2016 Spring May 10 Tuesday

58 degrees this morning, walk 30:44 minutes.  

Did a “getting started again” walk this morning.  Overall, not bad, maybe still a little early. However, I’ll miss tomorrow and I wanted to see the effects of a short walk.

Read a newsletter yesterday that had some thoughtful ideas and concepts.  Of course, these area all my interpretations and others may differ.

One was that the separation of liability and ownership.  When I thought about it, the results are obvious.  Some people will be ethical no matter what others will only “do the right thing” only if there are negative consequences for not doing the right thing.  

Unfortunately right now there appear to be an overabundance of the second type and the complete lack of consequences (and huge reward and lack of consequences  for what is basically a con job) are evidence of this.  

As the author mentions, if you have a grizzly bear as a pet and it kills someone, this theory is that your only liability is the cost of the grizzly bear.  

I think that attitude is much of the problem that anything, ethical or not, for the “good of the shareholders” has no real downside, since they have no consequences for unethical behavior.  

When I see (as I have mentioned before), some so called “private equity” companies buy a company, load it up with debt, declare a huge dividend and then bankrupt it, they belong in prison, not in the penthouse. 

Apparently the only reason such behavior is allowed is everyone from the banks (with huge fees which are unsupported) to the politicians (with huge political contributions) gets their palm greased.  

May 10, which means warm weather for the season is almost here!  

I love the Summer, inlacing the long days, the heat and just the general atmosphere of Summer.  

As i have mentioned before, this is a Presidential Campaign which will be written about and examined for a long time. And the actual campaign is just starting!  I

The Newsletter I referred to above makes some comments about the Presidential Campaign that I  feel are reasonably correct.

First, whomever is elected is bound to do something unexpected, probably some complete reversal of a campaign promise.  It happens almost every time!

Second, the fact the the President won’t or can’t do what is promised (due to a variety of circumstances including a standing bureaucracy) will cause some supporters to be disappointed and turn against the President! 

With the high expectations of the President, someone if bound to be disappointed, if nothing else because some of the expectations are in conflict!

This may not be a correct interpretation of what he wrote, but generally I think his theory is one theory of why the stock market frequently goes down after a Presidential campaign.   People always expect more than is actually delivered or their interpretation of what was going to happen differs from reality.  

That’s it for now, Tuesday, May 10, 2016.