You can learn a great deal about what is going on in the current economy by studying you economic history. In that regard, I picked up David Dreman’s 1979 book, Contrarian Investment Strategy: The Psychology of Stock-Market Success. You can take books like that one, and analyze what investors recommend during the stagflation of the 70′s, and then compare it to how it performs during the actual years that followed.

The same principle applies now, but why should you care? The reason you should care is that one of the principle causes of stagflation is a sudden spike in the price of a required commodity, like oil. That is exactly what happened in the 1970′s. And guess what is happening now?

You got it. The oil supply in Iraq is strangled, fears of war with Iran are further increasing the price of oil. And India and China are consuming more Oil than before as they industrialize…

And, as of today, crude oil futures hit a record high of $73.90 per barrel.

This is not good. This is exactly the kind of situation that caused the stagflation in the 70′s. High gas prices (increased by OPEC) from the Middle East.

So, what can you do as an investor? The biggest thing you can do during stagflation is to not lose money. Precious metals rise in price during stagflation (as Gold Futures have hit record highs), but stocks and real estate fall. All this occurs while inflation makes the value of your money decrease.

The solution then, is to manage your investments in areas you are familiar with, and try to make them grow. I can’t tell you what those investments will be – I am not you! And you know things I do not. However, I can tell you that if you are prepared, and hang on to your funds, when stagflation ends (as it did in the 1980′s) opportunities abound.

You should be prepared to jump on those opportunities.

My co-workers have entered the blogscene, Kim Stewart has had his blog up for a bit, Matt has gone all evil Elvis with Axis of Elvis.

Dave Friday has an excellent themed, blog and Nick May is off and running as well. Check them out!

There is much speculation currently as to whether the current US administration is considering attacking Iran. With Iran now openly declaring their plan to enrich Uranium (Via Uranium Hexafluoride and Centrifuges) for “peaceful purposes”, many see the United States backed into a corner.

Since the US invaded Iraq on suspicion of possessing WMD’s (since proven false), and Iran, Iraq and North Korea have all been named as part of the “Axis of Evil” the United States is in a political quagmire.

The US does not want Iran to posses Nuclear weapons, as this would act as a powerful deterrent to American control (as an example, see North Korea). There is also the worry that Iran would export nuclear material for use by terrorists in North America. This is not as likely as Iran would want to keep Nuclear weapons for a “Mutually Assured Destruction” scenario with Israel.

This is all an aside however, as the United States cannot win a war with Iran.

The United States would quickly be able to establish Air Superiority over Iran, and despite posturing by the Iran government over super-cavitating torpedoes and “radar avoiding missiles” any skirmishes along the gulf would be quickly won by the United States, the technology of the US forces would decimate any naval or air opponents.

However, Iran knows this.

Where the United States cannot win is on the ground. The “Hearts and Minds” have already been lost in Iraq, and the Iraq quagmire has tied down a substantial portion of a military designed for fast high-tech battles.

Any attack on Iran would quickly result in reprisals in Iraq, and the US cannot afford that. Worse, the political scenario would be for more middle eastern states to rally behind Iran, and the the religious majority in that area. This would strengthen the shared religious ties between Iraq and Iran, exactly what the United States does not want. To make matters worse, without maintaining a strong Naval presence in the Gulf, Iran could disrupt oil tankers in the area, driving the price of Gas even higher. This would make the general populace in the United States very unhappy with the war indeed.

And that leaves the United States with a problem. Iran is posturing and openly flaunting its position within the middle east, and showing only occasional signs of blinking. These blinks mean that Iran is still willing to play the diplomatic game, but also that Iran knows that the game is weighted in its favor.

While an air-campaign would seriously hurt Iran and the infrastructure, it would not destroy Iran. Many ground forces would still be untouched, and possibly become free to conduct guerrilla attacks on US forces within Iraq. And with that, comes plausible deniability of interference with Iraq.

But that also would mean that the US rate of casualties in Iraq would skyrocket, and the last bases for support of the Iraq war would begin to fail. And thus, despite heavy losses from the US air campaign, overall, Iran would come out as the winner, and Iraq, their former enemy controlled (apart from Civil War) mostly by religious fundamentalists who are friendly to Iran.

This presents Iran with a win-win scenario. If there is no war in Iran, then they strengthen their nuclear capabilities. If there is a war, it can only be air strikes, and while there will be heavy losses, the counter-strikes in Iraq would cripple the US operations in Iraq, erode the support for the same war, and drive fuel prices in the US higher. That is a lose-lose proposition for the United States.

We can only wait to see how it turns out.

On Saturday, April 15th I ran in the second gutbuster trail run of 2006. This run went straight up the side of Mt. Tzouhalem, around the mountain biking trails (Field of Dreams, Middle T) and then right back down the mountain. It was hard, and like the last Gutbuster, I found myself wondering why the hell I was doing this…

Now, afterwards, feeling a bit sore, but no injuries later I feel good for having done it. I came in at a time of 1:37:31, and I had hoped to come in under 1:30, but this run was harder than the last Gutbuster, and while I still finished near the back of the runners, my position was a little advanced from last time, so overall I am improving. As a bonus, I got a picture taken on this run, not the best, one mind you, but it beats not having a good one from the last race!

Overall, it is not bad for my second running race ever, and my third race of any kind if you include the MOMAR adventure races. I also have a better handle on the kind of training I will need to do to improve, and I no longer have shin splints to contend with. My next race is May 15th, in Ucluelet. It is a MOMAR, so I will have to beef up my biking and paddling training along with the running.

Well, it looks like Ubisoft ended their contract with Starforce. Maybe not for the reasons I would have liked, however, that might mean that there will be a version of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones that I can buy without Starforce included. Gamespot Story has more, although their take seems to be that Ubisoft backed out of using Starforce because of a $5 million dollar lawsuit against them.

I will still buy a non-Starforce Prince of Persia 3, but Ubisoft, listen to your customer base faster next time, BEFORE the lawsuit, ok?

My new Visa card arrived the other day after the issues that I had with Visa Fraud, and I saw a wonderful message in my Visa Account:
Apr. 12, 2006 CREDIT FOR FRAUD $1,538.43
So, that means that that transaction is reversed. I hope they get the bastards that falsely charged my card.

Having a new Visa Card is a bit of a nusiance as my Gym Membership and a few other pre-paid things are billed to that old number, so it is a hassle to change them all, but that beats fradulent charges!

I think there will probably be some sort of mark on my credit reports, but it will likely not be serious. Least ways, I hope not. Still, I won’t be checking my credit rating until November.

On the issue of credit ratings, I am a little annoyed at my credit union, as when I got my mortgage there were some errors made in getting it set up. So, that means even that my house has appreciated a great deal, I cannot establish a line of credit for a few years down the road. And that means I can’t use any of the equity in my house to do things like repair my back deck, or build a new fence. Things that actually increase the value of my house, and thus the equity…

Damn annoying.

Oh well, live and learn. I now know how to get my Mortgage altered when it comes up for renewal to fix that, of course, that will set me back about $800.00…

Damn you Ubisoft, long live Bethesda!

I recently finished playing Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and I have some gripes about it. It was a good game to be sure, but not nearly as good as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. What made the difference is that the Prince suddenly became “extreme” and the likable Prince of the original was replaced by an arrogant brat. Much of the feeling of the original was lost.

However, Ubisoft Montreal apparently has managed to rectify this with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Heck, they brought back Farah from POP: Sands of Time for it. That is a beautiful concession to the fans of the first one. And they managed to integrate the story of POP: Warrior Within to make everything cohesive…

So, here I am wanting to play Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.

And, I want to pay for it. That I want to put down my hard earned money and BUY a copy of this game.

Then we come to starforce.

Ubisoft has contracted with a company called Starforce that creates copy protection for games. Now, it does so to protect its property. I can understand this. However, one of the first things I did after installing POP: Warrior Within was go and download the safedisc crack, so I could play POP: Warrior Within and not have to constantly search for my game CD.

Maybe that makes me an evil pirate. Yet, I purchased the game – I paid for it. I did not pirate it. I own it legally. So, I can do whatever I want with it, other than violate copyright.

And that brings us to Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, which uses Starforce. Starforce uses some nasty techniques to register itself within a windows system – some view it as spyware, others view it as needed. However, the software HAS been known to cause problems with things such as burners etc. It is not a piece of software I want installed on my system. Yet, to play Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones this software MUST be installed, and to make matters worse, it does not uninstall after removing Prince of Persia.

That is not acceptable to me. Again, I understand that software companies would want to do this to prevent theft – even if it does not work at all, as I have seen POP: The Two Thrones on Bittorrent sites for a long time now. So, sure, I could pirate it and not pay for it (and apparently it still installs starforce, so so much for that!)

But I don’t want to do that. I want to pay for a good game, I want to play that same game too. I just don’t want that game messing with my system. It is that simple.

I registered with Ubisofts forums, and a whole bunch of other methods, to complain about starforce, and ask them if they were eventually considering removing it. But it looks like they provide no contact emails, and they delete or lock any threads in the support forums about starforce now. So, it seems that they are in full protection mode now. That is NOT a good policy for a company to be in. Instead of responding to customers needs, they are now shutting customers out. Customers like me.

You see Ubisoft, I want to buy Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. I REALLY want to PAY for it. But you are treating me, the customer, like dirt. Like I am some filthy pirate, like I can’t be trusted. And, you have decided to install software that I don’t want on my machine if I choose to buy your game. I don’t like that. So, Ubisoft? You don’t get any of my money. Don’t worry though, I won’t pirate your game – I just won’t play it at all.

Bethesda, on the other hand has created Oblivion, the sequel to Morrowind. And, after the controversy that Ubisoft has had with Starforce, they decided to only use Safedisc as their copy protection. So, guess what? I will buy Oblivion, and not Prince of Persia. Bethesda listens to their customers. Maybe that is why Oblivion is quickly becoming one of the best selling PC games of all time already.

Listening to your customers, what a novel concept. Ubisoft? You listening yet?

With Apple’s endorsement of Boot Camp, things could get very rough for Microsoft. I have been looking at picking up a laptop – and I have been leaning towards a Mac because in a laptop, I just want to get stuff done – email, web, listen to music, and watch movies occasionally. There is little else I want to run on one. Mac OS X does this very well.

I also like Unix, being a Linux System Administrator, so that has certain appeal for me. However, I also recommended that my Mother pick up a Mac, as her PC was so infested with spyware and other detritus – and the Mac will do everything she needs. It works as a DVD player, MP3 player, surfs the web, and reads email, and it is easier to use, and better insulated than Microsofts operating systems currently are.

And that, brings us to Boot Camp. Boot Camp gives you the ability to run windows on a mac, and if you are like me, you already have a copy of XP on one machine, and if you are retiring that, you can put that copy on the Mac… And Microsoft may not like that, but it IS legal. Now, you have no excuses not to get a Mac laptop… The hardware is fast, and Boot Camp provides the required drivers (although there are still apparently sound issues with Boot Camp).

And my suspicion is that many users will find that the basic things, Web Surfing, Email Reading, Listening to Music (iTunes anyone?) and Watching movies works just as well, if not better with the default Mac OS X tools. With Boot Camp you can still have your Windows things for perhaps gaming, or Windows only programs, but people will quickly find that they can use the default Max OS to do so, and I bet they will find it surprisingly easy to do so.

And once that happens, people will likely stick with the new applications they have learned. It was hard for people to switch from DOS to Windows 3.11, many people still liked DOS, but by the time that Win 95 came out, most users strongly preffered the GUI – even if it did not do everything they wanted.

Now a similar change is underway, but it is not as drastic for the users – they are moving from one GUI to another GUI. And they will likely only be keeping Windows around for legacy applications – just like we kept DOS around for the same with Windows 95*.

Boot Camp may just be the beginning of the end for Microsoft desktop dominance, and I for one, welcome our easy to use Unix based overlords.

* Yes, I know that Win 95 was actually a DOS Shell.

Nobel price winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz drops a bomb on the current economic distress created by the current conflict in Iraq.

In this interview, Professor Stiglitz takes aim at the war that Condi and Rummy are in, but not at them and their current disagreements – but rather the long term economic impact on the United States. The interview is brilliant because Stiglitz never personally attacks any members of the administration, he merely lays the facts out for everyone to see, and passes judgment on the facts, not the people involved.

Stiglitz estimates that the cost of the war will top 1 TRILLION dollars. And he points out how Larry Lindsey was dismissed from the Bush administration for suggesting a number of $200 Billion as a cost for the war. This was the most accurate estimate at the time, but he was dismissed because it was not the answer that the administration wanted – they wanted a war like the first gulf war, where it nearly made a profit.

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, this administration seems to be guilty of groupthink. This is not a personal attack on the Bush administration, rather just pointing out human nature. Stiglitz’s interview is well worth reading on the issue though – check it out.

It was a beautiful day today here in Nanaimo – so I decided to ride my bike to work. And I made it into work in just under 21 min – and the return trip home took me just under 30 min. This is a far cry from my previous time back in December. This means now, that I get to work FASTER with my bike than I do with my car. And that is just awesome.

Kim bought a heart rate monitor today. I think he will get a good workout from using one. He did exactly what I did before I was told different when running – running too fast and exceeding the target heart rate threshold! Oh well, live and learn. Kim also ordered this excellent (now out of print) book from Amazon at my suggestion:

Bob Paris’s book Flawless is kickass. While I no longer use the exact routines within the book (as I am training for a different purpose) it taught me a good deal about training. If only I had listened more carefully to the sections on the aerobic workouts and not just paid attention to the anerobic workouts at the time…

I also joined the Runners of Compassion here in Nanaimo. They do trail running every Saturday, and they also work on the Gutbuster trail races, of which I have signed up for this year. Sadly, due to shin splints on my left leg, I can’t start running with them yet. I have to confine my aerobic workouts to the rowing machines at the gym and my bike. It sucks because I really want to get out on the trails, but then again, making my shin splints worse won’t improve my running…