Reference Materials

One of the very nice things about not having to worry about my credibility is that I really don't need to reference my material.

It's such a welcome relief from the days past when my every word and opinion had to be referenced and sourced. Sometimes science, health care and other endeavors that require a factual basis and knowledge of those facts can be a real drag.

Although, to give myself some well-deserved credit, I was always reasonably good at fabricating supporting facts that sounded as if they were equally reasonable.

Often, people wouldn't question me, likely because they respected the fact that I had previously served as Prime Minister of Togo. That buys instant credibility, being in the 37th percentile of past public servants that are also faintly knowledgeable in basic stock investing.

Look it up.

Now, whatever I write is essentially no different than the unfiltered words and thoughts that may emanate from a child or an idiot, including the drool.

These days, just about the only time I avail myself of the vast informational database that is so readily available is to check my spelling. That in itself confuses me, because I really don't care very much about that level of detail. Besides, the human mind, when reading is really indifferent to spelling. Key mis-spellings, in fact, help to focus attention.

Szelhamos always used to say "it's good enough," when referring to any accomplishment related to a task at hand.

There was a time, like for so many of us, that I was a wunderkind in both math and spelling.

Obviously, technology made those portions of the brain go dormant. What's even worse is that despite looking up the correct spelling of words, I seem to continually have to return for the very same word each and every time I can't think of a synonym whose spelling I already know.

The ability to learn or retain is gone, as is my bank of ready to go synonyms.

The word that I find myself checking most often is when I'm making a reference to the "Oracle of Omaha."

Today, Governor Chris Christie, the man who had New Jersey's flags fly at half mast in honor of Whitney Houston, was pretty blunt about how he felt regarding the wealthy paying more in taxes than they were required by the existing tax code.

Whereas I may have some difficulty with the spelling of the name, Governor Christie clearly knows the difference between "Buffett" and "Buffet."

In at least one regard, I don't.

Neither the politics nor the fairness of the tax code really interests me, although I suppose it should, as increasingly I've become dependent on short term capital gains and dividends.

Instead, I'm focused on the buffet.

Over the course of a lifetime I've had the opportunity to try a wide range of those all you can eat delights, ranging from the "truly hideous" to the "beyond elegant."

At it's most basic, the "all you can eat" strategy at the Howard Johnson restaurants of generations ago was a great deal, as long as you liked fried fish on Tuesday night or fried chicken on Thursday night and didn't mind the embarrassment of asking the waitress for more.

And more.

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I'll Take My Chances

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but recently it seems that every story that I want to recount has to be preceded with the qualifier "years ago." I guess that spending the vast majority of my time sitting on the La-Z-Boy makes it difficult to come up with new adventures.

And when I say recently, I mean like in the past 10 years.

And so it was, years ago that I had tickets to see Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in concert.

That was at a time that concert tickets were come by honestly. There was certainly no internet to facilitate the ability to corner the market and extort ridiculously high prices from the faithful.

Interestingly, the Seger concert was supposed to occur at about the same time the Hunt Brothers had tried to corner the silver market.

Given today's giant move in silver, the Hunt Brothers may have been right all along, just many years too early.

Still, it's always nice to be vindicated.

As it would turn out there was no silver bullet to cure the throat infection that Seger had picked up just prior to the concert that ended up being cancelled.

As opposed to the controversy surrounding Aretha Franklin's withdrawal from performing at Whitney Houston's funeral service due to illness and then subsequently performing that evening, no one really questioned Seger's sincerity, as it was undoubtedly a less cynical era in history beneath the haze.

"I'll take my chances babe, I'd risk it all'" still ring out to me.

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Forgive and Forget?

A lot is said about the power of grace and the human ability to forgive.

For those that believe that there is a forgiving deity that looks over the lives of all believers it's hard to say whether the power to forgive is viewed as divine or also within the province of mere mortals.

Sometimes it's much easier to believe in a vengeful God, because it seems in that instance, we would truly be made in "His" image. In the case of a forgiving God, human nature makes it hard to measure up to that standard.

I will always remember the words of John McCain during one of those periods in his public life that he was actually credible, in reference to Osama Bin Laden.

"May God forgive his soul, because I certainly won't."

After all, who are we to forgive?

Whether it is the private confession of sins or congregational prayers for forgiveness we are all flawed and we have all introduced sorrow and harm into the lives of others. Whether through passive or active positions, we could all benefit from forgiveness.

To a large degree, being able to forgive is self-serving. The animus or grudges held over being wronged can keep the aggrieved from moving forward and making decisions and taking actions to benefit themselves. Breaking the chains that shackle may begin with the single act of forgiveness. How else do you get on with the rest of your life?

What better way to thumb your nose at your tormentor than to move forward and prosper?

But what about the latter half of the old saying "Forgive and Forget"?

Why Am I asking so many questions?

So many in response to horrible acts have adopted the mantra "Never Forget," in response to man's inhumanity and the pains suffered.

To forget is to repeat. You don't have to be Santayana to realize the logic of that concept, although if you also buy into the concept that history repeats itself, you're doomed regardless.

I've never met an historian that doesn't remember history, other than Newt Gingrich.

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Too Zune for a Requiem?

And so as all of the talk centered around how Apple had suddenly and significantly reversed its upward stock price march the "Talking Heads" were begining to swoop down on the carrion.

There were lines drawn.

Figurative ones for certain, but also the literal lines drawn by the technicians with well coiffed hair and highly tailored suits.

Then there was omenous talk about the meaning of the decreasing stock price in the face of heavily rising volume.

All scary concepts.

To me, no one will every be able to explain in purely technical or fundamental terms how a stock price can so abruptly change direction in the absence of news. For the die-hard technicians, there will certainly be someone to point out some line crossed or not crossed and use that as an explanation for Apple's reversal.

Was some decree passed that I missed? Can people no longer liste to music or talk on cell phones?

50 Day Moving Averages. 200 Day Moving Averages. There is not shortage of examples to demonstrate points that are screaming to be made.

To those, I ask if they've ever heard of the concepts of "sensitivity' or "specificity?" How about "false positives and false negatives?" Have they never heard of "The Zune?"

A couple of generations ago a deservedly disrespected past President spoke of the "silent majority." I think that in the world of stock charts the silent majority are those that don't behave quite as predictably as a technician would have anyone bothering to listen, believe.

No one is ever going to show you the charts where the stock prices didn't move as the technicals predicted that they should.

More than one Talking Head mentioned how no one was daring to mention how that if Apple floundered it would take the rest of the market with it.

Obviously, they don't listen to one another and based on their ability to revise the past, they probably don't listen to themselves.

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Fundamental or Technical

Four years ago there was much excitement about the projected upper limit of Google's share price. It had gone as high as about $750 and everyone was calling for at least another $100.

And those were the cautious analysts. I believe that back then, the more optimistic investors referred to those less ebullient analysts as some form of cat.

Everyone agreed that on a fundamental basis Google was undervalued. But then there was that gnawing unease about how quickly its stock price had climbed, about 50% in about 6 weeks.

To put that into terms that my generation can understand, I need to channel "Meatloaf."

"What's it going to be, boy? Fundamentals or Technicals?"

Are we sounding familiar, yet?

At that point the tech bubble was already a very distant memory. Besides, Google had an actually revenue stream and obscene profits. It could only keep going up as there was no reason for search users to curtail their clicking, since there was no cost involved to use Google search.

The one thing you can say about Google the company is that very few people will confuse it with "googol," the mathematical expression from which the company's name is said to be derived.

Well, a funny and totally unexpected thing happened, unless you believe that a cacophony of bulls heralds the coming of bears.

Even before the bottom fell out of the market as we learned such expressions as "sub-prime" and "collaterized debt obligation"," Google decided to shed about 40% of its share value.

From that level it dropped another 40% in  sympathy with the rest of the market. In fact, Google wasn't totally sympathetic as it left its bottom dwelling position about 4 months before the overall market, rising 18% from its low before the market took its lead.

A case of "so long. Been good knowing you, but I'm outta here."

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Love Stinks

I know that "Love Stinks" is not exactly an original sentiment. It's either wildly appropriate or inappropriate of a sentiment on Valentines Day.

The other day as those who were not watching Oprah Winfrey's show on a behind the scenes look at life in an Orthodox Jewish were watching the Grammy awards, they got to see songstress Adele receive six awards.

By now, everyone on the planet knows the stories of personal and emotional pain behind some of her songs, such as "Someone Like You." Great story for sure, but I'd really like to know the story behind the J. Geils Band song "Love Stinks."

Yeah, yeah.

But as long as it is Valentines Day, it's obligatory to search for things that you do love and express those feelings.

Among the things that I love is how egalitarian Twtitter is, allowing everyone to rub elbows, as long as they maintain some kind of decorum and don't show excessive skin on their Avatars.

You also get to see communication, exchange and banter between and sometimes among reasonably well known people. That is, if you happen to travel in a highly defined circle. The love of my life, my Sugar Momma, doesn't travel in that circle or even its outskirts, where I hang out, but even she now knows the name Herb Greenberg.

Even the "hoity toity" of Twitter will occasionally respond to the "hoi polloi." Greenberg is not among the "hoity toity," he's a big advocate of engaging the masses and does so on a very regular basis.

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Back to Life

Fiction is great. Real life? Not as much

In the world of fiction, re-animation is real. Anything can come back to life, even things that never had a spark of life before.

How many years and through how many on-screen versions have we celebrated the life of Frankenstein, perhaps the most well known of the re-animated beings.

He's dead, he's alive, he's dead again. And so on.

In some versions he was never alive to begin with, then he's alive and evil and then becomes charming and sophisticated.

See? Fiction. Try it.

Vampires, talking broom sticks, dancing teacups and even mummies. You name it and they can breathe life into it or in the case of the gentle giant in "The Green Mile." summon some kind of energy to reverse death.

Fiction is easy.

Sometimes the re-animation is endearing, like the vision of Nat King Cole doing a duet with his daughter.

There are times when the re-animation is totally unnecessary, like the appearance of the late, not so great actress Dixie Carter continuing to appear in the Public Service Ad for Spasmodic Torticolis, two years after her death.

Creepy, but understandable, since there's probably not another D-List celebrity willing to front for that cause, worthy as it may be.

At other times the re-animation is the result of morbid curiousity, such as when sales of music skyrocket after a stars' unexpected, yet fully anticipated death.

The "death bounce" in sales is well established and is matched by the sudden appearance of an unending supply of lost studio tapes and recordings.

Even the most explored band in the history of manking, The Beatles, had lost recordings become unlost.

Death will do that. But without death you can't have re-animation.

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Walk of Shame

I've always loved that expression "the walk of shame."

You can sort of picture the antecedent events that ultimately lead up to that walk. There's usually some significant disappointment involved and fantasies that were a bit misplaced.

Rarely do you hear people refer to their early morning "walk of fame."

Sometimes the walk of shame comes as a complete surprise, but most of the time you know that it's there just waiting for you. So much so that the people on the path even know your story even though they don't know you.

They know and recognize the walk.

What inspires or leads up to the walk?

For some it's alcohol, born out of loneliness, which itself may be born out of a need to belong.

Before the walk, most everyone fantasizes about how wonderful everything is going to turn out and then there's the slow realization that not only will those dreams not come true, but that the road taken is one of destruction.

Most don't set out with an aim of taking a path toward destruction, at least not self-destruction, at least not if they're in possession of their sanity.

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The Producers

I doubt that there's another pseudo-financial blog that's actually mentioned Zero Mostel twice in the past month.

Strictly speaking, I wouldn't be included in that category, since its been nearly two months since I mentioned the legendary comic actor. But I really had no choice in my choice of words. It's not as if there's a reasonable alternative to "fortnight" when discussing monthly increments.

At the time, I'm not certain that I really paid appropriate homage to Mostel, since his reference was contained in a blog that was really about the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and the market rally that his death spurred.

Sometimes getting lumped together takes away deserved focus.

For example, as focused as we were on the last days of a dying Farrah Fawcett, the fact that she ended up dying on the same day as Michael Jackson made her just a forgotten post-script to the story on that day and shortly thereafter..

Then, just as we were ready to pay her the attention and respect that she so deserved, we discovered that she died of "anal cancer." At that point we wanted to forget about her altogether.

Eeew.

Before it became a smash hit on Broadway, "The Producers" was a movie starring Zero Mostel.

In addition to being an hilarious movie, The Producers was able to make a mockery of an unrepentant New York Nazi at a time when World War II was still a reasonably fresh and painful memory.

In Gilbert Gottfried terms even the passage of a couple of minutes absolves someone from the  "it's too soon" complaint, but when it came to the Holocaust, 20 years was still too soon.

The fact that Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were all Jewish probably helped to ease some of the discomfort with the concept, and besides, the late Kenneth Mars was a great wacky Nazi.

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Anticipation

There was a time when a singer named "Carly Simon" was very popular.

She rarely performed in concert because she reportedly wasn't comfortable in the limelight.

Although she was very attractive, you couldn't help but notice that she could fit a microphone into her mouth sideways. And to top it off, she must have been happy, because she was always flashing that incredibly wide smile, that may have actually been larger than most New York City studio apartments.

Her song, "You're so Vain," is still discussed by aging baby boomers who continue to wonder whether the song was about Bob Dylan, Warren  Beatty or anyone else who may have been alive at the time.

These sort of things matter.

She was also part of the 70's rock royalty, since she was married to James Taylor, the king of soft and non-threatening pop during that time period. He was the kind of singer that even your parents could like.

"You've Got a Friend," was everybody's faorite song for the 5 years or so that it seemed to be getting perpetual airplay.

I saw Carly SImon in concert, only because she and James Taylor were surprise participants in a Jackson Brown show a long time ago in Providence, a city so small, that I was able to find on street parking right near the venue.

Obviously, those sort of things matter, too.

She could probably avoid the glare of the concert hall, as she was part of the SImon-Schuster empire, sold lots of records and otherwise, had it all.

Not only did she have it all, but she was everywhere. Strange for someone who shunned the limelight. Her song "Anticipation" was the theme for an iconic TV commercial of a child waiting for the ketchup to come out of the Heinz bottle.

I don't recall if the kid was patient or impatient, but I'm suffering through a great period of impatience.

Three days worth.

Peope anticipate all sorts of things. Many have strategies to deal with the anticipated event once it arrives, but few have strategies to deal with the situation if it doesn't

You can include me in that latter group.

In general, I like to be prepared for all possibilities. And like everyone else in that generation, I wasn't prepared for the Carly Simon and James Taylor divorce, nor the news of James Taylor's deep depression, but most of us moved on.

But now I've been caught totally unprepared these past few days.

As opposed to Heinz ketchup, which took about 35 years to deal with the "problem" of slow moving ketchup, I don't think I have that kind of time left.

That's true for a number of reasons, predominantly the fact that I don't have that kind of time left.

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