Postscript

No Comments

SF sent in this bit by Woody Allen that helped lighten my mood: 

“My Next Life” 

“In my next life, I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day.

“You work for 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born.

“And then you spend your last nine months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! you finish off as an orgasm!

“I rest my case.”

Continue Reading

Wednesday, February 21, 2024, Delray Beach, Florida


Notes From My Journal

No Comments

Another Reason to Support the War in Ukraine

I just found out. The military-industrial complex has come up with a new reason Americans should support Ukraine in its war with Russia: It’s good for the US economy!

I learned this while listening to the radio last week. According to whatever numbskull was speaking, industrial production in the US defense and space sector has increased almost 18% since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago. And that’s why Biden’s new “supplemental defense bill” should be supported by every congressperson – even those Trump-supporting crackpots that don’t think we should be supporting another Cold War proxy contest.

Here’s how they explain it: Out of the $95 billion the bill’s sponsors are asking for, 65% – about $61 billion – will flow back to the US by way of paying for US-manufactured military products.

That’s good, right?

Of course, there is the inconvenient fact that 100% of the $95 billion will be 100% funded by adding to the federal debt (already at a mind-boggling and record-breaking $33 trillion). And 100% of that will be paid back – either by inflation or recession (more likely both) – by American taxpayers, most of whom couldn’t find Ukraine on a map.

If you care to read more about the bill, US spending, and the political arguments, here’s a piece from the WSJ that was published on Feb. 18.

Continue Reading

Worth Considering

No Comments

Trump’s New York Civil Fraud Case: 
What, Exactly, Was the “Crime” He Committed? 

Last week, a Manhattan judge fined Donald Trump and The Trump Organization $355 million and barred him from serving in a top role of any New York company for three years. The charge was that he “fraudulently inflated his wealth for financial gain,” including “falsifying records, issuing false documents, and related conspiracy offenses.”

This was wonderful news for the Anti-Trumpers. You could hear them gloating about it on every mainstream talk show.

For anyone who knows little to nothing about how the real estate business works, this charge must sound like a serious violation of law, and the penalty indicative of a Bernie-Madoff-level scam.

In fact, what Trump and The Trump Organization did was remarkably common in the high-finance portion of the real estate universe. It happens commonly, not just in NYC, but in every city in America and in every country. Moreover, the over-valuation charge is essentially meaningless because it involves a part of the loan application that is extraneous to what the bank looks at in determining whether a loan seeker has the liquidity and the resources to pay off the loan.

Let me break it down for you…

Imagine you are a big real estate developer wanting to construct a new building. The cost of construction is, say, $30 million. So, you go to a bank to get a construction loan. The bank wants collateral to protect its investment. And what they ask you to do is provide them with two sorts of numbers.

Their first and most important requirement is that you have liquid assets that (a) are sufficient to cover the loan, and (b) they can easily claim if your project fails to hit its targets. This would include cash and certain physical assets that, if needed, the bank could cash in immediately and without complication. (Assets that are encumbered in any way are correctly considered by the bank to be next to worthless for them.)

Banks will also ask for a list of assets that they would have no intention of going after – all sorts of assets that would give them a general idea of your net worth.

Valuing real estate is not a precise science. It involves calculations that are based on numbers that are really guesstimates, as well as guesses about what the property will be worth over the span of time that the loan is in play. If you have ever bought a house using the value of an existing house for collateral, you know that there is likely to be a range, depending on the bank’s assessment and the assessment of an expert you hire.

When it comes to valuing the assets on list one, the bank is going be conservative to give it leeway against miscalculations or future imponderables. If you think the bank’s valuations are significantly understated, you will make your argument. But the final decision is the bank’s.

Now here’s what I think is crazy about Trump’s case. The assets that the judge says he grossly overvalued were in list two – assets meant to provide a general idea of his overall net worth. They were not assets that the bank really cared about.

It is quite possible that Trump overestimated the value of one or more of the assets on list two. But that is, at best, a technical violation that would have no impact on the solidity of the loan. And to me, it simply sounds like something he has been doing from the beginning – overestimating his overall net worth so he seems richer than he is.

Several things happened here that convince me the entire thing was another politically motivated example of rogue judges and prosecutors trying to put Trump in jail by cooking up and prosecuting phony charges. It was worse than the Georgia case because there was no trial and no jury. It was one judge, who either knows nothing about how real estate loans work or is downright unethical, deciding to exceed his legal and moral authority in order to cripple Trump financially.

To make matters worse, the way this judgment works, Trump must pay the fine before he can appeal the decision. One judge. No trial. No jury. And a huge fine that he must pay before he can get a chance to defend himself.

Remember… nobody was hurt in these loan transactions. Not the bank. Not the bank’s investors. Not the businesses involved in the project. Nobody. On the contrary, everyone made money.

Continue Reading

News & Views

No Comments

The Blue State vs. Red State Population War Continues

New York isn’t the only state losing entrepreneurs and high-income earners to lower-tax and lower-cost-of-living states like Florida and Texas. California is having the same experience. And for similar reasons.

California has the highest state income tax in the country. Californians with incomes over $1 million pay a whopping 13.3%. That’s on top of federal taxes for such people, amounting to the state and federal governments taking 50% of the income of the state’s most productive residents.

California is a beautiful state. In addition to its great climate, there are lots of reasons why one would want to live and work there. But if you are a high earner or an owner of a business that employs hundreds or thousands of people, this kind of taxation makes it very tempting to move to a state that is much less punitive with its taxes.

And people are moving away. A recent study indicates how much tax revenue income California is, in fact, losing every year and is likely to lose in the future as it keeps jacking up its taxes on the “wealthy.”

Gov. Newsom is not oblivious to the real-world effects of high taxation. But instead of dealing with the problem directly, he has reacted to the flight of wealthy people and companies from his state by trying to punish them with costly penalties. Which seems sort of third-worldish, don’t you think? Click  here.

On the Other Hand…

It’s not all bad news for New York. Gov. Kathy Hochul surprised many at the end of last year by vetoing two bills that would have driven more businesses and high earners out of her state.

One of the bills would have crippled non-compete agreements.

In my business (the digital publishing business), non-compete contracts usually don’t work. They are either written so tightly that they would be rejected as unreasonable or so loosely that they can easily be skirted by designing the new job in such a way that it falls outside the restrictive language.

Another way of putting it is that in my industry, the most valuable assets are inside individual people’s brains – their ability to conceive of interesting and salable ideas year after year or the ability to know how to sell those ideas to the public.

These are skills, not templates or blueprints or algorithms. They cannot be copied. Or codified. Or stolen. Or even defined.

But that’s my business. When it comes to technology businesses, what is often most valuable is knowledge – knowledge in the form of templates and blueprints and algorithms. Information that can be financially profitable for anyone that has possession of it. To protect against the widespread thievery of this kind of knowledge, we have laws to protect the investors, the creators, the distributors, and everyone else involved in turning a new technology into cash.

In explaining her veto, Hochul said she tried to negotiate a compromise with the legislature “to protect middle-class and low-wage earners while allowing New York’s businesses to retain highly compensated talent.” But progressive legislators weren’t interested.

The governor also vetoed a bill that would have required every corporation registered to do business in New York to consent to being sued in New York’s courts.

I know. That one sounds reasonable. But what a bill like this really does is create an industry of corrupt attorneys that make a living by suing out-of-state corporations that do business in multiple states. I’ve seen this in action. It has nothing to do with protecting consumers. It’s all about extortion.

Continue Reading

Worth Reading

No Comments

How Money Walks 

By Alexander Ward
368 pages
Published Feb. 20, 2024

The WSJ recommended The Internationalists last week. I have at least 60 books piled up in various corners of my house and office that I’ve promised myself I would read, but this one intrigued me.

Short of time, I skimmed it. But there were paragraphs and even pages that I put stickies on to get back to when I had time.

One is this observation about Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan:

“During the chaotic scenes that unfolded around Kabul’s airport as Taliban-aligned forces began taking over the capital, White House officials knew the president was making promises he couldn’t keep to get people out of the country.

“Biden told ABC News on Aug. 18, 2021, that he was committed to having troops stay in Afghanistan until every US citizen who wanted to leave could do so.” A senior White House official told Ward at the time: “There’s no one here who thinks we can meet that promise.”

“Ultimately, Biden withdrew the last US troops there two weeks later, but left more than 800 American citizens in Afghanistan. Also left behind: Tens of thousands of Afghans who allied with the US and had been promised refuge in the US. So White House staff knew that Americans and many of our friends would be left behind but nobody felt compelled to blow the whistle? One can only wonder who would hire such people.”

This morning, I found a critique of the book by James Freeman in the WSJ that elaborates on the issue. You can read it here.

Continue Reading

Worth Watching

No Comments

The Tourist

Directed by Chris Sweeney
Starring Jamie Dornan and Danielle McDonald
Series 1 (6 episodes) premiered Jan. 1, 2022 on BBC One; currently on Netflix
Series 2 (6 episodes) launches Feb. 29 on Netflix

Watch Time: 1 hr. per episode

Plot: An Irish tourist wakes up with amnesia in a small-town Australian hospital and must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.

What I Like About It 

1. It’s a gripping and fast-moving series that satisfies its genre as a dramatic thriller. And it provides something extra for fans of cinema in that the script is inspired by the intelligent zaniness of the Coen brothers (but a bit darker) and the direction is reminiscent in many ways of David Lynch (but a tad more sober). The combination is a fascinating, freaky, and often funny series that will give you enjoyment on several planes and at multiple levels.

2. The lead actors, Jamie Dornan and Danielle McDonald, are both very good and perfectly selected for their roles.

3. And speaking McDonald… Her character reminds me of Frances McDormand’s in the Coen brothers’ Fargo. In McDonald’s case, she is an overweight, underconfident, but intuitive low-level policewoman who, against the wishes of her superiors, inserts herself into the case and becomes not just a principal character but a deserving leading lady.

Critical Reception 

* “This funny, suspenseful six-part thriller doesn’t merely keep us guessing. It keeps its amnesiac hero guessing, too.” (NPR)

* “Dornan finds a quirky, unsettled way to play a man who doesn’t know who he is without resorting to the cliché of the lost soul.” (Roger Ebert.com)

* “A pulse-pounding series packed with humor and philosophical questions.” (The Guardian)

You can watch the trailer here.

Friday Night Blind 

A short (just over 13 minutes) documentary that follows the minor struggles and triumphs of a trio of visually impaired friends who meet once a week to go bowling.

Watch the whole thing here.

“This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Hope of the Middle East” 

From Bari Weiss, writing in The Free Press…

“Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel. But that’s not the thing that makes her exceptional. The thing that makes Lucy stand out is that she is the first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream, Hebrew-language Israeli television.

“I’ve done many interviews that have stayed with me. This might be the most moving of all.”

Watch Weiss’s interview with Aharish here.

Continue Reading

The Economy & Investing

No Comments

Last week, Sean demonstrated something that everyone that wants to understand the true state of our economy needs to understand: Many of the numbers we get from government agencies, numbers that are repeated uncritically by the press, are either misleading or downright deceptive because (1) the government wants taxpayers to be ignorant about economic issues, and (2) the kids that are hired to work as journalists are dumber than dental floss.

This week, Sean takes his mission to another level by talking about why all the misinformation put out by the government and published in major news outlets (including the NYT and the WSJ) is wrong, and what that should mean to you. – MF

Last week, I explained why job growth numbers published by the White House appeared to be misleading at best…

And covering up a serious problem at worst.

Today, I want to talk about unemployment numbers specifically, and why the headline unemployment figure is more than just overly simplified. It distorts the economic hardship people are facing.

We have been consistently hearing that the US unemployment rate is currently 3.7%.

But that does not mean that 96.3% of people in the US are employed.

This unemployment percentage does not include workers who have given up actively seeking a job or freelancers or gig workers who recently lost clients. It also doesn’t specify whether workers are employed part time or full time.

Once we factor in the total number of unemployed people, plus “marginally attached” and part time workers, that unemployment number surges to 8%.

Even when we do this, the figure doesn’t factor in the fact that, since 2020, the number of people who have “opted out” of the U.S. labor force has stayed stubbornly high.

And none of these numbers yet factor in how companies around America, in every industry, have been laying people off in droves.

There’s rot beneath the veneer of the US’s “surprisingly strong economic growth” in recent months.

Unless something changes, it will be spreading to the surface sooner rather than later.

– Sean MacIntyre

Sean is working on a video about this topic. You can be notified when it’s complete by subscribing to his YouTube channel here.

Continue Reading

Fun and/or Interesting

No Comments

Ten Life Hacks I Haven’t Tried Yet 

I came across this in a magazine someone left in an airport. It’s from Bruce Wilson, who self-identifies as a social researcher and world traveler. I thought it was pretty good and worth passing on to you.

1. Start every phone call with “My battery is almost dead.” That way you can hang up on them at any time.

2. Forward spam texts to 7726. Your carrier will respond and ask you what number it came from.

3. Hit the space bar twice for a full stop, and the next letter will be automatically capitalized too.

4. Instead of crossing words out with lines, cross them out with letters, so they won’t be legible.

5. If the person sitting in front of you on a flight reclines their seat all the way back and leaves you with no room, turn on the air con above you to full blast and point it at the top of their head.

6. The best way to charge your phone faster is by switching it to airplane mode before plugging it in.

7. Wet your nail clippers before using them. Your clippings won’t fly everywhere.

8. Boost the range of your key remote by holding it against your chin.

9. If you’d like to use emojis on your Mac desktop, simply press Control + Command + Spacebar to open the emoji menu.

10. To hit a perfect high-five, lock your eyes onto your recipient’s elbow.

Continue Reading

Worth Quoting

No Comments

Just One Sip and No More! 

From James Clear, a master of pithy advice:

“It is not worth it to be greedy over a single transaction. Even if you’re not going to work with the person again. Even if you think word won’t get out. Even if you think this is your one shot to make it. Reputation follows you everywhere.”

I would add this: It’s not just that your reputation follows you everywhere, it’s that the habit of excusing yourself for behaving unethically does, too. If you think you are doing it just this one time and never again, you are fooling yourself.

Continue Reading