A Few Random Thoughts

A few random thoughts, none likely to make you any money today or tomorrow but simply little random notations that might be useful down the road.

-Starting a week ago Sunday and ending last Saturday when I returned to Chicago from dropping off the last of my children at college, I logged 2,267 miles on my car.  In that time I've seen the eastern seaboard and much of the midwest.  Slow economy or not, the rest areas and hotels along the interstates were busy.  I drove home and back every year from Rhode Island about this time.  Travel was the busiest I remember since 2007.  The price of gasoline has more or less remained constant during that time as well.  Saw more new cars this year on the road.  I'm defining these as cars likely bought within the last 24 months.  We're on track to sell in excess of 15 million new cars this year.  Remember these new cars are getting something like 25-30 miles per gallon and they're replacing vehicles that by and large were getting 15-20 mpg.  The US is becoming a net exporter of energy and more efficient cars helps that equation.

-The drought from last summer is ancient history although the midwest could currently use some rain.  The corn and soybean crops should be close to records this year based on what I've seen.  Much of July and August has been cooler and damp and that will help in the growing season as well.

-Tiger Woods failed again to win one of the four major golf tournaments.  I'm on record as saying that he'll never win another in his career.  I'm two years into that belief but I'll be the first to admit that Tiger's likely going to play golf for a long time so I'll freely admit that I could be wrong with this.

-The drumbeats over Syria, the market's reaction and the commentary remind me of Tommy Lee Jones character in the first Men In Black admonishing Will Smith, "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet..." Now maybe Syria will be the prelude to World War III or maybe it will be a lot of noise signafying nothing or something in between.  Only time will tell about what's the ultimate result.  From my perch were not going to know until the event has passed and as it regards the markets, we'll let our indicators be our guide.

Finally I'd note that if the statistics on this blog are correct then there are over 700 people reading Solas! now every month.  You come from all over the nation and the world.  That's a far cry from when maybe I'd get 2-3 readers a month back when we started this in May of 2005.  Thank you.    We're going to talk about what we've been doing recently tomorrow and will be back full throttle after the Labor Day holiday next week.