BarrieBergman

Yankee Doodle Dandy

I’ve become more patriotic as I’ve gotten older.  I always promised myself that  I wouldn’t become more conservative when I got older, but supporting our people in uniform seems the correct thing to do.

I try to remember what Memorial Day is really about.   The sacrifice of service people and their families to protect our freedom is important to me.  While Congress is cutting spending, which I totally support, I am opposed to cuts in Veteran’s benefits.  We have to take care of the people who take care of us.  I am opposed to war, but if we have to fight them, we have to make sure the soldiers who fight them are as comfortable as we can make them, when they come home.
                                                                ~
From the sublime to the ridiculous.  It’s nice to see Donald Trump supporting Mitt Romney.  Twenty-six percent of Americans said they would support any candidate other than one Trump’s supported.  George Will recently called the Donald a bloviating ignoramous showing some conservatives have amazing perceptivity.

Wolff Blitzer got into a wonderful debate/argument with the fool about Trump’s Birther Movement.  If you can find it, it’s worth watching.  It was great to see a newscaster have enough of this self-promoting asshole.  Trump responded by basically calling names and telling Blitzer his ratings were low.  With an intellect like Donald Trump’s, why isn’t he solving world hunger or curing cancer?

Why does this moron get air time?  Why am I talking about him?  What is the meaning of life?

~
The road goes on forever
And the party never ends
Robert Earl Keen

Over the Rainbow

It seems like almost every week there’s a new billionaire entrepreneur.  They mostly come from the tech sector, but occasionally other types of businesses are represented.  This week Facebook goes public with an offering worth $16 billion, just the latest of these spectacular success stories.

I speak at colleges and universities about entrepreneurial pursuits.  The interest among kids in business ventures today is amazing.  Everybody wants to be Mark Zuckerberg.  When I went to school everyone wanted to work for IBM or later Goldman Sachs.  Doing ventures for oneself is an exciting way to use the freedom that we have.

The opportunity here is still unparalleled in the world.  I’m sick of hearing people talk about the lack of mobility in our society.  Individuals in this country are only restrained by their own lack of creativity and hard work.  The Horatio Alger dream is still alive.

At a time when Greece is failing because they refuse to live within any reasonable boundaries of spending, the US with its limitless resources can continue to prosper, if we just can find a way to compromise about our political differences.

I love America.   It has been so good to me and my family.  I am sick of hearing about all the things that are wrong here.  We have always been able to co-operate with each other, when the chips are down.  Tell the fools in Washington to accommodate each other and continue the greatest social experiment the world has ever seen.

~
I feel good
Like I knew that I would
I feel nice
Like sugar and spice
-James Brown

Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

Recently a friend of mine sent me some statistics on healthcare rapidity in a number of foreign countries.  Why I should care about how long it takes a Parisian to receive an appendectomy is for another day, but the point is that national healthcare treatment is slower in other countries than it is here, although a lot cheaper.

I have experienced private healthcare in England.  A few years ago, I had a small shower accident at the London Four Seasons.  I ended up with a cut on my thigh that needed several stitches.  The Four Seasons was wonderful and paid for everything.  (What a surprise.)

I went to a private clinic (a.k.a. rich people’s clinic).   It was very nice and incredibly expensive.  I wasn’t paying, but I was stunned at how expensive it was.

I didn’t want to get into the English healthcare system, and therein lies the problem.  I want my cake and fast medical care, too.  I think we need to provide universal healthcare, I just don’t want to wait for my next facelift.

It seems to me that there must be some middle ground.  As a society we are going broke spending money for healthcare.  We should be able to spend less money on nationalized healthcare, but still not slow things down to a crawl.  I know that expecting efficiency out of the government is probably a pipedream, but what the hell, anything could happen.
~
I’m a big fan of Rock & Roll poetry.  So from now on I’m ending these missives with a quote from some of our great poets.

Hey diddle diddle
I’m playing my fiddle
I’ve got nothing to lose
- Chuck Berry

I Was Born a Poor Black Child

I was raised in a very traditional American family.  My parents, both first generation Americans, were similar to Ozzie and Harriet.  All of their parents emigrated from Russia in the early 1900’s to get away from the Pogroms (the Tsar’s army killing Jews).

In a way I’m here because of a search for religious freedom and because of a search for separation of Church and State.  My parents believed in keeping a very low profile politically in their community, because of their family background and being Jews in the South.  They were lifelong Democrats, but they never let anybody know it.  No matter how hard I’ve tried to rebel in my life, this apple has never fallen very far from my parents’ tree.  My politics are similar to my folks, and I’m not very outspoken publicly.

All these reasons come together in my fear and loathing for what is going on in the Republican primaries for President.  The devolving race to see who can be the most conservative among Mitt and the three dwarves is mired in social issues that were settled fifty to one hundred fifty years ago.  To talk about rescinding women’s rights or calling people who went to college “snobs and elitists,” makes me check the window for the guys on horseback coming to drag us away for our beliefs.

I know this crap is all posturing and positioning, but as our economy improves and we extricate ourselves from wars that we should never have started, the Republicans are running out of issues.  How about a campaign to help Angelina Jolie adopt more children or to find Katy Perry a new man?  Whaddya think, Newt?

Flying Down to Rio

For the last several weeks my wife Arlene and I have been visiting in South America.  It was a fascinating trip and lots of fun.  We visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and took a cruise up the Brazilian coast, which included a stop in Uruguay.

Rio was my favorite, even though Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, the “Paris” of South America.  Rio has an energy and vitality that only comes when a country is doing well economically.  Brazil has a huge amount of land and wonderful natural resources.  They are now being successful at using their products, including enough oil to be self-sufficient.

The people in Rio were sensational.  They are happy, forthcoming, and most of all beautiful.  We stayed at Ipanema Beach, and the women and the men . . . you get the idea.

Over and over we were befriended by strangers, when we were lost.  Several people took us by the hand to show us how to get somewhere, rather than just pointing.  I’ve only encountered courtesy like this in one other place, and interesting that it was in Portugal, the people who settled in Brazil.

The only problem I had with the trip is the density of people in the cities.  Rio has 17 million; Sao Paulo has 25 million.  I have encountered the population bomb in Asia before, and it’s really frightening.

As a planet we have got to figure out how to limit the expansion of population, or we are sure to run out of everything we need to survive.  We need to start now.  No one wants any government to limit family size.  In China it got a lot of female babies killed, but we better do something and pretty damn quick.

Interesting Times

If I were running a company today, the company would be doing great and expanding like crazy.  In the interest rate environment we find ourselves in, it’s almost impossible to do poorly.  I would be borrowing as much as I could from any bank, that would lend it to the business, and expanding as fast as we could go.

I always pushed hard for growth, when the economy was at its worst.  Most people stopped growing and sat on the sidelines, but I felt the time to expand was when others backed off.  It was easier.  It takes cajones to do this, particularly because banks hate it.  But, if the organization is good enough, the style really works. 

Banks, which are run by people who can’t make it in real business, always believe in going with the trend, while I believe in going counter-trend.  Running counter-cycle is the best way to make money that I know, but it’s hard to swim upstream, when everyone thinks you’re crazy.

As the economy gets better and companies make more and more money, the Stock Market is going to go up.  My fearless prediction for this year is somewhere in the 10-15% range.  I also believe that Congress will begin to act more responsibly and start to limit spending.

I’m an eternal optimist, so don’t base any investment strategies on anything I say, but if you do and you make any money, I would love a piece of the action.  If you lose money, call Newt Gingrich.  He told you the world was coming to an end.

Arts and Crafts

I’m on several boards of art organizations.  Up until a few years ago these organizations were funded by either a university or by the local government.  In our present economic environment, the arts in our country have gotten short shrift.  We’ve cut school budgets, community playhouse budgets, dance funding, music funds, and painting classes.

What place does art have in a successful society?  Why should we care about local drama classes?  Art is a mirror of our society.  It’s a way of looking at ourselves in a skewed prismatic mirror.  Art points out our foibles and our strengths in a different way.  Strong societies nurture art.  I hope we get the message before we lose some of our most valuable resources.
                                                             ~
The short term Kardashian wedding seems to have started a trend.  Celebrities are throwing away marriages as fast as they can start them.  I, for one, am terribly worried.  Just last week Heidi Klum and Seal, a marriage for the ages, split up.  Now my favorite fat person, Aretha Franklin, announced her wedding is off, stillborn before she could even enjoy marital bliss.  I think we need a congressional commission to look into this growing problem.

Musings

I kinda like Mitt Romney.  He’s handsome, prolific (lots of kids), and he’s a good businessman.  He jumps around on issues, but then don’t most politicians.

I’m probably not his target demographic, since I’m a Democrat, and I’m not going to vote for him.  But among the respective Republican candidates, he’s an easy choice.  Thus, I’m sick of Romney getting pilloried for being a good business person.

If more people in government had a clue about how to make money (i.e. buy low, sell high) we might be able to finance our debt without running a series of fund raisers.  Perhaps, if we could get some of the same greedy bastards that run Wall Street to run the government, we would do better – Oh wait – we tried that under Bush, and look how it turned out.
                                                              ~
A fan at a hockey game was recently fined $200 for throwing a banana at a black player.  Police said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with a hate crime.  What do you think it was, a dislike crime?  Later in the game another fan threw a bagel at a Jewish player, but he wasn’t charged because there was no cream cheese or lox.  Yeah . . . I’m just kidding about the bagel.

It’s OK for hockey players to beat the crap out of each other, just don’t throw stuff on the ice, except in Detroit, where they throw octopi for some unfathomable reason.

Blue Monday

I’m easily pissed off.  Child abuse pisses me off.  Cheating in college athletics pisses me off.  All politicians piss me off.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Black Friday pisses me off.

No, I’m not unhappy about consumers running willy-nilly spending money; I just don’t like the term.  Some fool analyst on Wall Street came up with the name because supposedly the day after Thanksgiving is the day retailer’s P&L statements go from red to black.  This is only true occasionally, and it differs widely from industry to industry and year to year.

I could understand if we called this day “Green Friday” because it’s certainly the day money shows up, but co-opting the name of the day that the stock market crashed in 1929 is like somebody chewing gum loudly.  I can’t stand that either.

Now that all that is cleared up, we can also delete Cyber Monday too.  Any retailer knows the last full Saturday before Christmas is the biggest shopping day of the year, because people procrastinate as long as they can before coming out to shop.  The only reason the last shopping day before Christmas is not the biggest day is because most stores close at 6:00 p.m. that day.

Last week amid the turkey and football, Roger Federer proved once again that older gentlemen can still play tennis by winning the year-end tournament.  Black Friday my ass.

What Nature Doesn’t Do to Us Will Be Done by Our Fellow Man

The Kardashian marriage ends after 73 days.  An Amish breakaway cult attacks normal Amish people then cuts their beards and hair.  The Mayan calendar ends in late 2012.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Frank McCourt buys the Dodgers.  Frank McCourt has to sell the Dodgers.  Demi and Ashton are having marital trouble.  Herman Cain likes women, too much.

Why is our world going to hell in a hand basket?  Is it global warming?  Is it Wall Street?  Is it Greece, which apparently has caused all the financial ills in the world for the last 2,000 years?   (I told them not to hold the Olympics.)

Is our society obsessed with non-consequential matters like the Kardashians, or is it the media that creates these vacuums that suck our attention like a vortex?  Do we read US Weekly or watch TMZ because we’re flawed, or would Moses have done the same thing, if he’d had an iPad?

I think we’re just evolving or devolving.  And who knows where a fascination with the famous or infamous goes?  The world has been coming to an end since I was born, and we’re still here.  The Kingston Trio had a song in the 50’s, “They’re rioting in Africa, they’re starving in Spain . . .”

I’m going to spend less time concentrating on celebrities who mean nothing to our world and more in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.  Oh!  I have to stop now.  I just got an alert from The Huffington Post.