1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

In recent years, there’s only one person who could stand up against New York mayor Mike Bloomberg with a chance of winning: his mother, Charlotte who passed away in 2011 at the age of 102.

The mayor has a sister and two daughters.  But chances are they, like anyone else stay out of his path, at least when it comes to non-family matters.

So as his 12 years in office come to an end next week, we take a look back at his administration.

There are some things you need to know about the man.  First, if he climbs any higher on the Forbes 400 he’ll get a nosebleed.  Second, he’s already given away more than the combined lifetime incomes of the first hundred people reading this page. Third, he plays the role of “smartest guy in the room,” and sometimes -- actually often -- he really is.

The mayor, any mayor, is often remembered short term for his screwups.  Lindsay the ineffective.  Beame the accountant who couldn’t fix the books.  Dinkins the swamped.  Giuliani the Batman of squeegee crime.  Bloomberg: of the road use tax, Big Gulp’s public enemy number one, green taxis and no smoking.

Later, history redeems them.  Lindsay brought peace to a city of anger. Dinkins eventually did build something akin to the Great Mosaic. Giuliani led us through and past 9/11.

And Bloomberg? Parks.  Rebuilding. Fiscal soundness, improved schools, a plummeting crime rate, stronger enforcement of the gun laws.  And a city government that runs what passes for smoothly in comparison to earlier years.

Are you better off now than you were 12 years ago?  Sure. Jobs are expanding, the streets are clean by New York standards, the unions are still thorns in the sides of the government and private industry but not extinct.  

So, complain all you want about things like tax rates, crowded conditions, rude taxi drivers, slow buses, too many homeless.  But overall we’re better off with Mike in City Hall than we were with many of his predecessors.

Bloomberg reminded the rest of the country that New York is not just another place. It’s a national leader in finance, thought, media, and complexity. And City Hall is a national platform for those mayors who choose to make it one.

Bloomberg certainly did that.  Gun control, diet, health issues were not just city concerns this past dozen years. He made them part of the national conversation.

And even though he’d been regularly accused of trying to create a “nanny state,” the conversation needed to be started.

Did he accomplish all his goals? No way.  Did he handle every emergency perfectly? Of course not.  Just think about that big snowstorm and the overreaction to the next weather threats.

We worried back in the day that he was out of his element when he first ran.  We worried about what would happen if he won.  We worried about what would happen if he lost.

But all of those worries were unfounded.

What’s next?  He’s been vague.  Everything from wanting to go back to work at his company at least part time to “drinking a small soda on a no smoking beach” as he said the other day on Saturday Night Live.

One thing you can be sure of:  we haven’t heard the last of this guy. 

Another thing?  Charlotte would be proud.

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

(Note: your poster worked for Bloomberg News for seven years that began before Mike ran for office.)

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1270 Exclusive! Duck Dynasty Interview

1270 Exclusive! Duck Dynasty Interview

In recent days controversy has swirled around the television program “Duck Dynasty,” a combination sitcom and reality show.

It started when the “Patriarch” of the Duck Commander company, which caters to hunters, Phil Robertson, declared in GQ Magazine that gay people are violating biblical law and are sinners.

A&E Network promptly suspended Robertson though as of now plans to continue shooting the series with the rest of the Robertson clan. This started some heavy duty exchanges between gay rights advocates and those that side with Robertson.

Lost in the midst of this media war is the voice of an important constituency and to remedy that, we welcome our guest Alfred Q. Drake, executive director of the AFMA, the American Flying Mallard Association.

Welcome, Mr. Drake.

Drake:  Oh, please call me “Quack” … that’s what the Q. in my name stands for.

Okay, Q, so this whole controversy must have hit you like high altitude turbulence at least for now.

Q: Oh, no, we were hoping for something like this to happen.

Hoping?  Why?  Do ducks have a particular fondness for gay men and women?

Q: Oh, no. It has nothing to do with that.  Just take a look at what these people do.  I’ve seen it first hand flying from Long Island to Florida for the winter. I made a side trip over Louisiana and that was a life-threatening experience.

How so?

Q: Well, look at what these guys manufacture.  They have this 20 thousand acre compound in Monroe, Louisiana.  And they make what may be the most accurate duck calls ever.  You know what that does? It lures thousands of us each year to untimely deaths.

So it’s not the gay thing?

Q: Of COURSE not.  I don’t give a day’s droppings one way or the other about people's’ sexual orientation.  I care about the lives of my fellow ducks!  They make a whole bunch of different calls and send their soldiers of fortune into the swamps and woods wearing those stupid looking caps and carrying those “Commando” ammo cases.  Why, it’s a disgrace!  I mean talk about following the Bible and the commandments and all… what ever happened to “Thou Shalt Not Kill?”

Is there any way you and the AFMA could reach some kind of accommodation?

Q:  Are you kidding?  Could the sane world reach an accommodation with Al Qaeda?  Or the Taliban? Or the Tea Party? Could Gotti reach an accommodation with Castellano?

Well…

Q: Could you reach an accord with your spouse?  These guys are in the business of killing ducks for the unmitigated pleasure of killing ducks!

Unmitigated?  That’s a pretty fancy word for a duck.

Q. Never mind.  We may be cute. We may waddle.  We may leave trace elements in your hair and on your lawn, but we’re not stupid.

Sorry.  So what do you think is going to happen?

Q:  I have no idea.  Probably those stubborn ZZ Top lookalikes will cancel the show unless A&E brings Robertson back.  But it doesn’t matter to us.  The damage is done.  These guys had an audience of about 14 million viewers, which is no small number.  But now the entire world has heard about them and you can bet they’ll expand Miss Kay’s Kitchen Collection to include a recipe book to go along with the carving board, the serving platter and that ugly cookie jar.

We’ve been talking with Alfred Q. Drake, Executive Director of the American Flying Mallard Association.  Thank…

Q: Wait just a minute.  Let me say that the AFMA has the word “Mallard” in its name only because we organized it.  We welcome ducks of any breed into the association.  No discrimination here… except maybe Peking Duck.  I’m allergic to the glaze.  And by the way, we’ve been open to geese and swans for decades.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.

Shameless self promotion.  My commentaries have returned to the air. Listen each weekday at about 7:20 am and 3:20 pm.

© WJR 2013

1269 The Cash Discount Scam

1269 The Cash Discount Scam

The Target hacking is making all of us run for our credit card statements.  Some of us are actually checking our credit score, even those of us who claim we do but don’t.

Forty million compromised cards.  Admit it…  you’re scared.

A friend reminds that the financial press was all aglow some few years ago with stories of discounts for cash.  Ever see a sign like that in a merchant’s window?  He hasn’t.  And it’s tough to find anyone who has.

Some background:  The credit card issuers eat from both ends of the trough.  If you have an outstanding balance, you pay loan shark rates to rent their money.  If you’re a seller, you pay a percentage of each sale as a transaction fee.

In some places, it’s legal to pad the price to make up for the fee.  And some merchants have long charged cash customers less for gasoline.  But a discount it isn’t.

You sell stuff, you figure all kinds of expenses into your cost of operation.  It’s kind of like padding the price to cover the cost of your electric bill.  It’s just not an expense most of us figure consciously.  

A store sells fruit.  But it also has a few boxes on the sidewalk in front. Do you expect a discount outdoors because the guy pays no rent on his part of the sidewalk? Or makes change out of a cigar box so… no electric bill for the register?

At least one card company is experimenting thus:  You use our card, you charge your customer “x” percent more.  So you can claim you’re giving a discount for cash.  Sort of.  It’s like getting an itemized bill for a candy bar:

1 Hershey Double Whammy Deluxe with Almonds $2.99

Sales tax @ 7.5% $0.22

Credit card fee @ 1.9% $0.06

Total $3.27

Get in there and demand your cash discount!

You can expand this idea and make price stickers like those on cars:

1 Hershey Double Whammy Deluxe with Almonds $2.99

Sales tax @ 7.5% $0.22

Credit card fee @ 1.9% $0.06

Premium paper-backed aluminum foil under-wrapping (included)

Upgraded brown anti-melt over-wrap (included)

Attractive silver toned lettering (included)

EZ open glue (included)

Price tag printing fee @ $0.47

Good neighbor printing fee discount @ - ($0.47)

Total $3.27

Try buying a really big ticket item for cash.  You bring a suitcase full of $100s, 50s and 20s to the right car dealer, they’ll call the cops and they’ll haul you off because the only people who have that kind of cash are bank robbers and drug dealers.

Actually, it might be worth a try when buying a moderate price item.  Ask the clerk at Best Buy or Sears to forego the credit card fee if you buy that big-screen TV for cash.  You never know.

(Thanks for the idea to RTB who didn’t get skunked at Target.)

Shameless self promotion.  My commentaries have returned to the air. Listen each weekday morning at about 7:20 am and 3:20 pm.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1268 What a Figure!

1268 What a Figure!

How much is your life worth?  In dollars.  There aren’t real standards for this kind of thing.  But now we have something of an idea.  And the figure is $205,000 and change.  

Let’s be a little more specific.  205-thousand, 167 thousand dollars and 17 cents.

Where’d that come from?

It came from the settlement reached between American Airlines and Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm with the single largest number of civilian deaths in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Twelve years after the fact. Nine years after the start of the suits.

Here are the ugly figures.  The settlement: $135 million.

The number of Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died: 658 (out of about 1,000.)

Before anyone gets a penny, the settlement goes to federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton nominee from 1998 and now with senior status.  His decision is due -- nominally -- on January 13, a Monday. There isn’t a lot of doubt that he’ll sign off on it.

Now, since companies can’t sue each other for wrongful death, where does this money go?  To the relatives and estates of the victims.

Cantor’s position was and is that American should have prevented the hijackings.  

And is AA ready to pay with a smile and a “thank you, sorry about that?”  Nope.

American says it was the government’s job to prevent the attacks.

Oh.  You mean the company that has long been a leading opponent of  regulation is telling us the government has an actual function and failed at it?

“Not our job.”

Don’t cry for the airline.  The money comes from the insurance companies.  But don’t for a minute think that those policies include “accident forgiveness.”  There’ll be a newly drafted premium bill any day now, and it’s going to be almost as ugly as the corporate response.

And the families?  When the dust settles, they’ll each walk away with a few bucks.  And that’s not much of a trade off for the lives of the victims.

Let’s not wax sentimental about what great guys the people of Cantor are or were.  It took CEO Howard Lutnick only days to stop the paychecks of the dead.

Lutnick had a lousy reputation on the street.  Pushy, punk-bully 40 year old.  He didn’t die that day because he was late to work.  Had to drop his kid off at off at school.

Why didn’t he just pack it in and go out of business?  He told the newspapers “We had to keep going.” And going he kept, along the way providing ten years of health insurance for the families and a good chunk of the profits.

So, Lutnick is a flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Shrapnel:

--So just what IS Cantor Fitzgerald, anyway?  It’s basically a middleman between people who want to buy US Treasury bonds and one of only 21 companies authorized to deal directly with the fed.  They do other things, too… but bond trading is the main deal.

--This should not be big news to you.  Everything on Wall Street is a middle man and many are middlemen between middlemen.  Makes you wonder what, after commissions, your investments really cost.

--Target was the target and 40 million of us may have had our credit and debit accounts “compromised,” as they put it.  That means someone may have your credit card number, its expiration date and the security code on the back.  A real confidence builder, this.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1267 Help Your Government

1267 Help Your Government

Okay, small government friends, time to make a money saving gift to Washington, something that will help bolster national security, reduce the federal workload, reduce the deficit and mark you as a patriot even more than your membership in any particular well regulated militia.

Email a copy of your 2013 electronic calendar to the National Security Agency. And no cheating, now.  Send everything.  Everything.  Even “take my One-A-Day Vitamin” or “Pay the Mortgage.”

And don’t omit those repeating events, either -- the ones that have no end date.  Include “Anniversary,” “Joey’s Birthday” and “Renew Lipitor.”

After all, remember that people who have left out important events like “Cat to vet,” have gone to jail for such omissions.

Here’s how that happens.  Say you’ve been sending your calendars all along.  But you forgot the cat entry.  The NRA ‘bots pick up that discrepancy and earpiece-wearing agents in black suits will visit you at 4:30 one morning and haul your conniving self off to an undisclosed location, possibly in Bangladesh or Tijuana where the torture laws are far more lax than where you live.

We don’t want that to happen, do we?

Why, you may ask, do they need all that stuff?  Simple. They look at your pay stubs, your checkbook and make sure you actually followed your own calendar instructions.

If you really want those brownie points, send along copies of your to-do lists.  And don’t just cross out the items you’ve done.  Don’t just check them off.  Date and time them.  Neatness doesn’t count. But accuracy does.

What will the agency do with all this?  Depends on whether you’re a person of interest.  That’s the current law enforcement term for people whose direct accusation could mean a messy and secret-spilling lawsuit.

So you’re not quite a suspect and you’re not quite NOT a suspect.

(For the contrarians among you, make life tough for the NSA.  Have your computer declared a crime scene.  Let the local cops and the feds fight for jurisdiction.)

One thing that won’t work: not keeping an internet calendar.  The NSA will have to send agents to your office and your den.  They’ll still be wearing those earpieces and black suits.  But they’ll be carrying Minox Cameras.  (And you thought Minox was out of business.  How little you know!)

There are lot of agents on the graveyard shift these days.  And 4:30 in the morning is a great time for breaking and entering.

Shrapnel:

--Government reports are about to make you question a couple of “givens.”  One says those anti-bacterial soaps don’t kill any more germs than plain soap and water.  The other says most vitamin pills are useless.  And the agencies with these reports have directed manufacturers to prove their claims.

--Harold Camping has died.  The broadcast preacher who thrice recently predicted the end of the world with actual dates and by all accounts was wrong each time was 92.  He built a broadcast empire on the backs of poor listeners and viewers who contributed their rent and grocery money.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1266 Rotating Commissioners

1266 Rotating Commissioners

Detective Sgt. Maria M. works out of a large Manhattan precinct. She is one of those smallish spitfire kind of women with the blazing eyes that keep the boys she runs in line without a word, even though she mostly has to look up when she gives them the death stare.

Twenty-two years in and still debating whether to retire or take the Lieutenant’s exam.  She already outranks her husband, a Detective/2nd and her father, a retired patrol officer.  And whether she wants to try for the next rung kind of depends on Bill Bratton, the next commissioner.

“You get this rotation. Kelly, Bratton.  Going to be one or the other of these guys until one of them falls off the face of the earth,” she says.  “it’s like they’re the only two top cops in America.”

At street level, where Maria works, you don’t notice a lot of difference.
“The mayor sets the policy and names the guy.  The guy sends memos and then holds press conferences, comforts victims, and shares the limelight with the Mayor when there’s a triumph or takes the rap alone when there’s a failure.”

“Kelly’s smart,” she says.  “He’s old.  He did a fine job after 9/11. He’s not paying attention to the stop and frisk thing.  He’ll get a great job with some private company that needs a big name security chief.  And I’ll bet the NYPD pension’s pretty good at his level, too.”

“Then, there’s Bratton.  I HATE that Boston accent.  All those years here and in L.A. and he still sounds like he just walked out of Fenway.”

“And that broken window thing of his, early detection, worked well when the main problem here was crackheads and turnstile jumpers and old Italian guys running the rackets.  Now, we have Arab terrorists and eco terrorists and animal rights terrorists, not to mention the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Colombians, the Mexicans, the Salvadorans, the Tong, the Viets.  None of these guys break windows, they break knees and heads.”

So what about stop and frisk?

“Look, chico, I’m a middle aged woman, a mother, a minority and a cop.  Any combination two of those things is more than enough to know who to stop and frisk and who to leave alone.”

So you’re going to be okay with Bratton, even with the Fenway Park accent?

“Doesn’t much matter here on the pavement, unless you’re Trayvon Martin or Abner Louima.”

So, did you vote for de Blasio?

“Nah. I live in Massapequa.”

(Note to readers: “Maria” isn’t her real name. But her rank and her years of service are accurate and so are her quotes.)

Shrapnel:

--The mail about the Mandela post was about 75-25 in favor/opposed. The 25 was much more fun.  I know I’m doing my job when I’m wrongly accused of being an uninformed belligerent racist, genocidal, pro-torture anti-semitic anti-Christian communist revolutionary fascist tribalist fan of old school African dictators.

--The post office of Canada says it is ready to phase out all home delivery, replacing it with community mailboxes of the kind you find in apartment houses and groups of townhouses.  They don’t mess around with public opinion on this stuff up north.  Example:  Years ago, they eliminated the one dollar bill and replaced it with a dollar coin and -- surprise, surprise -- no one died, unlike here where the mere thought of a pocket full of Sacagaweas sent millions of us into anaphylactic shock.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.

© WJR 2013