Catching Up On the News: Playing Trump, English Corn, Christmas Lights, Mall Stores

Not sure how many of you read the business pages of your newspaper but there’s a lesson to be gleaned from an article in Tuesday’s New York Times Business Day section: It pays to look beyond the public announcements and hoopla for the real reason why companies take action and the resulting impact.

Case in point, according to The Times, is the intriguing reason Broadcom, a semiconductor maker, announced last month it would move its headquarters from Singapore back to the United States. Donald Trump hailed it as another example of his ability to lure companies to return to America, thereby increasing domestic jobs. 

But after looking behind the PR wall, The Times reported Broadcom’s real reason for the move was to remove an obstacle it might have faced as a foreign-based company in its hostile pursuit of Qualcomm, a major chip manufacturer. Moreover, if the takeover were successful, it would be likely that the net U.S. employment level of the combined companies would be lower than current figures by perhaps as many as 5,400 workers. 

One wonders if Trump has any idea of how he is being played by savvier business executives. https://nyti.ms/2l2GnLT

Ears of Corn: As a former editor I like nothing more than finding inconsistencies (okay, mistakes) in texts or film/TV show dialogues. So I immediately stopped my viewing of the first episode of the new season of Vikings when I heard Bishop Heahmund of England pray for vengeance against the invading Norsemen that included “slaughter them in battle, cut them down like ears of corn at harvest.” 

That last sentiment would have been a neat feat considering that the time period portrayed in the show was the fourth decade of the ninth century—corn was not known in Europe until after the New World was discovered more than 650 years later!

Christmas lights:  Does anyone else see the irony of the inept New York City Times Square subway bomber using Christmas lights to detonate his pipe bomb? 

You would think a devout Muslim would not risk the success of his venture on infidel-inspired holiday lights. Or perhaps he was hoping the lights would be a reversal of the peace on earth message extolled by Christmas. 

At any rate, one would think a lesson learned is not to trust the quality of Made in China products.

Souie: When I read Trump’s tweet about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand I immediately thought, “What a pig Trump is.” 

In case you didn’t see it, you might appreciate the response from USA Today which begins with the following statement:

“A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.” Click on the link for the full editorial: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/

Mall Stores Ban Moore: Among comments to The Times article on the selection of Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore as Alabama’s U.S. Senate replacement for Jeff Sessions was one Gilda noted for me from nilootero: “Evidently, black lives, and black votes, really do matter.”

In voting for Jones, Alabamans rejected his opponent whose resume includes the fact he was banned from a mall. Take a moment to view Seth Meyers’ mall store sendup of Moore’s failed candidacy (it begins around 46 seconds into the accompanying clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzrYPuOYvYQ&list=PLR_ww2xUWgajGdik4ES4oQRRgmQAEXPnu&index=7

Obamacare for Corn, Ichiro, Banking, Neo-Cons

(Editor’s note: Slight delay in posting today’s blog as I was constrained by holding Dagny during a quick trip to Boston to visit the new granddaughter and her brother Finley.)

As news reports of the drought across much of the nation, particularly in the breadbasket corn belt states of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, kept spreading in the media, I turned to Gilda last week to sarcastically suggest it wouldn’t be too long before President Obama would be blamed for this catastrophe. Sure enough, on Tuesday night’s Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert reacted to information that 90% of Iowa farmers had federal crop insurance by declaring it “Obamacare for our corn.”

It’s not too far fetched to think Obama would be blamed. After all, many of the water-parched states are electorally red, meaning they lean toward Republican and conservative candidates. Conservatives keep calling him a socialist, and in case you haven’t heard, Russia has been suffering from drought conditions for years longer than the U.S. It’s only natural, then, that God is exacting punishment on America because of its “anti-religion” leader just as He (for sure, not a She) is doing to the godless Rooskies. 

On the other hand, perhaps God is punishing those red states for being so intolerant to those who don’t match their DNA and beliefs, such as gays, Mormons, abortion rights advocates and immigrants (legal and illegal).

Ichiro to the Rescue? Now that Ichiro Suzuki is a NY Yankee, there is speculation he may finally make it to the World Series. If their play come October in any way resembles their last seven games, however, the Yankees once again will go home before the championship contest. 

Though they have the best record to date in baseball, they are vulnerable to good pitching that limits their home run output, as the games against the Oakland A’s and the Seattle Mariners showed this week. They won just two of seven games, repeatedly failing to score runs without the aid of a home run. Teams they would face in October would have better than average pitching, so a short playoff run is not inconceivable. 

Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez’s broken hand injury, suffered in Tuesday’s loss to Seattle, is further validation he is a schlemazel. Three Yankees were hit by pitches during the game—Derek Jeter, Ichiro and A-Rod. Only A-Rod sustained an injury. He may be out six to eight weeks. As I wrote back in February 2011, A-Rod is more schlemazel than a schlemiel. 

“For those not familiar with the Yiddish terms, a schlemiel is a person who, despite the best of intentions, always fouls up. A schlemazel is an unfortunate soul, a person to whom misadventure always falls. To gain a deeper understanding of the distinction between the two, think of a schlemiel as a bumbling waiter who spills hot soup on a patron; the person drenched by the soup is a schlemazel. Active or passive, schlemiel or schlemazel, A-Rod can’t catch a break.”

Financial Misadventures: James “Jamie” Dimon, chairman, president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has predicted there will be no more surprises similar to the $6 billion-and-mounting loss from speculative trading. He believes we need less, not more, regulatory oversight of the banking industry. Does anyone truly believe him?

Does anyone else find it ironic that the new basketball home of the Nets in Brooklyn will be called the Barclay Center, named for the same bank that is a key player in the Libor-fixing scandal? Barclay, along with other banks, reportedly shaved points in setting the interest rate banks charged each other to borrow funds. Hmmm...shaving points...basketball. Sports fans will immediately get the connection. All others, google “point shaving”.

Neo-Con Comeback? Mitt Romney, currently on a trip to England, Poland and Israel, leveled a broadside against President Obama’s foreign policy earlier this week. Nothing new here, it being the season of politics. Similarly, there’s nothing new about Romney’s foreign policy advisors. They’re mostly neo-conservatives, the same sad sack lot who brought us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does the country really want to go back to a world view based on belligerency rather than diplomacy? 

While on the subject of politics, have you noticed the terms POTUS and SCOTUS creeping into coverage and TV fare? For the uninitiated, POTUS is President of the United States; SCOTUS is Supreme Court of the United States.