The Tail End of 2015

 More things you probably wont mind watching leave below the break.

Crazy Slingshot Guy vs. Nosey Drones

A Point

Tuesday Tap, Rack, and Bang

 More not safe to field strip below the break.

Haunting

Or at least I've always thought so.

Monday Made Me Laugh

It's Finally Getting Chilly Around Here

Coming Disclaimers

Happy Reverse Lent

Make the most of it.

BeCos(play) It's also Friday

 More not safe for festivities below the break, and as always bonus nerd points for recognizing characters.

Merry Christmas

I think this says things better than I would be able to, so Merry Christmas readers.

Comming Soon to Dead Hooker Magazine

Coming soon from Intellectual Property Thief Dan Zimmerman editor of Dead Hooker Magazine.

Munster Poacher National

Mission Implausible: the Phantom Protocol

1911 B2 Automatic Pistol Caliber 46 ACP

Is Honesty the Best Policy?

Tuesday Tap, Rack, and Bang

 More not safe to field strip below the break.

Arrogance Looking for an Arch-Duke

The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Cavusoglu, has boasted on Turkish television that Russia should be very scared and wary of Turkey.

Plan 17 meet the Schlieffen Plan, Schlieffen Plan meet Plan 17; now you kids don't do anything crazy while I'm over here digging a fallout shelter.

Monday Made Me Laugh

The Arcade Turned Out to be Grimmer Than I Knew.

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More not safe for recent premiers below the break, and as always bonus nerd points for recognizing characters.

So Who's Keeping Who Down?

Tuesday Tap, Rack, and Bang

 More not safe to field strip below the break.

Monday Made Me Laugh

Not All Con-Heroes Wear Mask

BeCos(play) It's Friday

  

 

 More not safe to ogle three times below the break, and as always bonus nerd points if you recognize characters.

Is this Amazon Prime Eligible?

Bug Frack Nuts

Close to the Flag Pole

Large Quantity of Cellphones Bought By “Immigrants” at Rural Missouri Walmart Sets Off Alarms

Another High Cost of Public Pensions

Another moral hazard of defined benefit pension plans are a lack of incentives to control costs.

 

US Pensions Squander Retirees' Cash On Fees For Underperforming Hedge Funds

Underscoring just how poorly these investments have performed especially considering the fee structure, Jeff Hooke, a managing director with Focus Investment Banking in Washington conducted a study with five state pension funds over five years which showed that the median return on hedge-fund investments a full 6 percentage points lower than a 60/40 equity-fixed income index fund managed by Vanguard. The expense ratio on the Vanguard fund: 0.23%. That’s a hell of a long way away from 2 and 20. 
Hooke’s conclusion: “Hedge funds have cost the states tens of billions in opportunity costs the last five years.” 
So amusingly, public pension funds probably could have closed their funding gap by just buying the S&P and watching the Bernanke/Yellen put work its magic, but instead, they went out and plowed retirees’ money into hedge funds that ended up massively underperforming and now, it’s too late to take advantage of the equity gravy train because the FOMC is about the yank the punchbowl. 
We hope someone has learned a lesson here, but we seriously doubt it, because as Donald Boyd, senior fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government told Bloomberg, the longer pension fund managers cling to unrealistic return assumptions in a ZIRP and NIRP world, the more they’ll reach and the more they’ll likely lose which means “taxpayers and those who count on government services and investments will pay the price.”

 

The real take away is that absent significant performance differences( that are missing here), conventional wisdom is go with the lower expense ratio.

Tuesday Tap, Rack, and Bang

 More not safe to field strip below the break.

My Cognitive Dissonance Ration for the Day

Monday Made Me Laugh

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More not safe for sanity below the break, and as always bonus nerd points if you recognize characters.

Actual War On Christmas

I know this is like speculating how fast a Top-fuel car went at the drag strip, but how long do you think it took the self hating narcissists on the left to start blaming the Christmas party for the San Bernardino shooting?

Tuesday: Tap, Rack, and Bang

 More not safe to field strip below the break.