Well no posts for a long time. Travelling again with crappy internet service in hotels. Advice: stick to hotels with wired internet service. Those who’ve put in a WAP and then claimed free Internet usually delivered little or no signal to the rooms we were in, and service was spotty at best.

Interesting economic note: Low end hotels, such as Best Western, Hampton Inn, etc. have free Internet service (albeit of poor quality). Hyatt, on the other hand, charging twice as much or more for the room also charges for Internet service (typically $15/night!). Their rationale? If you are overpaying for a room you won’t care about overpaying for Internet service. This from an “inside” source at the chain.

Anyway, markets did little except a slight decline during the absence. This was enough, however, to turn all the trend indicators south and so I’m fully short right now. We’ll see.

The big stories are the slow-motion crash of GM and the peeling back of the layers of malfeasance at Fannie Mae. GM is a victim of its unions, who are killing off the industry just like they kill every unionized industry over time. FNM is a victim of bureaucratic arrogance and greed. Remember, the last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.