Category Archives: Finance

Business, Culture, Finance

Swoosh Away Racism

Leave a comment

First off, STOP BUYING Nike products.

I read and hear praise dumped in copious amounts on Nike, Inc. regarding their support of their god Blim (BLM). The company has pledged $40 million dollars to some nebulous concept of supporting a group of people based solely (no pun intended) upon skin color. Let’s look at what Nike says.

“Systemic racism and the events that have unfolded across America over the past few weeks … ”

Uh, Nike, if racism is systemic why is it you only noticed it in the “past few weeks“. I guess all of those “systemic” racists do a pretty good job of hiding racism from the brain trust in your boardroom, or you are just a bunch of pandering clowns parroting the leftist word salad phrase du jour.

And the bozos continue…

“This additional $40 million builds upon the NIKE, Inc. family’s long history of providing support to the communities in which they operate in.”

Back the f’ing truck up a few yards there Chuckles.

Nike, you produce almost all of your shoes in China and Vietnam. Near as I can tell you make ZERO PERCENT of your shoes in the US.

Here’s a thought. Why don’t you bring your production back to inner city America and create jobs for the “communities” that you so lovingly support? Oh, you say your bottom line doesn’t support paying $15 per hour to some person of a certain skin color to make $250 Jordans or $400 Adapt basketball shoes?  I can see that.  According to your 2019 financial statement, you had $39 BILLION in revenue with a gross profit of over $17 BILLION. Yup, I guess with $17 BILLION there is no way to build inner city factories and employ Americans of a certain skin color. I guess pledging 0.1% of your revenue is much easier than actually “Just Doing” something significant.  Though I haven’t done an analysis of Nike financial, I suspect that the money pledged is part of the existing marketing budget and operating expenses which means ZERO PERCENT came out of profits.

Personally I don’t believe that skin color is a qualifying factor for a job position, however Nike goes on,

“We believe in a level playing field for all and leveraging the power of sport and our brands to move the world forward.”

Hey, chuckle-heads, perhaps a little introspection about your executive officers.  Mark Parker CEO, Andrew Campion CFO, Elliot Hill, Hillary Kane, Monique Matheson, John Slusher, Eric Sprunk COO.  Your panel of melanin challenged individuals are the poster children for “diversity” in corporate America.  Your whole team would disappear in a backdrop of snow, if you get my meaning.  Again, I don’t believe skin color has any value in judging a person’s suitability for a job, but I’m not the “social justice warriors” that you all are pretending to be.

As Yahoos Sports praised your actions, “Nike so nailed its response...”

You can read Nike, Inc’s 2019 SEC annual report HERE

Culture, Finance, Government

Free = Bondage

Leave a comment

I listened to Magatte Wade, an entrepreneur from Senegal, Africa, speaking about how to end poverty.  You can listen to her speech at a Ted Talks HERE.

She says that in order to end Africa from existing as the most poverty stricken region of the world, GOVERNMENTS need to GET OUT OF THE WAY. She states that the only way create a more prosperous region is, “We need greater economic freedom“. Words of great wisdom.  Someone tell Bernie Sanders and the rest of the socialists.

Many would argue that corruption is the root cause. Wade says that “Corruption is the natural consequence of stupid senseless idiot laws“. And that, “The way to eliminate corruption is to simplify“. It’s hard to argue against what she has to say.

The young socialists here in the United States should listen to what Magatte Wade has to say. Big government controlling the means of production (true socialism) or regulating all industries will inevitably create poverty as it has in Africa.

Magatte also argues against FREE good and wealth redistribution. As an example in her village she is very critical of a US shoe company which has a program of buy one pair of shoes and the company will give away a pair of shoes in a “needy” country. Why is supplying shoes to poor regions counterproductive? Wade says that local shoemakers have gone out of business because they cannot compete against FREE. She said that there were 29 local shoe manufacturers in her small village each of which employed about 15 people.  435 employed making shoes.  Those businesses cannot compete against a supplier who gives away products for free hence they end up going out of business.

Free stuff as it turns out is not a way out from poverty.

Out of curiosity I wondered where the FREE shoes are made. Just like most shoe companies, the shoes are made in China and Vietnam.  Hmm, US consumers buying products made in China which inadvertently crushes small businesses in Africa.  People’s hearts can be in the right place but without looking at all the consequences, their actions may end up hurting instead of helping.

Once again the young socialists should consider that all the FREE STUFF and wealth redistribution that they seek will lead to a life of BONDAGE in POVERTY.

Finance, Politics

Midterm Election Day

Leave a comment

It is finally the day. The day all of the junk mail from candidates stops flooding my mailbox. The day all the robocallers stop calling my phone. The day email spam slows down.

Now for some observations.

The most curious spam email I received was a survey request. It asked me to participate because they said they know that my mail-in ballot was received by the county registrar of voters. What the heck?!?! First off, how did they find that out? I didn’t realize that my ballot status was that easily accessible. In fact I didn’t realize that you can check the status of anyone’s ballot. Looks like big brother knows more about me than I realized. Of course I never answer surveys. But it is curious.

And here’s another observation.

The stock market is up today. That’s interesting because I would assume that the Wall Street crowd believes that the Trump Train will be continuing. That would indicate that the investment computers expect control to stay with the Republicans. If the robots calculated a Democratic controlled congress, I would have expected a sell-off because the Train would be heading off the rails.

I would contend that the investment crowd has more data and better models than the talking heads on the news. Predicting trends is important to them. It’s MONEY to them, not just a partisan talking point.

Look what happened in 2016. All the TV idiots were predicting a Hillybob landslide win based on their models.  They got that wrong.  Next all the talking heads then went on to predict an economic apocalypse after the election of President Trump. How accurate were the stupid people on TV?  Just look at how the market responded.  It jumped up right after the election and essentially hasn’t looked back. “No one” should have known what President Trump would actually do. Of course we can now look back and see the rollback of regulations, the trade deals, and the tax cuts. How could the “market” have known that President Trump wasn’t just another lying politician and wouldn’t do what he said on the campaign trail?

Of course we’ll see in the next few weeks how this all turns out.