How Did Warren Buffett Get So Rich? August 29, 2008March 11, 2017 HOW DID WARREN BUFFETT GET SO RICH? He started with nothing, inherited nothing, made it all by his wits. How? By being uncommonly smart but also by being wise, which is different, and uncommonly thoughtful; uncommonly decent, which has attracted decency in return; by taking the long view and sorting out what’s important; and – crucially – by being a good judge of talent. Knowing which chief executives to bet on. What does it say about Senator Obama that for the first time ever Warren Buffett has taken an active role in a modern Presidential election, hosting and headlining fundraisers to make Barack Obama our next chief executive? What does it say about Senator McCain? YOUR WEEKEND To try to see in him what Warren Buffett and lifelong Republicans Susan Eisenhower see in him, please consider spending part of your weekend listening to him.
More Amazing Speeches August 28, 2008March 11, 2017 On the one hand, you can argue this is a really lame excuse for a ‘column’ – just linking you to some speeches. On the other hand, they are historic speeches. I particularly commend you to watch President Clinton and Joe Biden’s speeches from last night . . . and if you have time, Tammy Duckworth’s, too. Craig Wiener: ‘The Microsoft Silverlight technology the DNCC uses for its videos is incompatible with older Macs with PowerPC processors that I (and millions of others) use everyday. I understand that Linux users are similarly affected. If the Democrats want their message to reach the widest audience possible wouldn’t it make sense to use that technology which is more inclusive than one which shuts out a substantial minority of U.S. computer users?’ ☞ Yes! Jack Rivers: ‘I was most amazed by [Republican Iowa Congressman] Jim Leach’s speech. OK, he isn’t an exciting speaker at all, but it was like a trial lawyer building his case. A great lecture to our nation’s Republicans and Independents on why they should vote for Obama. And good news, a long time friend – an Arizonan who has always voted Republican and never once voted for a Democrat for ANYTHING – let me know yesterday he will vote Obama.’ ☞ Yes!
Amazing Speeches August 27, 2008March 11, 2017 Zac: ‘In your speech to the Convention Monday, you forgot to mention that Phil Gramm’s wife was on the board of directors at Enron when it collapsed.’ ☞ That and so much more. But it was a privilege to be given even 400 words to drive home a few main thoughts . . . and obviously, the Convention is not about speeches like mine, but speeches like Michelle Obama’s Monday night and Hillary’s last night. Amazing speeches. As our future hangs on the outcome of the election, I urge you to watch them – and more – on the Convention website.
Sorry: Down Is NOT Up August 26, 2008March 11, 2017 McCAIN DELIBERATELY MISLEADS JS Hereford: ‘You write, ‘The McCain ad I saw here in Denver yesterday said . . . ‘Obama: Ready to raise your taxes, but is he ready to lead? I’m John McCain and I approved this message.’ How far John McCain has fallen. This ad is grossly deceptive, at best. Obama stands ready to LOWER most people’s taxes, not raise them. (See the difference?)’ I notice you didn’t address the issue of, ‘is he ready to lead.’ Is it because Biden and the Clintons have asked the same question?’ ☞ I stuck with the part that was objectively wrong and dishonest. With regard to the second part, McCain is welcome to ask the question he asks. That’s fair. (And the answer in my view is ‘yes,’ insofar as anyone is ready for this job – particularly as compared with McCain.) Marc Goldberger: ‘You have got to be kidding me…..don’t both sides do this in every election from dog catcher to president? In this case…I find it funny because it’s NOT misleading…In general Obama will try to raise taxes more than McCain would. But the real issue is not who will raise taxes or for whom but rather should we now be raising taxes AND why…..that’s the real issue…Sad to see you becoming more and more political as Nov nears..It’s a real turn off and I might have to pass on your thoughts until after the elections.’ ☞ If the Straight Talk Grocery Store charged more than its competition for everything except lobster and filet mignon – but advertised that it was the lower priced store, would you really consider that straight talk? And an ad like that exempt from criticism? I guess we just disagree on this one. But please don’t suspend your subscription. As to whether we should be raising taxes now, maybe not (although please be clear that we are poised to add three-quarters of a trillion dollars to our national debt in just the coming 12 months alone – it may not be a good idea, or moral, to keep borrowing from our children’s future). Bit leaving that aside, Obama plans to REDUCE taxes on most folks. So the net result would not be an economy killer. He is a very smart guy, advised by other very smart guys. Like Buffett, Volcker, Rubin and Summers. I feel a lot more comfortable with that than with Phil Gramm’s being the architect of McCain’s plan. (You know Gramm – the one who says the so-called economic ‘hard times’ are just in our heads – that we’re a nation of whiners. In some ways, I suppose quite a few of us are whiners. But the hard times are real -and headed for realer. So while we’re at it . . . McCAINPEDIA A valuable reference. Click here.
Get Out of Jail Free August 25, 2008March 11, 2017 McCAIN DELIBERATELY MISLEADS The McCain ad I saw here in Denver yesterday said . . . ‘Obama: Ready to raise your taxes, but is he ready to lead? I’m John McCain and I approved this message.’ How far John McCain has fallen. This ad is grossly deceptive, at best. Obama stands ready to LOWER most people’s taxes, not raise them. (See the difference?) BUT SO FAR, HE HAS A GET-OUT-OF-JAIL-FREE CARD Maureen Dowd in yesterday’s New York Times: Too Much of a Bad Thing By MAUREEN DOWD Published: August 24, 2008 WASHINGTON My mom did not approve of men who cheated on their wives. She called them ‘long-tailed rats.’ During the 2000 race, she listened to news reports about John McCain confessing to dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam. I figured, given her stringent moral standards, that her great affection for McCain would be dimmed. ‘So,’ I asked her, ‘what do you think of that?’ ‘A man who lives in a box for five years can do whatever he wants,’ she replied matter-of-factly. I was startled, but it brought home to me what a powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free. His brutal hiatus in the Hanoi Hilton is one of the most stirring narratives ever told on the presidential trail – a trail full of heroic war stories. It created an enormous credit line of good will with the American people. It also allowed McCain, the errant son of the admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific during Vietnam – his jailers dubbed McCain the ‘Crown Prince’ – to give himself some credit. ‘He has been preoccupied with escaping the shadow of his father and establishing his own image and identity in the eyes of others,’ read a psychiatric evaluation in his medical files. ‘He feels his experiences and performance as a P.O.W. have finally permitted this to happen.’ The ordeal also gave a more sympathetic cast to his carousing. As Robert Timberg wrote in ‘John McCain: An American Odyssey,’ ‘What is true is that a number of P.O.W.’s, in those first few years after their release, often acted erratically, their lives pockmarked by drastic mood swings and uncharacteristic behavior before achieving a more mellow equilibrium.’ Timberg said Hemingway’s line that people were stronger in the broken places was not always right. So it’s hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card. His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength – and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he’s reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience – by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated. The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements. The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been ‘tested and forged in ways few can fathom.’ When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a ‘cone of silence’ while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, ‘The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.’ When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, ‘This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years – in prison.’ As Sam Stein notes in The Huffington Post: ‘The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music ‘stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain’s plane was shot down.’ The Kerry Swift-boat attacks in 2004 struck down the off-limits signs that were traditionally on a candidate’s military service. Many Democrats are willing to repay the favor, and Republicans clearly no longer see war medals as sacrosanct. In a radio interview last week, Representative Terry Everett, an Alabama Republican, let loose with a barrage at the Democrat John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who is the head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, calling him ‘cut-and-run John Murtha’ and an ‘idiot.’ ‘And don’t talk to me about him being an ex-marine,’ Everett said. ‘Lord, that was 40 years ago. A lot of stuff can happen in 40 years.’ The real danger to the McCain crew in overusing the P.O.W. line so much that it’s a punch line is that it will give Obama an opening for critical questions: While McCain’s experience was heroic, did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq? Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it? Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, ‘We are all Georgians,’ mentality?
100% Disability August 22, 2008March 11, 2017 McCAIN UNSURE HOW MANY HOMES HE OWNS Really. John Sidney McCain III (who is on a 100% disability pension at taxpayer expense – $58,358 tax-free last year, thank you very much) doesn’t know exactly how many homes he owns. True story. EISENHOWER FOR OBAMA I don’t usually read The National Interest, published by The Nixon Center, but this piece by Susan Eisenhower bears note. Ms. Eisenhower – not unlike her grandfather – is a serious person . . . for example, now serving her fourth term on the standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. And here is her take on current affairs: Reflections on Leaving the Party by Susan Eisenhower 08.21.2008 I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate ‘seed corn.’ And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks. My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove-style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win? This week, I changed my registration from Republican to independent. The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post-cold war and the 9/11 periods. Today we are in a different place altogether, where our security as a nation is challenged not just from abroad but also close to home. The energy, health-care and financial crises threaten our national prosperity and well-being, just as surely as any confrontation overseas or an attack by radical terrorists. As an independent I want to be free of the constraints and burdens that have come with trying to make my own views explainable in the context of today’s party. Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after. In my grandparents’ time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America’s interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and ‘soft power’; the advancement of civil rights; investment in infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future. As an independent I will now feel comfortable supporting people of any political party who reflect those core values. It was not easy taking this step, since politics, like religion, is something learned on the knee of one’s parents and grandparents. And like anything else inherited, it is imbedded in one’s own identity. This makes leaving even harder. But there will be some joy for me in my new status since I will be able to speak for myself, and not as a member of a party that has, sadly, lost its way. Susan Eisenhower is president of the Eisenhower Group, Inc., and chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute. ☞ Susan is not alone among lifelong Republicans in supporting Obama (beginning with her sister-in-law Julie Nixon Eisenhower). If you’re a moderate Republican, I hope you’ll consider joining her.
YOU Have MY Vote August 21, 2008March 11, 2017 But first . . . ECONOMIC SWIFT-BOATING Dean Baker, author of The Conservative Nanny State: How The Wealthy Use The Government To Stay Rich And Get Richer, sees it this way: . . . Tarred with the most dismal record of job creation and income growth of any president since the Great Depression, it would be reasonable to expect that Senator McCain would be defensive on the economy; but not in Swift boat America. Instead Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama’s tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It’s pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously. Of course, there’s no truth to Senator McCain’s Swift boat economics. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, when rich people paid the same tax rates proposed by Senator Obama, the private sector added 15.8 million jobs. By contrast, in the seven years and six months of the Bush administration, when rich people paid the Bush-McCain tax rates, the private sector has added just 3.5 million jobs. And, it is losing jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month as President Bush prepares for retirement. . . . . . . The typical family’s income rose by 15.3 percent under Clinton, it fell by 1.6 percent under Bush. . . . In short, it is easy to show McCain’s ad is utter nonsense. The economy had its most prosperous period in 30 years with the tax rates Obama is proposing. President Bush then cut taxes for the rich, and the economy turned in its worst performance since the Great Depression. While the tax rates are hardly the whole story behind the prosperity of the Clinton years or the economic deterioration of the Bush years, the record makes a mockery of the scare story in the McCain ad. So why would Senator McCain make an ad that is so obviously false? In Swift boat country, there is no place for truth. McCain knows he can say anything he wants, regardless of how untrue it is, and his claim will be treated seriously by the media. Reporters will now treat it as a debatable point whether the tax rates proposed by Obama will stifle growth and cost jobs. They will act as though Senator McCain has raised a serious point – perhaps Obama’s tax plan really will hurt the economy. Reporters would actually have to know something about the economy, or at least arithmetic, to know that McCain’s claims are utter nonsense. The public will have to teach the media. This is not a he said, she said. The economy has performed very well taxing rich people at the rates proposed by Senator Obama. Any reporter who suggests it is plausible to claim these tax rates will stifle growth and job creation is simply too ill-informed to be covering economic issues. Reporters should be telling the public Senator McCain’s ads are contradicted by the facts, not pretending that they raise plausible concerns about the economy. IF ECONOMICS ISN’T YOUR STRONG SUIT . . . ‘It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.’ – Murray Rothbard YOU HAVE MY VOTE So here’s what you do: 1. Copy this into your word processor (or anyplace): http://www.thelopezfamilyonline.com/play.php?first=FIRSTNAME&last=LASTNAME 2. Replace the red parts with your real first and last names . . . or your kid’s 3. Copy the result into your browser, follow the link, and be amazed.* *If you are as hopelessly childish as I am, you will not stop there. Astonish your nieces and nephews (or whomever) by sending them an email with the URL you’ve created for THEM and let THEM be amazed. (To keep them from noticing their names in the URL, you might want to use snipurl.com to compress it first.) Is this a great century, or what? (THANK you, Alan!)
Bullish on America . . . But Not for a While August 20, 2008January 4, 2017 WARREN BUFFETT Stephen Gilbert: ‘You ask: ‘What does it say about Barack Obama that the best-respected businessman in the world keeps doing fundraisers on his behalf?’ I think a better question is: ‘What does it say about John McCain?’ ‘ THE ELUSIVE BOTTOM John Mauldin reprints Merrill Lynch economist John Rosenberg’s sharp analysis of where we are. (We are in for harder times, more bankruptcies, a major shift toward frugality and more saving, smaller cars, smaller houses, lower stock prices, lower home prices, and a handsome return from 10-year Treasuries. But the world will not end.) Click here. SAYINGS OF THE JEWISH BUDDHA Going endlessly around the Net. (‘Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?’) Click here.
Louis Vuitton, Charles Nolan, and Chanel Hip! Hip! August 19, 2008March 11, 2017 But first . . . SPEAKING OF WARREN BUFFETT You can watch a movie with him this Thursday night, as described yesterday. (Click here.) But you’ll be in one of 400 movie theaters and he’ll be in a TV studio someplace. Or you can pay $120,000 to buy a share of his stock and thus be invited to his annual meeting. (Click here.) But you’ll be in a stadium with him and thousands of others. Or you can contribute a small fraction of that to the Obama Victory Fund and get your photo with him at a business roundtable discussion in Washington in a couple of weeks. Just me-mail me. What does it say about Obama that the best-respected businessman in the world keeps doing fundraisers on his behalf? Especially when you consider that, up until this cycle, he has steered clear of the political nitty-gritty. And now . . . Proud Boyfriend Dept. LOUIS VUITTON, CHARLES NOLAN, AND CHANEL All about hoop skirts, from Sunday’s New York Times: The Belle Curve BIG HIPS ARE IN – IF YOU’RE A SIZE 2 CAROLINE WEBER ON A NEW FERTILE CRESCENT. It’s a tricky thing, desire. Why do we want what we want? The 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, for one, had no idea, concluding simply: ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason can know nothing.’ This principle governs not only love but fashion, which is also best defined as a perverse and willful denial of logic. Elizabethan starched ruffs? Sure! Psychedelic hot pants? Why not? Knee-high gladiator sandals? A bargain at $7,000. Ever since the first gladiators charged into the Coliseum with miniature metal beasties on their helmets, style has partaken more of caprice than of common sense. But every now and then, a trend comes along whose sheer, unalloyed improbability startles even fashion’s strictest devotees. A case in point: the return this season of the amplified hip. From panniers at Louis Vuitton and Charles Nolan to crinolines at Alexander McQueen to peplums at Chanel, the fall/winter looks encourage women to channel PJ Harvey, who in ‘Sheela-Na-Gig’ sang of her shapely charms: ‘I’ve been trying to show you over and over / Look at these, my child-bearing hips.’ Incongruous as it may seem in an industry better known as an enemy than as a friend of female curves, today’s designers are bringing back the hourglass shape in all its bulging, bottom-heavy splendor. I should probably confess that by characterizing this vogue as a new high (or low) in the annals of fashion folly, I’m speaking as much from personal bias as from broad observation. When I was a child, a fading Southern belle named Sally conditioned me to decline caloric treats with the mantra ‘a minute on the lips, forever on the hips!’ So effective was Sally’s instruction that to this day I can’t contemplate, say, a large pepperoni pizza without first visualizing thick, cheesy slices affixed to my sacrum. (To me, ‘muffin-top’ likewise carries upsettingly literal associations.) In this light, the return of the hip should come as welcome news – and to look at the current collections, it does: they’re beautiful. Still, Rubens nudes are beautiful, too, and who wants to resemble them? As the unchecked primacy of the pin-thin model attests, I’m scarcely alone in my fat phobia. Low-carb diets and liposuction are to today’s clotheshorse what bone-crushing corsets were to Scarlett O’Hara. Consequently, the wide-hipped silhouette may strike us as counterintuitive, if not downright undesirable. However, I’ve given this matter a lot of thought, and I can safely say that if you take the plunge, you won’t regret it. The hip, it turns out, has its reasons of which reason knows quite a lot. Reason No. 1: Stop Traffic. At 18th-century Versailles, the panniered skirts of female court costume reached such vast widths that women had to enter rooms sideways. So great was the fear of getting stuck in doorways that young noblewomen trained for their first day at court with an exacting old gentleman who donned a ‘ridiculous, billowing skirt’ of his own to lead the tutorial, according to the memoirs of the Marquise de la Tour du Pin. But one woman’s challenge is another woman’s opportunity. Just imagine the figure you’ll cut wedging your way onto a crowded N train in your new McQueen tutu. ‘Stand clear of the closing doors, please!’ As the subway doors jam against your layers of stiffened tulle, all eyes will – I guarantee it – be on you. That’s what they call making an entrance. Reason No. 2: Protect Your Personal Space. Because their skirts were so massive, the female grandees of the ancien régime required extra seats on either side while attending the opera. There is no reason why this shouldn’t work at the movies today: a chic updating of the coat-on-the-seat grab. But expanding your circumference by several meters can protect a girl in other ways, too. Wearers of the pannier and its 19th-century descendant, the crinoline, were often unable to reach the hands of the swains who clamored for their attention. I don’t know about you, but apart from my husband and my acupuncturist, there are very few people whose unsolicited touch I enjoy. Hoop skirt donned? Problem solved! Reason No. 3: Skip the Gym. Obviously, if you gain weight in your hips (Sally?), then this is the look for you. When Charles Nolan strapped me into a sample pannier recently, I found to my joy that it hid a multitude of sins, including the steak I had just eaten for lunch. Under any other circumstances, hearing a designer tell his assistant, ‘I’ll need a tablecloth to cover all this’ wouldn’t do wonders for my self-esteem. But when he draped said tablecloth over my new, cagelike appendages, a miracle happened. Proportions shifted, my waist shrank, my chest grew… “Hot!” Nolan and I cried in tandem. Such effortless transformation had me ready to swear off the gym for good — a decision I can further chalk up to the incompatibility of “hip improvers” (as the French aptly called them) and physical exercise. In the 18th century, they were too cumbersome to wear on boating expeditions; a hundred years later, only women who traded them for bloomers could swim, fence and bicycle with the boys. Barred from the StairMaster by my new Nolan, I’ll take fashion over fitness any day of the week. Reason No. 4: Cool Off. The hoop skirt’s genesis is shrouded in mystery, though historians trace it alternately to the bell-shaped gowns of ancient Crete and to the late-15th-century Spanish verdugado (“virtue guard,” which became the English farthingale). Whatever its origins, the fashion historian Valerie Steele informs me, “it was not invented to hide a royal pregnancy.” Between the fact that this claim has been made about both Queen Juana (15th-century Spain) and Empress Eugénie (19th-century France) and the fact that even barrel-size hips can’t fully disguise a baby bump, Steele’s comment rings true. Just as unprovable, if more intuitively plausible, is the tale of two plump Parisiennes who, one sultry summer day in the 1720s or 1730s, decided to place hoops under their skirts to allow for greater air circulation around their thighs. Fact or fiction, this is news you can use. As we struggle with global warming, we all need a little more ventilation in our dress. Isn’t it nice that we ladies now have such an elegant alternative to shorts? Reason No. 5: Lie Back and Think of Darwin. If yours is a straight-up-and-down figure like mine, you may have shared my alarm last year when a new scientific study revealed that women with hourglass figures tend to be more intelligent, bear smarter children and be more attractive to men. Apparently, the flesh that gathers in the hips and derrière has a higher density of essential, brain-building acids than does fat concentrated elsewhere. The result is greater brainpower of self and progeny and greater appeal to the opposite sex because, as one of the study’s authors observed, “it’s reproductively important.” In other words, to modify Sigmund Freud’s famous dictum just a little, the waist-to-hip ratio is destiny. Or, from a Darwinian perspective, Kate Winslet’s small waist and voluptuous hips trump Kate Moss’s beanpole physique. But if nature has deprived you of an evolutionarily promising hip-to-waist ratio — research places the ideal somewhere between 0.6 and 0.7 — then this season’s clothes will allow you to fake it. While the trick may not boost your or your children’s I.Q., it should at least nab you a few more free drinks at the bar. Here again, the love/fashion analogy applies. In both domains, a little fantasy — like a little folly — goes a very long way. BUT LET ME LEAVE YOU WITH THIS . . . Seriously: What does it say about Barack Obama that the best-respected businessman in the world keeps doing fundraisers on his behalf? So if you’d like to help, and to hear Warren Buffett – and if you are blessed with the ability to max out to the Obama campaign and the time to get to Washington the second week of September – just me-mail me.
Six Minutes August 18, 2008March 11, 2017 Friday’s column was titled A Video You Must See, but 93% of you were so traumatized by the real estate item that preceded it, you never got that far. So . . . today, 6 minutes: That 4-minute clip showing how Fox misleads its viewers. A 2-minute financial trailer for I.O.U.S.A. If the trailer grabs you, you can watch the movie with Warren Buffett this Thursday night at any one of 400 movie theaters around the country. Click here for details. Not mentioned in this two-minute trailer is that 85% of America’s National Debt – red ink accumulated since 1776 – was racked up under Republican administrations . . . mainly: Reagan, Bush, and Bush . . . or that John Sidney McCain III offers us more of the same, vowing to make the tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy permanent, at the expense of our children. Tomorrow: Louis Vuitton, Charles Nolan, and Chanel