05/11/21

Military Diversity and Inclusion Is NOT a National Security Issue

Recently the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin III (a former General and West Point gradate) made comments indicating the current status of diversity and inclusion in the American military at the general officer strata rises to the level of a “national security risk.”

In the military when they want to scare the civilians or they want to suggest that something rises to a level such that America might not win a war, they call it a “readiness risk.”

This picture is for all you West Pointers, you ring knockers. Note Sec Def Austin and his WP ring. It is an Army thing.

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05/9/21

CEO Shoptalk — No LSD Before Investor Meetings

Comes now the strange case of Justin Zhu, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Iterable (email marketing firm).

Justin complains of the fact that he believes he was replaced as CEO because he microdosed with LSD before a key investors’ meeting during which he says he saw “numbers and images swelling and shrinking on the screen” and that his body felt like it was melting.

Who really knows?

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05/7/21

Thoughts From 3:00 AM Whilst Laying In Bed

I often wake up in the 3-4:00 AM time frame and lay in bed pondering the condition of the world. It is dark, quiet, and my mind is rested.

Today, I share some of my ponderizations (OK, it’s not really a word, but why not invent one we both understand?)

 1. Is anybody in the United States looking at the freakin’ credit card?

Sometimes I look at the National Debt and other data at one of my favorite websites:

United States National Debt

It is interesting and scary to watch the US debt and other financial indicators climbing. We have $28,258,270,000,000 in national debt. That’s 84,000 per citizen and $225,000 per taxpayer.

BTW, US Gross Domestic Product is less than $23,000,000,000,000 (estimated 2021 GDP after 2020 GDP dipped to $19,500,000,000,000).

This chicken is coming home to roost, y’all.

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05/5/21

WFH >>> Return to Office Issues

As the pandemic winds down (it is, right?), persons who worked from home are returning to their original office locations. Big companies like JPMorganChase are starting to make it real.

JP Morgan Chase Bank (U.S.)

Jamie Dimon, CEO/Chairman of JPMorganChase has made his intentions clear: “I’m about to cancel all my Zoom meetings. I’m done with it.”

“Get your WFH candy asses back to work. Yes, you have to commute. And, have a blessed day.”

This sentiment, it is time to go back to work, is becoming more prevalent.

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05/4/21

How Stupid Are You?

While this blog post relates to politics, it is not intended to make a political statement other than to demonstrate the wholesale contempt in which the media holds you. The blog post is about the media.

This manifests itself by virtue of the things they write and the obvious distortions they engage in to try to convince you of their agenda. And, yes, they have an agenda.

Let’s take as an example the issue of the recent President Biden speech to the combined sliver of Congress in which he unveiled his slew of new tax proposals to fund an ever growing body of work.

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04/30/21

A Hat Tip to the US Economy

I am quite bullish on the US economy over the short term — meaning until the Biden admin straps on the increased tax weights and we all try to swim with those babies drowning us. Hell, there is a great chance it may not even cross the finish line.

I am going to spend $6.3T + $3.5T and tax you back into the 1960s. Ooops. I didn’t mean to say that because I am a moderate and a unifer. Haha. Sorry. 

I like to take a look at a couple of bellwether companies to check my enthusiasm. One of those is Apple.

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04/26/21

CEO Shoptalk — Initiative

When a startup reaches year three it is no longer crawling in the crawl, walk, run continuum. It has survived the danger zone (imagine Top Gun soundtrack of Danger Zone) in which most companies fail.

“Highway to the Danger Zone, CEOs. Listen up,” says Maverick.

If it is typical, it has a well developed product or service — well beyond Minimum Viable Product — and if it is in the commerce space it may have sales of as much as $10,000,000. It is likely profitable and if the growth rate continues, it will be very profitable.

With success comes a new set of problems and many times they are related to staff. Has the staff grown at the same rate as the company? Can the staff you hired when the company was a seed run this larger and more complex enterprise? It happens all the time.

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