Thursday, 26 January, 2006
Some tidbits
- Honestly, I hate it when people send me jokes in email or links to jokes on the Web. And until recently I was pretty sure that I'd heard every possible blonde joke. But this one really is the Best Blonde Joke Ever.
- I've often wondered what other people learn about American history. I got a little taste of that last year when I read the Japanese interpretation of the events leading up to WWII. A friend today pointed me at History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History. The Amazon reader reviews look promising.
- People are more willing now than they were a year ago to admit that we are in the midst of a housing bubble. News over the last couple of days has not been encouraging. New home sales continue to decline. And yet, there are some people who refuse to believe that the bubble will pop. With house prices on average being over-valued by 35 to 40 percent, I just don't see how people can remain unconcerned.
- On the topic of the housing bubble, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the existence of housebubble.com or The Housing Bubble blog. Seems like there's a Web site and corresponding blogs about almost every conceivable topic.
- People just don't learn. After the high tech stock bubble burst in 2000 and 2001, you'd think that people would shy away from that kind of thing. I thought all the hype about Google's stock was madness, but the recent run up of AMD's stock is just plain crazy. Mind you, I have nothing against AMD as a company, but its stock has more than doubled in value over the last 6 months for no rational reason.
- We've all heard P.T. Barnum's quote, "There's a sucker born every minute." At least, I'd always heard it attributed to Barnum. Turns out that Barnum never said that. Or maybe that Web page is just there to sucker people.
- Here's a frightening trend: Identity thieves targeting children. Get the Social Security number of a minor child, open a bank account, run up some credit card bills, and then file bankruptcy. If you're lucky, nobody will discover the crime for a few years. Some kid would be in for a rude awakening when he applies for his first credit card. "I'm sorry, sir, but your bankruptcy five years ago makes you ineligible."