Here's an investment tip: If you're not terribly comfortable with putting your money in the stock market, you might consider renting store-front property on Grand Avenue in Des Moines, Iowa for the purposes of sub-letting to any of the 2,726 Democrats about to announce they are running for President in the (let me be the first of the 2004 election cycle to write this phrase) First-in-the-Nation Iowa caucuses only about 14 months hence.
Speaking of Democrats, the House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to be their leader yesterday. That occurred one day after the Communist Party of China elected its new leader.
The old - rephrase - the PREVIOUS leader, Jiang Jemin, is stepping down because he is 76 years of age. The new leader, Hu Jintao, is 59 and, according to the BBC, "the Party congress unanimously approved his proposal to formally open party membership to capitalist entrepreneurs."
The Democratic party in the US, in the past six weeks, has turned to people who are 78, 74, and this new kid, Pelosi, who is a scant 62 years old.
So, not only have the House Democrats chosen a leader who is three years OLDER than the new Chinese Communist party chief, but one who is politically to the Communist's left.
This past August, when it became clear that Phil Donahue's MSNBC program was lagging badly behind Connie Chung on CNN, Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News suggested it was because of the soft-news of summer.
"We'll have an election to cover and a war in Iraq," Mr. Sorenson told the NY Times. "[MSNBC] is counting on Mr. Donahue to handle that kind of subject matter better than Ms. Chung."
Really? Here was the line-up for the Donahue show the night following the mid-term elections:
- The Winona Ryder shoplifting story;
- A new law banning smoking in restaurants in Miami; and
- An interview with Ray Romano.
Say goodbye to Phil. Say hello to - are you ready for this? - Jesse Ventura. Seriously.
The Associated Press headlines a piece by reporter Salah Nasrawi, "Arab Analysts: Saddam Will Try to Use Chemical, Biological Weapons to Break Washington's Will."
Ok. Let's go over this again. Chemical and biological weapons are the very weapons of mass destruction Saddam is not supposed to have and are the very weapons of mass destruction he has asserted he does NOT have. If Arab analysts say he will USE chemical and biological weapons - then he must POSSESS chemical and biological weapons.
Your witness.
Follow me on this: There is a guy named Jack Grubman who was, according to the Wall Street Journal, a "former star research analyst" for the investment firm of Salomon Smith Barney, a subsidiary of Citigroup.
Grubman was responsible for issuing those indecipherable buy-hold-sell-market-outperform-bibbity-bobbity-boo ratings on stocks, one of which was AT&T.
Citigroup's chairman, Sandy Weil, wanted Grubman to upgrade AT&T's outlook so their stock would rise and Citigroup could get some - maybe lots - of business from AT&T.
Grubman wanted to get his kids into a particular nursery school in Manhattan, so Weil, through Citigroup, donated ONE MILLION DOLLARS to the school. I am not making this up. From the Wall Street Journal:
"Mr. Grubman ... confided in an e-mail that he changed his AT&T rating in part because Mr. Weill agreed to use his influence to help Mr. Grubman's twins get into an exclusive nursery school in New York."
Oh. And when did Citigroup use some of the interest money I paid on my Citibank MasterCard to buy off a nursery school so its star analyst would issue a phony rating to boost the stock of a company they were trying to lure?
In 1999.
Questions for Class Discussion:
A. Who was president in 1999? [Note to Teachers: It was not George W. Bush]
B. Who was SEC Chairman? [Note to Teachers: It was not Harvey Pitt]
C. Where was chairman of the Citigroup board's executive committee, Robert Rubin, during all this?
[Note to Teachers: Bonus discussion topic: No controlling legal authority]
The WSJ, not noted for knee-slapping humor in its news pages (nor, for that matter, on its op-ed pages) asked if this was a "Kid Pro Quo?"
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A one-line travelogue about Des Moines, the link to the Jesse Ventura/MSNBC story, the link to the Saddam Hussein story, and the usual things.
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