Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The REAL Reason I Got a Blog

Today I saw a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal (yeah, I suppose that ought to be a link or something...but I only get the paper version, I'm not subscribed to the website) about how oil has fallen below $64 per barrel. You won't believe it, but I totally called this. In early August, when oil went above $75 per barrel, I said "That's it, oil has peaked, and it's going to fall. In six months all the news articles will be about how oil is so cheap." Look, it's starting already!

I told you that you wouldn't believe me.

That's why I've got a blog: so that next time, when you don't believe me, I can link you back to the original post where I made my prediction.

Prosper.com Posting Marketplace Performance

All right, time to get this blog rolling.

One of the things that I've been interested in over the last few months is Prosper.com, an online marketplace for unsecured loans. Recently they have begun publishing performance data on their loans.

I haven't really had a chance to compose much of a post about this topic, but I wanted to get this up for anyone who is interested. Honestly, that's one of the best parts of Prosper, they are collecting tons of data on how unsecured personal loans perform. Normally this is proprietary information of a large company, but with Prosper, it's all made public because individuals are the lendors.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Intentions

I feel obligated to begin with a brief statement of what I intend this blog to be about. Mostly, I intend it to be about things that I find interesting that I believe others might find interesting as well. As you can see from the URL, I'm a yuppie and not afraid to admit it. I'm somewhat proud that I live in Baltimore and am helping to provide a tax base for the city. I purchase my goods and services from small, local retailers (well...as long as I feel that the atmosphere is worth the premium on cost...I'll buy almost anything I can at Wal-Mart). I try to be a good citizen. Along the way I probably cause gentrification and run up property values (hence the allusion in the blog description), but I figure that law-abiding, responsible citizens are the least of this city's problems.

Anyway, so yeah, from now on I'll post interesting things and pepper my sentences with links like any other good blog would.