Long ago, while living on my sailboat, I came to the conclusion that I really hated going to the barber shop.  I was working ashore of course, and had to wear a suit and tie every day for that’s what people in management did. Out of my (then) L.A. office, I got to bitching about … Read More

Equational madness:  At the limits of business models.  We know that there is a logical upper bound for any product.  One (OK, several) for every person on the planet.  And we know there is a lower bound, too. Zero. The problem is what the planet needs is an resource optimized model.  While Wall Street (and … Read More

Carrying, as I do, one of the genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, there are many, many things done around here to keep that risk “managed” – as much as one can. That includes the usual:  Working on “mental projects” a  lot.  Reading voraciously, though that’s as much for pleasure as anything.  Benchmarking reaction times,  regular … Read More

First thing done around here, most mornings, is to look through reader comments,  This morning, hats off to reader Ray, who has been so kind as to write this morning’s column for me, whether he knew it at the time, or not.  Because it really IS all one needs to know procedurally about the political … Read More

The entertaining insanity in Washington promises to be in full-farce (sic) today as the democrat “bum’s rush” toward impeachment gears up. After a thoughtful read of the entire phone transcript document Wednesday, I was hardly shocked to see how the crooked media (most of it, these days) didn’t focus on the  main context of what … Read More

What “Report from Iron Mountain” missed.  “Report from Iron Mountain on the Accessibility and Desirability of Peace” was long-rumored to have been a parody of “think-tank” style contingency planning prevalent during the Cold War and during Vietnam, as well. Alhough controversial at the time, the core idea of the book was that using capitalism, humans … Read More

Interesting headline in the Case-Shiller (et al) Housing report just out:  The headline: “CHARLOTTE JOINS TOP THREE CITIES IN ANNUAL HOME PRICE GAINS ACCORDING TO S&P CORELOGIC CASE-SHILLER INDEX ” Followed by details which are really a bout housing slowing down: “S&P Dow Jones Indices today released the latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller … Read More

Before the “short run through the snews” a word, or two, about history.  There are places where it  rhymes.  And, if you hear the [historical]  sound of music right, it can keep you from making stupid investment decisions.  Which is why understanding any period in its historical context is so important for living a ‘good … Read More

Not much of a day shaping up in markets:  Europe is down, and since ALL markets are linked (and have been for years) we would not be surprised should the US follow-suit later on, but as always that’s neither advice nor prediction.  More, like a head-up while watching sports, being able to ‘know where to … Read More

You can’t live aboard a 40-foot sailboat, sailing everything from the NW tip of Vancouver Island to Mexico (except for the middle part of Oregon, due to trucking the boat from Seattle to Alameda…) without learning a few things about “the weather.” More than once, weather knowledge has paid-off many times over. Yet, most wannabe … Read More

Down to the “Concept Corral” as we model the future this week. Our approach, as with all research, is to review what is known and then construct a filtering process on several levels. This is a useful exercise because it can turn into a wellspring of good ideas.  Or, in the case of coming up … Read More

Do MBA’s have heroes?  You bet. Two of mine are Tom Peters and Robert Waterman whose 1982 book In search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies” more than any other single factor are what “turned the corner for me.   Led me out of chasing down the news and chasing management skills.  It was … Read More

Our future could fall apart next week.  Other than Summer ending on Monday, the 23rd being a bit later this year, the other key date will be the close of trading one week from now.  That’s because current markets have some similarities to the 1929 blow-off period. To derive this view, we built an equal-dollar … Read More