The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
– John Maynard Keynes

Here’s the deal, 10% off for Mother’s Day:

Enjoy

(there’s a bunch of useful links to products and places I use anyway on the Help Me Help You page)

A typical home sale incurs agency fees of 6-7%, with half going to the selling agent and half to the buying agent. Selling and buying a home involves a lot a paperwork and is a total pain in the ass… but 7% is a steep tax to pay (on a $500,000 home sale, you’ll be paying $30,000 in agent fees). How can you avoid paying it?

To avoid the buyer agent fees, you could sell only to unrepresented buyers. That will limit your pool of available buyers, but it can save you some money. Essentially, though, I think paying the buyer agent fees is nigh unavoidable, which leaves the selling agent.

Traditionally, there’s the for sale by owner route. There are a number of websites that will let you list your house FSBO for a flat fee (as little as $399).

I think a great middle ground (and fast-rising option) is Redfin. They have a flat $2,000 fee like the FSBO sites, but also have experienced sales agents who will show your home and take care of all that onerous paperwork. That $30,000 in agent fees for your $500,000 home just became $17,000 ($15,000 for buyer agent + $2,000 for Redfin). You could potentially save yourself $28,000 if you find a buyer not using an agent. Granted, Redfin is currently only available in Seattle and the Bay Area, but since that’s where I’m at, it is an ideal solution for me.

And that, as my mom would say, is better than a kick in the pants.

I have no association or relationship with Redfin… but I’ll be using them when I put my house up for sale in the near future.

Stocks, bonds or Steen? That’s a question that 19-year-old Ron Steen of Anaheim Hills,Calif., hopes investors will wrestle with.

In August, Steen put himself on eBay (Charts) to pay for his college education, offering 2 percent of all future earnings to the highest bidder, with a minimum $100,000 bid.

What with Steen having to average 1.5M/year until age 65 to match a 6% investment, I’m thinking he’s not going to have any takers. Bonus points for audacity, though.

We’re generally a shiraz/syrah house, but I’ve heard good things about the Folie à Deux Ménage à Trois Red ($9) and the Cantena Malbec ($18, 90 rating). Of shiraz’ I know and like, they have the Fat Bastard Shiraz for $11, though I can’t seem to find my favorite cheap deal find of the year, the Lindeman Padthaway shiraz 2003 (they don’t appear to carry Lindeman at all. Oh well) and that screwtop Pinot Noir $11 thing that was awesome but who’s name escapes me at the moment. Sigh.

Wine.com also offers glassware, of course, and they have their own most popular gift suggestion ideas as well.

Coming from what is essentially a teetotaler family, the idea of gifting alcohol on the holidays is new ground to me, yet appealing. This year, at least. And remember – a glass of red a day keeps the heart healthy!

Yeah, I’m looking at you, books. Textbooks, novels, hardcover, softcover, whatever. Used books markets are the greatest invention in the history of ever. The one I use? Half.com.

This is the least obnoxious banner they have offered (the others are all those lovely animated gifs. Woo.):

I think I saved over $300 last semester on ghostfinger’s textbooks by using half.com for most of the purchases (this was before I knew about Valore., so I’ll definitely comparison shop next semster). Anyway, half.com totally rocks and it’ll save you a bundle of money.

I’m a big believer in giving books away too of course, but iffen I’m going to be buying, the first place I looke is half.com. You can get CDs and DVDs on half.com as well, though I’ve been less successful for those products compared to its competitors (like Amazon marketplace) in terms of savings.

Wall Street is largely a boys club, a place packed with hypercompetitive tough guys proud to wear their machismo on their sleeves. Yet there’s still one investment the Street is generally wary of: porn.

That’s why Francis Koenig, a onetime Wall Street hedge fund executive now based in Los Angeles, believes there are riches to be made by matching investors with “adult entertainment” companies. He believes that plenty of people would back the industry if there were vehicles commonly available to do so.

Think of Koenig as a porn launderer. He makes it acceptable for the DAR to get a piece of some of that $12 billion-per-year smut money.

Sure, Mondegreen is available for free download … but it’s also on the eye-music even without any videos! Isn’t that cool?

I gave it a look and it’s $1/song and $10/album (roughly). The best part is – you won’t get sued by the RIAA! Sweet!

Here’s a snapshot of some of the things you can trade in (I don’t know precisely what will come up; it’s a dynamically generated frame):

And their banner advertisement looks something like this:

Yet another thing that’s probably more Chartoo’s forte than mine, but I’m kind of excited about day trading in the presidential aspirations of Saint Rudy. I know. I need to get out more.

The biggest problem I had so far was actually getting money into the system – their security is quite a bit more comprehensive than the one-click universe we’ve been inhabiting. This is good in that I’m pretty confident any phishers aren’t going to be going there to take your money, but it can also be a drawback if you spot a sweet market opportunity for the avian flu’s arrival date in the U.S.

If you click the banner ad above, theoretically I get $50 if you both put some money in and do a bunch of trading over the next 90 days. If you just want to go to intrade.com and skip the lurve-giving to me part, I’m totally OK with that. I’ll just give you the puppy dog eyes and maybe sigh a little bit.

(if you join Netflix, enter my friends network so I can send you inappropriate movies that you’ll hate suggestions that you’ll love and vice versa)

They’re going to be all the rage as stocking stuffers this year, I just know it.

Supplies are unlimited! Make sure you get yours today before they don’t run out!

Because everyone needs to know the difference between the Spocker and the Showstopper.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the Department of the Army, per order of U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, has released to Judicial Watch approximately 100 pages of documents which detail the multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract awarded in 2003 by the Army to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. One document uncovered by Judicial Watch suggests the United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President’s office in awarding the contract.

In an email dated April 22, 2003, Carol Sanders of the USACE, writes, “Mr. Robert Andersen, Chief Counsel, USACE, participated in a 60 Minutes interview today in New York regarding the sole source award of the oil response contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root….Mr. Andersen…was able to make many of the points we had planned.” Sanders subsequently provided sound bites from the interview, including, “There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office).”

This directly contradicts another email uncovered by Judicial Watch in 2004. The email, dated March 5, 2003, sent by an official of the Army Corps of Engineers whose name was redacted, stated, “We anticipate no issue [with the KBR deal] since the action has been coordinated w VP’s office.”

Read the emails. They’re just patently awful, and a sign of just how corrupt this government is. Using soldiers to cover for the asses of the powers behind the throne, who are lining their pockets with corrupt no-bid contracts given to incompetent contractors. This is the kind of government behavior you typically only see in despotisms or autocracies. Rarely does this pervasive, blatant corruption exist for any period of time in a democracy.

Hmm… I wonder what kind of government we have?

There’s a few points to recognize about this piece of … legislation.

First, I don’t see any way this bill is constitutional. It is a prima facie violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause (Art. I, sect. 8) of the Constitution. This gets thrown out at the first challenge…. only…

There won’t be any challenges because this was backed by the Indian tribes and the State itself. The gambling houses are all offshore or out of state.

Oh, and you might be interested to know that Sen. Margarita Prentice, the woman who introduced the bill, receives a huge amount of donations from (drumroll)… the Indian casinos.

At this point, what we’ve got is a new class C felony designed to stop the state’s financial bleeding at the behest of the Indian casinos and the State itself. That lottery thing is totally OK though, because it’s controlled, you see.

In sum, this is OK:

But playing poker online from my own home with my own money means I get to share a cell with this guy for five years:

Yeah, that makes sense. Glad to see the legislature is on top of the pressing issues.

In other news, the local rag carried the most idiotic piece of tabloid shit above the fold as today’s top news item. The title? Smokers find refuge in secret nicotine dens. I am not making this up.

These speakeasies and opium dens are the new hysteria du jour, though I don’t see how they pass the laugh test. This article is bullshit and it’s not news. No wonder paper circulation is dwindling. If I want to read exploitative bullshit, I’ll go for the World News Weekly and their bat baby, or wait for every fourth summer so it can be Time’s “Summer of the Shark” again, or turn on CNN for the annual summer “where the white wimmin at?” marathon, or listen to the latest bullshit terrrrrrist alert or Hitler reference from the imbeciles currently occupying the white house.

God, what an embarassment the state of my state is today.

Former Enron bosses Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling have both been found guilty on fraud, conspiracy and other charges.
…
In all, Skilling has been found guilty on 19 of the 28 counts he faced – with the “not guilty” verdicts coming on some of the charges of insider trading.

He could face as much as 185 years in jail.

Lay, however, has been found guilty of all six fraud and conspiracy charges that he faced. He could face as much as 45 years behind bars.

I’m not sure what I think of Prosper.com.

On the one hand, I would love to send those execrable payday loans out of business and make the personal lending and credit rating markets transparent. I also like that it leverages group and personal identity power, a la eBay, for trustworthiness. It takes a village, and on the internet your village reputation can go a long way.

On the other hand, this is about as risky of an investment vehicle as I can imagine, with the added benefit of religious prohibition (for the orthodox) and an extra feeling of sleeze.

From a lender perspective, these are unsecured loans to people you don’t know (but are at least somewhat vetted by Prosper), many with a history of bad judgements. You do have a 3-year contract, but enforcing judgements for delinquent payees is going to spawn a whole ‘nother industry (or reinforce the existing ones. See sleeze, above). Actually, after reading the FAQ, if you don’t get paid, you’re SOL as you don’t know who the lendee is personally. My guess is that Prosper has an enforcement arm where they’re getting more income (other than the .5% loan interest they take off the top. Damn, I need to think of these online database-charge-me-to-use-them things. Best business model ever, outside of religion.). Actually, on further review, it looks like you get to choose from among a few different collection agencies. In any event, Prosper’s still taking a cut from the referral.

So I’m torn. On the one hand, it could be a great way to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get help. On the other, it looks like an ideal fraud and criminal (organized or not) environment. I debate linking to things that I’m unsure of, such as this, on the grounds that though I treasure information and sharing, I’d like to avoid advocating for shady or false things as much as possible.

Anyway, I thought I’d throw it out there. I think their FAQ page may have a little matharoni problem, though, but let’s talk about that below the fold.

From the FAQ (for lenders)

The way to ensure a good return on your investment is to diversify your lending�create a standing order to place bids on many listings, and spread your risk across many borrowers. If you make 100 loans to B-rated borrowers at 8%, and B-rated borrowers have an expected default rate of 1.8%, then you might have 2 borrowers default, which would lower your return by 2%. After annual lending fees of 0.5%, this would give you an annual 5.5% return overall.

I think that 5.5% number is wrong. Here’s why:

Say you make 100 loans of $1 @8%, compounded monthly (from their sample payments, this is how they appear to be compounding the interest). They take 0.5% off the top as the house vig their fee, so your rate is really 7.5%, and 7.5% is an APR of 7.76% (P(1+r)^n). Now, if 2 people out of 100 default, your rate of return should be ((loans – defaults)/(loans))*APR. Here that would be .98*.0776, or about 7.6%, NOT 5.6%, which their math would lead you to believe. Even ignoring compound interest, you’d be getting .98 of your .075 loan, or 7.35% effective rate. To lose the amount they’re talking about would take a 25% default rate (i.e. 2%/8%), not a 2% (actually, whomever was writing probably just thought “2/100 = 2%, therefore you are losing 2% on your investment of 7.5%.” Blinded by the percentage signs, probably).

Needless to say, this does not inspire confidence in their lending tools. Of course, I could have made a big, obvious mistake here. If so, let me know.

Update: 5 months in, no problems whatsoever. No nonpayments and only 2 people were slightly (sub-15 days) late. I think Prosper has intentionally slow transactions so they clear a bit extra in interest while they’re holding or “transferring” the money to your accounts, so it’s not 100% efficient for the end lender as an investment vehicle. I’m sure there’s a class action in there somewhere over those lost days of interest payments.

In any event, it’s going well. No complaints. Good ROI if investing is your thing and you’re not afraid of illiquid unsecured loans.

In another in a series of notable pronouncements, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America’s coastline this year.

Robertson has made the predictions at least four times in the past two weeks on his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.

Robertson said the revelations about this year’s weather came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.

“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”

My favorite part is the “If I heard the Lord right” bit. I mean, if it was the fuckin Lord, is there any way possible that an impotent omnipotent, omnipresent being could speak to you in such a way that you would not understand? Does FSM mumble? Stutter? How could you possibly hear him incorrectly?

Oh yeah, because it was your accountant calling to say that your diamond mine venture was going gangbusters and that fear of tsunamis will push up your gold holdings. Also, you’re a batshit crazy wahhabist addicted to fame. And coke.

For the Christians out there, how does it feel to know that this guy is considered the face of your faith in America? Hell, even McGovern called this shitbrick a ‘kook’ (actual quote: “When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”)

Stocks fell on Wednesday, with the Dow industrials plummeting more than 200 points, on increased concern about inflation and interest rates.

Investors sold shares in banks, industrial conglomerates and other rate-sensitive stocks. An index of bank stocks was down 1.5 percent, while shares of blue-chip Citigroup Inc. slid 1.1 percent.

Economic data showing the pace of inflation quickened in April raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates longer than expected.

Combine this with the $100/barrel oil ($200 or more if we attack Iran) and let’s just say Chicken Little was an optimist.

For better or worse, the candidates that can raise more earlier get far more later as the people with money tend to wait and back the “winning” horses… and you get more money by showing that you can get more money. In any event, giving something, even just a little, in a primary has far more effect than in the general election. Your $10 is probably equal to 100 in the general. I gave a bit to Lamont and if you can, I encourage you to do so as well.

Lieberman must go. That Lamont seems like my kind of Democrat just makes it all the better.

Update: Lamont made it to 3,422 donors, well past the 3,000 goal. Good job!

They should make a shirt out of my motherfuckin sign, though.

The TV series spin-off of the Stars Wars film franchise will run to at least 100 episodes, according to producer Rick McCallum.

He told BBC Radio 1 the writing team would soon be meeting to start on the project, which would begin filming in 2008 and be ready the same year.

“Hopefully if we can make it work and everybody’s excited and watches it we will keep on going,” said McCallum.

The series will be set between episodes three and four of the film saga.

It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers.

Here’s the thing: Jesus’ son Luke’s first 20 years? Were spent being a moisture farmer on Tatooine. Ex-CIT-ing.

I hope this works out better than the claw-your-eyes-out awful holiday special.

Why? Because you accepted a promotion in October, and as such, you “weren’t at the position long enough” to get the bonus.

Then they go on all about the bonus you’ll get next year if only you work X hours, knowing full well that this position has maybe 3 months left to go. This is right up there with a pencil as the gift for 2600 hours of work on my enraging scale.

I’m tired of being fucked over by my employers. So, so tired.

Fuck them. I’m going home.