Ask-Notty June 22, 2010March 18, 2017 NARCISSISM Have you read The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement? I won’t – my name’s not in the index. But it does sound important. PATRIOTISM Along those lines, did you see Michael Kinsley’s great piece in the Atlantic Monthly? In part: . . . although the 1960s featured plenty of self-indulgence, this wasn’t their essence. Their essence was selfless and idealistic: stopping the war; ending racism; eradicating poverty. These goals and some of the methods for achieving them may have been childishly romantic or even entirely wrongheaded, but they were about making the world a better place. The Tea Party movement’s goals, when stated specifically, are mostly self-interested. And they lack poetry: cut my taxes; don’t let the government mess with my Medicare; and so on. I say “self-interested” and not “selfish” because pursuing your own self-interest is not illegitimate in a capitalist democracy. (Nor is poetry an essential requirement.) But the Tea Party’s atmospherics, all about personal grievance and taking umbrage and feeling put-upon, are a far cry from flower power. There is a nasty, sour, vindictive tone to the Tea Party that certainly existed in the antiwar movement and its offspring, but never dominated the atmosphere created by these groups. . . . [T]he Tea Party movement is not the solution to what ails America. It is an illustration of what ails America. Not because it is right-wing or because it is sometimes susceptible to crazed conspiracy theories, and not because of racism, but because of the movement’s self-indulgent premise that none of our challenges and difficulties are our own fault. . . . The TPP vision is that you can keep your Medicare benefits and balance the budget by ending congressional earmarks, and perhaps the National Endowment for the Arts. What is most irksome about the Tea Party Patriots is their expropriation of the word patriot, with the implication that if you disagree with them, you’re not a patriot, or at least you’re less patriotic than they are. Without getting all ask-notty about it, I think a movement labeling itself patriotic should have some obligation to demonstrate patriotism in a way other than demanding a tax cut. . . . ☞ It’s worth reading the whole thing. ACORN TOTALLY VINDICATED OF All WRONGDOING . . . . . . says a GAO report – though too late to save it from oblivion. Turns out, there were no weapons of mass destruction, after all (as it were). Score another win for those who believe the downtrodden wield too much power. DCTH The bearish view here is that, yes, okay, the Delcath procedure works and will be approved, but the market is tiny, with maybe 1,000 or 1,500 melanoma sufferers who need it each year, and annual revenues of maybe $50 million, tops. They see DCTH (which closed at $8.95 last night, giving it a $350 million market cap) as a $6 stock. Guru responds that Delcath’s delivery device will also be used to fight “neuroendocrine tumors,” which afflict about six to nine times as many new patients each year, and generally metastasize to the liver. “Early studies of DCTH’s system in neuroendocrine tumors that did metastasize to the liver showed significant clinical improvement. Phase II data in this indication will be available in the October 2010 timeframe. At $50,000 per patient, this is another $450 million potential annual market, though it may develop more slowly than the melanoma market as they will likely have to do a Phase III to get official approval.” (Official approval may be needed for this procedure to be covered by insurance, but not for docs legally to prescribe it.) So if that works out, multiply the potential revenue, and thus a fair value for the stock, several-fold?