I wrote the following email to Americans for Common Cents (info@pennies.org) today:

Americans for Common Cents,

I disagree with your stance to keep the penny, for the following reasons:

1) They are costing us taxpayers too much money to produce.
2) We will not suffer "rounding-up" if we instead simply drop a decimal place in prices from, say, $14.95 to $14.9. Thus we can also eliminate the nickel and quarter.
3) Charities will gain because excess pennies will be donated to charities since it would take ten of them to make any purchase. Also, nickels and quarters would be more likely to be donated as well.
4) We can overcome lost nostalgia for Lincoln and Jefferson and Washington by making new dimes with their images on them.
5) Simplifying to one coin, the dime, would make it much easier to calculate and store change from our purchases.

I hope you will agree and join me in calling for Dimes Only.

Paul Douglas Boyer
Host, MadMoneyMachine.com podcast

Please join me in asking our government to eliminate production of pennies, nickels, and quarters.

Murry Coleman writes at Index Universe about the new Diehards forum run independently that is overtaking the old forum run under Morningstar’s site. He says Morningstar blew it by "not listening to its customers and has thus lost a lot of luster with index investors." He says of Morningstar:

But in this age of MySpace and Facebook hysteria, it’s odd that Morningstar let so many eyeballs go their own way. In the end, it’s turned out to be a blessing in disguise for investors. The revamped Diehards.org is better organized, easier to navigate and much more intelligently moderated than the older version.

And it’s becoming a true social networking site. There are meet-up groups forming and getting together all the time around the country (something that started over at Morningstar). The Diehards even have their own convention each year, something that IU believes has become a truly major event in the indexing community.

I’ve praised the Diehards forum many times on the show and I still go there and learn new things all the time. There is no place better on the net for the do-it-yourself investor.

On show 96, I mentioned how Guru Peter Schiff’s book could have been written by presidential candidate Ron Paul. How prophetic! Today, Ron Paul has appointed Peter Schiff to be his economic advisor!

January 25, 2008 4:44 pm EST

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Newly appointed Ron Paul economic advisor, Peter Schiff, issued the following statement about Dr. Paul’s proposed comprehensive economic revitalization plan:

“We need a plan that stimulates savings and production not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place.  Ron Paul’s plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction.  If you want meaningful change – for the better that is – Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it.  The others merely promise to continue the failed policies that are at the root of our current economic problems.”

Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc, and a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television.  He is often quoted in major financial publications and is the author of the book Crash Proof.

In the past Peter Schiff said the following of Dr. Paul: “Ron Paul is the real deal, a true statesmen and citizen politician in the traditions envisioned by the framers of our Republic.”

Mr. Schiff is available for interviews regarding Congressman Paul’s economic policies.

Congressman Paul’s comprehensive economic revitalization plan can be found online at: www.RonPaul2008.com/Prosperity

You’ll definitely want to click on that last link and read Ron Paul’s Four-Point Plan for economic revitalization. Please tell me, dear reader, what’s not to like in this list? Comment below if you find something. Otherwise, please support the man!

Someone wrote a song for Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. Interesting that his picture never appears in this video. Hey guys, I have the rights to a picture of him if you want one to include one in your video.

hat tip to CrossingWallStreet.com

I’ve set up another Virtual Stock Exchange game at MarketWatch.com under the id MadMoneyMachine.com2

Even though I don’t like their system, since it is free, I created it anyway. Have fun. It runs through 2009 this time instead of just one year. And you get $1,000,000 in play money instead of just $100,000. And you can only trade 10% of a stock’s volume instead of 100%. And no shorting. Have fun.

Ron Paul got 10% in Iowa. That was better than expected. Eight predictions for 2008 left to fulfill.

Win valuable prizes and fame by playing the Mad Money Machine Lazy Portfolio Smackdown Game in 2008: Email me your Lazy Portfolio before 2 January 2008 to enter!

In 2006 we had a portfolio smackdown between a portfolio of Cramer’s recommended stocks that I selected vs. a basket of ETFs I bought and held. The ETFs won. In 2007 we featured a portfolio smackdown between Cramer’s recommended stocks that 20 volunteers selected vs. the IFA Indexfolio 100. It is neck and neck, meaning being lazy must win, right? So next year in 2008 I would like to create a new competition I’ll call the Mad Money Machine Lazy Portfolio Smackdown in which we pit all the various lazy portfolios against one another. We will be judging not only on return but also risk, as measured by standard deviation. The Mad Money Machine Lazy Portfolio Smackdown will of course feature the IFA Indexfolios, which are the gold standard of reward vs. risk portfolios. We will also include the other lazy portfolios that I have mentioned here previously. But also to make this fun and community-involved, I will include YOUR suggested lazy portfolio.

The rules are simple:
1. Create a portfolio of ETFs or Mutual funds (not individual stocks!) and indicate the percentage holding of each fund. Please limit the number of funds to 15 or fewer as anything more than that is not lazy.
2. Email the ticker symbols and percentages to me at Feedback AT MadMoneyMachine dot com.
3. I will calculate on a weekly basis the YTD return of the portfolio and the YTD standard deviation.
4. I may also try to go back in time with the portfolio to show its historical annualized return and annualized risk. Obviously, most ETFs don’t have any long history, so I may use substitute funds.
5. Three winning portfolios will be selected based upon closing prices December 31 2008 and will be the ones that have the highest reward vs. lowest risk for the year in each of three deciles: 0% to 8% risk, 8% to 16% risk, and 16+% risk.
6. Winners will receive a copy of Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors by Mark Hebner of Index Funds Advisors at IFA.com, will be crowned Lazy Portfolio Manager of the Year, and other valuable awards to be determined!
7. Entries must be received before 2 January 2008 so act quickly.

The two men I follow most closely, Jim Cramer and Ron Paul, together. (Hey, you got chocolate on my peanut butter!) Absolutely amazing…

Jim Cramer, if you are sincere about wishing Ron Paul the best of luck, will you please help? Would you throw your endorsement behind him and use the power of your pulpit to give him the recognition he deserves?

I had the unfortunate bad luck of watching the CNN/YouTube debate of the Republican presidential candidates last night. I thought it was a shockingly horribly run affair by CNN. I will hope to not waste my time watching these again. The Internet is a much better place to learn about the candidates.

Nonetheless, I took it upon myself to do a word count of each candidate from the CNN transcript. Here are the results:

If you’ve been reading closely, you’d notice that a couple of September’s ago I listed the “Ten Best Cramer Stocks to Buy Now” as a kind of a joke. You see, what I did then was choose ten Cramer picks that had already gone down the most from when he recommended them the previous March. The thinking was that if he still was recommending them (and he was) that they would be best poised for some upside potential. Good thinking, right? Here’s how it has turned out from 9/20/2006 thru 10/27/2007:

And for a comparison to the IFA IndexFolio 100′s Risk and Return for the same period, here’s a handy graph:

Oh, but hey, he got MATK right!

I’ve already had a request for the 2008 version of the Compact Calendar you can print from Excel.

If you don’t want to see December 2007 on the calendar, you can select rows 5 thru 9 and delete them. Let me be the first to say “Happy New Year.” Enjoy!