- Robert Anton Wilson
HAUNTED BY HIS PAST?
A young man with a wild and multi-coloured hairstyle sits next to an old man on a park bench. The old man stares at the young man.
"What's the matter, old man?" says the young man. "Never done anything crazy in your life?"
The old man replies: "Yeah. When I was in the Navy, I got really drunk one night and had sex with a parrot. I thought you might be my son."
HE GOT WHAT HE ASKED FOR...
A local newspaper mistakenly printed an obituary for the town's oldest practicing lawyer. The lawyer called them immediately and threatened to sue unless they printed a retraction.
The next day, the following notice appeared: "We regret that the report of Attorney Smith's death was in error."
"Anybody who thinks talk is cheap should get some legal advice." - Franklin P. Jones
"When two dogs fight for a bone, and the third runs off with it, there's a lawyer among the dogs." - German Proverb
"A man without money needs no more fear a crowd of lawyers than a crowd of pickpockets." - R. Rinkle
"There is a general prejudice to the effect that lawyers are more honourable then politicians but less honourable than prostitutes. That is an exaggeration." - Alexander King
HEY, IT'S ONLY YOUR $30 BILLION
October 23, 2007 "Bear Stearns and China's government-controlled Citic Securities agreed to invest $1 billion in each other and combine some operations in Asia, giving the U.S. brokerage a beachhead in China, officials said yesterday." - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 6, 2008 "In November, Citigroup sold a 4.9 percent stake to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, matching a stake held by Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal. A round of investments in January was led by a $6.8 billion stake sold to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and the Kuwait Investment Authority's smaller stake.
A number of foreign funds took part in Merrill Lynch's $6.6 billion selloff in January, including the Korean Investment Corporation, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Japan's Mizuho Financial Group and the Olayan Group, a private Saudi company.
Recovering from poor investments in subprime mortgage loans, Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley accepted a $5 billion investment from the state-run China Investment Corp. in December, representing slightly less than a 10 percent stake.
Bear Stearns swapped $1 billion investments with China's government-run Citic Securities Co., Asia's largest securities firm, in October. The investment gives Citic about a 6 percent share of the U.S. brokerage.
Shortly before its much-hyped public debut on the New York Stock Exchange last June, private equity house The Blackstone Group sold a $3 billion share of itself to China Investment Corp. Source: The New York Times, CNN/Money, Bloomberg
March 17, 2008 "The US central bank’s latest attempt to inject money and confidence into the financial system is its third in ten days… The Federal Reserve has reduced the rate at which banks can borrow directly from it, trebled the length of time they can borrow and allowed 20 securities firms direct access to the same facilities... It is also putting $30bn of US taxpayers’ money at risk by providing a lending facility to help JP Morgan acquire Bear Stearns at a knockdown price.
That $30bn is secured against assets of questionable value...the loss will be taken by taxpayers, not by JP Morgan." - Robert Peston, BBC News
AH-SO! The price of confidence is going up! From my position among the great unwashed, it appears that the Fed, willingly or unwillingly, stepped in to protect China's financial interests. Bear Stearns shareholders take the hit, JP Morgan takes the blame, and the US Government keeps on rollin' rollin' rollin'. A sweet deal for someone. I can't see where this $30 billion helps anyone in my neighborhood; Is anyone in yours saying "Thank You, Fed? - 2q(Jim)
FASCINATING FACTS
Safety Razors
The first safety razor, a razor where the skin is protected from all but the very edge of the blade, was invented in the late 18th Century by a Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Perret, who was inspired by the joiner's plane. Marketed as "the best available shaving method on the market that won’t cut a user, like straight steel razors." The first American safety razor was marketed in 1875 by the Kampfe Brothers. In 1901, the American inventor King Camp Gillette, with the assistance of William Nickerson, invented a safety razor with disposable blades. Gillette realized that a profit could be made by selling a razor with inexpensive disposable blades. This has been called the Razor and blades business model, or a "loss leader", and has become a very common practice for a wide variety of products. There are also safety razors that are made of inexpensive materials that are meant to be wholly disposable"
Proposed Law Looks to Wipe Out Problem
TALLAHASSEE (CBS4.com) "A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough toilet paper when you go into the restroom.
The only problem is the bill doesn't dictate how much toilet paper is "enough."
State Senator Victor Crist, a Republican from Tampa, felt the problem was so important, a law must be passed to protect the backsides of anyone in Florida. The measure will also try to regulate the cleanliness of restrooms in eating establishments.
“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” - Arnold Glasow
- “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”
- Vince Lombardi - "Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them." - Dr. Martin Henry Fischer
- "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." - John Kenneth Galbraith
- A person who trusts no one can't be trusted.
- Jerome Blattner
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