11 THINGS THAT BLOW MY MIND.....

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE?
I'm up at midnight on a Friday night and just am confounded with random thoughts about how crazy life is and what a screwed up world we live in.  We live in the most awesome country in the world where each and every day people work to try to make it unawesome or convince us that it isn't awesome.  We are blessed beyond the wildest imagination of any human civilization that has lived (even the entire world is healthier and wealthier than ever), yet the benefits of this blessing has made us desensitized, dependent, and frankly ignorant.

Here is simply a quick list of things I'm pondering that are just awe-inspiring in a very negative way.  Many are political, and perhaps that is because so many of these thoughts are just pent up frustrations.

1)  IS THIS OUR BEST?  We have two candidates that are battling for the position as President that are complete goofs.  Can't we do better?

Obama is an inexperienced dreamer who bases the implementation of policies on nothing more than utopian best-case hopes without real practical substance.  Without Hitler-like oratory skills and amazing superficial charm, he wouldn't have gotten elected to city council in an Illinois township.

Romney is a Wall-Street silver-spoon that may have wonderful pedigree, but he has a tremendous inability to attract people to him personally, has difficulty connecting to the 99%, and is just about as bad as Obama when speaking in an unscripted forum.  While his message is sometimes on point, he is simply brutal to listen to with that whispery voice.  I think he is a foreign policy noob just not as naive as Obama.

2)  FREAKING CUT THE DARN BUDGET
Do either one of them understand we are spending too much?  Romney's plan for spending reduction is to cut government spending in each year by 2016 by $500 Billion (if GDP is at 4%).  We are on track for a $1.2 Trillion deficit this year and there is no way you are going to get to 4% GDP if you are cutting government spending.  And there is no way he can repeal Obamacare, it is a lie.  I'm sick of it.

Obama is even worse, there are no cuts in sight for this guy, and his Senate hasn't even passed a budget in 3 years!  What makes us think he'd even submit a budget and have it approved after another election?

3)  IPHONE MANIA 
If I see another report of some stupid kid with the latest IPHONE 5 gleefully prancing around excited to have the newest electronic device that will be thrown away in 18 months, I'm going to puke.  When obtaining a new phone is the climatic personal achievement in one's life for a week, month, or year, you have a great indication that your generation and or your country is in total decline.

4)  THE FED WILL PRINT TILL WE REACH FULL EMPLOYMENT
HA!  This is probably one of the funniest jokes I've heard.  The Fed's actions pretty much assure us that we'll never reach full employment.   How's that record high September gas price on the lowest demand for fuel in 15 years treating you?  If the FED ever gets us to full employment we won't be able to afford to drive a car and fill it up to get to work.

5)  NFL REFS AREN'T BEGGING TO GET BACK ON THE FIELD
I think it will only be one more week and old NFL refs will agree to just about anything to get back on the field.  There have been a few minor screwups, but nothing major.  As long as the scabs don't blow a game this weekend, the old refs will sign any agreement the NFL owners put in front of them.  And rightly so, I'm so sick of unions.  The refs are not the focus of the game and as we've seen, we can do without the best of the best.  How an NFL referee deserves a pension is only an argument that a union could try to justify.

6)  WE BELIEVE ANYTHING THE ECB SAYS
How many times will it take investors to realize that the ECB says whatever it can to make the market happy and then it checks with its member states that actually have to approve it..  I'm tired of rallies based on unactionable promises without any substance.

7)  WE HAVE ALMOST 47 MILLION ON FOODSTAMPS
We have almost 15 percent of the US population obtaining free food from the government and we are questioning if our leadership in Congress and in the Oval office (or running against him) are the right people for the job.

8)  OUR ELECTION DEBATES ARE OVER WHO IS GOING TO BUY THE PILL FOR WOMEN
We have the stupidest media in the world.  Any viable candidate would answer every distraction like this simply by saying, "WHAT THE FOOK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK?  THIS IS A DIVERSION AND I WON'T EVEN DISCUSS IT".  If Chris Christi, Santa Claus, or Margaret Thatcher were running and said that, they'd have my vote in an instant.  Of course we don't have a candidate that can clearly focus on what matters, we have to discuss past tax returns and videos of Romney speaking about the 47% that would never vote for him.

9)  PENALTIES FOR OBAMACARE
I haven't heard anyone speaking about 2014 and the impact it will have on small and even large businesses.  Here is what I'm looking at with many of my clients.  How would you like it if you had this happen to you?

Here is an example of a 50 full-time employee company that doesn't offer health coverage AND has at least 1 that will use the health exchanges (which they all will).  (If you employ under 50 full-time employees you are not subject to a penalty.....yet).

The large employer does not offer coverage, and one or more full-time employees receive credits for exchange coverage. The annual penalty calculation is simply the number of full-time employees minus 30, times $2,000. In this example (i.e., 50 full-time employees), the penalty would not vary if only one employee or all 50 employees received the credit; the employer’s annual penalty in 2014 would be (50-30) x $2,000, or $40,000

Get that $40,000 just went POOF for this owner because he decided to own a business and have 50 employees!

Now before you give me the line that he is rich and making lots of money, think again, this is a small burger franchise that pays these people minimum wage.  Essentially, Justice Roberts just hammered this guy and raised his employee cost significantly.  Is it his responsibility to give health benefits to a guy he employs?  Why is it his responsibility?  Who came up with that?

Imagine you owned a liquor chain or clothing store or any other business.  Imagine employing 500 employees.  How would it feel to now have to pay $400,000 more in expenses just because Congress and the President make back-room deals and passed a law that we'd have to pass to know what was in it.

I'm guessing that every business owner with 50 employees might suddenly need to let one or two folks go due to the downturn of the economy.  I would, wouldn't you?  If that incremental one employee saves you $40,000 you'd be an idiot not to fire them or make them a part-time employee.

10)  CAN YOU TRUST EITHER SIDE OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE STORY
I have to admit it, I think there is an angle where someone is actually making big money on climate change and the green, earth-love religion.  Yes, I recycle like crazy, but I'm not a big believer in man made global warming or even "climate change".

First, when we have to change the name of the movement, errrr religion, you know we are missing the whole story.  We started with "Global Warming" and now we have "Climate Change".  I'd love to see a definitive study that rules out volcanoes and solar activity as the source of global warming.  I don't want to destroy economies based on the fact that "man has to be the cause."  Also, I am not sure if I want to sign up for anything that includes every bank and trading institution that suddenly is excited to trade carbon credits.  Clearly big money is at play if these guys are involved and it would make sense that global warming skeptics and supporters would throw gobs of cash to spin stories and propel governments to create regulations.

11)  THE ILLINOIS TEACHER'S UNION'S PENSION REDUCED THEIR RATE OF RETURN ASSUMPTION TO 8.0% DOWN FROM 8.5%.
Are these guys nuts?  Until we reduce the rate of return assumption for all pension plans to 3% or 4% there is no way that we'll ever be able to have a real conversation that will be based on sustainable math.  How is a pension going to ever make an annual rate of return of 8% and not take excess risk?  Wouldn't we want to build these plans with a cushion that builds in the ability to under-perform the 100 year average of the stock market?  Aren't pensions allocated a little differently than the stock market?

Yes, I know, if we changed the pension return assumptions to 4% it would require the plans to kick in significantly more and all of these unfunded liabilities would be immediately due and frankly unpayable, but are they payable now?  Isn't this just one of the many lies we all see plainly yet the entire system simply avoids discussing.  The pension system in the US is so much like the Madoff Ponzi scheme and our government and large companies are all participants.  Better hope your pension payments aren't greater than that US PENSION guarantee of $48,000 a year.

EXHAUSTED...
Ok, that is it.  I've been typing for about an hour and a half and I'm tired of sharing my inner rants.  Let me know if I missed any and if I offended any of you believers of the Green Religion please show a bit more restraint than the practitioners of the Religion of Peace and don't murder twenty or thirty people around you, torch cars, and foreign embassies, or leave nasty comments on the blog.  Have a great weekend.

GOATMUG

Goatmug is an investor that cares about you and your family. Goatmug's Blog - Financial Perspectives From The Mountain Top is a collection of thoughts on our economy and how it impacts the lives of investors and average people. While several specific investments are named in many of his posts, these articles are simply invitations for you to do your own research and reference to these securities does not constitute financial advice. Your situation is complex and unique and you should seek professional assistance with your trading and investing. Please visit Goatmug and share your comments athttp://www.goatmug.blogspot.com/

FINANCIAL WIZARDS DIG FOR PROFITS

WATER SHORTAGES MAY BE GREAT BUSINESS FOR BANKS?
I found an interesting article today in Bloomberg about why the world should care about China's water problems.  Unlike what I first thought when glancing at the title, the author doesn't suggest that China will attack neighbors for their water rights or anything close to this.  The article's author suggests that some financial alchemy would be the prescription for solving the world's water problems.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-06/why-we-care-about-the-price-of-water-in-china-peter-orszag.html

I won't go into depth into what Peter Orszag highlights as reasons for the water issues, but they are the same ones we hear about China all the time.  They have polluted everything, including their water supply.  They are using all energy sources and burning them takes a bunch of water.  Oh yes, there is also a terrible drought as well.  All of these things are reasons that the world should assist China in fixing their situation.

WHAT TYPE OF HELP SHOULD THE WORLD PROVIDE?
1)  You knew it would be long to find that if the "global village" was going to get involved that the first answer had to be that we need to fix CLIMATE CHANGE!  I mean it is simply stunning that in one sentence Orszag links that we need to reduce water pollution and then somehow jumps to the notion that we must address climate change.  Can it be that simple?  What specifically does global warming have to do with polluting streams, rivers, and aquifers?  Are we heading somewhere?  Does this sound familiar?

2)  The second recommendation is one that seems reasonable.  We should provide more potable water.  I get this and I'm for it.  Let's get more desalinization plants and cook up some drinkable water.  No argument here.

3)  Finally, we get to the meat of the posting.  We need to let the "market" begin pricing water to effectively manage usage of supplies.  Here is the quote;

"Water is Earth’s most valuable commodity, and yet in most countries it is given away free -- as if it had no value at all.

If China moved more aggressively to price water in a manner that reflected demand and supply, it could teach the U.S. a lesson in using market economics to address environmental issues. As a colleague of mine at Citigroup Inc., the analyst Deane Dray, has written, “water has never been priced efficiently.” In the U.S., water is generally heavily subsidized, and prices aren’t adequately linked to usage levels.
Just as we need to price carbon in order to avoid a climate crisis, we need to price water to avoid a water crisis. Market forces can work wonders for the environment, but only if we have the political courage to create them. "

THE REAL AGENDA
Here is the takeaway from all of this nonsense.  Peter Orszag is a Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citibank and also a former official in the Obama Administration.  Mr. Orszag probably has several main goals here, so I'll assume his motivations fall into just a few camps.

First, market based pricing for a necessary commodity like water would be a great place for a bank like Citi and JPM to completely dominate.  That is all we need is another situation where banks hold and trade valuable commodities (like oil) rather than provide lending services.  (What business are they in again?)  As a Vice Chairman, I can guess that he's in the business of business development.  Is there any doubt this is the angle he's playing here?

Second, this all comes back to Orszag as an excuse to wage war on Global Warming, errr, I mean Climate Change.  Actually a better word for this would be a market mechanism for pricing carbon emmissions throught the creation of related credits based on the fiction of climate changes due to man.

Last, as a former senior administration official, I suspect that Mr. Orszag would identify himself as a senior believer in the Global Village concept where we collectively should jump in and solve all of the problems in the world without concern for national sovereignty.  I'm not so sure China is quite so open to the UN's type of help and doubt seriously that they would comply with any rules related to water pricing or carbon trading at all.  So if China doesn't participate could we really be looking to get into pricing of water here in the USA as well?

WHEN FINANCIAL WIZARDS GET COOKING THEY MAKE A MESS
As a Financial Analyst at a large firm many years ago I was a financial wizard.  My firm had many offices throughout the world and as each location became connected over the years, communication and connectivity costs grew significantly.  In my younger days managing corporate spending I led a team that intended to allocate and charge out these costs because the parent company was subsidizing all of the expenses and we needed to look more profitable at the core business. 

With an enthusiasm that is unmatched in the finance world I created an amazing soup of allocations and charges to all of the global offices for everything from executive leadership to T-1 lines and GWANs (Global Wide Area Networks ---- big, big, Internet pipes!).  The executive team and board bought my allocation strategy and I looked great and on paper, our corporate offices gained $15 to $22 million a year simply by waving a wand in front of an excel spreadsheet. 

Clearly the home office saw me as a hero and the global offices saw me as a.....goat.  What really happened was that the entire scheme was a bunch of garbage.  The company didn't make any more money than it did previously, and you had about 10 global local CFOs that were angry every single month when we reviewed these communication and technology related charge outs.

My wizardry added absolutely no value to the bottom line, but some executives in the home office looked much better.  Perhaps I made them more bonus money at the expense of some to those in other locations?  When an excel guru starts trying to price your IT costs or your carbon credits or your water, you must recognize that you are not going to benefit one bit.  Things will get very complicated and someone might earn a bonus, but it isn't going to make much difference in the long run.

GOATMUG 

Goatmug is an investor that cares about you and your family. Goatmug's Blog - Financial Perspectives From The Mountain Top is a collection of thoughts on our economy and how it impacts the lives of investors and average people. While several specific investments are named in many of his posts, these articles are simply invitations for you to do your own research and reference to these securities does not constitute financial advice. Your situation is complex and unique and you should seek professional assistance with your trading and investing. Please visit Goatmug and share your comments at http://www.goatmug.blogspot.com/