Friday, November 19, 2010

RPT Conspiracy Theory? (Musical Tribute)

Many have heard of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT).

Has anyone heard of the Rubicon Protection Team (RPT)?

The S&P 500 closed last Friday at 1,199.21. The S&P 500 closed today at 1199.73. What an awful week this has been for ongoing Rubicon jokes. Not one closing breach of the 1200 level this week? Not one? Oh the humanity!

November 12, 2010
Confirmed Rubicon Sighting! (Musical Tribute)

Let's cross our fingers for the bulls next week. We're looking for a 0.79 gain on the S&P 500. It may seem like a trivial task for an index walking the line but is anything in this economy really ever that simple?

We needed 0.79. We only got 0.52. It teases us that one does.

Rubicon Protection Team (RPT)

The Group was established explicitly in response to events in the Illusion of Prosperity blog surrounding May 3, 2010 ("Black Rubicon Day") to give recommendations for legislative and private sector solutions for "enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of [United States] financial markets and maintaining investor confidence".

Oh well. I'm a glutton for punishment apparently. Here we go again.

Let's cross our fingers for the bulls next week. We're looking for a 0.27 gain on the S&P 500. It may seem like a trivial task for an index walking the line but is anything in this economy really ever that simple?




Mr. Wint: If at first you don't succeed Mr. Kidd?
Mr. Kidd: Try, try again, Mr. Wint.

6 comments:

EconomicDisconnect said...

Hey mark, I need a review, does this grab you:
Prologue
Look, I never set out to make "the device".

I was a kid in second grade with a new set of colored pencils. One day I sat down and started drawing. This led to the first schematics of the machine I imagined. It all made sense at the time, very useful, and I even thought it was possible. I was in second grade!

Don't ask me if I had a vision. I was not visited by aliens. No God whispered in my ear. I was just doodling and something appeared from no where. If I had it to do over, I would have drawn a fucking rainbow or a pony.

But I didn't.

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

You know I'm going to be 100% honest here and I mean it.

I love it stories that start off that way. You KNOW that something has gone horribly wrong but you don't know what it is yet.

Here's the start to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft. How can one possibly stop reading?

"From a private hospital for the insane near Providence, Rhode Island, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person. He bore the name of Charles Dexter Ward, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by the grieving father who had watched his aberration grow from a mere eccentricity to a dark mania involving both a possibility of murderous tendencies and a profound and peculiar change in the apparent contents of his mind. Doctors confess themselves quite baffled by his case, since it presented oddities of a general physiological as well as psychological character.

In the first place, the patient seemed oddly older than his twenty-six years would warrant. Mental disturbance, it is true, will age one rapidly; but the face of this young man had taken on a subtle cast which only the very aged normally acquire. In the second place, his organic processes shewed a certain queerness of proportion which nothing in medical experience can parallel. Respiration and heart action had a baffling lack of symmetry; the voice was lost, so that no sounds above a whisper were possible; digestion was incredibly prolonged and minimised, and neural reactions to standard stimuli bore no relation at all to anything heretofore recorded..."

Something clearly has gone wrong. No waiting around until page 2 to see that!

EconomicDisconnect said...

Wow that is a grabber!

Stagflationary Mark said...

"I love it stories that start off that way."

Why do I post comments this early in the morning after I have stayed up all night? Why? ;)

watchtower said...

Mark I have an off topic question, have you purchased Call of Duty Black Ops?

If so, any opinion?

Stagflationary Mark said...

watchtower,

I have not bought it. I looked at it but opted to buy Sacred 2 instead (for half the price). I'm such a cheapskate.

I also tend to favor RPGs and action RPGs if given the choice.

Sacred 2 is a bit like Diablo.

It's enjoyable. It has a few quirks but I'd give it a thumbs up. Here's a review that would closely match my own.

Fun, but not perfect

You also might give Valkyria Chronicles a try. I loved that game and it is also cheap now. It isn't like Borderlands though. It isn't a real time shooter. It is more of a light RPG turn based shooter.