03/27/23

Ivan, Have I Got A Deal For YOU!

You are a young Russian in vocational school learning to become a BMW/Mercedes mechanic and a guileful, well-dressed, Russian recruitment officer comes to your school and says, “May I please have a word with you? Ivan, have I got a deal for you!”

“Oh, Russian recruitment officer, I am quite content here in my training to become a BMW/Mercedes mechanic. Thank you, but no thank you.”

“Please Ivan, hear me out. I know you are a patriot and your Mother Russia and Vladimir Putin himself — he mentioned you by name, comrade — require your assistance as cannon fodder a patriotic soldier in Ukraine. You are a patriot, yes?”

Vladimir Putin stages faux visit to “wounded” Russian soldiers in hospital. Same guy in both pics?

“I am as patriotic as the next Orc, comrade; OK, what’s the deal?” Continue reading

03/17/23

Inferior Russian Tanks

We wrote about the numbers of Russian tanks back in December 2022. That blog post is here:

Russian Tanks By The Numbers 

Since then several things have happened:

 1. The Russian spring offensive began with attacks in southeast Ukraine and the continuing assault into the Bahkmut meat grinder where the Russians take seven KIAs for every one KIA for the Ukrainians.

This is the essence of a meat grinder.

 2. The Russians — even elite units — and the mercenary Wagner Group — powered by criminals — have made small progress, but appear to have taken a “tactical respite” for a couple of weeks.

The Ukrainians are doggedly defending and buying time for their own Spring/Summer dry land offensive.

 3. The US/NATO/West has promised Ukraine modern main battle tanks — Abrams M1A1, Crusaders 2s, Leopard IIs and others.

Deliveries are now happening.

Abrams tank — looking for work — arriving for deployment in Ukraine.

 4. The Russian tank situation has gotten worse from the perspective of raw numbers, tank crew training, and opposition. Continue reading

03/17/23

Kitchen Pantry Violence, Racism, Sexism, and Pornography — End It Now!

Just when you thought you had a handle on the world, it comes to light that a clean, orderly kitchen pantry is in fact evidence of violence, racism, sexism, and tantamount to pornography.

White supremacist pantry dripping in violence, racism, sexism, and porn with a little too much Aunt Jemima pancake mix. Shame on you.

Shame on all you “nice” clean people. Continue reading

03/16/23

Raising Children and Affirming Performance in the Workplace

As I become more versed in dealing with grandchildren — I have three perfect granddaughters and live three houses distant from them — I harken back to the vicissitudes of raising my own children, training combat engineers in the Army, running companies with hundreds of employees, and peddling advice to CEOs through the Wisdom of the Campfire.

The key to all of it is training and personal development. How does one develop talent at the grass roots level? Continue reading

03/15/23

Silicon Valley Bank — Losers, Winners, Saints, Sinners

In the sordid saga of Silicon Valley Bank who are the losers, winners, saints, and sinners?

Losers

 1. The management who all rightfully were fired for their gross incompetence. Particular note of CEO Gary Becker who really blew it.

 2. The incompetent Board of Directors who failed to provide even a modicum of actual oversight.

 3. The shareholders who owned the now worthless stock.

 4. A goodly number of the employees who will lose their jobs in the latchup that follows hereafter.

 5. The real estate lessors who leased space to SVB. All those leases will be cancelled in bankruptcy or insolvency.

 6. The plethora of vendors who provided services to SVB who will now never be paid because of the bankruptcy. Continue reading

03/15/23

The Key to Life Finding Your Passion? Nope

I was reading a bit of advice that trotted out the old shibboleth of: “Finding your passion is the key to life.” The presumption was you had to find your passion as a prelude to getting on with your life and that you should not take a step without knowing what that passion truly was.

I thought about that for a long time and decided that is not good advice. Let me explain.

 1. Most of the folks giving that advice already found their passion or made a bloody fortune in some other endeavor (like scrap metal or rock quarries) — everybody listens to billionaires even ones who made their dough in scrap metal — and are now in the advice business. Continue reading