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Friday, February 21, 2003

Well, at the FCC it looks like long distance operators beat out the baby bells by force of politics and Kevin Martin, whose wife works for Dick Cheney. It's looks like more hinky regulations at the phone companies, as if the phone business were not already the hinkiest operation on earth. If all goes well, Worldcom comes out of bankruptcy with an edge over the baby bells (SBC, Verizon). We are sick of the national security routine that is often cited when Worldcom's failure and plunder of the Telecom markets are brought up. Deregulation is looking more and more hinky, like a dead, rotting body with a motor in its back that make it look lively. These clowns play the liberal, conservative, democrack, republicist game, but its all about bucks to keep the show on the television pumping sales that funnel to special insterests who hire the lackies to pay the toadies to get the guy in the chair to sign so they can keep up the fences that protect the franchise and its markets from real competition so everybody at in their small food chain at in the upper floors, connected by cheap, shitty, tapped phone service can sail around Flordia's intercoastal with the other fat cat friends and wives, and eat greasey restaurant food, drink salty wine and tell dirtry jokes in mixed company, or show off a little knowledge that they picked up from the internet. Phonelines in every direction, and some without wires.

Regulation, deregulation, it's all about lobbying and the money to get in office. Hinky forsees a time when all that dead fiber in the ground will be lit, and the roads will be empty, and the air that much cleaner; but that time is not now. Hinky sides with Businessweek on oil, and most other programs where the government steps in to set prices to the advantage of the mooks that pay the toadies to help the lackies get the jackasses elected who pass regulations that make things cheaper than are right and real (like gas), and other things higher than are right and real (like payroll taxes on the work smoes). This week they ask if the price of oil is really what we pay at the pump? The true cost, including all the security and war we have to provide in the oil fields to get it, and the trouble with dirty air, soil and water makes it too cheap. At minimum, the pros say it should be another 10 dollar per barrel, and at .25 cents per gal more for gas, we could pay for all this touble in the dessert. Maybe it's time that you baby boomers take a second look at that SUV you ride around in, like some corn ball king's thrown. Are you really having fun like that? These guys don't think so. Hinky has been down on those high on the hog SUVs for a long long time. And it's not hard to find armies of people how agree. here and there. . They add 5,000 tons of waist per day to the air,a dn they are way more dirty than most other cars, to say nothing the efficient ones. They are a site hazard (which you know, if you drive behind one for any legnth of time), they roll over much more because of small wheel bases. And these guys hunt them, placing mean stickers on them, which violates property rights, but is funny as hell. Want to join these crazy bastards? No don't get me started on Farm susidies, which all those big conglomorate farm corporations benefit from, as they crook the price of corn on the world markets. Look here too for a few more grim facts in our hinky lives.
Hinky is getting steamed for all the good people who pay taxes and have never seen sausages or Laws being made, or carried out.

Meanwhile, mayor mike is looking real hinky for giving NYU the gas for one professor's criticism of his personal company Bloomberg, LP. No grants to NYU's journalism department this year, or ever again they say. Looks like the mayor is shaping up into one of those guys who really knows how to save a fortune-- fire everyone and give yourself a raise, brillant!

Busy day, with lots of work so Hinky didn't get to warm up in the nice weather, but other say it broke 40 today. Hinky's cold is getting a little better. Hinky's job is feeling like one of those "If you find yourself in a fish bowl, keep swimming, or your next bowl may be a toilet": situations.

Hinky 5:52 PM

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Wednesday, February 19, 2003

This just in-- one of Hinky's oldest friends sent him the following "Bill of No Rights," which he offers as a common sense solution some of the most pressing problems of the day. Having recently finished "Killing Pablo," a book about the hunt for Drug Cartel leader in Colombia, it is feels particularly timely, the foundation of a New World order where the Liberty bell in Philly is replaced with a "Security bell," maybe on the site of 9/11 where Liberty Street used to be, a bell to be rung every hour on the hour to remind us of the price of all the Liberty and Freedom that seemed to work pretty well for the first few hundred years, before post War government expansion, before the cold war, before Ike's speech that urged American's to watch the growing "Military- Industrial complex," before easy credit, before P.C., before the Wall Street Journal's crusade against manufacturer's liability for placing dangerious products in stream of commerce (think the Ford Pinto's rear end), before the mortage interest deduction for he middle class (which amounts to welfare for the working), before Hillary's Cuban-Canadian vision for health care, before the DNA evidence freed more than a people on death row, before prison became "Club Fed," before 6 of ever 10 jobs in the US were connected government and subsidies (as in farming, ship building and oil) made not doing business the business of America, before the national media defined happiness for Americans, before Miami became the capital of Latin America, and before Nukes.

Hinky thinks his friend Polinky has a few good, if oversimplifed points to make here with his Bill of No Rights. But there's a danger of oversimplification: it creates problems, and that's not good, if you get what we mean. Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but never more so. In any event, here goes the end of a few too many rights:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people
are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill
of "No Rights".

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or
any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire
them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This
country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you!
You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion,
etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be and like the
rest of us you need to simply deal with it.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you
stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the
tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing.
Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help
anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would
be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested
in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people.
If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be
surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others.
If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens,
don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place
where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV, pool tables,
weight rooms or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want
you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we
expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of part time jobs, education
and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American
means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness -- which by the way, is a
lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws
created by those of you who were confused by the "Bill of Rights."

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where
you are from. We welcome you here. English is our language and like the one
you left behind, we also have a culture. Learn it or go back to the country and
the living conditions you were fleeing.

If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and
nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it is about time
common sense is allowed to flourish - just call it "The Age of Reason
Revisited."

Hinky hasn't a view on these yet, but if you do, feel free to share on the reply board, which links at the top of this blog.

Hinky 5:31 PM

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Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Hinky was shoveling snow, and when not shoveling snow, cleaning carpets for a good 16 hours per day over the weekend like most people fool enough to try an keep pace with the blizzard of ’03. On the other hand, the Cross country skiing was all glide and little stride, a twice in a decade condition. It was great, while it lasted. But the thing that stuck in Hinky’s mind was the trip to Home Depot (NYSE: HD), where Hinky found duck tape near the checkouts. The brand was familiar too, tycoadhesives.com., which isn’t hinky in and of itself, but if you read Christopher Byron in yesterday’s New York Post, you’ll find a funny parallel to this recurring theme entitled: “’Beat Osama” Portfolio: Trust Fema to give us the top stocks for the coming war.” Hinky wonders if Tyco, the beaten down poster child for corporate over-reaching will enjoy more earnings from the run on Duck tape at the HD.

To recap, for years, Tyco bought everything in its path in the name of increasing market share, leaving a wake of hinky combinations, hinky accounting and hinky research reports from Wall Street premier investment banks. Tyco wanted to be another GE. Then came the move offshore, like a certain hinky insurance companies do, to avoid the need for certain taxes to the United States. Everything was swimming, until the music stopped on Wall Street in the wake of Enron, and Tyco’s CEO was caught in the wrong place at the wrong end of a hinky art deal, where his personal purchase of paintings where shipped to another state to avoid taxes. It was like all the hinky accounting of the 1990’s, and the evaporated capital of the Dot.com bubble was concentrated into pinching this guy for some paintings he was jinxed into buying by some Art hustler salesman in the first place.

Having read the James Stewart’s “Spend, Spend, Spend” in the New Yorker for the details about the rise of Tyco’s CEO last Friday, Hinky’s mind was ripe when the Duck tape appeared at HD, and the issue wouldn’t go away, like the ringing of a bell, call it a Security bell in Hinky’s tiny brain. Does it even make sense to scape goat one of many?

Then, just when shoveling snow, and skiing had distracted Hinky enough to make the ringing Duck tape go away; Christopher Byron picked up the theme in the Sunday Post, pointing out that our government is pitching products (see, www.Fema.gov) that should boost stock prices for manufacturers that make such things as Duck tape, rubber gloves, shampoo and plastic police tape lines. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, Hinky is not amused.

Hinky 5:25 PM

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