Screwball

The math check out. Thanks.

I wish I could find the Tweet, but is was along the lines of; this is one way to do it We were just talking about exacty this. It's all about the bottom line.

You mention P/E ratio. I haven't looked at that in years. Go to Finviz and spin up a query for P/E by market cap, or whatever other criteria suits you. Those numbers are off the charts. P/Es have been way out of whack since they started flooding the market with money to make Wall Street rich. I don't doubt TSLA might be a good short (depending on timing of course (which is why we have charts)) because they are out to get him. The big auto companies want to eliminate competition, IMO, and he's one of them. I remember the days when things like P/E mattered much more than it does now. This ain't grampa's market. Which is why I stick with bonds (but a position in energy because...) and shake my head at what all this has become.

This is off topic. I tried to find a general thread to put it in but couldn't find one. Simple question. I'm using this for my class as school. Question; what is the diameter of the cork in the center of a baseball? I have searched, but can't find that information, and I don't have one to cut apart. Thanks in advance.

He's a love/hate guy for sure. My two oldest boys played basketball (Michigan fans) and wanted to play for him. Maybe they thought it would be easy after me. 🙂 If I needed to win one game, he would be my guy.

Of all the things Bobby Knight has done, this is the cherry on top;

Should we call our broker in the morning and short the piss out of this?

LNG tankers idle off Europe’s coast as traders wait for gas price rise - FT

Well that's nice, except for the 130,000 who got the "dead" version.

The age discrimination lines were in bold black letters right on the front page where you couldn't miss them. In other paperwork it gave all the job classifications (all mid level salary people), the ages who were laid off, and the ages of those who stayed. It wasn't even close. I was shocked they did such a thing to give us that much evidence, but I was told by the lawyer is was required by law, which shocked me too. A few years later I ran into a guy who I worked with there. By then he was gone too, along with everyone else I asked about. All gone. The guy who was the liaison between our facility and the Mothership, the same guy who walked me out - was gone too. Any job that could be replaced with a foreign partner was sent there (China, India), and if they needed a body locally, it was a H1B holder and foreigner. Funny though, I could have gave one good fuck about their rule about who I could go to work for. Within 6 months I was working for a much smaller place designing machines and equipment for...the same damn company. Just a different division of that company. So they were kind of paying me after all.

Here's how it works, from experience I talked about above (big companies). They whack 113 people across the company. You get a "separation agreement" of about 20 pages. Spells out your buyout, insurance coverage, for how long, then the alternatives. And whatever severance they decide to give you. Then the bold and small print. By law, they must include a breakdown of who were eliminated, who stayed, and their ages. It wasn't even close - all the old people were gone. Imagine that! Bold print tells us we can't sue the company for age discrimination, or waive this offer. It was so obvious they wanted to rid themselves of us old people. I was one of 6 in my discipline, and the youngest at 59. I read another where 4 got whacked and the youngest was 62. It was obvious. Then you were told you couldn't work for a "competitive" company due to non-disclosure agreements for a year. And you had 45 days to sign it. Or not. My better half worked in a law firm who had an attorney who did corporate law. He looked it over, wrote notes, told me what to try. He said this is nothing but cutting us old poops. Of course. I tried to bargain - they quickly told me to pound sand. LOL! I expected that, but why not. It was fun dicking with them. We are nothing but a number in a process mapped out to shovel money to the top. But you know that going in.

Who said it stopped? CDC Covid Tracker The latest data point, November 2nd, there were 2,504 weekly deaths, which works out to about 358 per day, or 130, 000 per year. To some, I guess that's good enough to call it over.

That's good to know, and thanks. I'm retired and teach school for beer money. I've been highly invested in this pandemic for obvious reasons. Some things about it drive me nuts.

Yes it is. If nothing else, this guy is a hoot. He might lose his ass being one as well.

Carried interest is only a small part of the problem, which is why they talk about it. Money magician shit, with a dose of propaganda via the usual subjects.

Hold on here. What are you saying? You seem to be quoting me, since I said exactly that. Do you think I really want to see that? Come on. People wished other people dead for not getting the shots, like the lock downs, etc. It was said right here on this board. Pardon me if I'm not quite ready to be good with people who wished me dead, which was the thesis of the Atlantic article. The real travesty is so many people who died unnecessarily. This country has went insane.

Private equity is like piranha. I live in a small town in rural Ohio. Back in the late 90s, I think it was, our largest employer was taken over by a private equity firm (Bain Capital). They employed hundreds of people, who made a good living, and had for years. I know many that worked there, and these people helped support so many other places in town. Things were good for them, and the places they spent money. Once Bain took over, it all changed (this was also a union plant). One good friend of mine walked into work one day, expecting to go to his normal 20+ dollar an hour job (good money back then for general labor) but was told you now work on the shipping dock. Oh, and you now only make $9/hr. Thanks! This happened to many that worked there. Then they got screwed out of pension money, and some even lost it altogether. Bain got them deeper in debt, broke the company into pieces they could sell off, then moved what manufacturing that was left and the jobs to Mexico. Within two years it was all gone, now sitting as blight on the edge of town. Our population has decreased by maybe 10 percent since then. Some of the businesses that relied on the spending of these workers have closed as well. And of course the city itself has lost tons in tax revenue. But Bain made a shitload of money, the shareholders of this company made money. The workers got fucked, as well as the city and many small businesses. This is NOT a single example - this happens all over the country, has been, and will continue. Funny, when Mitt Romney ran for President, he was in the area campaigning, but avoided our town. Good thing - they would have strung his ass up - I have no doubt. These people were pissed, bitter, and wanted revenge. I can't say I blame them - even with their union - they were treated like shit.

It took me a while to find it, but I made this image a few days after I was retired (along with 113 other people in 2016). I worked at the Findlay facility. Until you have worked at one of the behemoths, deal with the budgetary demands, it's hard to imagine how bottom line focused they are.

Good for you, but publicly traded companies don't think that way. It's all about the bottom line. Period. It's just the way it is.

I watched the entire video - he is spot on. There are plenty of tragedies about the pandemic. At the top of the list is the hundreds and thousands of people who died unnecessarily when a cheap, safe, and widely available repurposed drug was available. The second is, all the people involved in this will never be punished for what they did (or in this case, didn't do). As far as amnesty. Hardly. I will never forget, nor will I forgive.

Strange ain't it? I can't count the times a company laid off a bunch of people and their stock price shot up on the announcement. People cheering and getting wealthy on the misfortunes of others. Sick fucking world we live in.

It has collapsed everywhere. You should get out more. I drove from the Cornhole area (about an hour on a good day) to Bennett Rd. in Toledo starting in 1987. Had to deal with the 280 bridge - what fun - Mad Max stuff. I worked at a Spicer transmission plant on Bennett Rd. At one time, 5000 people worked there, but even by 1987, when I started, they had been moving the jobs elsewhere (union jobs). Arkansas and Mexico to start. NAFTA was passed in 94/95ish, and what was left of our facility disappeared within a few years. It is now a warehouse, but a big one. Looks mostly empty last time I went by. It was once a mini-city. Clarence Spicer patented the automotive u-joint in 1903; one of the greatest inventions of our time, IMO. Spicer, later became a division of Dana Corp, which got the name from a politician named as such (and funding). At one time they were a fortune 100 company. Not sure where they rank now. When I was there, we were the largest OEM automotive supplier in the world, and the industry leader in gear making, but they made all kinds of other stuff as well. Starting back then, and until I retired (not from there - they were gone), I watched the transition from making shit here (US) to sending every fucking thing possible to some third world shithole because of slave labor and environmental benefits for one thing - the bottom line. I was a part of that, and I'm not proud of it. I had to eat, and feed 5 other people. It doesn't matter if it is gears, u-joints, toasters, tires, tables, clothes, or even our food. The "bottom line" is all that matters in today's world. Wall Street's next quarterly report. Until it don't. Shit's getting real around the world. Start with supply chains... I spent countless hours in corporate obedience training classes to figure out how to squeeze another 2 seconds from a process that produces one of our daily pleasures. Some corporate buzzwords called it "process mapping." Some worker is expected to perform a task every 15 seconds as the product goes down the assembly line. 15 seconds isn't good enough, do it in 13. Eliminate 3 screws, that's a process we don't need. One worker (one screw) a shift, 3 shifts, 3 people can be eliminated (or moved - ha ha). Training class; 25 people in a room, with 3 instructors, spent 4 hours playing "Mousetrap" (the game) for 4 hours - then another 4 in the afternoon analyzing it. Deming would be proud. All about eliminating cost - and the easiest way to do so is jobs. Your job becomes eliminating jobs, which might be people in your own family, your neighbor, a friend, or a friends friend. We are living in a house of cards, both materially, and financially. Within the next year or two, millions of Americans will experience a life changing event they will have no clue how to deal with. It won't be pretty. Plan accordingly. How's that for your Debbie Downer post of the night? LOL!

Refineries are nasty dirty awful places. Not far from there, close to Tony Packos is the shipyards. The big boats come from the lake up the river, dock in one of the "docks" for lack of a better word. They close some doors, pump the water out (fish, bunches of fish), then weld new sides and bottoms to the ship. Incredible operation. They have huge bundles of railroad ties to plane the bottom of the ship once the water goes out. They have cranes on both sides of the dock and lower 10 X 40 plates of 1 inch thick steel down in this huge hole. Once lowered, the workers use block and tackle to put them in place. 24/7/365. I knew a guy who worked there. He got me in a gave me a tour. In the winter they used oxy/acetylene torches to heat a small place inside the boat to keep warm. It looks like 1850. But it needs to happen, or they don't run. At the other end of town is what used to be The Andersons. Not sure what they are now, but was a huge port for a place like Toledo.

Disclosure; I know nothing of these people. The book Mein Kampf should be required reading before graduating from high school. There is much to be learned from that book.

Until the next time they fuck something up while making record profits.