634 Things That Go Clunk on the Floor

634 Things That Go Clunk on the Floor

These are the times to remember Chet Currier, a friend from 1972 until his ridiculously early death in 2007. He's been a featured attraction in this space for years, primarily, though for his Obituary. Chet was the Ultimate Financial Guru, conservative but thoughtful, a guy who looked at mutual funds and said "Marx was right. This is how the workers gained control of the means of production."

How would he have looked at the present economy? We had a running disagreement for 35 years: Chet believed the ultimate answer to economic success was a movement of upwardly mobile stocks, hedged with other solid investments. But he disagreed when he heard "invest in companies which manufacture things that are generally too heavy to lift and which make a terrific noise when dropped."

Maybe now, he would agree, but maybe not.

Impossible to tell.

But here are the facts: The United States manufacturing base has grown markedly since Currier's death in '07, but it's making little crap. Where is the recession for countries that DO make things that go clunk on the floor? Japan, China, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, Malaysia, Viet Nam, India and half a dozen countries you never heard of on the African continent.

We have to make heavy stuff. It's the only path to an economic recovery.

Shrapnel:

--Al D'Amato's first wife is or was a professor at Nassau Community College and his present wife has a job with the Town of Hempstead and both are well qualified for the positions, but likely wouldn't have landed them without that last name. So why all the fuss about Sen. Baucus and Melonee Hanes' name in the hat for a federal prosecutor's job -- which she never got? If you want to slam Maxie, there's plenty worse than that in his resume, most of all the Senate Finance Committee's ridiculous health insurance "reform" bill.

--I won't dump on CEO Jeff Zucker like everyone else is. And I won't count him out when Comcast takes the majority interest in NBC Universal. Things may be bad in the ratings and revenues department at the moment. But anyone who underestimates Jeff does so at his peril.

--Obama is starting to show Nixonian features. No one knows what the hell he's talking about when he talks, though the words are nearly poetry. And the Broom Squad always seems to be following the elephant with shovels and clarifications.

===

Book Look: Amusing Ourselves to Death -- Viking Press 1985

NYU Professor Postman speculates here that Aldous Huxley was right in Brave New World, compared with George Orwell's 1984.

He postulates that we are so focused on entertainment that we allow ourselves to become serfs and distracted while the biggies of Wall Street and Washington screw us over. In 1985, Postman did not see the tech revolution coming, and he was wrong. We not only have an Entertainment Culture, but we have a Techo-dictatorship to go along with it.

Postman was amusing in describing a culture of amusement. But he was dead serious when he warned against it. It was a warning we should have heeded and so far have not.

Richards Redometer Rating: 1

Readometer Key:
1 - Buy it.
2 - Wait for the paperback.
3 - Take it out of the Library.
2. Flip through it at the book store.
1. Forget it.

Note to Readers and Listeners: Hereafter, thee Book Look feature will appear only sporadically in this space, rather than weekly.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009

633 NBComcast

633 NBComcast

David Sarnoff is whirling in his grave. Again.

The first time was in 1986 when the company he helped build and later headed was re-acquired by General Electric, which was one of the four original components that formed RCA. (The other three were AT&T, Westinghouse and United Fruit, but GE called the shots starting in 1919.) Sarnoff didn't live to see '86. But you can be sure there was some churning beneath the ground at Kensico Cemetery up in Westchester.

That whirling probably stopped after a time (explanation to come.) Now it has resumed as GE prepares to sell NBC to the cable TV upstart, Comcast.

When one venerable company takes over another, there's always gnashing of teeth, but GE and RCA/NBC had a shared heritage. When GE Chairman Jack Welch tapped lawyer and financial services chief Bob Wright to head the newly acquired NBC, the NBC staff gasped as one. The big question was "what the hell does a bean counting lawyer like this know about 'our art?'"

Turned out the answer was not much, at least not in the beginning. But Wright, middle aged dog at the time of his appointment, learned new tricks. And he eventually turned NBC from a creaky old broadcasting company into a global media monolith. He was probably more successful at NBC than anyone had been previously, though not the pioneer that Sarnoff was.

GE came into something resembling its present existence through some mergers and acquisitions before and during 1892. And in more than a century of existence learned to deal fairly reasonably with more labor unions than there are ants at a picnic.

Now, comes Comcast, which has been around since 1963 and currently is the largest cable system operator in the country. It has a market capitalization of 45 billion or so, which is real money until you compare it to GE's market cap of more than 170 billion dollars. Granted NBC accounts for only part of that. But at 14 billion for a 51% interest in the network and all its holdings, including a gazillion cable channels, half a gazillion owned and operated TV stations, the Spanish speaking Telemundo Network and who knows what-all else, this is a minnow swallowing a whale and at a Dollar Menu price.

And it's a regulatory and labor relations nightmare. One labor publication says Comcast is trying to squeeze out its labor unions, something GE probably also would like to do, but won't.

Will there be an anti-trust investigation? Probably. Will the Federal Communications Commission look into this? Certainly. Will consumer groups agitate against the acquisition? Without a doubt. Will the acquisition go through? In some form, undoubtedly yes.

Would that General Sarnoff could arise from the dead and call for a strategic retreat.


Shrapnel:

--Hofstra University on Long Island canceled its football program, largely because few knew they had one and those who knew paid it no attention. That leaves them with a pretty nice, pretty new stadium. They'll probably raze it and put up something more academically useful -- like a much needed building for the ever expanding basket weaving department.

--Every time you turn around, you find a new tax as your income falls. The city of Pittsburgh PA is the latest. They want to tax tuition. Probably figure college costs are too low.

--Who do you believe when you have two atomic clocks next to each other and they disagree on what time it is? If you think customer service is bad at computer factories, wait until you have to reach someone like that at a clock works. "Your expected wait time is 23.45 minutes. No, wait, it's 23.56 minutes. No, wait it's 22.94 minutes."




I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
©WJR 2009

632 A Huntin' We Will Go

632 A Huntin' We Will Go

(Mount Tantamount, PA.) -- Deer season has begun in these parts. It's a two week slug war that puts close to three quarters of a million gunsels into the woods loaded for bear... no, that's over. Loaded for deer. Sometimes they shoot each other. That already happened on the first day. But it's a huge deal around here. Kind of like the fourth of July, only noisier.

People take this stuff very seriously. You see bright orange clothing and camos everywhere. Even on the streets. You never know when you'll be mistaken for a deer. Especially in a tanked up place like this.

The men who pick up the garbage and trash and recycling get the day off. It's a paid holiday. They don't get VETERANS day off. This, they get.

And the money? Tons of it. A number of these people can't pay the mortgage, but they've got a gazillion dollars worth of gear and guns and ammo. Priorities. Everyone needs a hobby.

Some guys and gals gather in churches the night before the season starts. The newspaper says they're there to swap stories and sing and pray ... and clean their weapons. As good a place as any to do that. Kind of reminiscent of the old joke:

"Father may I smoke while I pray?"

"Certainly not. That would be wrong."

"Well then, may I pray while I smoke?"

"Of course, of course!"

So Father, may I pray while I oil my Remington?

Of course many people look at the deer season as "turnaround's fair play."

Deer here are always hunting cars and trucks. Sometimes (like the hunter who gets shot by another hunter) they pay with their lives. But often, they just damage the cars and trucks out in front of which they prance. Nasty creatures. We humans need to send them a message. And this is the two weeks to do it.

We can't just have these murderous animals on the loose.

Here's one way to speed up the process.

We need a surge. With 750-thousand hunters in the field, perhaps another 30-thousand more would do the trick. We have to discuss this with our allies in New Jersey, West Virginia and Ohio first. But the coalition will prevail!

--Shrapnel:

--A quote from Spike Jones: "The polar bear sleeps in his little bear skin and sleeps very well I am told. Last night I slept in my little bare skin and I've got a hell of a cold."

--The Russian Czar established quality standards for vodka in the 1800s. So why is it that the US and Poland and (even) France can follow them and the Russians can't? Oh well, who cares after the second one, anyway.

--Did December come early this year or are we just imagining it. The calendar's no help. It appears to be lying when it says there were 30 days in this past November.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009

631 Dubai-Bye

631 Dubai-bye

There are almost seven thousand stories about Rachel and Tiger on line as this is written (see Shrapnel below.) There are fewer than half that number about Dubai World and its troubles. So we know where our priorities are, of course.

The phrase "Dubai Bubble" is starting to catch on, largely because that was exactly what it was. And now it's either burst or leaking depending on which account you prefer.

Incomplete skyscrapers, unfinished shopping areas, unfinished housing developments, unfinished roads... and the list goes on.

The quick story is very similar to every other financial story of the time: no money. No one was watching the bank accounts, and no one expected the boom to end -- ever. Now Dubai World is for all purposes, broke. No worries. The national bank of the United Arab Emirates has guaranteed its debt, which is about 60 or 80 billion dollars in US dollars. No worries. A mere bag of shells compared to some broke businesses here, and nowhere near the amount the American government has poured into the domestic economy, starting with Bush and continuing with Obama.

That 60 or 80 billion? Is it real or is it Memorex? Is this in actual dollars or is it something bigger that can be hidden in the backwaters and footnotes of a financial statement?

The Dubai World website, modestly named "The World," can show you pictures of beautiful buildings and concrete spreading faster than any known pandemic. Nothing's for sale. Yet.

How did it happen? Maybe a lot of people suddenly decided they didn't want to play golf in 130 degree sun?

The debt problems seem isolated in one corner of one company. But Dubai World is a government controlled outfit. And that can mean dominoes falling.

Not many remember that Dubai Inc. needed a bailout earlier this year, going off to Abu Dhabi earlier this year, like a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of sugar. The Sheik in charge of "World" had been telling people not to worry, assuring them for nearly a year that everything was just ducky, thank you. He went as far as telling critics to "shut up." But he hasn't been saying much in the last week or two.

There were reverberations throughout world markets in the aftermath of "World's" announcement saying it needed a payment holiday of at least six months. Try that with your Visa card, your auto loan or your mortgage.

Shrapnel:

--Former colleague Rachel Uchitel has become the second most famous Alaskan on the planet after a tabloid named her as the reason Tiger Woods and his wife were fighting just before his car accident, an accusation everyone involved so far denies. No one could blame Woods or any other awake straight guy for seeking her, um, company. But please know Rachel is a smart, hard working, funny, compassionate and warm hearted human being -- and that should count for something in the court of public opinion.

Weekly Book Look:

Ayn Rand and the World She Created by Anne C. Heller.

Anne Heller suffers from Gay Talise Syndrome. Talise wrote books about The Mob, the New York Times and sex. All three turn exciting and interesting subjects into mind numbing baloney. Heller does the same with Rand, one of the most influential novelists and one of the oddest characters of the 20th Century.

Fascination turns to stultifying by the time you get to the second page.

Rand was a Russian Jewish babushka, a troll who lived in a world of her own and manufactured trolls by the millions in the 1950s and 1960s.

(Note: there are two important definitions for "babushka." One is a headscarf. The other is a elderly woman, often a crone.)

But talk about influential! Millions of books sold, and all of them in print to this day, although her magnum opus was first published in 1957 and her other novels or novellas or plays way earlier. She is generally credited, and rightly so, with being the Grandmother and Goddess of the current arch conservative onslaught.

Yet, there's nothing much new in this book, at least not for people who knew her or followed her advice or peeked beneath the surface of the public Rand in her prime.

She was a bitch on wheels. She was brilliant. She was perceptive. She was screwed up. She threw temper tantrums. She treated many of her closest friends as enemies and drove many of them away either by turning against them or formally "excommunicating" them. She had a long running affair with her much younger Mentee-in-Chief, Nathaniel Branden. She treated her husband, Frank O'Connor, like crap and drove him to drink -- and to an early death.

We knew all this. But now we know it in dreary, colorless terms.

The Legend lives on. She's still widely read. Her "institute" founded by another sycophant, Leonard Peikoff, remains active and continues spreading The Word.

Part of that proselytizing is done by the right wing talk show crowd, which carefully avoids mentioning her atheism to their religious listeners and viewers.

As for Ms. Heller, her "About the Author" segment says she was managing editor of the Antioch Review. Most of us who graduated from Antioch are considered raging liberals today, some correctly. If she's part of the "some," it doesn't get in the way of her assessments.

The publisher, it turns out, is Gay Talese's wife, Nan A. Talese. Which explains a lot.

Richards Readometer Rating: 2 if you're a Rand fan or foe, otherwise 3.

===

Readometer Key:

1 - Buy it.

2 - Wait for the paperback.

3 - Take it out of the Library.

2. Flip through it at the book store.

1. Forget it.

Next week: Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009

630 The WRFM Christmas Festival

630 The WRFM Christmas Festival

It's early December and WRFM has started filtering Christmas songs into the rotation. This'll all come to a climax on Christmas eve when we begin the annual Christmas Festival of Music, 36 hours of continuous holiday stuff ranging from the very heaviest of symphonic hymns to the lightest of pop and country crossover songs.

It was heavily promoted, widely heard and, because it was New York and we so-called "personalities" were easily accessible on the telephone and subject to complaint.

One afternoon, the phone rings and it's Morris the Fireman, a regular caller and a big fan. Mo, the Jewish Fireman. Gravel voiced, bedridden, bad heart and out on permanent disability. So Mo says "Why you aren't playing Hanukkah songs, too? You got something against Jews?"

In New York? Don't be ridiculous.

I tell Mo "Hey, I'm as Jewish as you are and if you give me a list of Hanukkah songs, I'll play 'em."

Silence.

There aren't any that mean anything.

I give Mo my usual rap about the holiday: "Mo, you and I both know that Hanukkah is a minor holiday and that it gets big play around here because a bunch of whiny kids want presents like their Christian friends get in December, and we parents comply. This is one of the Big Two Christian observances and the songs are mostly wonderful."

This shuts him up, which wasn't easy to do.

Back to the festival. At that time, the late 1970s, Channel Eleven television was still showing its Yule Log video and playing similar music in the background. You'd watch the long burning at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor. It was a short loop repeated over and over. They got a lot of viewers.

But according to our mail and phone calls, our music was better. So there were an awful lot of people watching the long with the CH 11 sound turned down and the radio tuned to "Stereo-105," us.

Their really was no comparison. WRFM's lone stockholder, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had an incomparable treasure trove of Christmas music. There was so much there that we could have gone the whole 36 hours without repeating any one particular version of any song. But, of course, we didn't.

By the time the thing ended, those of us on shift left with what can only be described as a Christmas music hangover. Enough, already.

Thing is, by the time next October of November rolled around, most of us were eager for the return of the Festival.

How I wish I had stolen some of those tapes when the station changed format in 1985.

Shrapnel:

--There was a crow invasion here Thanksgiving morning. Thousands of them swooping in, perching in the trees, pecking on the back and side lawns. Then, they vanished, every last one of them, probably the holiday worm feast wasn't as feastful they expected.

--How did November get so short? It seems like only yesterday, it was October. Time flies when you're (not) having fun?

--Decide now what diet you're going on come New Year's Day. It'll save you time in the long run. Not that any of us will stick to it for more than a week.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009

629 Are You Reagan Enough?

629 Are You Reagan Enough?

From the folks who brought you loyalty oaths, here comes the "Purity Test."

Taking (yet another) page out of the playbook used by dictators from Julius Caesar to Hitler, Stalin and Mao, the Republican Party is considering a "checklist" for candidates and wannabes. The Republican National Committee wants to make sure its candidates are Reagan enough.

It's planning to assure itself that the people with endorsements are sufficiently anti-abortion, anti-bailouts and anti-Obama.

In fairness, this is not the work of the party's hapless chairman, Michael Steel, who has been (a) fabulously lousy at getting people elected and (b) is trying to keep this listing ship balanced. It is the work of ten guys who want to make it Party Law at the annual meeting in January. The Gang of Ten.

You can imagine the midnight storm troopers wearing Brooks Bros. suits and Ronnie masks coming around to the homes of candidates. The pounding on the door. "Alright, Rudy, assume the position!" One says "he's clean. Siddown, Rudy, we have some questions for you.

"You still a closet baby killer, or is all this anti abortion talk the New Rudy?"

They don't need to question people like Dede Scozzafava. They could just march her out into the woods and fire away.

Put the names of the "traitors" on Facebook. Burn the "traitors" in effigy. Hold "Tea Parties" at which they're marched blindfolded through the crowds.

Better yet, stone em!

Nixon wouldn't pass, today. Certainly not Javits or Nelson Rockefeller. What would they say about Eisenhower? Or Lincoln, that dirty closet socialist!

And when there's one "Purity Test" out there, what's to stop additions?

Get ready for the midnight raids and the Reagan masks.

Oh, wait. Didn't Reagan once head a UNION?

Maybe forget the masks. After all, the King of Purity wasn't always pure, himself.

Shrapnel:

--Former colleague and early morning phone buddy Charles Sabine, who for twenty something years covered Iraq and other sewers-of-fire for NBC News, has left the beat to tell the story of his life -- and probable death. Sabine recently learned he has the gene for Huntington's Disease and has started campaigning for more research and fundraising, though he has yet to present symptoms. A cure won't likely come in time for him, but typically, he's thinking longer term than his own remaining years.

--Among the latest guys to "welcome" his day in court or reasonable facsimile is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who just can't wait for ethics investigators to hear his side of the "I went hiking.. um.. no, I went to Argentina to get laid" story and to justify his expense vouchers. The only thing missing from his latest statement is the traditional -- almost universal cry, "I'm not a bad person!"

--Another turkey story as we near Thanksgiving: Jerry, the pet turkey of a Massachusetts family has cataracts and needs surgery. So they've put an ad on Craig's List asking for donations and hope that'll cover the full bill, which could run almost three grand.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009

628a The Suitcase Dilemma

628a The Suitcase Dilemma

Planning a trip to Asia gets us into the Suitcase Dilemma. A trip that lasts a month or six weeks will require new luggage. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong.

Do you get a really good set that'll take the pounding that a 20-thousand mile round trip will no doubt administer? Or do you buy cheap stuff that you can throw away on returning home? The inclination is to get something "good," that'll stand up. But these days, people are coming to the airports and swiping luggage from the carousel before the passenger gets through customs. Good may be what the insurance people call an "attractive nuisance."

On the other hand, something really inexpensive may fall apart halfway through the journey.

So the best answer is to get no luggage at all, and FedEx your stuff to the first stop, pick up a duffel bag or two there and send the bags back home FedEx before returning. No danger of theft. Scarce little danger of loss. Pricey, but not as pricey as buying good stuff and having the bags lost or stolen.

Sounds like a brilliant plan. But there's a downside. And the downside is the Homeland Security folks. "You're going from New York to Hong Kong or Shanghai or Taipei and you don't have luggage?" It's a legitimate question, but one that will get you shunted off the check-in line and into a small windowless room with a one way mirror, and metal chairs and a table bolted to the floor.

"But officer, we were worried that our stuff would get lost or stolen so we shipped it ahead."

"You have a receipt?"

"Sure, right here."

"This says you shipped two boxes to someone named 'Uncle K.' in Taipei. But it doesn't say what was in them. And who is this 'Uncle K,' anyway?"

Uncle is an upright, accomplished retired official of the Taiwan government. He is old, smart, well spoken, dignified, respected and a pillar of his community (and his mosque.)

"Mosque, you say?" You can see where this is going.

Maybe FedEx ain't such a hot idea.

Oh. How about this variation: ship the stuff by carrier and take two small suitcases filled with nothing in particular, to check in at the airport counter.

All bases covered. Who cares if the suitcases are stolen at the airport -- either here or there. No hassle about having no luggage. If it gets lost or stolen, who cares.

Phone rings. "Hello."

"This is China Air. We have some lost luggage here that apparently belongs to you."

"Oh, okay."

"May I ask why you never reported it missing?"

Re-enter Homeland Security.

All this over a couple of suitcases.

"Umm. We never reported it missing because we didn't realize it was missing?"

That's not going to fly. Maybe we should take a boat. The trip's way longer, but a whole lot less trouble.

Shrapnel:

--Talk about "wiggle room." Guy coming in from Australia tries to get through customs at LAX by strapping 15 lizards to his chest. The charge: transporting lizards without a license -- really.

The Weekly Book Look

Today we resume a regular feature of Bloomberg On The Weekend, the weekly Book Look, which will talk about various volumes, many of which will be available at the "Books For A Buck" bin at your local store, some of which will not. Rather than starting with a specific work, today -- some advice on a particular form of reading: self help and business books.


Here's how to read both categories.

Please remember that anyone publishing any of these has an ax to grind. It doesn't matter whether it's "How to Dream Your Way to a Billion..." or "How to play the Gold Market" or "How to Win the Heart of a Reluctant Lover, there's an ax -- even if there doesn't seem to be.

Most of this advice comes from one of the most prolific of self help writers, Napoleon Hill, author of "Think and Grow Rich" and any number of sequels. Hill suggested that before you buy one of these books, you open it and read the table of contents. This, he says, will show you the direction in which the author is going and the topics he or she covers.

You can learn a lot from "Contents." And you usually can tell from it (or the index) what you'll be finding in the pages and of what use it will be to you.

Most self-help books are a combination of irrelevance and common sense. One of the most famous, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie can be summarized in a few words. In this case, the single most important line between the covers is "bait the hook to suit the fish." You don't need to read "Friends" to get this. All you have to do is think about the idea and act accordingly.

"See You At the Top" by Zig Ziglar is another mainstay in the self help world. If you examine the contents, you'll quickly realize that this is not only about money, but also is about Christianity. Interested? Fine. But not for everyone.

Hill's advice on business and self help books is worth more than anything he has to say in any of his own books.

A lot of what we talk about in this section will be about cheap novels -- stuff to read for fun. But some will be serious.

Next time: "Ayn Rand and the World She Made" by Anne C. Heller.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2009