Paying Too Much For Cable? Absolutely Nothing About The Bakken -- January 9, 2020

If you came here looking for the Bakken, scroll down or scroll to the sidebar at the right. I don't plan to mention anything about this Bakken in this post.

This is just idle rambling while waiting to pick up Sophia.

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Cable

Back to this issue: the cost of cable television and internet. I last visited this subject a few months ago.

When it comes to cable (and the telephone bill, for that matter) how much is too much?

I have no idea.

But, wow, talk about unexpected pleasures.

Today, while waiting at Starbucks while my 2012 Honda Civic (bought in 2011) was being serviced (routine maintenance), I was curious if I could watch cable television on my laptop. Spectrum had said for quite some time that I could but I had never really tried it out.

Lo and behold! There it was. Seamless. No problems. There it was. All two hundred channels on my laptop. And when I got home, I opened up the laptop and there it was again. Absolutely seamless.

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Home, Sweet Home

Earlier today, a reader, noting the Vern Whitten photos of Fargo, then and now, commiserated -- if that's the best word -- about urban sprawl. I replied.

Wow, it opened up so many issues. At the end of the day, all I can say is "to each his own."  Some folks love the high-density, high-rise experience of NYC, San Francisco. Others love the wide open spaces and a multi-thousand-acre ranch tens of miles (if not hundreds of miles) from civilization. The great thing about much of the western world: one can move where one wants. Even if you have no money, I can guarantee you can find a job anywhere you want and are willing to live on whatever hourly wage or salary you might earn. I'm not saying it would be easy; I'm just saying that one has infinite opportunities in the western world. Or at least that's my myth. And, yes, I know there are those who truly cannot but for the audience that might actually read this blog, I think they know about what I'm talking.

If I understood the reader correctly, the reader favored more urban planning, not less.

When I was in eighth grade, my dad brought me along with his father -- the three generations -- to visit my grandfather's ancestral home near Trondheim, Norway.

On our way back to the states, on our way to Paris to catch the return flight, we traveled through West Germany, and then took THE AUTOBAHN through East Germany to Berlin. East Berlin did an incredible job with urban planning. West Berlin? Apparently not so much. Which side of the wall was a gazillion times better? The side with less urban planning. At least that's what I recall. There's probably a happy medium.

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The Market

One word: wow.

Are all three major indices going to hit new highs today. Back on January 8 -- wow, that was just yesterday -- I posed a "reading comprehension question," #6 to be exact.

I didn't get any feedback on that.

The question: Read the article [at the link] and point out the single most important data point reported for mom-and-pop retail investors and millennial investors.

Here's my answer:

Private equity managers are paying record prices to secure deals and combining these investments with high levels of debt. They are also sitting on a record amount of unallocated capital, known as dry powder, which is close to $2.5 trillion, suggesting that profitable deals are becoming harder to find.

$2.5 trillion held by private equity managers in unallocated capital (cash).

That's just what is held in unallocated capital by private equity managers. One wonders what percent of total unallocated capital this represents? It's obviously less than 100%.

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The Book Page

"Bicycle" book that Sophia and I received at Christmas. It's the story of a man who gets so "angry" at some event, he goes on a long, long bicycle ride .... a book my wife thought written exactly for me. LOL