World Cup knockout predictions

Here is the Knockout round bracket. The first thing to notice is the relatively week side the USA got by winning group C, and the difficult side England has.

Predictions
16: Uruguay, USA, netherland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Paraguay, Spain.
Quarters: USA, Brazil, Argentina, Spain
Semis, Brazil, Argentina
Final, Argentina

As always, we should see some surprises and some great games!

World Cup Group Stage review

Time to review my precudctions
In group A-D the only team I had wrong was Serbia, who were edged out by Ghana in group D by goal differential. 7/8 correct.

In groups E-H I didn't do as well

Group E: I picked Denmark, who were beaten by Japan to see Japan advance.
Group F: I picked Italy, who finish last behind New Zeland whil Slovakia went on.
Group H: I picked Honduras as my surprise package, but Chile went on while Honduras only got a single point.

5/8 Correct.


Knockout round predictions later

World Cup group stage after two games

Here's some information I pulled after each team played it's second game of the gorup stage:

W D L Avg Pts AFC 2 1 5 0.88 CAF 1 3 6 0.60 CONCACAF 1 3 2 1.00 CONMEBOL 8 2 0 2.60 OCEANIA 0 2 0 1.00 UEFA 9 8 7 1.46

South America is doing very well, while Europe seems a bit off pace here. It will be interesting to see this after the group stage has finished.

Debt Snowball 6/16/2010

We just crossed 10,000 left on the debt snowball. Since October 2006 we have paid about 60,000 in debt.

Four figures feels great.

US Debt solution

My Dad turned me to Vin Suprynowicz a while back since he is a columnist for his local paper. He is also  featured at  LewRockwell.com

His solution to the debt problem is to default! This great because it insulates us from future borrowing by the idiots in charge.

Best line: "You believed the promises of those lying politicians? Your problem."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz146.html

World Cup Groups E - H predictions

Here are the rest of my predictions for groups E-H.  2nd round predictions coming
Winner: Netherlands
2nd: Denmark



Cameroon might do well here, so I think the game between them and Denmark will determine who gets second.

Winner: Italy
2nd: Paraguay

Italy probaly has the best draw of any top side. I actually think they could go down, so we will see.

Winner: Brazil
2nd: Portugal

I think Portugal will pip Ivory Coast because Drogba appears to be out of action.

Winner: Spain
2nd: Honduras

Honduras will be my upset pick here. 

World Cup Groups A - D predictions

The world cup is under a week away, so I wanted to post my predictions I will post the group winners and runners up, so it should be interesting to see how I did in a few weeks. I always love some surprises, so I'm not going to make any bets.

Winner: Mexico

2nd: Uruguay

I see France melting down, but they could go either way.

Winner: Argentina

2nd Korea Republic

Winner: England

2nd: USA

For the record, I anticipate an England victory of the USA in the first game, so a draw or win against England will be amazing.

Winner: Germany

2nd: Serbia

Essien is out for Ghana, so I am not liking their chances here. I do think this group could have some surprise if Australia plays well.

Go Obamacare!

I'm shocked by the headline:

Soaring costs force Canada to reassess health model

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100531/hl_nm/us_health_3

Inflation

I remember sitting in an Econ class in colllege and the professor saying why inflation was a good thing and one of the main points was that people would rather see wages prices increase than wages decrease.

One thing I realized was that people that had fixed incomes like retirees or those with very low incomes would be punished by inflation over time, as their income brought diminished purchasing power. As I have done a lot of reading over the last couple of years, I finally found a book that serves as a good starting point.

I just finished How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes by Peter Schiff and I think it is a great introduction to how the US economy has changed over time and all of the problems caused by government.

My wife read it, learned a lot and even enjoyed it. I have tried to talk to her about these types of things before, but I think this example using the fish as money made it very easy to understand. 

Updated : The reason I got inspired to do this post was the quote "Inflation is simply a means to transfer wealth from anyone who has savings in a particular currency to anyone who has debts in the same currency."

Bankers and government can spend other peoples money and have the public take the losses. Not a bad deal.