Lemonjello's intermittent skullduggery

[IIC]

I think it looks like Melissa Francis.

Good eye Rob...I think you might be right...Wasn't she the little brat on the Prarie...I never liked that show...And although she looks better in your photo...I'll pass...Still not my type...IIC

[Rob]

Wasn't she the little brat on the Prarie...I never liked that show...

You're probably thinking of Melissa Gilbert.

[IIC]

You're probably thinking of Melissa Gilbert.

Maybe both were on it???

http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2006/10/melissa_francis.html

[ParkTwain]

That is a young Erin Burnett of CNBC.

[lemonjello]

Have to say Erin is the nicest thing in finance since the early Maria Bartiromo.




Maybe a few hints would help - she works for an investment bank and you've probably all heard of her / seen her on TV. If I give you more than that it will be too easy.

Good luck!

[billyjoe]

Did anyone notice Rebecca Jarvis reporting on CNBC* business ? She was the good looking brunette on "apprentice" that broke her ankle on the first show and finished 2nd. Brains and beauty. She didn't play the games with the other women contestants clearly not in her league.

---------------billyjoe

* corrected was CNBC not CNN

[Rob]

Did anyone notice Rebecca Jarvis reporting on CNN business ?

BillyJoe, no I didn't see her on CNN. But I do remember that show where she broke her ankle. I was watching it with my wife, and when Rebecca's team won, and the prize for the winning team was to play ice hockey with a professional team, I said to my wife, "What a stupid prize! Someone is liable to break a leg!" And of course that's exactly what happened—well, an ankle anyway, close enough. True story.

[lemonjello]

Ok. Since no one got it - the answer is -

Abby Joseph Cohen - Goldman Sachs. "We believe the stock market is undervalued here"

[lemonjello]

Calling all taxi drivers

email:

Have you ever heard of the BIG MONEY that people made in the great bull market of the 90's...when regular people ROUTINELY made extraordinary profits in the stock market easily and quickly? Why? Because the market was in a huge expansion, and everything went up.

Have you ever dreamed that you would experience the excitement of buying and selling stocks, and...watching your stock market account explode $10,000 or more virtually overnight?

Now is the best time!

Have you yearned for a second income... where YOU are in control of how much money you make...and YOU don't only have to rely on your job for income? Well it can happen to you, and...

Now is the best time to start.

That is the advice of stock wizard and CNBC's host of Mad Money, Jim Cramer. In over twenty years of stock market investing, Jim has made hundreds of millions of dollars buying and selling stocks. He's made money in booming markets, in slow markets, and even in scary markets. But you know, he has made the MOST MONEY in the kind of market we have RIGHT NOW! This is the time that offers a RARE opportunity that does not come around OFTEN.

A RARE Opportunity NOW to Buy Valuable Stocks for The Lowest Prices

Why? Because we are in what Jim Cramer calls a "stealth" bull market. The DOW just reached a new high; and a new high in the S&P 500 is just a matter of time. Inflation is under control, and interest rates are still at all time lows and may soon fall even more. This is a much different scenario than we had 12 months ago. All the stock market lights are beginning to turn green.

Stealth Bull Markets Are The Sexiest Kind

The best thing about this stealth bull market is that VERY FEW people know about it. It is not in the news. Most investors and their advisers are too stuck thinking about the past to realize what is HAPPENING NOW. Absolutely the best time to get into the stock market is when stocks are dirt cheap and are about to take off. That time is right now.

Jim says the stealth bull markets are the sexiest kind of bull markets. Why? Because they offer so many appealing stocks at bargain basement prices. This is the kind of market that will make you rich overnight! It is a fact that last year 1.3 Americans became new millionaires. Where did they get most of this money? From stock market gains!

Why? Because high quality stocks have out-performed all other asset classes...better than gold...better than real estate...better than bonds. But you've got to find the high quality stocks.

You can see Jim Cramer LIVE where he will tell you some of the best stocks to invest in, when he makes a RARE public appearance in November in New York City. I urge you to come, because...

LIVE and Uncensored, Jim Cramer Will Reveal the "Hottest Stocks" He is Not Allowed to Mention on TV

I want to extend a personal invitation to you to join Jim Cramer at his special seminar on "Profiting From The Stealth Bull Market in Stocks." He will be giving this seminar as part of The Learning Annex Real Estate and Wealth Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City on Saturday and Sunday, November 18th and 19th.

He will reveal to you the secrets that he learned from thirty-eight of the wealthiest families in the world -- the important rules, the tactics, and the smart moves from his personal "playbook," that made him huge amounts of money in the market. He cannot share some of his hottest tips on TV. Why? Because the stocks would go through the roof! In person at the Real Estate & Wealth Expo, he CAN TELL you the information that has been censored on TV. He is free to say anything he wants with no restrictions!

Because of his busy schedule, he speaks to live audiences only once or twice a year. Don't miss this rare opportunity to spend some time with Jim Cramer LIVE.

[IIC]

email:

Have you ever heard of the BIG MONEY that people made in the great bull market of the 90's...when regular people ROUTINELY made extraordinary profits in the stock market easily and quickly? Why? Because the market was in a huge expansion, and everything went up.

Have you ever dreamed that you would experience the excitement of buying and selling stocks, and...watching your stock market account explode $10,000 or more virtually overnight?

Now is the best time!

Have you yearned for a second income... where YOU are in control of how much money you make...and YOU don't only have to rely on your job for income? Well it can happen to you, and...

Now is the best time to start.

That is the advice of stock wizard and CNBC's host of Mad Money, Jim Cramer. In over twenty years of stock market investing, Jim has made hundreds of millions of dollars buying and selling stocks. He's made money in booming markets, in slow markets, and even in scary markets. But you know, he has made the MOST MONEY in the kind of market we have RIGHT NOW! This is the time that offers a RARE opportunity that does not come around OFTEN.

A RARE Opportunity NOW to Buy Valuable Stocks for The Lowest Prices

Why? Because we are in what Jim Cramer calls a "stealth" bull market. The DOW just reached a new high; and a new high in the S&P 500 is just a matter of time. Inflation is under control, and interest rates are still at all time lows and may soon fall even more. This is a much different scenario than we had 12 months ago. All the stock market lights are beginning to turn green.

Stealth Bull Markets Are The Sexiest Kind

The best thing about this stealth bull market is that VERY FEW people know about it. It is not in the news. Most investors and their advisers are too stuck thinking about the past to realize what is HAPPENING NOW. Absolutely the best time to get into the stock market is when stocks are dirt cheap and are about to take off. That time is right now.

Jim says the stealth bull markets are the sexiest kind of bull markets. Why? Because they offer so many appealing stocks at bargain basement prices. This is the kind of market that will make you rich overnight! It is a fact that last year 1.3 Americans became new millionaires. Where did they get most of this money? From stock market gains!

Why? Because high quality stocks have out-performed all other asset classes...better than gold...better than real estate...better than bonds. But you've got to find the high quality stocks.

You can see Jim Cramer LIVE where he will tell you some of the best stocks to invest in, when he makes a RARE public appearance in November in New York City. I urge you to come, because...

LIVE and Uncensored, Jim Cramer Will Reveal the "Hottest Stocks" He is Not Allowed to Mention on TV

I want to extend a personal invitation to you to join Jim Cramer at his special seminar on "Profiting From The Stealth Bull Market in Stocks." He will be giving this seminar as part of The Learning Annex Real Estate and Wealth Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City on Saturday and Sunday, November 18th and 19th.

He will reveal to you the secrets that he learned from thirty-eight of the wealthiest families in the world -- the important rules, the tactics, and the smart moves from his personal "playbook," that made him huge amounts of money in the market. He cannot share some of his hottest tips on TV. Why? Because the stocks would go through the roof! In person at the Real Estate & Wealth Expo, he CAN TELL you the information that has been censored on TV. He is free to say anything he wants with no restrictions!

Because of his busy schedule, he speaks to live audiences only once or twice a year. Don't miss this rare opportunity to spend some time with Jim Cramer LIVE.

Look forward to your report after the seminar...Doug(IIC)

[lemonjello]

Texas is hiring

In case Mr.Market needs a job ->


SAN ANTONIO, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said on Monday that U.S. employers were witnessing a clear shortage of certain types of workers, and he warned that this was pushing up some wages.

"Throughout this nation and especially in the state of Texas ... (companies are) suffering from a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labor," he told the Texas Lyceum, an economic think-tank, at its annual meeting.

"They like to say if you can walk and chew gum in the oil services sector and in the chemical engineering sector, you can get a job. We need to teach a lot of people how to walk and chew gum," he said.

The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 4.4 percent in October from 4.6 percent the previous month.

Some economists think this takes it below the country's so-called 'full-employment' level, a notional threshold where additional hiring presses on the pool of available labor, creating a speed limit for non-inflationary growth in the economy.

The sharp fall in unemployment, against a backdrop of still solid job creation, has fueled concerns of wage inflation and economists say it will encourage the Fed to hold interest rates steady at 5.25 percent until well into next year.

Fisher, not a voting member of the Fed's interest rate setting committee this year, said hourly wages for some types of workers in Texas were up sharply and employers were now having to pay bonuses just to get people to show up for work.

"In Texas City, for example, they were offering a welder in the oil path $19 an hour at the beginning of the year. They're now offering $25 a hour, with a hundred dollar show up bonus, just to show up for work, and a completion bonus for your work," he said.

Fisher specifically mentioned welders, plumbers, truck drivers, and workers in the hospitality industry as jobs which are going begging nationwide.

His speech was aimed mainly at the outlook for the Texas economy, which he said had shared some of the downturn in the housing market experienced elsewhere in the country, although not nearly to the extent of the east and west coasts.

"We are seeing some signs of slowing growth in construction and construction related industries.

"Here in Texas, we haven't suffered from the coastal blues, and the turndown you see in the rest of the country in terms of housing. But housing permits softened in August, building permits are slowing, and home inventories are inching up."

[lemonjello]

Veterans day

This is a little late but still relevant -

http://legacy.com/Soldiers.asp?Page=FSMovingTributes

View a few of the memorials created by friends and family.

[lemonjello]

Your hedge fund money at work

barrons.com

VIEWED AGAINST THE STANDARD & POOR'S 500's showing, recent hedge-fund returns have been satisfactory -- but not stellar. The CSFB/Tremont index tracking broad hedge-fund performance is up about 13% in the past year, compared with 16.34% for the S&P.

Hedge-fund pros insist, however, that their portfolios aim to capture much, if not all, of the upside in bull markets and, more important, protect against losses in bear markets. Also, the CSFB/Tremont index has a standard deviation that's about half that of the S&P 500's, implying lower volatility.

Thanks to those selling points, investors have bought into the hedge-fund story in a big way, worries about blowups aside. The $1.3 trillion industry received $44.5 billion in net new cash in the third quarter, according to Hedge Fund Research.

[lemonjello]

Crapfest 2006...

barrons.com

Hey, What Did You Expect for a Lousy $99?
By JOE QUEENAN

A SHORT WHILE BACK, Bill Zanker, president and founder of the Learning Annex, offered Donald Trump $30 million to appear at a series of 20 wealth-fostering events to be held around North America, from Boston to Toronto to Dallas and Los Angeles. Thirty mil probably isn't a lot to Donald Trump, but it's still a lot to Bill Zanker. So he must have believed Trump was worth it. In fact, what Zanker realized is that without Trump's presence at his extravaganzas -- the most recent of which was held at Manhattan's sterile, white-elephant, marooned-on-a-desert-isle Jacob Javits Convention Center -- would lack the pizzazz needed to draw mammoth crowds. (Zanker claims that 50,000 registered for this one, each paying at least $99 -- close to $5 million in total.)

YES, TONY ROBBINS IS a big name, but he's been doing that self-empowerment shtick since the Age of Iacocca. Sure, Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote Why We Want You To Be Rich with The Donald, has churned out one best seller after another, but he radiates about as much onstage charisma as an eggplant. Without a doubt, James Cramer is a revved-up fireball, a Harvard grad who acts as if he went to Ampersand U, and a TV star to boot. But Cramer is a star on cable TV. That's like being the funniest lounge act in Reno, rather than headlining in Vegas.

Trump, in contrast, is a legendary presence, an American financial folk hero who has developed a mysterious rapport with millions of ordinary Americans that some observers find baffling. What's more, his popularity antedates his success on TV's The Apprentice: His brash, go-for-the-throat appeal captured the national imagination more than two decades ago, and has never let go.

Busy, busy, busy: Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki with Why We Want You To Be Rich, which they co-authored. Could the answer to the implied question in its title be: So you can buy more books?

With Robbins and Cramer and Kiyosaki and the rest of the dare-to-be-rich hucksters, the Learning Annex wealth expos would seem like generic trade shows. But add The Donald to the equation, and these jamborees take on the aura of revival meetings. Attending the Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo is no longer just another opportunity to learn the secrets of the super-rich, who, for some reason can't seem to keep a secret. No, it is a chance to touch the very hem of the Anointed One's raiment. It is no longer just a case of hearing Dr. Albert Lowry rhapsodizing about foreclosures or Don Burnham selflessly showing everybody how to make a fortune rehabbing fixer-uppers. This is a chance to go unto the mountain itself.

THERE IS A NATURAL TENDENCY among the snooty to sneer at people who attend these events, dismissing them as suckers preyed upon by sharpies. Many surely are, especially the youngsters with reversed baseball caps whose concept of insider trading is a hot tip on Sultry Biscuit in the fifth at Aqueduct. But some participants have their own businesses, some are simply trying to get their feet wet in the money-management arts; many seem to understand that most of what gets said here must be taken with a grain of salt. What was most reassuring about the expo participants Barron's polled at the Javits Center was that they were not gawking rubes who seriously thought they were likely to become millionaires overnight. They were merely ordinary investors looking for clues to solve their personal financial puzzles. Well, that and a good floor show.

"These people are not going to tell me anything specific that will make me rich," says Erma Margolies, a teacher's assistant, who also runs her own jewelry and makeover businesses. "But they could help me find an area that suits my personality. They help me to rethink my attitude. That's what I take away from this."

"To me, somebody like Raymond Aaron [Mr. "Automatic Prosperity"] is a coach, a mentor," chimes in Diane Galante, an executive legal secretary. "If you've never had the experience of making money, you need a coach or a mentor like him to help you clear out all the old ways of thinking. If I'd listened to my mother, I'd be a lunch aide."

Observes an enthusiastic California real-estate investor who'd recently attended a similar show in Anaheim and couldn't get enough of it: "They teach you that the real-estate market has changed, that things are more fluid, that people can just as easily live in Oklahoma as in L.A."

"What kind of person would leave Los Angeles to live in Oklahoma?" Barron's asked.

"What does L.A. have that Oklahoma doesn't have?" he retorted.

"Great weather, museums, movie stars, professional sports, fantastic restaurants, the Pacific Ocean."

"OK, forget Oklahoma. Think more ... Utah."

ATTENDEES SEEM TO revel in the ceaseless flow of canned banalities: "To work is insanity, because you just pay more in taxes"; "If you play with pennies, you get back pennies"; "To a starving man, a carrot feels like a banquet." It is as if these incantations are the secret texts that must ceaselessly be invoked, otherwise everyone might forget that we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. Or is it 12? Or 76?

The event's basic modus operandi: A speaker, either in the vast main exposition hall, in a conference room or even at a booth, tells a series of trusty old anecdotes about his fabulous Hawaii lifestyle or the joys of owning a private plane or about a fat loser he once knew who made a killing investing in billboards. The audience then cheers him on, feeling somehow a part of his success. The audience is repeatedly reassured that intellectual firepower isn't essential to be wealthy. Kiyosaki, famed for his series of "Rich Dad" books, loves to talk about what a crummy student he was in high school. He has a penchant for issuing alarming declarations like "Saving money is stupid." The crowd, many of whom look like they, too, fared poorly in high school, enthusiastically agree.

Some of the speakers opt for the fire-and-brimstone approach; others are more laid-back. One folksy type, James Smith, dresses like Gordon Gekko, 20 years late for the Hayseed Michael Douglas Halloween Party.

Marshall Sylver, who exudes a kind of belligerent chumminess, resorts to hypnosis and even brings a woman on stage to swallow fire, just to prove that if you can conquer your fear of flames, you can conquer your fear of managing your own finances. Or of changing your personality. Or of giving up smoking. Or of something else.

The audience seems to love the whole cast of characters. One quickly senses that a major facet of the expo's popularity is the opportunity to experience the vicarious thrill of success by sharing a laugh with a successful fire-swallowing hypnotist, something that simply doesn't happen every day.

Reciprocating the crowd's generosity and affection, the presenters make the attendees feel savvy and clever, unlike those pitiful rubes and bureaucrats and knuckleheads out there who invest in mutual funds or buy stocks or foolishly try to stay out of debt when everyone knows that if you're making to be rich, you have to act rich by first going into debt.

THE MOST AMAZING performance of the weekend comes when the dry, bookish Robert Bluhm gets the entire crowd to put their hands together and cheer for the merits of the family limited partnership. This is just one step removed from eliciting a standing ovation for uncollected liens.

Why have so many peerless financial wizards taken time out from their hectic schedules to fly to New York and address the great unwashed? By and large, the speakers assert that they are making themselves available out of the goodness of their hearts, or because it tears them up inside to see their fellow Americans failing to take advantage of the myriad financial opportunities available, or because they don't want the good folks in the audience to end up on a slab like that unfortunate niece way back over yonder. It is never just about making money -- pshaw!!! -- because the speakers have more money than they could ever spend.

After the thousands of audience members have hollered "Oh, yeah!!" or "Yeehah!!!" a few dozen times, the speakers start pushing the products they have really come to sell: seminars that run into the thousands of dollars, one-on-one mentoring sessions, online training, videos, cassettes, books. Amazingly, even though almost every presentation over the two-day session uses the same marketing ploy -- the reliable bait-and-switch -- most people don't seem to mind. Indeed, if anything, the speakers seem to be revered not so much because of their financial wizardry, which is never wholly apparent, but because of their ability to run their mouths for hours.

"IF I COULD TALK like that, I'd be rich," says a young man in a leather jacket, conversing with a friend in the men's room. "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big time!"

Here, we come to the central truth about the wealth expo. Folks attending these gatherings are unlikely to learn anything tangible that will change their lives. What they do get is a crash course in public speaking. Two days of listening to these guys leaves your head spinning: The Dow is crashing. Mutual funds are for idiots. Let gold be your guide. There will never be a better time to invest in Biloxi real estate. You, too, can retire wealthy by operating free-standing coffee machines. Don't forget about those family limited partnerships. Seventy-six trombones led the big parade!

AFTER LISTENING TO this sort of material for much of 48 hours, you may not have learned how to make money in Belize property or by converting condos in Coral Gables. But you'll have learned a little bit about the one surefire way to become rich: teaching other people how to become rich. The Real Estate & Wealth Expo isn't so much about finance or investing. It's about elocution.

The only two people in the entire expo who do not seem to be pushing merchandise all weekend are a young fellow from Southern California who is desperately, though ultimately unsuccessfully, trying to route the Ohio State- Michigan football game through his laptop onto a plasma screen TV (in a masterpiece of unfortunate timing, Tony Robbins is slated to speak the entire length of the game), and Neil Graber, an Amish carpenter who has come from rural Indiana to sell kitchen cabinets.

"We're trying to figure out what to do with our IRAs," says a woman standing at the edge of his 10 foot-by-10-foot display, admiring his handiwork.

"Buying fine kitchen cabinets is one of the best investments you'll ever make," Graber responds.

BY THE TIME Trump, the one man in the Javits Center least likely to be mistaken for an Amish cabinet maker, comes on stage Sunday night, the crowd is delirious, hooting and hollering, smashing their Trump Thunder Sticks together. Trump revels in the adulation, which has been juiced up by an army of Learning Annex employees.

But Trump, who has a regular-guy demeanor, is not like any of the other speakers. Unlike the slick operators who have preceded him, he hasn't amassed his fortune by teaching others how to make money. Trump is actually a businessman -- not a coach, a mentor, a guru or a cheerleader, but a guy from Queens who puts together real-estate deals.

And he doesn't work from a tightly rehearsed script like the other speakers. He kind of rambles, joking about Condoleezza Rice's alarming ineffectiveness as a negotiator, then fuming about price-fixing in the oil industry, then confessing his inability to find anything funny in the hit film Borat.

He doesn't say things like "If you are not the lead dog, the view is always the same" or "Those who think govern those who labor." Instead, he declares: "A lot of people in this room do not have the ability to be successful in business. And if I can pick out those people, I can save them from financial ruin."

This is the first time anyone has said anything like that at the expo. If Donald Trump is actually going to sit down and pick out all the people in that room who do not have the ability to be successful in business, he's going to be there for a while; $30 million or no $30 million, Zanker may have underpaid him.

JOE QUEENAN is the author of Queenan Country: A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country.

[lemonjello]

Going down?

Now at 83.7