Monthly Archives: March 2009

Archive of posts published in the specified Month

HKO’s Top Seven Stock Picks

My seven speculative stock picks with sector and price as of 4/1/09 opening. China Medical Technologies – medical- 13.77- CMED Nucor- steel- 38.17- NUE Tata Motors- auto- 4.93- TTM Diamond Foods- foods products- 27.93- DMND Suntrust Bank- banking- 11.74- STI

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GM Questions

First we give GM several billion dollars. Then we hint on letting them go bankrupt. That would make the U.S. Government one of the largest creditors affecting influence over the bankruptcy process. How would such political influence affect the process?

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The Berlusconi Effect

Media power is political power. Berlusconi is the prime minister of Italy and the owner of the dominant media outlets in the country. He can control his image in the press as few people can. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of

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Partisanship Renamed

I hereby declare that political partisanship now be referred to as ‘Political Contingency Operations’. There; problem solved.

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Political Capitalism

Cries of socialism obfuscate our political dilemma. Are we a capitalistic country with a 36% tax rate and a socialistic one at 39-1/2% rate? Truthfully we crossed the socialistic divide some time ago; now it is just a matter of

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In Praise of Chaos

Mark Steyn wants more chaos and choice- me too. from National Review Obama’s False Choiceby Mark SteynMarch 28, 2009 Excerpts: Borders give you choices. Your town has a crummy grade school? Move ten miles north and there’s a better one.

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A Brief History of Federal Power

The founding of our country was mired in a battle over the strength of the federal government. Hamilton became the center of a strong mercantile federal government, and Jefferson fought for very limited federal government. It is ironic that Jefferson

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Obama’s Critical Mistake

Obama’s lack of business experience and his lack of investment participation make him oblivious to the investor class. Unlike most of Americans, Obama owns very few stocks or equity stakes in any profit producing enterprise. 56% of Americans fit into

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Political Positioning

I am a devotee of the marketing concept of positioning. It is derived from the marketing classic “Positioning” by Reis and Trout. While the concept is simple it is rarely followed, and is in my less than humble opinion is

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Charitable Reality

2008 started out as a record year for our businesses but came to an abrupt halt in the last quarter. Seeing a very dim near term in the new few quarters we reassessed our cash needs and quickly made necessary

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Distance Utilization of Military’s Best

We are no longer going to call it the ‘War on Terror’ but it will now be called the ‘Overseas Contingency Operation’ (OCO). I wonder what it will be contingent upon. I have a few alternative suggestions: The Political Distraction

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How to Use a Secret Ballot

One has to wonder why the card check proposal is so important to Democrats. Less than 20% of the workforce is unionized and union membership has dramatically fallen over the years. Businesses have relocated to right to work states and

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A Model Worth Ignoring

Growth and economic prosperity are a product of culture and trends. In education growth must be related to reason and scientific inquiry. Rapid innovation often requires a healthy disrespect for the old and the status quo. Some believe Japan is

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Understanding Economic Behavior

Economics is more about people’s behavior than about money. This is why economic behavior is so difficult to control and often difficult to quantify in a usable way. A tax rate of 25% is neither high nor low. It is

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The Rush Factor

I thought it was a mistake for President Obama to focus so much attention on Rush Limbaugh in his first few weeks. Why empower an enemy that you just defeated? If Rush had any real power Obama would not have

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Arbitrary and Capricious

The move to tax the bonuses paid to AIG managers at 90% is so arbitrary and capricious that it should be struck down by the courts. While the outrage is understood, the idea that Congress can direct such a punitive

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Selective Outrage – Again

Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick ran Fannie Mae into the ground and then collected bonuses of $90 million and $24.7 million, yet we did not seem to be nearly as outraged as we are by the bonuses paid to AIG,

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Anything But Fair

President Obama was wise to say he does not intend to pursue reenactment of the fairness doctrine. It should defuse the right wing blogosphere at least on this issue. It does not go to say that they may not try

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Losing the Center

There were a lot of centrists who supported Obama. There is a rapidly growing list who are publicly regretting it. For the first installation noted in American Thinker read here.

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