In Search of the Perfect Investment

My successful friend says the stockmarket is a gigantic casino.  He prefers broken companies he can repair. He’s doing the rounds of the VCs, banks and friends looking for his next venture. He’s made a career of fixing semi-busted companies and selling them fixed. He prefers broken ones to startups, since broken one have revenue and customers. Close something down. Go for new distribution. Fire the idiots. Outsource the manufacture.

He tells me new management will do what old management often won’t — for whatever reason.

The key is owning enough of the company to get the boss to listen and change. My friend says being a board member is critical.

Write this on your wall:

People don’t listen.

They have to be made to listen.

I once made twenty times my money when I became chairman of the company.

Every evening, I’d telephone the president and we’d discuss what he planned to do the following day, what he hoped to accomplish in each meeting. The president had much enthusiasm, but little intelligence.

Eighteen months later, I sold out and resigned as chairman.  The president took over.

Six months later the company went Chapter 11. True story.

The “hard” money lenders are booming.

They step in where banks don’t. Example, a bank says it will lend $20 million on a building. The buyer is about to close on the building. then the bank says it will only lend $17 million (true story). Banks are acting very irresponsibly today.

Quick, rush to a hard lender and borrow the $3 million you need — at an extortionate rate.

Good business for the hard lender:

1. IF, he can get decent security for his money. Being behind the bank is a problem.

2. IF the property is not over-valued, like in the old days.

These are big IFs. Rents are plummeting. The value of commercial real estate is continuing to decline.

Hard lenders are overwhelmed with “opportunities.” They are chasing investors like you and me.  I’ve had my fill of them.

Be wary.

Verizon’s MiFi revisited. Nice surfing the Internet in bed. Computers don’t dirty the sheets as newspapers do. (Around our place, our sheets are very important.)

I lay there last night and read The Wall Street Journal, courtesy Verizon’s MiFi.

Questions from readers following yesterday’s writeup on the MiFi:

1. You get nearly four hours from one charge.

2. You and your four friends can run it while it’s being charged using the charger that comes with the device.

3. You can run it tethered to your USB port. That will charge it and keep it charged. But only you can use it. Not your four closest friends. This is not a negative. Plug in the charger. See above.  Once it’s charged, it can go back to being an ultra-portable WiFi for you and your friends and family.

4. No one nearby can steal your WiFi or There’s plenty of security. In fact, it won’t work unless you put in the security code.

5. The amazing thing about this device is being on the Internet, getting your email and doing your work while in a moving car, bus or train, or at some remote place.

6. The best speed test is at Speakeasy.net.

7. The only negative is that the thing is so small and so light (2.5 ounces) that it’s real easy to lose.

I remain impressed.

One impressive woman. This is Anne, my son’s wonderful fiancé.

Oregon coast last weekend. She’s happy and so are we. She’s loving, talented, gorgeous and, most importantly, keeps Michael in check.

She’s also an Excel whiz. What more could anyone want in a daughter-in-law?

Not ultra-impressed with WordPress. This morning I tried to save a draft of this column. Once again, WordPress blew up, and lost my entire brilliance. I started over again. Now I’m copying into Word and backing up there. Imagine how bad things are when you have to rely on Microsoft! Anyone got any ideas on how to fix this irritating bug?

Governments that are getting bigger and bigger and bigger really scare me. A reader sent me a chart showing government now employs more people than we have people in the U.S. making things.

The biggest lies are those made by politicians. Some of the biggest were made by Obama in his campaign.

Will Rogers once said,  “ I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Do we enjoy being offended? This is a promotion for this magazine. I hesitated for three days. Should I publish this nonsense? It stuck with me. The words and the drawing. Check out their eyes. The illustration brilliant.

The magazine is not bad. But who needs another magazine?

Time to be offended. The World’s shortest books:

THINGS I DID TO DESERVE
THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
by Barack Obama

BLACK PEOPLE I’VE MET WHILE YACHTING
by Tiger Woods

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
by Hillary Clinton

Sequel:
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HILLARY
By Bill Clinton

THINGS WE KNOW TO BE TRUE
by Al Gore & John Kerry

AMELIA EARHART’S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC

THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY

MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS
by O. J. Simpson

EVERYTHING I KNOW
By Nancy Pelosi

Harry Newton, who is offended by idiots and bad taste. To me, the world is endlessly fascinating. And the more something offends someone, the more interested I am into figuring WHY?