The Olympics

Like the Montreal Olympics before it, some features of the London Olympics may not be completed in time for the actual Olympics.   The Olympics has morphed from a set of arcane sports played between nations, into an orgy of commercialism and money.   I won't be watching.

Every four years, we go through this orgy of bombast and über-patriotism, and I am not talking about our Presidential elections, but rather the Olympics.

I won't be watching the Olympics this year, just as I did not watch them the last time around, or the time before that.  Why?  Because they are boring, irrelevant, and corrupt.  Let me explain.


1.  Games No One Plays:  Do you know anyone who got a free ride though college on a shot-put scholarship?  Didn't think so.   Olympic games are so esoteric and antiquated that commentators have to spend half the time explaining them to the audience.  And some of the "sports" are just bizarre.  In the Winter Olympics, they go cross-country skiing and then shoot at things.   What the fuck kind of "sport" is that, other than something practiced by Rocky Mountain Survivalists?

And don't get me started on things like Ski-Jumping and Bob-Sledding.  Who, other than Olympic Athletes, does these things?   No wonder the Jamaicans did as well as they did - it isn't really a real sport.  "Ya know, nothing beats a day of recreational Bob-Sledding, I always say!" - Actually no one says that.  Because no one DOES it.   It is just a made-up sport, because they needed more than "Skiing" on the roster.   What's next?  Snowmobiling?



2.  Corruption:  You recall the scandals in years past, where IOC members were bribed to steer the Olympics to certain countries and cities.  The Olympics is first and foremost about money, and lots of it.  Between the huge television contracts, the lucrative endorsement contracts for successful athletes, and the massive amounts of dough squandered by cities and countries to host these "games" the whole thing comes down to crash cash.

And the money to be made from the Olympics is staggering - from the construction contracts, to booting out your tenants and renting out your house.   Everyone, it seems, wants a slice of that Olympic booty.   And it is pretty sickening.



3.  Bombastic Fans and Reporting:  If there is an event where no one from the "Team USA" is coming in first, second, or third, it rarely is reported.   The US media always shows crowds of rowdy fans chanting "USA! USA!" like a bunch of jerks.   No wonder the rest of the world hates us.   Do the French all get together and shout "F! F! F!"  Of course not.  The Olympics is about competition and cooperation between countries, not a time for patriotic bombast.

But at least for our country, it is time for us, once again, to show ourselves off as self-centered jerks who don't give a rat's ass about anyone who wasn't lucky enough to be born here (which is apparently some sort of personal accomplishment).



4.  The Olympics Can Bankrupt the City:  Montreal is still reeling from its Olympics.  Many small countries spend Billions trying to build venues overnight - venues which become white elephants later on.  Taxpayers are stuck with the bill.   Only the largest cities, like Los Angeles, can swallow up an Olympics.   Smaller towns - and cities - often suffer.

I remember visiting Montreal almost a decade after the Olympics.  The tower on the main stadium was still not completed (it finally was, over a decade after the Olympics) and much of the hurried construction of the Olympic venues was starting to show through - just as the World's Fair venues of a decade earlier quickly deteriorated.  The vaunted "reuse" of many venues turned out to be specious.   One block of Olympic dormitories turned out to be difficult to adapt into apartments, as their outside hallways - designed for warmer climes - turned out to be difficult to use in Montreal winters.

And Greece, which hosted the 2004 Olympics, has been stuck with abandoned Olympic venues and hard-to-convert housing.  The debt load no doubt exacerbated the current Greek Debt crises.   Lake Placid, New York, being so isolated, proposed to convert its Olympic dorms into a prison, an option that was met with much political protest.

To be sure, the smarter countries and cities planned Post-Olympic uses for their venues carefully.  Larger cities with nearby Universities could make use of dorm rooms and Olympic venues.  Stadiums can be used by professional athletic teams, unless, of course, as in the case of Montreal, the teams leaves.




5.  The Olympics are Homophobic:  The USOC was able to push through a special Trademark Law in the USA granting it exclusive rights to the word "Olympics" - even though the Trademark Office deemed the term generic.   Why did they do this?  To protect their lucrative marketing machine and ward off copy-cats?   Uh, no.  They did it because a few people got together one year and started a "Gay Olympics" and we couldn't have any of that!    After all, an event started in Ancient Greece couldn't have anything to do with Homosexuality (Frankly, I think they created the games, just so the fellows from Sparta could get a piece of Strange).   The USOC didn't go after anyone else - we still have a "Special Olympics" - just not a "Fabulous" Olympics.

But again, it illustrates how "The Olympics" has morphed into the International Money and Marketing Machine, which has more to do with making a few people rich, than in putting on an actual Olympic event - which should not require a lot of hoopla and payola.



6.  The Olympics are Expensive:   If you want to travel to the Olympics, find a place to stay, and buy tickets to the events, well good luck.   Because there are enough nutjobs out there who will pay stratospheric prices to see these events - and enough greedy landlords who will jack rates through the roof, to make it difficult, if not impossible, to go see them.

So, if you want to go, bring thousands and thousands of dollars, so you can see people do the pole vault and shot put.   I am sure you will find it highly worthwhile.


7.  The Olympics are Political:   Despite its origins as a non-political event, designed to draw people of all races, cultures, and countries together, the Olympics has been marred by politics, again and again.  In 1980, we boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow, because (now wait for this, it is precious) the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.   Doya think the Russians will boycott us this year?

But over the years, people have tried to use the Olympics as a platform for political statements, nationalistic programs, protests, intrigues, and even violence.

In point of fact, the modern Olympic era has been marked more by politics than anything else.   Even the vying for medals is totaled up, Nation by Nation, in an attempt to "prove" the superiority of one country over the other.   The era of friendly competition is over - if it ever existed.



9.  The Olympics are BORING:   It goes on for weeks, and most of the events are little-attended, until the finals.   Broadcasters realize this, and attempt to splice together highlights of events, which further strips them of context.   Since they are held in another time zone, you either have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning to watch them, or see an excerpted "highlighted" version the next day, after you've already read who won, in the morning's newspaper.

And of course, since the network who is broadcasting them paid Billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast them, you can be sure that a few minutes of Olympic gymnastics will be interrupted by five minutes of blaring ads for SUVs and McDonald's happy meals.

* * * 

So, you'll pardon me if I say "who gives a fuck?" about the Olympics.   I am not going to sign up for Cable Tee Vee so I can see someone I have never heard of, play a sport I have never heard of, and then root for my country while wearing a red, white, and blue t-shirt.  That sort of thing is faux patriotism at its worst.

And to do this, while lining the pockets of our Corporate Overlords, seems, well, sort of against my own best interests.   Feigning interest in the Olympics is just not for me, thanks.

How Old is Grandma?

Granny must be getting pretty senile at age 59, if she can't remember watching television in the 1950's.

A friend recently sent me a glurge entitled "How Old is Grandma?" about how great things were in Grandma's day, before we had these newfangled inventions like television, FM radio, and women's rights.   I had to chastise him about it, as it clearly was head-up-the-ass wrong on so many counts.  Granny, at age 59, certainly saw television and FM radio, as a youngster, or even the day she was born.   The world is not, in fact, a new and scary place.

The main point of the glurge was not that we have all this technological tomfoolery, but little subtle comments about marital relations, gay rights, women's rights, drug use, and other changes in our cultural outlook - or at least apparent changes.

Because, back in 1953 (or 1947, depending on which version you are reading - and there are many) not only did we have television and FM radio, but we had what was called a double standard with regard to sex.   If a men had sex before marriage, he was viewed as a man-about-town, a stud, or sophisticated and cunning.   The woman, on the other hand, was a slut, a whore, and the lowest of low-life, even if in fact, she was raped.

Ah, yes, the 1950's, where rapes went largely unreported, and if they were, the shame fell upon the woman involved, not the man.  And if she got pregnant?  She was shunned from polite society, and risked death in a back-alley abortion.  And hey, if she hemorrhaged to death, she had it coming, right?  I mean, the bitch was a slut, right?

Yea, Grandma don't talk about that.   You see, women were still basically property back then.   You graduated from high school and tried to find a good man to marry - and not get raped in the interim.   And if the man you married beat the crap out of you, well, you were supposed to be a "good wife" and understand why he was so angry.

Yea, Granny don't talk about that, either.

Of course, it was possible to get a job and live your own life, although even getting into college for women was difficult, unless you went to a "women's college" - which were mostly finishing schools for girls, to help them find suitable husbands.   Things like Medicine, Engineering, or Law were pretty much out of the question, although a brave few dared to try - and were castigated for their efforts.

Jobs were available in "traditional" women's roles - Secretary, Nurse, Teacher - where you could expect to make 50 cents on the dollar (if that) of what a man made.

Yea, the good old days.  They sucked - for women, at least.

And Grandma failed to mention how great it was for Blacks in the "good old days".   While the last documented lynching in the South occurred in 1946, discrimination, segregation, and violence and murder of black men and women (as well as white civil rights workers) continued for another two decades.  Ahhh!  If we could only go back to those simpler times and no have to worry about setting the clock on our VCR to know what time the lynchin' is at.

And Granny is quite proud of being born before we had high-falutin' medicines like penicillin and polio vaccines!   Well, not exactly - Granny is lying again, as these existed before she was born.    But again, the good old days were pretty crappy, and Granny is going to live perhaps 20 years longer than her parents, and maybe 40 years longer than her Grandparents, thanks to modern medicine, which is paid for through Medicare, which in turn is paid for by those whipper-snapper young people, with their earrings, gay rights, and newfangled computers.

And perhaps Grandma forgot, that if she was born in 1947 (or 1953, the age depends on how old the glurge is) that she was in her teens in the early 1960's, and likely was part of the generation that slept together before marriage - and even used (gasp!) birth control.

And no, she did not listen to Jack Benny and Big Band music, if she is 58 or 59 years old.  Likely she listened to Elvis as a kid, perhaps the Beatles as a teenager, and maybe went to Woodstock and smoked that "pot" she now grouses about.

No, the world did not go to hell in a handbasket in the last 50 years.  But that is the narrative they want to sell you in this glurge - that all the bad things in this country occurred recently, and if we could only "go back to the good old days" we would live in a simpler, better world.

But life isn't that simple.   My Grandmother, who was born near the turn of the Century (the one before last, not 1999!) was a "flapper" during the roaring 20's.  She scandalized her Lutheran parents by going to speakeasies in nearby New York City, and even riding around with boys in their cars - the automobile being one of those "newfangled" inventions, like the Victorola and the Telephone.

In fact, you could write the same glurge, 50 years ago, and say that such-and-such a thing hadn't been invented or wasn't around when "Grandma" was born.   After all, we didn't have Gangsters and Bootleggers in 1900!   And certainly not the promiscuous sex that was touted in pre-Hayes code movies.

You see, people have been saying the world is going to hell in a handbasket for so long, you have to wonder why it is taking so long.   In reality, the world isn't doing too badly, and in fact, things are better today that they have been - ever, ever.   We are healthier and wealthier and live longer and have access to things our ancestors would never even dream about.

The best of times, are indeed, now.

And how do I know this?   Because I am 52 years old, only a few years younger than the "Grandma" posited in the glurge.

And I suppose I could write a similar, stupid glurge about all the "newfangled changes" that have occurred since my brief time on this planet - the Internet, iPods, Cable television, gay marriage, whatever.

But what would be the point?

I learned to program FORTRAN on punch cards on an IBM Mainframe.  Yes, the world has changed much since those days.   But compared to 1900, the punch card machine was quite an advance as well.  Get over it, Grandma!

The Dollar Store, Revisited

Are Dollar Stores good bargains?  Alas, not really.

In a previous posting, I mentioned that I checked out our local Dollar Store.   I was not overwhelmed with any "bargains" in there, but thought I would give it a try and see what the fuss was all about.

My skepticism about Dollar Stores is that they are usually located in depressed areas - either in the city or country - and are geared toward poor people.   The poor are offered the shittiest deals on the planet - and they bite on them, which is why they are poor.   So, it seemed to me that these Dollar Stores were going to be a bad bargain from the get-go, just by definition.   Any bargain aimed at the poor is usually a poor bargain.   That's another quotable quote!

Payday loans, pawn shops, buy-here-pay-here used cars, check cashing stores, title pawn loans, and rent-to-own furniture (or bling rim) stores all flourish in poor neighborhoods - and they are all horribly rotten bargains.    But even the "legitimate" businesses in poor neighborhoods are crappy bargains - overpriced goods, usually of a lesser quality.

In the ghetto, or impoverished rural areas, you see things like used tire stores, used appliance stores, lots of convenience stores, liquor stores with bars on the windows (selling everything in pints), and of course, fast-food restaurants.   These are not "scam" businesses, just bad bargains.   And I have written about most of these, before.  They are just poor bargains.

Down the street from the crappy liquor store, is a good liquor store, selling quality booze by the quart for what the ghetto store charges for a pint.   For the cost of two or three sets of used tires (including mounting) you can buy a new set that will last twice as long as the used sets, combined.  Used appliances can be a good bargain - if fairly new and bought from a neighbor.   But used appliance stores sell clapped out junk for not a lot less than the big-box store charges for new.  Convenience stores are convenient, but charge 3-5 times as much for basic grocery items.  And fast food?  Just overpriced poison.

One way to get ahead in life is to stop thinking poor and not patronizing these sorts of places.   And since most people have cars there is no need to patronize such places.  But many poor folks make poor choices, which makes them poor.   Getting ahead, for many people, means only to stop making poor choices - in both senses of the word.

So what about the Dollar Stores?   Well, to begin with, they are not all alike.   There are Dollar Stores, Family Dollars, Thrifty Dollar, Dollar General, and even stores that don't have the word "dollar" in them.  Some of them charge a dollar for everything, others do not.

The traditional "Dollar Store" owes its heritage to the old "Five and Dime" store, where everything was five or ten-cents.   And yes, we had these when I was a kid.   The name lives on in our lexicon, as in "dime-store novelty" or "cheap dime-store merchandise."

In a traditional Dollar Store, everything is a dollar.   Everything.   But of course, as inflation marches on, over time, this will be harder and harder to do, without cheapening everything too much - and explains why the "dime-stores" went bust.  Most of the stuff sold in Dollar Stores is made in China or India, but since labor costs are rising in those countries (as their standard of living rises) it is getting harder and harder to sell things at a dollar.   So, I expect that you will see Dollar Stores morph into "Two Dollar Stores" sometime soon, perhaps.

In these types of stores, since everything is a Dollar, they don't carry a lot of large merchandise.   If you want to buy laundry soap or dishwasher soap, it comes in a pretty small bottle.    And speaking of which, their soaps are a mixed bag.   Anti-bacterial hand soap and shower soap seem like a pretty good deal at a dollar-a-bottle (compared to $2.50 at the Grocery Store next door).   However, if you buy the jumbo-sized bottle of Berkley & Jensen anti-bacterial hand soap at BJ's Wholesale, it is about $1.50 a quart.  So there is no great savings there.

The laundry soap seems a little watered down, too.  And I received similar complaints about the bleach.  Frankly, I suspect that the packaging cost more than the contents, in any event.   With such small bottles, you have to buy lot of them, or go back every day.   The jumbo two-gallon container of Arm & Hammer laundry detergent, from the wholesale club is, I think, a better bet.

If you are traveling or camping and need a "travel size" thing of soap, however, the Dollar Store has your back.

Paper goods are not bad bargains, and I have bought napkins and paper towels there.  A standard sized roll of paper towels is a buck.   Next door, at the grocery, six rolls are $5.99.   This is a tie.  The wholesale club has 15 rolls for $14.50, which is a very slightly better deal.  The paper towel industry seems to like this buck-a-roll pricing, as it seems to be ubiquitous - and hard to beat.  No one, it seems, is selling paper towels at 50 cents a roll.

If you are having a party, they have a lot of "fun" party decorations and accessories, all for a buck each.   This month, they are running a Tiki theme.   But to buy all the stuff for the party, you could easily spend $20 to $40, buck pricing or not.

What about FOOD?   I was skeptical about this at first - buying food at a dollar store?  A sure recipe for salmonella, right?   I bought some pickles and olives, and they were OK - although you could bet for damn sure I made sure the lids "popped" when I opened them.   They were made in India, which is very weird to me (talk about not buying local!) and were, well, BLAND.   The Grocery store next door might charge more, but you can get a Kosher dill in a jar with a ton of minced garlic in the bottom.  Or olives stuffed with jalapeno peppers, cheese, onions, pimentos, or whatever.   The pitted olives in the dollar store were stuffed with nothing.  I guess the pimento is their profit margin.

Crackers seemed like a safe bet, and they were "OK" I guess, although one "flavored" version had a ton of artificial flavors on it.  For a buck, not bad.   But for 50 cents more, I would rather have Wal Mart "woven squares" crackers, which are their version of the Triscuit, which is actually better than the Triscuit but sometimes maddeningly hard to find at a Wal-Mart.  So, again, the Dollar Store does "OK" but provides no compelling reason to shop there.

Overall?  I'd say if you don't go to the Dollar Store, you ain't missing much.

Now, the other kind of "Dollar Stores" are these ones that just sell things at prices that are not a dollar.  And often, the prices are no bargains.   At a recent stop in Jacksonville Beach, we went to a really nice Thai restaurant in a strip-mall.  Next door was a "Dollar Whatever" or something, and we thought we would poke our head in.

We got in the door and saw that they were selling Barefoot Pino Grigio for $12 for the large bottle and $6.50 for the small one.  A friend of ours drinks this, so we stock it at our bar, and we know the price for it.   And twelve bucks a bottle is at least 50% higher than most other outlets.   No bargains here.

What was weird, was that the display for the wine had a big sign that said, "Check out these low prices!" when in fact the price was not low.   Again, the poor making poor choices.   You might assume that since it is a "Dollar Whatever" store that the prices are the lowest.   You would assume wrongly.

Wal-Mart is the same way - "Always the low price, except on the promotional items we hope you impulse purchase!"   If you go to Wal-Mart, bring a shopping list and stick to it.   The stuff in the centers and end caps of the aisles is usually not a very good bargain.   But many folks impulse-buy things and end up paying more than they should, as they just "Assume" that since it is Wal-Mart, it must be a good price.   Not always.

Speaking of impulse purchases, the Dollar Store I went to has a number of impulse items stacked on the end of the conveyor belt at checkout.   When you checkout, the clerk asks you if you want to add a candy bar, roll of paper towels, toilet paper, bleach, water, or whatever.   It is an interesting marketing ploy, and the girl running the register told me the management does it to "get the average ticket up".   They make money in volume sales, so if someone comes in and spends a dollar, they probably lose money just on the plastic bag and the cost of printing the receipt.

I also noticed that a lot of people do impulse shop there and just pick things at random off the shelves.  It is tempting.  Say, a set of wine glasses!  Only a dollar each!  Let's get some!   Oh, wait, maybe we don't need a set of wine glasses.   Well, if we did, it would be a nice deal.  Wouldn't it?  Oh, wait, we did buy our present set at the Syracuse China factory sale for 50 cents each.    Maybe not such a good deal.

I know some of you are big fans of these stores.  All I can say is, do the math.  Right?   Because if what you are buying is the same price - or more - that elsewhere, then it is no bargain.   And if the quality is not up to snuff, it is no bargain.   And you end up impulse-buying things on the premise that it is "only a dollar" then it is no bargain, either.

My general take on it is this:  Dollar Stores are a mediocre bargain at best, aimed at the poor.  They are no screaming bargain, and if you don't go, you ain't missing much.

Liveworld and Grooming on the Internet

Liveworld will groom your company's image on Facebook.

I mentioned before that a lot of what you think is spontaneous content on the Internet is, in fact, carefully groomed.  We can no longer trust social media, chat rooms, discussion boards, or indeed, even blogs.

Why is this?  Because you have no way of knowing whether "Stacy" really "Likes!" the new Batman movie, or whether Stacy is in fact a 'bot programed by an agency hired by the studio (or is a low-paid professional troll) who crawls the 'net, looking for mention of the new Batman movie, and then posting positive comments about it.

And if the Stacy-bot or Stacy-troll finds that someone is criticizing it, then they will ridicule that person with withering sarcasm, or nit-pick their arguments ("You are full of baloney!  You said the movie was two hours of explosions and awkward dialog, when in fact the run time is actually 1 hours, 53 minutes.  If you can't get your basic facts straight, how can we believe anything you say?").

Other companies will more directly groom your company's image, on your Facebook or other page.  Liveworld is one of these, offering services with oblique names such as "Curation":

LiveWorld moderators provide the human touch by examining each piece of user content that comes into brand venues or posts to external venues across the web. From the vast amount of content posted every day, moderators can categorize the best, the worst, or any other category of activity that brands specify (e.g., product- or brand-specific, customer service, items for featuring, etc.). Such curation makes sense of the massive volume of customer input, and, with further analysis, provides brands with actionable insight based on the roll-up.

Whether dealing with material aggregated by our LiveWorld Curator tool, or user posts coming directly from the Facebook Wall or other community venues, moderators can tag individual items via our Advanced Power Moderation tools, selecting tags based on brand guidelines for content characterization. The tool then generates a specific insight tagging report that provides the basis for further analysis and insight.

If you look at their website, it is an interesting read, as it uses a lot of the happy-talk and mumbo-jumbo we used to hear during the dot-com boom.  These folks seem to speak another language - sort of a passive-aggressive form of English, where they say a lot, without actually saying anything at all.

It is, needless to say, bizarre.   We create these social media sites and online forums, and then companies spoof them - or pay someone to spoof them - so they their reputation appears better than it is.

Another such company, Reputation.com, advertises heavily on NPR.   Reputation.com is directed towards individual people, and capitalizes on the age-old worry people have had since Junior High School - "what are people saying about me behind my back?"

Reputation, like Angie's List (also a big NPR advertiser) seems to be selling a load of horse shit, frankly:

Take control of your online reputation and own your search engine results with MyReputation. For as little as $11/month, you can ensure search results display the information you want others to see when searching for you on Google and other major search engines. Pick from three packages! 

In addition, they offer:

Gain added protection from credit fraudsters, Internet stalkers, identity thieves, and nosy neighbors! MyPrivacy ensures your security and privacy. It's the Global Do Not Call List! 

 Pay a monthly fee for getting on a Do Not Call registry?   Give me a break!

The problem for all of these Internet "groomers" is that they are facing a daunting battle, particularly if you are trying to tamp down celebrity photos or groom the image of a truely bad company:

The company received publicity in the United States when it managed to remove death photographs of Nikki Catsouras from about 300 of some 400 Internet sites hosting them. The photos spread to new sites, and Fertik acknowledged their removal as "a virtually unwinnable battle".

(I saw those photos, and man, was she a mess - hit a toll both with a Porsche at 100 mph - usually only Paramedics have to see nightmares like that).

So maybe it is a tempest in a teapot.  They can troll and bot all they want.  They can groom and "curate" until the cows come home.   If you have a good company, you don't have to worry much - in the long haul.   But trying to suppress information on the Internet is nearly impossible to do, as the Catsouras photo case illustrates - and the idea that a company can fool all of us, all of the time, is just not workable.

HereUare, Inc. and the JOBS Act.

Under the JOBS act, "crowd funding" will be legal, and getting kickstart money for projects like the Grilled Cheesus sandwich maker will be a lot easier.   Is this a good or bad thing?

Under the recently passed JOBS act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) folks will be able to more easily sell securities in startup companies without having to jump through a lot of hoops with the SEC and get officially "listed" on an exchange.

Is this a good thing?  Of course not.   It is horrible.   In an era when the excesses of the snake-oil salesmen and the carnival barkers have caused millions of people to lose Billions of dollars, collectively, the last thing we need is less regulation.

And HereUare, Inc. is an interesting example of this effect.   When you search for "Facebook Stock Price" on Yahoo! Finance, HereUare, Inc. pops up as a "related company" with a stock price of ZERO trading in the over-the-counter "pink slips" market.

What is  HereUare, Inc.?   Probably a bad bet, as they appear to be selling securities illegally, at least according to this Desist and Refrain Order from the California Department of Corporations, and haven't filed an annual report since 2010, according to this Administrative Proceeding at the SEC which effectively de-listed the security.  And some folks claim the whole thing is a scam, sold mostly to Vietnamese immigrants, hoping to strike it rich.  Another notes that he is being charged with Fraud by claiming to have created "the Next Google."

But under the JOBS act, such "formalities" are a thing of the past.   You can sell stakes in a new startup through something called "Crowd Funding".   Crowd Funding (or Crowdfunding) started off as a way for fans of obscure rock groups to band together to fund tours and even albums.   It is a startling breakthrough in that regard.

People have taken this a step further, for entrepreneurs, at sites such as KickStarter, which I wrote about before.

This technique is interesting, but it also raises concerns.   Since the amounts raised are usually fairly small, most "investors" in these deals would walk away if their money was taken and nothing given in return.   So they are ripe for fraud, as you could go on a site, create a fake business model, solicit $25,000 to $100,000 in donations, and then walk off.   Unlike a traditional stock offering or even a Subchapter-S corporation, there are few checks and balances.

But then again, with fraud rampant in traditional markets, maybe those checks and balances are illusory.  While HereUare was eventually shut down by the SEC, the investors never got their money back - nearly $8 million overall.   Where the money went, is anyone's guess.   It is incumbent on the investor not to fall for such schemes.

The JOBS act does away with what few checks and balances exist.   The SEC has 270 days from the implementation of the act, to set up Crowdfunding and select an entity to host this activity on the Internet.

From one perspective, this may be considered a good thing, as it allows sites like KickStarter to operate without fear of running afoul of Securities laws (although if Kickstarter is not chosen as the "official" site by the SEC, it may fade away rather quickly).  Crowdfunding advocates surely will welcome this.

And it is possible, with Crowdfunding "legalized" it may be possible to monitor it and weed out the fraudsters - if the SEC has a budget for oversight.   As the HereUare example illustrates, though, even when they take action and "take out" a company accused of fraud, they can do little but stop trading in the company, once the money has already changed hands.   They close the barn door, after the horse has bolted.

But on the other hand, it also means that companies like HereUare needn't worry about things like the State Corporation Commission or the SEC, if they want to raise capital.   And this could result in a number of bad bets being hyped to investors - all under the rubric of "Crowdfunding".

But again, as with anything else - from onerous credit card debt, to car leasing, to student loans, to the Facebook IPO, to condos in Vegas, to Gold, you can't get "ripped off" if you don't sign up.

And people fall into these traps based on dreams of avarice - they want to strike it rich, or have a fancy car, or whatever.   And it usually goes horribly wrong, too.

With crowdfunding, it doesn't appear you would end up losing your shirt - unless of course, you decided to go and fund every single thing out there and spend your every last dime.   A more serious threat, I think, is that people will "invest" trivial amounts of money, as long-shot "what if" investments - like buying lottery tickets.   Like the guy who bought $500 of Facebook at $40 a share, they will figure, "Well, what have I got to lose?  It's just $500, and you never know!"  

But this is akin to setting $500 on fire and saying, "Well, what have I got to lose?  And you never know!"

It makes no sense at all.   And that is my concern with Crowdfunding - a lot of people will toss away money, then later complain they are broke, and that I should pay them, through my taxes, to fund their wasteful lifestyle.

It's Somebody's Fault. It's Nobody's Fault.

For the price of Facebook, you could buy the entire Ford Motor Company, nearly three times over.  Ford produces profits at nearly 50% of share price, while Facebook is at 0.5%.   Which stock is Wall Street drooling over, and which is in the tank?   Funny how that works.

The idiot media is at it again.   They spend months - years - selling us on the idea that Facebook was the greatest thing since water was invented.   They presumed we would have already forgotten about their similar pronouncements about Gold, Housing, MySpace, Second Life, AOL, Housing, Gold, and so on, all the way back to the days of the Railroad stock hype of the 1800's.

So, the marketplace, in a rare act of rationality, took one look at the Facebook IPO and said, "No Thanks!" and Morgan Stanley, already in hot water for losing three Billion dollars in a "botched" hedging scheme (hedging - a word people like to toss about without knowing what it means) is now on the hook for more Billions, as it bought up Facebook stock in a desperate attempt to prop up the price.

What does the idiot media take away from this?  That perhaps investors are looking for real value and security instead of speculative, casino-like investments?

No, that would be too easy.

Instead, the narrative is told to us like a Fox News Talking Point, that there was nothing wrong with the Facebook IPO per se, other than the NASDAQ and Morgan Stanley "botched" it ("botched" being another word of the hour, look for it to pop up soon, as in "Budget Negotiations Botched" or "America's Idol Judging Botched".   The idiot media finds a word it likes and throws away its Thesaurus).

But no one seems to be talking about the elephant in the room.   And that elephant is the basic value of the company - which was hyped to the point where its market cap exceeded that of many "real" companies with real products and profits.   At $104B Market Cap, the Facebook cheerleaders are saying that this company, which makes about 6/10ths of a Billion in profits (or did, until recently) is three times more valuable than Ford Motor Company.

(Ford, by the way, has a P/E ratio of 2.16, earnings per share of $4.71, and a share price of a little over $10.   And today, their bond rating was just upgraded from "junk" to AAA.   Funny thing, ain't it?  A company that has physical factories, hundreds of thousands of employees, and makes nearly 50% of its share price in profits, struggles to get a good bond rating, while some website run by an overgrown teenager is deemed to be worth three times as much.)

And maybe, just maybe, other people have noticed this as well.   Investing in companies that pay regular dividends (Ford cranks out 2%, not stellar, but better than what my bank is offering) just might be a better deal that speculating in a hyped stock that has no profits and nowhere to go.

Maybe that is the answer?   Naaaah!  It has to be that someone "botched" an otherwise perfectly good deal!  Because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Facebook, right?  They have 900 million active users!   Or do they?  How many of those "active" users are truly active?

The narrative we are being sold is that Facebook is still a good deal, and it would have sold, but for trading glitches on its first day, and if Morgan Stanley hadn't priced it wrong.   Both of these arguments are bullshit - utter bullshit.   Why?  Because the market determines prices, not Morgan Stanley.   Yes, you can try to manipulate and hype stocks, and in the short-term you can spike a stock price.   But the key to stock price manipulation is that you have to be subtle about it, and with the four-year buildup to the Facebook IPO, all subtlety was lost.

This delay gave everyone time to think long and hard about the last "dot com" bubble and how much money they lost on that.   Moreover, many folks are still "upside-down" on their houses, and remember, every month, when they make their mortgage payment, how foolish it is to invest in over-valued things.

And with gold loosing its allure, people are wondering whether they were sold a bill of goods there as well (No, couldn't possibly be!  The Odious Glenn Beck and "Gee, Gordan Liddy(?)" would deceive us?  Never!).

In fact, the Facebook Face-Plant seems to be a refreshing indication that perhaps the market is maturing and that people are "growing up" about investing.    After losing so much being hyped by these speculative deals, most folks are realizing that trying to "strike it rich" is about the only sure-fire way to go broke.

Of course, there are Raging True Believers out there - or are there?   You go on some of these financial discussion boards, and it seems that everyone is trying to out-troll the other fellow.   Everyone is hyping a stock, or gold, or something, and is probably being paid to do it.   There are few people on such boards that are actually real users - the rest are paid professionals. 

And just maybe, people are turning away from the financial channels and the shouting guy and the guys in clown suits (who lately have all the charm of a carnival barker).

No, the Facebook IPO was not "botched".   In fact, it went perfectly.   They went on the NASDAQ and offered a steaming pile of dog shit for sale, and the market said a resounding "No Thanks!"   Morgan Stanley didn't "overprice" the offering - at least not by a little bit, but by a lot.  The stock just wasn't worth anywhere near $38 a share.   And I suspect it will slide lower than $31 a share, as more and more insiders start to cash out in the coming weeks.  According to one report, 57% of the stock sold on the first day was sold by insiders cashing out.   Clearly, they think the stock has a future, right?

Rationalism triumphs over Hype.    We should not be worried about this, or trying to lay blame.  We should all be breathing a sigh of relief.

Because let's face it - it doesn't happen often!

Keyword SPAMMING Facebook and Google

Would it be possible to keyword SPAM Facebook and Google?  Why Not?

One way to throw a wrench in the keyword-grabbing algorithms that Google and Facebook use, would be to find some way to Keyword SPAM them.  It would only be fitting justice, as this technique is inflicted on us, often enough.

What is keyword SPAMMING?  Well, for example, on an internet site, a Craigslist ad, or even an eBay listing, people put words that might not be relevant to the listing, but will capture their listing if you search for something else.

So, for example, you are searching for Volvo parts on Craigslist, and you type in "VOLVO" under parts, and this ad for an Acura part comes up.  WTF?  When you open the ad, you see, at the bottom of the page, a list of nearly every car ever made over time:

"Acura Integra Honda Civic Integra DC2 BMW E36 E46 E39 325 323 238 528 M3 Z3 Volvo S40 V50 T5 Ford Contour Focus SV......."

It is just SPAM - Keyword SPAM, to defeat search engines by turning up their ad, no matter what make or model car you search on.

Now, it occurred to me that you could use this annoying trick on Facebook or Google as well.  Just use a macro to type in a long string of meaningless words, or words designed to link you to certain advertisers.  Heck, take the entire contents of the dictionary and enter it.  You could write a script to do it, I'd bet.  Once a day, go on Google, and enter this string in the search engine, and then watch the fun begin.

The Google computers will melt down, trying to decide whether you are interested in Rolex Watches, Car Insurance, a New Camaro, or some Perpetual Motion Motor.   If you put enough keywords in there, it won't be able to parse them significantly, and be able to figure out what it really is you are interest in, as it will appear you are interested in everything.

I think this is a swell idea, and in fact, a patriotic duty.  I just need to work on the details some more.