...why no one talks about the Long Bond any more. Turns out I missed the killing of it -- it's gone, and it's not coming back.

You have no idea what I'm talking about, right? The "Long Bond" is a 30-year U.S. Treasury bond that has provided an excellent benchmark for long term interest rates. The only realistic one, actually. In addition, the timing of this death seems to be quite careless on the part of the Treasury:

Our goofy Treasury, once again defying all logic, decided to throw away the opportunity to lock in multi-decade low interest rates for decades into the future. An enormous source of cheap long-term financing was scattered to the winds.

It was killed under the Bush Administration, last Halloween. This essay explains what the Long Bond was, how important it was to some traders and speculates on why it was discontinued. It's much more interesting than one would imagine, and though this gentleman is a bit zealous in his argument (though we can't say he didn't warn us), he's still rational and realistic.

It's worth reading, if interest rate movements are, well, interesting to you.

Over the weekend, I watched the news on and off. It was all sniper all the time, so when I got sick of it, (which was frequently) I just turned it off. On the Sunday afternoon after the random shooting at the Ponderosa near Richmond, the Ashland Superintendent of schools was doing a press conference. He said that outdoor activities would be curtailed but the schools would be open because that was probably the safest place for kids to be.

From DailyPress:

The closing of schools in the city of Richmond and Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover and Goochland counties will affect approximately 200,000 students, Henrico school Superintendent Mark A. Edwards said late Sunday.

Edwards said the superintendents in those communities decided to reverse their earlier decision Sunday to keep the schools open because of the "volume of concerns" from parents and community.

Basically, parents called and complained until the authorities closed the schools. Do we really want our kids to be irrationally terrified that they will be a sniper victim? Is this the way any of us want to live? I think we are (gasp) sending the wrong message here. We should help children overcome irrational fear. It's an important part of their development at human beings.

Closing the school is not teaching this lesson.