Oscar Picks

That time of year again for our Oscar picks:

Leading Actor – Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”

Supporting Actor – Christian Bale in “The Fighter”

Leading Actress – Annette Bening in “The Kinds Are All Right”

Supporting Actress – Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”

Best Picture – “The King’s Speech”

FED PASSES CHINA AS TREASURY HOLDER - The Federal Reserve has surpassed China as the leading holder of US Treasury securities even though it has yet to reach the halfway mark in its latest round of quantitative easing. ... Based on weekly data released on Thursday, the New York Fed's holdings of Treasuries in its System Open Market Account, known as Soma, total $1,108bn. ... According to the most recent US Treasury data on foreign holders of US government paper, China holds $896bn and Japan owns $877bn. ... The Fed has devoted 67 per cent of its QE2 purchases to Treasuries with a maturity of four-and-a-half to 10 years. That has helped pull back yields in that part of the yield curve from their highs of December.

MAGIC NUMBER FOR OBAMA REELECTION - January employment numbers are showing 9.0% unemployment. For 2012, the magic number may ... be 215. That is how many thousands of jobs the economy has to create every month for the unemployment rate to drop below 8 percent by Election Day 2012. ... Since 1960, the unemployment rate has been above 7 percent during four elections: 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1992. In three of these 4 elections, the incumbent party lost. Only in 1984 did Reagan win with 7.2 percent unemployment, which was in the context of a 1.3 percentage point drop in unemployment during the year prior to the election. For President Obama, with a current unemployment rate of 9.0 percent, an unemployment rate below 7 percent is hard to envision by November 2012. However over the coming 2 years, he would see an improved political position from a significant drop in the unemployment rate. Current economic forecasting projects a fourth quarter 2012 unemployment rate of approximately 8 percent (CEA: 7.7 percent; CBO: 8.2 percent; Blue Chip: 8.4 percent). If the unemployment rate can break this 8 percent level, President Obama can credibly argue that he is making progress on jobs, even though the unemployment rate will still be historically high.

TOP TEN HOSPITALS IN U.S. – per AMA

1. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
3. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
4. Cleveland Clinic
5. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
6. New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell
7. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center
8. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis
9. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
10. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Tom Brokaw (71), Garth Brooks (48), Sara Evans (40), John Grisham (56), Mike Krzyzewski (64), Sarah Palin (47), Joe Pesci (68), Smokey Robinson (71), Jerry Springer (67), George Stephanopoulos (50).

NFL PICK OF THE WEEK –
Season to date (7-15).

SUPER BOWL XLV

-- USA Today 23rd annual Super Bowl Ad Meter: For the first time ever, two ads tied for first with the consumer dial groups -- Bud Light and Doritos, both featuring dogs. ("USA TODAY assembled 282 adult volunteers in Bakersfield, Calif., and McLean, Va., and electronically charted their second-by-second reactions [using] handheld meters.")

--Rink Rats concluded its popular NFL Game of the Week series with another loss, our season total was 7 – 15 not very impressive, if we would of placed a typical $5.00 Las Vegas sports book bet on each game we would of lost $65.00, not very impressive. See you all again in September (we hope) when we start the NFL and College games anew.

COLLEGE HOCKEY GAME OF THE WEEK – Saturday 2/12, #19 Princeton Tigers (14-8-1) visit #17 Dartmouth Big Green (13-7-3), 4:00 PM ET, Green Planet Network. A huge ECAC conference game in Hanover, New Hampshire, with three weeks left in the regular season these two Ivy League rivals are battling for ECAC supremacy. Rink Rats likes The Big Green of Dartmouth to win this one and break our slow season start.
Season to date (1-4).

STARBUCKS TRENTA – A video playing big in You Tube shows an entire bottle of red wine being poured into the new Trenta size cup, with room for cream. So now we have Tall, Grande, Venti and Trenta.

CORRESPONDENT - We are looking forward to upcoming reports from niece Alex B. in Granada, Spain. She is spending a semester in Spain with her studies from U of Colorado.

Next week, a great place to dine in Pasadena and Dear Rink Rats.

Until next Monday, Adios.

Claremont, CA
February 7, 2011