Growth Qua Growth

New York

…is helping to fund the GOP’s amnesty and open borders wing.

This one’s fortune came from hedge funds.  Therefore, unlike Sheldon Adelson, another GOP amnesty and open border wing sugar daddy, who directly benefits and profits as the labor wage scale is driven down, (which of course is one of the real desired effects of “comprehensive immigration reform”), as Adelson hires a lot of cheap labor Hispanics in his Las Vegas casinos, Paul Singer’s interest in amnesty and open borders isn’t direct, because a mass onslaught of cheap labor peasant Mezo-Indo-Chicano jungle people doesn’t reduce his firm’s labor costs.  No, his interest is growth for the sake of growth.  That and I’m sure he thinks he can shave his labor costs a little with the allotment of legal immigrant visas being expanded in the Gang Bangers of Eight bill.

Schnucks: We Make Identity Theft Easy

Maryland Heights

What’s with this Mum’s the Word business from The Big Toy Soldier?

This is happening so often and at so many Schnucks locations that I’m smelling an inside job relating to one of its employees, probably someone in middle management.

Cover Both Your Wallets And Your Asses

Washington, D.C.

Chamber Pot of Commerce + AFL-CIO =

America, they’re playing your tune.

Nice and Red

AAPL

I’m hardly an iCabal fan.

Yet, AAPL is still making money, its hardware and software platforms are still selling very well.  But because they aren’t selling as well as some whiz kids at CNBC and Bloomberg think they should, nor the company itself making quite the money they think they should, that’s the whole reason why its stock absolutely must be in “freefall,” even though it’s at 514 now compared to a relative nadir of 381 in mid-December 2011.  Yeah of course it peaked over 700 in September, but that’s only because of orgasmic money honeys were fawning all over their product base just as much as Al Roker craps his underwear just to see Obama pass by him.

I have gotten the feeling for as long as I’ve been paying what little attention to the financial/business media I do that all this bullshit about “expectations” (i.e. sales, revenues and/or profits are either above, at or below “expectations”) is promulgated simply because someone behind the scenes with links to the fin/biz media is either buying a stock like crazy or shorting it like crazy.  Why should the health of a business be subject to someone’s educated guesses, unless, like I said, someone’s educated guesses is at the behest of someone buying or shorting the business’s stock?

Brought To You By the Color Pink

Ilion, New York

This leads to that, and that will end with a bunch of pink slips handed out.

Remington long ago moved its business HQ to Madison, North Carolina.  Trade some town between Albany and Syracuse for some town just north of Winston-Salem/Greensboro, this time of year?  I’m sure that part of upstate New York State is just flushed with working middle class blue collar jobs that it can just tell Remington to take 300 of them and scram.  And “scram” to the other side of that once and future international border.

You’re Gonna Miss Me

Connecticut

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR)

Current headquarters:  Southport, Connecticut

Future headquarters:  Las Colinas, Texas

Yeah, you know it’s coming.

To the citizens of Southport, Connecticut:

This is one of the few B&D songs where Kix Brooks got the lead vocal, and among those, this happens to be my favorite.

Can’t Retire

Sacramento, Minneapolis, St. Louis

Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat:

Teachers’ retirement fund to divest from gun makers

The nation’s largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer made a motion to begin the divestment process after pension fund officials determined that the fund invests in the owner of a company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Connecticut school shooting. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s investment committee unanimously approved the motion.

(snip)

The pension fund has investments in private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, which owns the manufacturer of an assault weapon used at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The pension fund also owns shares of Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp., two publicly traded gun-makers.

Then what?  Where do they expect to park that money to find anything close to a return?  I really don’t anticipate that much outside of firearms stocks and American T-Bills will be shakin’ in 2013.  Maybe that’s the answer:  I can see Obama’s hand in the background here.  Maybe he wants CalSTRS to park all its money in T-Bills.

Strangely, Cerberus is in the news locally today, too.  SuperValu, the Minneapolis-based supermarket chain that owns the Shop n Save locations in and around St. Louis, as well as all Save-a-Lots, is going to sell most supermarket chains it owns to Cerberus, but not SnS or SAL.  With last year’s droughts expected to jack food sky high, food might be another good business to be in at least temporarily in spite of it being a low margin business otherwise.  This means that because it will be involved in both food and guns, Cerberus at least through much of 2013 will be rolling in money.  Yet, CalSTRS doesn’t want to be invited to that party.

A certain someone reading these words should probably put off those retirement plans for a few more years.

“Improve Access to Drug Treatment”

Trenton, New Jersey

HuffPo:

Chris Christie: Gun Control Measures Must Be Part Of Wider Debate

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he’s willing to have a conversation about stricter gun laws, but says policymakers also must address the mental health system, improve access to drug treatment and look at the impact of violent video games.

Christie made the comments on NBC’s “Today” show, one of five national television appearances he was making Wednesday morning, one day after his annual State of the State address.

Christie was asked about specific gun control measures, and instead talked about violent video games. “We don’t allow those games into our house…we think it desensitizes children to all the effects of violence,” and added that all of the issues related to gun violence needed to be dealt with.

So, the Krispinator is on record now of blaming guns and video games, but not SSRIs.  In fact, he wants to “improve access to drug treatment,” but certainly not examining how too much legal dope might be a cause.

Gee, I wonder why that is.

Advertising Works

Madison Avenue and Capitol Hill

Me, December 22:

If firearms mfg. corporations had interlocking relationships with media conglomerates, and/or if there were far many more gun ads on TV, the media would love the NRA. The media hate tobacco because there are no consequences in doing so — Cigarette advertising has been FCC banned since 1970 or so. All about the money.

WND wonders why there has been virtually no media scrutiny about SSRIs.  (No link, b/c WND names the Nutmeg Nutbar.)  Duh — Pharma shovels a lot of money into media advertisements, and in fact, there were until fairly recently prime time buys for SSRIs themselves, (e.g. Prozac, Zoloft).  Michael Savage has half jokingly half not called for drug testing Congress, and I’m sure we’d find out that a good chunk of it and most Democrats are on SSRIs.  People bitch about the NRA’s lobbying budget, but Pharma’s lobbying budget is probably 20 times as big.  Oops, did I say 20?  I meant to say 80.  Pharma helped to get REPUBLICANS to vote for what was at the time the biggest expansion of the social welfare state since the Great Society, that being Medicare Part D in 2003.  (Not making a moral judgment about whether we needed Medicare D or not, I’m just making an observation about politics and pressure.)

Rate Card Friday

Black Friday

Last year at this time, I was starting a week-long temp job in Kansas City.

It required me to drive across the state the night before, on the night after Thanksgiving Day.  When I arrived at my hotel room, and I flipped on the TV.  One of the local eyeball newscasts promised “complete and comprehensive coverage” of Black Friday the next morning.  I thought to myself, and then later reacted in this space — “What of Black Friday is so complicated and convoluted that is necessitates ‘complete and comprehensive’ news coverage?  Film the drones waiting line, stampeding in at opening, hoarding their crap, checking out, and interview a few of them on their way out, cut, edit, in the can.”

RJP, my most frequent commenter on this blog, floated the theory that “complete and comprehensive” meant censoring the black and Hispanic violence.  I really can’t disagree, either last year or this year.  But…see below.

I now have come up with another theory on what “complete and comprehensive” means in this case.

Backdoor advertising.

During all this “complete and comprehensive” coverage, you’ll see news crews parked out in front of various big box parking lots, and they’ll tell you the name of the store.  At first, I thought to myself, “you’re just giving the stores free advertising.”  Then I pulled myself back and sulked on the word “advertising,” realizing that nothing is really free, and that the news business these days is really the ad business.

Maybe this “free advertising” really isn’t free.

Could local news stations’ Black Friday coverage be somehow related to the rate cards they give to the advertisers who they’re covering as “news” that day?  I could see the negotiations between the TV station and the local consortium of a national big box chain being done in a way where it is understood that the station’s local eyeball news will be parked on the parking lot of that big box mart all day the day after Thanksgiving, so this either means that the stations can get more out of the retailers, or the “complete and comprehensive” Black Friday coverage will be a make good for ratings that fall under expectations when the rate card is negotiated.

As an experiment, to test my theory, I watched some BF coverage from the local sources before and after work today, and tried to cross-reference them to my memory of whether certain stores’ ads run on certain stations throughout the year.  Of course, all the stations will show Wal-Martinez;  that’s too obvious.  But I wanted to see if there was a correlation between a local news truck being parked out in front of Oobie McDooberstein’s Garden Gnome Supercenter and Old Man Oobie running ads on that station throughout the year.  I can’t find anything solid, but curiously, I found that during BF coverage today, Channel 2 leaned heavily on Bass Pro’s Shop and Channel 5 on Cabela’s, and BPS advertises far more heavily on Channel 2 than Channel 5, and Cabela’s more on Channel 5 than Channel 2.

We might be getting somewhere.

If you have any similar confirmation or a rebuttal of my theory, use the comment section below.

As an aside, there was a low-level chimpout at the Wal-Martinez in Kirkwood this morning that Channels 4 and 5 covered.  Why?  Think of the demographics directly to the east of that W-M, and the demographics of the neighborhood that was paved over to create that collection of big boxes where that W-M now sits.

TBTF

Dallas

It looks like Hostess is in the process of Chapter 7 dissolving as a company, which means no more Twinkies, Ding Dongs or Ho-Hos.  Though I think we really won’t be suffering for a lack of ding dongs and hoes.

I thought of an LGBTQMIALOLPLPLTH angle on why Hostess is too big to fail — Dan White, the San Francisco Supervisor (City Alderman) who assassinated fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, tried to use the Twinkie defense at trial.  Twinkies and its parent company are too important in the narrative of the first openly LGBTQMIALOLPLPLTH elected politician in the country.

Dianne Feinstein, who became Mayor upon Moscone’s assassination, should be allowed to introduce the bailout bill in the Senate.

Nutmeg Bound

Town and Country

Charter moving its HQ to Stamford, Connecticut.

To me, they moved to Asia years ago.

Corporate Tax Breaks

Hollywood

Ever want to know why movie after movie “loses money” yet Hollywood can still afford to keep making them?

Hint:  It would make Arthur Andersen blush.

That sound you don’t hear is indignation from Obama and the Democrats.

They Can’t Figure It Out

A-B

Why are sales of Budweiser falling?

Hmmm, I wonder if it has something to do with what happened four years ago.  And no, I don’t mean Obama.

By the way, I’m still expecting the other shoe to drop at some point in the near future, i.e. InBev (hint) announcing they’re closing the St. Louis brewery and moving the American business HQ to a city whose major international airport is a hub for a major airline.  You know they’re going to, but they’re waiting on the perfect timing to drop the hammer.

 

They Made It Easy

Janesville, Wisconsin

Can someone on the ground confirm?  Janesville has the only Schnucks in the state of Wisconsin.

Return Fire

Mountain View, California

Why is Google plugging the Nexus 7 Android-OS tablet device on its ordinarily no-frills front page?

Answer:  They’re getting back at Apple for its successful patent troll lawsuit against Samsung, which was a de facto lawsuit against Android, by hawking a low-priced iPad competitor that threatens to disrupt its market from below.

It’s Nice to Have Friends in High Places

New York

MF’n Global?

No criminal charges.

I fail to see how there can be no Federal crimes related to MF’n Global.  Damned near everything is a Federal crime these days, except for illegal immigration.

What I’m about to say sounds too outlandish to be true, and I haven’t been able to find any credible verification.  But I have heard that the number of Wall Street-related prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney’s office in southern New York were in the thousands both under Clinton and Bush 43 each, but zero under Obama.

Bailout

Pueblo, Colorado

The story.

The reality:  GM and Chrysler actually did go “bankrupt,” technically speaking.  What was termed the “auto bailout” was really a special Congressionally-created bankruptcy path for GM and Chrysler only.  If GM and Chrysler declared bankruptcy under the standard reorganization path, which they were about to do, the pensions and health benefits of retired UAW workers would have been completely wiped out, because theoretical promises to ex-employees are at the bottom of the totem pole in bankruptcy court.  The UAW knew this, and they leaned on Obama to lean on Pelosi and Reid to create a special bankruptcy path for GM and Chrysler, with pre-dictated terms that protected blue collar retirees’ pensions and health benefits.  The downside was that bondholders were almost wiped out, and a lot of white collar auto industry jobs were outsourced to India, and the countenance of the President who says he’s against outsourcing.  A lot of the “blue collar” auto industry work post-bailout has been shifted to Mexico and China.

There was never any risk of GM or Chrysler going totally out of business even if they went the standard bankruptcy path.  For one, their finances weren’t that bad, and two, the auto industry, or what’s left of it, is too important, and no Federal court would have stood for GM or Chrysler disappearing.

Criminalizing Chicken

KCMO

UMKC has a Chick-Fil-A.  You knew it was only a matter of time.

Why now?  Chick-Fil-A’s corporate politics re LGBTQMIALOLPLPLTH issues has been what it is for a long time.  Why are the LGBTQMIALOLPLPLTHers grinding for a fight now?  I don’t think it and the looming elections are just a coincidence.  Mark me — This Three Months Hate campaign against Chick-Fil-A is being coordinated straight out of the White House, and is an effort to gin up LGBTQMIALOLPLPLTH turnout in November.

They’re Cheap

India

I, Cringely:

Are Indian high schoolers manning your IBM help desk?

(snip)

I already wrote a column about the experience of former IBM customers Hilton Hotels and ServiceMaster having no trouble finding plenty of IT talent living in the tech hotbed that is Memphis, TN, thus dispelling the domestic IT labor shortage theory.

This column is about the supposed advantages of technical talent from India.

There can be some structural advantages to using Indian labor. By being 12 hours out-of-sync, Indian techies can supposedly fix bugs while their U.S. customers sleep. But this advantage relies on Indian labor moving quickly, which it often does not given the language and cultural issues as well as added layers of management.

India, simply by being such a populous country and having so many technical graduates, does indeed have a wealth of technical talent. What’s not clear, though, is whether this talent is being applied to serve the IT needs of U.S. customers. My belief is that Indian talent is not being used to good effect, at least not at IBM.

I suspect IBM’s customers are being deceived or at least kept in the dark.

Here is my proof: right now IBM is preparing to launch an internal program with the goal of increasing in 2013 the percentage of university graduates working at its Indian Global Delivery Centers (GDCs) to 50 percent. This means that right now most of IBM’s Indian staffers are not college graduates.

Did you know that?  I didn’t. I would be very surprised if IBM customers knew they were being supported mainly by graduates of Indian high schools.

To be fair, I did a search and determined that there actually are a few U.S. job openings at IBM that require only a high school diploma. These include IBM GBS Public Sector Consultant 2012 (Entry-Level), Technical Support Professional (Entry Level), and Software Performance Analyst (Entry Level). But I have yet to meet or even hear of a high school graduate working in one of these positions in the USA.

It’s ironic that in the USA, with its supposed IT labor shortage, we can hire college graduates for jobs that in India are filled by high schoolers.

Yet in India IBM admits that the majority of its GDC workers lack university degrees. They certainly don’t advertise this fact to customers, nor do they hide it I suppose because they don’t have to.

What customer is going to think to ask for Indian resumes? After all this is IBM, right?

Yeah, right.

The most astounding part of this story to me is that one of the challenges IBM says it is facing in this project is to “establish a cultural change program to drive increased acceptance of staffing with graduates.”

So IBM’s Indian Global Delivery Centers are anti-education?

No, they’re pro-profits.

The Name Fits

Santa Clara, California

Who is Marissa Mayer?

I’ll let Politico answer that:

Mayer, 37, is a longtime Google executive who has participated in Democratic political fundraising drives.

In 2010, she held a fundraiser at her house for President Barack Obama and has given to Obama annually since 2007.

Last year, Mayer contributed $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

Mayer is an active Democratic fundraiser. In 2011, she gave $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee. In 2010, she gave two donations of $30,400 to the DNC, according to Open Secrets.

She also has bundled between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama for America and Obama Victory Fund 2012, according to the Obama campaign.

While mostly giving to Democrats, Mayer also contributed $2,500 to Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

So she dumps money, holds fundraisers and bundles for Obama, and also a little bit for a RINOette Republican.

Yep, she is a yahoo.

On the QT

Maplewood

QT wants to move its Maplewood location to the location of the former Cavalier Ford dealership, (and I know someone who worked in service there).  Yes, you read that right:  St. Louis once had a Ford dealership named after a Chevy model.  It was a bit confoosling.

The row seems to be over safety for the chillunz.  But this caught my eye:

The new QuikTrip would be built according to the company’s new prototype, called “generation three.” It would be 5,700 square feet, replacing the store at 3010 South Big Bend that’s 3,200 square feet. The number of employees would double to 20 and a new range of food and barista service would be available.

Feature bloat.  We’re seeing quickie marts swell to over 5k ft² now.  How much longer until a large quickie mart is the size of what used to be called a small supermarket?  A quickie mart that big, and you won’t be able to find anything you want “Quik”-ly.  (Rimshot)  Twenty employees in one quickie mart seems a bit much, too.  When I managed the chain of five stations, I had 41 employees under my supervision, meaning four stations had eight employees and the fifth had nine.  And I don’t think any one of the quickie marts had even 3.2k ft².

And also, pha pha phaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  (Inside joke)

Occupy Nothing

Lower Manhattan

Wall Street is emptying out, for two main reasons:  One, the city’s onerous taxes and regulations, and two, it’s not necessary for Wall Street to be on Wall Street any more, thanks to our technological era.

When will this happen to Washington, D.C.?  The same reasons we don’t need a literal Wall Street are the same reasons we don’t really need a formal national capital.  In fact, in this day and age of terrorism, it might be a good thing not to have one.

Don’t Worry. Be Cheap.

Arizona

Slashdot:

Arizona H-1B Workers Advised to Carry Papers At All Times

“In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday on Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, H-1B workers are being advised to keep their papers on them. About half of all H-1B visa holders are employed in tech occupations. The court struck down several parts of Arizona’s law but nonetheless left in place a core provision allowing police officers to check the immigration status of people in the state at specific times. How complicated this gets may depend on the training of the police officer, his or her knowledge of work visas, and whether an H-1B worker in the state has an Arizona’s driver’s license. An Arizona state driver’s license provides the presumption of legal residency. Nonetheless, H-1B workers could become entangled in this law and suffer delays and even detention while local police, especially those officers and departments unfamiliar with immigration documentation.”

And why are there H-1Bs in Arizona?

Intel and some other SV firms have recently opened up plants in the state.  Yeah, they greased the skids by promising to give hiring preferences to Americans, (that’s because Arizona politicians tend to the anti-immigration, the Intel suits at least felt they had to blow smoke out their asses, whereas they don’t usually have to any other time), but that promise is made with crossed fingers behind the back.  Chandler, Arizona is almost The New Bangalore.

Of course, legal immigrants are supposed to carry around proof of their legal immigration status around at all times.  But before you know it, all the 22-year old H-1Bs that Intel uses in their bodyshop in Chandler will be 35, and then Intel will kick ‘em out to the curb to import a whole new crop of 22-year old H-1B visa holding Indians, revoke the sponsorship of their visas, and they’ll have to go home or “risk” being an illegal alien in Modern America.

The Fat Lady Is Singing an Opera

WTF?

Reuters:

Opera would cost Facebook over $1 billion: analysts

OSLO (Reuters) – Opera Software would cost Facebook over $1 billion as competition from Google and others could push up the price tag, analysts said on Tuesday, as takeover talk pushed the shares up as much as 26 percent on Tuesday.

Oslo-listed Opera, coveted for its advanced mobile phone software technology, would be a perfect fit for Facebook but the firm’s business is also vital for some of the industry’s biggest players so any bid is likely to attract others to the table.

“Opera would be sensible for Facebook on several levels,” Arctic Securities said.

“It would enhance the now limited mobile experience of Facebook, improve Facebook’s mobile monetization problem, help Facebook retain online game developers leaving the social network over the lack of a mobile platform and further improve Facebook’s ability to target ads.”

Even if it does all that, I fail to see how that helps FB in the long term.  If it can generate a revenue stream from the mobile paradigm just by buying Opera, (though I fail to see why they can’t do that with out Opera), it will help FB remain profitable, but it won’t generate the revenue growth to justify a stock price above single digits.

If you think that buying Opera will save FB, then you’re as delusional as those who think that closing the bars in ESL early will turn it into a first world city.

Grin and Bear It

I noticed that the FB bearishness has finally spilled over to GOOG.  It took a noticeable hit today.

But it hasn’t yet spilled over to MS, because other than an early Tuesday to late Wednesday buck-a-share slide, then a half dollar rally for the rest of Wednesday, it has held fairly even.

Corporate Greed, Millionaires and Billionaires (Part II)

The top earning CEO in 2011 made $378 million.  The second-place finisher made $76 million.  The third-place finisher made $69 million.

I can assure you that the ratio between the top earning CEO’s 2011 compensation and the entry level workers that manufacture his company’s marquee products is very high.

Why no bitching from the usual suspects?

The first place finisher is Tim Cook of AAPL, the third place finisher is Les Moonves of CBS.

Piggybacking on a NYT story yesterday, methinks income inequality is worse in blue states.

Corporate Greed, Millionaires and Billionaires

A big corporation jacked up the price of one of its marquee products 32% in four years.

Not a peep from the usual suspects.

Why not?

Its stock ticker is DIS.

Your Toolbox For Today

Stock tickers:

Facebook (FB)
Morgan Stanley (MS)
Zynga (ZNGA)
Google (GOOG)

You will have to zoom to 1d view (one day), but only after the opening bell at 8:30 AM (CT).

Watch them all fall down today.  While you’re doing that, keep your TV on CNBC and watch almost everyone have a meltdown.

Thirty-Seven Cents

FAILbook.

IPO 38.00, closed at 38.37.  It got as high as 41.73 at 12:40, but then fell around 40, flatlined there, then fell again and flatlined just a few pennies above the IPO for most of the last hour.

You can tell these aren’t the late 1990s any more.  An IPO like this would have shot to the sky right out of the gate and kept on going in the late Clinton years.  Even its high today wasn’t 10% higher than the IPO, and it finished the day not even 1% higher.

Oh, and to all of you people who are now 37 cents richer:  Don’t spend it all in one place.

UPDATE

Make that 23 cents.  Too, the investment houses that acted as insurance firms for the IPO had to kick in perhaps as much as nine figures to keep the stock over $38.  If that’s the case, FB is going to tank soon.  I predict single digits within six months.

It really surprises me that The Street isn’t keen on a corporation whose product is a website where drunken lush young adults post photos of their naked asses.

Unless it doesn’t surprise me.

I guess enough people on The Street remember MySpace, how it was here today and gone tomorrow.