164: The Sterling Flap

So another octogenarian has expressed his true racial insensitivity, or as some would say, prejudice.  Without MSNBC, how would we ever possibly deal with rascals like Mr. Sterling?  The same way we deal with racism and prejudice in the rest of our daily lives.  We all encounter the inevitable and sometimes crude likes, dislikes, racial biases, cultural differences, and prejudices of our fellow humans on a more or less constant basis.  We form relationships based on our acceptance or rejection of what other persons think or believe.  The talking heads on TV would somehow have us believe that NBA players, who are the equivalent on an individual basis multi-million dollar per year businesses, are being irreparably harmed by accepting their millions from an owner who says and does foolish and impolitic things.  Certainly most, if not all, of the Clipper players were aware of Sterling's conduct long before this instant flap surfaced.  I suspect there are many other players with other NBA teams who are aware of just such conduct from other owners.  Maybe we should end all this nonsense and form a National Cultural Law Enforcement Agency and put everyone in jail who says something stupid.  Who would be left to run the prisons?

163: Signs Of A Market Top

This morning I watched an ad for the IBEW on CNBC.  I called a long term IBEW member who runs a large commercial electrical contracting company.  I asked him what possible benefit could accrue to IBEW members from advertising on CNBC.  My friend answered:  "Absolutely none."  It turns out that there is a special assessment against employers who are forced to pay into a fund for activities like these bizarre ads. 

I also have seen more and more advertising for trade associations, especially realtors. 

My non-scientific analysis and conclusion is that when organization start making idiotic expenditures like this, it is generally a sign that the stupid money is coming back into markets of all types.  Advertising markets, stock markets, real estate markets.  The suckers always come in at the end and get fleeced.

162: MOT, MSI - RIP

I told you so.  Look at my blog posts from 2007 on Motorola.  It has taken a little while, but carved up and sold off is what I predicted and that is exactly what has happened.  What an American management case study in tragic incompetence.  My personal experience with MOT started in the 1990s when MOT was at its zenith.  The company had obviously been built on integrity, hard work, great products, and good management.  Somewhere along the way, management must have decided that its excrement didn't stink.  But stink it did and beginning in the late 90s MOT began its long, excruciating decline. 

Probably a good investment strategy right now would be to find out where the key MOT execs from 1990 to 2010 are today, and then short the hell out of those companies.

161: Gotta Love That Putin Guy

I can't imagine any real American who doesn't have a grudging respect for Vlad Putin.  What a wild and crazy guy.  He sizes up the geopolitical landscape, sees a stunningly weak and inept opposite number in BO, and makes his move - successfully.  He does all of this on the heels of hosting the Olympic games, another feather which BO sought, and lost.  It reminds me of the Celebrity Boxing match between Tonya Harding and Paula Jones.  Vlad is wailing on BO, and BO is just running away with his gloves in back of his head.  Real Americans should respect Vlad, and be very ashamed of BO.

160: Why I Don't Contribute To Public TV or Radio

I have never contributed, at least directly, to public TV or radio, and I probably never will.  The reasons I don't give, are the same reasons I don't give to NBC or Fox, or any other broadcaster - they get plenty of dough from other sources, and even the so-called "public" stations get the lion's share of their money from corporate, government or large trust targets.  Even if I was tempted someday to give something to a local public station, the pledge drives they conduct are so disingenuous and obnoxious that any urge to give is quelled.

159: MLK And His Day

I have nothing against Martin Luther King.  I have read significant amounts of history related to him and his work.  I don't know why any rational person would argue or take issue with his philosophy of non-violent demonstration in pursuit of a cause.  I just don't know why the country needs to take a day off for him.  If we followed the logic that gives us MLK Day, we would never work.  How many others are as deserving or more deserving that King?  What about Jonas Salk, Edgar Allen Poe, Clara Barton?  There are probably a hundred arguably deserving individuals.  We used to celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but now they are lumped in with Hoover, Nixon and Clinton for "President's Day."

Here's my problem with the whole issue of race in America:  As far as I can tell, no one in my family tree going back to before they arrive in North America ever owned a slave or participated in or benefited from the economics of slavery.  Yet radical blacks and MSNBC thinks I somehow owe something to atone for injustices done to blacks in America.  This doesn't seem right to me, and I'm sure it doesn't seem right to millions of other Americans in the same position as me. 

I propose that we change MLK Day to "A Person You Look Up To Day."  There will surely be certain individuals who draw a crowd of admirers, and they will get more attention.  That's fine.  But all Americans will have the opportunity to honor someone they choose.  Make it a federal and state holiday, everybody gets a day off, and no one gets his nose out of joint.

158: My JFK Observations

It was right after lunch in Miss Moral's sixth grade classroom.  Miss M had not come back yet.  Tom Snaider, the class clown was the last pupil in and was saying that the president had been shot.  No one believed him because no one ever believed anything he said.  Then Miss M returned and between sobs told us that the president had been assassinated.  I do not remember any particular sense of disaster or loss or sadness.  Just that the event was BIG and important.

My family was not a "Kennedy" family.  I'm sure my parents had voted for Nixon.  Kennedy was catholic after all, and while there was some good catholics, you certainly did not want one of them running the country.  My personal memories of Kennedy as president are really limited to just two - the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination.  Both involved a day off from school.

Since 1964 I have grown up from a sixth grader to a 62 year old man.  I have lived under Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and BO.  I would classify only two of those - Reagan and Bush the First - as first rate presidents.  All the rest are dopes and egomaniacs.

Other than my personal memories, the rest of my knowledge of JFK has come from what the east coast media wants me to know.  While the murder of JFK was a terrible crime like all murders, I don't think the country was deprived of an indispensable leader.  He was just another political animal who chose to be supported by taxpayers.  His legacy would not be nearly as stellar if he had not been killed.