Since starting this blog, I have been largely consumed by family matters, and my interests in both technology and my own investments/trading have taken a back seat. No more.

Starting in a week or so, I'll be working more-or-less full time as a consultant to a large health-related organization. I won't give details at this time, as I don't want to jeapordize my position there, but I suspect that my observations -- even those that are only peripherally related to the company's business -- will generate some nice new content in this space.

For the record, I don't expect to comment directly on the company's business. That would be unprofessional, contrary to the terms of my contract, and perhaps even illegal. However, I will be working both with healthcare folks and technology folks, and I'll feel free to comment on issues, concerns and trends that are not confidential or specific to that business.

I hope you'll find it as interesting as I'm sure I will. For the next week or two, I'll be taking a last little vacation. See you on the other side.

-btc

Watch any of the financial news networks and you'll see lots of people talking about how great free markets are. But when push comes to shove, most of them are scared to death of anything that isn't rigged.

Look at where markets have been the past few days. Down, down, and futher down. What's the excuse given? Apparently, the concern that has been devloping is that a government functionary named Ben Bernanke is "no longer in control." Just a quick Google search shows how much attention is given to Bernanke's control of the economy, or lack thereof.

One has to wonder why these supposed free-marketeers favor a government functionary being in control of the economy? Isn't that wonderful free market supposed to properly allocate assets, cause us to boom when there is great stuff happenning, to pull back when things are going too far, and generally find equalibrium? Why ask for or care about some government functionaries?

The truth is, that for most of these people -- many of them fund managers or other beneficiaries of bull markets -- the free market is a lot scarier than they would lead you to believe. In the free market you can fail. In the free market you can lose your shirt. In the free market, your mistakes can have real consequences. When the market is increasingly handed over to people who take on your risk for you, it's a lot easier to make money and a lot harder to fail.

As noted in the introduction to this blog, I was around when this started. When Greenspan, in his first major action, unnecessarily "rescued" Wall Street from the "crash" of 1987 -- a self-made disaster that would have otherwise quickly punished the worst offenders and corrected itself. Since that first small intervention, the Fed has gotten worse and worse, intervening repeatedly even when none was particularly called for.

Ultimately though, Greenspan was able to "control" things by defering our problems to the future. For better or worse, he was able to get the markets to believe that he could continue to do so. And in the markets, that perception has been reality for almost 20 years.

Now, almost despite their own interest, the perception of the market participants is changing. It's my opinion that this is a good thing. The government can't save us from our problems, at best they can defer them and make them worse. But while this is good in the long term, in the short term all those market participants need to reconsider what it is like to live in a world where the free markets reign, the governments don't have control, and nobody's going to protect their backsides.

It's going to be interesting to watch this unfold.

-btc

Back during the days of Apartheid, columnist PJ O'Rourke wrote a piece (later reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell) in which he took the position that what the White Western World found so objectionable about South Africa was not the racist attitudes of those in power, but the fact that they openly admitted and even institutionalized those attitudes while other countries pretended such things didn't exist.

Much the same is going on with China and currency manipulation today.

What can I say except that nothing about Dell's poor numbers surprised me one bit. Dell (NasdaqNM:DELL) has been missing the mark in so many ways in recent quarters that it had to catch up with them eventually.

Two days ago I ordered a new Dell notebook. It will probably be the last one I buy. I got another Dell this one last time because I prematurely destroyed my old one well before the end of its useful life. And since my batch of accessories -- including docking station, extra power supplies, DVD writer, and a few others -- are still current, getting a slightly newer model from the same manufacturer made sense. By the time I upgrade again, all these parts and accessories will probably be obsolete and then it'll be time for a new brand.

So let me walk through the experience to show why Dell is missing the mark and why it's across the board, not just in one area: product selection, the ordering process, service, etc.