Black Tie Optional March 31, 2000March 25, 2012 How stupid is that — “Black Tie Optional?” It makes everyone uncomfortable, throws everyone into confusion, and makes everyone a loser. If you wear black tie, you feel like a snob. If you don’t, you feel like a slob. Now there’s a successful social convention. Seriously: it’s so dumb. The convention should be either: “Black Tie” . . . meaning, “black tie — period” . . . or else “Black Tie Suggested,” meaning “most people will wear tuxes, so you should, too, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t.” Please pass this on to the committee.
Wacky Web Site March 30, 2000March 25, 2012 Did you know you can use Colgate toothpaste to remove scuffs from shoes and tar from bare feet? Or to do emergency spackling? Did you know you can use Coca Cola to de-rust your chrome car bumper? Downy Fabric Softener to eliminate the static-electricity shocks you get from carpets? And that’s just the D’s. It was my pal Alan Rogowsky who alerted me to this questionable trove. He needs to get out more. But for those of you who would consider spreading Dannon yogurt over your faces to improve your complexions, or lining plant pots with a Mr. Coffee Filter to prevent soil from leaking through the drainage holes — or sewing tennis balls inside a pocket on the backs of your pajama tops to prevent you from sleeping on your back (and, thus, snoring) — Alan writes: “Click here. I need to get out more.”
Cheap Gas March 29, 2000February 15, 2017 In the good old days, when I was growing up, the Fifties and Sixties, gas cost around 30 cents a gallon, which would take the average car about 12 miles. So driving 120 miles cost around $3, which took the average production worker about an hour and a half to earn. (Some guy working for the minimum wage would have had to work three hours.) Today, gas prices are so high that Trent Lott is talking about cutting the gas tax temporarily, making up the lost highway-repair funds by dipping into general revenues. At $1.75, a gallon of gasoline today takes the average car about 24 miles. So driving 120 miles costs around $8.75, which takes the average production worker about 40 minutes to earn (and a guy at the minimum wage less than two hours). Of course, traffic is worse. Then again, many cars these days have CD players and cell phones, so the time spent stuck in traffic is not quite the nightmare it once was. Some even have air conditioning. Even with today’s higher gas prices, I would not rush to bring back the good old days. Nor would I shift the cost of highway maintenance away from the gasoline tax and onto the income tax. Better solutions include: (a) waiting for the market to bring prices back down; (b) reminding people they can buy fuel-efficient vehicles if they choose to; (c) continuing to develop safe, comfortable vehicles that in a few years may well get triple the mileage of cars today. After all, what matters is not the cost of gas but the cost of driving a mile.
A Stock That’s Still Surely Going to Zero March 28, 2000January 28, 2017 A few months ago, I told you about “A Stock That’s Surely Going to Zero” — because if it wasn’t, it would have to be going through the roof. Since writing that column, it has gone neither to zero nor even to ankle height — it’s almost exactly where it was. About $3.75 ($5.50 or so Canadian). The fact is, I own a lot of this stock. This is because I am, at heart, a terribly self-destructive person with a secret gambling streak. You know how that mild-mannered Miss Marple on CBS turns out to be the toughest detective in England? Or how that fellow in the flannel shirt across the way from you who drives a ’91 Honda Civic turns out to be the multi-millionaire next door? Well, Mr. Prudent here turns out to take some pretty blood-rushing gambles. Prudently, of course. I didn’t tell you that my hopes for it were actually kind of high, because I feared that if I did, you might buy some and lose your money. And I still fear that. For all the reasons I cited in that column, it’s just really hard to imagine that this is real. For one thing, why wouldn’t all the people who’ve seen it, and who understand the science — I sure don’t, I think electricity is magic, pure and simple — why wouldn’t they have bid the price up? Yet week after week the company inches along with its press releases (“The Gamma Engineering Prototype Chorus(tm) Motor spun this week, right on schedule . . . “). So even as I was writing that first column, and ever since, I’ve been trying to balance how rotten I’d feel if you lost money with how rotten I’d feel in case it panned out — and I got rich but you didn’t. If you share my — prudent — self-destructive streak, read that column again for the caveats, take a look at the company’s web site, and put in a few dollars that you can truly, truly, afford to lose without remorse. If you don’t have dollars like that, skip this. I fear that if more than a few of you do this, the stock will rise. This will make it all the less attractive a speculation. All I can promise you is that I will not be selling mine as you are buying yours. Final caveat: At the end of that first column, I asked the smart kids in the class to take a look and let me know what they thought. Not encouraging. John: “This is a highly complex field mostly stuffed with guys that have Dr. in front of their names. I have worked with motors and controllers for many years, yet I may as well be reading Chinese when researching this stuff. One thing that I can say about the Borealis motor is that it uses 18 phases instead of 3 phases. That means that the construction of the motor may be 6 times more expensive because each phase is a wire that has to be wound in and around the motor stator. Also, instead of having three wires hanging off the motor for the electrician to wire, you will have 18! They compensate for this glaring fact (the cost to build this motor) by saying how much money you will save by using it. It’s like buying a $5,000 refrigerator that saves you $50 dollars on your yearly electric bill. Eventually you will recoup the extra cost in those yearly savings. Because of all the graphics and fancy charts, I would say something smells!” Professor Dana Dlott: “Nothing wrong with the theory of the chorus more efficient motor. The only question is whether it can make any money. According to Lester Thurow, sometimes when you build a better mousetrap the world doesn’t come knocking at your door. Sometimes it is more expensive, too expensive to replace the old mousetraps, the guy who invented it wasted all his money on invention and you can sell knock-offs cheaper, and so on.” Larry: “It’s been too many years since my college class on motors to do a proper job of analyzing the Borealis motor claims. But if this motor is truly as revolutionary as Borealis claims, electrical engineering departments around the world would be lined up to test and verify its performance. I, for one, would avoid any company that seems to be spending more time touting its stock price and seeking licensing inquiries than it does in proving the technology it claims have invented. “ Thorsten Kril: ” In case you are interested in the humble opinion of an MSEE: “1. The motor should work and indeed be more energy efficient than traditional 3-phase motors. However, it is kind of obvious that motors get more efficient with more phases. I don’t remember that anybody has built an 18-phase motor yet, but I don’t believe it is worth a patent. Are you sure they got one? Their patents web page just shows: “This page will display motor patents as they are issued.” But I could be wrong. There could be technical difficulties with developing an 18-phase motor that require a proprietary solution which might get patented. But it wouldn’t matter much — see #2. “2. Most applications of high-power motors (where energy efficiency would matter) use 3 phases not because it allows the best motor design, but because the electric power supply happens to come in 3 phases. And it’s rather difficult to convert it to more phases. They even admit that when describing the drive (the electrical parts needed to connect the motor to the power supply): ‘It is clear that the Chorus™ uses many more components than a comparative (larger) 3-phase motor which has the same performance. However, this is countered by a number of cost-reducing features…’ I doubt that it is countered. So your motor might be doomed to niche applications. Which is fine, but don’t get your hopes up to see Borealis market cap reach Billions.” Doug Wade: “I’m a “non-practicing” physicist. That’s to say I have a BS in Physics but I program computers for a living. I paged through their site, and what strikes me isn’t so much the motor section as the different divisions of the company. Their cooling section says they’ve revolutionized cooling, getting amazing efficiencies. In their power section they offer ‘a fundamental breakthrough in the field of power generation.’ Their steel manufacturing ‘promises to revolutionize this basic industry.’ and of course their ‘revolutionary electric motor with dramatic improvements in torque, efficiency and cost, over existing motor drives.’ I haven’t seen the word revolutionary used so many times since I read a history of France. So either these guys are the engineering studs of the decade or they’re really into hype. Or both, I suppose. I like to suspend disbelief as much as the next guy but I can’t manage it for these guys.” Brian Annis: “You write: “Borealis claims (among other things) to have invented and patented an electric motor that is 30% more efficient than today’s motors.” I’m not sure that’s an accurate description of what they have done. While their motor is only slightly more efficient than a standard motor (93% vs. 90%), they have modified the torque curve, potentially allowing someone to get away with a motor that is (theoretically) up to 30% smaller than they otherwise would have used. To do so, however, requires a source of power providing the significantly greater number of phases needed by the motor (the example on their web site uses 18) than the standard three supplied by the local power company. I would think that the costs and inefficiencies involved in doing this would, in most cases, outweigh the benefits of the new design. BTW, I’m also skeptical of what they could have patented that would be both crucial and unassailable.”
MYM and Molydumum March 27, 2000February 15, 2017 Three quick things first 1. MYM USERS CompuServe made a change. If you can no longer get stock quotes . . . a. From the FILE menu go to: PROGRAM SETUP, COMMUNICATIONS b. Select COMPUSERVE and press Enter for “Service Setup” c. Press F9, our hidden key d. With the top line (“Login Script”) highlighted, press F2 e. Carefully change MYMQUO to BAS14 f. Save your work on that screen and then the next . . . and it should work. 2. BUMPER STICKERS RJ Gump: “I am really disappointed that you failed to tell me where to get the ‘No New Texans’ bumper sticker!” OK. By popular demand (two others asked as well): Gore2000.com — not to be confused with the candidate’s own site, Gore2000.org. 3. AND SPEAKING OF GOOD MOVIES Add “Erin Brockovich” to your list and, as I think I mentioned once before, “Boiler Room.” And Now . . . MOLYDUMUM Anne Speck: “Here’s a point that’s been missed so far in the mining debate. More than half the land in states like Colorado (my home) and Arizona is publicly owned. Public use of these lands should be things that benefit everyone … and mining does. So the question is, do we turn the Department of the Interior into a carnival barker, selling tickets to national land to the highest bidder, or do we keep the entry costs low and try to maintain a sensible mixed-use mentality? “The problem of selling the rights to the highest bidder is that often, particularly in mining, what is being taken from the land is ultimately for the public good. The U.S.’s largest molybdumum mine (sorry, I don’t have a dictionary handy and your interface doesn’t have a spell check) is in my back yard. The company that dug the mine dug up one mountain and dumped it in the valley on the other side of the highway. There’s now no mountain and no valley, just an expanse of tailings. I almost cried the first time I saw it, but my dad said to me, ‘Without this, we wouldn’t have airplanes. You can’t make planes light enough to fly without using aluminum, and you can’t make aluminum rigid enough without molydumum.’ “I still grieve when I see it, but I do understand why we did it. One mountain, one valley versus most of the air travel in the world. There are trade-offs. “So, the question I would hand back at you — from a Libertarian to a Democrat — is: Is it better for a nation to rent its public land at a low price so that access is available to everyone and people can benefit from its products at a lower cost; or is it better to rent it at a high cost, reducing access, raising the cost of essential goods, and along the way creating another pool of public money to squabble over?” We already get royalties from these lands, so raising the price would not create another pool, just a larger one. But as to you larger question, many libertarians and Democrats believe in the benefits of free-market pricing. So you and I both probably would answer that these transactions should be done “at market,” not at fixed 1872 prices. Jim Whyte, our erudite Canadian geologist, will have more to say about all this shortly. Reason enough, I know, for many of you to live another day. (Oh — and it’s molybdenum, but your way was just irresistible, so I left it.)
Sites You Like March 24, 2000February 15, 2017 “Actually you blew it again. Emily Litella went into a long diatribe about ‘what’s so special about Soviet jewelry’ … finally told the big deal was about ‘Soviet Jewry,’ she said never mind.” — Brooks Hilliard FOR INVESTORS: Robert Verzi: “I like 10K Wizard much better than Edgar for finding and viewing 10K reports. It’s got a very powerful search function. You can search for 10K reports that contain certain keywords. I’ts much easier to print and save the files than on Edgar. What do you expect from the government anyway? Please try it out and maybe you can add it to your list.” FOR CONSUMERS: Jane Smith: “I ran into this site last month when it was featured on Channel 3, Good Evening Arizona, and I am hooked to it ever since. It is part of my routine to check the deals on it once a day. It is at www.a2zDeals.com. In the short time I have been visiting, I have saved a lot of money through some great deals, like the one for getting Turbo Tax, Quicken 2000 completely free, and actually GETTING $6 for buying them. Also there was Lexmark Z11 ($92 actual price) for $1.99, and Cannon 620U scanner ($130 original) not just free but with free $4. See what you think!” FOR NEW DOGS: Me: Anyone interested in learning new tricks might bookmark learn2.com. One horrifying thing I learned there is that it’s cheap and easy to make candles yourself. Oh, no! Those of you who bought stock in one of the candle companies I referred to here last week, and who may have thought the only high-tech threat to candles were, say, light bulbs, now see we have a whole new-economy threat to our ticker flicker: the Internet-enabled do-it-yourself candle maker. You can also find instructions, on this site, for mixing cement, writing a speech . . . I may even try to get them to add a 2torial (as they call them) for Cooking Like a Guy™.
Back to the Salt Mines March 23, 2000February 15, 2017 It is a tribute to the power of television, I think, or to people’s affection for the late Gilda Radner, that the largest response I have had all year was to yesterday’s column on mining. Oh, sure, a few of you chimed in on the side of the environmentalists or in defense of arsenic contamination. But most of you wrote to tell me — and you were right, of course — that when I said . . . In truth, this reminds me (a little) of Roseanne Roseannadanna . . . (“Oh, Soviet jewelry. Well. That’s different. Never mind.”) . . . I should have said it reminded my of Emily Litella, another of Gilda Radner’s wonderful Saturday Night Live characters. Dennis King: “This is the not the first time that you have mis-attributed ‘Never mind.’ This one belongs to Emily Latella, not to Roseanne Roseannadanna. Please watch a few old tapes and set the record straight…for Gilda’s sake. (I can hear you now saying, “Oh, Emily Latella. Well. That’s different. Never mind.”) Oh, Emily Latella. Well. That’s different. Never mind. I checked, by the way, and Emily’s last name seems to be spelled both Litella and Latella. I’m sure there’s a correct version — or then again maybe there’s not. She may have left it purposely ambiguous. Like Pat, an SNL character from a later era. As I say, a few of you responded, as well, to Canadian Jim’s not inconsiderable treatise on mining. All of you shared my admiration for Jim’s passion, wit, and expertise. But not all of you agreed with him 100%. Hank Gillette: “I’m sure glad that Jim Whyte doesn’t want to interfere in U.S. politics; otherwise you would have had to publish a book. “There’s no doubt that mining is necessary. There’s also no doubt that without government intervention many mining companies would do their mining with a total disregard for the environment. How does insisting that these companies clean up their mess equate to being anti-mining? One way or another, someone is going to pay for the environmental costs of the mining. It makes a lot more sense to me to force the mining company to do it. They’ll just pass the cost on to the users of the mined product anyway. “As for letting the mining companies mine the materials on government land almost free, that’s a national disgrace. Same for letting ranchers graze their livestock nearly free on government range land. Yet it is often these people who suck wholesale on the public teat that complain about various forms of government aid to the poor and disabled. Go figure.” J. Raymond: “While I appreciate Mr. Whyte’s passion, I believe that in many respects a virtually identical argument could be made in presenting the ‘environmentalist’ side of these issues. If the market does not accurately reflect all of the long-term costs of a particular behavior (e.g. cleanup), then the activities undertaken in that market will be skewed. Certainly the ability of mining companies to purchase land at prices established back in 1872 represents one skewing factor as an example. “The average person engaging in the wonderful [mining-enabled] activities we are privileged to enjoy is at least as far removed from considering the hidden costs. “There is of course no simple answer to any of this, but it sometimes seems to me that the occasional sixteen words referencing environmental impact in Time and its ilk are merely ‘spit in the consumption-driven wind.'” Anonymous: “Jim Whyte’s letter was interesting and entertaining. Even though, as you say, he was a little off point, so are you. “The real point is: what the heck were you wasting an entire flight on that big metal boat for a measly lunch meeting! *THAT* is the real waste! At least the metal plows used by farmers make farming more productive; and the big, flying metal boats make travel quicker, cheaper and more efficient. But using one of those boats for a single lunch meeting is a waste of the world’s resources that were used to get you there (not to mention that in one entire business day the only thing you accomplished was a single lunch hour meeting, so you weren’t exactly excessively productive that day). Ever hear of video teleconferencing? telephone calls? email?” It would be funnier to have left it at that and not respond. But I have to tell you that, first, the flights were astonishingly empty — I was amazed how few people fly between Miami and Omaha on a Wednesday — so my body weight added to the world’s costs only a few gallons of fuel. And I came back, as I mentioned, with $100,000 for the DNC, which could be the very $100,000 that buys the extra READ MY LIPS: NO NEW TEXANS bumper stickers that win the vote in a swing state that swings the election to Gore and thus saves us from a conservative Supreme Court for the next 25 years and much else that I would hate to see. So this plane trip may have been a waste; but it may also have assured continued prosperity and world peace. Not to mention a woman’s right to control her own body, a fair minimum wage, more widely available health care, sensible gun regulations, and a whole lot more. It seemed like a long way to go for a dry turkey sandwich. But it may have been . . . The Flight That Saved the World.
Let’s Hear It for Metal! March 22, 2000February 15, 2017 But first: Thomas McA.: “I still use Managing Your Money. I find it far superior to Quicken or Microsoft Money. I partially blame you for its demise. You spent so much time putting drivel into its publication that you forgot that Quicken was outpromoting you.” Is this a great country, or what? Now: Jim Whyte: “I really enjoyed your reflections on flying to Omaha for lunch. Every once in a while I marvel that the journey that takes me forty-five minutes a day was, at the time of Confederation, a long day’s ride. I get e-mails from people on the other side of the world, while my father, in his boyhood, listened to the first radio stations on the continent (XWA in Montreal; KDKA in Pittsburgh) on the one crystal radio in his home town. Both my parents lived before antibiotics and polio vaccines; two years ago my doctor sent me for a CAT scan, for heaven’s sake, just to see what was wrong with my sinuses (nothing much, as it turned out). “But I had to take exception to your McCain column. I’m not interfering in U.S. politics; I resent it enough when others interfere in my country’s. And I do accept that you can’t confuse McCain with a liberal. I honestly don’t know which way I’d jump if I was an American of moderate political stripe. (Mind you, if I was an American I’d probably do what my post-revolutionary American forbears did, and go live under the Crown, but that’s just a nasty aside. There are more of those to come, below.) “What got up my nose was the comments about mining. How can you believe the false dichotomy of ‘mining interests’ and ‘environmental interests’ that you quote Time taxing Senator McCain with. (As for his ‘supporting subsidies for mining on public lands,’ I confess only limited acquaintance with U.S. mining law.)” [This refers to the practice of giving mining companies the right to mine public land all but free. But shouldn’t the owners of the land — the American people — auction off those rights for good money to the highest bidder? If you discovered molybdenum under your lawn, wouldn’t you require a fat fee to allow someone to mine it — if you allowed it at all?] “I’m a geologist, and have worked my entire professional life in three fields: mineral exploration, the geology of civil works, and environmental science. I have training and experience in all three, and with great respect, I don’t think I need improving lectures on those subjects from staff writers for Time, or from the League of Conservation Voters, or from politicians. “And I think the part in your column about ‘if you would put mining interests above environmental interests’ is, first, a cheap shot, and second, wholly ignorant about the relationship between mining and the environment. “The urban public, along with Time staffers, seems to think that mining is the ultimate despoiler of the planet. Have you ever probed their knowledge about that? Are they going on evidence, or are they just going by some primary-school picture of a mine as a big hole in the ground that just has to be bad for the environment? “Because…because… well, because it’s a big hole and big holes are always bad! “Let me be clear on one thing: I am not blind to the problems. I have been watching, with rather better-informed horror than most, the current disasters in Romania, where two tailings dams have failed in two months; and the downstream disasters as panicky governments tried to battle the spills and made things worse instead of better. “I covered the Los Frailes tailings dam collapse in Spain and the Omai rupture in Guyana for a leading mining newspaper, which was legitimately critical of the practices that led to the dam failures. I see the things that can happen and I see what kinds of things cause them. I also see environmental pressure groups jump on every situation, and make up falsehoods to exaggerate the danger and use each incident to blacken the reputation of the entire mining industry. I’ll tell you about it sometime, if you like. “But the urban public, and Time staffers, and pressure group honchos, are all perfectly happy to use what’s dug out of the ground for them by ‘mining interests.’ They probably think they lead environmentally blameless, beatifically mine-free lives. But I suspect the man who went to Omaha for lunch and visited an oil platform not long ago knows better than they do. “Let’s retrace those steps, as you recounted them in your Omaha column. You check the weather in Omaha on your computer, which is plugged into the electrical system in your house, which is full of copper (if you’re lucky) or aluminum (if you’re not). And the signal carrying the data to your web browser is carried by either a copper wire (if you’re on a phone-line connection) or a fibre-optic cable made of silica (if you’re not). “Someone had to get to the Omaha airport to read the thermometer (mercury type, no doubt), the rain gauge (with its galvanized steel tipping bucket), and the other instruments. I don’t know for sure he didn’t walk there at 4 AM (Omaha time) to get that information for you, but my money is on his having driven a steel car on that rainy morning. Or maybe he’s on the graveyard shift, and he’ll drive home after he’s finished, badly in need of a hot shower (copper pipes and ceramic tiles). “Speaking of steel cars, you called a cab to go to the airport. I’ve ‘been to Miami,’ if landing and taking off at MIA can be called that, but haven’t needed to leave its confines on anything but a plane since about 1978. (Thank goodness for the Admirals’ Lounge and the pool on top of the hotel.) “Still, I’ve got a feeling the roads you took to get there are made of either asphalt or cement concrete with about 70% coarse aggregate (from quarries or gravel pits). Most roads are. (In this respect they strongly resemble airport runways, which to a guy like me, with some experience of heavy construction, are really just very thick, short roads.) “Was it raining in Miami, too? I know you are a man with sense enough to come in out of the rain. Into a concrete and steel building, with electric lights fed by copper wires, that is. And once there, you put yourself through the grand old air-traveler’s ordeal of checking in. “Maybe you had one of them newfangled e-lectronic tickets. In that case the entire proof the airline owed you a journey sat on an iron-oxide disk, aided by that copper-and-silica information highway we discussed before, and displayed on a silica screen (coated on the inside with beryllium, which is something else that had to be mined). “Boarding pass in hand (or its electronic equivalent flying along another of those pestilent copper wires), you head through airport security, passing through an electromagnetic-induction detector, developed in the first half of this century by Canadian and Swedish geophysicists to detect conductive base-metal deposits. They might have a bomb sniffer, developed by a company whose principal product was geophysical instruments for the mining industry. You’re clean and explosive-free, so, with a little time to spare, you plunk yourself down on those nice Miami departure-lounge chairs. Well, they’re nicer than the ones in Lubumbashi anyway. Been there, and not just to the airport. The roads stink, and the copper mines are all closed. “That big metal thing at the end of the departure ramp takes you to Atlanta, and then another one rather like it takes you to Omaha. Maybe the second one is painted a bit differently (titanium dioxide, here). “Both airports have those environmentally unconscionable steel rebars in their walls and those ecologically disgraceful copper wires running everywhere. Some of the walls are painted, and that substance you can see-through-but-not-fall-through? Those are windows made of silica glass. “That big flying boat thingy is made of steel, aluminum, titanium, zinc; it runs on jet fuel, which is pumped and not mined, but the electrical starter (plugged into the terminal’s electrical system) uses juice generated by coal (mined) or by nuclear power plants. (These operate on uranium, which is mined, too — but fogeddaboudit — nukes have enough PR trouble without my mentioning the mining connection.) “You’re several miles up in the sky, chawing on a sticky bun (baked in a metal baking tray, and probably served in a little aluminum thingy with plastic wrap that just won’t come off), and slugging back coffee (perhaps made from beans chopped down the old-fashioned way, by campesinos with steel machetes, and sent to coffee mills in the old-style, non-flying metal boats), checking out the deathless prose in the in-flight magazine (barite filler in the paper, pulp from trees buzzed down with metal chainsaws), and listening to a recording of a symphony orchestra. I won’t trouble you about the tympani and everything in the brass section, or the building materials in that acoustically-perfect concert hall, but I will ask you to look out the window. “How many cities do you see scarring the sides of hills? How much urban sprawl where once a mighty forest stood? How many charming family farms on drained wetland? That was all wilderness once, yet I don’t hear too many people jawing about how the wilderness has been ‘sold out to homeowners’ interests’ or ‘sold out to farmers’ interests.’ “Wait! Look out the window. There’s a mine — probably Buick, one of Doe Run’s lead-zinc mines in southeast Missouri. See it? That grey thing, that’s the headframe. I was underground there back in ’81. What, you were expecting a monstrous open pit? Anyway, you can quit craning your neck, we’re almost in Omaha. “Of course, nothing in Omaha was ever mined. Warren Buffett paves the roads with recycled Gillette razor blades and the phone system is all made of Coke cans and string. Or perhaps I’m being ironical. “Speaking of aluminum Coke cans, did they give you any for lunch? Maybe you got wine instead, in silica glasses from silica bottles, a decent-enough wine, fermented in nickel-stainless-steel vats. Organically grown grapes, so the only thing sprayed on them is copper sulphate. “Well, okay, so the copper was mined. So was the sulphate — a mining by-product from smelting sulphide minerals. It’s better than letting all that sulphur dioxide go up the flue and turn into acid rain, and you can sell the sulphuric acid you make to people that make copper sulphate for pool shock and politically-correct vine spraying. “By the way, did the turkey in your sandwich ever eat any grain grown with potash or phosphate fertilizers (mined, again)? Okay, I realize you can’t ask him now, and who ever got a sensible answer from a turkey or a fund manager anyway. And the turkey probably met his end courtesy of a metal cleaver. “Nasty aside: this gives me an idea for some fund managers. “But how about the bread — was it from fertilized wheat or rye fields? Anybody use a metal plow or a combine harvester on them, or even a metal scythe? “Back on the plane, now. Seat belt sign’s on — never mind the metal buckle. Or the metal oxygen tank. Just place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally if anything goes wrong. “Then you get to Atlanta and there are mechanical problems with your connecting flight. Somebody talented in Atlanta fixed ’em. Wanna bet he used a wrench? “Those ‘mining interests’ Senator McCain ‘put above environmental interests’ sure didn’t do much to get you to Omaha and back, did they? “What a time to be alive? I couldn’t agree more. “And what a time to depend on mining for your livelihood, when sheltered urbanites that know mining only for its supposed environmental misdeeds have the undivided and uncritical attention of opinion-makers (everywhere). “Thanks for the soapbox. I can imagine you’re saying to yourself, ‘hey, what gives — sixteen words in my column and this guy has to come back with 11 KB of poorly spelled invective?’ It did turn out to be a lot, and I didn’t plan it that way. But deeper explanations usually do take more time and effort than facile representations of an issue.” Hey, what gives? Sixteen words in my column and this guy has to come back with 2,000 words (albeit perfectly spelled and engagingly composed) in praise of metal? They weren’t even my 16 words, they were Time‘s! In truth, this reminds me (a little) of Roseanne Roseannadanna, may she rest in peace, who would get truly incensed over something only to realize it wasn’t quite she thought. (“Oh, Soviet jewelry. Well. That’s different. Never mind.”) I don’t think anyone would dispute the crucial role mining and metal plays in the modern world — or even the ancient world. (Anyone ever hear of the Bronze Age?) It’s just a matter of balance, and unless you think the environmental groups are all wrong all the time, a zero rating probably suggests a Senator who has not carefully weighed the pros and cons in every instance. But Jim is not just interesting and spirited, he’s right. If there’s anyone out there (and I don’t think there is) who would ban all mining, or even most of it, that person probably licked a lot of lead paint chips as a child.
Munis, Life Insurance March 21, 2000February 15, 2017 Tom Wilder: “I am interested in (and own) municipal bonds. You recently stated: The market for something like New York City general obligation bonds is deep, and even a full-service broker won’t gouge you too badly. But for some obscure dormitory, toll-road or hospital issue? That’s another story. “What about insured bonds (i.e. MBIA, FGIC, AMBAC insurance which raises the bond’s rating to triple-A by S&P)? Does that change your comments on ‘some obscure dormitory, toll-road or hospital issue?'” No. A bond’s being insured makes it safe but doesn’t make it liquid. If it’s not heavily traded, and you want to sell, a broker will have to take it into inventory when he buys it from you and then try to find someone to sell it to. The price he gives you will reflect this added effort, as well as his risk in holding the bond (in case interest rates rise and the bond’s value fall) — and, especially, his knowledge that you haven’t got a lot of alternatives or any easy way to determine a fair price for your bond. Yes, you could shop around for a better offer, but it’s not easy, and it’s a pain to deliver the bonds to a different broker if you do find a better price, so few people bother with this. Mary: “I would like to know if variable life insurance is the best way to go, or should I just increase my whole life insurance policy. I am a 46-year-old single mom, child is adopted, 5 years old. My financial consultant encouraged me to get a variable life insurance policy for $150,000…. I already have a $50,000 whole life insurance policy, purchased “before the kid.” Even though I thought this was an expensive and risky idea, I thought I’d go with it to cover my child. However, my tax advisor told me I should not get into variable — too expensive and too risky. I am so tired of paying people to give me hundreds of different answers. I just want to do what is best for my child and cost effective….Can you help?” Yes. The answer to this one is: keep your existing whole life policy, but for the balance of your needs (which may exceed $150,000), buy the cheapest term insurance policy you can find. Call 800-808-5810 for starters. (And yes, you do seem to have a lot of advisors. Go to the library and check out The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need for one man’s perspective on a lot of this stuff. You might decide you can save some of those fees.)
Up 18% in Three Days March 20, 2000January 28, 2017 Guy Devillier: “My financial institution is now offering Unit Investment Trusts (also known as Defined Portfolios). What’s your take on these? And can you give a better explanation of what they are than the one-paragraph announcement I received?” Hmm. “A way to grab too high a fee from you for locking you into a fixed portfolio of stocks.” How’s that? Mike B: “As of this morning, the portfolio of five stocks you recommended last week is up 18.43%. I think your ethics leave something to be desired.” I disagree. But if Mike is concerned, some others of you may be as well, so this is worth addressing. What Mike is referring to here is that prior to my mentioning these stocks, I had bought them myself. This would be unethical if I hadn’t disclosed that fact . . . or if my plan had been to buy them for a quick turn and sell them while you were buying . . . or perhaps if I were charging you for my advice, but buying stocks ahead of your own purchases. For the record, I try always to remember to let you know if I’m long or short a stock I’m writing about, especially if I think what I’m writing could impact its price in any meaningful way. I almost never buy stocks for a quick turn, least of all value stocks like these, so it is immaterial (to my finances) that they have jumped. By the time I sell, the fact that a few of you may have bought shares last week is likely to have had absolutely no effect. Also, I think it’s a stretch — albeit flattering — to imagine that my column had anything substantive to do with the jump in prices. The Dow was up 8% in this same brief time period. Surely, I can’t take credit for that. More likely, I think, is that these were for the most part just the kind of beaten down, low p/e, strong balance-sheet stocks that rebounded sharply last week — not just my five — lifting the broader old-economy averages. I’m afraid we can’t expect the same results every week. Once a year would suit me fine.