4727 The Spamillionaire

 We measure everything, so why not this? How much spam landed in your email today? And what does that say about you? In a culture that values data and quantity we’ve all come to love, the more you receive, the more you are worth.

 A magazine known for its lists of the most-this and the biggest-that may be considering a list of the top spam recipients in America.  Are you a candidate?

If you receive none, are you some kind of hermit? If you receive dozens, you’re just an ordinary drone. Hundreds? Well, now we’re starting to talk. Thousands? Is there anyone who receives thousands?

 Probably.  But this raises an important question: Who will be the first junk mail Spamillionaire?  Maybe you. In fact, if you’re a long time user of email, and keep spam, you may already have reached that lofty figure, at least theoretically.  It’s tough to know. Most people discard junk.  Most email services kill spam after a relatively short period, 30 days.  So let’s set a standard.

In order to qualify, you must have at least one million spams in your folder consistently.  That means even if Yahoo or Gmail or Outlook automatically discards things, your total remains at least one million.  As many or more arrive even as some are automatically deleted.

 There’s no TV show -- yet -- asking “Who Wants to be a Spamillionaire?”  But you can bet if this catches on, there will be. 

 So, the name of the game now is building your net spam worth, increasing your take just like a hedge fund seller or an oil tycoon. Here’s one way.

 Mark stuff you already get in your regular mail as spam. The department store, the various other merchants on your list of sites, the phone company… all that kind of thing.

 Label it spam, but don’t check “unsubscribed” if it’s offered.

 This will have three effects. Least important, you’ll receive fewer “regular” emails. Second, it will put all that stuff into one file where you can run through it once or twice a week, answering the ones you put there and ignoring the rest.  And most important, you will be building your spam supply, fattening your asset and putting you at a higher level in competing for that first Spamillionaire title.

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4726 What is Journalism?

4726 CAUTION. ADULT CONTENT

 We used to call people who keep track of the news “journalists.” But out in the real world, journals are more personal than that. Unless of course we started writing our stories as if they were going into an actual bound paper journal.

 Example:

Dear Diary,

I'm sad today because a few hundred men and women carrying guns and waving Confederate flags tried to take over that big building in Washington with the roof that looks like the tip of my big brother's weewee pointing up.

You know what else? That nice Mr. Pence ran away from those bad people.  Oh, and one of them wore a hat with moose horns put his feet up on Mrs. Pelosi's desk!

 

OR:

Dear Diary, 

It’s soooo boring! The basketball team from somewhere out west won some kind of award for being the best team in the whole country. Now I have to learn how to spell Giannis Antetokounmpo or something. Anyways, he’s a great big tall man who can throw the ball into that net so many times he even scored 52 points in the same game.  That’s still not as much as that handsome Mr. Michael Jordan who had 62 points one time.

OR:

Dear Diary, 

My friend Betty told me her gymnastics coach, Mr. Balancebeam, said some naughty things to her at practice yesterday. I told her she should tell her daddy or mommy and maybe even the principal, Ms. Papershuffle.

 

Those are the kinds of things that should go into a journal. Stuff that happens. If you want to get fancy, you could include a wish list. 

 

Dear Diary, here is my wish list for today: 

--I wish my high school crush would ask me to the prom and let me kiss him afterwards.  

--I wish I could pull an “A” in geometry class.

--I wish they’d throw trump in jail.

 

And where there are wishes, there are guesses.

Dear Diary, here is my guess list for today:

--The killers of Arbery in Georgia will get life sentences without parole.

--Angela Merkel had stayed on for another term like Putin and Xi.

--I guess gas prices won’t come down any time soon.

--I guess mom will hear about my geometry problems when she goes to open school night next week.

 

This is a thoroughly workable idea.  And some bright newspaper person will arrange a layout that permits these separate categories.  There'd be the news section, then other sections for entertainment, sports, and wishes.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4785 Violent Protest

 There have been so many right wing uprisings since 2017 it’s tough to remember which was which. But this week, a jury in Charlottesville, Virginia helped jog our memories. It awarded $25 million to victims of the deadly “Unite the Right” riot back then.

Not that anyone will collect any money.  Even if the penalty withstands the inevitable challenges, the organizers are basically … net-worthless. And at least one of them is doing time for a prior but similar crime.  

The news reports use the word “unrelated.” Technically and legally, the word is correct. But in a broader sense, all these things are related.

 There’s thislittle difference between Charlottesville and DC ⅙, the Arbery case, the Rittenhouse case, and dozens or maybe hundreds or maybe thousands of similar events, large and small. And the differences are one of scale, not differences in basic ideas.

 Enlarge the view and you find plenty of similar circumstances.  When did we get the idea that physical violence solves problems? Probably before the stone age.  But the Flintstones didn’t have the technology of The Jetsons.  Or the social media.  So, today’s bloodshed is just an evolution of something older than history. 

 You have to wonder what it would have been like had  Facebook been available in the earliest of early days.

 Imagine NOAH live streaming The Weather Channel. “Guys, this ship is about to sail.” Or at the very least posted an event invitation: “Worldwide flood coming. Check one of the following:” “I’ll be there,” “considering,” and “I won’t attend.”

 How about Twitter: “The British are Coming.” Or if you turned off your ad blocker and the first popup was for white hoods and sheets on “on sale at Gimbels.”

 What if you could buy a .38 on Craigslist?

 Put the right tools in the wrong hands and history would not be what it was.  Oh, sure there would still be clashes.  One in Charlottesville would be seen in how-to’s on YouTube or cable news reports in Newtown, CT and the airports in Gaza and Somalia.

 Most of us aren’t inspired individually at birth to join mass pillaging.  It takes a village. And a camera or a podcast.

 About that 25-million dollar fine in Charlottesville… the court case is only the beginning.  This- all is bound to wind its way up the chain of appeals courts.

 

GRAPESHOT:

--Happy Thanksgiving Day from the staff and management of Wessays. ™

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4784 Black Friday

 A store like this won’t be too crowded this coming “black Friday.” As you can see it’s been shorn of any evidence that human life was once present.  A few years back you could say the place must be on Jupiter or Saturn.  But not now.

Black Friday got its name from circumstance. The Friday after Thanksgiving was when merchants could put away the red ink of losses and turn to the black ink of profit for the year.  

 They’d do all kinds of neat tricks to lure you in.  Early openings, low prices, sufficient staff, fast-moving checkout lines.

Stores still put stuff on sale. They still offer bargains to the first x-number of customers to “door bust” on Friday morning… sometimes on late Thanksgiving Day afternoon. But two things have happened since.  

 --Everyone started their black Friday sales events when the ink on Halloween hadn’t yet dried.

--The pandemic.

--Amazon.com and its smaller cousins.

 Since so many stores have closed so many branches, you’d think the remaining places would attract heavy foot traffic.  Think again. Yes, the crowds at the end of this week will be heavier than usual.  But it won’t be like old times.

 Many have been stocking up on gifts using the internet and the TV shopping channels. And if the readings are correct, a lot of people will cut back on their generosity this year.

 The list of closed or bankrupt merchants is too long for this space and would waste your time because you already know about the ones in your area.  But the big shrinkers include some famous old names. Sears, Kmart, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Lord and Taylor, and on and on.

 So our retail choices have been squished thin, but there’s something else going on here.  Or at least there seems to be.

 The Pandemic taught us how to do without. Travel? Forget about it.  And social gatherings, sporting events, movies. Is it also teaching us to say “I can live without that new…” suit, dress, pair of jeans, car, TV set, microwave?  What’s selling hotter than a two dollar pistol? Two dollar pistols.

 Oh, there are supply chain problems with almost everything from toilet paper (yes, that again) to SUVs, to major appliances.  Guns and armor seem exempt.  Hmmm. Wonder why?

 SHRAPNEL:

--Here’s a new candidate for the Stupid Promotions Award.  Using an Amazon distribution warehouse in Kentucky, companies have started “brushing” customers, sending them stuff they didn’t order. Evidently, they want you to write favorable reviews, thus moving them higher in Amazon’s search results.

 --It seems like only yesterday. Today is the 58th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. And we’re still fighting over who-done-it and why.

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

Any Questions?  wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4783 Newspaper Sticker Shock

 The email flew in on wings of euphemism. “We’re making changes in the price of your subscription…” to the website of the newspaper.

This was an alert that speakers Euphemism as a First Language knew immediately.  Others asked “I wonder what they mean,” or “Oh boy, a price cut!” Or maybe they want a little more money.”

Bingo.  Except for the “a little” part. When you get to the bottom of the page, they tell you the cost will rise by about 80 percent a year.

What if your landlord or mortgage company decided something like that? You’d look for new digs.

Inflation may be the new normal, but you can bet confidently on two things:

--Your income will not match the price increases.

--Some prices will decline eventually.

--The daily paper’s won’t.

Don’t for a minute think news should be free.  News is a business and businesses take money to run. Chances are you don’t work for nothing. Neither should the people at the paper.

 

With more money coming in, can we expect a boom in coverage?  Of course not.  While there are several great papers staying alive, chances yours is not among them.  So you’ll continue to get junk like

--A highway fender bender.

--A celebration of some event.

--A tribute to … someone or something.

--An occasional unmarked ad posing as a news story.

--The seasonal ball games.

--Elections.

--Crime.

--Recipes.

It’s still important to subscribe. When you do, you stand a better chance of not getting scammed or starting to cross a bridge the other end of which has collapsed.  You’ll get a vague preview of your next tax bill, and you can see why the guy you voted into office didn’t deserve your vote -- or didn’t win.

A money-losing paper is going to get sold to a hedge fund, most likely.  That’s almost always bad news.  Hedge funds flip businesses almost as fast as iHOP or the diner counter worker flips pancakes.

 

Hedge funds and private equity leeches salivate for newspapers.  That’s because they’re easier to get rid of than, say, car factories.  And they’re a lot cheaper to run while they court potential buyers.

 

So, what’s going to happen to the local paper with the mountainesque renewal rate? Impossible to be sure.  But chances are circulation and subscriptions will fall proportionately to the rise.  The advertisers will roll down the mountain and so will everyone’s income.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4782 Your Freedom and Mine

.Today’s post was excerpted from a speech by B. Bucks Bankroll, founder and chairman of BB’s Department Stores at a mandatory staff meeting in the BB Arena. 

“I want to thank all of you for giving up some of your free time to attend this mandatory staff meeting.  As you know, we at BBs put people first.  You’re all like family. And I want to thank you for voting down the misguided and misleading attempt of the United Retail Clerks Local 4 to turn you into Communist slaves to the local’s corrupt masters.

 “As you know the Government lackeys in Washington want to force you to wear masks and get vaccinated for the Chinese Flu.  And I want you to know this:  We will not tolerate this interference from a bunch of out of touch politicians and force you to mask up or get jabbed. In fact, we are ready to tell you that if we discover that you have been immunized or seen at work or at home wearing a mask, we sadly will be forced to disown you, call in the home loan we made for you, repossess your car and cut off your health insurance.

“I must remind you that this is a right to work state. That puts us on an equal and familial footing which means you are free to leave at any time for any reason or no reason at all and we are free to separate ourselves from you, in effect stabilizing our headcount and freeing you to seek better employment opportunities.

 “As you also know, we value productivity and efficiency. And I thank you for yours, each and every one of you. To this end, we have established a new division, “Associate Discovery.”  You may be asking “how does this affect me?”  The answer is only a little.  We will randomly fly drones into the parking lots of clinics and your yards to test for mask wearing.  But we promise to never install cameras in your bedrooms or attempts to hack your medical records.

“Once again, thank you for coming here today and please swipe your BB’s ID cards as you exit.”

 GRAPESHOT: Since so many have turned to pronouncing the “t” in often how about we also start pronouncing the “d” in WeDnesday, the “e” in cache and the “b” in lamb, limb and numb?

 He’s Big Bucks Bankroll. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily represent those of this post’s staff, management or sponsors.

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4781 Inflation

 This is inflation. The air was already there and then someone turned on a blowtorch and heated it, the balloon went up scaring the passengers who are all of us.

 Inflation is when prices go up for bad reasons. And it scares the daylights out of us, even though many are making more money now, especially compared with the height of the pandemic when jobs fell like hailstones.

 Six percent-plus since a year ago.  It’s scary, also for bad reasons. The rate is astonishing compared with any 12 consecutive months since 1990. But what’s scarier is the reaction.

 Deficit hawks have been cawing for years that this would happen. Then they stopped, pausing for the four years of the most recent previous presidency, when the government spent jillions on idiot projects like wall-building. Yes, the hawks forgot to caw for four years.  Now they’re at it again.  

 But the really scary part is not the wage price balance or even the six percent figure.  The really scary part is what people masquerading as experts are saying about it.

 Around the clock on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, the un-masked masked men and women are saying “we told you so.” Yes, you did. But you were either lying or just trying to scare us.  THIS inflation has little to do with government spending. 

 It has to do with the pandemic and its effects on the supply chain.  It has to do with our crazed need to not make anything much within our own borders.

 The ships are backed up like a crowd of rap fans at a Houston stadium, poised to crush one another in a rush to the front.  Your new car, your new iPad and your new spring outfits are languishing aboard ships thisclose to the port and going nowhere.

 When those few ships finally manage to unload, there are no trucks on which to load the stuff and no drivers to bring it to a store near you.  The gasoline cartel has the vapors. That means more price increases.

 All this will shake itself out, eventually. Sane people will lower prices. Sane employers will continue to raise wages, and everything will normalize though possibly at a higher cost for everything to every one.

 Meantime, talking heads perched atop empty suits will continue to do their best to scare you.  We’ve been here before. Just not for a long time.  We’ve seen everything go up. We’ve seen it come down or at least normalize and balance.

 Yes, it’s tough out there, wherever your “there” is. Yes, interest rates rise along with everything else.  But once the boats unload, the trucks arrive along with their drivers, it’ll all work out.  Meantime, avoid the talking heads. Deprive them of their pleasure to drive you nuts.

 And ignore the politicians.  Whatever they say, their goal is to keep you frightened and themselves on your payroll.

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4780 The UnGlomerate

 Back in the day, GE stock did more splits than a battalion of ballerinas. On paper, it became the highest value American corporation, a giant among lesser giants.  Since its peak, that stock has been steadily declining to the horror of people whose job it is to keep the money circulating so the boom continues. It hasn’t worked, so now comes more of a reality based split.

The company will break up into three separate corporations, another way to boost value, at least in the hope chest of the corporate ballerinas. So, the company founded in 1892, the love child of Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan, will split off health care in 2023 and its energy division a year later.  

 The company sold its financial business and NBC in recent years. Earlier it got out of the nuke business. So you might be asking what will be left after the spinning and splitting this time?  They still make lightbulbs.  Somewhere. They still license their name. Home appliances. Software. Water systems.

 As chief executive, the late Jack Welch quintupled the company’s net worth, at least on paper. He picked a successor who couldn’t possibly continue that trend and didn’t. Fortunes turned around almost at once. The slide continued with an added kick from the 2008 financial mess that affected everyone.

 That slimmed headcount began to rise again.  New competitors were dogs that caught the cars they were chasing. The Dow Jones Industrial averages kicked them off the list -- the last of Dow’s original 30 industrials to survive.

 They moved their headquarters from Connecticut to Massachusetts.  That was a physical move, but essentially meaningless. The real headquarters was in Welch’s hat and Welch had retired.

 It wasn’t entirely the fault of inept management and the financial crisis that felled the uber-giant.  This is not Sears or Ling-Temco, or the original Standard Oil or the Pennsylvania Railroad which succumbed to either government demands or bad leadership. Some smaller giants went on diets since their high points. 

 It wasn’t a stand-alone company that either failed or shrank from absent or wrong-headed innovation like IBM, Xerox, Kodak or J.C. Penney.  And it wasn’t and isn’t crooked like Enron.

 This is a company that was everywhere.  One of GE’s post-Jack-Welch CEOs said the era of the giant conglomerate is over.  It certainly is. At least for this one.

 SHRAPNEL:

--Speaking of former GE divisions, one time colleague Brian Williams says he’s leaving NBC News after 28 years. An occasional teller of tall tales who survived one of them, Williams IMHO is the best anchor on the air anywhere at the moment.  Did he jump or was he pushed?

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

4779 Infrastructure

 There’s a pothole down on Main Street.  The bridge over the river is held together by willpower. And the trains run slowly because the tracks are slippery, and people get hurt or die when wheels slip off rails.

 

So people are asking “what’s in the infrastructure bill for ME?”  And the answer is… who knows?  It’s nearest cousin some years back gave us a new phrase, “shovel ready.” That’s about all.

 

The entire country has been on breakdown maintenance since at least the 1950s when the Eisenhower road building binge began.  Those roads were generally well designed and built, but they’ve become too small to handle traffic that’s expanded exponentially since they were built. 

 

Passing the bill was the easy part even though it didn’t seem easy at the time.  Now, comes the hard part. States will be forming a Soviet era breadline, upturned hats in hand like collection plates.  Fights among them will erupt. So will fights within them.

This seems to be a good spot to remind you that the states that clamor for and receive much more than they contribute will be at the front of the line.  Maybe there should be a separate line for them. Maybe it should end in vacant room.

 

Surely the federal mavens will be talked into building bridges to nowhere and prevented from widening roads that pass the house of the cousin of the mother of the state senator from Arkansas or Kentucky.  The big question is why does congress cater to those welfare states?  And the answer is because they outnumber the people who pay their ways.

 

There are two kinds of maintenance, breakdown and preventive. No one disputes the need for preventive, ongoing fixups.  Breakdown means nothing gets fixed until it approaches uselessness.  That’s the one that put us in the present pothole pickle.

 

There are excuses galore for waiting until something breaks down.

 --Preventive maintenance is disruptive.

--It’s expensive.

--We’d have to raise taxes to pay for it. Or even worse, take our relatives off the payroll.

--If we raise taxes, the cousin of the mother of the state senator and his or her friends will vote against us, and we’ll be homeless and destitute.

--It’s too much trouble.

The infrastructure measure is good for almost everyone. Making it work is a whole ‘nuther ballgame.

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

Any Questions?  wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4778 The Death of Radio

 Here we go again.  (Insert the new technology of your choice) is going to kill (insert the old technology of your choice.)  But it never really happens, does it?

Movies are going to kill live theater.  Television is going to kill movies.   Television is going to kill radio.  Cable and Satellite TV are going to kill broadcast TV.  FM is going to kill AM. Satellite radio/internet radio is going to kill “regular” radio.  Citizens Band is going to kill the amateur band.  And the internet is going to kill every other means of communication.

 

The latest of radio’s death predictions or threats comes from the little portable music players.  Everyone who’s anyone has one or more.  They’re in your pocket, your handbag, your bedroom, your kitchen, your car.

 

Radio’s death? Not going to happen.

 

Why not?  Because we still need plain ole radio free stuff, spare the cost of the hardware (which you can buy for as little as a buck at those “dollar” stores.)

 

“Oh, but I can choose my own music with an MP3 player and not have to listen to 1000 commercials about reducing my credit card debt, buying gold or finding the right untested food supplement for my (memory) (energy) (aging body) (eye condition) (colon condition) (prostate condition.)  And I don’t need a weather forecast every five minutes.”

 

Your music player going to warn you when you have three minutes to duck an oncoming tornado?  How about when the levees on your riverbank are about to cave in?  Things like that.

 

Rely on your RSS feeds?  Wait for a notification on your smartphone?  (You and it will be separated and swept away. The cell tower will have toppled before it can tell you “Run for your lives, it’s Godzilla.”  Radio “towers” can be faked by stringing bell wire between trees or phone polls.)

 

So, there you are in the midst of a Louisiana hurricane with your Greatest Zydeco Super Rap Hits MP3 playing in your head.  Or you’re zooming along unlit State Route 11232 at 70 in the middle of the night, and you don’t know the bridge up ahead has washed out and fallen into the river.  Or there’s been a radiation leak at your neighborhood nuke plant.

 

But don’t worry, be happy, at least you’ll crash or drown or get a good dose of some poisonous element in a “positive” state of mind as the music goes round and round and it comes out ...nowhere.

 

Or you can just turn on the radio.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4777 Your Check is in the Mail

 Remember these? They’re called checks. Time was, you used them to pay bills, among other things. Here’s how it worked: You bought stuff. The seller mailed you a bill. You wrote a check and sent it mailed it.

 These days, sellers want their money fast. The post office is a train wreck.  And everyone has all your personal information which it uses in sometimes nefarious ways.

 

The people who bill you want their money sent from a website.  Why give them what they want?  They’re overcharging you and selling your personal information to the highest bidder.

 

Some of us are tired of endless pitches we get to go electronic where we don’t and want us to stay electronic where we already are.

 

No.

We’re going to write checks again.  Buy stamps, which are getting pricey.  Not buying them on line, either. 

 

It’s a rebellion. It’s showing the insurance company, the phone company, Visa, MasterCard and American Express, the gas and electric companies, the cable and satellite companies, the PBS Station, the landlord or mortgage company, 950 charities, and the merchants who’s boss.

 

Keep those incentives, boys and girls.  We’ll pass on the five dollar one-time reduction or any other bribe. We’ll make sure we uncheck the pre-checked boxes that are designed to be ignored and that would send us into the electronic limp spaghetti system you all call “paperless.”

 

If this is something you plan to do, practice penmanship a little.  

 

Also: 

--Mail early. This is slower than the website and remember that postal train wreck. You don’t want to be late.

--Use a mailbox in a busy area. Postal workers usually remember to stop by to look for outgoings.

--Don’t fill out checks in pencil.

--Don’t fill out checks in colors other than blue or black. Recipients may have older reading devices that don’t pick up fancy colors. They don’t update any faster or more often than you do even though they get a tax break to do so.

--Don’t forget the return address. Use one of the eight million stickers you got with the latest charity pitch.

--Use water not spit to seal the envelope. Your DNA is as collectable and saleable as your account number.

--Order only free checks if your account offers them.

--If they don’t offer free checks, order the plain cheap ones. You don’t want to be known as “the guy with the cartoon bunny checks” or “the guy with the ‘57 Chevys.” Or Elvis.

 

Note to recipients: You’ll have to learn to read our terrible handwriting.  You’ll have to compare the routing number on the check with your records by eye and hand. Why who knows, you might even have to hire a few more people to do all this stuff by hand.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021