Here's The Chilling Blog Post That Driver Dan Wheldon Wrote For USA Today The Day Before His Death

Dan Wheldon, who died today after an IndyCar crash in Las Vegas, wrote about having car trouble in a blog post that was published by USA Today yesterday.

The post is headlined, "Driver blog: Dan Wheldon frustrated with car in Las Vegas."

In it, he worries about his race car inexplicibly being three miles per hour slower than he'd like it.

"It is incredibly frustrating, both for me and them. All the boys are working as hard as possible, but so far we haven't pinpointed what it is."

He also offered some predictions for the race:

"Honestly, if I can be fast enough early in the race to be able to get up there and latch onto those two, it will be pure entertainment. It's going to be a pack race, and you never know how that's going to turn out."

The post was the second in a three-part series from Wheldon. The third post was supposed to "recap the race day."

It's a chilling and saddening read. But it gives you a look into his thoughts and frustrations on the eve of the race that would claim his life.

There's absolutely no indication that his car trouble had anything to do with the tragic, 15-car wreck that took his life today.

Click here to read Wheldon's entire USA Today piece >>

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Here's Rhapsody's Plan To Get Millions Of New Users Without Giving Away Free Music

Thanks to the hype surrounding Spotify's U.S. launch this summer, the question on everyone's mind when they talk about signing up for one of the all you can eat music services out there is "How much free music can I get?"

So far, both MOG and Rdio have jumped on to the free music plan trend, offering "gas tanks" of music that deplete as you listen.

You can earn more music by doing things like sharing your listening activity with friends on Twitter or Facebook, but at the end of the day, you're stuck with a finite number of hours or tracks you can listen to.

But Rhapsody, the company that has been in the music streaming business for almost a decade, doesn't want to follow the rest of the pack. Instead, Rhapsody plans to see how the market reacts to the free plans and see if the conversion rate to paid packages are sustainable enough to try it too, says the company's president Jon Irwin.

We had a long interview with Irwin about Rhapsody's plans for gaining more users. For now, "free" isn't on the table, he says.

Instead, Irwin says Rhapsody plans to leverage its recent acquisition of Napster to start moving its business outside the United States. Napster has a very strong user base overseas that will help get things jump started.

Over the next few months, Napster users will start seeing their playlists, favorites, etc. migrate to Rhapsody. By the end of the year, Napster users will be added to Rhapsody's 800,000 user base. (Irwin wouldn't tell us how many Napster users Rhapsody is acquiring.)

Aside from the Napster plans, Rhapsody has another interesting strategy we have yet to see competitors talk about. Irwin told us about a deal between Rhapsody and the budget wireless carrier Metro PCS that's already in place.

Right now, when a customer buys a $60 unlimited plan through Metro PCS along with an Android phone, they get automatic access to Rhapsody as part of their contract. In one swoop, Rhapsody now has the ability to tap into Metro PCS's 9 million customers.

The deal is in its infancy, but if it catches on, Irwin says he'd like to work out similar deals with the larger carriers like Verizon and AT&T.

There's also talk of partnering with cable providers to tie Rhapsody into your cable service. Say goodbye to those ~100 Music Choice channels. Instead, Irwin envisions one channel that has all the music you want on demand. Irwin says there aren't any deals in place with cable or satellite providers, but he's working to lock something down. To make thing even better, music labels love the idea.

Despite Rhapsody's alternative strategy of partnering with cable providers and wireless carriers, Irwin says he hasn't ruled out offering a free plan similar to the ones on Spotify, MOG, and Rdio.

In fact, Rhapsody already has agreements set with the big music labels that would allow a free streaming plan. Irwin even hints the deal could allow more free music than Rhapsody's competitors since the company has a longer relationship with the labels.

But Rhapsody plans to watch how free plans work with other services. If the competition sees success in converting free users to paid users, Irwin says he just needs to "flip the switch" on Rhapsody's free plan.

For now, the company will stick with its standard 30-day free trial to suck users in.

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HOLLYWEIRD: Here's What Industry Moves Fred Durst, Lady Gaga And Woody Allen Pulled This Week

The immortal Fred Durst, lead singer of Limp Bizkit, is getting his own sitcom... and it's tentatively called "Douchebag." Stay classy, CBS.
Robert Downey, Jr. would like everyone to give Mel Gibson another chance.
During Eminem's Shady 2.0 cypher at the BET Awards on Monday, Detroit spitter Royce da 5'9" kept saying, "Hi, Rihanna," for no apparent reason. Then the world got obsessed, and Rihanna responded on Twitter. Modern romance!
Woody Allen was planning on calling his newest movie "The Bop Decameron," presumably so that nobody would see it. Fortunately, just-slightly cooler minds prevailed: the film is now called "Nero Fiddled." Lady Gaga took to the courts to make sure that British kids' website Moshi Monsters couldn't use a fictional character they'd created called "Lady Goo Goo." If Gaga takes herself any more seriously, she'll be obligated to enter the Republican race for President.
While doing press for her new movie "We Need to Talk About Kevin," Tilda Swinton told interviewers that she wanted to kill her baby brother when she was younger. But then she actually ended up saving his life... yeah, Swinton is the weirdest.
A woman is suing the distributors of "Drive" because it was nothing like "The Fast and the Furious." Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling looks in the mirror and wonders if he's going bald.Please follow The Wire on Twitter and Facebook.
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Citi: Here's The Real Reason 24 People Get Arrested At One Of Our Branches

Citibank Public Affairs issued the following statement regarding today's incident: "A large amount of protesters entered our branch at 555 La Guardia Place around 2:00 PM today. They were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911. The Police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed. Only one person asked to close an account and was accommodated."

To be clear: no one was arrested for closing an account; we didn't lock people in our branch - the police decided to close the branch; and we didn't ask for anyone to be arrested -  that is a police decision.

(via @bank_able)

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Here's The Tablet HTC Expects You To Shell Out $700 For (T)

Image: Steve Kovach, Business Insider

We finally got our hands on HTC's first 10-inch tablet, the Jetstream.

For now, the Jetstream is only available through AT&T and is the carrier's first LTE capable tablet. Unfortunately, AT&T's zippy LTE network is only available in Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas.

If you don't live in one of those cities, you're going to be stuck with a slower 3G or HSPA+ connection.

While our snap reaction of the tablet is pretty good after using it for a day or so -- we love the modifications HTC made to Honeycomb -- we can't get over the price tag.

The Jetstream will set you back a whopping $700 if you sign up for a two-year data plan from AT&T. It'll cost you $850 to get the tablet contact-free.

For comparison, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE model sells for $530 with a two-year contract from Verizon.

We'll have more thoughts later this week in our full review. For now, check out our first hands on photos.

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Here's The Latest Attempt By Spirit Airlines To Exploit Events In The News

Spirit Airlines, which has a history of jumping on whatever current event it can, is at it again.

Now it has come up with a 9-9-9 vacation plan in an ode to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's catchy 9-9-9 tax plan.

The airline's last pair of ads that involved politicians were about shamed Congressman Jeff "DM Fail" Weiner and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's respective scandals.

But is this latest one a smart move for the airline?

If anything, Spirit is consistent and knows how to grab your attention. It's a cheap alternative, and has a steadily growing reputation for having crappy customer service and having fees for seemingly every little thing. 

The ads usually don't explicitly take a side (like these do, for example), though this does have the feel of an endorsement, compared to those Schwarzenegger and Weiner ads. Spirit still shouldn't have to worry about instantly alienating half the country.

This Cain promotion also doesn't have an immature sexual innuendo like "The Weiner Sale" and others did, and it's still getting national attention, so maybe it'll hold back on those in the future. Nah, who are we kidding, these are the folks that brought us the MUFF and MILF campaigns, remember? Spirit even had a campaign which featured strippermobiles driving around Los Angeles. Trashy.

All that trashiness and blatant exploitation of whatever is going on in the country is what makes each one of Spirit's ad campaigns light up the news -- but maybe it doesn't need to do both in every campaign to get that exposure. Either way, at this point, there's not much of a brand reputation left for it to worry about anyway.

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Here's What The Hacker Who Leaked Naked Photos Of Mila Kunis And Scarlett Johansson Looks Like

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Suspected celebrity hacker Chris Chaney told a Jacksonville local news affiliate last night that he's "glad" the FBI caught him.

Chaney went on to say he was unable to stop hacking into starlets' computers -- stand by, we're sure a psychology talking head will coin a phrase for this shortly.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the man that stole and leaked the photos clicked 'round the world.

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Prepare Yourself, Here's The NEXT Debate Everyone Will Have On The Economy

Thanks to the rebounding stock market, this week saw a pretty remarkable shift in sentiment, as suddenly economists left and right are hiking their GDP estimates.

To be fair, the latest data has come in fairly robust, and non-double-dippy. This is best exemplified by September retail sales, which saw growth across all categories, and lights-out car sales.

This chart tells that story: You can see how much better September was than the previous months.

If all this is giving you a bit of a case of deja-vu developing, don't worry, it's only natural.

A similar thing played out last year, pretty close to around the same time.

See then, in summer 2010, we saw a lot of the same growth scares that this year has seen, only less pronounced. Then Bernanke announced QE2, and it wasn't too long until the stock market started rallying, and everyone declared that QE2 had saved the market, as the Fed's money printing.

But what we kept pointing out at the time last year was that in addition to the Fed's QE2, the economy really was showing signs of improvement, and coming out of the summer slump.

On September 1 2010, for example, a super-strong ISM report shocked everyone, coming as it did after a series of weak regional Fed reports. The markets jumped 2% that day.

And it wasn't just that ISM report.

The chart below from December of 2010 from Nomura shows that their US Economic Surprise Index -- which basically aggregates all the data to determine whether, on net, data is beating or missing against economic forecasts -- bottomed in August of 2010, meaning that in addition to the Fed, the fundamental economic data really was improving. The rebound in the stock market in late 2010 was not just a matter of monetary stimulus.

But people like to tell stories about the economy, so even though it clearly improved after the Summer 2010 doldrums, almost everyone focused on Bernanke and QE2, and how the Fed was juicing the market.

And we're setting ourselves up, today, for basically the same thing (potentially).

Operation Twist -- which should really just be called QE3 according to Goldman -- is kicking in right as the economy is showing signs of life.

In fact, here's the brand new Citigroup Economic Surprise Index (kindly put together by Scott Barber at Reuters) showing once again a major surge off of an August-September bottom. In fact, it just went positive again.

This is real data improvement -- or at least improvement against expectations, which is ultimately what  matters to markets.

And yet you can be certain that if trends persist, all the debate will still be about the Fed, and the market enjuicing effects of Operation Twist, and whether it's all an artificial sugar high that we need to come down from.

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Here's Why Analysts Are Dead Wrong About Holiday Sales

Here's Why Analysts Are Dead Wrong About Holiday Sales Login With Facebook | Login With Twitter | Login | Register Money Game Contributors Home Tech Entertainment Wall Street Markets Strategy Sports Lifestyle Politics EuropeData Misc. Your Money Video Latest Your News Money Game Home Economy Markets Investing ETFs HiveTapePRContributors Follow us on Facebook and get updates from Money Game Contributors posted directly to your news feed 

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Email Zip Here's Why Analysts Are Dead Wrong About Holiday Sales Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Global Economic Trend Analysis | Oct. 13, 2011, 3:08 AM | 331 | 2 A A A   xEmail Article From To Email Sent!You have successfully emailed the post. Mike "Mish" Shedlock URL Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mish is an investment advisor at Sitka Pacific Capital. He writes the widely read Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Recent PostsThe Real Reasons For Last Week's Rally EmergeHow Bernanke Screwed The Banks And Fixed Income Savers At The Same...The Latest Income Report Screams Deflation Arrogance of "One-Trick Pony" Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson; Is the Wall Street Protest Misguided? Unprecedented Drop in Port Traffic: A Sobering Omen for Holiday Sales or Should we Listen to Analysts? France will Not Use EFSF to Recapitalize Banks; Slovak Government Falls, EFSF to be Approved Anyway; Greek Haircuts of 30-50% Coming; EU Seeks Magic

Port traffic on the West coast is down significantly. Expected traffic for September is also way lower. Yet analysts have been busy raising expectations for the holiday season. One thing for sure, one group is wrong.

Please consider the New York Times article A Contradiction in the Cargo

When retailers expect that Americans will be crowding into their stores, their orders pile into the nation’s ports in August and September for delivery to stores by late October. But logistics companies say that is not happening this year.

“We’re concerned, because usually at this time, you see this peak,” said Richard D. Steinke, the executive director of the Port of Long Beach in California. “We haven’t seen it.”

In fact, the five busiest container ports in the United States said that imports in August 2011 were lower than or even with 2010 volumes.

In Long Beach, the second-busiest container port by volume, August imports fell by 14.2 percent from August 2010. While the port has not yet released September volumes, a spokesman, Art Wong, said it expected about a 15 percent drop from September 2010.

The reports from the remaining container ports in the top five were equally gloomy. In New York-New Jersey, the number of incoming containers in August was about flat with last year. In Savannah, Ga., imports in August fell by 4 percent. Oakland reported that August imports were down 0.9 percent from a year earlier. And Los Angeles, the nation’s highest-volume container port, counted 5.75 percent fewer containers in August than a year earlier.

“I expect over all the peak season will be muted,” said Kathryn McDermott, deputy executive director of business development for the Port of Los Angeles.

Last Thursday, the National Retail Federation said it expected holiday sales to rise 2.8 percent over last year. And late last month, the federation said it expected port volumes to rise by at least 4.5 percent a month for the final four months of the year.

At the same time, some analysts revised their holiday forecasts upward after the retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters beat estimates and reported an average 5.1 percent increase in same-store sales for September last Thursday.

“For the holidays,” Craig R. Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, wrote in a note to clients last week, “a 5 to 6 percent increase is clearly in reach.”

On Monday, a Citigroup retail analyst, Deborah Weinswig, revised her holiday forecast up by a percentage point, saying she expected 4 percent to 5 percent gains in same-store sales at department stores, up from 3 percent to 4 percent. There is traditionally a strong correlation between the back-to-school and holiday seasons, Ms. Weinswig said. Some retailers are raising their prices because raw-material costs have gone up, she wrote, which would help sales. And the “surprisingly resilient” back-to-school season, she wrote, had led to “our more upbeat outlook.”

While Mr. Steinke said that retailers occasionally delayed shipping for as long as possible to see how the economy progressed, he said they usually gave transportation companies a heads-up if they were planning a lot of last-minute orders. This year, he said, the retailers do not seem to be expecting that.

“We talk to the railroads, we talk to our ocean carriers, and they’re not seeing this big peak, or bracing themselves for a big late peak,” Mr. Steinke said.

It's not just port traffic that is down. Spokesmen for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and Federal Express said the same thing.

Unprecedented Drop in Port Traffic

The Wall Street Journal tells a similar story in At Ports, a Sobering Omen for Holiday Sales

Dick Steinke, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, says shipping volumes have posted two consecutive months of declines, and he's anticipating a double-digit drop for September. The last time the port experienced no peak was during the height of the recession in 2009, he says. Before that, the phenomenon was unprecedented.

After a strong holiday season last year—with sales up 4.1%—forecasts are pointing to more moderate gains as the bumpy economic recovery, sustained high unemployment and higher living expenses keep consumers cautious with their gift spending. A recent survey of more than 3,500 consumers by market research firm NPD Group found that 27% of respondents plan to spend less this holiday season.

Stage Stores Inc. is leaner on inventory this year, says CEO Andy Hall. The department store chain has over 800 stores in the U.S. operating under the names Bealls, Goody's, Peebles, Palais Royal and its namesake. Mr. Hall says his customers are affected by high unemployment and gas prices. "We can't afford to be over-inventoried in our stores," he says.

Rail companies are also noting a shift. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., which moves more containers between ships, rail and trucks than any other U.S. railroad, didn't experience a traditional holiday peak in volumes this year, says John Lanigan, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. Some retail clients have outlined plans to stay lean and chase items closer to the holiday, he says. Depending on their timing, BNSF could be cut out of the equation if retailers have to the rush product deliveries by air, says Mr. Lanigan.

"We do not expect to see a traditional fall peak this year," says Robin Chapman, a spokesman with Norfolk Southern Corp. In a September interview with The Wall Street Journal, Union Pacific Corp. CEO Jim Young said the rail company's peak had moved from July until mid-September.

So what are analysts thinking? Or are they thinking at all?

Shippers don't see it, the labor market does not see it, and consumer sentiment does not reflect more willingness to spend. Are analysts giddy over this 1-week rally in the stock market or are they simply cheerleading "rah rah sis-boom bah" as they do 99% of the time?

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Receive email updates on new comments!cvszEmail2 Comments 2 0 Flag as Offensive Fire up a J on Oct 13, 3:35 AM said: You nailed it. They're cheerleading the "rah-hah-sis-boom-bah" as you so elequently put it. In other words, they AREN'T thinking at all. Good work, Mish.

That said, have a GREAT holiday season! And be safe on the roads.
-- Fire Reply 0 1 Flag as Offensive Freedom 4 all on Oct 13, 4:53 AM said: As a tribute to our Wall street brothers and sisters - we will be occupying the London stock exchange on Saturday.

All free men and women welcome. 12 Midday meet

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Dear Upper East Siders, Here's What The Protesters Are Chanting Outside Your House

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The non-violent Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in Manhattan's Financial District are currently marching through the Upper East Side.

They're calling it the "NYC Billionaires Walking Tour."

The protesters are expected to visit the homes of hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and JPMorgan's chief executive Jamie Dimon.

Now what was once a small group of college age kids camping out in Zuccotti Park has swelled to a massive movement with copycat versions popping up in cities nationwide. 

As a result, the marches are no longer just a couple hundred, but thousands with their chants and cheers resounding and they're all over the Upper East Side today.

Speaking of their chants and cheers, they're extremely catchy. 

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STOCKS RALLY BUT FADE BIG TIME IN FINAL MINUTES: Here's What You Need To Know (SPY, DIA, QQQ, AA, PEP, , FCX, C, BAC, MS, JPM, LIZ, RIMM)

Sam Ro | Oct. 12, 2011, 4:00 PM | 773 |   x You have successfully emailed the post. Fear is fading out of the markets as the European picture becomes more clear.

First, the scoreboard:

Dow: +102, +0.9%
S&P 500: +12, +1.0%
NASDAQ: +21, +0.8%

And now, the top stories:

If you looked only at the major indices, you probably wouldn't have known earnings season kicked off on a disappointing note.  Alcoa reported earnings of 15 cents per share, sharply missing analysts' estimate of 22 cents per share.  The company painted a pretty bleak picture of Europe.However, Europe's picture may soon improve. Word out of Slovakia indicates that leaders will pass the EFSF expansion later this week.  Markets applauded this news sending US stocks higher.European markets closed on a high note as the euro surged against the dollar.As usual, US bank stocks benefited from the improving picture in Europe.  Citigroup and Bank of America both jumped.  Morgan Stanley gained 3%.  JP Morgan, which announces quarterly earnings Thursday morning, climbed 3%.In other earnings news, PepsiCo reported Q3 earnings just barely ahead of expecations as strong revenue more than offset higher costs.  Shares closed up 3%.Industrial and precious metals also booked big gains today, led by a 3% jump in copper prices. Miners Southern Copper and Freeport-McMoran saw shares rise 3% and 2%, respectively.Amidst the bull rally in risky assets, the Treasury had its worst 10-year note auction in nearly a year with the yield climbing to 2.27%.Another area of weakness was agricultural commodities, which reacted to a USDA report that indicated higher than expected supply. Wheat plunged by 6%, erasing most of yesterday's gains.FOMC minutes came out today.  During the September meeting, some members had favored more more quantitative easing, even suggesting expansion of the Fed's balance sheet.  The committee also cut its outlook for US GDP growth.Meanwhile, Research In Motion fell 2% as the company's BlackBerry network outages spread into North America.In other corporate news, Liz Claiborne announced it would be selling off its brands for $328 million.  Shares soared.Don't Miss: Nouriel Roubini's $1.2 Trillion Plan To Save The Entire WorldPlease follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.
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BARRY EICHENGREEN: Here's The Alternative To All The Restructuring Chaos In Europe

After a year and half of delay and denial, Greece is about to restructure its debts.

This, by itself, will not be enough to draw a line under the eurozone’s crisis.

Greece will also have to downsize its public sector, reform tax administration, and take other steps to modernize its economy.

Its European partners will have to build a firewall around Spain and Italy to prevent their debt markets and economies from being destabilized.

Banks incurring balance-sheet damage will have to be recapitalized. The flaws in eurozone governance will have to be fixed.

The indispensable first step, however, is a deep write-down of Greek debt – to less than half its face value.

The burden on the Greek taxpayer will be lightened, which is a prerequisite for reducing wages, pensions, and other costs, and thus is essential to the strategy of “internal devaluation” needed to restore Greek competitiveness.

Forcing bondholders to accept a “haircut” on what they will be paid also promises to discourage reckless lending to eurozone sovereigns in the future.

Bringing us to the question of why it took policy makers a year and a half to get to this point.  The answer is that there are strong incentives to delay.

The Greek government, for which restructuring is an admission of failure, continues to hope that good news will magically turn up.

Likewise, French banks holding Greek bonds cling to whatever thin reed of optimism they can and lobby furiously against restructuring. European policymakers, for their part, worry that a sovereign-debt restructuring will damage the financial system and be a black mark for their monetary union.

The incentives to delay are myriad. The question is what can be done about them. Rather than resorting time after time to bailouts and delay, isn’t there a way to more swiftly and decisively restructure the debts of insolvent sovereigns?

One answer would be to add to future bond covenants contractual provisions that would trigger the necessary restructuring automatically. The concept is taken from the debate over bank reform, where there is an analogous problem of bailouts and bail-ins.

Because of the difficulty of putting banks through a bankruptcy-like procedure, there is an incentive, like that which arises in the context of sovereign debt, to postpone the painful process of imposing losses on bondholders and instead provide a bailout and hope for the best.

Contingent convertible bonds, or “cocos,” have been proposed as a solution to this problem. When a bank’s capital falls below a pre-specified limit, its cocos automatically convert from debt to equity at a fraction of their previous price. This bails in the bondholders and helps to recapitalize the financial institution in question.

Extending this idea to sovereign debt, government bond covenants could stipulate that if a sovereign’s debt/GDP ratio exceeds a specified threshold, principal and interest payments to bondholders would be automatically reduced. The idea is that if there is no adequate incentive to restructure once a crisis starts, it should be built in before the fact.

“Sovereign cocos” have the advantage that their activation would not constitute a credit event triggering the credit-default swaps written on the bonds. The existence of large quantities of CDS, together with uncertainty about who has written them, has fed the reluctance to proceed with restructuring. Sovereign cocos would assuage the fear of creating an AIG-like event, in which a too-big-to-fail underwriter is over-exposed.

Objections to the idea start with the question of whether there would be adequate demand for these novel sovereign-debt instruments. In fact, the success of banks in issuing cocos suggests that investors do have the appetite for them.

There is also a concern that the government might manipulate the debt and GDP statistics on which the conversion trigger is based. Outsourcing these figures’ calculation to an independent entity, such as the International Monetary Fund, could solve this problem.

There would be worries that adding cocos to sovereign bonds might raise governments’ borrowing costs. But the literature on related instruments known as collective-action clauses suggests that borrowing costs would rise only for governments approaching the limit of their creditworthiness – that is, close to the cocos’ trigger. And raising borrowing costs for governments with dangerously heavy debts – thereby discouraging them from further borrowing – is precisely what we should want to do.

Adding cocos to government bonds will require solving a host of technical problems. But not adding them is a recipe for more delay, more bailouts, and more chaos the next time the debts of a sovereign like Greece become unsustainable.

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Here's Why Herman Cain Feels Like A Modern Moses

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2012 presidential hopeful Herman Cain is riding high these days.

The 65-year-old pizza titan is still surging in the polls, capitalizing on his win in last month's Florida Straw Poll. Once considered a long-shot candidate for the Republican nomination, recent national polls put Cain at the top of the GOP field, neck-and-neck with frontrunner Mitt Romney.

But Cain, unlike most of us, is not surprised. Likening himself to Moses, he has attributed his rise in the polls to God, who he says is calling on him to lead his people out of the darkness.

"God’s been in this from the beginning because when I first started to feel that I needed to consider running I did a lot of praying," Cain said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody. "I felt like Moses when God said, 'I want you to go into Egypt and lead my people out.'"

Cain went on to say that he is ready for whatever the 2012 Republican primary throws at him.

"I’m ready for the ‘gotcha’ questions and they’re already starting to come," he said. "And when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, 'You know, I don’t know. Do you know?' And then I’m going to say, 'how’s that going to create one job?'"

Watch the video below.

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Here's Why You Need To Get Your Townhouse Fully Inspected

Zillow is a leading online real estate marketplace.

There’s a prevailing myth in the real estate industry that a townhouse inspection is far easier than a single-family home, takes less time, and uncovers fewer defects.  False, false, and false.  

When we quote a price for a townhouse inspection, we always quote the inspection fee exactly as we would for a single-family home.

Why? Because townhouses are usually just as much work to inspect as a single family home, and they have all the same problems. We conduct townhouse inspections in the same manner as single family homes… including the common areas.

We often hear: “But you don’t need to inspect the common areas, they’re owned by the association.”

That’s a common objection given by home buyers or real estate agents.  It’s true, the common areas are typically owned by the association, but who owns the association?

If the roof needs replacement and the association isn’t aware of this or hasn’t budgeted funds for the roof replacement, who is going to pay?

It’s also very difficult to properly inspect the components that only belong to the individual property owner without inspecting the exterior of the building.  For example:

How would the home inspector know if the damper for the bathroom exhaust fan opened at the roof rap without climbing on the roof?

How would the home inspector know that the vent terminals for the high-efficiency furnace were properly installed at the exterior without inspecting the exterior?

How would the home inspector inspect the dryer damper at the exterior?

If the common areas aren’t inspected, the fee for the home inspection will be less, but it’s not worth the difference in price.  There are far too many components that don’t get fully inspected.

Below are a few photos of some “common area” defects at townhouses that I’ve identified in the past year or two while inspecting the townhouses the exact same way that I would inspect a single-family home; I inspect the whole thing.

Roof defects are huge on townhouses.  Many times, nobody knows about the defect yet, or in some cases, such as in the next two photos below, someone knew about a problem and made several unsuccessful attempts to repair the problem.  See all caulking used at these shingles in the photo below:

This caulking will do nothing to fix the problem; the issue was improper flashing, and it still hasn’t been fixed.

What happens when the shingles have reached the end of their serviceable life, but no one knows about it yet? Be sure to find out if the townhouse association has funds allocated for roof replacement.

Ice dams have been a major problem for townhouse associations the past two winters.  Who is responsible for ice and snow removal – the owners or the associations?  This is an issue many townhouse associations had to determine this year, and in most cases the associations determined that it was the owner’s responsibility to have snow and ice removed.

While at first this might seem unreasonable, imagine you’re the owner who just spent $2,000 to have their attic re-insulated.  You don’t have any ice dams over your unit, because you don’t have a problem with your attic.  Why should you have to spend more of your own money fixing everyone else’s problems?

If there is no snow on the roof, how does the home inspector know there were ice dams?  They look for clues.  When a townhouse owner or the townhouse association hires a bunch of hacks to remove ice dams, the removal typically consists of people literally “hacking away” at the ice dams with tools that will permanently damage the shingles, as seen in the photo below.

If you’re buying a townhouse, these are things you’ll want to know about ahead of time.

On townhouses, exterior maintenance is obviously the responsibility of the townhouse association, but again, is the association aware of the big projects that are going to cost a lot of money?  If not, this means an assessment for the owners.

Home inspectors can’t fully inspect the interior components of a home without also inspecting the exterior.  For instance, where does the dryer exhaust to?  At this particular townhouse, the dryer exhausts underneath the back porch, which is a terrible location.  It’s not accessible, and it’s completely clogged with lint.  This is a fire hazard, and the dryer probably takes forever to dry clothes.  The repair for this is to have the dryer duct re-located, which probably won’t be cheap, considering the fact that the entire basement is finished.

Again, home inspectors can’t fully inspect the interior components without also inspecting the exterior components. If the home inspector doesn’t inspect the exterior, how will they know the combustion air intake for the furnace room is blocked shut with dirt and debris, as shown in the below photo?

Stucco problems can be ridiculously expensive.  Just because it’s a townhouse doesn’t mean the individual owners will be protected from huge expenses related to stucco repair.  I strongly recommend invasive moisture testing on stucco townhouses built since the late 1980's.

Home inspectors find more problems with decks than with any other component of a home.  With townhouses, decks are often the sole responsibility of the homeowner; if you see a bunch of different decks in various states of repair, it’s usually a dead giveaway that the deck is the owner’s responsibility, not the townhouse association’s. Improperly attached decks are the number one cause of deck collapses.

When a townhouse buyer absolutely doesn’t want to have the exterior inspected, we’ll skip that part of the inspection and discount our inspection fee by about 20%, but we don’t recommend it.  Townhouses should be inspected inside and out, just like single-family homes.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections, Minneapolis, Minn., is a second-generation ASHI Certified Inspector whose experience with home remodeling and construction began at age four when he helped his father steam wallpaper. He has worked for Structure Tech since 1997 and joined ASHI in 2004. Visit his blog at www.structuretech1.com/blog/.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Zillow.

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HERE'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE ECONOMY... And Here's The Best Way To Fix It

The United States is in a very tough spot, economically and politically.

The 25-year debt-fueled boom of 1982-2007 has ended, and it has left the country with a stagnant economy, massive debts, high unemployment, huge wealth inequality, an enormous budget deficit, and a sense of entitlement engendered by a half-century of prosperity.

After decades of instant gratification, Americans have also come to believe that all problems can be solved instantly, if only the right leaders are put in charge and the right decisions are made. And so our government has devolved into a permanent election campaign, in which incumbents blame each other for the current mess, and challengers promise change.

The trouble is that our current problems cannot be solved with a simple fix. They also cannot be solved quickly. It took 25 years for us to get to this point, and it will likely take us at least a decade or two to work our way out of it, even if we make the right decisions.

So it is time that we began to face reality.

THE PROBLEM: TOO MUCH DEBT

The biggest debt binge in US history, by a mile.

Four years ago, when the debt-fueled boom ended and the economy plunged into recession, most economists and politicians misdiagnosed the problem.

They thought we were having just another post-War recession—a serious recession, yes, but a cyclical one, a recession that easy money, government stimulus, and a return of "confidence" could fix.

A handful of economists, meanwhile, argued that the recession was actually fundamentally different—a "balance sheet" recession resulting from a quarter-century-long debt-binge, one that would take a decade or more to fix.

In the past four years, it has become increasingly clear that the latter diagnosis was correct: The US economy is behaving exactly the way other economies have behaved after piling up mountains of debt and eventually going through a financial crisis. It is bumping along with disappointing growth, high unemployment, and, increasingly (and understandably) social unrest.

Total US debt, including households, companies, and the government. Can you say "$50 Trillion"?

Image: St. Louis Fed.

So how do you get out of a "balance sheet" recession triggered by too much debt?

You reduce the debt.

More specifically—and here's the critical point—you reduce the debt that is crippling the productive part of the economy. This is the part that creates most of the jobs, prosperity, and wealth. It is also the part that pays for the rest of the economy. That part is the private sector.

What debt is crippling the private sector?

Consumer debt. The household mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and other obligations that is forcing consumers to save and pay down debts instead of spend. Consumers still account for about 70% of the spending in the US economy, and that spending is now constrained. (See chart below—click for larger).

(Consumer spending was also artificially boosted for 25 years by the debt binge, so there's no way we're going back to that era. And we shouldn't strive to).

Households are still in debt up to their eyeballs. Here's household debt as a percentage of GDP.

Image: Calculated Risk

How can consumers reduce their debts?

By doing what they are doing right now:

Spending lessSaving morePaying down debtRestructuring debtDefaulting

Importantly, this process takes time. And unless you're willing to just tear up the laws and contracts that have formed the basis of the country's economy for the past two centuries, there's no way to just wave a magic wand and make the debts go away.

Also importantly, this healing process has nothing to do with "restoring confidence." Or "reducing regulation." Even if you could suddenly cast a spell and make all Americans (irrationally) exuberant again, you can't solve a debt problem with more debt. Specifically, you can't reduce the amount you owe by borrowing more.

So where does that leave the economy?

It leaves the private sector, the productive engine of the economy, nursing its way back to health.

And it leaves the public sector—the government—trying to minimize the pain while the private sector heals itself.

The government also has debt coming out of its eyeballs. Here's government debt as a percent of GDP.

Image: US Government Spending

Complicating the US's problem, of course, is that the public sector—the government—has also racked up humongous debts in the past quarter century. For now, those debts are still manageable: Our creditors are still willing to lend us as much as we want, on ever-easier terms. But, eventually, these debts will have to be addressed. Specifically, at some point, the government will have to cut back spending and reduce its debts, at least as a percentage of GDP. Or the entire government will go bust.

Those facts should be relatively uncontroversial. Where the disagreement comes is when and where the government should cut back—and how much.

One side argues that the government should cut back immediately and completely, forcing the country to "take its medicine" in one quick dose.

The other side argues that the government should continue spending to support the economy until the private sector is healthy enough to once again carry the torch.

The policies that arise from this argument affect the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, so it's not surprising that people feel strongly about them.

THE SOLUTIONS

So what's the best approach to solving our problem?

Here's where philosophical differences come into play. "Best" is, at least somewhat, in the eye of the beholder.

The two extreme solutions are these:

Job losses from the peak, by recession. Our current recession is the bottom red line. Click for larger.

Image: Calculated Risk

Do you want a violent, painful "adjustment" in which many million more Americans are thrown out of work and the incomes and spending of tens of millions of Americans are suddenly reduced, thus crushing American companies at the same time?

Then immediately cut government spending from ~20%+ of GDP to the 15% of GDP the government collected in taxes last year and hope (pray) that the resulting dislocation doesn't further wallop GDP (which history suggests it almost certainly will).

Do you want to pretend we don't have serious problems and just keep the government spending vastly more than it takes in every year until our government debt load finally becomes unmanageable and the currency collapses?

Then just keep doing what we've been doing for most of the past 30 years.

For obvious reasons, neither of those two approaches are appealing.

Fortunately, there's a third option, which lies somewhere in the middle.

This solution consists of two parts:

Acknowledging the problem (and the problems with either extreme approach)Designing an approach that addresses these problems and helps us work our way out of our predicament with the least possible pain, dislocation, and disruption.

THE "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT" PHASE... 

Acknowledge the real problem with the economy—that we're in a "balance sheet" recessionAcknowledge that, to fix the economy, consumers need to work off their debtsAcknowledge that trend-line government spending is already too high relative to both GDP and the taxes that the government collectsAcknowledge that, eventually, to fix the latter problem, government spending will have to drop and taxes will have to go upAcknowledge that, raising taxes and/or cutting spending sharply right now will wallop the economyAcknowledge that walloping the economy right now will make the problem worse, not better, at least over the short term (consumers will have less money to spend, so the economy will shrink, and tax collection will drop...and then this vicious cycle will repeat. See Greece.)Acknowledge that making the problem worse right now will increase social frustration and unrest (See Occupy Wall Street).  It also won't help the rich get richer.Acknowledge that denying the problem and continuing runaway government spending indefinitely will eventually lead to a debt and currency crisis (see Argentina)Acknowledge that, right now, the government can borrow as much money as it wants at historically low interest rates—rates that are getting lower all the timeAcknowledge that the only spending in the economy that the government can directly control is government spendingAcknowledge, therefore, that the "best approach" given our current reality involves two specific goals:Minimizing short-term pain while giving consumers time to nurse themselves back to healthGetting the long-term deficit under control before the government implodes

THIS LEADS TO A SOLUTION THAT SEEMS THE MOST REASONABLE AND LEAST RISKY AND DISRUPTIVE GIVEN THE CURRENT REALITY...

The government should construct and pass a long-term budget plan thatMinimizes short-term pain, whileGetting the long-term deficit under controlThis budget plan should be designed to benefit all Americans, not just special-interest groups or different classes or industriesThis budget plan can theoretically include an increase in short-term spending designed to minimize the country's pain, as long as it also includes a decrease in long-term spending (again, right now, the world is willing to lend us as much money as we want)One form of government spending that unequivocally benefits all Americans is infrastructure spending (when the projects are finished, America has the infrastructure)Infrastructure spending would help America address another reality that has emerged in the past three decades—the reality that the infrastructure of many countries in Europe, Asia, and other regions has vaulted past that in the US and made the US look like a second-world countryInfrastructure spending would boost employment in one sector of the economy hammered by the recession—constructionInfrastructure spending would involve fewer of the conflicts and misaligned incentives that infuriate many Americans about "entitlement programs," extended unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, and other government expenditures that seem to encourage sloth and laziness and "socialism"The 10-year government budget designed to get us out of our current predicament, therefore, should probably include a massive, multi-year infrastructure spending program.THE NEW DEPRESSION: Click for a tour of a homeless tent city in Lakewood, New Jersey

Image: Robert Johnson

There, I said it. I have now revealed that I find merit in an approach advocated by one side in the religious war (Keynesians). And this religious war is so emotional that I will immediately be flamed as an enemy of the state, despite also advocating the reduced-spending approach held by the other side (Austerians).

But so be it.

I think this is the most reasonable approach to solving our nation's problems. I'll explain more about why in the coming days.

SEE ALSO: Here's Why This Recession Is Fundamentally Different

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GOOGLE-MOTOROLA MERGER: Here's What Mobile Execs REALLY Think (GOOG, MMI)

As Google continues the arms race for mobile patents (it just picked up another 1,200 from IBM), the dust has yet to settle following Google's proposed $12 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

Business Insider Research talked to Mobile industry veterans to get unvarnished insights into to the deal with the hope of making sense of an acquisition that has left many--both in the industry and in the investment community--scratching their heads.

Some common threads:

Gaining control of Motorola's 17,500 patents and 7,500 applications was the main (most said sole) driver for doing the deal.While there were a few contrarians, the consensus of those we spoke to was that Google has no business being in the handset business and will spin off the Motorola hardware business sooner rather than later.If Google does decide to keep the hardware manufacturing business, running the combined company will be extraordinarily challenging.Google will share the patents with their OEMs (Samsung, HTC, etc.) so that THEY can battle Apple instead of Google having to take them on directly.

Here are a series of quotes from some of those we spoke to that hopefully shed some light on what those in the industry really think of the deal. The interviews included a senior level executive at a Google OEM, the founder and head of a mobile ad network, a veteran Silicon Valley investment banker, and a division head at a consumer electronics company.

MOST STILL THINK THE SOLE REASON GOOGLE BOUGHT MOTOROLA WAS TO GET THE PATENTS:

"As the handset moves from a utilitarian device to call people to an extension of their personality, Motorola certainly has not kept up with others in the space, so it must be about something other than the handset," observed a founder and CEO of a mobile ad network. "Do these patents allow them to do something in mobile search, display or social graph that they simply can't do without them. It has to be a means to an ends; Maybe they allow Google to give away free phones on a scale unimaginable before and make it up through huge premiums charged to advertisers."

"The quantity (17,500 patents and another 7,500 applications) and quality of the Motorola patents are very good and we heard they were worth over $5 billion in their own right," said a Silicon Valley investment banker who has done work in the space. "We also heard that they are of a better quality than Nortel."

MOST AGREE GOOGLE WILL ULTIMATELY SPIN OFF THE HARDWARE BUSINESS (LIKELY SOONER RATHER THAN LATER)...

"I don't think anyone at Google or in the industry really thinks that acquiring the Motorola hardware business was the purpose or goal of this transaction," said a senior executive at a Google OEM. "The hardware business is not easy and they have not been in it and do not have the skills and experience needed to succeed. Motorola is a much smaller player in the hardware business when compared to HTC and Samsung."

"I have dealt with this Motorola group and culturally they are very different from Google so integration may well be harder than they imagine," said a division head at a consumer electronics manufacturer. "There is a lot of rigor needed in the high volume low margin smart phone hardware business which may not sit well with Google's approach to date."

BUT SOME THINK LARRY PAGE WON'T BE ABLE TO RESIST KEEPING THE HARDWARE BUSINESS TAKING TAKE ON APPLE HEAD ON IN INTEGRATED GADGETS...

"Google did this deal to compete with Apple," said the consumer electronics division head. "Apple makes the best smart phones and they do this by having complete control over the product, hardware, software and apps. The Motorola group gives Google the missing hardware capability." He went on to say: "Contrary to popular opinion, Google can be competitive in the highly competitive consumer electronics business because they already control and own the hard bits, [software platform, app store, brand] so  adding the hardware should be a smaller step." 

THERE IS A RISK THAT GOOGLE WILL ALIENATE THEIR EXISTING (MOSTLY ASIAN) HARDWARE LICENSEES, BUT MOST THINK THE DEAL WAS DONE TO HELP, NOT HURT GOOGLE OEM's.......

"Google believes that all the patent suits are damaging the ecosystem and they viewed this as a way to help their partners and the mobile ecosystem," said the Google OEM senior executive. "While the deal came about very quickly in the weeks following the Nortel deal, Google communicated their intentions to their partners in advance and we're not angry about it--it is actually a good thing."

HOW IT WILL HELP GOOGLE OEM'S.....

"All these patent suits are a huge distraction and the goal with acquiring these patents is to put the litigation to rest," the google OEM partner said: "Google will not take on Apple directly, but rather arm their OEM's with patents so they can better do so themselves."

Google appears to be already being doing just this. In the last month, Google transferred to HTC nine patents it bought in the past year from companies including the former Motorola Inc. and Openwave Systems Inc. Taiwan-based Google OEM HTC used those patents last week in a new lawsuit that escalates its patent battle with Apple.

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Facebook Has Its Most Important Launch Ever On Thursday -- Here's What To Expect

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Facebook is in a product funk, with no big hits since the "Like" button in April 2010.

But this Thursday at its F8 conference in San Francisco, the company has a chance to wow the crowds of developers and press, and set Facebook back on course to its goal of becoming the first trillion-dollar company.

Facebook is on a companywide push for the big day -- platform director Katie Mitic looked physically exhausted when I mentioned F8 to her last week, and other execs are calling it the biggest F8 ever.

So what's on tap? Here's everything we have heard and read about Facebook's plans for F8.

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Here's Why You Should Think Twice Before Outsourcing Your Boring Health Care Paperwork

In a post on open enrollment, one of my favorite finance sites, LearnVest, recommended something I'd never heard of--outsourcing your medical paperwork to a private company.

Sign me up, I thought--who wouldn't want a personal assistant lining up appointments and dealing with issues like misprocessed claims? If the service really worked, perhaps I could pocket thousands in negotiated claims and reimbursements.

On second thought, maybe that's a bad idea. OK, a very bad idea, says Pam Dixon, Executive Director at the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group.

"Your medical records are some of the best data money can buy," she says, "and while these companies may have the best intentions in the world, consumers really need to understand the structural risks that are built in because of flaws in the law. If these companies wanted to be covered by the Health Information and Privacy Act (HIPPA), they couldn't be because they haven't met the definitions."

If you're wondering what HIPPA has to do with it, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offers a primer: The privacy act ensures your health information remains protected by the law and secure, whether it's electronic, written, or oral. HIPPA also sets rules and limits on who can see and use your data.

So if you're looking to outsource your life--and medical records in particular--depending on the company you deal with, you could be setting yourself up for some serious legal and identity theft nightmares. As Dixon and Bob Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant, explain, losing rights to your data is only the beginning:

Medical identity theft is rampant, and can haunt you for years to come. From charging for services and visits that never occurred to altering your "medical identity" to reflect illnesses you don't have, this type of theft also makes it difficult for doctors to properly diagnose you, or for you to obtain health or life insurance in the future, notes World Privacy Forum. Much like having your social security number, the thief can use your health insurance id to obtain medical services and goods--that you'll have to pay for.

Also disconcerting is the risk of having your personal information wind up in the hands of marketers, says Gellman, who reviewed the privacy policies of two of the sites LearnVest cited, Simplee, which hosts medical info like HSAs and FSAs in one place, and MedClaims Liason, a full-service outsourcing company.

"As far as I can see, selling patient information directly or indirectly is the only way that [non-HIPPA covered companies] make money," he says. "Both privacy policies bury the fact that they give information to marketers. A casual reader will not notice it."

The end result could be having your personal information "end up irretrievably in the hands of spammers, junk mailers, and profilers."

And the third risk, Dixon says, is losing your physician-to-patient privileges, especially if something goes awry or you happen to fess up something a little too revealing to your doctor and the wrong person hears it then broadcasts it in the wrong place, like, say, a courtroom or brochure.

"These companies might be really trying to do the right thing," Dixon says, "but we really need changes in the law to improve this whole new area that we're starting to see in the digital area outside of HIPPA."

Until that occurs, here are three things you can do to safeguard your health data from the risks of using digital helpers:

Read the fine print. Statements like "compliant with HIPPA" or "HIPPA-compliant" are meaningless, says Dixon, and should not be taken to mean the company will comply with HIPPA. Also watch for phrases like "we may share your data with third parties."

Look out for shady seals. These don't guarantee privacy protection, says Gellman, and the company may have paid for it "in order to gloss over the deficiencies in the privacy policies." Some for-profit seals have come under scrutiny for poor oversight of their holders.

Get a copy of your medical records. If you do decide to outsource your life, if anything happens, this is the first place to go to verify the facts. Visit the American Health Management Association for more information on how to access your copy.

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Amazon Is Trying To Buy Palm -- Here's Why It's A Great Idea (AMZN, HPQ)

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I know a thing or two about mobile, and also Amazon

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Amazon is in advanced negotiations with HP to buy its flagging Palm unit, VentureBeat reports.

Palm makes the webOS mobile operating system. The software is well-regarded by industry observers, but Palm devices have failed in the marketplace. 

HP bought Palm for $1.1 billion a year ago, but it is now discontinuing webOS devices and looking for a future for webOS. 

Amazon buying Palm is a very good idea:

HP isn't going to do anything interesting with webOS. HP is pivoting to enterprise software, doesn't want to make tablets and mobile phones, and is generally bogged down in its internal vicissitudes. Palm is going to be cheap. Right now, all Palm has is good intellectual property, and maybe a few talented people, including former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, a highly regarded industry executive, who now has a dead-end "product innovation job" at HP and, VentureBeat notes, recently joined Amazon's board. Amazon can almost certainly buy Palm for a fraction of its original price.Amazon needs its own mobile platform. Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet uses Google's Android as the "guts" of its software, but that is invisible to the end user. Amazon has created its own software environment in the tablet, including its potentially revolutionary Silk browser. Android has an IP cloud over it (patent problems), and, over the long term, Amazon needs its own platform to run its own tablets. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said when unveiling the latest Kindle, he envisions Kindle as "an end-to-end service." It means Amazon needs to own the guts of the software as well. And WebOS would give it that.Amazon won't have to junk its Android app store. Amazon has invested heavily in its own Android app store to have its own app ecosystem to run alongside its Android fork. Android apps are written in the programming language Java and versions of webOS can run Java apps, so it should be possible (though perhaps slightly tricky) for Amazon to get the apps on its app store to run on the webOS platform.

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Here's The Terrifying Video From Inside The Washington Monument During The East Coast Earthquake

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The National Park Service announced Monday that the Washington Monument will remain closed to visitors indefinitely while engineers continue to survey the obelisk for damage from August's earthquake.

Making matters worse, the Park Service found a crack at the top of the 555-foot tall structure that allowed in water from Hurricane Irene.

Visitors were on the observation deck 500-feet above Washington when the earthquake struck — and were hit by falling debris as they evacuated the national landmark down its 897 steps.

The Park Service released video from three of the observation deck's security cameras showing the quake hitting in a haze dust and debris. At one point it appears at least one tourist is knocked down by debris, only to be helped up and down the stairs by other visitors and Park Service staff.

Watch the video below (the shaking starts at about 1:44):

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