Waist Deep

It's been awhile, so let me comment on some sports-related issues. I'm still in my post-football funk, but will prep for March Madness shortly, and will start revealing picks soon.



First, is it any wonder that arguably the best pitcher and position player of recent memory (although I don't think Bonds is better than Rodriguez, roids or not) are not only juice monkeys, but HGH freaks? Clemens literally imploded this week, making a total jackass of himself and doing as much damage to his rep as anyone ever has. He might actually go to jail.



Belichick, it was revealed, has been taping defensive signals since the first second he put on a Pats hoody. Goodell revealed this to Arlen this week, in another of our country's most pressing issues. I mean, who cares about stuff like war and economic collapse when the Eagles might have been cheated out of a SB! What's going to happen to this dude? Nothing. He's already been punished and the NFL just wants it swept out into space with the bus-sized spy probe that may land in your front yard if we can't shoot it down with nuclear missiles in the next 2 weeks.



Good job IU. You replaced a guy who beat and choked his players with a guy who's going to bring your program the death penalty. Has the AD been shot yet?



Getting back to economic issues, let's start withe the Dinallo interview. Seemed like a bright guy, it was just so hard to tell with Joe Kernan interrupting him every 3 seconds to say, "But that's not going to hurt the market, right?" Jesus, every time CNBC ventures to bring on an educated, informed guest who wants to talk economic reality, they're almost kicked off the set for their anti-market sentiment. Dinallo spoke about how FGIC, another bond insurer, had filed to be split into its good and bad businesses, aka, munis and subprime cdos. When pressed about if this was a good option, Dinallo said it was better than bankruptcy, but would not make it a great company all of a sudden. Ambac and MBIA face the same decision in the very near future.



In a little-reported aftermarket note, S&P downgraded debt on 4 builders, including Centex, from junk to bad junk, or from ok to junk status as with Centex. They see very poor prospects of this debt getting paid with limited cashflow and don't think these companies should be allowed to borrow money. Shocking.



And last, just a quick note on analysts. S&P profit forecasts for the 1st quarter are now less than 0. In December they were 11%. In October they were 18%. So these guys were wrong by 20% and if we just look at these numbers, even less than zero seems overly optimistic. How do these guys have a job when they're so very wrong so very often?



IOD: XHB and Centex jan 09' puts
BOD: NFL will do nothing to Belichick
TOD: Watch Itulip.com's Cramer video contest. HIIIIlarious.