thependulumswings

Several years ago responsible breweries changed their messaging.  “I’ll have another” was replaced by “please drink responsibly.”  Suddenly you needed to “know when to say when.”  Party poopers. A couple of months ago a virus, with ironically a beer brand given name, shut down the bars altogether.  It shut down a globe actually. Governments here, …

It’s Friday and it’s week four, or five, or six of your shelter in place life.   Who’s counting?   Is there light at the end of the tunnel?  Gilead Sciences Corporation thinks so.  Donald Trump thinks so.  He rolled out a general guidelines plan for states to interpret as to how and when they can “return …

We miss sports.  A week from tonight the NFL gives us a respite from the drudgery as their annual draft begins.  It’ll be different for sure in a virtual sort of way.  If you’ve kept your social distance from the NFL recently we have Ten Piece NFL Nuggets for you.  We are running low on …

Friends You may have noticed over the past few weeks that we try to temper our enthusiasm on up days, and try not to get too disturbed by down days. The up days are great, and mostly they have been fueled by Fed liquidity, then down days happen and we focus back on how difficult this all is to predict […]

Way back when there were actually newspapers printed and delivered to your door yesterday’s presidential endorsement would have been front-page news.  President 44 endorsed his former VP to become President 46 by beating sitting President 45.  But 44,45, and 46 cannot find space “above the fold” when 19 is dominating the news. COVID-19, Fauci, the …

Every time the sky is falling our trusty government steps in to help.   It means well we assume.   But, we should expect so much more.  Shouldn’t we? After 9/11 we got an entirely new department.  The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was born.  And nearly 20 years later we have tables that look like they were …

How about Colonel Mustard with the revolver in the Conservatory?  If you’re bored these days and have resorted to board games perhaps you dusted off the old one called Clue. Clue has six characters and six weapons to consider when deciphering who did it and with what.  It’s played out in nine rooms of a …

If Lefty and Shorty were still with us last early evening might have unfolded like this. Lefty and Shorty sat quietly in the cool but nice spring air.  It was only 6:30 PM, and cars were nowhere to be found.  Lefty- Why do we even stay open this late?  Shorty- I guess so that we …

Friends   We got another horrific weekly jobless claims number, but that was certainly expected. What was not expected was that the Federal Reserve found another kitchen sink to throw at the situation. Previously, the Fed committed billions, if not trillions of dollars to support government bonds, mortgage bonds, investment grade corporate bonds and money market funds. Today, they stepped […]

The headlines are bold.  Opening lines and quotes from articles around the US tell us all we need to know this morning.  Here they are.  We follow with a question or comment about them as we go. During an interview on Wednesday Vice President Mike Pence stated that if people continue to follow guidelines, “we …