Category: General

Here’s another one of my favorite print ads from several years ago, from South Africa.  It’s from telecom and mobile phone company Vodaphone.

Memorial Day weekend is approaching – the unofficial start of summer here in the United States.

In the spirit of summer, here is a Mazda print ad from 2002 that appeared in a South African magazine, and that I had saved.  It’s near Muizenberg beach close to Cape Town. (The printed ad spread across the magazine centerfold, and I did the best I could to make it into one picture).

The Trump Administration’s 2018 budget numbers were released on Tuesday.

The budget forecasts the US economy to grow by 3.0% every year for the next then years. Well – the U.S. economy grew 1.6% in 2016, and for the next ten years the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a team of economists, projects it to be 1.8%. That’s an enormously lower figure than 3.0%.

Then, the budget assumes that the Trump Administration’s proposed tax cuts would boost economic growth enough (again, extremely unlikely to be 3%) to pay for $2 trillion in additional spending (on the military, for example) by 2027.  But the Trump tax cuts are also supposed to be revenue-neutral, a phrase that already accounts for the $2 trillion.  The $2 trillion cannot be used twice in the budget!   Yes, yes, never mind all that, countered Budget Director Mick Mulvaney when this was pointed out to him.  ‘We stand by the numbers’.

All this nonsense and sloppiness from a White House team of billionaires, many from Goldman Sachs, calling themselves business people and economically savvy.

There was a very large outpouring of support for the city of Manchester today, as the toll of the deceased in the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena rised to 22.

I saw an instagram picture of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai will an enormous Union Jack flag displayed on it.

 

Here is Tim Gurner, a 35-year-old real estate mogul in Melbourne, in a 60 minutes interview done in Australia.  “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each.  We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day; they want travel to Europe every year.  The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it.  They saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder.”

His comments may be true to some extent, but were not received well (he says only snippets of the full interview were posted on Twitter). The New York Times also notes in a fact-checking report that the truth is much more complicated –
1. Research suggests that people from 18 to 34 are no more freewheeling with their spending on travel and dining than other generations.
2. Yes, that European vacation is indeed an opportunity for savings, but research suggests millennials are the generation spending the least on travel.
3. The heavy costs of home ownership is not always a prudent financial goal.  It is good to ask the thoroughly explore the question whether it is better to rent, or to buy, a home, before taking the plunge.

It is by now very clear that there were extensive connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  One connection was with none other than Vladimir Putin’s ‘fixer’: his right hand man that is so close to Putin, that Putin is his daughter’s godfather.   Check out the headlines below from inside an article from the ‘explain-the-news’ website vox.com.

Even if Trump is not eventually impeached, nor some of his staff indicted, I cannot see how the Trump presidency can accomplish anything.  There is a deafening silence from the Republican leadership in congress.  The White House or Trump cannot explain away hard evidence.  (Nonetheless: in his trade-mark over-the-top hyperbole, Trump called the investigations today the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history, and in another tweet, said With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!).

From vox.com : The past 24 hours of devastating Trump news, explained
– Robert Mueller was selected as the special counsel (for the Russia investigation)
– Trump’s team knew Michael Flynn was under FBI investigation (when he was appointed National Security Advisor)
– Trump shared top secret intelligence from Israel’s best anti-ISIS spy with the Russians
– In 2016, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Putin was paying Trump
– The Trump campaign didn’t disclose at least 18 contacts with Russian officials

 

There was a little bit of a stock market sell-off today (~2%). Apparently investors started to take notice of the on-going Washington chaos.   There is now serious doubt if any of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy & other so-called business-friendly campaign promises will come to fruition in all of 2017. (Good).

Then, late afternoon news broke that ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller (from 2001- 2013), was appointed by Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein to look into the meddling with the Russia investigation by President Trump and the White House.   This is a big deal, and is possibly very bad news for the White House (depending on what they are hiding).  Mueller started his tenure as FBI Director one week before 9/11.   He has a stellar reputation and has worked closely with his successor Jim Comey (fired by Trump last week).

Can we have a crisis-free day? That’s all I’m asking’ said Republican senator Susan Collins from Maine today.

Since the Comey firing last Tuesday, there was Trump’s admitting on Thursday that Comey was fired for persisting with the Russia investigation (making instant liars of Trump’s aides, and of the Vice President, that insisted on Wednesday this was not the reason).

On Friday Trump tweeted out a veiled threat: James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  As of today the White House has refused to admit or deny there was such a tape.

Then there was the unsettling news from yesterday (Monday), that Trump blurted out top secret ‘code word’ information (obtained from Israel) to the Russians in the Oval Office last Thursday.  This completely bypassed intelligence protocols, angered the FBI and CIA – and surely the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) – and could even put the lives of agents at risk.

Today news broke that Comey has a memo of a conversation with Trump from February, documenting that Trump asked him to end the Michael Flynn investigation.   All of Washington DC and cable news was abuzz today with talk about obstruction of justice. (Side note: Nixon was impeached for obstruction of justice. But for Trump it could very well be that the 2018 mid-term elections will be needed, for the Dems to perhaps take back the House, before impeachment proceedings can start.  That’s another 18 months!).

And also today, Trump received Turkish President Erdoğan (a dictator, in my book) in the White House. American Kurdish demonstrators outside the Turkish ambassador’s house were attacked by Erdoğan’s bodyguard goons before the Washington DC police intervened.

What will tomorrow bring?

Late on Friday, a large number* of ransomware attacks called WannaCry surfaced across the world.  This morning, there was a segment on the Today show here in the USA, that was unfortunately way too general to be helpful at all.  The Finnish IT security company F-Secure  provides a nice explanation about the different types of ransomware, and how PCs become infected.

*Relatively large as far as sheer numbers go.  Some 200,000 computers are thought to have been affected .. but the planet has an estimated 2 billion PCs installed at this point. So that’s 0.01% of all PCs. Of course: if the PC is a server, or is used in mission-critical applications such as running a hospital, an airline or railway operations, it is a very bad situation.

Advice:
1. (As always) Do not click on links or URLs from unknown senders, and be suspicious even if you know the sender!   Watch out for dubious, shady websites or pop-ups with buttons.
2. Use anti-virus applications and keep your operating system up to date. If you have Windows, turn on automatic updates!
3. Back up your data and program files to an external drive.
4. If your system does get infected, do not pay the ransom.  (I guess in some cases the company or user may not have a choice.  But even if there is no back-up, the user may be able to get his or her original files back with some technical help).

Check out this out-of-this-world picture of a whale, from photographer Audun Rikardsen, that I found on scienceillustrated.com.au.  Read the caption for an explanation of the yellow line on the whale.

I sometimes play three games of Scrabble in a row on my phone or iPad.  I cheat a little bit against the computer by taking a long time to find the perfect word, and sometimes I can ask for a hint for the best word, but I try not to do that.    And then when I’m done, I take a screen shot with the intent to look up all the words the computer played that I did not know about. (I rarely do that – much nicer to just play another game!).

Below is a rare game that ended in a draw (it’s about 50-50, the times I win or lose against the computer’s best efforts, its ‘Expert’ mode).  It’s humbling to still run into so many short words in the English language that I do not know (ones from the board listed below).  Live and learn, right?

LOID verb, to open a spring lock by using a piece of celluloid
JAPE verb, to mock
OIDIA noun, sing. oidium, pl. oidia, a type of fungus
WEFT noun, a woven fabric or garment
KURU noun, a disease of the nervous system
BILBO noun, a finely tempered sword
IRENIC adjective, peaceful in purpose
SERA noun, sing. serum, pl. serums, or sera, the watery portion of whole blood
TAVS noun, pl. tavs, a Hebrew letter

As Chris Cilizza writes on CNN.com: even by Trump’s standards, the last 24 hours in the Trump circus have been surreal.

Today, as the White House press pool reporters were invited into the Oval Office, they expected the scheduled meeting between Trump and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, but it was Henry Kissinger (he’s 93) – best known for his role as Secretary of State to President Richard Nixon – with him.

Trump did meet with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Photographers from White House press pool were not allowed in, but those of Russian news agency TASS were.

Here are the observations from German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeiting (‘Five reasons why it was a mistake to fire the FBI boss’):
1. Trump completely underestimated the reaction of the Democrats (thought they would be OK with it);
2. Trump did not get the hoped-for support from the Republicans;
3. Trump cannot provide sufficient justification for the timing of the dismissal;
4. Trump brought the Dept. of Justice into disrepute;
5. It is unlikely, but Comey’s dismissal could eventually cost him the presidency.

Well – I don’t care if you are Tom Clancy.  You cannot make this stuff up.

News broke late on Tuesday that un-presidential President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey – supposedly for damaging public confidence in the FBI after his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. (Total baloney. Trump praised Comey for his ‘courage’ in 2016 while he was campaigning).

Run-up to the firing: A letter titiled ‘Restoring public confidence in the FBI’ recommending Comey’s dismissal, was written by Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein (he was appointed by Trump, only in office since April 25). Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions also recommended his dismissal (Sessions also appointed by Trump, and supposed to be recused from the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia).

Meanwhile, Comey, in California today, learned of his firing from a TV in the FBI field office that showed breaking news of his dismissal.  He thought it was a joke at first. No heads-up to him or anyone on his staff; no courtesy of a phone call.  (Trump’s long-time bodyguard hand-delivered a letter to Comey’s office, but this was after news broke in the media.  Trump did not bother to appear on TV today.  And this is how to restore public confidence in the FBI, by such disrespect?).

There is an open internal investigation into Comey’s breaches of FBI protocol  re: the Clinton e-mails, but Rosenstein, Sessions and Trump did not bother to wait for the outcome.  Were they feeling the heat of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties?

Tomorrow, in the first scheduled event after firing Comey, Trump is meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the White House.  Do they not realize how bad this looks, or do they just not care?

I checked out some of the live-streaming of the Berkshire Hathaway* annual meeting on Saturday.

*Berkshire Hathaway is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.  Warren Buffet (86 yrs old), business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, has been CEO since 1970.  His 37.4% ownership of the company’s share makes him the second wealthiest person in the United States, with a total net worth of some $78.7 billion.

During the Q&A session, people ask all kinds of questions (as usual, at these meetings). What does Warren think of the Republican healthcare proposal?  Buffet pointed out that in 1960, corporate taxes were 4% of GDP, and that it is 2% today.  Healthcare costs, on the other hand, increased from 3% of the GDP in 1960, to 17% today.  So it puts the American economy at a 6% disadvantage against its competitors, since healthcare is 10 or 11% of the GDP, in OECD countries.  So it’s very important to bring healthcare costs under control, and to reduce waste and unnecessary treatments.

Inevitably, the question of Coca-Cola came up as well, as it does almost every year. (Berkshire Hathaway holds 400 million shares, and Buffet drinks a lot of it).  Is it not bad for you, and for people in general? And are the Coca-Cola company with its products still a good investment?

Said Buffet: I would say I’ve been eating things I like to eat all my life. And Coca-Cola, this Coca-Cola 12 ounces, I drink about five a day. It has about 1.2 ounces of sugar in it. And if you look at what different people get their sugar and calories from, they get them from all kinds of things. I happen to believe I like to get my calories from this, I enjoy it … if you told me that I would live one year longer—and I don’t think I would—if I’d live one year longer if I ate only broccoli or asparagus or whatever, or if I eat what I like including Coca-Colas and steak and hash browns, I’d rather eat what I like and enjoy eating what I like than eat something I don’t and live another year.  And I do think that choice should be mine. Maybe sugar is harmful and maybe you’d encourage the government to ban sugar … but I think Coca-Cola has been a very positive factor in the country and the world. And I really don’t want anyone telling me I can’t drink it. I think there’s something in longevity of feeling happy about your life.

To which I say: Mr Buffet, enjoy your Coke. You’re a lucky guy. I love Coke, but I can no longer drink the stuff.  (Doctor’s orders).

Well, it is great to see the large margin with which Macron became the next (and youngest, at 39) French President on Sunday, over extremist Marine Le Pen.  He will be in office by May 14 (wow), and has his work cut out for him.

From Bloomberg.com : Victorious in France’s presidential election, Emmanuel Macron inherits a country with 10 percent unemployment and sluggish economic growth. It’s officially still under emergency rule following a string of terror attacks beginning in 2015. France remains a deeply divided country. In the first round of presidential voting, almost half the electorate supported candidates — including the National Front’s Marine Le Pen — who oppose the international trading order championed by Macron, a onetime investment banker with a business-friendly outlook.

In a defining moment of the 2016 movie The Founder, that I saw last night, Ray Kroc’s character (Michael Keaton) explains to one of the McDonald brothers that he had to buy the McDonalds franchise from them because of the name (instead of copying the concept and starting his own franchise).  Kroc is Slavic (Czech),and sounds like ‘broken’ as in ‘it is a crock’, and would never have worked, he explained.

This was in 1961.  The McDonald brothers wanted 1% royalties from sales, but Kroc left it out of the written contract and offered that they make that part of the sale agreement a ‘handshake deal’.  So they shook hands on it, but the brothers never did get royalties after the sale.  Mac McDonald would die ten years later in 1971 of heart failure.  Dick McDonald passed away in 1998, age 89, with his estate worth some $1.8 million.

Those royalties would have been worth at least $100 million per year today .. and one could argue that a McDonalds hamburger is as part of Americana as baseball, Coca-Cola, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, a Ford and Chev truck, and a white picket fence.  The other fascinating ending to the story of the original characters, was that Ray Kroc’s second wife Joan – who was very supportive and worked hard at helping Ray build out his empire – gave away the entire McDonalds fortune to charities over her lifetime, and after her death. It came to a staggering $3 billion in total.

Anyway, I thought the movie was very interesting, but I see it has only grossed $22 million as of April this year (and cost $25 million to make).

105 days into the Trump Administration, the Republican House narrowly passed its first bill (217-213, no Democrats).   It’s basically a $600 billion tax cut (over 10 years) for people earning more than $200k/ couples $250k, sure to take health care away from as many as 25% of Medicaid* recipients. The bill has not even been assessed by the Congressional Budget Office for its financial impact, and its impact on the health-care industry, which is one-sixth of the US economy.   That assessment is only due next week.  Hospitals, doctors and insurers alike criticized the Republican health care bill.

It was so appalling to me to watch Trump at the podium in the Rose Garden ‘celebration party’ today, with the Republicans patting each other on the back, that I just turned the TV off.  Later on in New York City, meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – whose name Trump could not recall, saying ‘the great gentleman from Australia’ (give me a break), he said that Australia has better health care than the United States, and ‘we are going to have great health care, very soon’.  (Which is not true, not with this proposed legislation).

The US Senate now has to handle the stink bomb of a tax cut bill masquerading as a ‘health-care improvement’ bill,  lobbed over the fence by the House.  The Senate will hopefully kill it or revised it completely.

*Medicaid provides health coverage to 69 million Americans, including eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities.

Apple reported earnings on Tuesday. Earnings beat expectations, but revenue fell short of estimates as the company sold fewer iPhones than expected.  Apple now sits on a mountain of cash exceeding $250 billion.   CEO Tim Cook says high expectations for the next iPhone, and the subsequent delays in iPhone purchases is partly to blame for the shortfall.

On the other hand – the phone is already dead, posits Alex Kipman, the inventor of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality glasses, in an interview with Bloomberg.  (Dead? Well. Two notes here. 1. Microsoft’s smartphone business and 2013 Nokia acquisition never took off.  2. Apple sold more than 50 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2017).

Microsoft is betting that we can augment our reality when interacting with people and things, and entertaining, educating ourselves, with a device such as their HoloLens (pronounce ‘hollow’ lens).    It’s a big pursuit of Facebook as well, the virtual reality experience.

From what I can tell the May Day protests went OK here in Seattle (4 were arrested), but in our capital city of Olympia the windows of a Starbucks and a bank were smashed.

On the national front, the Monday news reports were filled with Trump administration insanities, old and new.  It’s clear President Trump does not know the content of the revised still-just-the-worst Republican health care bill (it does not guarantee insurance for preconditions).

It also appears the President does not know the most basic history of the Civil War.  (Says he is the first to ask the question what the reason was.  Pretty simple : it was slavery).

President Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un a ‘smart cookie’ and that he would be ‘honored’ to meet him. Why? WHY ‘honored’?  The man is a ruthless psychopathic dictator.

And Trump’s invitation to Philippine president Duterte to visit him was denounced by human rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers for overlooking Duterte’s bloodied hands at human rights abuses. (Human rights groups say that Duterte’s narcotics crackdown has led to more than 7,000 extrajudicial killings).  A photo of a billboard advertising Trump Tower Manila that features Ivanka Trump has done the rounds on Twitter as a possible explanation for the invite.  A spokesperson for the Trump Organization said the photo is old and that the billboard has been removed (but that does not take away the fact that the completed Trump Tower Manila is about to open).

On the plus side, word from Sunday night is that President Trump signed off on a $1 trillion budget deal with Democrats that will keep the government open until October.  Congress still has to vote it into law, but the deal rebuffed his specific demands for funding the border wall, for cutting off funding for sanctuary cities, for scrapping funding for Planned Parenthood, and budget cuts for the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency.   So there is that.

Day 100 of the Trump presidency is on Saturday.  The media was full of reports this week about the (non) accomplishments of President Trump, but his supporters remain optimistic that he will bring about significant changes.   The only really significant item is the appointment of a conservative US Supreme Court Justice – one for which Republicans in the senate had to change the rules so that Justice Neil Gorsuch could be appointed by a simple majority (under the old rules a 60-40 majority was needed).

As for legislation, there were the failed attempts at overhauling Obamacare, the one page ‘tax reform’ (really a tax cut for the rich), and really no proposal about badly needed infrastructure repairs other than that border wall with Mexico (which none of the border States want, by the way).   Finally, let’s not forget the head-snapping policy reversals, too many to recall – NATO being obsolete and then no longer, the USA withdrawing from NAFTA and then not, declaring China a currency manipulator and then not; the list goes on.