Neo

Hopefully for him, he's used BitBleach to destroy any incriminating email evidence. It's often used to hide yoga lessons, for instance. Check their web page ... They're advertising that they helped Clinton beat the FBI. I'm more concerned with candidate ethics than campaign manager ethics when prioritizing.

Ticket sellers are people, too .... (Smiley emotamajiggy)

W(talent)-X(high ankle)-Y(concussion)+/-Z(temperament)=Answer. Great question. I'll watch the variables. Because you asked ... I think Ullmark's the name we're saying during earnest playoff appearances. He has fewer variables to quantify.

Good or bad, I see Trump as a brand like you do. I've wondered if the point you raise enters into his calculus day to day while a candidate. Without having a clue as to how he reconciles things, I have to believe it does.

I've not attempted a NYT crossword in years. There used to be themes. Are there still themes and do you think the collocation was deliberate?

I got 'BagBoyed' in defense of corporations when he played the epipen card! I suggest a new verb. Musing at stop lights, sans grand conclusion ... Hockey is a metaphor for capitalism. Capital, labor, competition, rules, cold efficiency. Teams, victory, loss, injury, systems, eroded skills, new stars, UFAs, RFAs ... Oligopoly. The great wash of money insulates us from what would be great human tragedy without it. Coliseums and gladiators. We understand, we cheer, we mourn. A diversion, yes. Life and death, no. Similar principals, perhaps. There is a brutal and simple honesty in sport I appreciate, warts, rose petals, and all.

Condolences ...

^i don't think anyone here's a commie. I don't know why, but just typing that made me laugh. Corporations aren't the answer. Neither is labor. Same to capital. If I could make one point. None exists without the other. It's demonization that I point out, especially demonization of the entity we ourselves built and sustain. That's a construction we ratify every day. Demonization of any of the three is wrong. Labor needs no friends, here. Who demonizes everyman? Capital and corporations, well, they're the easy targets. Anyone reading this is likely all three. I don't own a top hat. I cooked my own dinner, tonight. I worked much of the day. I err on the side of the unfettered. Taxes, rules, choices, Liberty. Unfettered is most human, seems to me. It grows. Now, on to epipens. Imagine what a free market would do to the price of an uncomplicated generic. Oh, wait .... There can be no competition ... The FDA's been unwilling to approve similar delivery systems. See if you can get today's Wall Street Journal. I'll read NPR. Epipens are (WSJ version - first I found) one of those consequences of regulation .... and a business business leaders (soccer moms and dads) taking advantage of it. I'm giving you my first reaction. I'd not heard of an epipen until yesterday. I'll read! You all can all address your anti-epipen management outrage to someone else, by the way. I've not picked up their standard. I'll read, BagBoy! PS ... Read it ... I'm a conservative NPR fan. NPR provided the politics. Good for them. See today's WSJ for the economics, the FDA, and the unintended obstacles to any epipen competition. Awesome closing sentence, by the way. Sign me up! Step one - acknowledge that it is us.

Music ... Went all in digital about 10 years ago. Apple and iTunes. Best way for me to share with a digital family and respect artists' rights. Occasionally fiddle with Spotify and Pandora. Recently tried Amazon Prime. Watch that one, Apple ... It's a comer.

How's your dog?

Next ... I'm trying to remember what the administration told us a few weeks ago about Iran, cash, timing and central banks ....I think we were asking about ransom and being "tsk tsk'd" at the time. The $400 million, I recall, was, in fact, "a bargain" that could only be delivered by airplane in the cover of darkness. Apparently State made an announcement today. Seems like we paid an additional $1.3 billion, using a central bank in thirteen separate transactions of $99,999,999.99 each. There goes the bargain and airplane in the middle of the night explanations. I cut the President slack with Iran. I don't give him the same quarter regarding dishonest representation. I remain surprised when we nod acceptance of same. There's a quacking water fowl waddling across my living room. I think it may be a ... Foundation. The news is breaking ... First report subject to clarification if more becomes known! I'll acknowledge it or you'll point it out. See state.gov

I am picturing a porcupine and a cactus ... entangled.

I'll respond to you both (PA and SPND) and start with a personal confession. I acknowledge I'm not an economist and at the same time write with a style that can easily be read as dogmatic. Any arising inconsistency is on me. That said, I do have some considerable experience with this. All of you do, too. My experience explains my style. The first thing considerable experience should do is teach you that you're not an expert. You each can read me and decide your own view. I'm comfortable with "not an expert". Here's what I learn talking to business owners and reading. Businesses are accumulating cash because that's what happens when they don't find attractive places to deploy it. Many factors go into determining what is and what isn't attractive. Businesses, alone, make the determination. I'll set my "businesses are nothing but people we buy groceries with everyday" arguement aside. Paying higher wages or hiring more people than they need isn't attractive to businesses. It may be attractive to you and me as workers. That will fuel coffee shop conversations, web posts, and campaign literature. It won't move businesses. Buying plant, property or equipment isn't attractive when the cost of capital, taxes and uncertainty of success are taken into account. Businesses make this call every day. If they could make ten cents deploying capital instead of accumulating (my preferred word via-a-vis "hoarding") it, they'd deploy capital all day long. They're rational (my preferred word via-a-vis "greedy"). Corporate tax rates significantly affect the decision to save ("hoard"), or not ("invest"). I'll not argue taxes are high or low in this post. You can guess my view. I will argue lower taxes lead to more investment when after tax cash flow models are used to analyze data. My experience is that ROE and ROI models look at after tax cash flows. To demonstrate my increasing web savvy, I'll say this. "Because, math". Regarding bank and government loans or bail outs, I think SPND hits a nail. It may not be the most prominent nail, but it's a nail nonetheless. The perception of arrangements with either entity are part of the uncertainty variable that businesses use when after tax discounting of cash flow, and therefore return or reward, are made. All things being equal, greater uncertainty leads to higher expectations with regard to making save vs invest decisions. This, in turn, leads to a prejudice favoring saving. In short, cash accumulates in accounts paying little because, paraphrasing Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, "it's got no where else to go". Corporations hate idle cash as much as we do, albeit for reasons we don't always consider when we look only at where cash does "the worker" more good. As enviously as we look at iaccumulated cash, and as earnestly as we point to public goods it could accomplish, cash is going nowhere as long as any investment analysis isn't attractive. My previous post responded to the idea that high corporate rates in earlier periods of our history spurred investment. The tax rate may have been higher, but it was overcome as detrimental by other elements of the analysis. One poster mentioned pent up consumer demand post our WWII hardship. I think this point is excellent. I'm pro growth. Get cash moving. Lower taxes and provide certainty. Cash will be Mazerati-like as it looks for opportunities. How could those greedy capitalists resist? Change some words and you get insight into why cash earned overseas stays overseas. One dollar idling overseas remains more attractive than turning it into 65 cents here and then evaluating what you can do with the 65 cents taking additional tax and uncertainty into account. Think of this conversation in board rooms. "Shall we leave our dollar in Europe, or should we bring it home, turn it into 65 cents, and then invest the 65 cents here knowing we'll pay another 35% tax on any success all after subjecting our new investment to uncertain results"? Believing all of the above, what path do I choose? I recognize I'm part of the business cycle as a consumer, worker and owner. I look for policy that encourages each of the three to profit more today then yesterday. I support policy that acknowledges this. I reject policy that pits one group against the other, demonizes, and promises to take from here to give to there. My support is part ethics (taking is bad) and part pragmatic (recognized partnership in desired consequences is good). Many of you have more posts than me. Few have more words! I'm working on it. Expect no miracles. Businesses sure don't. Businesses never will. Profits and wage increases may accompany one another, but they're not moving BECAUSE of one another. It would be nice if my profitable firm paid me more. Looking at profits for wage increases is akin to looking at Macy's windows for GI Joes and Barbie Dolls. I'm old.

I was unaware that lower profits lead to more investment. No one told me that greater profits are buried in boxes. I'll be back later. I'm off to recommend to my bosses that we take steps to increase our expenses, lower our profits, and therefore have more to invest. Of course, increasing our investment to avoid taxes wouldn't work. This statement of cash flows activity largely escapes the P&L. I'll have to prepare for this objection. I think I just read that "keeping less of what you do encourages you to do more than if you kept more of what you do".

Ok, I'm not following ... Confession. No one wants to be a wage laborer. Everyone I've ever met is. What were those unfortunate Brits before the capitalists subjected them to wage labor? They were wage laborers doing different labor for different wages. We're laborers as long as we need food and shelter. With that, I am dismissing myself. Right or wrong, my capacity for expression is reached. Maybe I'll recharge!

I work for life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. Persuit is work. Who gave birth to these abstracts we call capitalism and corporations? I am imagining an odd scene in a play or movie where Capitalism and Corporation stroll in and introduce themselves. "Who are the new guys?", Life asks Liberty, before adding "I hope they don't change Pursuit into work".

Insight. I am a believer in pendulums.

I read that as "Corporations were formed by us to legally change the consequences to us for some of the things we alone do". I'm not offering a proof. Rather, I'm giving you insight into who I see making decisions and who I see on the receiving end of consequence. Maybe it's me. I see charities, religions, orchestras and youth hockey leagues the same way. The Red Cross is us.

Acknowledgment: my posts frequently appear to take the side of corporations. I'll struggle with this next part. I post not to take their side, but to elevate them in a forum where so many take the other side. The us vs them troubles me. I take both sides because there aren't two sides. Corporations don't exist without people. Corporations are an expression of our liberty. Free, we organize economically as corporations. Everybody's spleen roils for different reasons. Mine roils when we personify corporations and assign them blame while we form them, manage them, and produce and consume their products. Political campaigns and government policy entrenching the false distinction sends me to bed restless. The divide used to be a part of political discourse. The conversation preceded our democratic experiment by thousands of years. It is now a fundamental part, a basis, of discourse. We're fracturing while looking at something we all hold dear. I am a worker. My collar is white. I was raised by the most beautiful people in the world. Their collars were blue. All of us are the corporation. Regarding big, government and corporations in your post. A simple YES. The most accurate thing I said in this post is "I'll struggle with this next part".

Excellent.

Awesome name from the past!

Yes .... I do. I added to my post and used the word you were correct in using in the first place. Grateful for your "said well enough" originally.

To LGR ^. I don't value one more than the other. I'd have to be able to distinguish between the two before I tried. Profit is a human activity. Babies profit when they find a breast. I profit when I go to work. 1.2 million shareholders of Ford profit when you buy an F-150. Blame is a word I've never used. To add: my posting becomes frequent not to put all blame on any party. I post in response to those who put it on corporations, owners or capital. I draw no distinctions. The economy is one organism.

We have invited the cost structure of other societies into our society. True, true, true. There are consequences for our standard of living, wages and employment. True, true, true. I'm not sure how we stop it. I don't think we can. All we can do is compete against it. Competition's uncomfortable and hard. $4.95 APPs do what I've trained my lifetime to do. I adapt. Correction edit: Many are "free", whatever that word means.