Same Price . . . For Less?? At first glance, prices at the 2011 Minnesota state fair appear unchanged: the sign at the cheese curds stand says “Still $5!,” and tickets on the midway are the same as last year, 75¢ apiece. The catch? The cheese curds container got smaller (at least to my eye),...Read More
“Where Were You When the Earthquake Hit?” Admittedly, that’s not a question many people in the Midwest were asking themselves the other week, in the aftermath of the East Coast’s first earthquake since 1944. But, my neighbors sure have a great answer: they were in the White House, on a tour. What happened next? Elite...Read More
Now, THAT’s Peer Pressure I’ve probably been to two dozen or so major league baseball games in my lifetime, but until this summer I’d never seen fans, umm . . . “regurgitate” an opposing team’s home run ball. At least, that’s what it looked like. After a Tampa Ray homered into the left field stands at...Read More
“Ahh . . . So THAT’S What’s on the Credit Card Statement!” My wife and I have a household credit card — and an implicit honor system: I trust her to spend judiciously, and she trusts me to do the same. But that doesn’t mean we necessarily know everything the other purchases. Case in point: Zappo’s. A (female) colleague...Read More
Lloyd Blankfein’s Very Well-Qualifed Attorney It isn’t clear precisely why [Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd] Blankfein hired Reid Weingarten, who focuses his practice on white-collar criminal defense. –“Goldman Officers Lawyer Up“; The Wall Street Journal (8/23/2011) It “isn’t clear” why Blankfein hired his own counsel? Really?? After countless allegations of corporate fraud, misrepresentation, self-dealing, front-running, perjury and other illegal —...Read More
Opting for Swedish over Japanese Tired of my rants against Wall Street? Consider this “guest” rant instead, which IMHO is pitch-perfect (minus a few #!%#!, perhaps): After 40 years of pain avoidance, can we just rip off the f**kin’ band-aid already? Enough with the asset price protection, it is the root cause of everything bad about...Read More
