A thought on the DJIA

My coworkers are understandably unsettled these days: We work at a newspaper, and if you've read a newspaper lately, you know we're... let's see, I'm trying to come up with a nice way of saying this that won't raise the eyebrows of my non-swearing readers... nope, no way around it, right now, our industry is fucked.

The optimists think that when the "economy" turns around, so will the picture for our industry, not to mention the current employer, which is still in the black, but not without some painful moves to stay that way.

So, how will we know when the economy, whatever that is supposed to mean, is OK again? When our revenue shoots through the roof and I get a fat raise? That would be a good measure, except I think it is maybe a little foolish to assume those two go hand in hand.

I'm told that a good indicator of the health of our economy is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I've yet to hear a convincing argument to back up that proposition, however. Why should I think the best barometer for the vitality of the U.S. is the "behavior" of a market run by the people who got us into this mess?

Seriously. Stocks rise and fall based on expectations of earnings and growth, usually measured by the quarter. So if you aren't seen as likely to make a certain amount of dough in the next three months, your paper value goes in the tank. Is that really a sustainable way to run a country, quarter-to-quarter?

I mean, even the fundamentals of this supposed system are obviously flawed from a logical standpoint, let alone, you know, the empirical reality. Permanent sustained growth? How's that supposed to work?

I know there's a dissertation in here. But I also know the situation is hopeless in the absence of a mathematically capable populace (oh, and business writers. Another problem, eh?)

So in place of a solution, I'd just like to go a week without having to hear about the god damn stock market. *That* would be news worth sharing.

The Bird of Fighter

I caught this guy surreptitiously (he's texting, not sleeping, as far as I could tell) on the train from Nagano to the Jigokudani Onsen area.

His hat reads "The Bird of Fighter," and although you can't tell, he's wearing, like, five gold rings. I think the three pairs of sunglasses makes the outfit, though. That and the leather shirt.

I know he'd stick out here, but trust me, he's way weirder of a sight in Japan.

The Enzyte fiasco

Can you imagine being the judge - or worse, a defense lawyer - in the fraud trial for the Enzyte people? A far cry from Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, I am sure.

Anyway, the cat who runs Berkley Premium Nutraceuticals got 25 years in prison and assorted fines today for his role in the bilking of zillions of people who bought into the whole "natural male enhancement" thing.


So, boo-hoo for Dracula. Two amusing footnotes:

• The judge also ordered the nutria cuticle people to fork over a half-billion dollars in ill-gotten gains. A half a billion dollars! Numbers like that are hard to make sensible. But you could certainly build a very nice library in every state with that kind of dough.
• The judge said the company's top dog, the one who got the 25-year stretch, can't remain free on bond while he awaits the outcome of appeals.

I think most normal people would figure that if you get convicted on 93 counts of anything, let alone conspiracy, money laundering and three kinds of fraud, that you'd probably need to expect to spend some time in prison.

But this kind of ridiculous shit happens. People convicted of felonies are allowed to stay out on the street while their cases are "decided."

Hello... Isn't that what the trial was for? If someone has been determined by a jury to have done the crimes, he should handle the time. Do you seriously think someone who would rip off $500 million would be harmless on the outside?

I remember an arson case in Nashua that had this weird aspect, but all I could get out of people as to why a convicted arsonist was out walking the streets - for years! - was that he was a good guy and well known in the community. OK, sure.

The Factor has lost its marble

Bill O'Reilly, who can usually be relied on to at least be a smart dude, said something singularly bizarre on Tuesday's Factor, which he kindly also made his quote of the day:

"Any retreat on Iraq by Obama ... will anger the far left, which is already going nuts. ... Senator Obama now finds himself in very a tough spot. But I know one thing: he can't go against General Petraeus and hope to be elected president."

Setting aside the grammatical errors, this is totally fucking bizarre coming from someone who has reasonably solid credentials as a conservative.

When did David Petraeus become an important political actor? Did he? If he did, why isn't O'Reilly suggesting we start caching weapons and training the militias? Anyway, I thought maybe I'd heard wrong, but this isn't some anomalous fuckup. Fuckup, yes. Anomalous, no. Here's a tidbit from O'Reilly's recap of the show:

"General Petraeus, who is emerging as a national hero, will likely tell the senator that any U.S. pullout has to be okayed by the military."

Oh, really? I thought the military reported to the president, you know, to the commander in chief. Isn't that how our republic is supposed to work?

WTF.

Annoying new feature: Thanks, WaMu

Washington Mutual, like any bank, operates a toll-free line for people wanting to find out if the federales have bothered to deposit their "stimulus payments," etc.

I guess the bank has decided people who use its phone service to find out such things as balances, status of checks, etc., are a good captive audience for advertising.

Today, while doing routine balance checking, I got to listen to an ad for why I should sign up for a savings account with the bank, which while we're on the subject, also features the slowest ATM I've run into. I bitched about it once to a teller, who snottily told me that the ATM was a special, high-security model that was actually much better than the other thousand I've used. Sure.

OK, I know, I should just switch banks. But that's too much trouble, while griping is not.

Stupidest people in America?

With apologies to my e-friends who make a fair amount of money absolutely but aren't well off relatively, I think I've found some new dumbasses to pillory: Prince Fielder, Cole Hamels and Nick Markakis, all of whom are quoted as bitching about their salaries in a USA Today article.

This exorbitantly talented trio is weathering the long wait of a young Major League Baseball player who has a) arrived; and b) isn't getting the big payday.

But when I, or more properly, they say, "big," what's meant maybe doesn't square with what you might think of as Big.

Next season's haul? Fielder: $670,000; Hamels: $500,000; Markakis: $455,000.

OK, I get it. Their teams make money hand over fist on them, but come on. When you're making 10 or 20 times good pay, you have not one god damn thing to bitch about. At least not for the record.

Guess the food

Here're the ingredients:

Corn syrup
Sugar
Palm oil
(and less than 2 percent of:)
mono- and diglycerides
hydrogenated cottonseed oil
salt
soy lecithin
artificial flavors
Blue 1
Red 40
Yellow 5

Yum!

Customer service

Now, I'm all for shopping local, but not yesterday. The butterfly lady's glasses broke - frames snapped in half, so she needed a new pair. This isn't so bad (except for the cost), because she's been looking for new ones anyway.

So I called the eye doctor, whose office is less than a block from our house. No dice: Their turnaround is seven to 10 days, and that's for a rush job. OK, no big deal. I called one of the dispensing optical places in town, and the guy said that depending on the prescription, they might have the lenses in stock (a couple of hours), or at worst a couple of days.

Two days is too long; two hours is OK. So I asked whether he could check, if I told him her prescription. Nope, I'd have to bring the prescription in for him to see.

Bullshit. The prescription is four god damn numbers, not some inscription in Aramaic. Besides which, I do not like gamesmanship, and he just wanted to get us in the door so we'd be one step closer to buying from his shop. To put it gently, fuck that. And in this small way, fuck Walla Walla, too. Pissants.

So we called a LensCrafters in the metropolitan area about an hour's drive to the west. "No problem," says the lady on the line, "Just read me the prescription and I'll see if we have the lenses in stock."

Indeed they did, and though we paid a pretty penny, she got her glasses, we got an excuse to go shopping and Katy the Newfoundland got a nice ride. I would have been happier, though, with a viable local option, or at the very least, adequate customer service.

Shat!

nice cig, Willy.

and furthermore

So you get to deduct half your self-employed person tax from your overall income tax. I'm not complaining about the deduction, but I'm not so sure that having to pay extra taxes because you're working for yourself makes a lot of sense.

Yes, I know that I'm just paying what an employer would have had to pay, or maybe some lesser amount, but I still strongly assert that the best system would be a little friendlier to the self-employed.

Anyway, I should also admit that I enjoy doing the taxes, partly because of the puzzle, partly because I know the system-running infidels owe me a little of my money, my little no-interest stash for February, which will no doubt be used to pay off assorted items and vanish into the Black Hole of All Cash in My Life (well, except coinage).

I am sure I would feel quite a bit less fuzzy and warm if I had to go through what certain other of my comrades-in-pen have had to with death's brother-in-idiom.

Anyway, happy New Year to those among you who are there, and happy Dwindling Eve to the rest!

New Year's Eve amusement

Just the way most people gear up for a good party:

Tough nut to crack

Or, perhaps, nuts of friggin' steel.
Maybe this is why you have to pay extra for shelled nuts, so you don't have to buy a new nutcracker when the filbert says, "hammer time."