heaven & hell... I can't marry a shishkabob, but I am going to marry someone who doesn't want to become one

heaven & hell...

history's most effective incentive-based reward system...

think of the chaos that would ensue if we learned, for a fact, that neither existed...

think of how many people today, right now, DON'T do things for fear of spending eternity burning in hell...

if they knew they were not doomed to a fiery bath should they commit, say, murder, or adultery, would they commit?

if they knew they were not going to spend forever skipping through rolling green hills, barefoot, hand-in-hand with Jesus, would they pray, give, donate, remain honest, do right?

do you trust mankind to maintain order in the event its primary reason for keeping such is revealed a lie? 

I sure as FUCK don't...

anyway, I've been a tad skeptical about church-goers in modern times... most scare me to death....

but now, after witnessing the evil capable by the opposite sex for, well, over 10 years now, relative to truthfulness, faithfulness, severe rationalization, behavior polarities, and basic overall justification of catastrophic emotional impact on partner, etc., I think I am only going to put a ring on a finger connected to a body trembling with fear in response to imagining what will happen to her, for eternity, if she were to commit adultery, or "cheat" on me during our marriage together...

who says Satan can't be a pal? he's arguably responsible for keeping a majority of marriages monogamous... 

(it's all about perspective... happy Thursday!)

nature vs. nurture... it's VITAL parents coddle and stroke their... egos?

I have grown to see the opportunity the classic "nature vs. nurture" debate, or the argument over the determinants responsible for human development, more specifically factors affecting children's ability to grow into healthy adults and adopt certain traits, opens for selfish, egoic parents to completely indemnify themselves of any and all responsibility associated with disruptive mental conditions in their children. I used to laugh off critics who accused parents of blaming "nurture", or society and the personal experiences that accompany communities, for all their child's ailments, but were first in line to praise and promote the same child's accomplishments in school, often indirectly claiming and celebrating credit for their A+ in calculus, hence "nature", as irresponsible, poor, etc. parents, mainly because I was in love with the pop culture parental ideology.

I have learned yet another lesson in life. Yes, my Grandpa would be proud; "boy, life ain't fair now, ya' hear?"

I have since experienced this miracle of, what I call, "total positive attribute responsibility", or otherwise known as "I''ll take credit for everything awesome about my pro-creation, and anything failing to coddle or stroke my ego is automatically, obviously, and arguably the result of factors affecting my pro-creation that are clearly out of my control". Let me provide some examples of credit-taking, subconscious or not, some I'm sure will hit very close to home.

"We are so proud of our daughter. She is really excelling in sports, and making awesome grades. Her father was always such a diligent student, and I won state on the balance-beams in 1978."

"Our son graduated honors in engineering. I just know he gets that math stuff from his Dad! I was never good with numbers."

"Our son has a beautiful girlfriend, and they will likely marry and have adorable children. I was always told he had my eyes, and he definitely gets his lips from his father."

"Our son is such a hard-working American. We made sure he learned the value of a dollar at an early age, and now look at him... trying million-dollar cases... and winning!"

Now, let's look at some relate-able scenarios where parents duck and dodge negative characteristics their children may be starting to display or are already demonstrating full-blown symptoms.

"We just found out our daughter, at 16, is pregnant. Can you believe that? What are we going to do? I always knew that boy she was dating was bad news."

"Our 27 year-old son was recently diagnosed with severe depression. I always feared those concussions he experienced in middle school and high school football would lead to this. It's all over the internet, how concussions cause depression."

"Our son beat-up another school mate today. Can you believe what video games are teaching kids these days? It's unacceptable. Congress needs to intervene."

"That rap music! It's ruining my daughter's discipline for use of clean, friendly language! I taught her better than that. We need to stop those rappers!"

Please note all are fictional, and unrelated, respectively, to one another. And sure, you can argue either side (nature vs. nurture) for any of these statements. Sure, a son may get his math skills from his dad, and a girl may very well learn to say "bitch" from Snoop Dog. But what I want you to see is how powerful ego preservation and defense can be, even when a child's well-being is either at risk or already compromised. I do not have the answer; parents will always, forever, without any judicial consequences, be able to assign blame for unfavorable behavior in their child to society; was it the fact that the daughter knew Mom was pregnant at 16 that caused her to believe such is acceptable since "Mommy did it", or was it an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine on "how to tease your man tonight... be young, sexy, fabulous, and hot..."? No way to tell.

All I know is I have seen parents do an excellent job promoting their children's strengths simply because it reflects positively on them, just like when they write their resume, and fail to take responsibility for weaknesses simply because it may, although you can argue otherwise, "chink" at the armor of the self-image they have heavily invested in creating and protecting.

To Moms, Dads...

Step up. Help diagnose and cure. Otherwise you could be trying to celebrate that all-state high school football story while friends and teachers share stories of how depressed he was the two years leading up to his suicide. Going to be tough to ignore whether or not more could have been done when "there are plenty of fish in the sea, so stop sulking and get those A's in history back" was all that was said in reaction to his constant sadness after his girlfriend broke up with him... "we thought it was just puppy love... he was too young to be in love", or how maybe since depression and alcoholism really did run rampant on dad's and mom's side of the family, respectively, but conveniently ignored, could have played a factor in his decision to end his life. Hold yourself accountable in helping those same math whizzes, sports stars, and doll-faces deal with and confront the root issues in their early pregnancies, severe depression, and anger / rage before those same children have 14 more kids, commit suicide, or kill someone, as adults.

Don't abandon. The time when they need help the most is the same time your parenting reputation is on the line. Choose them. Choose to "nurture" your "nature" instead of choosing "nurture" to indemnify your "nature".

Because after all... does it really matter whether or not it was "nurture" or "nature"? Does it matter if his closet, chronic alcoholism is a result of your genetics or effective iPhone app advertising associated with Angry Birds? No. It doesn't. What matters is your pro-creation has built a dependency on a dangerous substance, and you can help break it. Ignoring it or blaming elsewhere will most certainly do at least one thing...

not help it.

Make a commitment today. Commit to take responsibility for the "good" and the "bad" in your children, whether you already have them or not. And I don't mean you have to promote their new anti-depressant prescription after sharing their LSAT score at your next black tie affair or on the detergent aisle at Wal-Mart. You can keep your facade. I mean if you are going to attribute their LSAT abilities to your or your spouse's nature, then you automatically assume responsibility for the possibility the same nature is a factor in their depression.

my 2012 resolution: stop acting like a gazelle with a hungry lion lunging at my ass (you should consider the same)

"Thousands of years ago, we mostly lived until we either starved, were accidentally poisoned or we were eaten by another animal. Now, we have the distinct ability to slowly kill ourselves over a period of about 80 years with chemical laced foods, too much alcohol and prolonged reaction to stressful events. All are avoidable, if we make the choice to do so."


http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/stress-portrait-of-a-killer/

(you can also watch it on Netflix, which is where I saw it, per my free 30 day trial with an AWESOME company whose stock I picked to triple in value February 2009, only to watch it, without buying any, increase ten-fold through this past summer!)

The point that stuck me in the chin and rocked my dome back like a Dr. Dre beat was how a certain breed of monkey, in its normal, wild habitat, evolved to serve as the ideal non-human population for studies concerning lifestyle and social interaction, due to the fact that they spend, like humans, very little time obtaining calories required for homeostatic sustainability (big combo-word there... thanks ASU biomed), and, therefore, had quite a bit of time remaining prior to subsequent caloric consumption and consequent slumber, to do whatever they wanted. In this case, annoy each other and ultimately compete for social status.

Damn. Sound familiar? I'll let you watch to learn more about that. Moving on to the part that is more appropriate relative to my post title.

The film introduces the scientific details behind how external stimuli triggers the release of certain types of hormones associated with the "fight or flight" psyche, or chemicals responsible for physiological processes that help us "fight", or defend ourselves when threatened, or "flight", or run like hell when we are not confident we can win that fight (again, designed to help defend our life). This is a process we humans share with the wild kingdom.

"Stress" is what we experience when in the throws of the "fighting" or "flight-ing". The film dissects how gazelles, or zebras, when being chased by a hungry lion (we've all seen that infamous "slow-mo" race through the African safari...) is experiencing "flight" and all its sacred physiological processes (without them he's lunch), including the release of certain chemicals that, relative to the rather short nature of the experience and subsequent short "burst" of chemical release, are not harmful to the prey's state of being long-term (assuming he / she escapes becoming an entree). In other words, the prey "flight", they escape, and the animal has the ability to no longer acknowledge the stimulus because...

well, it's gone, and so are the chemicals that helped the animal "flight"...

Humans, on the other hand, are currently exposing themselves to the same "burst" of chemicals, only doing so repeatedly, all day, day after day, for years on end, in response to stimuli that either 1.) exist, with potential consequences over exaggerated, or 2.) don't exist, with imaginary consequences. The film's scientists prove this by measuring the concentration of the aforementioned hormones in 1.) animals, following a "stressful", or life-threatening event, and 2.) humans, following a "stressful" event, such as being late for work, etc., but not life-threatening.

We both share the same reactions.

In other words, we have conditioned ourselves to respond to heavy traffic in the same way a gazelle responds to being chased by a hungry lion.

Wow. That is incredibly...

sad.

Think about that the next time your overpaid boss shoots you a negative look after you fail to include a key chart or piece of data in an important meeting. You likely just excreted the same type of chemical, at a relatively similar concentration, as the gazelle who is being chased by a hungry lion, 4,000 miles away, through the Africa safari, at the same time.

The difference is when the gazelle survives, he forgets about it, "stops responding", and goes on about his day grazing, trotting, sexing, and wild-ing. You will dwell on that look from your boss all day, all night, and probably the next day, repeating the event over and over and over in your mind, "still responding" the same way you both did shortly after the stimulus occurred.

Watch the film to learn how this "continuous response" is killing you.

2012 motto: "stop acting like a human and piss off a lion!"

Merry Christmas! is anyone else tired of hearing the same "when I was a kid" bullshit stories from older relatives every year? here's how to remind them how thankful they should be...

"When I was a kid, I worked for $X.00 a day... you kids have it easy nowadays..." - relative, referring to wages in the late 40's and early 50's in America

X usually = a small fraction, sometimes 10%, maybe 15%, of what kids earn in the same time nowadays

Every year, I hear these same sob stories about how "tough" life was for our relatives "back in the day". I usually experience a bit of guilt and shame, as these stories are framed to trigger the mathematical equation in our heads that usually outputs something like "wow, I made that in an hour when I was as old as my relative was then", and I feel bad for them. Once they realize they have an audience, the diatribes continue.

Not this year.

I asked my relative what they valued more, their wages or their marriage. They answered "my marriage, obviously... I wouldn't trade my spouse for anything in the world". I then asked if they would rather live happily married in fiscal poverty or unhappily divorced and fiscally wealthy. "Happily married in fiscal poverty". I said "well, then you had it pretty good compared to me because I am twice as likely to lose what you value more than money, nowadays".

There were an average of 10 divorces per 1,000 married women in 1950, over 21 per 1,000 married women in 2010.

$6.00 a day had never felt so good to them, after they adjusted their perspective.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Remember it's not what you're looking at, but how you're looking at it!

stepping across the aisle today; rich people do not create jobs

I just heard "because rich people create jobs" as an excuse to not raise taxes on "the rich" for the last time.

That is bullshit. 100% horse cakes. 

"Rich people", for the most part, by definition in terms of the SEC and private placement memorandums, are those "sophisticated" and or "accredited", or meeting the following criteria:

1. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person;
2. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or

http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm

When you hear the Demmy's talk about raising taxes, it's usually in terms of targeting those who meet #2 above, right? We've all heard "people with income of $250,000 gross annual or more..." etc. etc. on the news. They often equate this metric with those in the "top 1%".

In other words, "don't raise taxes on these people... that will prevent them from creating jobs!"

The truth is these people are not the "job creators". They are the "job maintainers", and, if anything, the "job eliminators", or the "offshore-ers" and "cost-cutters". They are the blue chip P's and VP's, Dr.s, lawyers, upper level management personnel, white collar Americans who have not ever "created" anything relative to a "job" for another American. They found themselves earning money through a system that was, in most cases, freely cash-flowing far earlier in time relative to when their decision-making skills argued their entrance into the coveted "top 1%". These people, on average, don't create, and, actually, for 7.5 hours out of the day, are in desperate search to destroy, or create cost-cutting initiatives. Remember... cutting costs increases profit, and an increase in profit is the #1 way to justify an increase in pay, and that is why they are breathing from 8 to 5 in their office. 

People will always get cut before goods needed for the sale. Remember that. 

Adding a "job" to an established business is an incredibly, extremely, expensive process and recurring burden for a company. Management cringes at the thought of the new costs that will eat EBITDA when they offer to hire. It's a real expense, and unless the market is absolutely demanding a position, will be avoided AT. ALL. COSTS. This is usually in terms of sales and demand relative to products needed in new markets. In that case, the market created the job, not the dipshit MBA with a weak LinkedIn profile. All he is going to do is assess the risk associated with a cost-benefit analysis on the new hire. 5th grade math. 

Here is the harsh truth: the only way, in this case, a "job" will be created, is if demand for a company's product or service increases enough to justify a new position, and no one can control free-market demand. The opposite option is to take an "unjustified" risk, or investing in new jobs without adequate comfort those jobs will yield reward. 

Companies run by these people do not do this. They get fired for doing this. Now, less taxes certainly increase available cash, but an increase in available cash does not mean patriotism trumps greed; if the market does not demand a new job, that cash, not being paid as tax, will either be 1.) retained, 2.) invested, or 3.) paid out in the form of dividends. 

"Rich create jobs."

Stop believing that bullshit from the media. That's a tip of the hat toward their viewers, whose ego's are in love with the false belief they are helping struggling Americans reach the "American Dream" by paying them shit and making double-digit returns on the base-level, pre-tax labor, or g&a, expense every month they're in the black.

FALSE. FAIL. BULLSHIT. DO NOT PASS GO. TAKE A WALK. 

The truth is this. Entrepreneurs create jobs. No, this is not personal bias. I will explain it detail. 

Entrepreneurs are the people who notice an unmet need, or market opportunity, and create a plan to meet that need and capitalize on the opportunity. This is a natural process ancient to the world of scarcity, and specialization with talents, that we live in. I don't care if it's breaking twine in a fishing village off the Nile River or trillion dollar credit default swaps for AIG, new demand is new demand. They then, relative to a cash-based currency, or fuck even a conch shell, or pig ear, or broken shoe lace, or dirt clod based currency system, have to collect enough cash / conch shells / whatever to trade with other product and service providers essential to offering the service / manufacturing the product designed to meet that unmet need. Stronger twine, or OTC CDS servicing; meeting demand.

Now, pay close attention: the word "collect" is synonymous with today's stock market concept; spreading risk in terms of asking 1,000,000 people for $1 versus 1 person for $1,000,000. The entrepreneur, who, most of the time, cannot afford to fund his / her new idea independently, needs alot of capital. So he / she can 1.) sell stock, or 2.) issue bonds, to accomplish this goal. Once they "collect" their currency, they then do something magical:

They create jobs. They pay vendors and they hire employees with the intent to launch the idea that will meet that unmet need. This is where the "job creation" comes from; you have people who were not able to work, and not hired by the "rich", who now have a "job". A "job" has been "created". 

Some of you clever folks may be anticipating my next point; "Who do you think buys the stock or bond from the entrepreneur and provides the capital for him / her to create those jobs? Those "rich" people! And taxing them reduces the money they have to buy that stock or bond and help create that job!"

Yes, an indirect way of arguing against my point. I agree, that the more money one has, the more likely they are to risk it on new things. But the "rich" have a lot of money because they "DON'T" risk it on new things. 

New things are risky, and risky things can lose money, and "rich" people are good at "not" losing money. So, if we want job creation, we need to 1.) encourage, or incentivize, entrepreneurship, and 2.) encourage, or incentivize, investment in new ideas. 

Oh, and revert to the early 1900's definition of a "corporation", including all limited rights originally assigned to the "Inc.". BIG factor in the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" (watch documentary "The Corporation" http://thecorporation.com/)

does anyone else see the racial profiling? trying to sharpen my pencil here, and this kid keeps cutting in line... I'm running out of time!

Definition of racial profiling, according to Dictionary.com:

"government activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

Given the obvious ability for accusations involving race by non-Government to be considered racial profiling, I am removing "government" from the definition, and using the following modified definition instead, and will be referring to it during the rest of my post:

"activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

I believe there is a crystal-clear racial profiling problem in America's higher-level academia admissions criteria. It has to do with preventing qualified citizens from pursuing educational opportunities whereby they are, on paper, every bit qualified, by all standards, for the look. 

Except color seems to introduce a determinant that negates the aforementioned.  

I am talking about the requirement for us to disclose our race on school, primarily graduate level, academic applications, because they are required, even incentivized, to admit a certain % of certain minority races, relative to their admission class, despite a "standardized" entry barrier and determinant testing process. 

It's blatant racial profiling. Let's break apart the definition.

     "race" - an applicant's ethnicity 

     "suspect or group of suspects" - the applicants who do not meet the specified minority race criteria

     "activity" - limiting the # of applicants who do not meet specified criteria

     Therefore:

"activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects based solely on race"

     becomes:

 

     "(limiting the # of applicants admitted who do not meet specified criteria) directed at (the applicants who do not meet the specified minority race criteria) based solely on (an applicant's ethnicity)"

      huh...

I therefore will assume that because I do not meet the specified minority race criteria, as I am Caucasian, and due to the fact that the # of applicants indicating Caucasian race will be limited, regardless of standardized comparison indicating a more qualified application relative to non-minorities, I run the risk of denial of admission due to the color of my skin.

Wow. Thought we were done with racism in America? Anyone else see a problem here, perhaps a digression in social reform? 

     

The non-minority is therefore implied, or "suspect"-ed to be, somehow less worthy of consideration, despite rigorous standardization, or "suspect"-ed to be in less-need of the education than the minority, despite rigorous standardization. 

Regardless of my standardized performance, simply probability indicates the color of my skin could prevent me from prospering in a free society. 

Good thing I'm Caucasian! That means I must be rich already and don't need grad school! HA! 

POTENTIALLY HIGHLY OFFENSIVE POST: I’m straight-shootin’ on “I gots 15 kids to feed” today. Don't read if you are easily offended by highly-descriptive language and explicit content, or believe others are accountable for irresponsibility

“… says her children are a gift from God, but now she needs help caring for them, and blames … Sheriff’s Office Child Protection Team and others, for (the problem)…”

“Somebody needs to pay for all my (15) children… somebody needs to be held accountable, and they need to pay!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KUW2vCPX7w

I had to take a stroll for 5 or 8 minutes or so after watching this one. Wow. I passed “10 deep breaths” 23 deep breaths ago. I think I can type now without banging the keys.

So this woman expects “somebody else” to pay for her inability to control semen ejaculation, on behalf of a male, up through her Fallopian tubes and onto her fertilizable ovum.

My proposed solution:

STOP FUCKING YOU DUMB BITCH.

I cannot believe this mentality exists. It simply makes me sick to my stomach. Those poor kids, man. FUCK THIS PISSES ME OFF. We learn about the reproductive process very early in life. What, 5^th, 6^th grade? 7^th? This is usually way before any of us are at risk of even engaging in sexual intercourse. So, it’s safe to say we are aware of the nature of the “birds and the bees” before we start poking our stingers and getting stung.

We therefore know, when we do go to smack uglies, that when a man and a woman engage in sexual intercourse, 100% of the time they risk pregnancy. Now, certain types of contraception exist to reduce that risk. Condoms, birth control, plan B, etc. They are all available to help reduce the risk of pregnancy, and are great tools to help ease the stress of “wondering” after the “heat of the moment” triumphs our logical minds and its reason to “not fuck; I don’t want to get preggers!!".

In other words, when we bang, after trying oh-so-hard not to, since we learned what happens when a man inserts his penis into a woman’s vagina around the time we grew our first zit, there are things we could have done to prepare for this surrender (birth control), and there are things we can do to make the best of it (condoms, pulling out), and there are things we can do to minimize the risk that comes with neglecting the first three (plan B). (I’m going to steer clear of abortion as any form of “option” here).

So we pick one or combine a few, and ride the risk and our partner.

This seems to work fairly well for most of horny America.

BUT… somehow, some of us fail, time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time to demonstrate sexual responsibility, despite learning about its consequences before masturbating for the first time, and are still churning out mouths and deeply curious as to “where the fuck all these damn kids came from?!”.

This woman knew what would happen if she allowed a penis inside her vagina, and she obviously has not been playing the odds associated with modern medicine’s contraception. How can she hold anyone else accountable for her 15 dirty diapers, but herself and the respective biological father? They were clearly aware of what would happen if they had sex, especially if they did so without taking precautions, i.e. her taking birth control, him wearing a condom, her taking plan B, even him doing them both a favor and covering the basics; just pulling out. Shit that’s free! No one is too broke to pull out!!

Bottom line is she should be treated like any other person who cannot handle privileges requiring responsibility; she should have her ability to reproduce taken away. Bottom line. She is alleging it’s someone else’s responsibility to care for her 15 children, and that is a very, very dangerous claim. What happens when you drink and drive? You lose your privilege to drive, because you run the risk of doing damage to someone or something else. Parallel reasoning 101 here: she is running the risk of doing damage to someone or something else every time she fucks, because its going to negatively impact someone (the kid, or the "person" ending up responsible for supporting the child) or something. Shit it's not even a risk anymore... those mouths exist, and so does her empty bank account. Revoke her reproductive ability. Straight the FUCK UP. 

“They’re a gift from God!” she said...

Translation; "I love dick, so when it cums in me and I get pregnant, I can blame it on God and leverage the emotions associated with divine creation to get other people to pay for my mistakes... I'm gettin' laid tonight! Think I'll go for that hunky Denzel-lookin' cat down the block..."  

At least there is 1 father for 2/3 of the kids. He was not available for interview. LOL… probably about to nut up in some other braud and didn’t want to be distracted. Takes a lot of discipline to orgasm, and even more to blow one on her stomach versus at her ovum...

STOP. FUCKING. PLEASE.   

Sincerely,

“All of us who you want to feed your seeds”

break from politics and money... a little tidbit on my passion, "la musica"

My blog has just crested over 300 views! Not bad for a little more than 2 weeks' worth of writing. Thank you for reading! Hope you all are enjoying it!

So most of you know me, as I am only really marketing this through my personal facebook profile. This means that most of you know I am a bit of a music nut... :-)

Today I'm going to share with you why it is very, very important to be objective when considering turning your passion into your business. I have done so, and I have experienced the highest of highs, and, unfortunately, the lowest of possible lows. Here is my $0.02.

Whether you believe in God (meaning a higher power responsible for creation of life and managing its balance) or not, I feel it is safe to say we are all "programmed" to gravitate toward certain subjective activities. In other words, we find ourselves passionate about things that, most often, have absolutely no logical purpose, economically, or in terms of free-trade with other beings, relative to what it costs to compete and market products of those activities. Yes, I am talking about art, sports, poetry, music, and those other things we hide from others and lie about being good at. Yet we are often encouraged to refrain from doing those things we love so very much, and instead focus on what will earn, with more certainty, income.

In other words, our passion projects are not likely to bring us any tangible, spendable reward.

Since I can only speak from my own experiences, I am going to do just that (and I'll keep it short, as, during this time of year, I play the ever-loving SHIT out of my acoustic guitar, which I need to get back to... :-). I decided to make a run at transforming my passion (at one time football, for those of you who know me back in the day) for music into my earning model, or how I would make money for a living. To summarize 9 years of trench warfare, heart break, Super Bowl-Championship-esque highs, and constant struggle, I can tell you why turning your passion into a business can lead you to "pass" on the passion, and that is sad!

When you begin to think about your music, drawings, etc. in terms of a business, often times you need capital, or other people's risk, to get your venture going (unless you've bypassed the "starving artist" phase, which, if you have, call me, and I'll help you write a NY Times Bestseller). Whether it's friends, family, rich kids, or all three who initially invest, the second their money is in your hands for purposes of selling your taste (which means the art you think is "dope"), the psychological dynamic changes... BIG, BIG, BIG TIME. A very subtle giant makes his way into the creative process, and his name is "Expectation". This is the spoiling ingredient in your new "profit-focused" creative process! You now have investor expectations to meet, and this means return on investment, or selling your taste (art, etc.) to the market, and opportunity cost, or the money the investors "could" be making if you weren't spending it on new colored pencils. And you better make "sell-able" work, because if you don't, you risk losing money from friends, family, and rich kids, and this would be bad for both your emotional health and for your new business.

You now expectations to meet. You are no longer allowed to strum, paint, write, rap, scribble, stencil, whatever until your creation is masterpiece. Now you have conditions, limits, and... shit... MATH to do, relative to when, how, and with who you can create. Your passion, or hobby, has become just the opposite: it is now a business.

It morphs into a "job", whereby you are being compensated according to someone else's evaluation of your worth. Your work must meet the taste and expectation variables associated with economic purchasing  model of the market, and if these conflict with your creative aura, well...

You're back to doing it for a hobby, which is exactly where I recommend you do it, UNLESS you can self-fund your endeavors. Then it doesn't matter how long it takes to make money, or how much money you lose!

Hope you all are enjoying your holidays!!

Santa may skip over your house and double-up downtown...

"But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issue of political and economic justice in this society..."

- Sen. Barack Obama, Interview with WBEZ-FM, Chicago Public Radio, January 2001 (quoted from the documentary 'Media Malpractice', they airing the actual footage recorded during the radio interview

If any Obama advocates read this post, I strongly encourage you to please argue your candidate out from underneath a blatant admission of socialist motive.

"What do you want for Christmas? What? No. And not that either. Anything else? A new football perhaps?"

One thing I'll never forget about my economics professor at Arizona State, Dr. Stephen Happel, was his BRUTAL honesty about money and people, and how the two constantly conflict with one another. He once broke down why "spending a lot of time on finding a present" for someone, which we're traditionally taught to correlate with the "thought" behind the gift, or its "sentimental value", is really just the opposite... it actually indicates how little you know the person, for if you cared enough about them in the first place, you would know them well enough to find a gift for them, based on their true wants and needs, in a very short amount of time. In other words, how sentimental can a gift be when it took the giver a week to figure out what to get you?

Ha!

Think about that the next time someone hands you a half-ass Ebay look and says "man, I shopped for days before I found this for you!" Now you'll know they are simply abusing traditional folklore regarding a correlation between time spent looking and sentimental value to disguise the fact they had no fucking clue what to get you to begin with.

OUCH!

My favorite though is when family members ask "hey, what do you want for Christmas!?" I used to interpret that as "ok, I am going to make a list of 3 or 4 items that I really want and or need, and give that list to this person! I am bound to get at least 1!" EXCITING, RIGHT??!!

Shit...

I read Santa's shopping for a solar-paneled red nose for Rudolph so he can save money on the battery power our red-nosed buddy consumes in-flight by charging Rudy's schnoz all day on Christmas Eve via photon absorption...

After I submit my list, what happens is I usually get a call or email redefining the question; "hey, what do you want for Christmas that costs $29.99 or less, whereby a second gift is a function of the price of the first relative to my budget and sense of value for our relationship, whereby it is not to exceed .5X the first gift's price, subject to market forces beyond my control."

I wish people would just get to the fucking point. "Hey, I really don't want to spend more than $29.99 on you this Christmas. I have other people to buy for, and your true Christmas wants aren't as important to me as sending you something so I can say I did at church, during communion, and nurture my proverbial holiday checklist. So find something online, a second-hand Chicago Bears hat, or maybe an oil change, and send me a link. No, you can't have cash, because I have to make myself feel good by actually buying you this thing that's $29.99 or less, even though you can spend the money better aligned with your interests than I can. Thanks! Merry Christmas!"

This would make Dr. Happel proud! This market would be efficient, and I wouldn't even have to pretend I was disappointed with the $0.99 Target card didn't dump out any loot.

parents, Harvard called, and scooping shit is not a pre-req for becoming a heart surgeon!!

It seems that parents really value making sure their children "learn the value of hard work", "learn to appreciate the value of $1", and "learn to work hard for their money". This traditionally results in the parents helping the child, or even forcing the child, to begin working the following infamous jobs from, in some cases, age 10 or younger, up through 18, and even recommending the then legal adult continue such labor through their college years:

- landscaping

- janitor (car dealership, YMCA, etc.)

- garbage collecting

- flipping hamburgers

- fecal scooping

- construction

- lawn mowing

I am going to reveal a partial list of jobs I held from age 10 through 18:

- neighborhood landscaping (I found my services volunteered t0 neighbors at 10 years old)

- barbershop maintenance (sweeping hair, changing bulbs, cleaning toilets)

- bailing hay (stacked em' 9 high!)

- residential construction site clean-up (collecting fragments of sheet rock)

- snow shoveling / removal (from commercial rooftops and storefronts)

- tanning salon bed maintenance (cleaning the beds after regular 20 minute tans)

- pallet breakdown / workplace maintenance (tractor / farm equipment dealer)

- car dealership repair shop maintenance (cleaned the bays after mechanics fixed cars)

- used oil filter crushing & disposal 

- bus boy / waiting tables / dish washing

- office trash removal 

- Christmas tree trimming (out-of-season)

- retail store greeting / customer service (basic retail clothing store position)

- professional / crew landscaping (laying sod, digging ditches, etc.)

- bar backing

And the list goes on...

Now, the motivator to get and keep these jobs, in most cases, initially, is to teach the child (I use that word to represent a dependent younger than 18 years of age) "how to earn money", or what you have to do to "earn money", i.e. "work". Want to buy that new comic book? Work for it. Want gas money? Get a job kid. Right? Parents love that shit! We've all heard it. But the incentive usually morphs into a negative reward system versus the initial opposite, where as we start to grow and mature and challenge the shit we are doing for $5.15 / hour, we are told "this is what you will be doing if you don't go to college", or, in other words, "don't go to college, and this is what you can look forward to doing forever".

Initial lesson: "if you do X (shovel poop), you get Y (money for ice cream)"

Final lesson: "if you don't do Z (go to college), you get to X (shovel poop) forever" 

For the sake of my argument, I am going to say that parents ultimately want their children to fear the consequences of not going to college more than they want them to shovel dog poop as the mechanism to learn the value of $1. I believe they initially desire to instill solid "hard-working fundamentals" in their children, but leverage the fear of a shitty life when their children start complaining about the poop shoveling efforts to insure the children will want to go to college. 

Now, if that is the case, why do parents feel their children need to spend 8 years of their free-time in jobs that suck before the parents feel their children will, with absolute certainty, want to go to college, or will want to avoid what they've been doing the past 8 years? Do parents believe their children do not have the ability to empathize? Do you have to actually perform "X", or, say, clean Wal-Mart toilets, before you know that you will do "Z", go to college, to avoid "X"? Really Mom and Dad? I have to log the "man, when I was a kid, I had to..." sagas in order to learn I don't want to clean Wal-Mart toilets for a living and instead be a physician? 

I think it's bullshit. Don't agree? I read a statistic that a majority of college-graduates don't even end up in a field relevant to their "major". Think about that. People rush into school out of fear; they don't even know what they actually want to do; they just know they don't want to scoop shit. They choose whatever major, and you know it's not well aligned with their self-interests and talents because they take jobs doing things that have no relationship to their majors!

But they dodged that shit-scooping bullet baby! Mission accomplished!

My proposal to parents is to spend less time scaring your kids into going to college and putting that proverbial feather in your cap and more time helping them learn what their talents are, decide what they are interested in, and understanding what they can do while their friends are scraping gum off pool tables to begin working toward maximizing their contribution to society. Lead them toward their dreams versus scaring them with nightmares. Walking to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways, didn't do anything for me but piss me the fuck off and allow me to play a card during conversations about competing for "who ate the most shit as a kid" trophy (which I have yet to have with lawyers, doctors, and hedge fund managers...).

A Bronx Tale: a lesson from Sonny, for C, and now for you

"And I was getting two educations, one for the street and one from school. That way, I'd be twice as smart as everybody." - C, on the advice Sonny gave him

I always have a chuckle when I get into a heated negotiation, and as I chip away all objections and diffuse uncertainty, the opponent resorts to reciting all the courses he / she took at XYZ Ivy League University involving sales, negotiations, and business strategy; and how none of them have helped with their purpose in the real-world.

Ha.

"Most of these Harvard MBA types don't add up to dogshit. You need guys who are poor, smart, and hungry." - Gordon Gekko

It is arguably impossible to create an artificial scenario that truly engages the traits of a human being when it is selling, negotiating, etc. in the real-world. When you are "fake-selling", say, in a classroom, the trade dynamics do not account for any investment-driven value the seller holds, nor does it account for any investment-consideration risk the buyer has. In layman's terms, the seller hasn't spent any time or money on learning about or buying the product, and he / she is in school, so his / her opportunity cost is arguably $0.00. Also, the results of the sale have no impact on the seller. Make the sale, sit down. Miss the sale, sit down. The buyer hasnt spent any time or money on funding the budget, or getting the cash, needed to make the purchase, and he / she is in school, so his / her opportunity cost is arguably $0.00. Again, the results of the sale have to meaning to the buyer.

There is no sense of risk involved in the transaction. It is impossible for this exercise to benefit either party. Integrate a bit of risk, and the dynamics change. Have you ever had your next meal depend on your next sale?

This is what Sonny wanted to emphasize to C in A Bronx Tale. Having not attended college, Sonny attributed his ability to move money to what he learned on the street. I felt he feared that C would never truly grasp the dynamics of true supply / demand sitting in a classroom, so he made sure C spent time on the street, dealing with real people with real needs and real psychological dynamics controlling their behavior. The street is where people lived, traded, bartered, determined prices, formed entities, and live with a real sense of risk. This is the fundamental condition of all who passed through Ellis Island. They divided, specialized their labor, competed among competitors, and traded with customers. The Italians offered garments, shoes, and food. Every culture chose a path, risked time and money on their products, and traded with others who did the same with different products (you can't specialize in everything). It's pure economics.

Not able to be created in an auditorium.

Nowadays, no one wants to start at the "street" level. People pay hundreds of thousands to learn how to move money and risk in simulated environments, and then try to convince people who learned the same thing on "the street", i.e. with their own money and the psychological risk that comes with moving it, that because they did so in class, perhaps at an astute university, they deserve the six figure salary and the corner office.

Take a walk.

The classroom education is certainly required in today's global economy. Memorizing facts about business, etc. help with filling in the blanks when framing a real-life encounters, and history helps us identify trends, etc. But I chose to get that second education, the one Sonny recommended C get, on the street. And I will openly admit, and am quite passionate about, the fact that what I learned on the street is far more responsible for my ability to move risk and money today than anything I read about or learned in or out of the classroom. I frequently deal with "these Harvard MBA types" with no street-level experience, and, frankly, I often agree with Gordon Gekko.

Doubt it? Comment, and I'll respond.

based on the law of diminishing returns, which is more beneficial: born emotionally numb, or able to experience joy & pain

based on the law of diminishing returns (for all types of utility, including "love"), which is more beneficial to achieving a lifetime of good health: being born emotionally "numb", or having the ability to naturally experience joy & pain...

a drug dealer and I held an interesting convo yesterday...

Depending on whose circle I'm in; "asshole", "hardass", "piece of shit", "heartless", and even "cold" (depending on the context of assignment and the price of tea in China that day...).

Anyway, I recently held a conversation with an admitted drug dealer (no, I was not buying, as I don't do drugs (c'mon, we all know alcohol's not a drug!!), and I have a way with communicating with that type of demographic). He was of African American decent, and I was getting at him about Obama, citing this Carl's Jr. decision (see my blog yesterday for details) to not open new stores due to the cost of ObamaCare. Well, he hadn't had a "whiteboy up in my (his) shit" about welfare before, and at that point, I wasn't sure if that meant I was going to soon suck lead or earn his $0.02 on the issue. Frankly, I didn't care. Wouldn't be the first time someone threatened me with a firearm (would have been my first bullet wound though, assuming I didn't see the light). I wanted to get at this guy.  

So we exchange rants. He made excuses as to why he couldn't work a regular job, had to be on welfare, had kids to feed, blah blah blahza blah. The same diatribe. It was evident he was collecting both aid and earning cash from his "side business". So I broke it down real nice for him. 

Me - "You pay your connect for your weed?"

Guy - "Yup, gotta pay him for what I buy, then I break it up, bag it, and sell it on the street."

Me - "You then re-up, right?" 

Guy - "Yup. Hit him up, pick it up, pay him, and that's it".

Me - "With your own money, right?"

Guy - "Yup."

Me - "Ok. So you owe me a piece of your profit."

Guy - "What? Fuck you. You didn't help me make that money dude."

Me - "Now you know how taxpayers feel. They risk their money everyday, just like you risk yours on your re-up, and when they sell their product, they make that money back plus a profit. But you are getting a piece of their profit every time you collect welfare. I think you should pay me a piece of your drug profit since I'm paying you a piece of my income."

The conversation soon ended, as he got heated, and I decided it was time to leave. I highly doubt I got through to him, but he'll never forget this whiteboy. 

verdict is IN: Obama guilty of preventing new jobs from taking people off welfare

"When CKE’s health-care advisers, citing Obamacare’s complexities, opacities and uncertainties, said that it would add between $7.3 million and $35.1 million to the company’s $12 million health-care costs in 2010, Puzder said: I need a number I can plan with. They guessed $18 million — twice what CKE spent last year building new restaurants. Obamacare must mean fewer restaurants."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/05/carl_s_jr_and_the_affordable_care_act.html

Guess where all those potential Carl's Jr. workers are going to turn for money they need to live that they could have made at Carl's Jr.??

YOUR POCKET CUZZO.

keep it up Obama: tax + give + tax + give = black markets, broke earners, and extreme poverty

So I decided to refuse to take any help from the Gov't while searching for a new job; this is based on my personal principles and values. Out of curiosity (and having never been in a position to apply for Government aid), I applied, and the State agreed to pay me 1/6 the max weekly stipend, or roughly $40, per week, as long as I could prove I was searching for gainful employment, etc. etc. Despite my legitimate reasoning for leaving my position, they, somehow via a few web pages, determined, in a matter of minutes, I was ineligible.

Interesting. 

I worked and paid into unemployment for 31 months. So  much for accessing my money when I need it. Guess those duckets go down the block. 

Anyway.

The following numbers are assumptions, are not supported by any material or documented fact, and are products are very rough calculations.

     Assumption #1: 31 months of state income tax and sales tax produced by me:     $12,000, or approximately $4,645 per 12 months (conservative)

    

     Assumption #2: cost per capita for public services funded by state:                      $2,000 per 12 months (conservative)

     Annual gross margin experienced by state in exchange for letting me, single, no dependents, live in Alabama:     $2,645

     So the state, arguably, pockets $2,645 in gross margin from taxing what I earn in income.

     Now,

     Assumption #3: a family of 4, 100% dependent on Gov't support, produces, let's say, on items purchased with cash (no food stamps etc.)

     $1,000 per 12 months in sales tax (conservative, and I assume they pay sales tax on what they purchase with cash)

     Referencing assumption #2, cost per capita for public services in $2,000 annually, so the cost to the state of the family of 4 is

   

     $8,000

   

     Now, taking into account the cost to support the family of 4

   

     $4,000 / capita / annum

   

     So the state, arguably, loses $23,000 per annum from supporting the family of 4

   

     They have to offset this loss somehow, and they do so by applying my account surplus (revenue from taxing my income - costs from paying me unemployment, it being $0) to their deficit. Now, the problem is if you divide the $23,000 loss by 4, the state has to cover a $5,750 loss per head 100% reliant on them every year. I only cover 54% of that loss. To balance the books and avoid Californication, they pull from other account surpluses until all the losses are covered. The point is that it likely takes 2 people at 50% apiece to cover the cost to support 1 individual 100% supported by the Gov't, or 2 to 1. Or, raise taxes. Now, you incentivize these families of 4 to remain dependent and reproduce but drive the cost to reproduce for the income-producers up, eventually you have 3 to 1, then 4 to 1, and.. then... economic collapse, as the proportion of tax available for dependent capita is reduced to a level that cannot support living.. then...

     A fucking revolution; hungry dependents, broke capitalists, and scarcity of resources...

    

     We supply NON-VALUE ADD economic consumers with adequate aid, including an incentive to claim dependents... this proves that a Harvard JD doesn't mean you offer any fundamental economic psychology to a capitalistic nation... I don't care how you manipulate my numbers, the factor of taxpayers required to support Gov't dependents will only continue to rise, and with this comes an increase in taxes.

     How else do you support a growing population of non-income producing consumers? You have to take more from the income producing consumers. Based on zero-sum fiscal mathematics, this is the only option. 

     

     IMPEACH. I'd vote Chunks from Goonies in before I'd even approach a ballot table recommending his candidacy. This fucking country is so blind, broke, and desperate for dependency, they can't even see their future taxed away.

     

     Happy Tea Party... any liberals still uncertain? I'll buy you a $0.99 pocket calculator from Kroger and will pay for 3 - 6 hours of Economics at a major university. That's all you need.

(not really going to pay for shit...)

save $500: join a gym, get in shape, rob a bank

Let's piss off some attorneys, economists, and, my favorites, credit card / bureau / lending lobbyists...

Which penalty appears to be more tolerable:

a.) 46-57 months penalty for poor judgment, $10,000 in additional cost
b.) 84 months penalty for poor judgment, $10,500 in additional cost

For those who chose a.), this is currently the sentence you would serve if you robbed a bank, it being your first offense (base level), possessing a firearm (w/o discharge), and admitted responsibility (http://www.sentencing.us/). You would serve 46 - 57 months in jail (or lesser sentence with probation, etc.), and pay a $10,000 fine. Day 1 month 58, you are free to go; our judicial system believes you have paid the price proportional / fair / adequate relative to your poor choice. $10,000 later, it's a notch in the belt. You will no longer pay direct for your conviction (in other words, you will no longer do any "time" for this crime).

For those who chose b.), this is currently what you would experience if you had an account reported negatively to the credit bureaus and subsequently took out a $150,000 mortgage accordingly; your mortgage lender could / would justify an extra 1.0% in mortgage interest on your $150,000 mortgage interest rate, and $10,500 is what you would pay in additional interest during the 7 years that negative account rode your report.  Day 1 month 85, you are free to go; our legislative system believes you have paid the price proportional / fair / adequate relative to your poor choice. The negative information comes off your report, and you will no longer pay direct for your conviction (in other words, you will not have this negative information cost you any new money).

(but what about that 23 years left on your mortgage?)

Interesting stuff... a bank robber is felt to have been rehabilitated after 5 years from date of conviction and a $10,000 fine, but a consumer who forgot to "formally" cancel his "month-to-month" gym membership is not felt to have been rehabilitated after 5 years from date of conviction and $8,000 or so in extra mortgage interest.

Now, some of you, especially lawyers (and note I should be wrapping up semester 1 law school finals now, but elected to forego attendance to improve my LSAT score), will argue a flaw in my parallel reasoning. I invite you. There are certainly a number of ways to look at this concept. However, think critically here; a bank robber, and a consumer having forgot to formally cancel his gym membership.

Gordon Gekko called it in 1987. Do you agree? You will after reading this.

"Now, in the days of the free market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company!" 


- Gordon Gekko, Wall St. film, 1987, Teldar annual stockholder meeting


Today, I am going to explain how the meaning of this statement, more specifically the highlighted portion, made in fiction conditions of 1987, plays a direct role in a majority of the non-fictional fiscal problems in the U.S., today.

There is an economic theory to which I strongly subscribe and endorse, known as the "labor theory of value". The theory asserts that "the value of an object is solely a result of the labor expended to produce it. According to this theory, the more labor or labor time that goes into an object, the more it is worth." It dates back to classical economics, however Karl Marx is commonly credited for popularizing the concept. Anyway, I'll cut straight to the point, so this blog doesn't become to valuable (lol). America, especially its financial sector, has lost its sense of risk, simply because the people responsible for taking them aren't really taking them. They are risking / betting / gambling on securities with OPM BABY! (Other People's Money). I am not generalizing; some fund managers and even traders commit to putting their own personal funds into every trade they make. But, on average, people are working with other people's money on the table. This is the case for Corp. America too (again, there are exceptions). What this means relative to the the labor theory of value is that the people using OPM do not value that money the same way they value their own simply because they did not experience any labor, or expend any labor, to produce it. So they are more willing to risk it, or, in other words, losing it won't hurt as bad as if they lost the same amount of their own money, money they did have to expend labor to get. If an object's worth is proportional to the labor expended to get said object, and 0 (zero) u (choose your units) of labor were expended, then what is the object worth to that individual? 0 (zero) u (choose your units). If something has 0 u in worth to you, do you value it? No. It is therefore safe to argue people using OPM, which is 99% of the financial sector, and most of Corp. America, can't value OPM the same as they do their own money (this is also how credit card companies trap people... more on that later... oh, and Gov't. too).


And here is how I prove that. 


I'll start with a few unsophisticated, elementary examples, and progress upward from there. 


You're a teen.


1. You spend an entire summer landscaping (I can relate... :-). I'm talking $6.85 / hour, 6:00am - "whenever the job is done":00 pm, in the 102 degree summer heat, humidity, bugs, sweat, ex-con co-workers, no benefits, etc. Come end of summer, you've saved a few thousand dollars, and my God, a few thousand never felt like more like a few million!! You cringe at peeling off $1 for a candy bar... remember how hard the work was to earn that dollar? It pains me to recall such experiences!! 


Modify the example, slightly. 


2. You spend an entire summer working retail, where you stood at the door and greeted patrons (I can also relate). Same pay, minus the manual labor component; no 102 degree heat, humidity, bugs, etc. Come end of summer, you've saved the same few thousand dollars, and my God a few thousand never felt like more like a few million!! You cringe at peeling off $1 for a candy bar... remember how boring the work, how long it took to earn that dollar? How many "welcome to XYZ clothing" phrases you had to say, with faked enthusiasm, to earn that $1!! It still pains me to recall such experiences!!


Now, rotating the concept 180 degrees. 


3. You are walking through the Wal-Mart parking lot, and you see a $20 bill blowing across the street. You pick it up. Wow. $20. Right here. Didn't have to be anywhere doing anything, regardless of labor type, for 3 whole hours, to obtain this $20. 


4. Christmas Day!! Santa so generously stuck a $20 in your stocking (still relating to this, and I'm 28... :-). Wow. $20. Right here. In my hand. Didn't have to be anywhere doing anything, regardless of labor type, for 3 whole hours, to obtain this $20.


Now, picture the few thousand you earned that summer, either landscaping or greeting, in cash, all $20 bills, on your kitchen table. 2 feet to the right is the $20 you got from the Wal-Mart parking lot or from Santa, sitting on the same table. I ask you to choose a $20 bill for an investment in a penny stock. From which pile do you pull? 


:-). Me too. 


It's real psychology - meets - economics. Call it whatever you want. Marx just titled the relationship. 


Now, let's step up our degree of economic impact in a new example. 


3. You evaluate investments in start-up companies. For sake of conversation, a start-up is defined to be a company with $0 in sales. Pretty risky stuff. Now, you are paid a salary to perform this job, and its your boss's money you will be risking in the event you recommend the purchase of stock in a start-up, but you get a small % of the quarterly dividend your boss collects from the start-up, should one be paid out. In other words, you're basically covered on the front (salary, pre-risk) and the back (% of dividend, post-risk). You find a company that you think will dominate a sector, but, again, no sales. You recommend it to your boss, and he pulls the trigger. 


Now, rotating the concept 180 degrees. 


4. Same scenario, only now your boss requires that you put in, in cash, the % you would like to see in dividend, should the company pay one. You want 10% of the dividend, you must put in 10% worth of stock purchase price, in cash, today. You commit. Boss pulls the trigger. 


Now, the company you recommended goes bankrupt. In scenario #1, no harm to you; same salary, only no % of dividend. But your boss loses a few hundred thousand. You keep your job. Time for lunch. 


However, in scenario #2, harm to you; same salary, but you just lost a healthy chunk of your own, hard-earned cash. You keep your job. Time for lunch. 


What menu are you ordering from now?


Today, management has no stake in the company!


Are you starting to understand why:


- the Gov't. so easily breezes through trillions
- Corp. America CEO's weigh the risk of breaking the law in terms of legal costs vs. short-term revenue
- credit card users consume 100X their personal cash assets in credit card balance 
- Wall St. bankers risk hundreds of millions of OPM, everyday, all day
- your spouse, having never paid for anything in your relationship, so easily dumps you
- VC's and private equity employees dump billions into high-risk companies
- banks lend mortgages to highly unqualified applicants
- nepotism breeds flight risk, drug use, irresponsibility, and fiscal carelessness


the list goes on....


Can you identify who is management and who is the company in each of the aforementioned examples? Can you see how the people, or "management", taking the risks for the "company" clearly have "no stake" in it? Did Obama earn any of the money he gives to welfare? Did the CEO of GE put up a penny of his own capital for GE before it was cash-flowing in the billions? What easier to spend; $10,000 handed to you after filling out a 5 minute application on line for a credit card, or the $10,000 you have in the bank that took you 6 months to save? Do Wall St. bankers, primarily compensated when their trading with OPM profit, have anything at stake when they make that trade? Does your spouse, who has been saving your entire relationship, while you paid for all the lunches, dinners, movies, tickets, trips, clothes, jewelry, etc. have anything to lose when he / she dumps you, leaving you with a fraction in savings compared to the beginning of the relationship? VC's don't even ask how much money the Founder has put in anymore. Banks handed out mortgages like lemonade, and why? Whose money was gong to closing? Not theirs. The only math they were doing was "0.01 times the loan principal = MY CUT". Don't get me started on rich kids...


I have a number of more concrete scenarios to present in addition to the 4 above, that will likely help bridge any gap between teenage summer jobs and Wall St. hedge funds, but I want to make you think. 


Today, management has no stake in the company!


It will only get worse. Carnegie, Mellon.. they would be absolutely disgusted. And so should you. 


(you can verify the accuracy of the Gordon Gekko quote where I found it, at 

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html)

why Corp. America's compensation structure thrives on fear

Has anyone recently stopped and held conversation with a healthy sample population of Americans currently working in Corp. America? I have, and while I didn't log all the data, the general consensus was people are generally unhappy with their job and the company for whom they worked. They feel their contributions are insignificant, worth"less". As a result, they spend most of their time scared that they'll be "let go"... after all, in most cases, any ol' monkey, or Chinese replica, could do. Seriously.

Allow me to embrace the psychology responsible for the fear associated with #2 above. 

In most cases, in Corp. America (excluding executive and, in some cases, management level pay structure), when the business is projecting its financial performance, it has to balance many costs, but the two I'll talk about here are employee compensation and EBITDA. Whether privately or publicly held, shareholder value, where protecting such is the excuse for any activity in business, ethical or not, can be directly related to EBITDA. So, logically, owners want to know, to the best possible guess, what it will be, and how it will be protected. Therefore, the people responsible for creating it want to be able to predict it. 

Employees cost money, and anything that costs money impacts EBITDA. Because management cannot predict everything, they are going to control everything they can. Employee compensation is one item on the income statement they can absolutely control. This is where the "fixed-rate annual gross compensation step-up" comes in. By fixing the % increase in annual gross pay employees receive, they can lock-in a future G&A cost, eliminating a factor of unexpected EBITDA consumption, therefore helping maximize it. 

Here's why this breeds fear in the mind of the employee. 

I will use a fictitious man working in Corp. America, call him Jack. I will use a real employment scenario found within Corp. America, today, to represent Jack's compensation arrangement. 

Jack is an engineer. He makes $60,000, gross, without bonus or otherwise, per annum. His employer has agreed to qualify him for a 2.3% raise in gross annual pay, each year of his employment, so long as he meets "satisfactory" work performance criteria. Assuming he does and will, Jack now knows he will make $60,000 year 1, $61,380 year 2, etc. 

Now, basic human psychology starts to assess this arrangement, curious whether or not Jack can meet his needs, according to Maslov, under these conditions. Jack believes he can. He then builds a dependency on the income, constructing his life backwards from his paycheck. This is normal behavior, given our economic structure, in America; mortgage is underwritten accordingly, car loan DTI's calculated, etc. 

Jack is now 100% dependent on his $60,000 gross annual income, and is excited about the 2.3% raise he'll begin to experience next year. 

Here is the problem. 

Jack knows he is unable to earn additional income beyond his 2.3.%. He therefore knows exactly what he will make, subject to a performance review (which he believes he'll "ace"), so he has absolutely no incentive to perform beyond his basic job function. Why would he? What happens here is the basic psychological reward system defaults to a negative reward system, whereby Jack is now working only to "keep" his $60,000 gross + 2.3% annum step, or working to "not lose" it, instead of working to "increase" it.

When you are working to "not lose" something, you are living in fear of losing hit. 

Think about this: if I offer you $100 to paint my house, with an extra $2.30 each week during the job, I have fixed, and completely exposed your incentive structure. You have no control over your pay. Because you lose control over your pay, the incentive, at that point, is to do what it takes to meet my requirements, since your behavior isn't a factor in determining how much you make. You paint, collect your check, paint, collect your check. 

It's quite simple: Jack Co.'s management has successfully fixed Jack's cost, inviting them that much closer to selling their projections to owners with confidence (and keep in mind their compensation is a function of meeting budget... :-), and Jack is scared to lose his income instead of excited about growing it. 

Which Jack would be the better employee? 

time for a change: give me 7 years (part 2)

Reason 2.

Whether it be the credit reporting bureaus or the Gov't determining the time frame creditors / collection agencies are required to report delinquent accounts etc., I am going to look at the Gov't dynamic (for that is what I have been told, that the Gov't controls such).

If anyone reading this blog is a politician, wanna-be or running, if the theory stands that an individual shall be held accountable for perceived "fiscal caution" for a period of no less than 7 years following such event, I would then conclude that it is therefore not possible for one's decisions involving fiscal commitments, indebtedness, etc. within that timeframe to have any real impact on the individual's "fiscal risk profile". Answer then why I should believe I should vote for your fiscal decisions when you will only have 4 years? If any time period less than 7 years is an inadequate amount of time to credit fiscal improvement, how can you possible have an impact in 4?

time for a change: give me 7 years

So I'm disputing a flaw on my credit report (or an item found in the "negative information" section), where Southwest Gas Co., a utility company that supplies a majority of Tempe, Arizona residents with natural gas, forwarded my $200 outstanding gas bill to collections following my moving out of a house (with 4 other good friends) my senior year of college at Arizona State University.

The $200 worth of gas was consumed by the collective household that April - May or so, 2006. The account was obviously in  my name. Now, I've always been fairly fiscally aware and responsible; not many 23 year old's who aren't are handed hundreds of thousands in VC cash. So, I highly doubt, when checking off the "move out" checklist items, I forgot to pay the remaining balance on my gas account, and close it out. But apparently I did, finding out when I saw my credit report for the first time in 200......8.

I never received a phone call, email, letter, smoke signal, messenger on horseback, telegram, fucking aerial fly-by notifying me that I was delinquent on the account. It literally went to collections following our summer 2006 move-out, sat there, accruing "late fees" (which is really a creative way of the company's owner covering the costs + ROI associated with that obese woman with a headset and an associate's degree who answers the phone, recites her script, and takes your debit card number), until I learned about it, via my credit report, over 2 years later. So, I called BYL (which I think stands for "Bitch You Lose") and paid the outstanding amount, in full.

So, it's now 2012. This blemish continues to ride my report, it's only purpose to warn any potential creditors of my "borrowing trends, patterns, and behavior", for 7 years, from 2006, or until 2013. Now, there are two ways to look at this concept.

1. Credit reporting agencies, Gov't., whoever sets these guidelines, has somehow concluded that debtors, regardless of mistake type or reason, should be penalized for "negative information" by requiring its reporting for 7 years from date of whatever. Now, in my case, my gross annual income increased X7 between the summer of 2006, or college graduation, and now, 2012. In other words, it appears as though I am in a far healthier financial situation now than 5.5 years ago, yet I will continue to suffer an issue of miscommunication in the form of higher interest rate, etc. for another 1.5 years, justified by the assumption that... what... I am just as likely to skimp on a $200 gas bill today, at X7 the gross ann vs. then, in college, making dick (only looking at it in terms of income here). Seriously?

And why the fuck do I have to pay for access to MY borrowing history? It's MINE. MY INFORMATION. Why do I only get to see a certain number of times per year? It's MINE! I created it! I'll come pick up your creation containing your information, your child containing your DNA, and charge you $14.95, OH... WAIT... only once per year, to see him / her. 7 years? Really? In my case, IMMACULATE debtor performance since, and I can't get a look for removal of something occurring 5.5 years ago after 0 blurps since?

GET FUCKED.

I'll tell you what's going on. It's real simple. A piece of "negative information" on your credit report really does 1 thing; grants your next creditor to either 1.) deny you a loan, or 2.) justify jacking the interest rate on the loan. You don't think they appreciate rationalizing an extra 0.375% on my $28,000 auto loan or $140,000 mortgage, despite a fucking 15% DTI, because of an unpaid $200 gas bill, 5.5. years ago?! FUCK NO! THANK YOU TRANSUNION, EQUIFAX AND (whoever the third is, can't remember)!!! THANK YOU GOV'T. FOR LEGISLATING THIS!! Now, notice how often banks pull that credit? Guess who gets taxed for that: YOU. Guess who gets paid: CREDIT REPORTING CO. And I'll bet, if you gave me forensic accounting privileges for a week with these bigger banks, rather large sums of money are funneling to the politicians responsible and the credit reporting agencies chosen to pull Client credit.

It doesn't make any sense to hold someone accountable for a mistake having occurred 7 years prior today, especially if the mistake, measured in terms of accounting / aging AP, is a minute fraction of value relative to the present AR, or one's earning potential. It's literally the same thing as your next employer reducing your base gross annual pay by 5% because you made a B in economics 5.5 years ago in college, and he's doubting your supply - demand basics. Seriously. It's LSAT parallel reasoning 101.

I'm not a conspiracy - theorist. I'm the motherfucking truth. Pull the zombie eyes out of your skull and think about this.

(I got heated and forgot the 2nd way to look at it... I'll report back later...)