4563 How to Work From Home

We’ve all been told to avoid gatherings with a gross population above one.  So working at home is a good alternative to such things as not working at all. (I may re-think that.)

In the event you are one of those confined to your house, apartment or cell here are some tips.

First, you must isolate yourself from housemates, spouses, children, random strangers, police without warrants.

Second, turn off the TV set.  Off. Not down, off. Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper can live without you for the time being.

Third, keep regular hours.  Make your own shift if you can, and stick to what you made.

Fourth: Do not work in your jammies.  You don’t have to dress up.  But you should be at least in Business Casual.  It changes your attitude and keeps you focused.

Fifth: Carve out a special time for the Honey-do list.  Or ignore it as usual.  But don’t honey-do on company time.

Now, you must be properly equipped.  Proper equipment includes but is not limited to:

--A computer or keyboard-equipped tablet.

--A cellphone.  And keep it in the charger.  You never know when Con Ed will start working from home, leaving you without electricity.

--A coffeemaker and any of the stuff you put into your coffee.  And remember, it’s not Starbucks, it’s your home office.  So limit those add ons to milk and sugar.

--A well equipped bar.  As Hemingway once said, write drunk, edit sober.  Well equipped does not necessarily mean overstocked. Just your regular stuff, the stuff you wish you had in the office.  And moderation until the end of your workday, please.

--An ashtray.  Yes, if it’s your place and you smoke, you don’t have to hide under your building’s awning or on the sidewalk in the snow and rain… at least for the duration of your exile.

Do not mix home work with homework.  Do not pay your bills, catch up on your sleep, catch up on your twitter feed, catch up on your portfolio performance or fix that damn window that always sticks on company time, even if you do some of this while on company property.

Do the things you know you should be doing at the office:  

--moderate stretching or exercise.

--gossip.

--lunch.

Some do’s and don’ts:

DON’T 

--throw out the trash at the end of the day.  You probably dropped something into it by rote, can’t find it now; will find it later in the wastebasket.

--let your desk get into the shape of the one in the picture up top.

--answer calls from friends or relatives during business hours -- and remember, YOU’VE set your hours.

--Put in unpaid overtime. You’ll be surprised at how much more efficient and organized you’ve become now that you don’t have the distractions of office life.

--Watch your mouth. You can use the foulest language you know as long as there’s no one else to hear it.

DO

--Take calls from your boss.

--Take calls from coworkers whose work depends on you or whose work you depend on.

--Keep the TV you turned off, off. (Ok, you may watch “Andrea Mitchell Reports” at noon if that’s when you have lunch.)

--Keep a log. Eventually, you’ll have to return to the office. Expect questions about what you had done at home. Have answers ready. Showing or reading the log will beat sitting in the boss’ office, squirming, red-faced and starting your report by saying “Uh, um, well I…”

Some people will find this a pleasant change. Some will find it frustrating.  But it may help you not get sick by breathing the same air you’re forced to on the train or subway or bus or taxi. Or at the office.

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

Any questions?  Send ‘em to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4562 Virus Fever

Sorry, St. Pat.  No parades for you this month.  Give us a ring- back sometime in April and we’ll try to reschedule.

What? Another post about coronavirus? Yes, I'm afraid so. Why this time? Because everybody is self quarantining except those who are being quarantined by their schools or their towns or their counties. And I feel duty-bound to help the Mass Media Mavens in fueling the Great Pandemic Panic.

As we have pointed out, school districts are closing and switching to online classes. So are many colleges and universities Some of them are extending the spring break into the next millennium.

Goodbye NBA season. And NCAA Division One March Madness. And The NHL, for now. 

And St. Patrick’s Day parades in New York, Boston and all of Ireland. The New York parade is the world’s largest.  It has been held since 1762, though some of the original marchers are having trouble walking and so are consigned to the sidelines.

The president’s “beautiful wall” against Mexico cannot stop sneezing across the border. The mostly Asian grocery shoppers wearing idiotic masks cannot immunize themselves, at least not in the way they’re trying.

Airliners are flying empty or near-empty.  Great time to travel because the guy in the seat in front of you won’t put his seatback back, largely because there IS no guy in front of you. No one gets a center seat.  

Are we panicking?  Probably. Should we be worried? Maybe.  The UN says we’re in the midst of a pandemic.  Say, what?  We are in the midst of an outbreak of a condition about which we know very little. 

Can someone please explain the run on toilet paper?  What is that about?

The upside: every punk kid with a decent immune system gets to call the shots.  Attention oldsters: You don’t want their mercy. They’re not going to care about your age.  They care only for themselves.

As of deadline, the market was still falling like an ice ball rolling down a mountain toward a tropical ocean.  There are things to remember.

1.    The state of the economy is related to much more than just the major stock indexes.

2.    The Dow Jones Industrial Average is important only in that it is leading the rest of the figures lower.  “The Dow” is not a synonym for “the economy.”

3.    Congress is trying to put together some laws to stop the ice ball before it reaches the water.  But a certain political party is throwing roadblocks in the way all the while chanting lies about national unity.

4.    The White House is absolutely clueless and is chanting positive thinking and spreading cheerfulness. Disregard them.  Listen to the mainstream economists and the mainstream scientists rather than the political hacks, dolts and desperados on Pennsylvania Avenue.

PREVIEW: Monday 3/16: Our Handy Dandy Guide to Working from Home.  Don’t miss it. :)

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

Any questions?  Send ‘em to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020 

4561 The Virus Brothers

You are not alone, Mr. President. I would have fallen asleep, too.

Coronavirus Czar Mike Pence held a news conference with a bunch of nattily dressed Health Insurance CEOs.  The President attended.  At first, he looked bored.  No mirrors for him to look in? No crowds to cheer.

Then, he fell asleep.  You know… like “Sleepy Joe Biden.” Or Ronald Reagan.

The object here was to assure Americans fearful of the coronavirus that they’d get tested.  Eventually. If they wanted to.  And that the CEOs had been strong armed out of banning coverage for pre-existing conditions, big copays and surprise billing.

Who, us? asked the executives.  Then they kissed the president’s rump loud enough for him to hear as he awakened from his sweet dream.  And they left the room.  No doubt to return to their offices to think up new ways to screw you.

Nice try, Pence.  Nice try, trump -- who, by the way, had not been tested at the time of the midday photo op.  And who had been exposed to Senators who’d been exposed to the virus.  Uh, oh.  But don’t worry. He’s too strong, he says, to get sick. Healthy as a horse, doncha know.

Former healthy as a horse horse named Frank.

There was a great outpouring of sympathy for the people most at risk. People with “underlying conditions” like old age, for example.

If you’re wondering why there are so many varying numbers when affliction-totals are announced, the answer is simple.  Some of the results are held by private labs, others by state health departments and other entities.  By the time they get to the Centers for Disease Control, they’re outdated. En route, they are corrupted.

Bottom line, no one knows how many actual cases and no one knows how many recover (the overwhelming majority) and how many who don’t.

But there are things we do know.

1.    Early testing is imperative.  And we’re not doing enough of that.

2.    Isolating cases works. We’re not doing that, either.  School districts are shutting down here and there.  But only after the fact. (Kudos to Scarsdale, NY which shut down before it had to and to various upscale districts and private schools on New York’s Long Island.)

3.    Concern about cost over coverage is a “thing.” trump and pence tried to allay fears of that today.  Results to be determined.

The administration wants --bigly-- to avoid a coronavirus recession. That’s nothing more than an election day ploy.  trump’s only positive is that he’s been able to maintain the air supply in the Dow Jones Industrial Bubble.  This is used to convince the ignorant and the blind that the economy is doing great.  It isn’t.  But the market will eventually recover for the sliver of the population that owns equities or “products” the values of which are equity-based.

This is a wind machine. It’s used to create fake storms in movies and on television. This is a wind machine and it’s what the administration is using to keep the stock bubble from bursting. The stock downturn this week was saved by one of these and the “buy on the dip” amen chorus which is full of hot soup, to coin a phrase.

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

Any Questions? Write wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4560 Bernie and Joe and Joe and Bernie

       

So the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has come down to two old white guys.  The main question remains, can either rid us of the current scourge and his movable feast of bad appointees, temporary help and destructive decisions?

Either can. But it’s going to take some deft maneuvering.  If either wins the general election, we’ll at least have a path back to decency and the end of a brutal dictatorship.

About that maneuvering:  What if Biden is nominated? No one seems really excited about that.  And unexciting these days is a virtue. Sanders’ following has loads of energy.  But if Bernie doesn’t get the spot, enough of them may take election day off and head for the video game console.

On the other hand, the money establishment favors Biden and if Sanders is nominated, will its tin soldiers head for the golf course or --even worse-- vote for The Great Dictator?  Could happen.

There could be something really revolutionary like we all get off our high horses and start voting on the basis of issues and facts instead of with our guts.  And in America, part of dealing with facts and issues is making compromises and being practical. Or it once was. Or-or It seemed to be. Or-or-or I’m delusional. 

Lately, we’ve been behaving like some banana republic that throws itself into crises of its own making.  We like to think we’re better run than Venezuela. But these days that’s a hard case to make. Maybe we can take a tip from “The Mouse That Roared,” and declare war on ourselves.  Then, like the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, we could surrender and collect domestic aid.

Nah. Not gonna happen. We’re already at war with ourselves and both sides are losing.

Stories began to appear over the weekend that show suburbanites are starting to gather on the Dem side, even some traditionally hard core “safe Republican” districts.  The key to winning is in the cities and the suburbs.  And the farming and industrial Midwest where jobs -- real jobs -- continue to vanish.

The trump coalition is essentially rural America and particularly the deep south.  In Kentucky, McConnell is bulletproof.  Unless, of course, he’s found in bed with a woman heir to a Chinese shipping fortune. 

Oh. Wait. They’re married.  

Sessions may have something to worry about as he tries to re-win the Senate seat he lost when becoming Attorney General, then disappointing trump by failing to break the law… something with which the present occupant has no problem.

On the good news front, Chuck Schumer whose term in the Senate doesn’t expire until 2023 stuck it to chief justice Roberts the other day. In effect, he called the Supreme Court a bunch of trump sycophants and political rabble. Roberts demanded an apology.  Schumer should be the one receiving one from the court for all of its recent wrong decisions. And so should the rest of us.

But the Democratic Presidential nomination boils down to two old white men.  The question now is will the loser endorse the winner? It’s likely that if Biden loses, he’ll endorse Bernie.  Vice versa?  I’m not so sure.

Bernie wants a revolution.  Earth to Sen. Sanders: we’ve been having one of those in recent years, just not the one you want.  And we’re tired of revolutions, even though the pipe dreams of instant justice, real justice, income fairness, free college tuition and health insurance are wonderful.  We can all work toward that.

The question for Biden: can you move a little to the left without alienating the conservative and moderate democrats and the liberalish Republicans who are your base? 

 And the question for Barack Obama is “what the hell are you waiting for?”

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

Any questions? Send to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4559 Bibi, Go Away

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, Shalom. You have outlived your usefulness and it’s time to call it a day. You are everything that was wrong with Reagan.  You are almost everything that is wrong with trump.  You are the first Israeli-born prime minister and you don’t seem to understand the country you lead -- a sliver of land surrounded by well armed Arabs who want to push the Jews into the sea.  And you are helping them by expanding settlements in so-called “palestinian” territories and trying to convince Jews worldwide that you are looking out for their interests… which you are not.

Granted, the “palestinians” blew their chance to have an actual country after Britain did what Britain always does: establishing artificial boundaries and creating countries that don’t really exist. Granted that you claim to represent Jews worldwide which you don’t. But it’s time for you to hang it up.

There will be a “two-state solution,” despite your efforts and those of your supporters to kill it.  SuperJews (I am Jewish, but not in any way “super,”) think you are heaven-sent. They harp endlessly about your “American education,” (MIT, Architecture) and your excellent Western clothing.  But they are working in an alternative universe. 

Three elections in less than a year?  It’s comical.  But all the stubborn politicians have dug in their heels. And Israel has more parties than you can count.  Ultra-left, ultra-right, moderate left, moderate right religious, secular, Arabist, two staters, one state.  And Netanyahu is under indictment and if convicted could not run the country from the clink.  Or maybe he could.  Doing time gives you a lot of free time and little to do.  He might be able to run the country without the distraction of being Bibi.

There is an old joke about two Jewish men stranded on a desert island.  After a week, there would be two congregations with two presidents.  In the second week, there would be three.  And that’s the mentality that’s running that country.

Let’s all get into the ring together.  It looks like Wrestlemania.  And there are no referees.

SHRAPNEL:

--The train with Democratic Party presidential candidates reached the station and almost everyone got off. Bloomberg, Warren… the latest to go.  That mostly leaves Bernie and Joe to stay on the train when it leaves.

--We’ve received many requests to mention the Corona Virus. Okay, done.  It’s been mentioned.  Just nothing much to say about it besides wash your hands a lot and don’t kiss strangers even if they’re wearing masks.

--Daylight Saving Time starts this weekend. Spring forward at 2 am Sunday. And Pullleeez, Saving time not SavingS.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“Idealism is fine but as it approaches reality, the cost becomes prohibitive.” -- Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

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

Any questions? Wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4558 Neutron Jack

You could make some good bucks betting on Jack Welch when he was head of General Electric, which he turned into The Last Real Conglomerate.  Welch, 84, died of kidney failure at his Manhattan apartment.  He’d been out of the corporate culture since 2001.  And lately, his management style was out of fashion.

You bet on Jack by buying his stock which kept splitting and rising and splitting and rising endlessly in proportion to his opening, closing, buying and selling businesses and at the same time cutting the number of workers in half. Four hundred thousand people dwindled down to about 200-thousand.

That’s where the Neutron Jack thing came from. The neutron bomb kills people but leaves buildings more or less intact. Handy, because a few thousand years after the blast, you can start to decontaminate the irradiated building and the land it sits on, and maybe build a highrise.  Call it Gamma Ray Acres.

He bought RCA.  The rationale was RCA owned so many juicy patents, it could stop making anything and live on the royalties.  Along with that came NBC.  Welch put this Hempstead, Long Island boy

lad, Bob Wright, a GE lawyer in charge.  What Wright knew about broadcasting at the time you could put on the quick start guide for your TV set.  Maybe a matchbook. But he learned.  And fast.  And he turned NBC around from an also ran to a ratings and revenue powerhouse. (Lopping off heads along the way. Less is more? Wright is no hippie or new ager, but since his retirement has been busy in Autism awareness.)

One of the business magazines called Welch the CEO of the century.  Maybe stock tout of the late 20th century would have been truer.

He was a genial fellow.  Smallish.  A ready smile and handshake when not surrounded by linebacker-grade “assistants.”

Today, GE is a shadow of its Welch-era importance.  Blame part of that on market conditions over the years following his retirement in 2001.  But probably without knowing it, Welch was sowing the seeds of that decline even in his prime.

Some people spotted those seeds (ahem!) but no one paid any attention.  Here’s a fine example: In one of his jillion speeches, he called GE “an information company.”  Wrong, Jack.  It is a big company that lends tons of money at good rates, builds things no one can lift and which make horribly loud noises if dropped from the tops of buildings or aircraft flying at almost any altitude.

If that’s what he really thought, he was getting out of touch. Here’s a long term look at the stock price:

Source: Google finance. Recent closing price: $11 and change.

Other than that silly description -- “a communication company” -- and some missteps (selling the NBC Radio Network and letting the acquiring company keep the name; naming his own successor at GE, someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t keep the company on track,) he was the template for his era. 

That’s a description, not a compliment. And it raises questions about “his era.”  Maybe it and not Welch was the neutron bomb.

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

Any questions? Wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4557 Mike's Campaign and his Broadcast Properties

Bloomberg world headquarters boasts open plan office space, fish tanks and a Home Depot in the basement. Honest!

 Bloomberg world headquarters boasts open plan office space, fish tanks and a Home Depot in the basement. Honest!

 First an update to our tirade about New York’s plastic bag ban.  It was supposed to start on March first, yesterday. Now it’s been postponed to April first, so we can all think it’s an April Fool’s Day joke.  But the real reason is an injunction while opponents and proponents tangle in court.

As a relative old timer, you walk into a new job at a new place with some preconceived notions.  One of them: radio ratings are like crack. No one needs it until the first time. Then, that’s all you need. And you’ll do anything to acquire.

Ratings are the crack of broadcasting.  Everyone says things like “we are presenting a quality product.  We don’t care about ratings.” Or “it’s a niche product” in the case of Mike’s OK sounding radio station.

Except at Bloomberg, when they said they don’t really care about ratings, they actually meant it.  It took me all seven of my years there to find that out.  At one point I told one of the 25 people I reported to that we beat “A Prairie Home Companion” in every US market in which we directly competed. The reaction?  “So what?”

They hired me in Y2K to create, produce and narrate “Bloomberg on the Weekend,” which occupied one percent of their budget but 25% of their air product.  We barely moved the ratings needle either in local or national figures or in satellite versions heard in almost every time zone worldwide.  But we were a resting place for money guys who wanted a little weekend relief from their toils in the salt mines of finance.

But then, there was Mike.  Even 20 years ago he was a big money guy and a sometimes controversial character.  Word from on high: don’t do stuff about Mike.  He was already on the Forbes list of richest people.  (Steve Forbes wasn’t. Mike is not on the list of “Bloomberg Billionaires” either, or wasn’t at latest check.)

We barely covered his first and successful bid for mayor of New York.  Today, the news division pays him little heed as a contestant in the game-show for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. And when we wanted him to do commentary on the radio station and network he owns, we were discouraged and he didn’t.

There’s a new top editor at Bloomberg News.  He’s a former editor of the conservative magazine “The Economist.”  But he’s as good as his predecessor, Matthew Winkler, at avoiding wire articles, TV and radio segments and magazine articles about the guy I labeled our “Maximum Leader.”

And while Mike wallpapers the country with ads, his properties (seem to have) not gotten in on this particular buy.  No ratings to speak of. Why take money out of one pocket to put it in another as GE did when it owned and still paid for advertising on NBC?

Would advertising on his broadcast properties be a conflict of interest?  Let the ethicists beat that horse.  Plus, you see his name 5,000 times a day on BTV and hear it every 12 seconds on the radio.

One of the things multibillionaire Bloomberg says to differentiate himself from sort-of billionaire trump is that he didn’t inherit his money, he made it.  And that’s truthy.  So big a pain in the ass was he at his previous job that they bought out his partnership for $10-million. That was the seed money he turned into about 60 billion. And you should be so lucky and smart to get that kind of return on an investment.

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

Any questions?  Wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020