In order to attract more viewers, I will reserve Thursdays for my Trivia Question of the Week post. Since anything more than 0 is an infinite increase, what do I have to lose?

So I will be choosing questions from a variety of subjects, so as to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Questions for young and old; sports fanatics and movie buffs – investment gurus like Kyle and technical wizards like John. History will be included as a topic, both recent and far past. I am not adverse to posting a trivia question that requires an – oh boy! – essay-type answer, which I will be the judge as to who’s is the best. That implies at least TWO readers, so everyone hold on to your hats! Let’s get with it.

Today’s trivia question will be from the Sports world, as I have recently invited Michael to visit the blog. So he’ll have an edge over all you viewers out there who don’t know a soccer ball from a basketball hoop! I got this one from the “Sports & Leisure” portion of the Genus version of Trivial Pursuit. Here goes:

What 1910s baseball player earned his nickname because his new spikes gave him blisters?

There it is! Have at it…

I got an e-mail today from one of my former colleagues, asking me to lunch next week and asking the magic question, “How’s That Book Coming?”

When I left work at the end of June, I conceived of a plan to write a book along the lines of Moneyball, only for auto dealerships.

Ever since then, I’ve paid particular attention to television car ads and have visited a car dealership, both of which figure prominently into Chapter 1. What’s my thesis? Simple: auto dealerships do not understand the demographics of their customer base – women. According to recent research, 71% of all car buying decisions are ‘strongly influenced’ by women. But when I speak with women, they tell me they’d rather go to the dentist, have a mammogram or put a stick in their eye, rather than visit a car dealership. Why would that be?

That’s where Moneyball comes in – the idea that you have to reinvent the way you approach baseball in order to succeed. The Oakland Athletics have the second lowest payroll in all of professional baseball. The San Diego Padres have the lowest. The Padres are in next to last place in their division, having won a total of 52 games this year. The Athletics – the “A’s” – are second in their division and have won 61 games this season. Who’s ahead of the A’s? The Texas Rangers, whose salary budget is 4 times’ the A’s. You get the idea.

Back to auto sales – most dealerships compare their sales results monthly versus the previous month and the same month last year. They have no idea how many sales they didn’t make, because they do not collect any data on their prospects. In other words, they assume a certain percentage of their customers will come into the dealership and leave without even leaving their name. The analogy to Moneyball is in how the teams find players. They use scouts that look for all the criteria that don’t matter: fielding expertise, RBIs and other ‘soft’ attributes like how they look in a uniform (?!) The Oakland strategy, from a guy named Bill who was a night watchman at a food factory, was only one criteria matters: can the player get on base? In the dealership section, out of x prospects, how many are women, and how many cars did you sell to those women? They have no idea. But if you want to know more about my strategy, stay tuned. I’ll post Chapter 1 within the next 10 days. Ultimately I’ll publish it on Amazon’s Kindle.

Based on all I see and hear, I’m well convinced that BarryO is going to be re-elected in November. With the advantage of the two term limit rule, he’s now free to do as he sees fit.

Given those realities, I feel compelled to suggest some second term changes

1). Let’s start with the big one: drone attacks. Stop them. You crossed the line by authorizing the killing of American citizens without trial or any other semblance of due process. This is wrong, by any measure. In your acceptance speech after the election, please confirm that these attacks will stop. Period.

2). The day after the election, you need to convene a round table of the best minds in the world. Note I said the best minds, not the best economists or Wall Street executives or government leaders-just the 15 or so best minds in the World. Put them all in a room and challenge them to develop a plan to fix the world economy. Give them 72 hours and only allow bathroom breaks; send food and water in while they work. Tell them you want the solution in plain English with no more than 15 pages of text. You take the product to the UN and get the world to endorse it. This will atone for Colin Powell’s mortal sin in 2004 and may save us all.

3). FIND the will and a way to work with the Republicans. You are way smarter than them, but you need to get past that. Without bipartisan cooperation, we cannot solve any of our problems. So get over the fact that they hate you for being who and what you are and rise to your level of potential. I’ll bet Michelle tells you the same thing.

4). Our veterans are dying daily. They need for you to devote a huge portion of your second term to finding solutions, not just rhetoric. Find someone with passion to run Veteran’s Affairs-Eric Shinseki needs to go. Ask somebody like Ross Perot seemed to be to run it for a dollar a year. Get some FDR mojo on this one.

5). Last suggestion: start succession planning on day 3. Joe Biden cannot and should not be President. Recall that George W. lost the White House for his party because he selected an unelectable vice president. Don’t make the same mistake, or we’ll have Jeb Bush in the White House in 2016. That will be your mortal sin.

Element #1: Here’s the headline for an article by a young whippersnapper working for the venerable Forbes Magazine:

Pimco’s Bill Gross Says Stocks Were A Ponzi Scheme For The Last Hundred Years

Element #2: Last night’s episode of The Newsroom was all about dumbing down the news to attract viewers. They used the Casey Anthony trial and Nancy Grace as the example for trading intelligence for hysteria and exploitation.

Element #3: Current political ads – Obama is removing the “work” part of welfare and Romney killed that man’s wife.

What do these three elements have in common? All three are a reflection of the partisan polarization in the U.S., nurtured and manicured by popular media.

The real danger with it all is that we citizens have become sheep, led to the trough by our particular form of bias with varying levels of absorption. How completely have you swallowed the Kool-Aid for your team?

Let’s start with the first one – the young guy from Forbes writing about Bill Gross’s essay about equities. The headline implies that your 401-K or pension money is being invested in a fraud, and you will lose everything. Right? Isn’t that what happened to Bernie Madoff’s “investors”?

This feeds right into the continuing saga of missteps and outright theft perpetrated by Knight Capital, MF Global and Peregrine, to name three that have been in the headlines in the past six months or so. So, let’s sell everything and move to the hills of Montana! Nobody on Wall Street can be trusted, they are all thieves, cheats and liars, so let’s invest in … in what? Why, nothing of course! Put the cash in the mattress and let the parade go by.

Reality is very different. What Bill Gross suggested in his real contribution that you can access on your Ipad or Iphone through the Pimco App is that the return from equities over the past 100 years has effectively exceeded the world’s GDP by almost double. He explains that two factors created the path to that additional wealth creation:

1) reductions in cost for labor, both in the U.S. and world wide as a function of globalization; and
2) reductions in corporate tax rates

Bill then asks the question: are these returns (6.6%) sustainable for the next 100 years? He suggests the answer is a resounding “No”. He concludes that there are only two paths for the future: your investments will take a ‘haircut’ (i.e. they will be devalued) or inflation will let you feel like you’re making money, but you won’t be in real terms. Oh, by the way: the phrase “Ponzi Scheme” does not appear anywhere in his essay.

On to Element #2: Last night’s episode of The Newsroom. I must admit, in the beginning I too was fascinated by the Casey Anthony story – for about 10 minutes. It became clear after a few viewings of Nancy Grace that the manipulation was palpable, and time was better spent waxing the coffee table. The point of The Newsroom was that there were about 400,000 of their viewers that switched because they weren’t talking about the trial. Since they wanted to secure the rights to the Republican debates, they caved to the pressure and began covering the trial.

So how does this fit with my thesis? Well, part 2 of the saga airs next week, when we will find out if it was worth it. But one of the characters shares the thought that as soon as they caved in to the pressure, they sold their soul, never to retrieve it again. Isn’t that the state of popular media? Watched ABC News lately? Pictures of guys’ arms in alligators mouths on Sunday night. A story about a plane crash that blamed the pilot for being out of his seat for 1 minute, based on – what? ABC is owned by Disney! Walt would be horrified to see how his company’s money is being spent.

Finally, the newest political ads. You know the ones I’m talking about. Both are lies and everybody knows it. They know that YOU know they are lies, but so what? Obama’s team thinks it’s OK because it didn’t air on television, only on the internet. Romney’s team is lying because – well, that’s what they do because they have no confidence in their own electorate to tease out the truth.

Where does all this end? Think Howard Beale.

This is what I read this morning from my reliable columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the UK Daily Telegraph:

Caixin magazine reports that China’s entire solar industry is “on the verge of bankruptcy” as it struggles with debts built up during its world conquest over the past four years.

The policy risks a serious confrontation with Washington. “If they do the same old thing and slam down a few more roads to the Gobi desert they will end up with stagflation. They need Thatcherism to get out of this,” said Mr Dumas.

There’s a lot on which to comment in these four paragraphs. Let’s start with the first one: the entire Chinese solar industry is on the verge of bankruptcy. Apparently, in order to bankrupt Solyndra, China’s solar industry borrowed money in order to cut prices. Now the debts are coming due. First: recall the Romney ad chastising Barry O for loaning all that money to Solyndra? Now it can be told how the Chinese flooded the market with low cost solar panels NOT produced by Solyndra. As a purchaser, who did you buy from – cheap from China or expensive from “buy American”. I suppose the answer is obvious. Well, it’s too late for Solyndra, but the chickens have come home to roost for China. So don’t blame Barry O – blame the Chicoms, as Al Payne my friend used to call them.

On to the rest of the quote. The Chinese currency is getting stronger versus the dollar and the Euro. Chinese exporters are seeing their profits dwindle, because they’re paying their people more and shipments are declining because the price – relative to other currencies – is going up. That’s a double whammy. First – is Chinese money going up because of anything China is doing? Nope. The dollar and the Euro are declining because their economies are in serious decline, with high unemployment and government deficits. These are two things China does NOT have, and doesn’t want. So what does China do? The government is “steering the currency lower to cushion the shock.” “The policy risks a serious confrontation with Washington.” And finally, the recommendation that China needs “Thatcherism”.

The Chinese government has always resorted to steering the currency lower to buy themselves time to prevent massive uprisings from its huge population. Since they are a ‘planned’ economy – love the euphemism for communism – they can do that. The U.S. and the E.U. are subject to the buffeting winds of the world’s investors, and have to manage as best they can to influence the strength of their respective currencies. The Fed – that entity Ron Paul wants to dismiss – thru its monetary policy can have some influence on it. Congress and the President through fiscal policy can have less influence, and it takes a lot longer to manage through the budget. The E.U. is really up the creek in this regard, with individual countries managing their fiscal policies and no strong central bank.

So why does this policy risk a serious confrontation with Washington?

Mittens wants to take them on in a big way for currency manipulation, and he’d start a 1930’s style disaster by likely getting the Republican Congress to institute strong tariffs on Chinese goods. That’ll fix it! First, that’ll kill Wal Mart – not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Today is July 17th. I have officially been retired for 1 day, as I filed for Social Security yesterday at this time. It took me 16 days to decide to file, but adding up all the numbers, it made sense to do so. With social security, FRS and unemployment, my net is the same as my net working. So, essentially, we are no worse off, cash-flow wise than before. The difference is in the amount of DROP money I would have received as a lump sum and a slightly larger payout from social security if I’d waited until age 66. However, when I did a quick calculation yesterday, the difference between now and full retirement at 66 was such that I’d have to wait until age 78 just to break even with the money I’ll be receiving from the US government over the next 42 months. Somehow that didn’t make much sense to me.

Since Ma’s been having some health issues of late, it’s actually useful for me to be around to shepherd her to her doctor appointments for tests. I hope she continues to be as independent as she can and not become too dependent on me. She has thrived in the past year, being on her own and having to arrange for transportation to doctor appointments and such. But she needs more company from the people she loves. So anyone reading this – family or otherwise – give her a call and by all means, come see her. You’ll be glad you did!

It’s a long post, but maybe thought provoking if you’re as interested in the world and its money as I am…
Otherwise, have a lovely day!

Leadership Comes in Many Forms and With Many Guises

Wow – haven’t posted since Easter – guess I’ve been busy…no excuses but there it is.

Okay, so I’ve been working on this song writing business for a while – actually written 3 songs, sort of. The first was a trilogy, combining an amalgam of “Like a Rolling Stone” (in 3/4 time) with Bobby Vinton’s “Mr. Lonely” finished off with a new version of “Suicide is Painless” from MASH. It took months, but I finally put it together and then put it aside. Then I wrote my first original song, entitled “Sgt. Bales’ Lament” about – well, the title says it all. Not bad, but obviously angry and sad. So my guitar teacher asked if I could write a song that wasn’t a dirge…hmmm..so I was determined to write one that was funny. What better to write about than Mitt Romney – now that’s a funny guy! Saturday Night Live, I believe, pays him to do what he does for material for the fall season. So I wrote it, and played it for my instructor, who produced some mild chuckles and an occasional guffaw. Then he says, “why don’t you record it?” Well, easier said than done. Nonetheless, I produced a terrible recording, attached it to some, shall we say depictive slides, and, voila! I made a video of my bad guitar playing, worse singing, but funny video…it’s now up on you tube with positive comments from my most ardent fan, Emily. So, yes – the video you’ve been waiting for – here it is. Enjoy (or not, depending on your political persuasion).

Post-script: As I was finishing this up last Sunday night, a terrible thunderstorm had rolled in. With one last keystroke, BOOM! We got hit by lightning. Knocked out the cable wire and – at the time – I thought it’d fried the computer. I looked up at the ceiling, and said to myself – damn, those Republicans have NO sense of humor. Enjoy….

This Sunday is Easter. What is the theme in Christian theology of Easter? Resurrection. What is behind this concept of resurrection? What does it mean, “to resurrect”?

Dictionary.com definition:

1. to raise from the dead; bring to life again.
2. to bring back into use, practice, etc.: to resurrect an ancient custom.

Let’s take up the first definition: to raise from the dead, or bring to life again. Why would anyone other than Stephen King want to bring something back that is dead? Again returning to Christian theology, Jesus returned in physical form to his followers for 40 days. Say, didn’t he wander in the wilderness for 40 days? Didn’t it rain for 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was floating around in the ark? Something about that 40 days thing becomes almost metaphorical in the sense that it’s used so often (e.g.: during Lent you’re supposed to ‘give something up’ for 40 days, but that doesn’t include Sundays…digression). Maybe it’s just convenient because 40 is two score. Enough, yes? Moving on…

So he appears for 40 days and then ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of God (according to the Apostle’s Creed, weekly pronouncement in many Christian church services). So what’s the message here? Many interpret the message – here’s one that sums it up nicely (a nod to Rev. Christopher Raja for his on-line version):

The message of resurrection has to bring in confidence of eternity that has to be reflected in renewal and repentance from the things that keep us away from the communion of Christ.

Aha – three key words here: renewal,repentance and communion.

So maybe the concept here is when those amongst us repent and begin to change the direction of their lives, we can renew our relationship with them. Maybe we can use the Easter season as a time to re-establish our faith in each member of our family and try to see beyond past grievances and slights. Quote John Lennon: Give peace a chance. Life is short – no room for drama.

I think we’ve dragged this out enough, don’t you? Here’s Chapters IX and X of the core story – check it out and let me know what you think, gentle reader. Then I’ll start posting the ‘surround’ story next –

Writing is a great release from cleaning the upstairs or going to the grocery store. I have a couple days off this week, and I need to spend some quality time writing and doing our income tax return. Let the good times roll!

Later…