From my friend Ed late last night a text:
Apple’s P/E ratio is 17.4. Its dividend yield is 1.64%.
If tax legislation passes and Apple is encouraged to bring in some of the money it has stashed overseas, I bet management will use the money to pay a special dividend.
Apple’s stock will fly.
Equifax is a lazy leaky sieve.
145 million of us have now had our credit records hacked (Equifax just upped its numbers). A crook can go on the dark web and get your social security number, address, etc. all the information he needs to open credit cards and borrow money in your name.
You should freeze your credit reports. The four companies and their freezing web sites are:
+ Experian. Click here.
+ TransUnion. Click here.
+ Equifax. Click here.
+ Innovis. Click here.
You should also monitor every bill you get — to check you haven’t been ripped off.
Useful stuff
+ Hotels will give you a better deal if you call them and sweet-talk their reservationist. (Yes, there is now such a ghastly word.) You’ll get a cheaper, better room. Mention the fact that your dealing directly with the hotel saves them the commission they’d pay for Expedia, Hotels.com etc. Some hotels are actually offering a 15% discount if you deal with them directly. A cheap membership with AAA will also get you a discount. Ask for a room with strong Wi-Fi.
+ If you’re on auto-pay, your bills are rising.
+ You’re paying too much for cell phone and cable service.A quick phone call can drop your monthly bills by a third. Do it today.
The cheapest part of your expensive car.
Yesterday I had a flat. I learned:
+ AAA can take hours to respond to a call for help.
+ Someone had taken my tire lug remover. So what? The ones that come with all our cars — including pricey Mercedes — are total, unmitigated junk. They’re too short. They’re flimsy. And they can’t remove a lug that was affixed by a hydraulic machine. Off to the car accessory shop. Look what I found:
I found two lug wrenches. The smaller one is 15″ and useless. I returned it. The bigger one is 24 inches and works. You need sockets that work with your tires. They’re not standard. Subaru’s tire screws are larger than Mercedes.
You need to buy a lug wrench and a socket for your car instantly, if not sooner. The one you have in your car won’t work. And you don’t want to wait for AAA. Trust me on this one.
Don’t buy one of these:
It doesn’t have enough leverage. And it may not work with your lugs. Mine are recessed — both Subaru and Mercedes. This thing doesn’t work for recessed lugs.
In short, check, check, check. Don’t be stranded on the highway because your lug wrench is junk.
You cannot believe the junky garbagey lug wrench that came with our pricey Mercedes E500 station wagon.
It’s a new year. So marriage season is on us.
A young Jewish man excitedly tells his mother he’s fallen in love and that he is going to get married.
“Just for fun, Ma, I’m going to bring over three women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.”
The mother agrees.
The next day, he brings three beautiful women into the house and sits them down on the couch. they chat for a while.
He then says, “Okay, Ma, guess which one I’m going to marry.”
She immediately replies, “The one on the right.”
“That’s amazing, Ma. You’re correct. How did you know?”
“I don’t like her.”
Harry Newton, who wonders if Congress will ever get the guts to stand up to the NRA. Before this latest massacre, Congress was actually about to pass legislation to legalize silencers. Yes, you read right. Loosening up gun laws even more.
Some Australian history:
In 1996 in Port Arthur, Tasmania, 35 people were killed and 23 wounded when a gunman opened fire with two semi-automatic rifles.
The Port Arthur massacre followed a decade of gun violence with several high profile mass shootings carried out under liberal gun laws.
What Australia did next would change its history forever. Prime Minister John Howard brought in stringent gun laws, a nationwide buyback scheme allowed people to exchange firearms for money. The number of firearms in the country dropped by a third (600,000).
Over the next decade firearm homicide rates dropped. The risk of dying by gunshot more than halved. Firearm suicides also fell from around 3 in every 100,000 to 0.75 in every 100,000.
There were no more mass shootings. Read that again: There were no more mass shootings.
You can read more here and in Wikipedia on Gun Laws in Australia. Click here.
Harry,
What law would have prevented this catastrophe? None? Every thing he did was against the law.
And what do silencers have to do with any of this? Nothing.
Think of Britain. They took their guns away and now they have this epidemic of immigrants and refugees raping, beating up, killing and robbing people and they have no way to defend themselves. The best way to stop a maniac with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
The only thing getting rid of guns would accomplish is to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.
I hate to say it, but to truly get control of our insane gun culture, we need a constitutional amendment. The constitution is explicit: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Time to buy that 2018 Subaru Harry…it comes with 3 years free roadside assistance much better than AAA. Besides…it will be fun to drive. You won’t need a lug wrench providing you stay out of the willy wags!
The roadside assistance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – that was his point. I have had experience with Honda and U-Haul (rented trailer) in the past 3 years. I was left hanging for 5 and three hours respectively. I had this misconception that roadside assistance meant that the company (Honda or U-Haul) had a fleet of tow trucks standing ready at their nationwide dealer networks. Wrong! They all just farm it out to some local guy with a tow truck. I f the guy is busy/at lunch/in the middle of an engine job/or 50 miles away, you have to wait.
Thanks for that Australian gun control note: I have passed it on to many!