This Year's Cool Scuba Dive

May well be the Spiegel Grove. I can live with that.

Sometimes, the Good Guys Win

Of course by good guys, I mean Capitalists. The news of Wal-Mart's victory over Maryland made my week. No legislature is more capable than a business in determining what amount of health care spending will attract and retain the most qualified employees. Score one for the good guys- you Wal-Mart Jihadists will have to go back to the drawing board.

Random Pic of the Week

A sample of my step-daughter's art, late 2005. Sort of looks like a wild neon sign:

I'll Take a Routing Number with That, Please...

On January 3, the normally very responsible KFVS12 TV of Cape Girardeau did something that blew my mind. They produced a very compelling segment about a certain local health-care company that is bouncing payroll checks. Poor, pitiful employees.

In the segment, they show the bounced payroll check on air, with the identity of the payee blocked out by some one's thumb. Here's the amazing thing: even without the aid of a DVR, the check was on air for so long, you could easily make out the name of the bank, the routing number, and the account number of the company in question.

I realize that if a company is bouncing payroll checks, there may not be much money in the account. If I were in charge of either the bank or the health-care company, I'd have my lawyers at Dewey, Cheatham & Howe climbing straight up the skirt of KFVS12 for subjecting my company to serious financial risk in a most negligent way... Mike Smythe (general manager), you owe both companies a humble apology on air during one of your "Viewpoint" segments...

2007 Predictions

Happy New Year- I plan on making 2007 even better than 2006, and I hope you do as well.

Time for New Year's predictions-

• Fidel Castro dies in 07, and IF brother Raul gets the keys to Cuba, it becomes "communist" much more in the Chinese sense of the word- in name only- as capitalism regains a foothold in our little neighbor island to the south...
• U.S. auto makers remain in deep trouble, and I reiterate my prediction that GM declares bankruptcy by the end of this year. Ford may not be the only one that approaches Toyota about some sort of alliance or takeover. Of course, Toyota would be foolish to even consider it- the U.S. auto makers are basically health-care operations that happen to make cars on the side! Toyota can just continue its winning ways, and defeat the others anyway...
• More private equity takeovers of publicly-traded companies go on this year, in fact, they may accelerate. With all the corporate governance shenanigans going on with stock options, and all the unreasonable head-aches companies have to deal with since Sarbox, why bother? Take the company private and run the damn thing the way you want to. Who could blame you?
• More initial public offerings are at risk of being listed overseas- another unintended consequence of Sarbox. Something will have to change soon in terms of this law- I say it gets modified by Congress in 07.

While I think something major will go down with Iran this year, I won't make it an official prediction. Even if it does, know that we can call on Ethiopia (see previous post) to go in, kick ass, and rid the world of that nuclear/radical Islam threat.