09/30/20

The Beclowning of Presidential Debates

If you were unfortunate enough to have watched the Presidential Debate Road Show that blew into Cleveland last night, then you will not be surprised when I opine it was a bloody 3-ring circus.

The debate starring POTUS Trump (a man who must swear off caffeinated coffee at night) featured a spirited chat with Chris Wallace (the supposed ringmaster who never got the assignment clear in his head). From time-to-time, former Vice President Joe Biden participated.

Chris Wallace managed to undue two generations of his own family’s involvement with both journalism and debate moderation in less than a minute. Though the debate was a 9-round 90 minute format, Chris lost control within ten seconds.

Chris is likely lying stunned in a thumb-sucking, fetal position trying to sort out the question for the ages: WTF just happened?

Here is how the Russian Judge scored the fight cards. The opinion of the Russian Judge is very important because, of course, the Russians are scheduled to spend another $70,000 in social media ads amongst the malestrom of $6B in election spending to influence the 2020 election.

The Russian Judge watching and evaluating the Circus in Cleveland last night.

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09/29/20

Exclusive Interview With Chris Wallace

I was in the Cleveland Clinic (one of the sponsors of tonight’s Presidential Debate) getting a tuneup when who did I bump into other than Chris Wallace of Fox News. He needed a shave, wore sunglasses, a mask, a Beto For President 2020 tee shirt, khaki shorts, and flip flops.

Later I would find out that the Beto campaign had a closeout sale on its campaign materials and sold them for $1.29/each or ten for $10. Chris stocked up. Told me, “I wear them when I do yard work.”

We had a chat.

“Chris, what are you doing here?”

“Hello, Big Red Car, it’s been a few years, hasn’t it? You look great. Might need a little paint, but who doesn’t?”

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09/27/20

CEO Shoptalk — All Risk Is Not Created Equal

If you are an entrepreneur, founder, CEO, you swim in a sea of risk, alternating amongst the butterfly, the backstroke, the breaststroke, and the crawl. You must do it all.

In the early days, you are a minnow (or a little mullet if you are feeling salty) and the dangerous waters of startup land are populated by voracious, big-toothed sharks, vicious sharks, all of whom want to devour you.

In these early, formative days every risk can eat you (kill you, destroy your company). [Worse, you don’t yet know the nature of risk. You are in that classic posture of not knowing what you don’t know.]

As you exit the size 2 Pampers, the list of things that can kill you begins to thin, but you add to it — you begin to take risk.

You visit risk upon yourself as you sharp elbow your way upward in the food chain. [Soon, you may become a shark.]

The big question is this — Do you understand the nature of the risks you are taking?

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09/24/20

Accounting — That Bedeviling Black Art

I took a few accounting courses in grad school. I once knew my debits versus my credits. Knew all about original issue discounts, goodwill impairment, and other such trivia.

Knew GAAP and FASB. Just showing off now.

I ran businesses for 33 years. I needed to know more about accounting so I hired good accountants, retained good accounting firms, hired a good Chief Financial Officer, got second opinions, and I studied the subject on the mean streets of the business world.

CEOs and founders need to know some accounting — financial accounting, managerial accounting, tax accounting. What I knew saved me a lot of money.

One of my interests is the progression of ratios in a graphical manner — pick a financial ratio and graph it such that you can see the trend at the bat of an eye. That tells me something.

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09/21/20

Take The Shot, Mr. President

So, here we stand on the edge of the precipice, at a pivotal moment in the history of our Republic with the entire fate of the Nation held hostage.

Bullshit. We aren’t even close to the precipice and this supposedly pivotal moment in the history of the Republic was all figured out by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

The only people alarmed are morons who have never read the Constitution.

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09/17/20

The Middle East — Giving Peace A Chance

Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Israel and the Arabs have been at war starting with the 1948 Arab-Israel War. There have been a series of shooting wars including the 1967 War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In both of these wars, the Israelis emerged victorious by the skin of their teeth and acquired territory that was used to launch the underlying attacks that started these wars. [Remember the fact that Israel ended up with MORE territory when folks begin to whisper that Israel needs to return to the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel needs to return its conquered lands.]

It is important to know that Israel was the product of the United Nations 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine. This plan recommended three things:

 1. The creation of an independent Arab State;

 2. The creation of an independent Jewish State; and,

 3. The creation of an internationalized Jerusalem.

You may recognize that plan as the Two State Solution which continues to this day.

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09/13/20

How Stupid Do They Think You Are? Very Stupid

By now, you have undoubtedly heard that the Mueller team — when approached by the Department of Justice Inspector General as part of his investigation into the predicate for the creation of the original counter-intel investigation that gave rise to the Mueller Investigation — informed the IG that there were 31 phones they had used by key players, but that were devoid of any information.

Wait, what?

This moron (Princeton undergrad, Columbia Law grad, Andrew Weissmann, Mueller Senior Counsel/Prosecutor) wants you to believe he forgot his passcode twice on two different iPhones and had no alternative other than to wipe them clean rather than deliver them to the inspector General. No phone records, no texts, no emails. Twice. Do you believe him?

This happened two years ago in 2017, but just came to light. The timing is a little murky. You will recall several important things:

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09/13/20

Killing The Gig Economy

A lot of trends, suspect ideas, cultural quirks, and bad laws start in California and spread across the country.

Case in point is California Assembly Bill 5 which destroys the gig economy by imposing standards on the employer-employee relationship that prevent the gig economy from functioning in a manner as it currently does.

Lyft and Uber have both threatened to pull out of California if the law is not repealed in November.

Joe Biden supports California Assembly Bill 5 which effectively kills the gig economy and wants to pass a Federal law mirroring it. If you are a gig worker, take note.

Cal AB 5 came to life in December 2018 in response to controversy created by the employment of Lyft and Uber drivers, classic gig economy workers. These contract, independent contractor, 1099, gig workers are eliminated under the law that was passed in September 2019 and took effect in January 2020.

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