Monthly Archives: February 2024

02/28/24

Fast Food Surge Pricing? Price Gouging? WTF?

There are ideas that sweep through the business world that slowly work there way into every aspect of business though at first they seemed a little odd. It’s like going to the beach and coming home with sand in your shoes — it’s everywhere.

I offer two examples:

 1. Creating a club around a set of benefits such as Prime membership with Amazon; and,

 2. Subscription services such as was copied by Restoration Hardware.

Each of these ideas is related and each results in a true economic benefit to the customer whilst creating a solid, secondary cash flow for the sponsor.

Prime members number 230,000,000 and each will pay $179 for their next renewal. It started out at $79 nineteen years ago in 2005.

Do the math, that’s a lot of money. Continue reading →

02/27/24

Pure Philanthropy

In this era of massive self-aggrandizement and virtue signaling, it is heartwarming to relate a tale of pure philanthropy and goodness. We all need a bit of good news, no?

What’s THE STORY, Big Red Car?

The story goes like this:

Sandy and Ruth Gottesman lived happily in Rye, New York. Sandy was a finance professional and a protege of a chap named Warren Buffett who started a company called Berkshire Hathaway.

Sandy got in on the ground floor with his pal Warren and invested in his fledgling conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, resulting in a highly successful and lucrative fortune that Sandy managed well.

In 2022, Sandy passed away at age 96 leaving his wife Ruth with a fortune and spare instructions:

“Do whatever you think is right with it.”

Continue reading →

02/23/24

The Power of Ignorance

There is incredible power in ignorance. Sounds odd, allow me to explain.

When I was a lad, I lived near the Atlantic Ocean and used to take my father’s fishing pole (he was overseas in the Army and, thus, the notion of asking his permission was moot) and walk along the sand and out onto the jetties (I was specifically forbidden to walk out onto the slimy jetties) and hurl a red and white lure (with three sets of hooks I would sharpen with a triangular file) into the water to try to catch gullible striped bass that ran along the shore.

I could really fling that lure. Continue reading →

02/19/24

Don’t Cry For Me, Elon Musk

Elon Musk, whose 2012 employment agreement compensation was the largest in US corporate history, is angry that the Delaware Chancery Court invalidated his 2018 employment agreement (also the largest in US business history).

The 2018 agreement is fairly described as being a “performance based, equity compensation plan.” It contained a dozen milestones each of which when attained delivered to Musk approximately 1% of the shares of Tesla.

BTW, Elon Musk does not draw a salary.

Musk enjoying a blunt on Joe Rogan’s pod cast.

In his sophomoric anger, Musk has threatened to move Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to either Nevada or Texas. This would require shareholder approval. Seems wildly childish and small, but, hey, Elon Musk is Elon Musk.

Nevada corporate law is modeled (plagiarized from) on Delaware law and has only a decade of experience whilst Texas has jury trials. You do not want a jury trial if you are a public company.

Continue reading →

02/12/24

Paying For The North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Article V requires each member nation to rise to the defense of any other member nation in the event of an attack.

An attack on one is an attack on all.

It is a simple alliance and it is focused on the danger created by Russia — let’s not pretend otherwise. We broke the former USSR in the Cold War and now it is time to deal with China’s gas station, the Russian Federation and its delusional leader, the medieval, brutal, Dark Ages Putin. Continue reading →

02/9/24

An Elderly Man With A Bad Memory

Yesterday POTUS Joe Biden received a get-out-of-jail-free-card from Independent Counsel Robert Hur though he found:

Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

And, Joe is pissed. Let me ‘splain it to you.

Who the Hell is Robert Hur, Big Red Car?

 1. Robert Hur (South Korean descent) was educated at Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He’s one of them “elites.” Smart as a whip.

Continue reading →

02/8/24

Defund The United Nations, Close It Down, Go Digital

The United Nations, a good idea at its inception in the aftermath of World War II, has now ripened into its logical conclusion: time to wind it up and shut it down. Let’s land this plane. 

The UN was a great idea in the aftermath of the greatest war in history when the world did not have the travel, communication, and technology capabilities it has today. It was a place for world leaders to come together en masse, maintain a permanent presence, and reasonably talk through their issues face-to-face. Continue reading →

02/7/24

Illegal Aliens v Mexican Food

I lived in Texas for four decades and came to love Mexican food (TexMex) like one of my children.

There is a huge difference amongst Mexican food locations: Austin v San Antonio v El Paso.

With the advent of an invasion of illegal aliens (not all of whom are Mexican or Hispanic, 35,000 of them are Chinese with a lot of military age men), the demand for cultural food appropriation is high. Continue reading →