Up-Down.....check it out!

I've recently stumbled upon a financial social networking site centered around individual investing and various investment strategies. The site sets you up with a virtual $1MM portfolio, and actually pays you if you outperform the S&P 500 over a given month period. Sadly, I got caught up in the whole transaction process of it all and became over enamored with taking short positions, so the S&P kicked my butt in June. July has been a different story so far, however. Check it out, search for me, and add me! You can also post and read various analyses on every stock and ETF out there. Happy fake-trading!

Going, going, Gone!

Just wanted to pause for a moment of silence for Countrywide Financial Corporation, my former employer, which was assumed last week by Bank of America, another former employer of mine. I'll be damned if they come knockin' at SBBT's door, too! I left for a reason, so the giant that is B of A had better not follow me to the greener pastures I've found!

Let's Talk Finance

So, 2008 has been a crazy year so far, hasn't it? And it's only half over! The biggest theme of the year so far....finances, and how messed up all of ours are with this, the worst recession (yes I, Chris Bucka, am officially declaring this a recession) since the Great Depression. I almost laugh when I hear the over-optimistic economic analysts saying we've hit bottom- no, we haven't!

The United States' glory days were in the 50's and 60's, when the generation running the country had grown up during the Great Depression and helped build a better country because of it. So, while politicians and economists are making their best attempts to spin the sunny-side up, let's call this what it is, an introspective period where the American citizen must critically look into how he or she manages their finances. It's a time when credit procuring organizations should probably have their reins drawn in, with practices to limit the indebtedness consumers can get themselves into, and a focus on domestic savings. Let's try and stimulate our economy by getting the rest of the world to spend while we fix our financial mess at home.

Gas prices are at all-time highs. Are they going to go down anytime soon? No, so why aren't we putting any sense of urgency behind making mainstream alternative energy a reality the same way we put a sense of urgency in the space program when an actual leader was in the Oval Office and declared that we were going to the moon- and did it in under 9 years (too bad he couldn't see what we accomplished, but nonetheless, we made JFK proud). Are we that uninspired, or has our society regressed that much that we aren't prducing enough engineers and scientists who actually care to put in the research in this field. Surely, there's wealthy individuals out there willing to invest in what will eventually reap unbelievable returns as alternatives replace our oil dependence and free us from oil slavery.

So what's to come for the rest of the year? Hold on tight, because we're in a volitile BEAR market. Save your hard earned dollars, because who knows when the income stream may get interrupted in the near term, and let's stop spending frivilously. Let's also make our charitable donations domestically where they are needed. Yeah, I know they're starving in Africa, but are you aware of how many people in the United States have lost homes in the last 12 months due to natural disasters? Let's keep it in the family for now, folks.

On the bright side, dub-yah is gone in 7 months and we will be able to see a slightly clearer picture of how next year will play out. Perhaps we need an election to turn this economy around. I don't want to make any comparisons, but we did see some of the greatest government action after the election of 1932. Only problem is that we haven't really seen it since. But let's keep optimistic because, well, that's really all we've got, right?

Give it up to the Times!

....and mainly, Steve Hymon for taking over and vastly improving the quality of the bottleneck blog. As an Angelino, commuter, and disdainer of traffic and high gasoline prices, Steve's got all the issues covered! Here's a link to the bottleneck blog....

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/

From the ADD Desk of Chris Bucka

* $4.45 a gallon is ludicrous, and there isn’t any reason for gas to cost this much or for oil prices to be so high. A bubble is coming; supply and demand is as scientific a law as physics. If there’s an inconsistency, then obviously there are artificial influences. Geopolitical concerns, inflation of the dollar, and any other excuse do not explain how prices continue to go up when consumption has eased and irreversible consumption habit changes are being made to permanently curb demand, little by little.

* How the hell were the Lakers favored in the NBA finals!?! I mean, after game 2, I’m convinced that we really could take the Celtics if our team actually showed up, ran an offense, and remembered how to play defense and box out, but c’mon, Boston won 66 games this year. Did ESPN want to set up a Lakers-favored final so they could bash on us for losing on the road?

* Any asshole who does not support the subway to the sea, or any other proliferation of Mass Transit in Los Angeles, for that matter, should be taken out back and beaten by the masses that they are so selfishly stalling from improving their productivity and quality of life.

* California is in a serious budget crisis…..why haven’t we added a penny across the state to sales tax yet? That way, the throngs of tourists that come here every summer can help support the cause! And why are gasoline tax revenues being used for anything other than transportation? You don’t plug a leak by fixing it with another section of the leaky object; that does nothing!

* Salmonella: Not California’s fault!

* I had repeatedly bashed on Guitar Hero for being detrimental to the learning of instruments and to genuine musical talent and creativity, but after playing it for the first time over the weekend, I see the value it can add in helping to improve hand-eye coordination, and can definitely sympathize with the game’s addictive nature. Now, if only I can get good enough to beat “Black Magic Woman” on hard……

It's all I need to know...

...'cause they're KNX 1070, News Radio! Let's forget that I've called the traffic tip-line multiple times and have been able to get them to essentially give me a personalized report of where I'm headed, becuase that alone would be almost any reason you'd need to tune in. But in addition to the awesome traffic response, this newsteam is lively, sarcastic, playful, and informative.

For example, being in banking, I've had a few clients ask why mortgage rates have remained flat or increased slightly over the last couple of weeks even though the Fed Funds rate has been slashed over a point and a half. I had been trying to explain that the rates are mutually exclusive and tied to different economic benchmarks, but now I just direct people to Bob McCormick's podcast that covers the topic. It's a firey, quick, and highly insightful 45 seconds on the topic which speaks to the level of most consumers.

Again, I can't praise these guys enough, but don't take my word for it; go to www.knx1070.com and stream them live. It's the most entertaining news you'll ever listen to, and it's heavily in part due to the fact that it sounds like the personalities on air are having a fun time with what they do.

My Ballot for the KNX all star lineup:

Host: Jim Thornton

Anchor: Vicki Moore

Field Reporter 1: Vidas Sopranikus

Field Reporter 2: Aiden Pickering

Politics: Dick Helton

Money: Bob McCormick

Sports: Steve Grad

Traffic (studio): Tommy Jaxson

Traffic (chopper): Scott Burt

Traffic (air): Meghan Reyes

Taking a New Direction

Still evolving my own blog; never was really sure what to write about and I'm still not. However, I'd really like to document my regenesis....assuming I have the strength and willpower to have one. Why disclose that which may be embarrassing on a website for all to see? Well, I've always said I have nothing to hide and that I'm not a secretive person, so why the hell not, right? I guess at the very least this can serve to help as motivation to go from the bottom that my life has hit to taking control of and guiding my life in a direction which I had always hoped. Well, we'll see, but for the next several entries, be prepared for them to pretty much go down like progress reports.

New Digital Billboards

Has everybody seen the new digital billboards popping up all over LA? It's almost like a peek into Vegas for a moment with the bright lights and changing signs. My immediate instinctual reaction to these billboards was that they were not a big deal and were just a part of the evolution of advertising that is rapidly going on, especially in Los Angeles.

Then news stations began running stories about how these billboards could possibly be causing more accidents and are more trouble than they are worth. I guess I saw their point, but people need to be responsible drivers as well. Inattentiveness can't just be blamed on something else. And animated advertising has been near the roads and freeways in different areas (such as Staples Center) for quite some time, so what's the big deal? And to make matters even more confusing, I've noticed that traffic tends to slow down as you come up on the Amber Alert boards as well; should we get rid of them, too?

Ah, but this morning came along and my feelings changed. A new digital billboard was set up at the Culver exit on the Marina Fwy (Ca-90) this weekend and I got to see it in action this morning. Within 20 seconds, I saw three different advertisements flash on that billboard. And therein lies the issue I now take with these advertisement spewing screens. I have no problem if the image changes once every 30 seconds or every minute, but when something so bright continues to change formation and flashes different colors as you approach it is rather distracting. Definitely unnecessary for a city that is already overburdened with traffic and full of terrible drivers.

Smoke City

So the inevitable has happened. Smoke from the fires in the LA area, the Magic, Ranch, Canyon, and Slide fires, has finally engulfed the sky and grayish-browned out everything. I thought that when I got back home to the West Side things would look different, but I didn't recall seeing any falling ash in Calabasas. Yet the second I got home, little white flecks came floating by. I felt obligated to check out what I could from my vantage point, so I posted the video below for you to check out. What a crazy week!

Manic Monday

Insanity. That's the only way to describe it. It was only four hours and fifty minutes into the first red-flag day of the fire season before 80mph+ winds started ripping trees out of the ground and toppling telephone poles, triggering over a dozen fires. And of course, sick-minded arsonists had to start a couple more of their own for shits and giggles, but I'm not laughing. Granted, fires in Southern California really are not the biggest tragedy ever; loss of one's home is never fun to experience (says my roommate), and I'm glad I haven't had to go through it.

But for people across the rest of the country, us Southern Californians are as familiar with fire preparation as Midwesterners are with Tornado preparation. Since there really is no way to have control of the situation, you just have to keep a resilient attitude and be prepared when an event like this occurs. Rather than panic, worry, and waste energy on reflecting on the damage and carnage that these fires can wreak on property, valuables, and landmarks, it's a much better course of action to reflect on the amazing phenomena that these fires are. What was it like 200 years ago when there's no way fires of this magnitude could be contained? What about 2,000 years ago when natural fires may have burned for months? I suppose the best way to look at this is the cyclical way in which nature works. Out of the death of trees and brush, nutrients are passed through the ash back into the ground and so new vegetation can grow. Us humans are really just in the way of nature taking its course.

This is why it is smart to have Fire Insurance, people! If you don't have it, get it! If you rent, that's what renter's insurance is for! If you have these things and keep your most crucial documnets/posessions in a place that you can easily access in case of a need to evacuate, then you'll never lose more than a few replacable outfits and superfluous posessions. If you are that attached to your things, read the Bible and seek some self-actualization, because it's really not all that important. Just be sure to remember your photos and other memories before you take off!

All jokes aside, though, these fires are the once-a-decade kind of thing that leave an imprint for at least a few years. They can be scary, much can be lost, but let's remember that there are many other natural disasters with death tolls higher than the one life lost in the last forty-eight hours here in So-Cal. So cease with the apocalyptic attitudes, enjoy what you've got while you've got it, and let's remember, as soon as these Santa Ana's die down....it's still in the 70's at the beaches!!!