Is It Really “Different This Time?” “Value investors have bored momentum investors for decades by trotting out the axiom that the four most dangerous words are, “This time is different.” For 2017 I would like, however, to add to this warning: ‘Conversely, it can be very dangerous indeed to assume that things are never different.'”...Read More
“Costco to Pay Special Dividend of $7” Costco shareholders (I’m one) got the welcome news last week that the company is paying a special $7 dividend per share next month. That’s enough to buy two (very) large slices of pizza, soft drinks, and a salad at the in-store snack bar (pictured above). In other words, lunch...Read More
Soliciting Customer Feedback From the Math-Challenged Of course, the email solicitation didn’t say the airline would pay customers $1.50 to complete its survey. Instead, it offered “250 bonus miles.” But, do the math — I did — and that comes to a rather measly $1.50 (that’s what you get when you divide $300 by 50,000 points, then multiply by...Read More
Food Snobs Manage to Become Even More Obnoxious It had to happen: once everything became “craft” this and “artisanal” that, what do you do for an encore? Start “pairing” things. “Artisanal” and “craft” things. The list includes food, wine, beer, and interestingly, even cannabis where it’s been legalized. Of course, trend-setting gourmand that I am,...Read More
Predicting Consequences New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed and on Wednesday signed legislation to make tuition free at New York public colleges for anybody coming from a family making no more than $100,000 a year, with the cap rising to $125,000 in 2019. —The New York Times (April 14, 2017). Will Gov. Cuomo’s initiative increase...Read More
Mining Taboos (Abortion, Suicide, etc.) for Laughs. Really. Maybe Louis C.K. is saving incest, bestiality, and genocide for his next stand-up special. In this one, titled merely “2017” (it’s a riff on Christianity), he contents himself tackling such taboo subjects as abortion, suicide, beheading, transexuality, and latent homosexuality (if you hadn’t noticed, sex and sexuality loom large...Read More
