SPACs April 30, 2008March 10, 2017 ONE MORE REASON TO BECOME A VEGETARIAN You knew salmon was great for raising your good (HDL) cholesterol – but did you know that farmed salmon (aka ‘salmon affordabilus‘) contains carcinogens and pesticides? Did you know what trawling for shrimp is doing to the turtles? Click here to find the environmental and health status of your favorite fish . . . . . . although even a quick perusal of the site reveals its limitations. (E.g., farmed oysters and catfish are highly rated; but drill down and you see that ‘Available data are insufficient to assess contaminant levels in this seafood’ – a disclaimer widely applied across the site.) Even so . . . apples, I tell you! Carrots! Beets! (See also this review of Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood.) THE WORLD’S SMALLEST ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR Monty Goolsby: ‘I wouldn’t sell my $395-in-1972 HP-35 scientific calculator for all the tea in china. You can read a history of HP calculators here (a non-HP site).’ Bill Spencer: ‘I still have a basic 4-function calculator that I bought in the ’70s for $400 (which was a lot more then). What was I thinking?’ ☞ That you could give it to the Smithsonian in 50 years and get a tax deduction? SPACS [but only if you’re really interested] We made ten times our money, or thereabouts, on the first set of Aldabra warrants, which became Great Lakes Dredge & Dock. (I continue to hold my GLDD shares for the long term. While there are no guarantees, there is something inexorable about silt.) The jury is definitely out on the second set of Aldabra warrants, which became Boise Paper (BZ). At first they more than doubled. But then, having hit $3 not long ago, they are now just 56 cents, giving us the right to buy BZ shares at $7.50 anytime in the next three or so years. That was a lot more exciting when the stock was $10 last year than it is with the stock at $4.15. The jury is similarly out on HAPN warrants which became InfuSystems (INHI). The stock is down from $6 to $2.90, having dropped as low as $2.20; the warrants are 27 cents, vaguely where they were when we first bought them, but nowhere near the $1.50 or so they’d be if the stock had stayed at $6. One of the reasons these stocks are down is that the market has taken a hit and the economy is scary. And one reason may be that the companies are not doing as well as investors would like. But another reason is that hedge fund managers bought (or held onto) the warrants and shorted the stocks, driving their prices down. A smart friend in the midst of the SPAC business reports that the bloom is off the SPAC niche: More and more SPACs have liquidated because they couldn’t find a deal – or the deals they did find were voted down. And when a deal does get done, the SPAC really hits the span. (Get it? Spic and Span? No? Wanna hear a parrot joke?) That’s because hedge funds and arbitrageurs are buying the warrants and shorting the shares. Take BZ. It was above $9 when the deal was done. So you buy some warrants at $1.50, say (giving you the right to buy the stock at $7.50), and you short the stock at $9. If the stock goes to $4.15 – as in fact it has – you have a nearly $5 profit on the short side and (currently) only a $1 loss on the warrant. Now, perhaps, you will take your profit (so maybe you’ll help push the price back up some) . . . and then short it again if it gets back up around $7 or $8, figuring that you have a chance to gain nicely from the short, and with very little to lose, because you still have those warrants. If the stock went to $10 – or $100 – your loss on the short would be offset by your profit on the warrants. Actually, it’s even worse than that (or better, if you’re a hedge fund) because you may not even need to buy any warrants – you already have them from when you first bought the Aldabra 2 units that represented one share of stock and one warrant. Anyway, this puts a good bit of selling pressure on the stock, which is one reason it falls. This dynamic no longer affects us with GLDD, because the warrants were all exercised. We’re out of the mud with that one, as it were, at least as regards the weight of a warrant arbitrage. With BZ and INHI, that weight will be a continuing drag . . . but a lot can happen between now and 2011, so I’m holding my warrants (purchased with money I truly can afford to lose). (One thing that could happen: the company itself could take some cash and buy up a lot of the warrants at depressed prices, reducing the overhang.) I put in to buy some BZ stock today. Yes, there’s the recession, which could be severe; and yes; there’s the rising cost of raw materials in the Northwest (turns out, when fewer logs are being sawed to make houses, fewer wood chips and scraps are available to sell to the paper mills, which drives up the cost); and yes, the world is going paperless, supposedly. But look out a few years, and – famous last words – I’d guess a triple from here is more likely than a total loss, so it’s the kind of coin I’m happy to flip, albeit only with money I can truly afford to lose (OWMICTATL). Which leaves NAQ, the SPAC that raised $400 million last fall. Will it be able to find a tempting acquisition and make a deal? The now-established pattern of these stocks falling once the deal is done – or the deal’s NOT getting done – may make sellers less eager to agree to sell to a SPAC. Which in turn would make it less attractive for the SPAC holders to approve what might be a mediocre deal. If no deal is made – or the deal IS made but rejected by holders of more than 40% of the outstanding shares (and thus can’t be completed) – the warrants expire worthless. If a deal is made and approved, it’s very possible there will be heavy shorting of the underlying stock, driving its price down. That won’t be great for the warrants in the short run, either. The bottom line for NAQ is that those who chose to buy the units (a share of stock plus a warrant, $10) or the shares ($9.20 or so) have a conservative investment. Worst case (that I can think of), they opt out of any deal that is made and retrieve their cash, plus some interest (minus some modest expense) . . . while for those who bought the warrants at 90 cents – well, at the very least, I was a fool not to suggest that we wait for them to drop to 43 cents on April 29. Later This Week: The McCains Have a Vast Fortune (But He’s Right: The Economy Is Really Not His Strong Suit)
TXCO, ACAI, CZAR, WFBJ February 28, 2008March 10, 2017 TXCO We first bought this tiny domestic oil and gas exploration company at $4.50 four years ago. It closed last night at $14.72 (having touched $15.30 mid-day). I’m holding mine, but I want you to sell a third of yours so that from now on ‘you’re playing with house money.’ If only I had had the sense to suggest the same with FMD ($13.26 last night) when it hit $56. ACAI Not a stock, a berry. I don’t own any Bolthouse Farms (a private company?) but I sure drink a lot of their juice. The ‘vedge’ variety is great – a cross between tomato and V8. The two new acai varieties, one with pomegranate and one with mangosteen, are terrific. I don’t see those two on the Bolthouse website, so maybe they’re still in test markets only. But if you find them, try them. (Like a guy: straight out of the container.) CZAR PUTIN How sad to see democracy snuffed out in Russia. Frontline tells the story. If you have 21 minutes, take a look. If nothing else, it reminds us never to take our freedom of speech, or of the press, for granted. And to be fearful of the decline in hard-hitting journalism. Where was our press these past seven years? WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. There was so much I thought he was wrong about; but what a man he was. Frighteningly intellectual, prolific, consequential, mischievous – and gracious. Father to a wonderful son. And a eulogist at the funeral a quarter century ago of Al Lowenstein, who was as brilliantly liberal as Buckley was brilliantly conservative . . . a eulogy that spoke well of them both. May he rest in peace.
Read This January 31, 2008March 10, 2017 But first . . . From the Borowitz Report: Nader Warns Bloomberg Not to Run Only Room for One Egomaniac in Race, Activist Says Not so fast. That was the message delivered today to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg by consumer activist Ralph Nader, who warned Mr. Bloomberg, ‘If some egomaniac is going to jump in and screw up this election, it’s going to be me.’ Mr. Nader established an exploratory committee for a presidential bid today to let Mr. Bloomberg know that there was ‘only room for one self-absorbed gas-bag in the 2008 race.’ At a press conference in Washington, Mr. Nader said that voters who are looking for someone to spoil the 2008 election should be suspicious of Mr. Bloomberg’s motives: ‘Michael Bloomberg has a track record of winning elections, not screwing them up.’ In contrast, Mr. Nader said, ‘I know how hard it is to wreck an election, and I am prepared to put in the long hours necessary to mess this one up big-time.’ . . . And now READ THIS ‘If Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan to the ultra-efficient Prius.’ That and other assertions in this important New York Times story give us all the more reason to tilt our consumption back toward pasta, pizza, and eggplant parmesan. (Okay, and egg white omelets, salads, tomato and mozzarella with basil and extra virgin olive oil, a little salt and pepper . . . mmm, mmm!) It’s amazing the impact of a hamburger on our environment. And it’s probably not that great for your arteries, either. It’s time we all read this story and found our own happy medium. For some, this might mean replacing beef with chicken much of the time (it takes 7 pounds of grain to make a pound of beef, but only 3 pounds of grain to make a pound of chicken). For others, it might mean replacing chicken with ‘grain’ much of the time (it rather obviously takes just 1 pound of grain to make a pound of grain) – namely, all those dread carbohydrates like bread and pasta that I avoid. For still others, it might mean eating less (haven’t you been telling everybody you need to lose five pounds?). Anyway, if you’re not already a vegan (and I’m not), this is one of the most interesting articles you’ll read all year. (For example: coming soon, it says: ‘meat without feet.’) Seriously. Click this.
A Christmas Eve Message December 24, 2007March 10, 2017 CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR I loved this movie: a great (largely true) story, great acting, great dialog; funny, sexy, gripping, enlightening, important, relevant. THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION I loved this play: the story of the invention of television. Of course, seeing a play on Broadway costs about $1,000 more than seeing a movie (airfare, cabs, hotel, and the ticket). But if you’re in New York anyway, well . . . it’s still expensive. FMD The subhead’s in Christmas colors (though still more red than green), because we got an early gift Friday from Goldman Sachs. Some of us originally bought First Marblehead, which makes private student loans, at around $25. We watched it go up to $56 earlier this year, at which point I ran items headlined, ‘Don’t Sell Your FMD.’ By which I meant (in case you missed the subtlety): ‘Do Sell Your FMD. And Then Buy It Back December 20 at $11.’ FMD fell as low as $11.01 Thursday. Friday, Goldman Sachs arranged to buy up to 19.99% of the company and provide a $1 billion line of credit, sending the stock up to $18.76 (and giving Goldman a one-day 66% paper gain on its investment). If the stock ever gets back to $56 and beyond, Goldman will have looked pretty smart. The risk is that the shorts are right and Goldman is wrong and that there’s no big money to be made providing student loans – or that if there is, First Marblehead is not properly positioned to make it. To me – with money I can truly afford to lose (and now, on paper, partially have) – the big picture is that there probably will continue to be a huge and growing market for private student loans . . . and that First Marblehead has more expertise than its competitors at underwriting those loans, so is best positioned to make it. WM This is a separate disaster, down to $14 on Friday from $35 where I suggested it. I hope it, too, may one day bounce back. But it’s different. The crazy lending practices that abetted the housing bubble were real – and chickens are coming home to roost. (By contrast, nothing specific has happened to erode the long-term value of student loans, so far as I know. Years from now, students will owe their balances; their parents, who co-signed for the loans, will still be on the hook; and, at least under current law, even bankruptcy won’t extinguish the debt. So if college grads have decent income prospects, lenders may over time be repaid – the current financial crisis notwithstanding.) The banks won’t go under as a result of the mortgage crisis; but the current shareholders of some banks could find themselves wiped out. I hope that will not include the shareholders of Washington Mutual, because I still have my shares, but the crisis is far from being played out. As with FMD, we’ll just have to wait and see. AII Our warrants closed Friday at $3.10, more than double what we paid for them. (I just figured I’d throw that in to make myself feel better.) GREEN GUMMI BEARS Dai: ‘I typed ‘green gummi bears’ into the firefox window and unfortunately the site that popped up was yours. Upon reading your article, I was infuriated. To put it mildly, I LOVE gummi bears, and I can go through 10 bags a week because I only eat the green and white ones. THE GREEN GUMMI BEARS ARE THE BEST. I crave them and buy bags and only eat the green ones. This Christmas I received a 5lb bag of ONLY green gummi bears, which is the best present I have ever received. I just wanted to inform you, that the REAL gummi bear makers, not the care bear but HARIBO, make green ones strawberry, which is the best brand – so before you go and make an economic statement using gummi bears as your example – please do a little more research for the gummi bear fanatics of the world. Thank you and have a happy holiday.’ ☞ Well, leaving aside the fact that you opened your Christmas present early, which already calls your character into question, I refer you to the second hit that shows up when I search on ‘green gummi bears,’ which is this one, a taste-off that hardly paints Haribo’s green gummi (‘the least flavorful of them all’) in an award-winning light. ☺ (It frightens me that I inserted a smiley face, but ’tis the season and all that. I just can’t help myself. Ho, ho, ho.) A CHRISTMAS EVE MESSAGE All right, a two-days-before-Christmas-Eve message, when he sent it, but still: Bob C.: ‘Indeed, it is a grand time to be rich in America, but it isn’t so bad to be poor in America, either. Consider that the poor don’t have to buy liability insurance. Who in their right mind would sue a poor person? Have you ever been involved with an accident with a person too poor to carry automobile liability insurance? No fun. The poor don’t have to have health insurance. They show up at the Emergency Room and can’t be turned away. Those of us that do have health insurance have high premiums reflecting the non-payers. Their children get preferential treatment in applying for scholarships and financial aid at educational institutions. They can get free food from food banks largely manned by ‘rich’ volunteers. I’ve been there and rarely do I see poor people working as volunteers. The poor pay little or no income tax. If they are liable for any tax, they could easily disregard it because the IRS wouldn’t pursue the debt in favor of going after the big pocket accounts. I would also guess that the poor would vote for the Democratic Party, because it is more likely to propose laws offering hand-outs and tax increases for the working, tax paying stiffs. As Grover Cleveland noted, ‘Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them down.’ I suspect that I will be labeled ‘mean-spirited,’ which is getting to be trite; but I was irritated seeing the subject phrase so often in your interesting daily column.’ ☞ I guess it’s a balance. You seem to feel things have swung too far in favor of the poor and working poor. Reasonable people can disagree – and obviously do. I would point out, though, that emergency room care for your children really is not the same as having a doctor you can go to with an appointment for annual checkups and preventive care and all the rest. And lining up for free food at a food bank – while I expect we’re both pleased America doesn’t allow people to starve in the streets – isn’t so appealing that many people actually are content making this their long-term strategy. (On top of that, please note that no Democrat I know of has proposed raising middle class taxes.) Your view IS best served by voting Republican. Mine, by voting Democrat. Thanks for your thoughtful feedback. Happy Holidays!
If the Bank Fails, We Could Always Open a Restaurant November 26, 2007March 10, 2017 PEAS PIES AND PEARS Let me preface this by saying real guys don’t eat peas. And they don’t eat pies except for frozen apple pies that they eat semi-defrosted, like the ultimate Ben & Jerry’s apple pie ice cream minus any actual ice cream. Real guys will, at Thanksgiving, eat their mother’s hot apple pie ala mode, but they’d never go to the trouble of cooking it themselves. That would be Baking Like a Guy™, and what guy bakes? Guys grill. But I digress. My point is that at Thanksgiving this year I saw a huge serving bowl of peas on the kitchen counter next to two pies – and a light bulb went off. Why not open a restaurant – ultimately, with proper management, a nationwide chain – called Peas and Pies? “Hey, Madge – look! Peas and Pies! What the . . . ?” “Well, Honey, isn’t that odd. It must be good. Let’s try it!” (The thinking here: why would anyone open such a presumptive loser, if it weren’t really, really good.) My nephew Timmy, 14, eyeing the peas and pies, was listening to my pitch and completely not buying it. “Too narrowly focused?” I asked him. “Definitely.” “All right then. Pears. Peas, Pies & Pears.” (I thought briefly of “Peas, Pies ’n Pears” but it is absurdist, not folksy, we are going for here.) Timmy rolled his eyes as he often does when I am pitching an idea. Were he a bit older and a reader of this column, he might have added, “Well, it can’t be any worse than your WA-MOOPS idea.” Touché. WA-MOOPS There is, to begin with, worse to come with the housing and mortgage mess, and it’s hard to see how that won’t spill over into other miseries. So be careful. (“Rising Rates to Worsen Subprime Mess” ran this Wall Street Journal headline Saturday. “Now the real crest of the reset wave is coming.”) Just how bad it will get, and which players will ultimately emerge stronger as their weaker competitors fall by the wayside, I am not remotely qualified to guess. Will Washington Mutual muddle through? Glenn Hudson: “I found two charts (both as of 9/30/07) showing valuable information about the breakdown of the $20 Billion of subprime loans on Washington Mutual’s balance sheet. One of the most interesting facts that can be derived is that the loans are backed by $27.8 Billion in estimated current value of real estate. Obviously there are a lot of situations where the loan is greater than the current value of the residence but looking at the chart, it is also obvious that this probably only represents a small fraction of the $20 Billion in loans. Also, it should be pointed out that where there is a shortfall in value of the residence, the owner of the mortgaged residence is also personally liable for any uncovered loan balance. So unless a person decides to go bankrupt, there wouldn’t be a loss incurred by Washington Mutual on loans not fully covered by the residential valuation. People need to remember – we have low unemployment, fairly low inflation, fairly low interest rates, and Washington Mutual has a whole department working on making sure these sub-prime loans don’t go into default and even if they do go into default, they have people working on keeping the loss to a minimum. Also, if everyone can look beyond the current supposed crisis, there is always going to be a need for mortgage lenders and this market has knocked out a lot of their smaller competition. I believe they will continue to pay at least their 56 cent per quarter dividend (based on Friday’s close of $18.21 equals a 12.3% dividend) plus there is a huge potential for capital appreciation over the next two years. If you do the research, you need to load up on this stock.” ☞ Much as I’d like to think Glenn is right (and I have added some to my position, with the stock price barely half where it was when I first bought some), I think he is being much too cheery in his assessment. I don’t think we can assume massive numbers of people won’t go bankrupt, or that a vicious cycle of foreclosures leading to falling home prices leading to more foreclosures, decreased consumer confidence, and all the rest, won’t take hold. Yes, with the dollar falling, our exports should pick up, and unemployment might stay low. But you can also imagine a recession where unemployment rose. And you can imagine a situation where the falling dollar led investors to demand higher interest rates before they would be willing to finance the U.S. debt. In short: fasten your seatbelts. And, while WM may ultimately work out well (as Citibank would have, had you joined Prince Alwaleed in buying it at $10 a share at the depths of its last great crisis) – it may not. Advice so useless, let me be the first to note, it is worth exactly what you pay for it.
It May Be HAPNing October 16, 2007March 10, 2017 But first . . . SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL (OR DISCOVER A NOVELIST) Click here. CHICLETS – 1906 Picking up from yesterday, it seems that people have long thought – or at least advertised – that gum chewing could sharpen the mind. And now . . . MIND-READING THE TAPE ‘I’m napping, don’t bother me,’ I said, when the servant appeared at my door. (I don’t have a servant, but it makes for a better story.) ‘I think you’ll want to see this, Mister Andy,’ he said, holding out a MacBook Pro with 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. (I don’t have one of those either, but I know it gets some of you excited.) ‘Oh, sure. You’re a Mac and I’m a PC. I am napping, Babu. Go!’ (I mean by my choice of imaginary servant name no disrespect to the people of the Subcontinent. I am just thinking of that Seinfeld episode, and it seems to me impossible not to like a character named Babu.) ‘No, Doofus, not the computer – what’s on the screen. HAPN just traded 3.9 million shares at $5.97.’ I leapt out of bed and across the room in a single motion, reminiscent of the move by which the prince (was it a prince?) leapt to the top of the stairs in a single bound in the third scene of Lettice and Lovage. Grabbing the sides of the PowerBook with both hands to steady myself, I gazed into its beautiful 17-inch screen and saw that (as always) Babu had spoken the truth. HAPN had traded 3,896,874 shares in the final minutes of the day at $5.97 a share. One of the blocks was 3 million shares. Another was half a million. Another, a quarter million. Were the buyers rushing to buy, thinking the InfuSystem acquisition would be defeated? Were they paying $5.97 in hope of getting barely that back when the trust fund was liquidated several months from now? It seems more likely that they had bought the shares thinking and hoping the deal would be approved, and that the stock might two or three years from now be $8 or $10 or – leaping to the top of the stairs in a single bound – $12. Furthermore, it seems likely to me that these weren’t just random sales to an eager buyer, but, rather, arranged sales between an eager (or at least willing) buyer and ‘holders of record August 6’ who had been planning to vote against the acquisition. And who were told, ‘Look: you can kill the deal and get about $5.97 a few months from now, or you can give us your proxy and we’ll get you your $5.97 now.’ I have no firsthand knowledge of any of this, but it just stands to reason. So while something disastrous could still happen, it now seems pretty likely (at least to me) that the deal will go through Friday, at which point, in short order, our warrants to buy the stock at $5 become exercisable. And then a whole new guessing game would begin. Namely: Sell? Hold? What will the stock do? What will the warrants do? And – most essentially, of course – how will the underlying business, InfuSystem, do? If the stock stayed at $5.97 after the deal went through – if it does go through – the theoretical value of the warrants would then be something like $1.70 (click and play around with your own assumptions). Except that the standard options-pricing models do not account for one key feature of the HAPN warrants – namely, the cap on their upside. (If the stock hits and stays above $8.50, the company can, and likely would, force their conversion, so that you’d get just a bit more than $3.50 each.) Nor does the model account for their being so many warrants. My best guess is that the warrants will sell, at first, only a little above their intrinsic value – not least because there will be 33 million of them out there . . . owned, in many cases, by people, perhaps even you, eager to take their profit. If the sellers are really eager, they’ll settle for no premium at all – exercising the warrants and then immediately selling the stock, which would push the stock price down. But that would offer another interesting opportunity. Anyway, these will be very happy bridges to cross if and when we come to them. Back to the nap.
20 Calories Per Serving October 15, 2007March 10, 2017 ACROSS THE UNIVERSE If you are a child of the Sixties – or a teenage girl, apparently – don’t miss this wonderful movie. DENTYNE ICE-THE PERFECT FOOD I know: more fruit and vegetables. I do that too. But consider the advantages of chewing a couple of those little white Dentyne Ice chiclet-like things every time you finish eating something. It’s akin to brushing after every meal, and thus good for your teeth . . . good for your breath . . . which is good for your social life and workplace relations . . . it’s a 20-calorie dessert substitute (assuming you go crazy and chew four pieces, seriatum) . . . which is good for your weight and thus for your health, social life again, and self-esteem . . . it may even make you smarter. And at drugstore.com, it’s less than a buck a pack. WA-MOOOPS! Friday’s suggestion about Washington Mutual January 2010 LEAPS may or may not turn out to be a good one, but there’s something one of you pointed out that I hadn’t considered: The underlying stock is currently paying a 6.3% dividend and has a multiyear history of raising the payout by a penny every quarter. Which is very nice, except that, of course, with the LEAPS you forgo the dividend – and, perhaps more to the point, you will effectively have to pay it out of your LEAP price every quarter when the stock goes ex-dividend. Not literally pay it; but what happens when the 56-cent dividend is declared is that, by definition, the stock is worth 56 cents a share less than it was a minute ago . . . because each share represents ownership in 56 cents less cash. This is doubtless one of the reasons the LEAPS carry only a modest premium over their intrinsic value. (I may not have thought of this; but the market has.) I’ll probably hang on to the LEAPS I bought. If, despite the likely continued housing and credit problems, WM’s dividend continued to increase a penny a quarter . . . bringing it to $2.33 or so by January 2010 . . . and if by then the market had decided it could live with a 5% dividend from WM . . . then the stock would be $46.60. (A $2.33 dividend divided by 5% = $46.60.) In this happy scenario, the option to buy it at $30, which today costs about $8, would be worth $16.60, or about double. Of course, if any manner of challenges and difficulties should cause the stock to remain unchanged, at $35 or so, you would have lost a big chunk of your money (and if the stock were $30 or below you would have lost it all) . . . whereas someone who had chosen simply to hold the stock, rather than swing for the fences with the LEAPS, would have been contentedly collecting more than 6% a year in dividends. If you buy the LEAPS, you must be prepared to lose your money. It’s a definite possibility.
Eggplant And Asperger’s August 31, 2007March 8, 2017 FOOD PHOBIAE Nick: ‘Regarding John Seiffer’s friend who wouldn’t eat eggplant, because he didn’t think eggs and plants should go together? He should just call it aubergine and enjoy!’ John Conwell: ‘My daughter had a phobia about food touching. It went so far as our having to serve her dinner on 3 or 4 plates. Meat, Veg1 and Veg2, followed by dessert. She would eat one then another plate clean. My wife and I decided to break her of this habit. We took her to a nice restaurant and we ordered our dinner. She ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ‘ON THREE SEPARATE PLATES PLEASE.’ We gave up and she grew out of it mostly.’ ASPERGER’S If you’ve been watching Boston Legal, you know the lawyer with Asperger’s Disorder. Of course, that’s a drama, and he’s an actor. Here is a beautifully written and fascinating account by a 52-year-old man, Tim Page, who grew up with Asperger’s and who – if he did not exactly grow out of it – might be said to have grown into it. I think you will like him. I think you would like my Scrabble-playing friend who gets freaked out by condiments. I think we would probably like John Conwell’s daughter, however she chooses to arrange her food. My point? A bit clichéd, a bit corny . . . a bit Rodney King (‘can’t we all just get along?’) . . . but try to find time to read the Tim Page piece. To me, it says that ‘it takes all kinds,’ and that the quilt of humanity is enhanced by its variety. Have a great Labor Day weekend!
Fear of Cheesecake August 28, 2007March 8, 2017 FMD We may get another opportunity when and if the next shot of panic pulses through the financial markets – I’m not persuaded the mortgage / housing / potential recession / potential vicious cycle scenario is entirely behind us – in which case FMD could drop back down to $29 as it did a couple of weeks ago, or to $19 or to $9. Or – whatever course the market takes – FMD may prove to be the disaster-in-waiting its large contingent of not-stupid short-sellers have long bet it is. But all that said, here’s a company with a unique level of expertise in its field, growing at 30% a year, selling at 9 times trailing twelve-month earnings. It even pays a $1 dividend, which may continue to grow. So I’ve bought back the partial sale I made last month (reasoning thus at the time). It’s been a painless out-and-in because these shares sit in my retirement fund (so no tax on the gain) and I got $38 for them last month, bought them back for $35 yesterday. (We first bought FMD in March of ’06 at $24 or so, adjusted for the subsequent split.) I keep challenging my guru with disaster scenarios, and he keeps graciously running through his logic (most recently here). So while you don’t want to bet the farm on this or any other single investment, I continue to think it’s worth your consideration. Here‘s what the Motley Fool’s Hidden Gems newsletter thinks of FMD. (Hint: it’s the pick of the month.) They charge $199 for a subscription, but click here for a free trial. LOOSE ENDS AND CORRECTIONS: Magic Last Thursday’s magic is explained this way by Vince DeHart: ‘I’m guessing, but I think he’s a contortionist – his legs are tucked up tightly in front of him. (Look at his girth – particularly in comparison to how thin his face and arms are.) Still, a great trick, I think.’ Frank Morgan adds: ‘the person starts out folded up into the top half of the body. The foot is not his and moves by some artificial means.’ Nausea Comment on last Wednesday’s condiment phobia drew fire from Bill Andrews and others who cited Merriam-Webster: ‘Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 [‘causing nausea or disgust’] . . . are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea . . .’ Phobiae John Seiffer: ‘I don’t know if this qualifies as an official phobia, but I had a friend who wouldn’t eat certain foods because their names were composed of two other nouns that didn’t go together. I became aware of it when he refused an offer of cheesecake. He said he likes cheese and he likes cake but the idea of them together repulses him. This is also the reason he won’t eat eggplant and a couple others which I’ve forgotten.’ ☞ And he won’t walk into an IHOP – only hop. He’s a culinary literalist.* * I made that part up.
View from Boots on the Ground August 22, 2007March 8, 2017 But first . . . FEAR OF KETCHUP How could anyone fear ketchup? This strikes me as impossible – to me, ketchup, not bread, is the staff of life. Almost anything goes better with ketchup. But I was playing Scrabble with a dear friend (and, yes, ‘slangier’ is a word; let’s just say it was a very good day for the Democrats) and he asked me whether I was finished with the ketchup . . . I was . . . and whether, therefore, I might take it out of his sight (well, uh, sure) . . . because, he said, it was upsetting him. Now, this is a manly, sports-section kinda guy – a guy who had just broken a bone playing water volleyball in our pool the day before (okay, his little finger, but still) and kept on playing to the end of the game – and yet, he explained, he has a strong aversion to condiments. Mayonnaise, ketchup, relish . . . they disturb him greatly. ‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘No, really,’ he said. I cocked my head and squinted. ‘The sight of condiments makes me nauseous. I know it sounds weird but a lot of people actually suffer from this.’ Still down a few points in the game (SLANGIER was several turns off), I waved the Heinz in front of his face a few times, happy for whatever advantage I could muster (mustard?). ‘Take it away!’ he said, making urgent brushing-aside motions with his splinted hand. I put the ketchup away (but could not resist reappearing briefly with some relish), won the game with 467 points (ADAPTIVE was my other good word), and immediately ran to Google condiment phobia. Ketchup phobia, it turns out, is real. Four admissions among many: I am 18 years old and i have developed in the last few years a fear of tomato ketchup. i become nautious and frustrated whenever someone around me eats tomato ketchup or talks about eating it. ketchup spills on tables terrify me . . . My father has . . . a full blown anxiety attack when we use it and the house goes into Hazmat alert if it spills on the floor. Same goes for 1000 island dressing. His eyes get wide and real crazy looking and he backs away and tells everyone to freeze. Once my friend put ketchup all over her hand and then smeared it in my face. I screamed and ran to the bathroom and scrubbed my face for like an hour. Then I sprayed perfume all over so I wouldn’t smell it. If people put ketchup on my skin I scrub it until it gets red and hurts. I HATE KETCHUP! My younger brother has a raging fear of ketchup…if there’s squished tomatoes anywhere near him or his food he goes completely PSYCHO And it doesn’t stop with ketchup. Click here for mayo. CARPOOLING Lisa Strong: “I’m all in favor of carpooling, but for most of us it won’t work. Few of us are actually able to leave work at the official quitting time, so, that would leave all members of the carpool waiting for the latest member each day. But at this time, I am fortunate to be a full-time telecommuter. My employer saves over $1000 per month by allowing me to telecommute. This is in the Midwest – bet it would save more on the coasts. I save money and time. And for every telecommuter, there’s one less car on the road clogging up rush hour. We use phone, instant message, email, conference calls, and a software tool that allows us to ‘share’ our computer screen with others on the call. This is practical for many people (not most), but still very few employers permit it. Dr Leveen was correct that carpooling is a great idea. Saves money for all parties, less stress for drivers, and even less traffic congestion for those who cannot carpool. However, I take great exception to the statement, ‘The federal government should give corporations a tax credit for a gRide type program.’ Dr. Leveen noted that this is already a “win-win” situation. The participants and corporations already derive financial and other benefits. By waiving the toll in his case, the local government is already subsidizing his carpool. Why should the federal government take dollars from the people who earned them, transfer them through a government that’s more than broke, and distribute those dollars to other people and organizations who will benefit from the situation without the appropriation of someone else’s dollars? My apologies to Dr. Leveen, who wrote an otherwise thoughtful commentary.” ☞ Perhaps a compromise would be a five-year incentive, to draw attention to the possibilities and speed their adoption? Or maybe just a good front-page Wall Street Journalstory recounting Genentech’s success? A VIEW FROM BOOTS ON THE GROUND From the 82nd Airborne via the New York Times: VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.) . . . ☞ Well worth the whole read. (Surely we owe the authors that much.)