How to Manage (Your Mother-in-Law’s) $250,000 March 31, 2006March 4, 2017 FMD More positive analysis on this one here. Some of us bought it cheaper a few weeks ago, but – for better or worse, and with all the usual caveats – I also bought more at current prices. MUSHROOMS Don Hurter: ‘When I shop at the local Safeway, I head over to the bakery department before going to produce. Why? So I can pick up a paper bag (normally used for hand-picked bagels) and use it for the mushrooms instead of a clingy plastic bag. No need to transfer later. Just leave the top open at the cashier so they can see what’s inside.’ Mark W. Budwig: ‘I forgot to say refrigerate, or was that obvious? (Or maybe it’s not even necessary. I don’t know; I always do it.) The key thing is that the mushrooms can breathe so they don’t rot in their own moisture.’ ☞ If you don’t refrigerate, your mushrooms could grow a fungus. (Yes, I know.) YOU HAVE TO WASH IT? Michael: ‘After you wash your lettuce (you DO wash it right away, right?), drain and then wrap in a paper towel before putting it back in the fridge. The paper towel absorbs excess moisture that otherwise will turn the edges brown.’ ☞ Lettuce comes in its own wrapping. Just toss out the outer leaves (coated with pesticide, dirt, and germs), then cut off a wedge, drown in dressing and devour. And don’t start talking to me about ‘romaine’ lettuce. It’s way more expensive, it’s probably French, dirt does get stuck throughout all its leaves, and Cooking Like a Guy™ guys just don’t have time to mess around with it. Paper towels? If God had meant for you to use paper towels, He wouldn’t have invented sleeves. JONATHAN POND’S ADVICE Gray Chang: “I am reminded of a story I read in Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Back when he was in high school, a teacher told his class, ‘Is it worth a lifetime of guilt and shame for just one hour of pleasure?’ So a kid in back raises his hand and asks, ‘How do you make it last a whole hour?'” GUNS — WHAT SAY YOU? Jonathan Levy:“Your item on guns reminded me of an idea I have had for a long time. There should be a requirement that all guns carry insurance against death, injury, and property damage they might cause. The manufacturer would be required to take out the original policy on any gun and the only way a policy (i.e., the insurance company) could be relieved of responsibility for a gun would be if the gun were picked up by another policy. Such a plan would have a number of benefits: (1) It would assure that most gun victims could be compensated. Only those injured by an unknown gun would be left out and even they could be included if there were some provision to create a pool of money from the insurance premiums to compensate victims of unidentified guns. (2) It would create a stronger disincentive against letting guns fall into the black market. The last known owner and his/her insurance company would be on the hook for these guns until they resurfaced and were properly passed to another insurance policy. Most likely, the owner would not have to pay premiums forever for stolen guns but there would be a provision (priced into the policies) for insurance companies to carry the ongoing risk for no additional premiums on stolen guns properly reported to the police. (3) It is a free-market solution that should appeal to conservatives. The law-abiding hunters that the NRA likes to put forward should be able to get very low rates through competition between insurance companies. Some guy with a string of arrests likely would pay much more or not even be able to find coverage and thus would not be able to own a gun. However, it would be the private insurance markets that made that decision, not the government. (4) For those who might argue that only law-abiding gun owners would buy the insurance, not criminals – fine. One more charge prosecutors can level against people most of us think should be locked up, anyway. If it gives them a chance to do it before the people commit violent crimes with the guns, that is even better. (5) This plan works with any gun policy. It could be implemented with as much or as little other gun control as communities, states, and Congress saw fit.” HOW TO MANAGE $250,000 Dan: “My recently widowed 67-year-old mother-in-law asked me for some financial advice. (First big mistake.) She has a modest net worth in the $250K range and needs income to supplement her Social Security and small pension. As my own focus is growth, I’m not well versed in income maximizing strategies. I suggested that she assemble a diversified portfolio of income producing assets. My thoughts were some Treasury instruments, ginnie maes, perhaps a cautious bond fund and some dividend oriented stocks, like utilities . . . and a small growth component (10%?) in an index fund like Vanguard Total Market. Dividend stocks seem reasonable as the tax treatment is better and the yields may be better at the cost of a bit more risk. Fair advice? Any other comments?” ☞ Consider using the $250,000 to buy a lifetime annuity (learn about this at brkdirect.com). The annuity will never run out (though if it’s not inflation adjusted it would dwindle), and she has the advantage of – in effect – being able to spend the principal as well as the interest. Her Social Security pay-out rises with inflation, but because most annuity pay-outs do not, maybe put $150,000 in the annuity now and $100,000 in Vanguard’s inflation-protected fund (VAIPX). Then, after a few years, if interest rates should rise – and with VAIPX having held its value against inflation in the meantime – you might cash that in to buy a second annuity that throws off as much as the first. (How can a $100,000 annuity throw off as much income as a $150,000 annuity? Two ways. First, if interest rates are higher when you buy the second one, so too will be the rate at which the annuity pay-out is set. Second, having waited a few years, the insurance company will assume a somewhat shorter life expectancy over which it will have to make payments.) Of course, if you had reason to believe your mother-in-law is unlikely to live a long life, this may not be the way to go. Nor is it a good option is if she is determined to leave you and your wife an inheritance. With a lifetime annuity, the insurer will pay forever (if she lives forever). But once she’s gone – whether at age 110 or next week – so is your money. (For a price, some insurers will provide gimmicks to partly get around that. But there’s no free lunch. The more bells and whistles on your annuity, the more likely you are getting less than great value.) Finally, if your mother-in-law owns a home, she should consider taking out a reverse mortgage. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
Seduzione March 30, 2006March 4, 2017 WILL HUGO CHAVEZ RIG THE U.S. ELECTION? Oh, probably not. But maybe this will get our friends in the Republican Party to join in trying to assure verifiable elections. Click here, if you haven’t already – whatever your political leanings – to urge support of Rush Holt‘s election protection legislation. LETTUCE NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN Bryan Norcross: ‘Mark Budwig’s advice on the mushrooms yesterday reminds me of this: If you put lettuce in a plastic Ziploc bag in the refrigerator… do NOT zip the bag closed. The lettuce will last many times longer if it can breathe.’ JUGGLING Andy Fink: ‘For juggling videos, I recommend the amazing Jason Garfield.’ [How’s this for 10 seconds?] TODAY’S CHARMING VIDEO And you’ll even learn a few words of Italian. (My favorite scene: seduction / seduzione.) Click here. Thanks, Roger! Tomorrow: How to Manage $250,000
Did I Tell You to Click There? Oy! I Meant HERE! But first . . . March 29, 2006March 4, 2017 CALL YOUR MOTHER Peg: ‘A few months ago, my father e-mailed that video you posted to my sister and me. She watched it and told me that she was sobbing by the end. I assumed she was, once again, being my nit-wit little sister . . . until I watched it and had exactly the same reaction.’ THEN BAKE HER SOME BANANA BREAD Tim Bonham: ‘Mike wrote: ‘You would be proud of me. I went to the store and saw the produce guy putting all new blemish-free bananas on display and pulling the bananas that had some brown spots off display and putting them into 3 very large boxes.’ My mother has been doing something like that for years. Started late one Wednesday night after choir practice, when she stopped at the grocery store and found the produce manager throwing bunches of slightly brown bananas into the garbage. She told him that was foolish, they were still good; in fact, brown ones were the best for banana bread. So he said take all you want, just bring in some of the banana bread. So she made some, and dropped off a plate of fresh banana bread at the store a couple days later. The next Wednesday night, he told her the bread was great, and he had a couple of cases of brown bananas in back for her. That exchange has now gone on for 15 years. Through several sales and name changes of the store, two location moves, and many produce managers. The old manager always tells the new guy about this, they always introduce themselves and tell how much they like fresh banana bread. Coming home from college, and having Mom tell you that you can help mash some bananas for banana bread is fine, until you go into the kitchen and see that there are cases of bananas! (And I don’t even like banana bread that much.) But you could tell your readers that if they take these excess bananas and bake them into banana bread, they can then freeze that. And it freezes much better than the fresh bananas do.’ ☞ This is way beyond Cooking Like a Guy™, but if you need a recipe, click here. Or, as Kathi Derevan suggests, how about using them to make Smoothies? (My recipe: put two bananas in the blender, some OJ, some ice – hold your thumb on “liquefy” – and if no one else is around, drink straight from the blender jar. Having a party? Add Myer’s rum and a little Coco Loco. Oh, what the heck. Add it anyway.) BUT HURRY According to Popular Science (thanks, Brian), “The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction.” BAD ADVICE Last week, I gave a couple of examples of really bad advice we get as children . . . “I before c except after c” . . . you can’t refrigerate bananas . . . and I invited more such from the audience. Jonathan Pond went way off the reservation and tried to turn this into a money site (of all things) – People: we are here for the recipes! – and then cheated by appending to his recollection of bad advice an example of good advice. Can’t anyone follow instructions? Jonathan writes: “Worst advice from your parents: ‘The first thing you should do when you start your first job is to put a year’s worth of income in a savings account in case of a financial emergency.’ An obedient child then spent the next 14 years adding savings to the emergency account, all the while earning 2%. Best advice from your parents (probably given when you were an adolescent): ‘For one moment’s pleasure, you could end up paying for the rest of your life.’ While at the time you may have thought they were talking about something else, they were actually talking about credit cards.” SHROOMS Mark W. Budwig: “Take your mushrooms out of plastic wrap and put them in a paper bag; they keep three times as long without ever getting slimy. In fact, if they’re fresh and firm to begin with, they’ll keep for a week and a half or longer, just drying out slightly.” ☞ Now that’s news you can use. Moving on . . . GOOD QUESTION David Sirota asks: “How is it possible that Democrats and the media have not reminded the public that President George W. Bush three times was given the chance by U.S.military commanders to eliminate Abu Musab al Zarqawi, but three times he refused? This is not conspiracy theory – this is fact, as reported by NBC News. Why aren’t the Democrats constantly asking this question when the GOP attacks them over national security?” In part: Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq. “People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey. In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq. The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam. CORRECTION Dan Albro: “Although I agree with the cause espoused by the ‘Velvet Revolution’ link you posted, I was unhappy that you posted a link where merely clicking on it would cause an e-mail of support to be sent out to who knows where. If you post such a link, please indicate on your site what will happen if you click on it and let the reader decide whether to click or not. Otherwise you’re tricking readers into expressing support for something they may or may not support.” ☞ I screwed this up somehow. When I visited the site, it gave me the option to send an e-mail urging Congress to support Rush Holt’s election protection legislation. I did, and I guess it gave me a thank-you screen that must be what – blearily – I linked you to. So, never fear, you sent no inadvertent e-mails. You just got the thank-you screen. THIS is the one I hope you will click. SORRY!
Call Home March 28, 2006March 4, 2017 REPUBLICANS: HOW’S THIS FOR SMALL GOVERNMENT? So in Oklahoma and Kentucky, they passed laws requiring private employers to allow guns – even assault weapons – in the workplace. Now Florida Republicans hope to do the same thing. To add insult to injury [says StopTheNRA.com], this legislation also threatens to put business leaders in jail should they choose to keep their workplaces safe by prohibiting guns. The N.R.A. is pushing these laws nationwide. To learn more, click here. (And consider: it is the Republican view that it should be okay to fire you for being gay, but not for bringing a loaded assault weapon to work.) PRETEND LOBBYIST AT A REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISER Matt Taibbi passed himself off as a lobbyist for a Russian oil company that wanted to do some exploratory drilling in the Grand Canyon. He Printed up some business cards and paid $500 to attend a Republican fundraiser. Read his report here. HOW THE REPUBLICANS ARE PROTECTING DEMOCRACY IN FLORIDA Click here. (Executive summary: the Republican Secretary of State doesn’t want verifiable elections.) And then, for sure (because you need to make your voice heard on this) . . . CLICK HERE So we can trust our election results – whoever wins. (What are we, Belarus?) It only takes a minute. And now . . . let all that vitriol drain from your body . . . let it go . . . that’s right . . . and: CALL YOUR MOTHER This is maudlin. This is sappy. But don’t miss it. Click here.
Jugglers Gone Bananas (and so much more) March 27, 2006March 4, 2017 But first . . . TIME’S COVER STORY Our planet has a fever. Small changes can lead to a tipping point. The prognosis is not great. Click here. And (if Earth is your home planet) plan to see An Inconvenient Truth when Paramount releases it May 26th. And now . . . GONE BANANAS Frank: ‘A quote from chiquita.com (they should know!): ‘To slow the ripening process once bananas reach your preferred ripeness, put them in the refrigerator. Even though our original jingle warned consumers not to refrigerate bananas, it’s really OK. The skin may turn dark, but the fruit will be just right for several days. Back in 1944, when the Chiquita Banana jingle lyrics were written, consumers would typically bring home green bananas and put them in the refrigerator which kept them from ripening properly.” Mike M: ‘You would be proud of me. I went to the store and saw the produce guy putting all new blemish-free bananas on display and pulling the bananas that had some brown spots off display and putting them into 3 very large boxes. I’m talking 3-foot-by-2-foot boxes. Chiquita Banana says a ripe banana has brown spots on the peel. Anyway, I asked what happens to those bananas. He said they were $3 a box. I bought a box. We’re talking hundreds of bananas. I wanted to buy all 3 boxes but my wife already thinks I am an idiot and I did not want to reinforce this impression. So I get home with the bananas, I eat several, give several to the dog, my wife comes in, looks at this case of bananas, gives me ‘the look’ and shakes her head . . . I give bananas to all the neighbors . . . I put bananas on the bird feeder . . . (neither birds nor squirrels eat bananas, for future reference) . . . I got to do something with these bananas so I can tell my bride ‘see what a great deal that was?’ I go to the Internet and . . . now to the point of my story . . . you can freeze bananas. The skin turns black but the fruit itself is fine. Take my word for it, I am eating one now and will continue to eat them for several months to come.’ ☞ Where on the web but here can you go to find out that squirrels don’t eat bananas? (And, I should say, my own experience freezing bananas has been somewhat mushier.) JUGGLE THIS C. Black: ‘Loved your ‘Juggler’ video link. Here’s an interview where he talks about it.’ Doug Simpkinson: ‘Some juggler took offense at the amount of adulation Chris Bliss got for that juggling routine and bumped it up from three to five balls.’ ☞ Remind me to tell you the story of the Flying Karamazov Brothers. Oh, okay – if you insist. MANAGING $500,000 John Perko: ‘Friday’s advice-seeker should find a Certified Financial Planner in his area at garrettplanningnetwork.com (recommended to me by Less Antman). For a few hours fee, they could help him allocate his nest egg. Worked for me.’ Dale McConnell: ‘Vanguard will do a free and fairly complete asset allocation financial plan for him and his $500,000. I did one with them and thought it was done very professionally.’ ☞ On top of the free advice, they will guide you through the mechanics and paperwork of a retirement-plan rollover. Click here to see. Ed: ‘Vanguard Target Retirement Funds: 0.2% expense ratios . . . a one-decision retirement plan.’ WAL-MART Michael Axelrod: ‘Wal-Mart is frequently accused of underpaying its employees. Yet its annual income (before taxes) per employee is about $10,000, or about $5.00 per hour. Not much wiggle room to raise pay. Even a $2 per hour raise would significantly impact their income. If states like Maryland continue to pass special laws to make Wal-Mart pay more, I see a problem.’ Jim Mellicant: ‘Wal-Mart has much bigger problems than that they run sweatshops overseas. You may want to visit wakeupwalmart.com and do a little research. At some point, each and every state (or at least the blue ones) will start requiring Wal-Mart to pony up for the subsidized health care and that just can’t be good for the bottom line. And have you ever been in a Wal-Mart? [No, actually.] The few times I visited, I found them dirty and unorganized. [No wonder they did only $305 billion in sales last year.] Invest in Wal-Mart? Investing in South Africa during Apartheid would have been more honorable.’ Jon R: ‘There’s an obvious moral dilemma there. I don’t claim to have the solution, but it does seem that at least that in the short term the practices which that documentary critiqued so well are part and parcel of what makes Wal-Mart money.’ ☞ The impact on Wal-Mart management of my not buying their stock would be zero. So I’d rather buy it, make the profit (I hope), and use that to do things that might have an impact. Wal-Mart does a lot of things well (no one is forced to shop or work there, yet many choose to); some things – based on Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price – badly. But most of the things on that DVD are addressable in U.S. Courts and legislatures. And my guess is that if Wal-Mart faced somewhat higher costs as a result, it could still afford to offer competitive value, given its economies of scale and efficiency. I ain’t sellin’. BILL MAHER Peter Ludemann: ‘That wasn’t ‘last Friday night’ – it was September 9, 2005.’ ☞ Oops. AL GORE John Ebert: ‘Who was the guy giving that speech on PoliticsTV.com? If the Democrats had nominated somebody like that in 2000, we’d be in much better shape today.’ ☞ Yeah – who was that guy. Click politicstv.com – choose the ‘D Channel’ on the menu and then scroll down to the Gore speech if you missed it Friday.’
Wal-Mart, How to Manage $500,000, and a Great Speech March 24, 2006January 16, 2017 WMT Brian S. Kimerer: ‘A short while ago you recommended looking at Wal-Mart as an investment. I have, and it looks to me like a company under siege that is about to collapse under its own weight. What is it you like about Wal-Mart as an investment?’ ☞ It’s gone up a little since then ($48.54 versus $45.74) but it’s still 20% cheaper than it was in 2002, even as sales have grown by nearly half – and earnings, by more than half. You were wise not to buy in 2002 (let alone 1999, with the stock at $69 and sales and earnings barely 40% what they are today). But at $48.50 for shares in a much larger, more profitable company? Could be good. Wal-Mart has enormous economies of scale and efficiency. It may win permission to open a bank (or at least clear its own credit card transactions). It is expanding like crazy in China. And people like Warren Buffett, way smarter than me, seem to like it. As to the negative stuff – I saw the Wal-Mart documentary and was dismayed by much of it (especially the working conditions of the Chinese who produce the goods Wal-Mart buys). But much of this can be corrected (unlike, say, the negative effects of smoking, which are a permanent negative for tobacco companies) . . . and it’s often better to invest in something perceived to be in trouble than something for which trouble – as opposed to improvement – would be the surprise. HOW TO MANAGE $500,000 Name Withheld (so his kids don’t expect him to pay for law school?): ‘I am a 56+ year old employee of Verizon, which as you may know recently froze its pension plan. For those who retire – and I’m eligible – they offer the option of a one time lump sum payment, equivalent of the present value of your pension. In my case, it’s a little over $500,000. Employees like me are being barraged by financial advisers working for big firms – think Citibank – offering to manage the money for an annual fee of 1.5% of the gross amount. At least to me, this sounds good for them and bad for me, but I don’t know what other options there are out there other than managing the money myself. Do you have any idea what alternatives are out there? Is there a Consumer Reports or Morningstar of managers? Are there managers who are compensated on the basis of earnings rather than cash under Management?’ ☞ Your instincts are correct. Consider retiring and taking the lump sum – but, ideally, with another job lined up, so you can work another ten years (we need your mature judgment and expertise!) and pile up more assets to supplement Social Security. If you do take the lump sum, rolling it over into an IRA, consider parking it at Vanguard. Then, your only decision will be how to allocate it among Vanguard’s various low-expense funds. Not the easiest decision, to be sure; but you are likely to be able to do it as well as Citibank, and save $7,000 a year. POLITICS.TV Juan and Ken Jover-Ahonen: ‘Ken and I are listening to Gore’s fabulous January 15th speech on spying (especially the very end). Check out politicstv.com – choose the ‘D Channel’ on the menu and then scroll down to the Gore speech.’ ☞ This is so good. Many assume things will just inevitably work out okay as they ‘always’ do. But they only ‘always’ do so long as there is a reasonably well informed citizenry that makes them work out okay. Try to find time to listen to this speech. Monday: Jugglers Gone Bananas
Fun and More Fun March 23, 2006March 4, 2017 But first . . . I BEFORE M C SQUARED Michael Cain: ‘Much of spelling in English is simply memorization. Many years ago when I studied German in school, spelling in that language was much more regular, to the extent that we were told, ‘If you can pronounce it correctly, you can spell it. If you see it written down, there’s only one way to pronounce it.’ I have since wondered if spelling bees are held in other languages, or if they are purely an artifact of the lack of regular spelling in English. Perhaps your readers know?’ ☞ Anyone? Anyone? Joe Devney: ‘It seems you have forgotten the rest of the rhyme. ‘I before E except after C, or when sounded like A, as in neighbor and sleigh.’ Nine of your fourteen “-ei-” words follow this more complete rule. This obviously still leaves several oddballs, but the situation is less chaotic than you thought.’ ☞ Mrs. Green never taught us that part. Jim Batterson:‘This rule would drive Einstein crazy. He broke it twice in his own name!’ MORE BAD ADVICE FROM CHILDHOOD 1. It’s simply not true that you can’t put ketchup on salmon steaks. Sure, salmon burgers; but salmon steaks, too. (Try it.) 2. Of course bananas can go in the refrigerator, although, yes, if you keep them there too long, they do get black. But for a day or two? Just waiting for the moment when you have your fat-free banana split? (One or two bananas befriending big chilled strawberries – some cold fresh pineapple chunks if handy – covered in fat-free chocolate syrup beneath a triumph of fat-free ConAgra Foods ‘let the fun out’ ReddiWip.) You certainly don’t want your bananas room temperature for that. 3. Anyone? Anyone? Face it: IT’S HARD TO DO ANYTHING IN AUGUST Bob Sakowski: ‘‘The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but “criminal negligence” by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks.’ Think of it, Moussaoui was arrested on Aug 20. He was charged because he did nothing to prevent the plot that was to occur on Sep 11. Bush had the PDB of Aug 6 read to him on that date and did nothing to prevent the events of Sep 11. If Moussaoui is culpable what does that say about Bush?’ ☞ Not much. We all become torpid in August, and that Presidential Daily Briefing was not specific. (Bin Laden determined to strike where in the U.S.?) But how about seven months earlier, January 7, 2001, at Blair House, when the CIA chief told the incoming President, Veep, and National Security Advisor that there was a man named Bin Laden who posed a ‘tremendous,’ ‘immediate’ threat to the United States? January’s no August. January’s the kind of month that crackles with energy. A tremendous, immediate threat? Instead of jumping on and redoubling the CIA’s plans to go after Bin Laden, the Administration shut them down, taking seven months – in the face of a ‘tremendous, immediate threat’ – to come up with an alternative plan for review. (Source: beginning on this page of Bob Woodward’s generally pro-Bush Bush At War.) One thing you can feel confident about when you have a seasoned team of top Republicans, many of whom had served under Reagan and Bush Senior: whether it’s terrorism or hurricanes or hunting quail, these are guys who anticipate problems and keep you safe. MORE BRUTAL STILL I’m all for sparing people’s feelings – reading stuff like this must be torture for the President – but it’s hard not to see at least a few grains of truth in it, over-the-top though it may be. Bill Maher last Friday night: Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you any more. There’s no more money to spend – you used up all of that. You can’t start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard’s bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished. Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It’s time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you’re saying: there’s so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don’t. I know, I know. There’s a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poorly I’m surprised that you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a s—-y president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airlines, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: ‘Take a hint.’ And now . . . FUN Jeff: ‘On the heels of your pointing us to Google Maps, now comes Google Finance. It’s cool. You can see a chart along with important news stories – I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Check it out.’ MORE FUN Hubert Heller: ‘This is an incredible performance. Watch with speakers on. (Click on: Must-See Finale.)’ ☞ And you thought your cousin was impressive for being able to balance a spoon on his nose. Tomorrow: Wal-Mart, How to Manage $500,000, and a Great Speech
I Before E Except After C March 22, 2006March 4, 2017 NTMD So the CEO and CFO ‘resigned’ yesterday and the stock jumped 73 cents to $8.56. I can see how the prospects for some companies – and countries, for that matter – could brighten if top management stepped aside. But a one-product company whose product isn’t selling? In an industry where new products take years to develop? You never know, but I bought a few more September puts and hope to get a chance to buy still more if the stock goes higher. To listen to the company’s 10am conference call today visit the company website for the toll-free number (866-770-7129) and passcode (90241061) . . . or, if you miss that, instructions for accessing a replay. SPEAKING OF SHAKY MANAGEMENT From the Associated Press: ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but “criminal negligence” by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks. . . . WORST ADVICE EVER ‘I before E except after C.’ Oh, yeah? The feisty foreigner seized the beige reins in one vein-bulging hand and – weirdly adorned in leis (a veil of distraction so no one would remember his face?) feigned disinterest no more. The heist of his neighbor’s heir’s freight had begun. What they should have taught us: ‘I after C must follow E . . . but not literally.’ (Not literally, because I’s frequently follow C’s without an intervening E – city, cicada, scintillate – and sometimes even when an E follows – efficient.) No wonder Johnnie can’t spell. MORE FREE AUDIOBOOKS Lynn Gongaware: ‘LibriVox – recorded by volunteers from the public domain.’
Is This the Dawn of the Next Bull Market? But first . . . March 21, 2006March 4, 2017 Mama, if you hain’t seen Madea’s Family Reunion, well you is missin somethin, hmmmm, mmmm! [He does it much better, of course, but it’s irresistible not to try.] And then, for something pretty well at the other end of the film-going spectrum: V for Vendetta. Forget Zorro: this one will grab you. NOT ALL PRESIDENTS ARE ABOVE AVERAGE Garrison Keillor, in part: Day of Reckoning for the Current Occupant By Garrison Keillor The Chicago Tribune Wednesday 15 March 2006 . . . I ran into a gray eminence from the Bush I era the other day in an airport, and he said that what most offended him about Bush II is the naked incompetence. “You may disagree with Republicans, but you always had to recognize that they knew what they were doing,” he said. “I keep going back to that intelligence memo of August 2001, that said that terrorists had plans to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. The president read it, and he didn’t even call a staff meeting to discuss it. That is lack of attention of a high order.” Over the course of time, the Chief Occupant has been cruelly exposed over and over. He sat and was briefed on the danger of a hurricane wiping out a major American city, and without asking a single question, he got up from the table and walked away and resumed his vacation. He played guitar as New Orleans was flooded. It took him four days to realize his responsibility to do something. When the tsunami killed 100,000 people in Southeast Asia, he was on vacation and it took him 72 hours to issue a statement of sympathy. . . He openly, brazenly, countenanced crimes of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. He engaged in illegal surveillance, authorized the arrest of people without charge and “disappeared” them to foreign jails. And he finagled this war, which, after three years of violence, does not look to be heading toward a happy ending. And now it’s up to Republicans to put their country first and call the gentleman to account. . . THE SHOPPING SCAM You’ve got to admit it was clever. Buy stuff and put it in your car. Then go back and load your shopping cart with the exact SAME stuff and, when you get to the checkout, present your original receipt and say you’ve changed your mind (maybe you talked with the wife?) and you want to return it all. Get your full refund . . . and then drive home with the first batch of stuff ‘free.’ How could I have failed to include this in the ‘smart shopping’ chapter of my book? But thanks to TomPaine.com for offering a little broader context to this story. Bush’s Incompetent Criminals Russ Baker March 17, 2006 Investigative reporter and essayist Russ Baker is a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com. He is also the founder of the Real News Project, a new not-for-profit investigative journalism outlet. He can be reached at russ@russbaker.com. Did you hear the one about the president’s top domestic policy adviser? Tired of helping the president pick the pockets of the poor and middle class on behalf of the rich, he found a more profitable target. Or Target, actually. Last week, Claude Allen was arrested and charged with a scheme to rip off Target and other stores by “returning” more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he had allegedly never paid for in the first place. According to police, Allen would buy an item and put it in his car, then return and bring an identical item from the store shelves for a refund based on the original receipt. Apparently, the White House had an inkling what was coming. Back on Feb 9, it announced that Allen was resigning in order to ‘spend more time with his family’-a bromide that any savvy observer should know masks something more serious. In a statement, Bush declared: “Claude Allen has been a trusted advisor since 2001 … Claude is a good and compassionate man, and he has my deep respect and my gratitude.” Behind this sad incident lurk two interrelated calamities of the Bush years: the continuing placement of the dubiously-qualified in high positions, and the use of people of color as window dressing for policies that harm communities of color. Before Allen’s unique shopping habits were revealed, it was already becoming apparent that departments and agencies throughout the administration were jammed with incompetents and unfortunates who, based on relevant experience or temperament or values, shouldn’t be there at all (see ‘Appointees Guarding the Henhouse “). One colleague previously hauled off to face justice is David Safavian, the head of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy-a former lobbyist and Hill staffer with scant experience in issuing federal contracts prior to his hiring by the Bush Administration, who was arrested in connection with the sprawling lobbying corruption scandal. Both Safavian and Allen will be on the docket in April. In distancing the administration from Allen, unnamed White House sources insisted to reporters that, notwithstanding his title, it was never Allen who made domestic policy decisions; he was a merely ceremonial nobody. No, they said, it was former direct mail king Karl Rove-a man who believes that ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ are synonymous-who made all the policy decisions, while the ceremonial black guy actually just pushed paper. And that’s their spin, for goodness’ sake. I’m apparently not alone in thinking that the brain center itself is looking especially grim these days. Of late, leading Republicans have begun advising Bush to get some “experienced” people into the White House-raising doubts even about Chief of Staff Andrew Card. And he’s probably the most qualified of the lot. Of course, experience can go hand in hand with chicanery: Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, qualified through long years of public-or at least party-service, has been arrested and charged with a serious crime: obstructing the investigation in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. The process of distancing Allen from the administration is striking because, although nobody ever heard of him, he was the top-ranking African-American on the White House staff, and constantly at Bush’s side both at White House events and on trips around the country. Claude Allen was like that one black in a suit stuck in every corporate group photo to represent a non-existent diversity. Doubt that? Even after Allen first told the White House about his little pick-up problem, he still was Laura Bush’s guest in her box at the State of the Union address. Why? Was he Laura’s good friend? Sometimes, as with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the ‘nobody’ routine means the exact opposite-that the miscreant was actually a major player. But Claude Allen was just an empty suit, a black pawn drafted to provide Bush with cover for all manner of regressive acts-starting with cutbacks to essential services, passing through tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and culminating in efforts to open minority scholarship programs to whites. The Claude Allen story also is important in giving the lie once again to the GOP’s claim of moral superiority. In an interview before he got in hot water, Allen explained why, having been raised a Democrat, he had switched parties. “I realized after the fact that I agree more with the Republican Party platform, that it talked about independence, that it talked about individual responsibility, individual rights, it talked about the ability to guarantee opportunities, not outcomes,” he said. That interview, fittingly, was conducted by Armstrong Williams-another African American who was well-rewarded for backing an administration that has done everything possible to make life more difficult for others of their race. “It is a small circle of conservatives, especially when you are black,” Williams would tell The New York Times. And what a circle: Williams was widely shellacked after it was disclosed that he’s been paid handsomely by the Bush administration to swoon over it in his newspaper columns. And Allen presumed to speak of ‘individual responsibility.’ Perhaps the Target situation would make a convenient point to bury that term forever, since it is hardly ever honestly employed, anyway. Routinely described as born-again and a ‘devoted father,’ Allen liked to talk about how his religious upbringing was a key factor in his steady march from a poor home to the pinnacle. Along the way, he befriended or worked for such advocates of color-blindness as the former senator Jesse Helms-one of the last of a generation recalling the days of segregation with fondness-and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, known for biting the affirmative-action hand that gave him a leg up. Allen lunched often with Thomas, who apparently lectured him on propriety. “He would always say to make sure I conducted myself appropriately,” Allen told an interviewer. Now that Allen has failed the “appropriateness” test, the administration has quickly washed its hands of him-with the general acquiescence of the press and the punditocracy, a woefully common scenario these past five years. But, a few facts: Allen was on the highest White House pay scale, earning $161,000 a year, and had bought a $958,300 house the same month he allegedly began stealing. According to Newsweek, he was considered by fellow staffers to be ‘a bit stuffy and holier-than-thou.’ Allen, who had clerked for a federal judge, went on to serve as the Health and Human Services secretary for Virginia, where according to the Los Angeles Times, he gained conservative credentials by denying a low-income rape victim Medicaid funds for an abortion. Such a record apparently endeared him to the incoming Bush team, and in 2001, he was appointed to the No. 2 post at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There he promoted abstinence-only AIDS-prevention programs. By 2003, despite slim legal credentials, Bush proposed Allen for a seat on the federal appeals court, though Democrats blocked his nomination. Apparently, Allen had once remarked that an opponent of his boss, Jesse Helms, was connected to ‘queers.’ Explaining himself at his confirmation hearings, he told senators that by ‘queers’ he meant people who were “odd, out of the ordinary.” In 2005, he was brought to the White House. Claude Allen returned lots of items to Target because, ostensibly, they weren’t up to snuff. He was actually perfectly happy with the items he is said to have improperly procured. The rest of us are left thinking about how to return to sender something bigger, something many of us never ordered in the first place, and which has turned into the worst kind of damaged goods: an entire administration rotten to the core. JIM CRAMER . . . . . . recommended NTMD a few months ago at $16. Not his best call. (It closed yesterday at $7.83.) Last week, I saw him on the ‘Today Show’ telling everyone to buy stocks. After five years, the bull market was back. People’s enthusiasm for real estate was waning and would be redirected to stocks. On this call, I don’t presume to know. Forecasting the future for a single stock in a company with a single product that is comprised of nothing more than two widely available generics is no slam dunk (look how wrong Cramer got it), but perhaps doable. Forecasting the entire market with any degree of confidence is beyond my ability. My sense is that it remains a time to be cautious, especially if you’re older. (If you’re in your twenties or thirties, you can take a lot more risk – averaging down, if you’re wrong, buying more and more shares at ever better prices, expecting the market, likely, to right itself one day.) But what do I know? If I actually knew something, this column would not be free. (Well, I know you are likely to enjoy those two movies.)
Smarter to Book Two One-Ways? March 20, 2006March 4, 2017 So they’ve raised the national debt ceiling to $9 trillion. That should hold us for another year or so. I may not have mentioned this (have I?) but it’s interesting to note that by the time the Republicans leave the White House January 20, 2009, if they do, our accumulated-since 1776 National Debt will be $10 trillion – roughly $8 trillion of it racked up by just three presidents: Reagan, Bush, and Bush. Even today – not yet at the $10 trillion level, and at today’s relatively low interest rates – the annual interest on this debt is equivalent to about 40% of all the personal income taxes Americans pay. It is terrible to think of the damage that’s been done to our country, at home and abroad, in five short years. (Though in fairness one must concede it’s been a grand time for the rich and powerful.) Doug Langdon: ‘This vote more than any other shows which party can be trusted with the taxpayer monies. All 44 Democrats in the Senate voted for ‘pay-go.’ Fifty Republicans voted against it.’ Senate G.O.P. Blocks Tight Budget Rule By CARL HULSE New York Times WASHINGTON, March 14 – Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly defeated an effort to impose budget rules that would make it harder to increase spending or cut taxes, a move that critics said that showed Republicans were [merely] posturing in their calls for greater fiscal restraint. In the first of several politically charged budget and spending issues confronting Congress this week, the Senate rejected on a 50-to-50 tie a proposal to restore what are known as “pay-go” rules, a requirement that tax cuts and some new spending be approved by 60 votes or offset by budget savings or revenue increases. Democrats and a handful of Republican allies said that the added discipline was essential to getting a handle on the mounting federal debt and that the rules had been instrumental in reducing red ink before they were allowed to lapse in 2002. “For those who say they are fiscally responsible, here is your chance,” said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, senior Democrat on the Budget Committee. “You are going to be able to prove with one vote whether you are serious about doing something about these runaway debts and runaway deficits or whether it is all talk.” . . . As Doug says, only five Republicans joined with all 44 Democrats in voting for this bill. 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES Roberta Taussig: ‘I think the strongest argument against it having been done by anyone other than Osama is how inept the President’s response was. He kept reading to children for seven minutes, then he flew around the country aimlessly while his spin doctors figured out what to do next, while Dick Cheney apparently assumed the powers of the President to order a plane shot down, then disappeared. If it was a conspiracy, surely they would have scripted a more heroic response.’ ☞ And (while we’re debunking conspiracy theories), maybe all those put options on American Airlines and Boeing purchased shortly before 9/11 weren’t the result of insider trading, after all. One of you linked me to Snopes on this topic. BOOK TWO ONE-WAYS It used to save a fortune to fly round-trip – and sometimes still does. Indeed, it can sometimes pay to buy a round-trip ticket even knowing you will only use the outbound leg, because the round-trip is cheaper than the one-way. Go figure. Now, however, it often costs no more to buy two one-way tickets than one round-trip. When that’s the case, I’ve begun to do it. The downsides: it’s a little more effort, buying and printing out two tickets instead of one; and there’s more chance of your being strip searched and sent to Guantanamo. But the upside is that if you have to change one of the legs of your trip – especially the outbound leg, and especially if your departure date is now just a few days off – you will likely save money. Instead of having the whole thing recalculated, you change just the one leg. Or perhaps grab a seat on a different carrier altogether. Every situation is different, but this is a strategy arrow to add to your travel quiver. And here’s one more: don’t be shy about ‘wasting’ money on a ticket if, odds are, you might actually be saving. Example: I have to go to DC at the end of the month and then back to South Florida on a Friday (tough day of the week to get cheap seats in March to the Sunshine state). But I actually may have to go to New York a day earlier for something else. Not sure. Rather than try to guess which I’ll do, I bought one way tickets up to New York and to DC – at a whopping $99 each, when bought in advance – and the single ticket I know I’ll need back to Miami (another $99). One of the two outbound tickets will be wasted (because on American, the change fee is more than $99 – on Jet Blue, with many fares, it would not be wasted) . . . but $99 is a small price to pay for the flexibility. Because if I had had to change a roundtrip ticket at the last minute, the last-minute fare plus the change fee could have been pricy. IF IT’S A CHOICE, WHY WOULD AN IRANIAN CHOOSE IT? If no man is an island, then this young man’s plight affects us all. His English struck me as rotten until I remembered the level of my Farsi. It’s not clear whether his story will end with a beheading or a boyfriend in Nottingshire. How can this be happening in 2006?