the cheek? Doesn’t the hand love the cheek as its own self? For in loving the cheek the hand loves the whole Body, and in loving the whole Body the hand loves itself. There can be no other kind of love.

The whole body gives its attention to the tiniest of pinpricks. Leave the 99 to tend to the 1.

Blind humanity, why can’t you see that the Whole Universe is One Body? Blind humanity, how can you be so stingy, so un-sharing, so un-grateful? Blind humanity, why are we hurting our selves, our self, our Universe?

It all boils down to just this:

Hallelu-Jah.

All-Credit-To-Jah.
All Credit to the Whole.

Giving all Credit to Jah means giving all Debt to Jah.

Every particle in the universe sings Hallelu-Jah, All-Credit-To-Jah, as says the 148th Psalm of the Tanach.

[Added Jan 27, 2007: "Do you not see that Allah is He Whom do glorify all those who are in the heavens and the earth, and the (very) birds with expanded wings? He knows the prayer of each one and its glorification, and Allah is Cognizant of what they do.[24.42] And Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and to Allah is the eventual coming" (Quran 24.41-42).

It is only the stingy, only the possessive, only we humans, who do not know the Universal Hallelu-Jah, who cannot harmonize with the rest of creation! It is only we who take Credit for ourselves, only we who are lost in Debt, possessing and possessed by nothing but our own minds. It is only we who do not know Gratitude, Grace, Gratis, Charisma, the Universal Hallelu-Jah!

Trickster Steals Fire

Myths all over the world tell the one mysterious story of what separates us from the balance of nature. Some Trickster, some Fire Seraph, steals Fire from heaven {Navajo Coyote, above left; Norse Loki, above right; Greek Promethius, below left; Hebrew Seraph (Fire Serpent), below right}. Humans have taken possession of Fire - control of Energy, control of Cause-&-Effect. Thus we are proud, we are ego. Fire, Sword, & Conflict have been caste upon our world. Yes, somebody has presented us with the Fruit of the Consciousness of Credit-&-Debt. Don't distress, it's part of the "plan". But “Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay,” says the Whole.
Ah, Greek myth: Promethius, whose name means Fore-thought, steals Fire from heaven. And Promethius comes with his twin brother, Epimethius, whose name means After-thought. Fore-thought and After-thought, Consciousness of Credit & Debt, can never dwell in the Present, in Reality, in the Whole. Our word “promise” (“prometer” in Spanish) comes from the same root. We are bound by promises, vows, debt, meaning we have rendered ourselves unable to Rest in the Eternal Present, unable to enter the Sabbath, the Center of the Menorah from which all time branches.

Renounce all Credit for yourself, say the Upanishads, says the Tao Te Ching, says the Bible, says the Quran, says the Dhammapada. Thus let the Present dissolve all Debt.

Hallelu-Jah is the entire Gospel, spoken by every particle of the Universe, every part of the Whole. Everything lives, everything sings, Hallelu-Jah, All-Credit-To-The-Whole. Hallelu-Jah is the return of Fire, the return of Payback, the return of Vengeance, back to Heaven, casting our crowns back to the Throne of the Whole, the Real, the Royal. All opposites of Credit and Debt, Reward and Punishment, like the arms of the Cross, dissolve as One at the Center of the Cross. Every particle bows to the Whole, and we must bow, too, whether voluntarily (gratis) or involuntarily (possession).

Humans, why can’t you sing in the Infinite Choir along with every other particle in the Universe, “To the Whole belongs all glory, all honor, all power, all strength.” To the Whole belongs all credit, and if all credit then all debt. The Whole is infinitely Merciful, the Quran says, Nature says. Mercy means unmerited favor, free gift. Tell me what particle can exist without mercy? What particle in the Universe is not a Gift? When you find it, render it to Caesar. Render illusion to illusion.

Change, for the Reality of Heaven is at hand.

Change, for the Reality of Heaven is within you.

Thursday Link Dump

It's a good start to the year - I submitted a paper to a journal today. It's been sitting on my desk for too long, but it's done, done, done (at least until it comes back). So now it's on to other things - like getting a paper ready to submit to the Financial Management Association (FMA) conference. This year it's in Orlando, so I definitely want to go.

So while I rewrite my coauthor's first draft, here are some links to keep you busy:

The New York Times highlights some rising stars in the field of economics. There are a few that actually do finance.

The next time you want to speak directly to a human being rather than go through the automated phone system, check out this list at gethuman.com

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has the latest installment of his Yak Shaving Razor series.

Richard Shaw at SeekingAlpha.com has a nice chart of the spread between long-term Treasury Bond rates and Treasury Bill rates over the last 80 years.

Finally, the Wall Street Journal discusses how securities firms and making money hand and fist out of sweeps accounts.

Enough bloggery - back to work.

A Great Teaching Technique

Here's something I might try this semester:

One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar.

I guess that statement requires a bit of explanation.

The topic of Corporate Finance/Capital Markets is, even within the world of the Dismal Science, a exceptionally dry and boring subject matter, encumbered by complex mathematic models and economic theory.

What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

"Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures ... one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day."

And thus began our ten-week course.

Read the whole thing here.

HT: Newmark's Door

Alpha Males

Chris Muir gets it.

Tuesday Link Dump

Here are a handful of links for your reading pleasure:

There were two pieces of interest in the New York Times: The first describes how the more attractive compensation arrangements offered by Private Equity firms is allowing them to attract very good CEO-level candidates, and the second highlights the growing prominence of activist investors.

Here's another neat use of prediction markets -- Intrade (the non-sports betting spinoff of TradeSports) now has a recession contract. It pays off if there's a U.S. recession in 2007, and is currently predicting a 30-35% probability of it happening.

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is up at the Peersight blog. My pick of the week:Investing While Incompetent - And Blissfully Unaware

Finally, Steven Levitt (and others) explore what factors predict Ph.D. completion and long-term success in the field of economics.

I'd post more, but I'm trying to get stuff done before the semester starts.

Money "or" Barter?

Moneyless Gillian, My New Friend, My Ancient Friend

Yesterday, at this house-sit, I got a wonderful phone call from Mexico. It was from Gillian, a Canadian woman who gave up all her money and possessions last Ocotober, except (I think) her clothes, toothbrush, and writing tools! My friends Denise, Satya, and Helen met her in Portland, and Denise had contacted me and told me about her. Since then Gillian and I both have been thinking about each other, wanting to meet. Gillian and I started talking about the logistics of living moneyless, and the debate over technology, etc. Then Gillian said her path boils down to just this: Love and Truth. This is what drives her. It needn't be made any more complicated. And we talked about our model, Peace Pilgrim.

Money, Barter, Technology, and their fulfillment: Love

A good friend of mine just emailed and brought up the idea of barter, as opposed to money. Here's basically what I wrote back to her:

I think I should probably say trade rather than money, because it's all the same thing. A coat traded for a sandwich is money - just a bulkier and less efficient way of doing it. In this way "money" is better than "barter." A coat traded for a sandwich comes from the same mentality as a bill traded for a sandwich.

You no longer see the coat as a coat, as reality, but you see the coat as an invented value.

This is why I call it consciousness of credit and debt, because it includes "both" money and barter (which aren't really 2 different things).

If humans are trusting creatures, then humans just give without expecting anything in return and take gifts without guilt, as all the religions prescribe. ("Freely you have given, so freely receive", Jesus says to his disciples as he sends them out into the unknown without money: Matthew 10:8). Work with no expectation of reward, the Bhagavad Gita and Tao Te Ching state over and over.

If we give when we see a need (not out of a sense of owing, or obligation) and take freely when we need, not out of a sense of greed or fear, then everyone gets what they need when they need it, and there is no imbalance, no hoarding. Our system would then be balanced as nature's system is balanced, because no non-domesticated creature consciously trades. Am I idealizing or fantasizing, or am I simply stating simple observation of nature and civilization?
Trust gives birth to trust, so we must start by trusting the untrustworthy, and go through a period of getting screwed. That's the cross. I am simply re-stating what all of the religions say: random (not organized, not pre-arranged) generosity, random giving to present needs, must begin now, where we are at.

We cannot pull down or change any system, and we must not start a new system or religion or whatever "non-profit". Just simple human compassion (love, gift) can happen anywhere, anytime, infecting the world so much so that the organized commercial and "non-profit" systems can become obsolete on their own. Love cannot be traded. Love can only be freely given and freely received, else it is not love. ALL things must be done in love.

Nothing is evil in itself. Not computers, not cars, not highways, not stores. It is the heart that runs these things that is untrusting, paranoid, greedy. When computers, cars, highways and stores are freely given and freely received, released from conscious trade, I guarantee that they will enter the world of balance. This computer and the house I am using right now are not owned at this moment, but freely shared. They are released from money. To the pure, all things are pure. What was once a product of money (illusion) has become the product of love (reality). Money is a symbol of past and future, but not the present. Money, which is a belief, not a substance, does not and cannot exist in the Present. The Present is the Only Reality. Calling money either good or evil gives it control over us - gives it the illusion of substance. If we trust or fear illusion, then we ourselves are illusion.

Sad News For Poor Grad Students The World Over

Momofuku Ando (the inventor of Ramen noodles) died yesterday of a heart attack.

TGIF Link Dump

It's the between-semester break, so Friday isn't such a big deal (unlike when I'm teaching). However, it does signal the end of the school week. So tomorrow is family day.

Lately I've been going to the YMCA to swim and bike before breakfast (it's either that or look for a sponsor to pay for advertising space on my increasingly oversized backside). We have a family membership (it's only $16 more a month than an individual membership) and it's a mere two miles from the Unknown House. So tomorrow, we'll take Unknown Son and Unknown Daughter to go swimming at family swim time.

But before I get back to work, here are some links to keep y'all busy:

MarketWatch.com has some good tips to help you avoid mortgage fraud.

Craig Newmark links to a site that gives Meanings and Origins of Phrases, Sayings and Idioms. Since I'm a self-confessed "word nerd" and fan of slang, I wasted about a half hour on it today already.

As usual, there are a number of good stories in the Wall Street Journal. In the first (from a couple of days back) we find that The SEC is trying to show that the benefits of their proposed rule requiring 75% independence for the directors of a mutual exceeds its costs. They can't seem to, and they're arguing that it's a limitation of the methodology. Here's a thought - maybe it's because the benefits don't exceed the costs (nope, nah, can't be).

In another WSJ story, Serena Ng reports how there are more and more companies issuing "junk" rated bonds. She argues that it's because of both the increases in LBOs and increases in investors' (like hedge funds) appetites for high-yield debt.

In the third and final WSJ piece, Shefali Anand is examining whether the increasingly large role played by hedge funds is causing distortions in the market for small-cap stocks.

Enough bloggery - back to work.

Thursday Link Dump

Lots to do today, so without further ado, here are today's links:

Marketwatch interviews money manager Ted Aronson about his personal portfolio. He's got an expanded version of the "three fund portfolio" I've mentioned earlier, but it's still all index funds.

Value Blog Review lists some useful blogs for new investors and/or traders.

Michael Covel (Author of Trend Following) has a link to a free PDF of Jesse Livermore's bio Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. It's a great (albeit long) read.

Joe Carter (at Evangelical Outpost) has posted the latest edition of his Yak Saving Razor series of helpful hints and, software, and tools.

Richard Shaw provides some statistics on correlations between asset classes, sectors, and country indexes. Some of the graphs he shhows will make it to next semester's investments class.

Enjoy.

Wednesday Link Dump - The Wall Street Journal Edition

One of the things I like about the winter semester break is that I have a little more time to keep up on what's happening in the "outside" world.

I'm still trying to get used to the smaller size of the Wall Street Journal, but at least the quality of the stories in it haven't changed. In fact, since I've got a little more time to read it, I've found a lot more good stories in the last few days than usual. So, just call this the "Wall Street Journal" edition of the Link Dump. Note: you need a subscription to read these online, but if you don't have one, you can still buy the paper:

First off, there were a number of good articles on the Private Equity world. In today's paper, the article Inside the minds of Kravis & Roberts is worth reading if for no other reason than because Kravis and Roberts were two of the three principals of KKR, which started the whole PE thing off, and still has the record for the largest PE deal ever.

A related piece (Caveat Investor: IPOs Of Hedge, Equity Funds) discusses how PE & hedge funds firms are starting to issue stock to gain access to "permanent capital".

Finally, in the third piece (from yesterday's Journal), Conglomerate Comparisons compares and contrasts today's PE firms to the conglomerates of the 1960's (like ITT)

A New Way To Rate Stock Tips reports on the increasing popularity of web sites that let investors share ideas online. The latest twist is that some of these sites rate the quality of participants contributions.

In yesterday's Journal, the article titled Investors Riding the Cash Rapids talks about some of the effects that increases in global liquidity is having on stock and bond markets.

And finally, Jonathan Clemens (in his Getting Started column) peels back the curtain on the tricks advisors (both the legitimate and shady) use to get you to sign on the dotted line in Don't Get Hit by the Pitch: How Advisers Manipulate You. A few years back, I read a great book titled The Big Con: The Story of The Confidence Man. It was written by a professor of linguistics that got inside the world of con men in the 1920's and 30's, and it does a fantastic job of detailing the strategies con men use. The same tricks are used today, just with different products and with different delivery methods, like the Internet. So buy it and read it - it's worth the price.

That's enough for now - time to do some research.