Was your reaction the same as mine to this snippet from Time-Warner this morning?

Time Warner said it had moved to separate AOL’s traditional dial-up internet access business from its online advertising platform during the quarter.

My reaction: AOL still has a f-ing dial-up business? Yeesh.

Nice and somewhat amusing distinction made about Freddie Mac in a report today on Bloomberg. One analyst called Freddie Mac "profound insolvent".

Question: What is the difference between being "insolvent" and being "profoundly insolvent"? Isn't insolvent one of those words, like dead or unique, that kind of stands alone? Admittedly, it is a nice adverb, as my friend Barry pointed out on the phone to me this morning.

Be it resolved: We're at a price point in oil markets where we are screwed no matter which direction prices move. Higher prices smoke the economy and inflation, and lower prices screw the emerging alternative energy complex.

Thoughts?

I wrote about this first back in September, but a (negative) investment theme I've liked for more than a year now has been the "decline of aspirational everything". To my mind, companies like P.F. Chang's, Cheesecake Factory, Whole Foods and even Starbuck's have grown by charging premium prices to middle-class consumers newly monied by HELOCs and the real estate bubble. That game is (largely) over, at least temporarily.

Any other names come to mind?

I just had an email correspondent suggest that I need to claim title to the crude oil price point at which equivalent economic damage is done (economy, cleantech, etc.) by price moves in either direction, up or down. I argued earlier we may be at that point.

His suggestion? Call it the Kedrosky Cusp. I like it.

Anyone know more than I do about MFFAIS? This is (seemingly) an crazy comprehensive set of fine-grained data about institutional shareholdings around the world. Is the data credible, especially outside the U.S.?

I'm fallen down inside Google Insights for Search, and I can't get up. The newly launched service from Google is outrageously interesting, with fine-grained search term traffic data available across times and geographies. It's Google Trends, but crazy data delicious.

Here, for example, are two charts using "foreclosure" as the key term and U.S. as the market:

And the same searches with Canada:

My friend Barry has up a post claiming (via David Rosenberg of Merrill) the following: 300-point Dow rallies only happen in bear markets. It's a great claim -- amusing, contrarian and fun -- but is it true?

It's a good spreadsheet exercise, so rather than giving the answer, I'll let readers puzzle it through. With some reasonable assumptions -- like what, precisely, is a bear market? -- see if you can truth check the 300-point claim.

And for extra points, broaden the definition and turn the 300-points into percentage terms. Does that change anything?

I'll post my answer later.

Some unsettling data here from the San Diego Food Bank about the growing year-over-year second quarter percentage increase in demand for food:

102 percent: La Mesa

69 percent: Spring Valley

34 percent: Chula Vista

26 percent: Oceanside

25 percent: San Diego

[via San Diego U-T]

Some quick links that folks may find interesting:

• Legg Mason dumped by Massachusetts as state swears off stockpickers (Bloomberg)
• Myanmar, one of world's poorest countries, will lose one-third of food production this year (Bloomberg)
• Panicked oil tanker owners thinking of driving slowly (again) (Bloomberg)
• Middle East top foreign investor in US property (The National Newspaper)
• Dubai house prices 'to fall' by 10% (The National Newspaper)
• Evidence and Determinants of Real Estate Bubbles: The Case of Singapore (SSRN)