Money and Politics

If your feet smell and your nose runs, you’re upside down

Running for office: Obama gave one heck of a speech. No known connection but as the O man was talking the DOW was climbing. Both were pleasant surprises. Hillary decided to release her schedule while First Lady. If she wins the election, will be First Laddie? Meanwhile, back at the oasis, Senator McCain spoke to his camel, his troops, and anybody else who would listen. Three candidates, two parties. This reminds me of some of the fuzzy math that was spoken of during past elections.

Nosing around: Meanwhile, Dick Cheney, the “Where’s Waldo” of politics was spotted in Israel. No, it was Oman. Whoops, I mean the West Bank, Wrong, it was Saudi Arabia. Uh, uh, he flew into Turkey. That man moves faster and is seen less than a guilty husband during the holidays.

From the Sunshine State to the Rust Belt: Who is the bad guy here? Let me see if I have this straight. The states of Michigan and Florida, both members of the “Me first” club, wanted to upstage other states by having their primaries early. The Democratic National Committee said that if they do it would not count, but they did anyway. All eight candidates (back in the days before the dropouts dropped out) signed an agreement to ignore the to baddies who had violated the rules. Now the baddies are crying “Foul!” Sir Walter Scott got it right: “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Some good news and some bad news: ICE and Homeland security have teamed up to sweep many of those who entered this country illegally back from whence they came. More than 380,000 illegal entrants have been deported in fiscal 2007 compared to 186,000 a year earlier. That is a good thing, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. Reports from around the country show that many menial jobs typically held by illegals are going unfilled. Labor intensive job are among those where shortages exist.

Snip snip. How much will it help?: At this writing the feds just announced an interest rate cut of 0.075%. Within minutes the DOW dropped over 100 points. Not sure where it will end but the free fall continues. We will keep you posted.

A little blogging music Maestro... “Every Little Bit Hurts” by Alicia Keys.

Dr. Forgot

Money Talks - It Can say, "Goodby"

If #2 Pencils are so popular – why are they still #2?

Really, who IS #1? Seems like everybody wants to be number one. Sports fans and players extend their index finger whenever a play goes their way. Sometimes they extend a different finger of things do not go their way. Vanity license plates can hold the status of being #1. So when a man in Abu Dhabi decided to auction off his car’s #1 tag, folks lined up to bid on it. I’ mean, if the $5 plate brought $ 6.8 million last year (it did), what would #1 bring. ‘Tis a mystery no longer. The plate was purchased for a cool 52.2dirham. Oh, in American money that would be $ 14.3 million. The buyer has his #1 and more cents than sense.

Some people don’t have good cents: We’ve all seen kids throw pennies onto the street. Nobody bothers to pick them up. A movement exists to get rid of the penny (see post of 10/26/07). Readers old enough to remember penny loafers can remember wearing money in their shoes. And every penny arcade had a machine that encased a penny in an aluminum horseshoe that said, “Keep me and you’ll never go broke.”

Some folks actually save pennies. Walter J. Husak is one such person. His penny collection was recently sold. His collection wasn’t very big – 301 pennies in all. Probably not the most impressive of collections. Although it did have so0me rare pennies including one minted in 1793 for two weeks but stopped because of complaints that Lady Liberty looked frightened. Another minted in 1794 had raised stars to discourage counterfeiting. Those two alone brought over $ 632,000. The entire collection of 301 pennies? $ 10.7 million. That averages out to a tad more than $ 35,000 per penny. That ain’t hay.

Up, up, and away: That is where the money went. Silver State Helicopters owner Jerry Airola’s company filed for bankruptcy protection a couple of weeks ago. Airola flew high including financing his own campaign for sheriff – which lost. The difference between Airola and Mitt Romney is that Mitt spent money he had. Jerry exemplified those immortal words of the great philosopher Francis Albert Sinatra who once crooned, “The higher the top the longer the drop.”

Students at the helicopter school were left high and dry and broke after investing as much as $ 70,000 per student to learn about whirlybirds. The company operated schools in 18 states and collected millions in tuition. For now the school remains grounded and flight students learned a difficult economics lesson.

Where’s Andy Sipowicz when we need him? The old NYPD show, still in reruns was a longtime hit. Members of the precinct caught bad guys and had their share of weirdos to deal with. The show is gone but weirdos are still running loose in the Big Apple. A Parks Department employee who did his job on a golf cart went on a rampage running over and killing at least five birds in a park in Lower Manhattan. The 45-year old birdbrain was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and intentional injury to an animal.

See you next week: Finally, we will be on hiatus until next Thursday or so. See you then. A little blogging music Maestro… Freddy Fender’s “Going Out With the Tide.”

Dr. Forgot

Money - Brilliance and Stupidity

Logic and Illogic

Why didn't I think of that? Today's local newspaper's editorial page had a letter from Las Vegan Bob Hartman. I don't know him, how long he has been in Las Vegas, or anything else about him but I tip my mortarboard to him. Hartman came up with a suggestion to address the budget shortfall in Nevada. As he puts it, "This may be too simple for the Legislature and governor..."

But before we reveal this brilliant plan, let me refresh your memory. Last week the projected budget shortfall was put at $ 564 million. Others have projected less, but let's take that figure. The Guv has proposed cutting budgets by some 8 percent. That includes budgets of K-12 schools which are already in the bottom 10% in the nation in funding. It also includes cuts to Health and Human Services and Higher Education, both of which are severely underfunded like K-12. Total cuts just among those three entities exceeds $ 231 million plus the loss of another $ 40 million in federal matching funds to HHS if budgets are reduced.

The Guv has refused to raise taxes, has ignored suggestions to tap the "rainy day fund" and has ignored other suggestions. Hartman suggests adding on a $ 1.00 per night surcharge for every room rented. With a statewide room count of about 130,000 and 90% occupancy, the surcharge would yield nearly $ 43 million in a year. A $ 2.00 surcharge would yield nearly $ 86 million. My vote for State Budget Director goes to Mr. Hartman.

NCAA pretends to come clean: We have railed against the NCAA and their predatory practices against athletes in the past. College athletes, especially in the so-called revenue-generating sports of football and basketball are too often Gladiators courted by schools more concerned with the bottom line than the academic best interest of the athlete. The indentured servitude lasts for four or five years during which time an NCAA violation occurs if a scholarship athlete accepts a free t-shirt, meal, or any other so-called "extra benefit" not available to the student body in general.

The payoff for the athlete, says the NCAA is a college degree which is earned in many cases by fewer than half of the Gladiators. The NCAA lives in grand style off the spoils produced by the Gladiators. Plush offices and frequent travel to meetings, fine food in only the best hotels are but a few of the perks enjoyed by NCAA members. TV contracts, licensing agreements and bowl payouts provide hundreds of millions of dollars to NCAA schools and administrations. Coaches earn millions. Players earn peanuts.

A teeny-weeny pushback occurred when four athletes filed a class action lawsuit. But the NCAA, fearing a lawsuit might bring further scrutiny agreed to a settlement of $ 10 million - a drop in the bucket compared to revenue produced by the athletes. NCAA sources show revenue of
$ 564 million for the 2006-07 year. Each of the five BCS Bowl games paid out $ 17 million. The NCAA got off easy. I can hardly wait for the next class action.

A little blogging music maestro.... "Money for Nothing," by Dire Straits.

Dr. Forgot

Stella... STELLLLL-AAAAAHHHH

Believe it or Not

Anybody reading this who has an email address also has people who forward humor to them. Mostly they are jokes that we've heard starting in the seventh grade. Oh yes, there are also the virus warnings that supposedly came out yesterday and were on CNN. Sometimes they even include a note that says, "I checked this out on Snopes and it is really true. Send this to everyone you know..." Or the one about the child who has cancer and wants to get as many business cards as possible, or the one about a police officer who is warning you about "pre-verts," or even, I suppose, post-verts. Finally are the Darwin or Stella Awards, named after Stella something-or-other who burned herself at a McDonald's after dropping her hot coffee in her lap while driving. All of course are hoaxes. I often wonder what drives otherwise rational people to become so gullible when they receive email from somebody who received it from somebody that the recipient doesn't even know. Perhaps the more outlandish the story the more ready somebody is to believe it really is a good cause.

Well, this one is the real McCoy. Pull it up if you wish. It appeared in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper 12/19/07 and has been followed up on by several local radio and TV stations. Let me set the stage: Boulder City is a world away but in fact is just a few miles south of greater Las Vegas on the way to Arizona. Until not too many years ago Boulder City was dry - as in no liquor, and I believe it still observes a ban on gaming. The town was built to house the bosses and their families during the construction of the Hoover Dam and it is still pretty much a cultural company town. The raciest thing that exists is the sign that offers the "Best Hamburgers by a Dam Sight."

Residents are not jaded as they might be in the glitter and glamor of its sister cities to their north. They are more like Mayberry residents, or perhaps folks from Grinnell, Iowa. That is why this story is perfectly believeable to anybody in Southern Nevada who has ever gone to the Boulder City Art Fair, or otherwise spent time in BC.

It happened in the Boulder City AutoZone parking lot. Some legal tender, as in cash American money, started blowing around in the lot. A couple of BC residents chased down the errant cash and walked it back to the car to return it to the driver. Remember, folks, this is not New York, Chicago, or Miami. The finders, not keepers, even joked with the driver about winning a jackpot or looking for the bank's dye bomb in the bag. But the owner of the car was no Chatty Kathy. He scooped up the money and without a word peeled out of the parking lot.

"Odd," thought the resident who had just completed his good deed. So he copied down the car's Arizona license number and phoned the local peace officers who pulled the car over within a few blocks. The cash had come from the car's spare tire -over $ 500,000 worth. Air must be expensive in Arizona. Oh yes, the driver said he had no idea how the cash had gotten there - he had borrowed the car for his vacation. The coppers were born on a Tuesday, but not last Tuesday. The BC police will likely get a windfall. A little blogging music maestro... How about "Goin' To The Bank" by the Commodores? Don't know it? Well, anything by Johnny Paycheck will do.

Dr. Forgot