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| "I want my....whatever" |
Our friend Mulligan lives just down the lane. He stops by once in a while for coffee and a chat. We often find him to be curiously enlightening and sometimes he's just a curiosity. He has a mind like a magician's top-hat, from which he pulls all kinds of things in no particular order. When speaking, he gestures with his hands and arms, as a magician waves his wand. We thought it was time to share:
Budget Cuts: "....Washington just found a way to cut $38Billion from a $3.5Trillion Budget. We can round this to a 1% cut. For this, we faced a 'government shutdown,' which had about as much chance of really happening as Glen Beck missing a daily call with his shrink. Let's say you're standing outside the candy store with your 7 year-old, whom you've allowed to have a $1 candy-bar each week. But, now you have only budgeted $.99 for candy, because you have gotten really, really serious about cutting spending. How long do you think it will take you to spend the whole buck and return to your profligate ways, when your child commences to cry, scream, wail, and have a major public meltdown over that penny? 30 seconds is about average....."
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| enDOWed |
Distraction: "....Getting citizens to concentrate on the huge achievement of keeping the government rolling, despite the fact that we can't find a single person anywhere who likes the government, for a measly $38Billion is a ruse, of course. It's a way to distract you not only from that $3.5
Trillion, but from the
$14 Trillion debt. This is the 'Baywatch Effect,' as when many of us became enchanted by Pamela Anderson's en-dow-ments ( or David H's, Ladies - Editors) so that we would not notice that the show's plot was written by morons, acted by people who could not act. Kind of like Washington..."
Dow Ka-Ching: "....The Dow Jones average acts as a similar kind of distraction on Wall St. No professional finance person gives hoot about the Dow; half of them are shorting all those stocks and praying for the Dow to slide big-time, while the sucker 401 K-ers and pensioners gawk. Finance pros, that is, Institutional Investors/Traders, who manage the Whole Shebang, love it when regular Joes, Sallys and NPR focus their attention on the Dow, because otherwise they'd be paying attention to the massively frightening things that these pros do with other people's money every day, before skimming up to 25% off the top for themselves. Insider Trading? Please, the whole point of being in financial markets is to be an insider so that you can make so much dough in so many ways that it won't matter squat what the hell happens with managing the $14 Trillion, the $3.5 Trillion, or the $38 Billion....!"
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| "Grow up and learn to short!" |
Duck, Mandarin!: "....Why do you think these folks have their kids beginning school at 2 years-old, studying Mandarin at 3, when they begin developing sharp elbows while fighting for entrance to Mrs. Puddleduck's School For Futures. Why else would they schedule their kids to play three sports, beginning at age 6, so they will reach All-American level in at least one by the time the same parents write that essay that will get the kids into Harvard? They know what the stakes are: you are either
inside or not. Outside Trading is as outside as you can get.
Getting Too Fiscal: "....All of this crazy focus on the fiscal rather than the old way of being pretty much focused on the physical has crept into every facet of our lives, even baseball. The numbers-guys (they always seem to be guys) who run Major League Baseball, who didn't get into Mrs. P's, have been struggling to find ways to further ruin the game. They devised ways to "afford" new stadiums to suit the suits at corporations who wanted the fancy boxes. Then, they extended the season, beginning in March and ending in November: book-end frigid conditions. Now, they are trying to figure out how to shorten games from the current 3.5 hour marathons to 2.5 hours. They actually want to cut out the ninth inning. That way, we will have two perfect 'periods' of four 'quarters (innings)' each. They will try anything to make baseball more like the NBA or NFL. Maybe they watched too much Bay Watch as kids and are easily distracted, because the
obvious way to shorten games is to reduce the influence of the home plate umpire by enforcing one single strike zone for all as described so beautifully in the rulebook...."
There's more, but we'll save it for next time.
