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Saturday, March 08, 2003

Before I go uptown to drink with an old friend, and his side kick we call Captain Kirk (because he has been known to use his Star Trek, space judo on unsuspecting bystanders when he gets tanked) there is a hinky thought beyond the ones in the Belt parkway today that I can not recall. It's to witness, as war photographers, or other people , such as these cats, who put themselves into high risk situations as events unfold. It looks like a combination of strong conviction and a distaste for injustice, mixed with a disregard for self preservation. It's hinky. the thrill of death defying acts, like the hype you'll find among Sky divers, who fall in love with safe landings, after feeling the dangers of falling thousands of feet from the ground. We're sure they would do it for free. It's what lead on war photographer vet to say the following:

"I've had more combat experience than most Army officers," adds Chris Hedges, author of the new book, "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." A war reporter for 15 years before he hung up his flak jacket, he knows war too, "and it's about death and it's about self-destruction and it's about betrayal."

"And yet," he says, "we're drawn to it."

"Drawn to it," like junkies waiting for the man. It's hinky at best, that drawn feeling. To what do press awards amount, when your accepting money, fine foods and adulation for watching people die, for working the gizmo that leads to the thing that shocks the world into seeing and repeating to see a slice of reality over and over and over, as was the case when those towers fell, and perhaps less so in other cases, such as the killings in Cambodia, or Yugoslavia (and Yugoslavia), Armenia, Rwanda, East Timor (by SAT) and many other places if you take a hard look. Perhaps these shocking slices of reality are less repeated, unless you both know where to look, and choose to look. Maybe choosing to look's the rub in all this; having the time, or "taking the time." Then again, what sort of hinky mind "takes the time" to look up acts of cruelty, injustice and death? Isn't that a little like the guy or gal, "drawn to it"?

When it's easy to see what you've learned to see, or not to see instead, why look for any more trouble than your share of parking tickets? And more so when there are so many entertaining things to see around use beaming from SATs everywhere? Lyle Lovett's wife last night in a Chelsea bar; who'se Brittney getting out of the Limo with; Who will win the Oscar?

Faces of the Enemy, seems to be a timely book, as the date for war was announced today in the New York Post, at the Getty station, as I waited for my change from my coffee. It doesn't really answer any of these hinky ideas, but it raises some hinky questions about propaganda for all you high riding SUV drivers out therejust as these faces should

Hinky 7:00 PM

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Friday, March 07, 2003

“Overbought,” a hinky concept for a Friday. It’s what you see when you turn down when you want something to drink, but the Soda machine wants $1.50, or E1.50. It's the finacial world work for a less technical if more descriptive one: Ripoff. ARTC, is the symbol of a stock of a company like that. Despite great products, i mean they sound great, and despite great support from big buyers, funds and asset managers, it's P/E is 236, and it's projected 5 year growth rate is -18%, which is about what you can expect to make in wages if you work in a "Right to work" state. Yet, it stays hangs up there, trading beyond it's earnings, overbought. It hangs hinkily, like a plot to corner the market for sugar by a small group thinking they will never be caught, as the man with the donuts, on the wire, records their conversations, digitally.

Hinky 6:50 PM

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Thursday, March 06, 2003

"Right to work," is the hinkiest phrase we can think of today. Now it's not fashionable to call it this, but its the 1984 thought for a day really, like say, "war is peace," or "2+2=5." "Right to work," makes us think of non union public relations toadies plucking away at keyboards in dark offices in Virginia for corporate interests who hire them to lend reasoned support for hammering down wages on line workers (those who do the toiling kind of work) as officers from these corporations that hire the toadies in dark rooms give themselves absurd, "ripperfart," SUV-Hummer sized raises, such as, that $600,000 million dollars per year that the president of Green Tree Financial a few years back, paid by his company, which was later sold to Consenco, and is now again up for sale from bankruptcy (Warren Buffet just bid on it). Green Tree wrote loans to folks buying trailer homes, mostly in "Right to Work" states, as in "get your as up and get "right to work" to pay for your trailer, or else they will be turning off Cable TV!"

You'll find these "Right-to-work" toadies repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating this phrase over and over and over again on web sites like this , and this from dark holes in remote parts of Virginia, and lobbying in union states such as Pennsylvania and .Michgan. Here is a map of the "right to work" states, where the movement to free the American worker from those wasteful high wages has taken root. It shows how this movement is doing to free the US from its excesses pay for people who do the jobs that nobody dreams about around the country. It seems to thrive where population, taxes and business developement is low. It seems to thrive where tornados are common. Hinky wonders how many of the Fortune 500 executives live in these states (no, ski homes in Jackson Hole do not count guys).

Hinky has a personal thought on this one, and he thinks maybe it's a hinky overkill like the latest commercial fishing nets, that harvest fish with mile long nets. What with all this overcapacity from around the world that Jack Walsh talked about in the New York Post, do American workers really need to be brain washed into choosing to make less?

Critics of the "right to work", would say these policies are designed to get the American worker (also known as the consumer), used to making less, as competition comes from business moved off shore to foreign lands where people do well for themselves with 40 dollars per week. Well, some American workers that is, which does not include the officers of companies who benefit from the "right to work" of workers who work for less as these officers usually get big raises to cut costs on a massive scale while bringing the same great quality products to American consumers, such as the cardboard furniture we sit on, or the 4 dollar shoes we walk in. Critics call "right to work" the "right to starve." For example, if you look at the web site of the Boilermaker's Union in Kansas Boilermakers.org, you'd find the following thought for the day:

"Right-to-work laws are a bad deal for workers because they restrict workers' right to union representation and lower the average pay of all workers. With no unions to represent them, workers cannot bargain for better wages and benefits. In 1996, the annual average pay in free states was $29,100, compared with $24,600 in right-to-work states - an 18 percent difference. Right-to-work states have lower "union density" (the percentage of workers who belong to unions) - 7.6 percent, compared with 16.8 percent in free states."

Hinky 11:41 PM

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Tuesday, March 04, 2003

The man from the east has sent us this link, which is right in line with what Hinky’s vision for a new middle east-- Casinos in Jericho! It looks like Standard and Poor’s has found the usual suspect are up to old tricks, including Tax breaks for Casinos in Jericho!

Meanwhile, Warren Buffet spoke, in his annual letter to shareholders, which is typically consumed like tablets from Moses; he thinks the stock market is still overvalued, and that the hangover may be in proportion to the grand old time we had (well, some had). He also said that he "finds very few [stocks] that even mildy interest " him. Happy Mardi Gras!

Hinky 4:39 PM

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Monday, March 03, 2003

Hinky was too busy to comment today, but after spending an hour parking the car, and reloading over at the Blockbuster, we're ready to note another case of an teacher who holds their students dear, in the Whitestone hotel. It was yet another woman, this time 32, who found the boundry between student and teacher more of a guideline than a rule. All this breach of contract, and bending, of rules and bodies seems scripted in a hinky way, just in time for Fat Tuesday, which we've been thinking about in the course of reading John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces," which has its moments. It's set in New Orleans and its lower depths; and follows a really obese guy who seems to have been born 400 years too late, with his hunting cap and a vast hunger for anything he sees, "a working boy". The dialogue alone is worth the trip. Right now, it's time to view tonight's feature, Swept Away (not the original, the one with the Madonna), the classic tale of boy meets rich man's wife and beats her into submission and true love, while stranded together on an island. What can I tell you: If all else fails, order some King cake!, Lent won't be long now.

Hinky company today? Garnter Group, those unflappable pimps of the new paradymn, and bloated Internet bubble, Symbol: IT, p/e way too high, but the hinky part-- significant buying by insiders. What do they see at these prices for their shares?

Hinky 10:38 PM

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Sunday, March 02, 2003

It's the 23th and 24th lines down on Harper's index this month that makes our nation look as hinky as hell. Harper's states that the Labor department stopped publishing the monthly reporting of mass layoffs. And, there were 17,799 mass layoffs in 2002. Burp. Harper's Weekly was started in 1850, so they have been at this awhile. Hinky readers should keep an eye in the Index each and every month, for obivious reasons.

Hinky just recommended a little vintage hinky entertainment to a friend in the EC; it's a film that was kept out of distribution for over 30 years: check out The Manchurian Candidate. It was made before JFK was shot, starring one of the movie stars who helped put him in office, Frank Sinatra, directed by director John Frankenheimer. It's one of the hinkiest ever made, of the ones that seem to anticipate events. The average customer review out of 92 Amazon reviewers is 4.5 out of 5, if that means anything to a hinky viewer.

Also, we've started going on about P/E ratios, and the hinkiest companies of them all. However, we realize some background may be in order about the stock market and company valuations, so here goes. Why a book by Benjamin Graham? Because he is the not just the father of stock valuation, but he was responsible for things like the Consumer Price Index (the thing the government has been cooking to keep everyone feeling OK), and the theory for the nations going off a Gold standard for currency, which America did under Nixon. He was also Warren "Buy-low-and-sell-high" Buffet's teacher. He was one of many poster children for free and open boarders as an immigrant (who was also hinky enough to change his name). We offer this thumbnail in anticipation that "value investing" may become all the investing there is for the next few years. After all, the NASDAQ would have to gain 9% for 15 years in a row, for investors to find themselves in the place they started before its great tumble, where it remains scraping today (and yet, the QQQ just remains propped up, like a corpse on a pole in the mid 20's with P/E valuations beyond the horizon-- very hinky).

Hinky companies on Sunday: JOYG, with a P/E of 1132. The Company is a major manufacturer of underground mining equipment for the extraction of coal and other bedded minerals and offers comprehensive service locations near major mining regions worldwide. P and H is a major producer of surface mining equipment for the extraction of ores and minerals and provides extensive operational support for many types of equipment used in surface mining. Here are two points about this company: Coal is a filthy way to get the things done that we need doing; and JOYG may be situated within a great business, that may grow and grow like Jack's bean stalk, but the question is will any business out grow a P/E ratio of over 1000. Hinky at best.

This is funny, if you'd care to order using your credit card: check out "deception dollars"

Hinky 1:20 PM

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