Have you ever heard a story that seemed so utterly ridiculous that you wondered how anyone could believe it let alone repeat is as fact? As a card carrying skeptic and cynic the only thing that annoys me more than having my time wasted on senseless drivel, is finding out that on rare occasion the story turns out to be true.
A couple of days ago I heard a story about a guy from my home town in Long Island. It went something like this.
….he wanted to play for the Mets but he didn’t make the cut so he became an astronaut instead. To console the reluctant astronaut the Mets gave him home plate from the now defunct Shea stadium which he then took with him into space.
Yeah, sure, right, whatever you say. I wondered what was next – ‘Damn, not good enough to be a pro bowler; guess its brain surgeon then’. Still, since America’s obsession with sports makes dumb things more the rule than the exception I thought a quick Google search was in order. Needless to say the story turned out to essentially be true.
According to Newsday, Astronaut Michael Massimino, who also holds a PhD in Engineering from MIT, did in fact bring a Mets home plate into space. It also seems that he took a Mets jersey with him on a previous flight but that was just a dry run for main event.
I don’t get, and maybe it’s me. I just don’t think "Getting to take a Mets home plate into space makes all the hard work it took to be an astronaut worth it." ranks up there with “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind”.
If only that were the end, but it gets worse. He isn’t alone. The article also mentions that astronaut Garrett Reissman brought – wait for it – dirt from the Yankee Stadium pitchers mound into space with him. Dirt! Seriously!
Have we fallen so far that even our astronauts would rather define themselves by a label given to a random assembly of people that play for a living? What wonderful role models, NASA must be so proud.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Saturday AM Rant
It’s 6AM on Saturday and for the last hour or so I’ve been tossing, turning and resisting the urge to yet again clutter this blog with my political and economic ponderings. Resistance it seems really is futile. The compromise agreement I made with myself is to cut to the chase and condense my usual elaborate rants into a single post. To wit….
To be Frank
The surprise of the week was to find myself in agreement with Rep. Barney Frank on the issue - more like an aspect - of executive compensation. It has been my experience that his assertion that executives are rewarded for taking risks whether or not they pay off is true. He goes on to say that the shareholders should have a say in executive compensation and that where the Taxpayers have taken a stake in institutions he would ensure that that would be the case.
This is where it gets interesting. As a taxpayer, I don’t recall having a say in those investment decisions nor – as I’ve already said this too often – any evidence of or control over them. I’m also very sure that I never granted Mr. Frank power of attorney on my brokerage account or a proxy to speak on my behalf.
So Mr. Frank, I agree that the Taxpayers as stock holders – voluntary or otherwise – should be able to exercise their rights as such. To that end let me once more say – I WANT MY SHARES!
A bridge to nowhere
The last thing I need is another reason to question my memory so please check me out on this.
As I recall the current economic crisis owes primarily to epic amounts of irresponsible lending. Further, those that did the lending knew better or should have known better. I agree, and I also agree with the hoards of posturing politicians that they were at best irresponsible and at worst criminal.
Moving along, I also recall those same posturing politicians bristling at the characterization of the auto bailout as a bailout. No, they vehemently insisted that it wasn’t a bailout but rather that it was a bridge loan to carry them over until they could return to solvency if not profitability. The unthinkable alternative they told us was bankruptcy which would have catastrophic consequences.
And here we are. Money gone – check; bankrupt – check; sky falling – no check. Now the posturing politicians are quick to point out that this is an ‘orderly’ bankruptcy. They are less quick to define what that means or why it could not have been done from the outset.
So my dear posturing politicians if you really believed you were making a bridge loan, you should have known better. If you said it but didn’t believe it then I guess you were – well let’s just say being politicians.
A lesson from Ken Lewis
Ken Lewis was dragged up to Washington to yet again testify about the Merrill Lynch merger. Center to the questioning was the issue of whether Mr. Lewis was coerced by the government to proceed with the deal against his better judgment. It seemed obvious to most that he certainly was. However, when asked if he felt threatened Mr. Lewis seemed to avoid the question by saying that he took the strength and tone of the remarks as evidence of the government’s conviction that the merger was a necessity.
I think what Mr. Lewis was trying to convey is that being threatened and feeling threatened are not the same thing and, however we got here, we are where we are and our focus needs to be on the future. Ken Lewis didn’t want the discussion to be about Ken Lewis but rather about what’s best for the country.
Mr. Lewis’ selfless attitude stands in pretty stark contrast to Stan O’Neal and others that stood tall and proud as they led American icons into extinction. Mr. Lewis reminds us that there is a high road and that humility is a virtue, not a weakness. Well done.
To be Frank
The surprise of the week was to find myself in agreement with Rep. Barney Frank on the issue - more like an aspect - of executive compensation. It has been my experience that his assertion that executives are rewarded for taking risks whether or not they pay off is true. He goes on to say that the shareholders should have a say in executive compensation and that where the Taxpayers have taken a stake in institutions he would ensure that that would be the case.
This is where it gets interesting. As a taxpayer, I don’t recall having a say in those investment decisions nor – as I’ve already said this too often – any evidence of or control over them. I’m also very sure that I never granted Mr. Frank power of attorney on my brokerage account or a proxy to speak on my behalf.
So Mr. Frank, I agree that the Taxpayers as stock holders – voluntary or otherwise – should be able to exercise their rights as such. To that end let me once more say – I WANT MY SHARES!
A bridge to nowhere
The last thing I need is another reason to question my memory so please check me out on this.
As I recall the current economic crisis owes primarily to epic amounts of irresponsible lending. Further, those that did the lending knew better or should have known better. I agree, and I also agree with the hoards of posturing politicians that they were at best irresponsible and at worst criminal.
Moving along, I also recall those same posturing politicians bristling at the characterization of the auto bailout as a bailout. No, they vehemently insisted that it wasn’t a bailout but rather that it was a bridge loan to carry them over until they could return to solvency if not profitability. The unthinkable alternative they told us was bankruptcy which would have catastrophic consequences.
And here we are. Money gone – check; bankrupt – check; sky falling – no check. Now the posturing politicians are quick to point out that this is an ‘orderly’ bankruptcy. They are less quick to define what that means or why it could not have been done from the outset.
So my dear posturing politicians if you really believed you were making a bridge loan, you should have known better. If you said it but didn’t believe it then I guess you were – well let’s just say being politicians.
A lesson from Ken Lewis
Ken Lewis was dragged up to Washington to yet again testify about the Merrill Lynch merger. Center to the questioning was the issue of whether Mr. Lewis was coerced by the government to proceed with the deal against his better judgment. It seemed obvious to most that he certainly was. However, when asked if he felt threatened Mr. Lewis seemed to avoid the question by saying that he took the strength and tone of the remarks as evidence of the government’s conviction that the merger was a necessity.
I think what Mr. Lewis was trying to convey is that being threatened and feeling threatened are not the same thing and, however we got here, we are where we are and our focus needs to be on the future. Ken Lewis didn’t want the discussion to be about Ken Lewis but rather about what’s best for the country.
Mr. Lewis’ selfless attitude stands in pretty stark contrast to Stan O’Neal and others that stood tall and proud as they led American icons into extinction. Mr. Lewis reminds us that there is a high road and that humility is a virtue, not a weakness. Well done.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Check human soon
A friend of mine recently and surprisingly lost his dad to cancer. The surprise part stems from the fact that it was a mere four weeks from diagnosis to his passing. I’m sure that his doctors sang the ageless song about the importance of early detection and lamented what might have been if that had happened.
It doesn’t take much to start me thinking and the conundrum of early detection more than fit the bill. I wondered how early detection actually works. What triggers the detection process when you have no symptoms? Does it go like this – ‘Hey doc I’ve been feeling too good for too long so I thought I better get checked out”. Then I suppose the doc says “Hmmm, feeling fine. I don’t like the sound of that, let’s run some tests”. Not likely is it?
One thing I do know is that once the hammer falls they can predict the cause of your demise with the utmost precision. Whether it’s protein markers, enzyme levels, this, that or the other thing they can isolate it with laser like accuracy. It’s the kind of stuff we’d hope for in early detection, just way too late.
Call me crazy but I think too late is, well, too late. With all the technology at our disposal shouldn’t we have some kind of home diagnostic lab? Better yet, how about some kind of continuous monitoring device that would alert us if something is amiss. If we can do it for cars shouldn’t we be able to do it for people too? It could collect all sorts of medical information but all we’d need is a couple of simple messages like ‘check human soon’ or ‘call 911’.
It doesn’t take much to start me thinking and the conundrum of early detection more than fit the bill. I wondered how early detection actually works. What triggers the detection process when you have no symptoms? Does it go like this – ‘Hey doc I’ve been feeling too good for too long so I thought I better get checked out”. Then I suppose the doc says “Hmmm, feeling fine. I don’t like the sound of that, let’s run some tests”. Not likely is it?
One thing I do know is that once the hammer falls they can predict the cause of your demise with the utmost precision. Whether it’s protein markers, enzyme levels, this, that or the other thing they can isolate it with laser like accuracy. It’s the kind of stuff we’d hope for in early detection, just way too late.
Call me crazy but I think too late is, well, too late. With all the technology at our disposal shouldn’t we have some kind of home diagnostic lab? Better yet, how about some kind of continuous monitoring device that would alert us if something is amiss. If we can do it for cars shouldn’t we be able to do it for people too? It could collect all sorts of medical information but all we’d need is a couple of simple messages like ‘check human soon’ or ‘call 911’.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Prisoners
Fair warning – I’m not entirely sure where this one is going but the odds are good that I’ll be indulging my philosophical side. That is not to say that I consider myself a philosopher, nor do I have a burning interest in philosophy. Still, I do enjoy mulling things over and that’s a good thing because mulling is an inescapable part of my nature so, like it or not, mull I must. Maybe mullosopher would be more accurate but philosopher sounds better and my ego is quick to remind me that I’ve gotten more than enough feedback to suggest that my mullings pass the philosophical snicker test of many. Ergo lies the rub.
It’s natural to draw conclusions simply from what is obvious. Why not? It’s efficient and more often than not I’d bet that it’s sufficient too. The trick then is to recognize those situations that warrant a bit more scrutiny. That probably sounds simple and obvious too but I’d suggest that it probably isn’t. We take too much comfort in notions like the 80/20 rule which, in its original context, served only to narrow focus. It’s now applied like peanut butter absent of any context and, if it’s true at all, my guess is that the 20% is wrong 80% of the time. Whatever the numbers, I find more truth in the adage that it’s far easier to be certain than to be right. I suspect that the prisoners would agree.
What prisoners? By now I guess it’s obvious that garden variety thugs are off the table so the real question is, how metaphysical do we want to get? Aren’t the possibilities endless? To one degree or another we are all prisoners of our passions and aspirations as well as our flaws and limitations. Certainly that was more predictable than profound but it is none the less true. Be that as it may, it’s still a bit deeper than I’m willing to go, even on a dreary Sunday morning.
My prisoners are a bit more concrete. In the interest of accuracy, to say nothing of bad puns, I should say marble and not concrete. My prisoners are not mine at all but rather Michelangelo’s. His prisoners are a collection of statues that appear to be works in progress. Collected together they create the impression that Mike was far better at starting things than finishing them but that isn’t the case at all. Where we would see a block of marble Michelangelo saw the statue imprisoned within. He carved and chipped until the prisoner was released and not one chip more.
That’s pretty deep and not at all obvious. I’m not a real museum guy so let’s assume I just walked right past the unfinished sculpture exhibit. If I forever thought that Michelangelo was brilliant but a slacker would I be any better or worse off? Probably not, but I’m glad I didn’t just blow by the exhibit. It turned out to be a fond memory, good story and my favorite reminder that things aren’t always as they appear.
It’s natural to draw conclusions simply from what is obvious. Why not? It’s efficient and more often than not I’d bet that it’s sufficient too. The trick then is to recognize those situations that warrant a bit more scrutiny. That probably sounds simple and obvious too but I’d suggest that it probably isn’t. We take too much comfort in notions like the 80/20 rule which, in its original context, served only to narrow focus. It’s now applied like peanut butter absent of any context and, if it’s true at all, my guess is that the 20% is wrong 80% of the time. Whatever the numbers, I find more truth in the adage that it’s far easier to be certain than to be right. I suspect that the prisoners would agree.
What prisoners? By now I guess it’s obvious that garden variety thugs are off the table so the real question is, how metaphysical do we want to get? Aren’t the possibilities endless? To one degree or another we are all prisoners of our passions and aspirations as well as our flaws and limitations. Certainly that was more predictable than profound but it is none the less true. Be that as it may, it’s still a bit deeper than I’m willing to go, even on a dreary Sunday morning.
My prisoners are a bit more concrete. In the interest of accuracy, to say nothing of bad puns, I should say marble and not concrete. My prisoners are not mine at all but rather Michelangelo’s. His prisoners are a collection of statues that appear to be works in progress. Collected together they create the impression that Mike was far better at starting things than finishing them but that isn’t the case at all. Where we would see a block of marble Michelangelo saw the statue imprisoned within. He carved and chipped until the prisoner was released and not one chip more.
That’s pretty deep and not at all obvious. I’m not a real museum guy so let’s assume I just walked right past the unfinished sculpture exhibit. If I forever thought that Michelangelo was brilliant but a slacker would I be any better or worse off? Probably not, but I’m glad I didn’t just blow by the exhibit. It turned out to be a fond memory, good story and my favorite reminder that things aren’t always as they appear.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
60 Minutes
It’s 2:32PM on Sunday, March 15, 2009 and I’m giving myself 60 minutes to finish writing this post. To some that may seem like an eternity, to others a heartbeat. I skew toward the former which, as I’ve said before, is the whole point of my blog – I need to practice writing and especially writing quickly.
My biggest problem is that I’m rarely, okay never, entirely satisfied and the notion of settling for good enough just seems like taking the easy way out. Step one is to get to acceptable in less time than it now takes to get to good enough. By now I should be on step 2 or 3 but I never really engaged in step 1 so here I am at status quo.
It’s now 2:45PM. Managing to complete 2 short paragraphs in 13 minutes isn’t a great sign but I’m not overly concerned because I plan to cheat. To be more precise, I already have cheated because I laid out the framework for this post in my insomniac haze last night. If I don’t say so myself, I can be brilliant in my insomniac haze but the cruel reality is that when the haze clears my brainstorms usually evaporate with it. This time I was a little lucky though because I simply organized some ideas that have occurred to me over time. My plan for this post is to write snippets of ideas for subsequent posts. I can then noodle on them a bit and hopefully knock out the posts fairly quickly. Clever, isn’t it? Yes, it is a rhetorical question. In no particular order…
Helen of Troy
As some of my fellow Toastmasters know, a while back I spent some quality treadmill time listening to an audio books version of Homer’s Iliad. Needles to say, or maybe not, endorphins and oxygen deprivation certainly gave me a unique perspective on the tale as evidenced by my contest speech – Life’s a speech, and then you die. Helen didn’t make the cut and is almost parenthetical to the entire saga. That intrigued me a bit so I thought I’d take a closer look at Helen. After all, she’s supposed to be easy on the eyes.
Fairy tales
When I was a child I had a fondness for fairy tales. Not so much the Red Riding Hood an Cinderella type but more like the Brothers Grimm and the more magical and cerebral varieties. Only echoes of them remain now but lately those echoes have been haunting me. Why, I really can’t say but I’ll think about it and get back to you.
Ironies and Paradoxes
I’m fascinated and plagued by both. This one will take some thought though. Some so called paradoxes really aren’t all that tough to solve which of course means they aren’t paradoxes at all. My two favorite non-paradoxes are 1) the chicken and the egg and 2) an irresistible force encountering an immovable object.
Are we doomed?
Or more precisely, is America doomed? Talk about ironies, we’re depending on Communist China to hold the mortgage on the future of our capitalist Republic. As if that isn’t ironic enough, the leaders of the People’s Republic are warning us against run away social spending.
Mental blocks
Like the one I’m having now. Fortunately this one doesn’t matter all that much because my hour is up.
My biggest problem is that I’m rarely, okay never, entirely satisfied and the notion of settling for good enough just seems like taking the easy way out. Step one is to get to acceptable in less time than it now takes to get to good enough. By now I should be on step 2 or 3 but I never really engaged in step 1 so here I am at status quo.
It’s now 2:45PM. Managing to complete 2 short paragraphs in 13 minutes isn’t a great sign but I’m not overly concerned because I plan to cheat. To be more precise, I already have cheated because I laid out the framework for this post in my insomniac haze last night. If I don’t say so myself, I can be brilliant in my insomniac haze but the cruel reality is that when the haze clears my brainstorms usually evaporate with it. This time I was a little lucky though because I simply organized some ideas that have occurred to me over time. My plan for this post is to write snippets of ideas for subsequent posts. I can then noodle on them a bit and hopefully knock out the posts fairly quickly. Clever, isn’t it? Yes, it is a rhetorical question. In no particular order…
Helen of Troy
As some of my fellow Toastmasters know, a while back I spent some quality treadmill time listening to an audio books version of Homer’s Iliad. Needles to say, or maybe not, endorphins and oxygen deprivation certainly gave me a unique perspective on the tale as evidenced by my contest speech – Life’s a speech, and then you die. Helen didn’t make the cut and is almost parenthetical to the entire saga. That intrigued me a bit so I thought I’d take a closer look at Helen. After all, she’s supposed to be easy on the eyes.
Fairy tales
When I was a child I had a fondness for fairy tales. Not so much the Red Riding Hood an Cinderella type but more like the Brothers Grimm and the more magical and cerebral varieties. Only echoes of them remain now but lately those echoes have been haunting me. Why, I really can’t say but I’ll think about it and get back to you.
Ironies and Paradoxes
I’m fascinated and plagued by both. This one will take some thought though. Some so called paradoxes really aren’t all that tough to solve which of course means they aren’t paradoxes at all. My two favorite non-paradoxes are 1) the chicken and the egg and 2) an irresistible force encountering an immovable object.
Are we doomed?
Or more precisely, is America doomed? Talk about ironies, we’re depending on Communist China to hold the mortgage on the future of our capitalist Republic. As if that isn’t ironic enough, the leaders of the People’s Republic are warning us against run away social spending.
Mental blocks
Like the one I’m having now. Fortunately this one doesn’t matter all that much because my hour is up.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
I want my shares - Part II
In my last post I suggested that the government create a retail brokerage to issue securities to the taxpayers equal to their “investment” in the TARP. Good idea, bad implementation. I’m not sure what I was thinking, or drinking, because I generally believe that the less the government does the better off we are.
Enter the NASDAQ that thoughtfully launched the TARP index on January 5th. The index has an equal weighted representation of all public firms that have received TARP money and options trading against the index will begin on January 26th. I suppose that’s a start because you can at least place a bet on whether your money was truly invested or simply tossed down the throat of John Thain’s $35k commode.
Where this really gets interesting though is that several firms may offer Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) against the index. Hmmmm, interesting notion. It’s not often you get the opportunity to buy something you already own, now is it? How about, gee I dunno, the government picking one or all of these firms to act as their agent to distribute ETF shares to the taxpayers. The true sentiment of America would be reflected in what they do with them.
Not sure what you’d do? To quickly assess where you stand, take a second to consider potential ticker symbols and forget TARP, its just too easy. CNBC’s Mark Haines likes STNKY but I’m a 4 character or less kind of guy and like FAIL but that doesn’t scream buy me, does it?
Enter the NASDAQ that thoughtfully launched the TARP index on January 5th. The index has an equal weighted representation of all public firms that have received TARP money and options trading against the index will begin on January 26th. I suppose that’s a start because you can at least place a bet on whether your money was truly invested or simply tossed down the throat of John Thain’s $35k commode.
Where this really gets interesting though is that several firms may offer Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) against the index. Hmmmm, interesting notion. It’s not often you get the opportunity to buy something you already own, now is it? How about, gee I dunno, the government picking one or all of these firms to act as their agent to distribute ETF shares to the taxpayers. The true sentiment of America would be reflected in what they do with them.
Not sure what you’d do? To quickly assess where you stand, take a second to consider potential ticker symbols and forget TARP, its just too easy. CNBC’s Mark Haines likes STNKY but I’m a 4 character or less kind of guy and like FAIL but that doesn’t scream buy me, does it?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
G-Trade I want my shares!
It’s a funny thing, I keep hearing from the various Governmental appendages how the Bailouts, Rescue Packages - call them what you will, somehow result in America’s Tax Payers having an Equity Stake in the rescue recipients. It’s an interesting and logical notion, and its convenient too because Tax Payer investment sounds like Capitalism so we avoid the nasty Socialist stigma of Government ownership. It’s a great idea, but I do have one question. Where are my shares?
I may be missing something but whenever I’ve taken an equity stake before I’ve traded money for shares, and those shares evidence my ownership stake. I also get annual reports, proxy statements and a lot of other stuff, much of which is mandated by the Government. So again I ask, where are my shares? Uncle Sam, it's your rules so, like it or not, you should be in the Tax Payer brokerage business and I think G-Trade has a nice ring to it.
The next big question is - who gets how much? That’s actually pretty simple. The shares should be distributed to each Taxpayer in proportion to the 2007 taxes they paid. Just to be clear, my definition of a Taxpayer is a person who actually paid real dollars in Federal Income Tax. You get nothing just for filing a return.
Here’s how it works. Let’s take TARP because it’s a good ticker symbol and we know its initial is $700 billion. According to a 2005 report by the Tax Foundation, 131 million tax returns were filed in 2004 and let’s assume that it’s a good number for 2008 as well. It goes on to state that 42.5 million of those returns resulted in $0 taxes being paid. Just to keep the math simple let’s call it 31 million Zilch payers thus making the number of actual Tax Payers 100 million. Ergo, with all things being equal, each Tax Payer would receive $10 in equity for each billion dollars of Rescue funding. So, the average Tax Payer equity stake in TARP would be $7,000. That's a fair amount of ka-ching and to be completely fair the stakes should be adjusted to mirror actual taxes paid but why split hairs since it’s never going to happen anyway.
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