Barney Frank and Ron Paul February 9, 2011March 21, 2017 BRAVE NEW WORLD: BURN SURGERY This short video reminds us of the medical miracles around the corner. (Thanks, Sid and Diane.) WHY BARNEY’S RUNNING AGAIN He had planned to retire after this term. Thankfully (in my view), he will not. Here’s why: NEWTON, MA – Congressman Barney Frank today announced that he will be a candidate for re-election to the United States Congress in 2012. His statement follows. I will be running for re-election to the House of Representatives in 2012. While I would have preferred to put off a discussion about the next election until a later date, I have been asked on a number of occasions about my plans. In addition, I have become convinced that making my decision to run for re-election known is important for maximizing the impact I can have on the range of issues to which I am committed. These issues require a time commitment longer than the next two years. There are two issues in particular that are of central importance. The first is to defend the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which will substantially diminish the likelihood of the risky and irresponsible behavior which led to the current economic crisis. The law is already under attack by those who oppose meaningful regulation and who would undermine it, either by pressuring regulators to weaken the law or by underfunding agencies such as the SEC and CFTC which are charged with administering it. The House Republican leadership has been very explicit about this, specifically targeting stronger regulation of derivatives, the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and restrictions on excessively risky behavior by federally-insured banks. If these opponents of reform are successful, it will put American workers and families at risk of suffering the effects of another economic meltdown. I intend to do everything in my power to fight their efforts. My second national priority is to reduce significantly America’s swollen, unnecessary, worldwide military footprint – this is the only way to reconcile the need for us to spend wisely, to promote our economy and to accomplish substantial deficit reduction. Failure to address excessive military spending will either add to the deficit or force cuts in education, police, fire, transportation, scientific research, food safety, and infrastructure investment. The disparity between the cost of America’s legitimate security needs and the money we spend to maintain a worldwide military presence is the single greatest obstacle to responsible deficit reduction. While in the past it has appeared to be politically impossible to make reasonable cuts to excessive military spending, there are recent encouraging signs, including the bipartisan work I have done with Congressman Ron Paul. I will continue to make this a major part of my work in order to improve our economy and preserve our quality of life. While these two issues are central to our ability to return to a full-employment economy while protecting our quality of life, there are other national and regional issues on which I will be working as well — protecting the fishing industry in Massachusetts from arbitrary, unjust and unfair actions; fighting for full legal equality for all citizens; providing for the housing needs of low-income people, not by pushing them unwisely and unsustainably into homeownership, but rather by building affordable rental housing; and helping local communities provide a level of service adequate to the needs of their residents. DFZ Chris Brown: “We were able to sell all of our DFZ today at avg. 10.18 after the earnings report came in about as disappointing as possible. In the near-term, the stock is likely dead in the water as there don’t seem to be any catalysts, and the quarter was so disappointing. For those inclined to hold longer-term, the stock is only at about 9x my estimate of forward eps (85 cents) once you back out the cash on hand, so it isn’t expensive, but you’ve got the prospect of higher Chinese labor costs and higher commodity costs, and frankly I suspect part of this bad season was due to competitors having more stylish offerings, forcing DFZ to go lower on price, so it may be tough sledding. The upside is that they just made an acquisition which should help earnings some (not included in my estimate), and the valuation is low, so though languishing is a real possibility, the company would seem to be an obvious private equity target if it got much cheaper. Sorry it didn’t work out as I had hoped, but hopefully nobody got clobbered on it.” ☞ Given all the gains Chris has helped us make, the occasional 5% or so dip may be tolerable. MY OUTLOOK EMAIL PROBLEM . . . . . . wherein the text of emails I receive shows up in the preview pane but disappears when I open the email. In case any of you encounter this problem: Wayne: “It sounds like your outlook problem is due to some bad html in the email message (e.g. white text on white background). To see what’s in the body of the email try these solutions. Solution 1: Open the email in question. Then, from the file menu (or goofy windows circle, if you are running outlook 2007+), click ‘Save As’ and in the ‘save as type’ drop-down choose ‘Text Only’. This should save the text version of your email. Solution 2: Open the email in question. Then, where the email text should be, right-click and select ‘View Source’. It will be ugly, with all sorts of format tabs, but if it is a short message, you should be able to decipher it.” ☞ Thanks! Works!