Sleepless in Midland

Jimmie JJ Walker's joke during the Rodney King riots still rings true

Sometime after the Rodney King riots and looting of stores in Los Angeles JJ Walker was doing a stand-up routine on a late show. It went something like this:

"On the third night no one was on the streets. You know why they weren't out, don't you? They were all home trying to hook up their new VCRs."

Funny stuff. His joke rang true because of a widespread feeling that those looters were less motivated by a desire for revenge or justice as much as they were by the desire to get free stuff.

As TV screens fill with sights of ransacked stores in Minneapolis we are reminded that for the looters, vandals, and rioters justice really isn't the prime motivator.

Dyn-o-mite!

------
3:26 PM 5/29/2020

Celebrities against consumerism -- what an irony

There was a time when actors were considered lower class. But then movies were invented, and shrewd entrepreneurs developed a very profitable business. Promoting actors into stars enhanced that business enterprise and elevated the status of actors.

The job of an actor is to pretend to be some other character. Actors are simply people with a talent for convincing others that they are something they really aren't. A celebrity worship cult developed, and the actors capitalized on that to become fabulously wealthy. And somehow they convinced themselves that people wanted to hear what they themselves had to say.

Eyebrows get raised when celebrities pontificate about how normal people should live their lives. Here's a case in point. Stars and scientists call for world not to 'go back to normal':

"The pursuit of consumerism and an obsession with productivity have led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, that of animals, and that of a great number of human beings," the short letter added. "Pollution, climate change, and the destruction of our remaining natural zones has brought the world to a breaking point."

So here we are. Working people are struggling to make ends meet, and celebs richer than Croesus are railing against consumerism. What a scene.

Kat Timpf takes them down a notch:

Now, to be clear, I’m not attacking them for their success – or even for them enjoying it with lavish lifestyles. What I am saying, however, is that I can’t help but be irked by the unconscionable lack of awareness you’d have to have in order to sign something like this while you’re sitting in an extravagant home surrounded by servants.

After all, if any of the super-wealthy people who signed this letter had any real interest in stopping the “pursuit of consumerism,” they would certainly have started with taking a look at their own habits in that area.

Here's an idea. Let's support their battle against "consumerism" by avoiding any movie, TV show, concert, or other performance involving those actors. Yeah! We're in this fight together!

------
3:11 PM 5/12/2020

Biden family not the first to accept money from shady foreigners

Most of us probably couldn't have cared less about Joe Biden's family before learning that his son got a lucrative no-work job from a shady Ukrainian business. Now that that seed of thought has been planted, we have to wonder how many other prominent politicians have family members on some suspicious foreigner's payroll.

Well, what do you know. Here's one now:

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

Everyone is entitled to a fair hearing, and that applies to Ukrainian oligarchs, too. And attorneys are obligated to get their clients fair hearings and shouldn't be judged by their whatever their clients did.

Nonetheless, it certainly seems like a conflict of interest in this particular case. And it does nothing to allay the suspicion that there may be plenty of other politicians' family members getting big pay checks from foreigners hoping to benefit from a favor for a politician.

------
5:47 AM 12/17/2019

Is Colin Kaepernick a money making genius or just lucky?

Kaepernick put on a football throwing exhibition last weekend styled as a demonstration for prospective employers. It's unknown whether he will get a job offer from that. But that's hardly the point. He already has a job -- a shoe salesman -- and he's doing quite well.

Check out this headline: Nike's value is up $26.2B since Colin Kaepernick endorsement. Now it’s close to unveiling his shoe.

So if a normal person has a job as lucrative as Kaepernick's job with Nike, would he really want to play football on a team again? He would not only be risking his health but if he doesn't perform well, he'll be the butt of countless jokes and unfunny ridicule. And his value as a shoe salesman would likely suffer.

His latest stunt put him in the headlines again, and for him, publicity whether good or bad, is good for business.

Is Kaepernick or his advisers that smart? Or is he just lucky? There seems to be a shortage of examples of strategic brilliance on the field.

Meanwhile, he didn't do a very good job of articulating the cause that sparked his crusade back when he started getting all the attention. And now it's difficult to remember just what it was. Oh well, it doesn't really matter now anyway.

------
5:57 AM 11/22/2019

Is this bear market pause on stocks over yet?

It's fun to think of the stock market as a sports event. But with money in the game it's not much fun to see your side lose. On the other hand, there will always be buyers and sellers, and the most fun to be had is when buyers bid up the prices.

Anyway, investor sentiment is often a good indicator. When prices go up too much and buyers keep bidding them up -- i.e., when investor sentiment gets too high -- that's the time to be cautious. The opposite is true, too. When investors are in a panic to dump their stocks, that's often a good time to buy.

Mark Hulbert's sentiment index was always a good one to watch. But these days it costs money to see that index. Nevertheless, others attempt to gauge investor sentiment, and the one on the right hand side of this post was found at money.cnn.com called Fear & Greed Index.

Currently it's showing an 18 which they say is "extreme fear." That can be a good sign for investors.

------

2:50 PM 11/27/2018

Huge West Texas ranch on the auction block

This came from dallasnews.com. Link: Sprawling West Texas ranch up for grabs has more than 37,000 acres:

A huge West Texas ranch up for grabs is expected to fetch more than $40 million at sale.

The KC7 Ranch sprawls over 37,000 acres near Interstate 10 in Reeves and Jeff Davis counties in the foothills of the Davis Mountains. The historic property includes a nearly 10,000 square-foot lodge that dates from the 1890s. There is a rock barn and corrals plus a second house.

The property is being sold out of bankruptcy from holdings of Fort Worth oilman Thomas Darden. Dallas' Icon Global Group has been hired by the court to sell the property to the highest bidder.

The ranch was previously offered for sale for more than $50 million. Sealed bid sales for the ranch are due Nov. 30.

Icon Global Group of Dallas is the real estate agent in the transaction, and here's a peak at their web post for the property.

It certainly looks like a nice place. If were a billionaire I might be tempted to make a bid. But knowing there would be property taxes due to two counties might be enough to dissuade me. And one thing a buyer would have to take into the transaction is knowledge that it would be hard to unload.

Via San Antonio Express News.

------

1:51 PM 10/18/2018

Learn from my mistake -- Don't delay using with those gift cards

I learned this the hard way. This HEB gift card was given to me some time ago, and today when I tried to use it the sad reality sunk in. It was worth a big fat zero.

Read the fine print. After 12 months it begins depreciating at the rate of $2.00 per month. The number "10" was written on the back. So if that was the initial value, it became zero after 17 month. Bummer.

Lesson learned.

Is all this bearishness on the stock market signaling a buying opportunity? Depends on who's bearish.

An important indicator for future stock prices is the level of pessimism. With current stock indices in nose bleed territory, it seems logical to presume that since prices are too high, a correction is imminent. The bubble is about to burst. Those of us old enough to remember black Monday of October 1987 have seen it happen.

Take a look at this article: Increasingly Bearish Investors Seek Long-Term Value Creation.

Maybe, just maybe, all this pessimism is telling us that there's a lot of cash sitting around uninvested. And that might be signaling a buying opportunity. But wait a sec. "Almost three-quarters of the survey respondents were portfolio managers ...". Portfolio managers are supposed to be smarter than the individual investor, so we'd best take a look at the AAII Sentiment Survey. Their results as of 12/13/2017 appear below:

Their latest survey shows a dip in bearishness and a rise in bullishness. That disparity between portfolio managers and individuals might suggest that maybe now isn't the time to buy after all.

------

12:16 PM 12/16/2017

XCOR goes belly up without ever getting off the ground

According to the morning paper, XCOR filed chapter 7. And only now is the Midland Development Corporation scrambling to perfect a security interest in personal property that the MDC financed. Here are the sad facts from said article:

Hilliard told the Reporter-Telegram on Thursday that the economic development group is attempting to get a collateralized security interest in XCOR. The MDC took the step of filing uniform commercial code (UCC) financing statements with the Texas, California and Florida secretaries of state Wednesday.

Per the MDC’s contract with XCOR, incentive money was paid upfront without collateral. The deal predates Hilliard’s involvement with the MDC.

Perfecting a security interest is one of the FIRST things you do, not the LAST.

Oh, what the hell. Midland got lots of good, nationwide publicity when they announced the deal. There was no steak, but there was lot's of sizzle. As I've said in this blog in the past, that was the payoff. Too bad that was all we got, but it will have to do.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention this group of winners. The lawyers involved in this fiasco will make out OK. So not everyone lost.

------

8:47 AM 11/11/2017

Taking a knee and biting the hand

All those rich professionals ball players on the field who refuse to respect the U.S. flag have every right to do so. They should thank our founding fathers for giving them that right, but that wouldn't fit the narrative.

In any event, the politicization of pro sports could have a positive effect. The case for taxpayer funded ball parks for pampered professionals and wealthy owners has always been a misuse of tax dollars. Voters who will inevitably be asked to pay for new sports stadiums might have second thoughts about that concept.

So maybe voters will balk the next time some pro team owner comes to them with his hand out. The ballot box is where conservatives protest. Let the millionaire players pay for their own stadium.

------

9:13 AM 9/24/2017

When public servants receive the pork their agency doles out

There was an excellent Q&A broadcast on C-Span the other day featuring Adam Andrzejewski, the founder of the watchdog site, Openthebooks.com. Click this link for access to the video.

And if you're interested in wasteful farm subsidies click Federal Transfer Report, Farm Subsidies & The Big Dogs for a summary of the downloadable PDF report. Here's part of the summary:

Within Washington, D.C. northern Virginia and Maryland ZIP codes, 2,801 entities received a federal government farm subsidy payment with an aggregated total of $18.478 million. Review our interactive “Washington, D.C. & Beltway Farm Subsidy Heat Map.”

Federal farm subsidy program dollars are flowing into the “urban areas”- where there are no farms. Farm subsidy lobbyists, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture executives, the very well connected, wealthy heirs, and even U.S. Senators are receiving farm subsidy checks.

And something we've known for a long time, most of the subsidies go to big agribusiness, not family farmers:

In fact, small family farms are not receiving much money. Our analysis shows that billions of the FY2008-11 subsidies flowed to just 1.4% of recipients- those receiving at least $250,000! News outlets have repeatedly reported that just 10% of recipients received 74% of the subsidies.

In fact, the farm subsidy is so pervasive and lucrative that many of the top Washington, D.C. farm subsidy recipients are farm subsidy lobbyists, lawyers and executives at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even elected representatives in the House and Senate are receiving their piece of the federal pie.

Read the whole thing to get more of a flavor of what voters are up against.  Furthermore, as we've noted in a prior post, in order to cut back on an entitlement we need the backing of public opinion, a willing president, and a cooperative legislature.  Currently we have none of those in regard to farm subsidy handouts.

------

2:55 PM 9/11/2017

XCOR not looking so good -- the cargo cult lesson should have been a warning, not a blueprint

The Midland Development Board dumped a load of money into the rosy idea of Midland, Texas, having a space port from which Xcor could carry paying passengers on short trips into space. That dreamy outlook wasn't shared by many of the taxpayers whose money was used to fund the company's plan.

Now we are learning that the whole thing may be falling apart. See XCOR Aerospace lays off remaining employees.

"Build it and they will come," was a line from a movie. And rather than accepting it as a statement of fact, it probably should be categorized with the cargo cults whereby primitive tribes built rudimentary airports to draw in airliners.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is the company to watch with their ingenious plan to reuse rockets to increase the frequency of launches.

Previously at this blog:
Would you buy stock in XCOR?
With the sizzle XCOR provided, Midland could probably live without the steak
Midland Development Corporation should watch Shark Tank
Midland Space Port -- "build it and they will come" sounds so much better than "cargo cult".

------

1:25 PM 7/11/2017

Do we really need credit protection when the credit card companies are looking out for their customers?

It's hard to listen to the radio or watch TV these days without hearing or seeing a commercial for a service wanting to protect us from identity theft. If they could do it, they would probably arrange to have the commercials played right after one of those all too frequent news reports about a huge data breach. Like this one.

But the idea of someone using a person's personal information to apply for credit, while conceivable, probably isn't very practical considering how cautious companies are about extending credit.

So should we be worried that someone will purloin our identities and get credit cards with it? I have my doubts. This is a personal anecdote and may not have general application. But here it is. The other day I purchased something at Walmart.com for the first time. My credit card number was declined. After the third try, I phoned the credit card company to find out why. Turns out the credit card fraud department had flagged the transaction and triggered the rejection. Why was it flagged? No reason other than that the card information was used at Walmart.com. Odd.

Walmart probably doesn't appreciate business lost due to automatic fraud alerts simply for using their website for a purchase. On the other hand, Amazon must love it since Walmart is angling to take away customers who may otherwise have gone there.

Maxine Waters probably not as dumb as they say -- personifies theory of Public Choice

One doesn't have to look too hard to find someone openly questioning Maxine Waters' intellect. She opens her mouth and evidence pours out.

And there's the apparent wealth she has accumulated while in office. That should open all sorts of inquiries. But that's what most politicians do, so it would be hard to single her out for these type shenanigans.

But actually, maybe she's not so dumb after all. She knows her base. It's unlikely she could get elected to any office outside of her district, but she knows what her constituents want to hear, and she tells it to them. So in that sense, she's not so dumb. She merely typifies the Public Choice theory, to wit:

In the conventional “public interest” view, public officials are portrayed as benevolent “public servants” who faithfully carry out the “will of the people.” In tending to the public’s business, voters, politicians, and policymakers are supposed somehow to rise above their own parochial concerns. ...

But public choice, like the economic model of rational behavior on which it rests, assumes that people are guided chiefly by their own self-interests and, more important, that the motivations of people in the political process are no different from those of people in the steak, housing, or car market.

Nope, not dumb, she's simply in it to get all she can for herself.

------

1:49 PM 5/21/2017

David Dao, tear down that settlement confidentiality wall and tell us how much you got

There's always something discomforting about settlement agreements with non-disclosure clauses. They all have them, but it suggests that it was all about the money.

The msm made a victim and a hero out of Dr. Dao by showing the video of him being dragged off a plane. One radio commentator said he was removed from the plane then came back on displaying facial injuries. We don't know how he got the injuries -- did the security officers beat him up? Did he inflict the injuries on himself?

In any event, his lawyers parlayed the bad publicity for United into what we have to guess was a pretty big settlement. But they won't disclose the amount, obviously because of a non-disclosure clause in the contract.

I call on Dr. Dao to disclose the amount. United would ask him to give the money back. He could refuse, like he did when they asked him to get off the plane. Maybe he'll retain that hero status. People are always saying, "It's not about the money." But he could demonstrate that it wasn't about the money. Otherwise, we are left to surmise that it was about the money.

12:59 PM 4/29/2017