hearing all the tunes, but just now listened to the Les Miserables production dedicated to Bernie. It was awesome!

Oh, hope you catch a lot of fish today!

"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."--Helen Keller

Thank you Smiley for taking my OTs over. If I had to have one for today, it would of been MIA.

Yesterday, I spent $300 and 7 hours of my time with a software tech figuring out what the hell happened to photobucket. I thought my account had been hacked, but it turned out to be my ISP. Apparently that one url and only that one url was screwed up and only on my connection. Without all of the trial, elimination, and my iPhone, the cable company would have blown me off. As it was, they tried. I demanded a supervisor (sr. tech) who listened, confirmed it was their problem, and promised to have it fixed by 5 pm today. Quite frankly if I had taken my call, I wouldn't have believed me either.

The good news is that I now have one year of anytime and unlimited software support with guaranteed fixes for all three of my computers . I don't know how competitively priced it was, but hey, it is what it is. The company is a MS partner, and the techs were only a little hard to understand. They were persistent (7 hours) and handed me up and up until we could figure out my problem. I had all three computers on a desk before me as they ran virus and malware checks, dumped junk files, changed over my virus checker for me, and checked my browser, extensions, etc. The tech was willing to keep on going and changing anything else I wanted changed, but I was beyond burnt out. As much as I hate being responsible for technology, I think my purchase will be well worth it in the end.

I'm off to work in a few and wishing you all a good day. It finally quit raining, and the sun is out. I am looking forward to a better day.

catch that elusive "Big One" smiley! Remember, pictures or it didn't happen!

Right now: 9:35 am PST

The red ones have been blocked, the others are unblock-able I guess.

Markets forced to face reality

The governor of Puerto Rico has decided that the island cannot pay back more than $70 billion in debt, setting up an unprecedented financial crisis that could rock the municipal bond market and lead to higher borrowing costs for governments across the United States.

Puerto Rico’s move could roil financial markets already dealing with the turmoil of the renewed debt crisis in Greece. It also raises questions about the once-staid municipal bond market, which states and cities count on to pay upfront costs for public improvements such as roads, parks and hospitals.

It looks like I unfortunately called this one right. It's been sneaking under the radar until now.

link

Stocks slid 3.3 percent Monday even after an aggressive three-pronged easing effort over the weekend. People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan cut the benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to a record low of 4.85 percent, slashed the deposit rate to 2 percent and reduced required reserve ratios for some lenders. As stocks plunged anyway, China's securities regulators tried to cheer traders by announcing they would consider suspending initial public offerings in order to increase demand for existing shares. The sell orders still accelerated. Next, government officials assured the record numbers of individual investors entering the market that the risks from margin trading are controllable. Selling ensued regardless.
...
At the very least, it would kill Japan's nascent recovery, push Australia into its first recession in a quarter century, send shockwaves through South Korea, Indonesia and India, and devastate commodity-exporting nations everywhere. Officials in Beijing get this, of course. ...
But sharply lower borrowing costs might just encourage more irresponsible lending at a time when local government debt already exceeds Germany's $3.7 trillion worth of annual output. Conventional stimulus measures have lost traction amid factory overcapacity and a fast-increasing number of ghost cities. The solution, of course, would be for President Xi Jinping to accelerate structural reforms to wean China off excessive investment and exports. It's only by reining in state-owned enterprises that China can create a vibrant private sector driven by small-to-midsize services companies that generate high-paying jobs.

Instead, Xi's team has spent the last 10 months ginning up stocks with government sorcery.