Category Archives: Futures

Holiday Wish List

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1. Find CHOPSTICKS that work.  For food, not flies.

chopsticks

2. Start an internet casting site dedicated to COMEDY films, tv shows and radio programs.  Call it COMEDYCATION.  Get it?  A commingling of the words comedy, communication, and medication.  Because humor is the best medicine.

3. Learn how to JUGGLE.

4. Pass some kind of US CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to a.) limit and expose campaign financing, b.) limit human rights to humans not corporations, or c.) both.

5. Invent GUM that won’t stick to desks.

6. Start the AMERICAN MAJORITY PARTY that votes based on the results of at least 2 national polls.

7. Go BUNGEE JUMPING off a bridge over water.

Maybe next year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

Citigroup to Move HQ into Congress Bldg

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“Citigroup executives can be right on the floor with them, handing them legislation and telling them how to vote.”

citi_at_capitol

No joke.  Makes me kind of sad.

The banking giant Citigroup announced on Friday that it would move its headquarters from New York to the U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington, D.C., in early 2015.

Tracy Klugian, a spokesperson for Citi, said that the company had leased thirty thousand square feet of prime real estate on the floor of the House of Representatives and would be interviewing “world-class architects” to redesign the space to suit its needs.

Explaining the rationale behind the move, Klugian told reporters, “Instead of constantly flying out from New York to give members of Congress their marching orders, Citigroup executives can be right on the floor with them, handing them legislation and telling them how to vote. This is going to result in tremendous cost savings going forward.”

Not only did the big banks grease enough palms so Congress repealed portions of Dodd Frank designed to prevent another recession, they managed to increase the donation limitation from $32,400 to $324,000.  Hmmmmmm…..

For more info, see

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-16/are-you-really-ready-world-be-ruled-bankers

 

What Is Wrong With Capitalism?

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Sure capitalism is not perfect.  Is anything?  Let’s examine the problems.

pickpocket

THE FIRST PROBLEM

As long as the minimum wage is below the poverty level, our society will be amoral.

The poverty level is defined as annual wages below $28,450 for a family of 4.  Divided by 2,000 hours in a year, you get a poverty level hourly wage of $14.225 per hour (or less) for a family of 4.

Currently the national minimum wage is $7.25 and has not changed since 2009.

People trying to claw their way out of poverty will become pickpockets, blame co-workers for mistakes, cheat on time cards and steal supplies at work.  Is that the kind of society we want to live in?

THE FIRST SOLUTION

Raising the minimum wage would help $27.8 million people.

Here is why we should raise the minimum wage according to a small business owner.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/04/a_small_business_owner_s_case_for_raising_the_minimum_wage_better_living.html

Spoiler alert:  He thinks it will grow his business.

THE SECOND PROBLEM

This problem involves cheating on taxes and tax loopholes. In other words, giving priority to me, myself and I.  As long as the tax system is overly complicated, humans are going to try to get away with something to get ahead of their neighbors.  This mess, of course, was created by Congress.

THE SECOND SOLUTION

What can we do?  We can plug the tax loopholes as proposed by Eric Schmidt. Google’s Chairman told angry British politicians last year: “plug the holes if you want more tax revenues”.

The result will be a reduction of our $18 trillion national debt.

THE THIRD PROBLEM

As long as you allow average national CEO pay to increase many times faster than inflation, you will have an amoral society.  Average national CEO pay increased to $15.2 million in 2013.

The CEO to worker compensation ratio is 296 to 1 today versus 20 to 1 in 1965.

pickpocket_wealthy

The result is the current wage inequality.

In order to keep up their fast rising salaries, CEOs and executives of financial institutions and other companies are taking huge risks with company and customer stock under the guise of pro-growth mergers and acquisitions using huge sums of leveraged loans.

Richard Baker, chief executive, along with his investment firm, NRDC Equity Partners, relied heavily on borrowed money. Of the $1.2 billion that it paid for Lord & Taylor, only $25 million came in the form of equity [2%], with the remainder made up of debt financing, secured by the department store estate. [The New York Times]

When was the last time you bought something with only a 2% down payment?

THE THIRD SOLUTION

Create annual Top Ten lists of Most Narcissistic CEOs and Highest Paid CEOs.

Maybe this will get us back to a more equitable ratio.  1965 was a pretty good year even though the ratio was only 20 to 1.

CONCLUSION

Capitalism is fraught with greed but it doesn’t have to be.

As the Google IPO started out saying, “Don’t be evil.”  Better than that, let’s not be amoral.  Thus reform needs to start with each of us.

We should be thinking more about the people around us or, even better, the world around us.  The Mormons pledge 10% of their income.  So why shouldn’t everyone, that can afford it, give just 1%? 

Google stated in its “Letter from the Founders” as part of its original IPO paperwork, “We intend to contribute significant resources to the [Google] foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form.”

In addition, let’s raise the minimum wage and try to close the gap between workers and CEOs.

Here are 7 suggestions to close the gap.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-ways-to-help-the-middle-class-without-soaking-the-rich-2015-02-05?page=1.

~~~~o~~~~

WHAT IS AMORALITY

Here is a great article about Silicon Valley Amorality.  But amorality can be found everywhere there is capitalism.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141123194522-529261-silicon-valley-s-culture-of-amorality-water-will-find-its-way

AMORAL APP

There is an app to see how corrupt aka amoral you are. At least in Indonesia.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/11/25/corruption-indonesia-app/70086430/?csp=tech

LEVERAGED LOANS COULD CAUSE CRASH

https://michaelekelley.com/2014/12/20/leveraged-loans-predict-crash/

Thanks.  Have a great day.

Republicans Consider Unfriending Obama on Facebook

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What is the social networking world coming to?

boehner_thumbs_up

[The following is reprinted from The Washington Post as written by Dana Milbank.]

Among the many ways Republican members of Congress are contemplating to punish President Obama for his executive actions on immigration is a proposal of elegant simplicity: They would refuse to invite him to the Capitol to give his State of the Union address.

Yes, that should do the job. And if this doesn’t force Obama to back down from his executive orders, Republican lawmakers can escalate by unfriending him on Facebook and unfollowing him on Twitter. If even this fails, they can take the extreme step of having their Christmas cards from the Obamas returned to sender. Surely, the president then would have no choice but to relent.

For the complete editorial, visit this website.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-gops-symbolic-fight-against-immigration-action/2014/12/02/a0a5d816-7a5b-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html

 

What Would $4 Billion in Election Money Buy?

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We just saw the most expensive midterm election in our nation’s history.

brian_promo

 

Did you get any robocalls? Are you sick of them?

The effect of  U.S. Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United resulted in a midterm election that cost almost $4 BILLION.  And much of it was DARK MONEY.

$4 BILLION could pay for one year of the entire budget of the state of Delaware.

$4 billion could buy 1 billion meals for the homeless.

Or pay for the entire annual Renewable Energy Loans Program.

Now the American people are taking a stand.

The fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that enabled that corruption is right around the corner — and people are gearing up to make this one of the last anniversaries before Citizens United is overturned.

Activists nationwide are renewing the fight to make their state the next to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Across the country, voters are outraged that a few billionaires continue to try to buy our democracy often hiding their identity.

Go to Money Out / Voters In http://www.moneyoutvotersin.org/

And help pave the way to restoring real democracy.

First Google Cars Will Be Free

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That’s right!  How about a free car?  But how is that possible?

google_car2

Remember when newspaper websites were free in the beginning?

That is because of all the advertisements.

With the Google Car you will have lots of time to see – ads.  And these ads will be displayed non-stop in the virtual reality space right in front of you.

The good news is this means the end of all those ugly billboards! You know like the 300 foot high ones between Atlanta and Macon, Georgia.

Finally our civilization has moved beyond billboards!

8 Things To Do When Recession Happens

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Yeah it is not a matter of IF but WHEN the next recession will happen.  Sorry.  You could go ride a roller coaster to get your mind off of it.  Or you could do these things.

rollercoaster

Recessions occur every 4 to 8 years in a society with capitalism and little regulation.  And since the last one was in 2008….

Here’s what you should do.

1. DON’T PANIC – Stay calm.  Most people will be doing one thing – panicking. You won’t.

2. THINK, THINK, THINK – Be smarter than the rest. Know when to sell, when to buy and, like Kenny Rogers, when to hold.

3. SET UP ALERTS – Get an E*Trade or other brokerage account and set up messages when Dow (DJIA) goes up 3% or goes down 3% in a day.

4. RECALIBRATE AT NOON EASTERN TIME – If you have time, think about your next sell or buy of what and for how much before the market closes.

5. IF UP, SELL – When there is a jump up in stocks, sell your stock and funds 25-35% at a time.  You may have to wait to use the money.   Time is on your side.

6. IF UP AND GOLD IS DOWN, BUY GOLD – Gold usually moves opposite of stocks, so buy gold or gold mining funds such as NEM which will move up when stocks crash.

7. IF UP, BUY SHORTS – Shorts are stock buys that you expect to go down.  Pick losers on purpose.  Also choose bearish ETFs such as PILS and TECS that rise if the stock price of pharmaceutical or tech companies goes down.

8. IF DOWN, WAIT – Remember we agreed to not panic.

There will be four 400+ gains or losses of the DOW before a recession happens.  Anybody can take advantage of them. And I know you will. (There have been 4 days in August and September 2015 with over 400 point ups and downs.)

Or you can go ride a roller coaster to get your mind off of the market’s ups and downs.

P.S. I care about you, but can’t be held responsible for your results.

Revised: 04/10/2016 DUG is volatile since oil producers are considering fixing output quantities.

Google Gadget Goes Gilligan

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I have entered the USA Today Caption Contest many times but forgot to post my June one.

google_car

Sound familiar?  The words follow the Gilligan’s Island theme song.

Thanks to Mike Smith, Las Vegas Sun, King Features for the artwork.

Enjoy!

Warren Buffett Is Completely Wrong About Clinton

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Warren may make great stock picks but he is not a politico.

buffettand hillary

Buffett has announced that Hillary Clinton will win the 2016 Presidential Election.

Not gonna happen and here is why.

 

His prediction is based on the list of divisive Republican Presidential candidates which has no standout candidate.  That much is obviously correct.

But his prize candidate, Hillary Clinton, has tons of baggage which will eliminate her.

First off she is too closely aligned with Obama who picked her as his Secretary of State.  Second, she has a black eye for messing up Benghazi as she left the State department.  Third, she is not known as a champion of the working class.  And fourth, she is aligned with old politics and business as usual.

What does this mean?  Americans are ready for change and the new majority of millennials and generation-x folk are looking for a new hero/heroine to lead the United States to the next level of hope and greatness.

Who can rise to the occasion?  Elizabeth Warren can.

elizabethwarrenShe fought harder than anybody for regulation of out of control banks. Elizabeth is not considered establishment.  She has a proven Congressional record of making progress not suppressing it.  Elizabeth fights for working class people.  And she is not aligned with Obama.

So Elizabeth Warren will be the next President of the United States.

Warren Buffett is not exactly winning when it comes to politics.  He picked Hillary in 2008.

Wall Street Goes Frothy – No Not Starbucks

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I am talking about huge swings in the market.

swing

No, not that type of swing.  I am talking about the huge daily changes in market value.  See the chart below courtesy of bigcharts.marketwatch.com.

djia_frothy

Specifically, this chart shows huge daily changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) during the week of Sept 22-26.

Monday 9/22 down 105

Tuesday 9/23  down 100

Wednesday 9/24 up 150

Thursday 9/25 down 250

Friday 9/26 up 167

The summary is the market is frothy.  Why?  Because the QE3 is winding down, the economy is still struggling and the financial sector has been over stimulated.  Thus there is a lot of nervousness.

The conclusion: we are overdue for a big correction.