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Opportunistic buys and sells. My friend falls. Tips on bags, snagging business class, dealing with software, SALT and poor Boeing

Market is down today. Yesterday was up.  I’m ahead on FedEx and Boeing is still falling.

This market is opportunistic. Stick with your core holdings and find occasional “buys.” Nike did good on earnings and sales, but disappointed on outlook. Down 6% today. Probably a good opportunistic buy.

Why I don’t like cannabis and crypto-currencies

+ There’s not enough people in the world to consume all the marijuana we can produce in all the new factories.

+ I can’t use crypto-currencies to buy anything I want. Amazon doesn’t take bitcoin.

Business Class to Europe, Asia or Australia/New Zealand

1. Earned miles.
2. Bought miles. See yesterday’s blog. Click here.
3. American Express and many airlines will negotiate a twofor — if you call them on the phone.

Be flexible with your dates. Negotiate well in advance.

Software lessons

Forty years of messing with software have taught me:

+ Newer software isn’t better.

+ Software engineers are arrogant. They know what’s “best” for me. That means more features, more complexity and more unreliability.

+ Executive managements are intimidated by software engineers. They don’t know or care enough to tell their engineers they’re full of sh*t. Moreover, management needs better software to make the higher sales and earnings that Wall Street demands. Office 365 is not better than the Office 2003 I’m presently using or the Office 2010 I’m about to “upgrade” to.

Boeing’s management got hijacked by their software engineers who thought they could fly better than pilots. That gave chutzpah a whole new meaning.

Boeing’s management got hijacked by greed — selling safety features as optional “add-ons” — instead of necessary “add-ins.”

Boeing is losing orders. Click here.

Boeing (BA) remains a cockroach stock and a great short.

Europe is regulating the tech giants

Today’s Economist:

Economist stories: Click here and here.

Some U.S. politicians want to break them up.

When it gets this crazy, you know there’s a revolution a’brewing. New startups coming to challenge and replace the big, juicy targets, like Facebook, Google, Netflix and maybe even my beloved Amazon. What might they be? Are they already here? Good weekend to think about who they might be.

Legal luggage

Legal carry-on is 22″ long x 14 inches wide.

22 inch includes the wheels. If you have four wheels (called spinnners) you’ll have to measure the wheels. That means you lose precious space in the bag. I prefer two wheels.

Some companies make 16″ wide which works.

I’ve been taking a 25 inch Eagle Creek two-wheeler on. No airline has refused it. Oodles of space. I took it for 12 days to Europe. Worked perfectly.

SALT is Donald’s payback 

SALT stands for State and Local Taxes. By limiting our deductions to $10,000, Donald paid back a lot of people in states like New York Connecticut, New Jersey and California who didn’t vote for him.

You have to be very careful about which SALT taxes you include in your miserable $10,000 deduction. There’s a good piece in today Wall Street Journal, which includes these words:

His return preparer advised him to deduct only his property taxes and state sales taxes, which total more than $10,000, to make it clear that his state-tax refund won’t be taxable on his 2019 federal return.

For the Journal piece, click here.

Dumb wonderful cartoons for you and the grandkids






HarryNewton
Harry Newton, who had lunch with a fat friend. He ate exactly twice what I ate. Another friend reported falling halfway through his flight from Sydney to Dallas and was taken off the plane on a stretcher. He writes “Fortunately, my only injury was a severe hip pointer and a compressed fracture of a vertebra on the opposite side of the side on which I fell.” I like his use of the word “only.”

All of us will fall in places that are different — places we’re not accustomed to. The New York Times reported that complications from falls are the leading cause of death among old folks. Here’s the article. Click here.

Heh, one of my stocks is up today — AVP.

       

6 Comments

  1. Dman says:

    Hey asshole—NO COLLUSION — NO OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE…….as the old saying goes….UP YOUR ASS!!!!

    ….how could there be obstruction without collusion????

    ….the liberal mind is a vast wasteland.

  2. Dman says:

    Hey Harry—Since your son Michael works for Nike, a totally corrupt organization, does that make your son a scumbag too?

    ………birds of a feather

  3. Dman says:

    Hey Harry—NO COLUSION!!! But you stupid fucking liberals seem to believe that Trump is guilty of Obstruction Of Justice. You leftist morons can’t think your way out of a wet paper bag. How the fuck can Trump be guilty of Obstruction Of Justice if there was NO FUCKING COLUSION!!!!???!!!

    YOU DUMB FUCKS…..Maybe your stupid fucking NYC mayor can give you some answers?….LOLOL

  4. Scooter says:

    Legalizing MJ is a trojan horse for the USA.

  5. Mike Nash says:

    Trump’s goal, which I fully support, is to make all rich people go broke so they’re forced into bankruptcy and then kill themselves by jumping off a New York City building. The rich especially those who inherit wealth, need to be held accountable by the great Trump. Voters in the Red States and the Rust Belt want to see the wealthy fail.