![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/DummiesoftheMonth.jpg\" "\\"DummiesoftheMonth\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nwill get their act together and raise the debt ceiling at the last minute. Doing deals at the last moment is the only<\/strong> thing they’re any good at. But meantime, they love faking crises. Last night, Dummy Number One\u00a0 warned of\u00a0 \u2018Deep Economic Crisis\u2019<\/strong><\/em> if the debt ceiling is not raised. Heck, it’s so difficult? It’s been raised at least 13 tiumes in the last 30 years, under every president — republican or democrat.<\/p>\n To invoke an old Australian saying, I wouldn’t employ either of these two dummies to organize a queue to an outhouse.<\/p>\n If the high-yielders — NLY, AGNC, ANH, etc. — drop any more, I’ll be a buyer. Don’t forget you happily drop a few percent if your yield is 14.8%, as NLY’s is. Here’s NLY over the past three years:<\/p>\n Rent, not buy.<\/strong><\/span> I can think of no reason to buy anything that doesn’t yield a decent return from day one. To wit:<\/p>\n +\u00a0 I stupidly bought a 2004 Mercedes for Susan. It’s been a total disaster. Everything on it has broken, some more than once. We took it in recently for “service”\u00a0 — oil change, lube, etc.\u00a0 They now want $11,000 to replace more bits and pieces that are breaking. My friends all lease their pricey cars. They give them back after three years when the pricey cars start falling apart. They’re more intelligent than I am. I assumed that my Mercedes would actually work.<\/p>\n + There are three strikes against buying\u00a0 houses: First, their prices are still falling (except in New York). Second, local taxes on them are skyrocketting, voiding all\u00a0 assumptions in your pretty\u00a0 Excel spreadsheet. Third, maintenance is also rising rapidly.<\/p>\n Third Point Second quarter newsletter to its investors. <\/strong><\/span>Third Point is one of the biggest and most successful hedge funds. Its latest newsletter, written by founder Daniel Loeb,\u00a0 contains a rant against the “paucity of leadership” in our country and talks about Third Point’s present investment strategy — going increasingly to cash. Absolutely worth reading. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n External monitors are cheap, cheap, cheap<\/strong><\/span>. Look at this one from newegg.com<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n