Meet Me At The Museum December 9, 2010March 19, 2017 HOPING TO HAVE CAPITAL GAINS THE TAX RATE ON WHICH TO FIGHT OVER We added CRME to guru’s latest speculative small-drug stock basket last month, at $4.60. It’s up 38% but I’m hanging on. (Famous last words?) Also the rest of the basket. THE NATIONAL PINBALL MUSEUM OPENED FRIDAY OMG, get out of my way – let me in! (And savor the symmetry of it! The first pinball game I ever encountered was, yes that’s right, on our Seventh Grade Trip to Washington, DC. And now, two score and a dozen years later, we come full circle.) SOME VIEWS ON THE NEW STIMULUS Even as a lot of us wish ‘the compromise’ had stopped at $250,000 and worry that the one-year 2% payroll tax reduction, from 7.65% to 5.65%, is not the ideal stimulus, there’s reason to hope the overall package will kick the economy back into gear: Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics “It will ensure the economic recovery evolves into a self-sustaining economic expansion… Prior to this, I was less sure of that.” [AP, 12/07/2010] Deutsche Bank Research “According to our calculations, the Social Security tax reduction could add 0.7% to output next year, thereby taking Q4 over Q4 real GDP up to 4.1% versus our current 3.3% projection.” [Deutsche Bank US Daily Economic Notes, 12/07/2010] Macroeconomic Advisers “[T]here are three major components that we had not assumed, and that would, in fact, together significantly impact the economic outlook over the next few years … Based upon what is currently known of these three key proposals, our preliminary analysis suggests that GDP growth in 2011 would be boosted by roughly ½ to ¾ percentage point. This is on top of the 3.7% growth of GDP anticipated for 2011 in our recently published forecast.” [Macroeconomic Advisers’ Macro Musing, “A December to Remember Compromise Boosts Growth,” 12/07/2010] J.P. Morgan Research “Against the backdrop of positive momentum in recent US economic data, this policy shift has convinced us to raise our 2011 growth forecast, from 3.0% (4Q/4Q) to 3.5%. This upward revision is focused in 1H GDP growth, which now is expected to average 3.75% saar, versus 2.5% before.” [J.P. Morgan Daily Economic Briefing, 12/07/2010] Bricklin Dwyer, Economist for BNP Paribas “The package should provide a noticeable boost to GDP in 2011.” [Wall Street Journal, 12/07/2010] ☞ Once the economy shows signs of strength, a lot of folks will be better off – and it may be easier to steer it in a better direction. # GEEKS ONLY # MYM ON A 64-BIT MACHINE Craig Hartley: “I wrote you in April about trying to get Managing Your Money to work on a Windows 7 64-bit machine. At the time we figured it was impossible, that it would only run on a 32-bit machine, which was a bummer because I have 15 years of data on that old MYM program. Anyway, I just got it to work! First, I upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional. (I had already copied MYM into the C: drive, but couldn’t get it to work.) Once I was in XP mode, I told MYM to emulate a Windows 95 program. Then I copied the MYM data onto a CD from the old machine and told MYM to restore the data into the new machine. Now it works like a champ! Figured you might be the only other person on the planet who might appreciate the fix!” ☞ No, we are not alone. Leaving aside the extraterrestrials who, given an infinite universe with an infinite number of planets, are likely running MYM on 64-bit machines (and reading Shakespeare typed at random by one of an infinite number of monkeys), there are actual earthlings besides the two of us still pressing F5 to add a transaction. Indeed, just hours before receiving your email there was this: David Ward: “I still use MYM12 for DOS and find it to be extraordinarily flexible. It is my hope and belief that even if Microsoft abandons DOS altogether, this software could work on any computer that uses an Intel chip. If not, I have a technician who is able to keep old computers in operation as long as he can find parts somewhere in the world.” ☞ Actually, has anyone tried running the DOS version on a Mac? Under one of the programs that lets you emulate Windows XP there? There may even be a free way to do it?