Hey, Plastic Brain March 17, 2006March 4, 2017 ‘HOW TO MAKE YOUR BRAIN 10 YEARS YOUNGER’ That’s the teaser on the cover of the current Forbes (the ‘billionaire’ issue). It refers to the private start-up company that (full disclosure, again) I own a tiny sliver of. Click here to read Forbes‘s report. Your brain is plastic – and, as it turns out, that’s not an insult, it’s good news. Further full disclosure: I have not yet found time to test the product myself . . . and my brain may be childish enough already. But if you decide to try it, the $495 price comes with a satisfaction-or-money-back guarantee (not from me!) and – as a perk of your subscription to this page – if you enter gn0604a when you check out, you’ll get 20% off. 0% CARDS Doug Mohn: ‘I’ve played the 0% credit card game also and parked the proceeds in a money market fund for the duration. But lately, I’ve backed off a bit. The credit scoring companies don’t know that you’ve deposited the proceeds into a bank account when you make a large advance and they are likely to think you’re as irresponsible as a President who’s never vetoed a spending bill. To avoid hurting your next mortgage refinance, I recommended never taking out more than 49% of your credit limit on a 0% promotion.‘ ☞ Then again, a long history of paying off large debts in full and on time probably helps your score. But Doug definitely has a point. CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY Yesterday’s ‘Boston Legal’ clip – well worth the click if you missed it – was a passionate plea for American values. Here is another: t r u t h o u t Saturday 04 March 2006 [Forwarded from Marni Harmony, the minister of a church in Orlando. Joe is one of her parishioners.] Dear Mr. President: As a young man I was honored to serve our nation as a commissioned officer and helicopter pilot in the US Navy. Before me in WWII, my father defended the country spending two years in the Pacific aboard the USS Hornet (CV-14). We were patriots sworn “to protect and defend”. Today I conclude that you have dishonored our service and the Constitution and principles of our oath. My dad was buried with full military honors so I cannot act for him. But for myself, I return enclosed the symbols of my years of service: the shoulder boards of my rank and my Naval Aviator’s wings. Until your administration, I believed it was inconceivable that the United States would ever initiate an aggressive and preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to us. Until your administration, I thought it was impossible for our nation to take hundreds of persons into custody without provable charges of any kind, and to “disappear” them into holes like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. Until your administration, in my wildest legal fantasy I could not imagine a US Attorney General seeking to justify torture or a President first stating his intent to veto an anti-torture law, and then adding a “signing statement” that he intends to ignore such law as he sees fit. I do not want these things done in my name. As a citizen, a patriot, a parent and grandparent, a lawyer and law teacher I am left with such a feeling of loss and helplessness. I think of myself as a good American and I ask myself what can I do when I see the face of evil? Illegal and immoral war, torture and confinement for life without trial have never been part of our Constitutional tradition. But my vote has become meaningless because I live in a safe district drawn by your political party. My congressman is unresponsive to my concerns because his time is filled with lobbyists’ largess. Protests are limited to your “free speech zones”, out of sight of the parade. Even speaking openly is to risk being labeled un-American, pro-terrorist or anti-troops. And I am a disciplined pacifist, so any violent act is out of the question. Nevertheless, to remain silent is to let you think I approve or support your actions. I do not. So, I am saddened to give up my wings and bars. They were hard won and my parents and wife were as proud as I was when I earned them over forty years ago. But I hate the torture and death you have caused more than I value their symbolism. Giving them up makes me cry for my beloved country. Joseph W. DuRocher Eduardo Fernandez: ‘I didn’t think I could dislike this Administration any more than I did a few hours ago. Then I ran across this [‘Loose Change,’ a film that raises questions about 9/11]. I am a first generation Cuban/American and my parents brought me here at the age of 11 months old in 1961 to have a better lot in life. My father was 30 with a wife and two children and was only allowed by Castro to bring $5 dollars for the whole family. My father – a very intelligent man and a chemical engineer – was able to raise his family and put his children through college and retire at the age of 55. We have done reasonably well as a family from where we started. My brother is part owner of two investment banking companies, one in Aruba and one in Venezuela. I am now 45 and planning on retiring soon. And I am seriously thinking of moving to the Dominican Republic after this year, something I would have thought unimaginable a decade ago. What in God’s name is going on? This is not the America I grew up in and love!‘ ☞ We are retrying the Scopes trial? Discouraging stem cell research? Freezing the minimum wage while giving tax breaks to billionaires? Torturing people to death? I share much of Eduardo’s dismay. But the film he linked to – while riveting – seems wildly implausible. It is at least partly debunked here. The kind of conspiracy suggested by the film would have had to involve so many people . . . well, you know Ben Franklin’s old line, ‘Three can keep a secret – if two of them are dead?’ It’s all but impossible to imagine hundreds of people keeping all the secrets that would have been involved here. (Sure, some people knew of the attack in advance – Bin Laden, for one – and may have bought all those puts on American Airlines and Boeing. But the idea that this whole thing was a giant gold heist? Or that we fired a Cruise Missile into the Pentagon ourselves?) Have a great weekend.
A Must-Watch Video Tomorrow: More on How to Make Your Brain Younger March 16, 2006March 4, 2017 But first, let’s clear up three stories from yesterday: * DEAD FOR FIVE DAYS Corinne: ‘I checked on the Snopes urban legends website, and they’ve got a page about this story. It appeared in a lot of newspapers but is false.’ ☞ Oh, no! Could this cast doubt on other Weekly World News scoops? You mean the Bush administration might not have planned to house the homeless in clown cars? (Ben: ‘This story reminds me of the Seinfeld episode in which George locks his keys in his car at the Yankees (for whom he works) parking lot. He wants to wait to take advantage of a free locksmith service offered by an auto club he just joined, so he leaves his car there for several days. Steinbrenner, always seeing George’s car there, thinks he’s the first one to work in the morning and the last to leave at night, so he gives him a promotion.’) * ATE HIS EMPLOYEES Turns out Packer spelled his first name ‘Alferd’ (thanks, all) and, in an inspired sophomoric moment, the students at the University of Colorado named their grill after him. (‘Named after Colorado’s most famous cannibal, the grill offers everything from salads to burgers to homestyle comfort, plus lots of grab ‘n’ go items for that quick stop between classes or meetings . . . ‘) * 0% LESBIAN CREDIT CARD Chris: ‘The fine print on the Visa card does indeed say that payments go to the lowest-interest item first (i.e. the balance transfer). And there is a 3% transaction fee on balance transfers. Still, not a bad way to manage some debt (if you carry a balance on other cards). Transfer balance off a higher interest rate card onto this one and then NEVER USE IT.’ Ron Sheldon: ‘I’ve been playing this 0% interest game for over two years now, but without the balance transfer transaction fee (or, at worst, a $75 maximum fee). It started in late 2003, when I ordered on Amazon my daughter-in-law’s birthday present and saw that I would get a $35 credit/rebate if I applied for an Amazon card, which I did. About two weeks after receiving the card I got a call from the fine folks that issued the card, Chase or one of those, telling me that I could take a cash advance or make a balance transfer, $50 maximum transaction fee, and pay 0% interest for 9 or 12 months (can’t remember which). ‘Sure, give me $14,000,’ the credit limit for this card that I had applied for only to get the $35 credit/rebate. Never used the card again, but the interest-free money helped with a year’s cash flow – income taxes due, annual contributions to six grandchildren’s Coverdell Education Savings accounts, etc. ‘Come mid-2004, I started receiving mail offers from other card issuers for 0% interest for 12 months on balance transfers with no transaction fee on the transfers. Why not? I transferred the remaining balance from the Amazon card to extend 0% interest for 12 more months. ‘Come late-2004 my son and daughter-in-law asked if I could loan them $25,000 to help with adoption expenses and what interest rate I would charge them. I loaned them the money at 0% for first 12 months and 5% on remaining balance thereafter until loan was paid off. ‘About this time I received CapitalOne offer for 0% interest for 12 months, $30,000 credit limit, no transaction fees on transfers – but would have to use the card for purchases at least once a month during the first five months of the account. This became a little more complicated since I didn’t have anything close to $30,000 outstanding balances to transfer, but did receive some of those special checks they send from unused cards trying to get you to borrow, 1.99% interest with no balance transfer fee if I used the checks. Problem solved. Contacted issuer of the card that sent checks, increased credit limit to $30,000, and used a check to establish a balance to transfer to CapitalOne. As soon as check hit the credit card account, I transferred balance to CapitalOne, paying the issuer about $4 in interest until transfer completed. ‘To meet CapitalOne requirement to use their card at least once a month during the first five months, I’d buy/charge a coffee on the card each month after receiving a monthly statement. Thank heaven for 7-Eleven for taking credit cards for a $1.29 coffee and CapitalOne minimum $0.50 monthly interest on these major purchases. ‘Son and daughter-in-law made monthly payments to me at amount exceeding CapitalOne monthly payment minimum and repaid the $25,000 loan in a lump sum after 10 months. ‘So, then came along Bank of NY about mid-2005 with 0% on balance transfers for 12 months with no transaction fee or monthly purchase requirement. Not knowing at that time that my son would pay off the loan as soon as he did, I transferred about $22,000 of the CapitalOnebalance to Bank of NY card so I could offer to extend my 0% rate to son until this June. ‘Now that son has repaid loan, the money sits in money market account with current APY of about 4.45%, waiting to pay off my 0% loan if I can’t roll it over.’ ☞ In America, the streets are truly paved with gold. But are we losing our way? A MUST-WATCH VIDEO If you have broadband, click here (and watch Boston Legal on Tuesday nights on ABC at 10pm). If you dial up, the audio might be more practical – but, really, I think you just have to take the time to load the video. You may not agree with it all, but it’s a point of view we all owe it to ourselves to consider.
The Man Who Ate Five Democrats March 15, 2006March 4, 2017 But first . . . TOWARD A MORE PERFECT UNION ‘Christian, gay groups unite on school conflicts; Issue guidelines stressing civility.’ Civility is a great start. Click here for details. AND ONE STEP BACK ‘Less than two weeks after a conservative Christian organization complained to a top government official about a federal website that contained health resources for gay men and lesbians, the information disappeared . . . ‘ BUT THEN TWO STEPS FORWARD Jacob Reitan, 23, is riding for equality with 35 other young gay Christians. It’s a great story, as Christians try to decide what Jesus would have done. One approach: [B]efore Jacob came out, their Mankato home was egged and spattered with pink paintballs. “Fag” was chalked on the driveway. A brick was thrown through the window of Philip’s law office, and Jacob’s car windows were smashed. Reitan’s approach (from the same story): Reitan purchased Google ads to garner nationwide attention for this ride. Every time someone Googled one of 80 religious schools, an ad for Equality Ride popped up with the school’s policy on gays. That created a buzz at Christian colleges. Last fall White and Reitan got a call from Andringa, asking them to meet with the CCCU advisory group that deals with human sexuality, gender equity and the disenfranchised. “They said, ‘What are you doing with this Equality Ride? It seems pretty militant.'” Reitan recalled. He told them that he had studied CCCU schools’ policies, talked with closeted students and concluded that the way their schools treated gay people was “immoral.” For two hours the two sides had a “great” discussion, Andringa recalled. He found Reitan bright, passionate, articulate and self-confident. “We agreed to support Jacob’s desire for constructive dialogue. After all, we are in the business of learning. We also agreed that gay and lesbian students should not live in fear or experience hatred.” When he rides onto the Christian campuses, Reitan said he will speak from a heart wide open. He hopes that those he encounters will listen from theirs. “There’s this wonderful moment when Jesus is talking to the Pharisees about all the laws they follow,” Reitan said. “He says, in essence, ‘You know the law by heart. But you have forgotten the heart of the law.’ “ And while we’re at it . . . A 0% CREDIT CARD OFFER I knew a guy who loved women but felt – either for real or to be amusing – that he was a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. This credit card is for him. It boasts no annual fee and 0% interest on balance transfers for the first 12 billing cycles – and offers an airline mile with no blackout dates for every dollar spent. You may even get $100 off your next Olivia cruise. I haven’t checked the fine print – some of these 0% deals apply any payment to the balance transfers first, so until you pay those off, you’re carrying a balance on your actual charges (so unless you’re sure, just don’t charge anything) – but if you’re a woman who likes women, or just gay-friendly and in the market for what may be a good credit card deal, take a look. [Update: one important caveat, a 3% fee for balance transfers. So it’s 0% only after you’ve paid 3%.] And now . . . THE MAN WHO ATE FIVE DEMOCRATS A friend sent me the story of a man who had been dead at his desk in the office for five days, but no one noticed until Saturday when the cleaning lady found him. ‘He was always the first in to work and the last to leave,’ one of his coworkers was quoted in the story (or words to that effect), ‘so nobody noticed.’ Now, please. Guy slumped over his desk, motionless – possibly not smelling so fresh – for five days and no one notices? This hard-bitten reporter was skeptical. It reminded him (me) of a sitcom plot he couldn’t quite place. (Maybe one of you will remember it?) What was my friend’s source? I gently challenged. Back he shot with not just the source but a scan of the article itself, straight from the pages of Weekly World News, a journal of flying saucers, Satan’s supermodels, and novel political reporting (‘WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bush Administration has a daring new plan to house the growing number of homeless people in the country – clown cars!‘) I was excited by this, because I have had a copy of Weekly World News on my desk for more than three years, waiting for a chance to use it. It’s the November 12, 2002 issue – ‘Three New Commandments Found’ runs the cover headline (‘and you’ll be shocked to learn what they are!’) – with a small inset of Osama Bin Laden at bottom left (‘Osama Bin Laden’s goat captured by U.S. Marines!’). I had bought it because . . . well, OK, it was because I wanted to find out what the three new commandments were. (XI. Thou shalt not partake of the forbidden herbs. [Maui Wowie?] XII. Thou shalt not covet thine own brother. XIII. Thou shalt not take cloth and water to thy person on the seventh day.) (All this etched into a single stone miraculously discovered at the foot of Mt. Sinai, possibly buried by Moses. ‘It may be the tablets were too heavy for him to carry, or perhaps he disagreed with some of the rules listed on the thirds stone,’ speculated an expert quoted in the article.) But – and now, finally, are getting to the point – it was in paging through the World Weekly News to find those commandments (‘School Teaches Deaf to Read Minds’ . . . ‘Caffeinated Soap a Real Eye Opener’ . . . ‘Boy Gets Frog in his Throat – Literally!’) that I came across this chilling headline: THE MAN WHO ATE FIVE DEMOCRATS. ‘Wait,’ I said to the cashier as she was getting ready to ring up my groceries – ‘Add this.’ And it was $2,79 well spent, because how else would I have know that ‘Alferd G. Packer [showed] up fat, sassy and loaded with money at the Los Pinos Indian Agency near Saguache, Colo., on April 16, 1874?’ Or that, ‘after satisfying a prodigious thirst for whiskey, Packer broke down and admitted surviving for 60 days by dining on his employees.’ A lynch mob apparently formed, but Packer escaped, finally recaptured in Wyoming eight years later. Sentenced to hang, he wound up serving just 18 years in prison. ‘But the first trial remained the most dramatic because of a memorable quote by District Court Judge Melville Gerry during sentencing. ‘Stand up, Alferd Packer, you voracious, man-eating, son-of-a-b-,’ Gerry ordered. ‘There were seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, and you ate five of them.” ☞ It’s a little dated, but you see what we’re up against.
TOMORROW, The Man Who Ate Five Democrats Sorry . . . Other Stuff First March 14, 2006March 4, 2017 I wrote: ‘Do you know what makes Publix Fat Free Light Wild Berry Crumb Cake Yogurt so good?’ Bryan Norcross: ‘It’s probably the sugar. Sugar is fat free.’ ☞ No, I tell you! It’s the hint of cinnamon! NTMD Eric the Pharmacist: ‘I have not filled any BiDil prescriptions, but I work at a facility that has a restricted formulary and we don’t carry it for obvious reasons that you have clearly outlined. I have had one patient bring in a scrip – I told him what the med contained and to buy the generics on his own. That is, of course, after he fills his first month for free with the company coupon. I agree – don’t sell your puts. But at the first sign of anything in the pipeline I’d think about getting out. The market is a fickle mistress.’ ☞ The stock closed at $7.62, down from $22 in July. My guess is that it will be $3-ish by September, but that it might bounce back a bit first. LEA What a drubbing! But I am not selling this one. (Or I may double up, wait 31 days to avoid the wash sale rule, and then take my tax-deductible loss on the first shares.) HOWARD DEAN Dan: ‘Would Howard Dean’s proposed ‘Honesty and openness in government, real security changes, a healthcare system that works for everybody’ be similar to those implemented during the Clinton Administration? Weren’t they Democrats?’ ☞ Yes. You will recall that in that period we had a well-regarded, competent government, fiscal sanity, peace, and prosperity. Not everything was perfect, to be sure. But on the issue of security, three things stand out: FEMA was professionalized and functioned outstandingly well; the military was brought to an outstanding level (look how well it performed for the Administration that inherited it); and, third, the CIA was hard at work trying to kill Bin Laden, whom they urgently described to Bush, Cheney and Rice on January 7, 2001, at Blair House, as a ‘tremendous’ and ‘immediate’ threat to the United States (a warning the new Administration simply ignored). On health care, your team defeated the attempt to extend coverage to all, but at least a very serious attempt was made. And at least health care was extended to more children through the CHIP program. And at least a little relief to ailing loved ones was given via the Family and Medical Leave Act. Yes, the President had an affair and lied about it – and your team made sure every child in America knew every detail of it. But is that really on a par with destroying the nation’s financial strength and misleading the country into a disastrously mismanaged war? MORE HOWARD DEAN After a year in office, he gets a strong review from once-skeptical state party chairs around the country. A BETTER LINK TO THAT JOHN WILLIAMS INTERVIEW Ted Graham: ‘Found a better link (and you don’t have to provide personal info).’ ☞ Well worth reading. And then don’t sell your TIPS, international funds, oil, timber and gold stocks, or fail to build a nest egg, just in case he’s right. YOU TELL ‘EM, PAUL! From the New York Times, to which you subscribe on-line: March 10, 2006 Op-Ed Columnist The Conservative Epiphany By PAUL KRUGMAN Bruce Bartlett, the author of Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is “unconscionable,” “irresponsible,” “vindictive” and “inept.” It’s no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that “if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears.” Oh, wait. That’s not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It’s what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he’s saying now. Human nature being what it is, I don’t expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato forum. Mr. Sullivan used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and character of anyone who dared to criticize President Bush, whom he lionized. Now he himself has become a critic, not just of Mr. Bush’s policies, but of his personal qualities, too. Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn’t trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there’s something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush’s deceptions, even though the administration’s mendacity was obvious from the beginning. According to this view, if you’re a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that “the administration lies about budget numbers,” you’re a brave truth-teller. But if you’ve been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill. Similarly, if you’re a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that “the people in this administration have no principles,” you’re taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred. And if you’re a former hawk who now concedes that the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you’re to be applauded for your open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist. The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts. Mr. Bartlett’s book is mainly a critique of the Bush administration’s fiscal policy. Well, the administration’s pattern of fiscal dishonesty and irresponsibility was clear right from the start to anyone who understands budget arithmetic. The chicanery that took place during the selling of the 2001 tax cut – obviously fraudulent budget projections, transparently deceptive advertising about who would benefit and the use of blatant accounting gimmicks to conceal the plan’s true cost – was as bad as anything that followed. The false selling of the Iraq war was almost as easy to spot. All the supposed evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was discredited before the war – and it was the threat of nukes, not lesser W.M.D., that stampeded Congress into authorizing Mr. Bush to go to war. The administration’s nonsensical but insistent rhetorical linkage of Iraq and 9/11 was also a dead giveaway that we were being railroaded into an unnecessary war. The point is that pundits who failed to notice the administration’s mendacity a long time ago either weren’t doing their homework, or deliberately turned a blind eye to the evidence. But as I said, better late than never. Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration. It’s still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long? © 2006 The New York Times Company
A Strong Voice March 13, 2006March 4, 2017 Do you know what makes Publix Fat Free Light Wild Berry Crumb Cake Yogurt so good? Can’t quite put your finger on it? It’s the hint of cinnamon! Do you know what didn’t even hurt – during or after? Not so much as a single Advil? My root canal. If only Dustin Hoffman had had Novocain. CAN YOU DO FRACTIONS? Mike Axelrod: ‘I’m normally a big fan of Bill Gross, but his paragraph on education does nothing but repeat old canards about math and science education in the US. Norm Matloff, professor of computer science at U.C. Davis, has written about these international tests. For one thing, most countries don’t send all their students to secondary schools the way the US does. Only their best students. Then there is the problem of the underclass in the US. If you look at states like Iowa and New Hampshire you’ll see they score very well on these international tests. I have been hearing stories for the past 30 years that American students are deficient in math and science. Why do we still win so many Nobel prizes? Surely if the system were so rotten we should see the effects by now. Besides, progress is made by best students not the average students. So you really need to compare the very best US students against the very best in other countries.’ A STRONG VOICE I assume you have seen this video clip by now (give it a few seconds to load before thinking it’s a bad link) – Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan debating an Egyptian professor of religion on Al Jazeera. Talk about courage! Both links are well worth clicking. ANOTHER Howard Dean on CNN yesterday: . . . I believe that we can take back the House and the Senate. You know, America really wants a change, and the bottom line in this next election: Do you want more of the same or do you want a change? And the Democrats can represent the things that people really want changed: honesty and openness in government, real security changes, a health care system that works for everybody. Those are fundamental things that people want to see done differently. . . . . . . [Democrats will] give a consistent message about what Democrats want: honesty and openness in government, American jobs that will stay in America using energy independence as a new industry to create those jobs, a strong national defense based on telling the truth to the American people and our soldiers. Those are the kinds of things where we can really make difference. Health care that works for everybody. Those things we’ve all agreed on. Governors, senators, congressmen, and mayors have all agreed on those. . . . . . . After all, what’s really at stake here is the future of the country. This country’s become much weaker under President Bush, not just security and the outsourcing of our ports operations and all that, but the deficits. We’re about to vote next week on a new debt ceiling. I think the Democrats are going to vote no. And thank god. Somebody has to be fiscally responsible in this country. And the Republicans have lost the mantle of fiscal responsibility. Democrats are the only party in the last 40 years who have run a surplus under Bill Clinton. We’ve got to return us to the basics, return this country to the basics, where we’re focused. The president talks about homeland security. Well, homeland security means hometown security. And the Republicans have forgotten about ordinary people in the streets of America. . . . Tomorrow: The Man Who Ate Five Democrats
You’ll NEED a Kitten After You Read This March 10, 2006March 4, 2017 MORE MUST SEE TV Yesterday, we had the Simpsons. Today . . . Alan Light: ‘Here’s an absolutely adorable video from some TV show in Japan of a friendship between a kitten and a rooster.’ ☞ Someone has too much time on his paws. HAVE A WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL DAY Here’s another little video – my friend Marc offering up a bit of personal philosophy. It’s a little sappy, but are you going to tell me kitten videos aren’t sappy? YESTERDAY WASN’T A BAD DAY, EITHER NTMD closed at $7.99, down from over $22 when we got interested eight months ago. Don’t sell your puts. And FMD closed at $46.25, up from $38.10 where we got interested six days ago. Hold it for the long term. Of course, it’s just when things are going nicely that you get a painful paper cut or, in my case, this afternoon, a root canal. But either sure beats appendicitis. APPENDICITIS – II D.Stewart: ‘Bill writes: ‘What is a person without insurance to do [about a $55,000 appendicitis bill]? . . . We exploit, though perhaps not intentionally, those least able to pay with the most outrageous bills! How stupid and callous is that?’……..I’ve got just the answer for such a problem. Universal coverage. Now, how stupid and callous is it that we don’t currently have a system where every citizen is guaranteed a basic level of care?’ ☞ Pretty stupid and callous! But our Republican friends won’t even permit Medicare to negotiate drug prices – or the bankruptcy bill to go lighter on people devastated by medical bills – so don’t hold your breath. Then again, look on the bright side – America now boasts 371 billionaires, according to Forbes. It is a grand time to be rich and powerful in America, and that surely counts for something. READ THIS ARTICLE TODAY And then click this interview tomorrow, when apparently it becomes available on the free portion of Kate Welling’s website. The case is made for caution and concern – that unemployment is really 12%; that inflation is really running at 8%; that the economy is contracting; and that the real deficit is even higher than I’ve thought it is. Once you read [the Williams interview], think about it and understand it [writes Bill Fleckenstein], you will see why so many thoughtful people – like Jim Grant, Warren Buffett, Marc Faber, Bill Gross, Fred Hickey and Paul Volcker – have grave concerns about the future of the dollar . . . But start, as I say, with this. (And then go back and watch the kitten again – hey, it’s only money.)
Taking the Day Off March 9, 2006March 4, 2017 APPENDICITIS Bill: ‘Two years ago I had an appendectomy with some complications (infection). My hospital stay was a week. My ‘uninsured’ total cost for surgery, the stay, the doctors, the meds, etc. was over $55,000. My ‘insured’ bill was $8580 (of which I paid 10%). My rudimentary math skills say the difference is greater than four times as much- more like six or seven times! This is simply ridiculous. What is a person without insurance to do? I could never pay a bill like that and I consider myself, while not wealthy, in very good financial standing. We exploit, though perhaps not intentionally, those least able to pay with the most outrageous bills! How stupid and callous is that? At least a person without the means to pay a $55,000 bill could file bankruptcy, right? Not any more. The new bankruptcy law makes it much harder to do, if at all.’ THREE-D If you’re a Simpsons fan, click here. (Thanks, Alan!) Now . . . take the rest of the day off. I am.
A Penny at 2% . . . March 8, 2006March 4, 2017 ANOTHER GREAT INVESTING STORY FROM YALE And shorter. Click here. (Thanks, Yaakov.) The only thing that would have been nice is if the Times had tried to find out how this money (donated by the Class of ’54 at their 25th Reunion to be handed over to Yale at their 50th) grew at 37% compounded. Gilder is a complete gentleman, but that alone does not make money grow. If Ben Franklin had achieved that 37% rate of return, the thousand pounds apiece he left to Boston and Philadelphia – to be lent out at low interest to worthy young medical students and tradesmen for 200 years – would have grown spectacularly. Because, sure: at 5%, each £1000 gift would have grown to £17 million and change. But at 37%, each would have grown to £2,208,581 septillion. (Exactly how much it did grow to in the 200 years after Franklin’s death in 1790 is a little complicated because his will allowed for three-quarters of it to be distributed after the first 100 years.) As no one can imagine even one septillion anything, let alone two million septillion pounds sterling, it is fair to say that 37% is not a sustainable annual rate of return. Even 2%, after tax and inflation, may be impossible over long periods. As I used to get paid a lot of money to go around and declaim: “If you had invested just a penny – never mind a dollar, just one penny! – at just 2% (never mind 12% or 8% or 6%) – was there ever a time in human history you couldn’t get 2%? Even the Huns were paying more than that – the day Christ was born, how much do you think you would have today. [Long pause.] Anybody? [Pause.] Anybody?” No one ever hazarded a guess. “Well [I would press on], if you guessed $1.5 trillion . . . dollars, not pennies [I would rise on my tip-toes to emphasize the relative enormity of the dollar as compared with the penny] . . . you would be low by a factor of a thousand times.” Awed silence. “Lesson number one: slow but steady does indeed win the race. Lesson number two: no wonder the Catholic Church has so much money – and more power to it, may I be quick to add.” Whereupon I would launch into the virtues of the Individual Retirement Account. MEDICAL BILLS D. Stewart: “You write: ‘Hospitals charge uninsured patients three or four times as much as those who are insured. (Shouldn’t there be a law against that?)’ I am a physician, and I take exception to this mischaracterization that the health care industry is overcharging the uninsured. The truth is that large, powerful insurance companies are forcing underpayment. Our practice has a list of charges for all office visits and procedures. We believe that they are fair and reasonable. What is unfair and unreasonable is being forced by the largest insurer in the state to accept a “discount” of 75% on all services. If we only had the revenue from our insurance cases, I believe that our business would sadly look much different.” ☞ Well, if we quadrupled the fees insurers pay, that would certainly relieve the strain on doctors and hospitals. But we already spend close to 15% of our Gross Domestic Product on health care, so you can see this approach has problems. Better, it seems to me, to charge the uninsured the same as the insured (the uninsured are very often less hassle – just run their credit cards and get immediate payment) . . . but raise those rates a little, as needed . . . and allow high-end service providers to charge willing patients anything they want. The real magic bullet, it seems to me, is to find a way to spend much less on administration and paperwork, channeling those resources to doctors, nurses and hospitals instead.
Making $7.8 Billion for Yale March 7, 2006March 4, 2017 60 MINUTES Sunday night’s three segments: Hospitals charge uninsured patients three or four times as much as those who are insured. (Shouldn’t there be a law against that? Instead, the Republican Congress moved to tighten the yoke, making it harder for patients to escape devastating these overcharges when they go bankrupt.) America tortures prisoners to the point of death. (And not just in those dramatic no-other-option moments, when Agent Jack Bauer, Monday nights on FOX, saves a city from devastation by extracting the unlock code – but also, routinely, when we pull a cab driver in as a suspected Taliban guy, and he later turns out – though dead – probably to have been just a cab driver). Canada doesn’t really care if you smoke marijuana. (There’s a guy up there selling gazillions of seeds through a mail order catalog, whom they might fine $200, but whom we’re trying to extradite to put in jail for life.) ’60 Minutes’ is reason alone to own a TiVo (or the cable equivalent). YOU WOKE ME UP FOR THIS? Picture it. You’ve just gotten out of the late movie, driving home, and you’ve had this TERRIFIC IDEA. You’d really like to tell your boss – or your entire sales staff – but it’s midnight and you’re afraid you’ll wake them up. Even if you don’t, they’ll know you’re a nut case to call so late (where were you brought up, in a frat house?). Well, with free bluffmail, you can leave a voicemail on their e-mail. You just call a toll-free number, record your message, and tell bluffmail whom you want to send it to. The recipient gets the e-mail with an audio attachment. This could be useful even if it were the middle of the day and you had had your great idea just driving to the airport after a client lunch. Sure beats calling each person one at a time – or having to talk to them in case they’re around. Bluffmail is one of those start-ups that, for all I know, is a lone Lithuanian in suburban Vilnius. But just in case you’re adventuresome . . . THAT’S $7.8 BILLION EXTRA This article appeared last summer, but its lessons are timeless. (Just in case you come to this page because you’re interested in money.) The subhead: David Swensen has made better returns for Yale than any portfolio manager at any university. He has a word of advice: don’t try this at home.
FMD in Better Shape than USA? March 6, 2006March 4, 2017 NTMD Mike Furey: ‘I picked up a small position in NTMD puts the morning after Jim Cramer pumped the stock on CNBC. I’ve almost tripled my investment so far.’ ☞ NTMD fell another 77 cents Friday, to $8.72. But it’s still valued at $265 million. Why would you pay that – or anything – for a company with a single product that isn’t selling well enough to break even? You never know; but if your puts expire in June or September, I’d just hang on. (JP Morgan, UBS and others continue to recommend the stock, as they have all the way down. But that may tell you more about JP Morgan, UBS and the others than about NTMD.) FMD Jesse Frey: ‘FMD went up 9% on Friday. How much of that do you think might have resulted from your tip?’ None of it. In my fondest dreams, some of you saw this suggestion Friday morning and bought shares at the open. The stock gained $3.64 on the day. But of the 3.7 million shares traded, I’d be amazed if even 25,000 came from readers of this site. Many of you are fabulously wealthy (and all but three of you are surpassingly charming and wise). But you have the good sense to come here for recipes and politics, not stock tips. That said, I think FMD remains a buy. Here’s what a smart friend writes: This is a long term, multi-year compounding play. What would you pay for a company that will consistently grow quality earnings at 30-40% per year for the next decade? Even after two very good days, it’s just absurdly undervalued at 11x conservative street estimates of forward earnings. Also, there are still 15MM shares short out of 30MM float. The coming squeeze has got to push this thing up another 15 points before it even achieves a neutral price (at least to my way of thinking). FMD 1) has no debt, 2) is growing revenues and earnings at 40%+ per year, 3) has a very conservative forward PE multiple of 11x (according to street estimates – a realistic forward PE multiple of 8x, according to me), 4) has significant competitive advantage vs. other players in the field based on proprietary access to student loan performance data (competitors don’t have the loans to track, the experience in management, or the patience to wait out the performance curves – usually 5-6 years given the nature of the loan), 5) for the same reasons as #4, enjoys significant and sustainable barriers to competitive entry, 6) operates in an industry growing at an estimated 30%/year, 7) is over 50% owned by management, 8) is endeavoring to diversify its customer set with a full sales pipeline, 9) has recently been buying back stock at a rapid pace and indicated it will continue to, 10) is about to hit an inflection point in their business model which should accelerate growth even more (student loan servicing book achieves critical mass and starts to substantively contribute to operating income; residual benefit from their securitizations should start to kick in), and, inexplicably, 11) nearly 50% of the float is sold short – due to the “smart money” misunderstanding #s 4, 5 and 8. Every day I scratch my head trying to figure out what I could be missing, but I remain mystified – so I buy more. Oh! And it has a Return on Assets in the high 30s and a Return on Equity in the high 40s — while funding a near 50% growth rate. And it has just recently broken through its 200 and 50 day moving average. Caveats I can obviously live with include: 1) Potential for the Federal Government to get reenergized on the student loan sector, stunting industry growth, 2) High intensity of insider ownership, while generally a positive, will mean fairly high and continuous levels of insider sales as key managers look to diversify their assets, 3) Irrational customer/partner decisions could create negative short term catalysts (e.g. resigning business to pursue less productive/profitable approaches), 4) Questions as to whether entrepreneurial management can continue to successfully drive profitable, hyper growth in a much larger company and navigate multiple, complex partner relationships. BACK TO POLITICS From Knight-Ridder: . . . A series of political missteps has raised questions about the Bush administration’s candor, competence and credibility and left the White House off-balance, off-message and unable to command either the nation’s policy agenda or its politics the way the president did during his first term. This week, newly released video of Bush listening passively to warnings about the dire threat posed by Hurricane Katrina and a report that intelligence analysts warned for more than two years that the insurgency in Iraq could swell into a civil war provided fresh fodder for charges that the president ignores unwelcome alarms. . . . WILLIAM RIVERS PITT ON THE STATE OF OUR LEADERSHIP ‘No One Could Have Anticipated …’ By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Thursday 02 March 2006 The video is gut-wrenching. There they sit, a whole room full of hurricane experts and disaster managers, shouting down a telephone line at George W. Bush, warning him a full day ahead of time that Hurricane Katrina is a catastrophe waiting to happen. There stands Max Mayfield, Director of the National Hurricane Center, emphatically explaining that Katrina is far larger and more dangerous than Hurricane Andrew, that the levees in New Orleans are in grave danger of being overtopped, and that the loss of life could be extreme. There sits the much-maligned FEMA Director Michael Brown, joining in the chorus of warnings to Mr. Bush and giving every appearance of a man actually doing his job. “This is, to put it mildly, the big one,” says Brown. “Everyone within FEMA is now virtually on call.” Brown goes on to deliver an eerily accurate prediction of the horrors to come within the Louisiana Superdome. “I don’t know what the heck we’re going to do for that, and I also am concerned about that roof,” says Brown. “Not to be kind of gross here, but I’m concerned about (medical and mortuary disaster team) assets and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe.” And there, of course, is Mr. Bush, sitting in a dim conference room while on vacation in Texas, listening to all the pleas for immediate action on the telephone. With an emphatic hand gesture, Bush promises any and all help necessary. “I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm,” says Bush, “but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm.” After the delivery of this promise, however, Bush goes mute. No questions, no comments, no concerns. As if to foreshadow what the people of New Orleans received from their leader, Mr. Bush finishes the conference by delivering a whole lot of nothing. That’s the video, 19 hours before the bomb struck New Orleans. It is gut-wrenching because everyone now knows what came next. The storm struck, the waters rolled in, and thousands were left to die. Days passed with no help reaching the city. Images of corpses left to rot in the streets were broadcast around the globe. It is gut-wrenching, more than anything else, because of this: four days later, when questioned about his flaccid response to the catastrophe in Louisiana, Bush stated, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” Right. No one anticipated the breach of the levees except the Director of the National Hurricane Center, the Director of FEMA, and a half-dozen other experts who implored Mr. Bush to take this storm seriously a full day before the hammer dropped. No one could have anticipated it? That has a familiar ring to it. No one could have anticipated the failure of the levees. No one could have anticipated the strength of the insurgency in Iraq. No one could have anticipated that people would use airplanes as weapons against buildings. No one could have anticipated these things … except all the people who did. . . . BILL GROSS ON THE STATE OF OUR UNION One more reason to globally diversify your mutual funds.