Recognition...FINALLY

I received a promotion at work this week, and I’m pretty happy about it. I was trying to think back to my last promotion and realized something interesting: since I entered the work force part time in 1991, and then full time in 1998, I have never received a discretionary promotion. At my last job, my title changed once as part of a statutory advancement of my entire incoming class, but that doesn’t count.

My career has advanced nicely during that time, but the really big jumps have been between jobs, after grad school, etc. Not promotions. That really surprised me. Surely there were two or three promotions in there somewhere, right? Nope.

Turns out, Catjjy hasn’t ever been promoted either (though she is due for a promotion of sorts in current profession come February). Are we the oddballs here? Are the rest of you Hosers receiving promotions every couple of years? Did KB1 used to be a High Flying Marketing Associate before he became a High Flying Marketing Executive?

The Hose hits the big time

As you guys know people have been bringing down major blogs, twitter and facebook all week using a denial of service attack.

45 seconds ago, I tried to load The Hose and got the above message. WOOOO, we're really important (or you know, someone is attacking all of blogspot, but I like my theory better).

The Comedian and the Fool

Ok, I've got it.

I have figured out why this whole Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart thing has been so compelling to me. The coverage and analysis has been fast, furious and totally lacking in consensus.

• The NY Times thinks that Jim Cramer and CNBC won in the long run, under the theory that all publicity is good publicity
• Gawker thought that Cramer did the only smart thing by curling up in a fetal position and taking his licking, turning a route into a retreat.Just for good measure, they decided to pile on by enumerating a list of highly unethical activities that Jim has been involved in
• Wonkette just danced on Cramer's grave
• Robert Gibbs continued his streak of not being CJ Gregg by having a minor chuckle about it with AP

And many many more.
Why is everyone covering this? Isn't there real news to cover anywhere? Recessions? Foreclosures? Consumer spending? Maybe as opposed to writing off all those projects as "pork" everyone can do ten more minutes of work and figure out which one these projects are actually good ideas. How about a follow up on Madoff and his victims? Anything?

The scariest thing about this was Cramer showing up on Today, Morning Joe and Martha Stewart to spin this in some way...thereby keeping the story hot while officially not commenting on their coverage. So weird that Stewart had to pull his "Dora the Explorer" gag. Here we are standing at the start of the fall of the idea of American Exceptionalism and the media has basically turned into a bunch of self referential navel gazers? That's it? And its left to Jon Stewart to be a journalistic watchdog? A title he snatches at and runs from simultaneously every day? He's our only defender?

We're doomed.

As for the appearance itself, I am not going to give Cramer credit for his "courage" for making the appearance. Screw that, this whole thing is a contrivance of a large PR machine. I remain unimpressed.

Booyah this, a**hole!

Sparks = Wrong: World=Screwed

You know things are really melting down when Sparks is wrong. The whole time I've known him he's never been wrong about anything. So last week when he declared the market would not sink below 7115, my first instinct was to leverage everything I have and get rick quick. Unfortunately student loan debt is hard to leverage - and a good thing too, because Sparks was wrong. Now I know the world is really in for it, because when this guy is wrong, there aren't many people left to be right.

7,115

I am an absolute efficient markets guy, which means that I don't believe anyone (including, especially, me) has any idea which stocks are going to go up or down tomorrow or next month or next year. That said, I have a humble prediction upon which I am placing absolutely no money: yesterday's Dow Jones Industrial Average closing mark of 7,115 will be the lowest we see for the rest of our lives.

I'm not exactly rooting for that. I think most Hose readers are in their early 30's, which means we are in the thick of the investing portion of our lives. Low stock valuations help people like us. I would love the opportunity to pack my 401K full of Dow 5,000 index funds. But I don't think I'll get that chance.