Scattered thoughts 12/29/08

-Well, well, well...I was gonna stay dark until 2009 just because I could, but last night I became sort of overcome with the blog munchies so to speak and just couldn't help myself from digging around in the Internet cupboard. Anyway, since I went and broke the seal, I guess I'll pop in here and there over the next few days.

I've been intentionally trying to tune out completely over the last week or so, something I think that I've done pretty damn well, to the point that I feel sort of intellectually out of shape or something, like a runner who takes a week off and then struggles to do his usual routine. Sitting here now, I can barely construct a sentence. It's kind of cool.

What have I been doing? Certainly you're dying to know, right? Well, lots of nothing, basically. Well, no, that's not true, I mean, we're always doing something right? I guess what I mean is that I haven't been doing anything except whatever I felt like doing in the moment, and that has generally involved nothing involving the exertion of any sort of effort. I've laid around splayed out on the sofa reading, watching old movies, eating whatever I felt like eating at the time, consuming various types of liquor, attending some sporting events, etc., you know, the usual shit people do during the holidays. I'm in the middle of the third of five books I had hoped to read over the holidays, The Dirt is its title, its the autobiography of the band Motley Crue, and it's a total trainwreck. I can't seem to put it down.

-Hey everybody! Did you catch this "Thank You America" ad that the auto industry ran a few days ago in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal thanking all of us for handing over billions of dollars for them to wipe their fat asses with?

(click to enlarge)


I think that Mark Cuban summed up exactly how I feel about this pretty well in a post on his blog...

Lets see, is there anything more idiotic than spending more than 100k dollars on a full page ad “thanks for letting me waste your money ” ad ? Does it make it worse that its a business publication where the readers might just recognize the stupidity of wasting money on ad dollars that doesn’t even try to sell the product ? How does it make the next unemployed Chrysler worker feel that their entire year’s salary just went for a single, ridiculous ad ?

For those in Detroit who have never operated a lemonade stand, or any other business, the way profits are generated is by making products at a price people want to buy them for, and then producing them, with all costs allocated, for less than you are selling them for. It’s not apparent that this is a principle that Detroit understands.

And while you are at it, when you spend marketing money, spend it to sell cars, not on Bullshit ads that accomplish nothing.

-A NY Times story that ran a few days ago about the recruitment of a high school football player in Texas named Jamarkus McFarland contained this gem...

McFarland made four official visits during his recruitment — to Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana State and Southern California.

Of the four universities, L.S.U. made the worst impression. After the Tigers lost to Georgia, 52-38, on Oct. 25, McFarland, his mother and his grandmother attended a catered meal at the home of Tigers Coach Les Miles.

“He was very dry,” Adams (his mother) said of Miles.

Adams was further turned off by L.S.U., she said, when she saw hostesses sitting on the laps of recruits.

And what exactly is so repulsive with having a cute Cajun girl sitting on your lap when you're 18 years old? Enjoy the barrel of coked-out monkeys that is Norman, Oklahoma Jamarkus.

-In another of chapter in their on-going series of articles on the financial crisis, the New York Times delved into America's addiction to Chinese goods and money...

In March 2005, a low-key Princeton economist who had become a Federal Reserve governor coined a novel theory to explain the growing tendency of Americans to borrow from foreigners, particularly the Chinese, to finance their heavy spending.

The problem, he said, was not that Americans spend too much, but that foreigners save too much. The Chinese have piled up so much excess savings that they lend money to the United States at low rates, underwriting American consumption.

By itself, money from China is not a bad thing. As American officials like to note, it speaks to the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for foreign investment. In the 19th century, the United States built its railroads with capital borrowed from the British.

In the past decade, China arguably enabled an American boom. Low-cost Chinese goods helped keep a lid on inflation, while the flood of Chinese investment helped the government finance mortgages and a public debt of close to $11 trillion.

But Americans did not use the lower-cost money afforded by Chinese investment to build a 21st-century equivalent of the railroads. Instead, the government engaged in a costly war in Iraq, and consumers used loose credit to buy sport utility vehicles and larger homes. Banks and investors, eagerly seeking higher interest rates in this easy-money environment, created risky new securities like collateralized debt obligations.

“Nobody wanted to get off this drug,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who pushed legislation to punish China by imposing stiff tariffs. “Their drug was an endless line of customers for made-in-China products. Our drug was the Chinese products and cash.”

Mr. Graham said he understood the addiction: he was speaking by phone from a Wal-Mart store in Anderson, S.C., where he was Christmas shopping in aisles lined with items from China.

Sobering, no?

-The Times had an interesting piece on New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs on Christmas Eve that delved into his growing up in Napoleonville, Louisiana. I remember seeing Jacobs run for like 300 yards against my former high school when he was a junior. He was like 6'4'', 245 lbs or something, almost the same size he is now. Dude was a man amongst boys. It was ridiculous.

-Last night at about 3am I went out for a cheeseburger. I wasn't really all that hungry or craving a cheeseburger or anything, it's just that I decided earlier in the day that I was gonna do another extended fast/cleanse again, so I figured that I should indulge one last time before clamping down on the gluttony. As I took my last bite, I savored it as I haven't savored a bite of food in I can't remember how long, as it dawned on me that it'd be the last bite of solid food that I'd have for two weeks. This is gonna suck a thousand gorilla dicks, but something I feel I need to do.

Now excuse me while I run out for maple syrup and organic lemons.