ComicCon 2019. Part 1.

Hello there, children!



Not a bad Robert Downey. Not actually Robert Downey.

I forgot about this wild Porsche.

Porsche's never really make it to the blog - but I spotted this one because it had scoop on the roof. All the badging was taken off. So I don't even know what it is.

I finally got a Koenigsegg!

I seriously have been hunting a Koenigsegg for years. It is the elusive ghost car. And now that I've seen one, they look a little funny in real life and not on the internet. This one was also not parked in an ideal place. Half in the shade. Half out.

It's Monterey car week

Normally I would never hit Monterey in the middle of the week due to the crazy traffic. But Adam Carolla was there!

I really didn't expect to see many cars at all. But all these cars showed up at the hotel where Adam was. There were SO many Bentleys. Like - I've never seen so many Bentley's before. I've seen less Bentley's at a Bentley dealership!



Old timey Bugatti's! EB110's I guess.



I had to get my dog on.



Even a Bentley SUV.

You have got to be joking me.

All of a sudden today the yield curve doesn't matter. It just happened all of a sudden. It means nothing. Anyone saying it does matter is trying to take Trump down. And frankly I think this is all bullshit. Just look at any chart.! Recessions have happened every time the yield curve gets to this level. Even I AM thinking about calling the bank to refi. And I am at 4.50%. I never thought I would get this chance again in my lifetime.

The yield curve has been trying to invert ALL YEAR. Most of us thought it would happen last year. The 3's and 10's has been inverted for several months now. I blogged it here in July. It had already been inverted for a month at that point.

Banks don't cut rates if things are fine. Hell, a lot of times they won't even cut if things aren't fine.

Look - I don't have any axe to grind. I just have a lot to lose. So, I am as skittish as a feral cat. But you can't point to one economic chart that makes this economy look fine. The whole world is siting in negative interest rates. The whole world is pretty much in a manufacturing recession right now. If anyone thinks that splash doesn't hit us - I don't know what to say.

Pictures I should have posted.

i8 in the wild.

It's nice to see these from time to time.

Environmentalists are assholes.

Every time you see a story on the TV about how Californias wildfires are getting worse - remember this article. You see - every single year the bums set the creek on fire. EVERY YEAR.

The creeks are of course filled with dry brush because we were in a drought for a bunch of years, and now they are holding all the water at the reservoirs.

They are not allowed to mitigate ANY of that creek brush because of an effing frog. I'm not even joking. They can't send the goats in. They can't clear it in any way. And for some reason these passive idiots think that letting the frogs burn instead of a goat stepping on one or eating one is a better choice. No matter that this creak runs all through housing through the WHOLE city. My rental is TWO blocks from the creek. And every single year it burns.  (the creek) It's just been luck it hasn't spread to houses yet.

Environmentalists are FOR SURE making the fires worse in California. They don't want any trees cut or any frogs hurt. They would rather see people lose their homes and live in caves.

Today's questions.

Why is it that Google Maps, Waze and Yelp are always recommending things that are behind you on the road?

With Maps and Waze - YOU HAVE GIVEN IT THE EXACT LOCATION YOU ARE GOING! But if you need a gas station it's going to recommend one that you have already passed. Not one coming up on the freeway in front of you. I just don't understand why this technology has gotten so stagnant. But A.I. is going to kill us all. Said in the most sarcastic way.

That will buff right out.

Never seen a bumper fail quite like this. You can see he got tapped, but this thing was just flapping in the breeze.

Rainbow Puke?

In the world of next Tuesday.

There is something about this that delights me. NEC was the first job I had in the computer arena. I worked in manufacturing doing quality control on chips. And I had to lie about my age to work there. I had an unconventional upbringing.

I thought NEC was mostly bought by another company,  but this just shows they kinda never really die - they just morph into something else.

We are in Wile E Coyote territory now.

10-year yield drops under 1.6%, 30-year yield nears record low as collapse in rates accelerates.

Back on July 18 when I first heard that the US could fall into negative interest rates (in comments) - I thought that was a slim possibility. Not zero. Just slim. Now this is looking more like a real possibility.  Which is quite unbelievable. We came super close under Obama. But never quite hit it. And I don't really think anyone on this earth knows what happens in that environment. The dark cloud of the rest of the world is finally hitting our shores.

There are 10 countries with inverted yield curves. Mexico - Hong Kong - Canada -US - UK - Norway - Japan - Singapore - New Zealand - Germany.

Even more troubling is that when the US lowered it rates - like 3 or 4 countries immediately lowered their rates. So, more countries could fall into this negative rate scenario.

It's really the weirdest world. No one is losing anything (so far), but the numbers look as bad as the Great Recession. Which means, things are going to get worse than the Great Recession before people wake up and figure this out.

Oakland

I just thought this was interesting because Oakland has been pretty Bernie prowd.

Junk art.

I was poking around for inspiration and wound up in Sebastopol today. Well, mostly I was wanting to visit an architectural salvage/lumber yard in Petaluma, and figured I'd hop over to the block in Sebastopol that has all these junk art pieces. It had been a bunch of years since I'd been up there.

They were still cute and made me smile. The lumber yard was just okay.

Hamptons Home Listings Surge to Record as Buyers Dither on Deals.

But, during the Obama Administration rich people were on TV every day saying they couldn't wait to pay more in taxes!

That is a whole lotta percent.

Permits for new Bay Area homes, apartments drop sharply.

"Despite a pressing demand for new homes, condos and apartments, residential building permits in California fell 16 percent in the last year, dropping for the first time since the recession nearly a decade ago.

In the Bay Area, permits to build new homes and apartments tanked — falling nearly 50 percent in San Mateo County compared to the prior year, 30 percent in Alameda County, nearly 10 percent in Santa Clara County and 7 percent in Contra Costa County, according to a new analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California."

Pretty crazy.

There are the strongest manufacturing economies right now. Don't believe me? 

Greece - 54.60

Kenya - 54.30

Nigeria - 57.60

Saudi Arabia - 57.40

United Arab Emirates - 57.70

These countries are in the middle.

Australia - 51.60

Brazil - 51.00

Burma 52.90

India - 52.50

Phillipines - 52.10

South Africa - 52.10

Sweden 52.00

Vietnam - 52.60

If you don't see your country on the list - you are at or near contraction. With Germany being the most puke worthy at 43.20. And if the Chicago PMI is anything, our next reading will be pretty scary. It came in at 44.4.  Anything below 50.00 is contraction. Anything above - expansion. Chicago PMI is not even kissing that number.