David Fricke in Rolling Stone:
However you define grunge music, Pearl Jam didn't play it.
What if I define it as "the kind of music Pearl Jam used to play"?
Sad stuff from Theodore Dalrymple:
Not long ago, a defense lawyer asked me to prepare a medical report on a young woman, aged 18, who had nastily assaulted an elderly relative, with whom she was living. She had been drunk at the time, and in fact was already an alcoholic of some six years’ standing. . . . She had also smoked marijuana daily since she was 13, and had had a period of habitual cocaine and amphetamine use. She claimed that the staff at the hostel for young women on bail where she was staying had told her that it was all right for her to smoke pot, so long as she refrained from other drugs.. . . The young woman had been thrown out of her mother’s household not long before the assault on her relative. She had caught her latest boyfriend, 20 years old, in bed with her 38-year-old mother. The day I saw her to prepare my report, her mother had given birth to her half-sister by her former boyfriend. This boyfriend—drunken, possessive, jealous, and violent—had not wanted her or her other half-sister around, and had insisted that her mother chuck them out, which she did to preserve her "relationship."
I asked the young woman what her ambition was, what she wanted in life.
"A husband," she said, "children, a nice house, and a job."
The saddest part: she means it.
Are the oil companies charging all that the traffic will bear? No doubt. But they were probably charging all that the traffic would bear when the price of gasoline was half of what it is today.Even businesses that are losing money are charging all that the traffic will bear. Otherwise they could raise their prices and stop losing money.
Most of the people who are making this claim are charging all that the traffic will bear for their own labor or the use of their own products.
* * * * *
Is it rocket science that, when oil prices hit new highs, gasoline prices also hit new highs? Do you think the price of wheat could double without the price of bread going up? Would we have politicians running around spouting off about "gouging" by Big Wheat?
* * * * *
Is it rocket science that, when huge countries like India and China have rapidly growing economies, their demand for oil goes up by leaps and bounds? Is it rocket science that, when demand shoots up but supply doesn't go up as much, prices rise?
* * * * *
Prices are like a thermometer reading. When someone has a fever, it is not going to do any good to put the thermometer in ice water to bring down the reading.
One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work.If vast new iron ore deposits are discovered tomorrow in Timbuktu, 99 percent of the people on this planet may be wholly unaware of it -- and yet the prices of everything from paper clips to automobiles would begin to decline, from Singapore to Seattle. Moreover, people around the world would adjust their behavior in response to this event that they know nothing about.
* * * * *
This economic benefit of price-coordinated markets is also its biggest political vulnerability. If people don't understand what is happening, politicians can tell them anything -- and get their support to take actions that look good, even when the consequences will be counterproductive.
* * * * *
Nothing is easier than to blame high prices on whoever charges those high prices, regardless of what the underlying cause is. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about Big Oil or little stores in poor, high-crime neighborhoods that charge higher prices growing out of the economic consequences of poverty and crime.
* * * * *
Price movements up or down provide incentives for people to consume less or to consume more -- and to produce more or produce less.
* * * * *
"Windfall" profits and windfall losses are all part of the same adjustment process. If politicians seize the windfall profits and leave windfall losses alone, what that means over a cycle of years is that the average rate of return on oil production falls below what is needed to attract the investments that greater oil exploration and production require.
The left's current favorite celebrity-activist is calling for efforts to halt the slaughter in Sudan ("the one thing we cannot do is turn our heads and look away"). Here are four simple questions I'd like to ask him:
What would be an acceptable number of US casualties in Sudan?
What would be an acceptable number of civilian casualties resulting from US action in Sudan?
How did you arrive at those numbers?
What should the US do if either number is reached before the US has accomplished the mission you'd have it perform?
From commenter JLawson at Wizbang:
When crude's at $70+ a barrel, there's just no way you're going to get sub-$2.50 gas. It's simple - the raw materials cost HAS to be figured into the end price, unless you're going to subsidise the hell out of it. Refining and transprting isn't free, and you've got to pay the employees to do it.But if you elect Democrats in November, all of a sudden we'll be back down to $1 to $1.50 a gallon. How? Hell if I know. But vote for the Dems - they've got a plan to make it all better.
(But don't be surprised if they make it worse.)
(Via Charlie Quidnunc, also at Wizbang.)
In connection with the piece on air-hybrid engines, this post from Don Boudreaux seems relevant and right:
I love this market process. People such as me — people who lack even a whiff of creativity, people who are terribly risk-averse, people who lazily prefer to read novels and work at secure jobs and spend our evenings at home dining and drinking with family and friends — just sit back and wait for profit-hungry hard-working anxiety-ridden creative entrepreneurs, each in competition with others, to find new ways to improve our lives. And we don't even have to accept what they devise. If we like it, we buy it. If not, we don't buy it.I almost feel like a free-rider, a lazy bum, a poacher. I do nothing entrepreneurial, and yet my daily life is filled with the marvelous fruits of entrepreneurial creativity and effort. It's an incredibly good deal.
The Washington Prowler at American Spectator's blog:
GDP numbers will be released tomorrow, and the rumors are that they will be impressive, perhaps more than impressive. This will again fuel inflation fears and the notion that the Fed is going to have to hang another quarter point of interest during its next meeting.But with such good economic numbers - and don't forget, lost in this week's gas price hysteria were impressive consumer confidence numbers - one has to wonder: why isn't the White House doing a better job of getting its economic message out? And why aren't Republicans on Capitol Hill doing everything in their power to help get that message out?
In January 1938, teenager Hans Fantel went with his father to hear Mahler's Ninth Symphony performed in Vienna. Soon afterward, Fantel's father "disappeared into Hitler's abyss." More than fifty years later, Fantel listened to a recording of the concert. His essay about the experience is here, and highly recommended.
(Via Clive Davis.)
From a piece on an idea for an air-hybrid engine:
Today's engines have doubled their power in the last 20 years with no reduction in fuel efficiency. And the exhaust from a low-emissions vehicle driven on a typical city freeway is cleaner than the air that goes into it.
(Via Instapundit.)
Writing one-sentence summaries of movies is surely one of life's more thankless tasks (though it can be done, like everything else in life, with flair). Be that as it may, I confess to having giggled when the following précis of The Station Agent popped up on my TV screen yesterday: “Two people try to befriend an anti-social dwarf.”That seems just a bit on the bald side, don't you think?
The Editors of National Review, 4/24/06:
[T]he selection of a compromise prime minister in Iraq is a major victory for that country’s fledgling political class, and for the Bush administration. Purveyors of doom on Iraq now have some explaining to do: If the country is in the midst of a full-scale civil war fatal to our project there, how is it that elected representatives of the major factions were able to sit down and hammer out an agreement on the top positions in a national unity government?
[T]he GOP problem at the moment is by no means limited to the White House, as folks on Capitol Hill would have it, but very much includes Congress. Bush can get himself a top-notch White House staff firing on all cylinders and consulting like crazy with Congress, but if Capitol Hill is still run by what often seems a bunch of bungling, spend-thrift, unreformable, tin-eared, unimaginative, hysterical pols, not much is going to change.
Does [historian Arthur] Schlesinger actually think the Mexican War was a bad idea? I suppose we can debate its origin. As for its outcome, it seems indisputable to me that it made possible the spread of liberty over a large portion of North America. The tragedy is that the United States didn't grab even more territory back when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed — today, Baja California could be like a southwestern version of Florida, Monterrey could flourish like Phoenix, etc. Do the ends ever justify the means? Seems to me that in 1848, they sure did.
Andrew C. McCarthy on the (Mary) McCarthy story, 4/24/06:
[T]he broader context here is an intelligence community that was, quite brazenly, leaking in a manner designed to topple a sitting president.
Also from A. McCarthy, 4/23/06:
We can argue forever — and we probably will — about whether media people should be prosecuted for publishing secrets they are well aware will harm the nation and the war effort. Public officials, to the contrary, should not be a close call — they are in violation of both the law and a solemn oath.
Why not let the Iraqis have a referendum on whether US forces should stay? . . . [W]hile I certainly think it would be bad if Iraqis voted America out of their country, I can think of no more honorable and face-saving way for U.S. forces to exit Iraq than after a vote of this sort. It certainly beats watching people hang from the bottom of helicopters.
UPDATE: I see that Goldberg later wrote a whole piece arguing for an Iraqi referendum on whether our troops should remain there. I knew it was an intriguing idea.
First, he sums up the McCarthy affair:
So we have a Democratic Party activist violating federal law by leaking classified information to an antiwar activist on the payroll of the Washington Post, which publishes the criminal leak and is awarded a prize by the left-wing Pulitzer committee.
Later, after noting two instances in which the New York Times understated Federal aid after Katrina, he asks a question that's often occurred to me:
Why is it that the Times' math is always wrong in the same direction?
Thanks to USATODAY.com, I've just discovered the 365 Days Project:
In January of 2003, the professionally pseudo-named Otis Fodder began a yearlong self-assignment to post one ... unique ... audio file per day — a clip of the sort not played by most radio stations. The audio would be selected for their potential to amuse, bemuse, and perhaps even mystify the online community. Files would range from industrial musical megaproductions to high-school bands, and include the long (and best) forgotten work of celebrities and the private creations of complete unknowns. They would cover subjects from early predictions about the exploration of outer space, to the Ten Commandments as interpreted by a musically inclined hamster, to tips on doing the perfect load of laundry. And each title, every day, would be made available as a free MP3 download for anyone who wanted to start their own collection.
The Dondero High School A Cappella Choir's version of Sweet's "Fox On The Run" is the most enjoyable recording I've heard in a long time. You can download it straight from here, but I recommend going to this page (fourth item) and reading the liner notes. If you played in a rock band or sang in a chorus at high-school concerts, don't miss this.
This, from John Batchelor at The American Spectator's blog, strikes me as plausible:
1. Iran's atomic bomb-making and missile production are the direct result of ruthless and self-serving Chinese (PLA) proliferation.1a. Following the successful containment of the Chinese anarchy of the 1980s, the PLA's concern was that it must prepare for the US response come the day the PLA moves to retake Taiwan. China's special sense of vulnerability was that the southeast of China, the industrial heartland, is vulnerable to US air strike, including nuclear weapon airstrike.
2. After the first Gulf War, Jiang Zemin and the PLA chose a policy to create multiple hotspots for the United States targeting, since the US nuclear warchest was locked into treaty limited production. China saw that every hotspot created outside of Russia and China was one more target away from the industrial heartland of China. Therefore, the PLA decision was to turn on proliferation. The first stage of the plan began with the Benazir Bhutto visit to China in 1993, when the transfers began into the hands of A.Q. Khan. An adjacent step was to transfer weapons technology to Kim Il Jung, the old man, in North Korea.
He has more.
A new technology being promoted by Green Mountain Power and the University of Vermont might clean up manure before it's spread on farm fields, reducing the chances for air and water pollution.
The technology, being sold by a Colchester businessman, uses electricity to kill disease-causing bacteria in liquid manure. That nearly eliminates the odor from the manure by removing 20% or more of its phosphorous.Nonetheless, experts said, the manure retains what's needed for farmers to use it as fertilizer.
The Ohio Court of Appeals recently considered the question, "Is a cow a motor vehicle?" Bill Poser of Language Log believes it isn't, and explains:
The reason that a cow is not a motor vehicle is that it has no motor.
Worth reading. (Via Norm Geras.)
Jonathan Rauch, citing the argument of military historian Mary Habeck:
Jihadists, she writes, are not merely angry about U.S. policies. They believe that America is the biggest obstacle to the global rule of an Islamic superstate. Ultimately, in the Jihadist view, "Islam must expand to fill the entire world or else falsehood in its many guises will do so." Violence is by no means mandated, but it is assuredly authorized.
(Via Glenn Reynolds.)
Many economists have suggested it is not worth rebuilding New Orleans at all. But they belie their own discipline by not asking, "At what price?" Hurricanes or no hurricanes, the devastated areas in New Orleans remain more valuable than most parts of the world, if only because they lie in a famous U.S. city. At some price, people will want to work and live there. City planners simply need to acknowledge that this price is lower than it used to be.
(Via the man himself.)
Scientists "temporarily removed three of four dominant males simultaneously from a captive group of 84 pigtailed macaques at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, near Lawrenceville, Georgia, US":
(Via NCPA.)While they were gone, group cohesion rapidly began to disintegrate. The researchers saw cliques forming and the breakdown of social networks and contact through communal activities like playing, grooming and sitting together. The amount of violence also escalated, with no one to broker the peace.
I'd sign Stephen Pollard's manifesto.
More fun via Angela Gunn: The Euphemism Generator.
Eric at ¡No Pasarán! has a scathing post prompted by the story (linked by Drudge) of racist taunts hurled at a black soccer player in France:
We should be very grateful for the Europeans on this planet. If it weren't for them, we would not realize to what extent America is a racist country and culture. (As I have personally had the blessed opportunity to discover several times.) It is true that places like Europe (indeed, any place that is not the U.S.), and above all France, serve as a real model of racial integration and harmony that the oafish Yanks should emulate, if only they shared the Europeans' capacity of reasoning and their sense of sophistication.
Follow the links to see how sarcastic he's being. Eric also points to a great piece by Paul Johnson from 2003, titled "Anti-Americanism Is Racist Envy":
Anti-Americanism is factually absurd, contradictory, racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical. It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy--an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination. It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling.
On the subject of moral authority, Europe lost my respect a long time ago. That there are some Europeans who share my view gives me a bit of hope for the continent.
UPDATE: Why I misspelled Erik's name I can't explain. Sorry.
Rebecca at Jihad Watch notes a Sudanese-sponsored attack on Chad's government, and comments:
It's not difficult to connect the geopolitical dots. Chad is seen as ripe for the sort of activity that has plagued Sudan; if it falls to sympathizers with Khartoum, only mostly Christian/animist Cameroon stands in the way of creating an unbroken chain of Islamist territory from northern Nigeria to Sudan, and paving the way to spread Arab influence in North Africa further south.
John Derbyshire and Jonah Goldberg exchanged posts on the subject yesterday at The Corner. Worth reading. (The posts are here, here, here, here and here.)
MSNBC is showing its true colors by refusing to correct a serious fact error made on Monday's broadcast of Hardball. Instead, Hardball host Chris Matthews and correspondent David Shuster are compounding the error nightly by repeating false information in their reports on the administration's use of pre-war intelligence.On Monday, Nathan Goulding pointed out three errors in David Shuster's report. Shuster could plausibly argue that two of these errors are matters of interpretation. But one of them is indisputably incorrect.
Shuster said that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate did not contain the words "vigorously trying to procure" regarding Saddam and uranium. In fact, the passage appears on page 24 of the NIE. That's a major fact error, and MSNBC has not made any attempt to correct the record.
"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation." C. S. Lewis, "The Poison of Subjectivism"
(Via the Patriot Post's newsletter.)
U.S. airpower alone, armed with conventional bunker-buster bombs, would be more than enough to wipe out the Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities and to cripple its ability to command and control its military forces, he told the Intelligence Summit in Washington, DC last month.General McInerney believes that U.S. air power is so massive, precise, and stealthy, it can effectively disarm Iran without putting a single boot on the ground.
He calls his regime-busting scenario, "Big George."
. . . McInerney, who helped plan the 1991 air campaign against Saddam Hussein, believes Big George would take just two days and would set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program by at least five years, while opening the regime to overthrow.
What are we waiting for?
Timmerman also quotes an Iranian woman "who defied the mullahs’ police state to phone-in to the exile Radio Sedaye Iran in Los Angeles":
UPDATE: Michael Ledeen:"Not only I'll not pray that [a U.S-led] military attack shouldn't occur, I'll be deeply happy and I ask god for it to happen," she told the radio. "It is my family's wish and [the wish of] many Iranians for America to militarily attack. We don't know what else to do! Economy is very bad, people are hungry and have no money. Drug addiction is so bad that you folks outside Iran have no clue."
For those who think there is no chance for democratic revolution in Iran, consider this roundup of labor unrest, courtesy of Spiegel Online:Angered by unpaid salaries and generally low wages, workers in the northern Iranian provincial capital Rasht blocked streets and protested in front of government offices a fortnight ago brandishing banners that read: "We are hungry!" It wasn't the first time that thousands of employees at the country's largest state-owned textile factory had laid down their tools. But this time they were joined by dam workers in the western province of Elam and employees of a pharmaceutical factory in Tehran. Recently, workers have also gone on strike against harsh work conditions and impending layoffs in mines and petrochemical plants across the country, with hundreds of coal miners from the northern province of Gilan protesting the fact that they have not been paid for 13 months. Workers were also on strike in the car factories of the Iran-Khodro company, already the site of a massive work stoppage on last year's Day of Social Welfare and Securities (July 16), when strikers demanded t he introduction of a minimum wage.Faster, please.
As pretty much everyone knows by now, the Tromperians are a totalitarian political organization whose members seek to rule the world. While I'm sure they'll fail, it is true that they've achieved remarkable success in cowing various national governments. They've also murdered an impressive number of people.For those unfamiliar with it, a brief history might be useful. The Tromperians were founded in 1862 by Jean-Claude Tromper, a university lecturer in Paris. Under Tromper's leadership, the Tromperians' ranks grew steadily, reaching perhaps three million by the start of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Tromper's death in 1908 strengthened rather than weakened the movement he created. His manifesto, Destined to Rule (Destiné à la Règle), gained the stature of a divinely inspired text, and Tromper himself is now revered by Tromperians as a visionary whose holiness rivals that of Jesus (or vastly exceeds it, among non-Christian Tromps). At present the number of Tromperians worldwide is estimated at fifty million.
Because much of the West continues to misunderstand the Tromperians and their intentions, I've decided to list certain features of the group. To knowledgeable readers, none of the following will come as news. Others may feel I'm simplifying or overstating. I assure them I'm not. I wish I were.
SOME UNPLEASANT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TROMPERIANS
Tromperians demand absolute loyalty. A Tromp who tries to leave the group will be killed. (This trait recently received overdue attention.)
Tromperian women are slaves in all but name. Tromperian men are ruthless and tireless in controlling Tromperian women's behavior. Any act by a female Tromp that might bring dishonor to her family can lead to her murder. Because the Tromperian sense of honor is powerful and rigid, and the range of behavior permitted Tromperian women is quite narrow, transgressions are common, and so are resultant killings.
If a Tromperian woman's clothing deviates from the standard Tromperian uniform for women, she may be killed.
If an unmarried Tromperian woman is found to be pregnant, she'll almost certainly be killed, by her own family.
If a Tromperian woman makes an accusation of rape, and cannot present as witnesses four male Tromps, she'll almost certainly be killed, by the Tromperian "government."
If a Tromperian girl (or woman) does so much as talk to a non-Tromperian boy (or man), her male relatives will at the least beat her, and likely kill her. They'll suffer no punishment. In fact, their community will approve of their action.
Tromperians believe that all homosexuals should be killed. Destined to Rule declares homosexuality wicked, and the officially sanctioned commentaries instruct that male homosexuals caught in the act be executed. (I know of no Tromperian rules on lesbianism, but I'm sure it's prohibited.)
Tromperians' leaders, called councillors, discourage Tromperians from reading any literature other than the founding texts (Destined to Rule and the commentaries) and wildly inaccurate newspapers. Tromps' consequent ignorance of the world renders them prone to paranoia and xenophobia.
Tromperians generally offer two explanations for their poverty and cultural stagnation. First, other groups have conspired against them. Second, Tromperians have been insufficiently faithful to the precepts given by their founding texts. The councillors encourage these beliefs and play on them in speeches.
Tromperians are forbidden to create art and to develop science. They truly give the world nothing but destruction. (The ban on art and science isn't explicit in Destined to Rule, but has been derived from the text by prominent Tromperian scholars.)
As the title of Tromper's opus makes plain, Tromps believe that they should dominate humanity. Their lowly status outrages them. They're quick to take offense at any perceived slight, and their indignation easily moves them to violence.
Tromperians view all non-Tromperians as enemies to be conquered or killed. To put it differently, Tromps consider any non-Tromperian anywhere a valid target.
Tromps often murder non-Tromp children. Tromperian society applauds such killings.
Committed Tromperians can't be trusted. This statement may seem exaggeration or stereotyping, but in fact it's simple truth. Tromper declares (ch. 7) that in war Tromps are permitted, even required, to lie if by doing so they advance the Tromperian cause. Because Tromps consider themselves permanently at war with non-Tromps, Tromps may honorably lie to non-Tromps. For this reason, pronouncements made by councillors and intended for international consumption should be treated skeptically.
Some Tromperians would like to see the group abandon its traditional harsh practices. These "moderates" or "mod Tromps" are afraid to speak out, because hard-line Tromps would kill them. It is thus difficult to estimate how many mod Tromps exist.
There are Tromps in most countries around the world, working to gain control of those countries' respective governments. Consistent with Tromper's philosophy, Tromperians use whatever means are available and effective, including and not limited to violence and intimidation; public relations; immigration both legal and illegal; laws designed to protect freedom of speech, assembly and religion; and laws designed to prevent or punish the demonization of a particular group. This last method is especially striking, because central to the Tromperian creed is the conviction that every other group is beneath them.
With each day that we non-Tromperians fail to confront them, Tromperians gain in confidence and ambition. It appears likely that by the end of the century they will control much of Europe.
Were Islam considered an ideology rather than a religion, nearly everyone in the West would condemn it as forthrightly and thoroughly as we'd condemn a resurgent Nazism. (As with Nazism, a few Westerners would support it.) I felt it might be clarifying to imagine a secular political movement whose members think and behave like radical Muslims.
From an interview of Daniel Pipes by Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 4/1:
Q: What should U.S. policy be in the Middle East?A: Well, I endorse the president's vision of a Middle East that is no longer under the control of tyrants, as it is today, or despots — unelected officials, at best. But it is a long-term project that's going to take decades, not months, and has to be approached with that in mind.
Secondly, if we go too fast, as is the case, we bring our most fervent enemies to power, as we've seen most dramatically in the Palestinian territories, where a terrorist organization (Hamas) won a majority of Palestinian support. One can see that also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Algeria.
We have to be very cautious about pushing a process before the people of the area are really quite ready for it — until they've gone beyond what I call the "totalitarian temptation," so that they have a more balanced, moderate view of the world than they do at this time.
* * * * *
Q: What is the biggest lesson you have learned from the Iraq war?
A: The ingratitude of the Iraqis for the extraordinary favor we gave them — to release them from the bondage of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. They have rapidly interpreted it as something they did and that we were incidental to it. They've more or less written us out of the picture.
Q: How will we know when the occupation or the invasion of Iraq was a success or a failure?
A: Oh, it was a success. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. Beyond that is icing.
UPDATE: Pipes has an interesting piece today in the New York Sun: "How Israel Can Win." Among his arguments:
Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian Arab war morale would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinian Arabs. It would mean their finally giving up their foul dream of eliminating their neighbor and would offer a chance instead to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and culture. To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinian Arabs need to undergo the crucible of defeat.
Via Steve Bass, a site that translates text into speech. Be sure to try the different voices.
Warren Buffett, in the 2005 Annual Report (pdf) from Berkshire Hathaway:
[T]he Dow increased from 65.73 to 11.497.12 in the 20th century, and that amounts to a gain of 5.3% compounded annually. (Investors would also have received dividends, of course.) To achieve an equal rate of gain in the 21st century, the Dow will have to rise by December 31, 2099 to — brace yourself — precisely 2,011,011.23. But I'm willing to settle for 2,000,000; six years into this century, the Dow has gained not at all.
Also, just because it's interesting:
[O]n June 21, I received a two-page fax telling me — point by point — why Forest River met the acquisition criteria we set forth on page 25 of this report. I had not before heard of the company, a recreational vehicle manufacturer with $1.6 billion of sales, nor of Pete Liegl, its owner and manager. But the fax made sense, and I immediately asked for more figures. These came the next morning, and that afternoon I made Pete an offer. On June 28, we shook hands on a deal.. . . On November 12, 2005, an article ran in The Wall Street Journal dealing with Berkshire's unusual acquisition and managerial practices. In it Pete declared, "It was easier to sell my business than to renew my driver's license."
(Via my dad.)
(1) Large purchases (at least $75 million of pre-tax earnings unless the business will fit into one of our existing units),
(2) Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to us, nor are "turnaround" situations),
(3) Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,
(4) Management in place (we can't supply it),
(5) Simple businesses (if there's lots of technology, we won't understand it),
(6) An offering price (we don't want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).
The larger the company, the greater will be our interest: We would like to make an acquisition in the $5-$20 billion range. We are not interested, however, in receiving suggestions about purchases we might make in the general stock market.
We will not engage in unfriendly takeovers. We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer — customarily within five minutes — as to whether we're interested. We prefer to buy for cash, but will consider issuing stock when we receive as much in intrinsic business value as we give. We don't participate in auctions.
Charlie [Munger] and I frequently get approached about acquisitions that don't come close to meeting our tests: We've found that if you advertise an interest in buying collies, a lot of people will call hoping to sell you their cocker spaniels. A line from a country song expresses our feeling about new ventures, turnarounds, or auction-like sales: "When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."
That's Judith Apter Klinghoffer's comment on news that an Israeli company won't be allowed to buy a US software firm. She's right.
I support George Clooney. (Via Tech_Space.)
Theodore Dalrymple on the British and French economies:
The ultimate cause of the demonstrations and strikes in the two countries is the same: the State has made promises that it is increasingly unable to keep. It has pursued policies that were bound in the end to produce not just cracks but fissures that could no longer be papered over. . . .Whether they know it or not, the people on the streets in France were demonstrating to keep the youth of the banlieues — who recently so amused the world for an entire fortnight with their arsonist antics — exactly where they are, namely hopeless, unemployed and feeling betrayed. For unless the French labour market is liberalised, they will never find employment and therefore integration into French society. . . .
[The British] economy is corruptly creating public service jobs — endless co-ordinators of facilitation and facilitators of co-ordination — but not many in the private sector, the only true measure of economic health and growth. Any fool can create public sector jobs, and [Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon] Brown has done so: but not even the most brilliant man can make them economically productive in the long term. . . .
It can’t be said either that we won’t deserve what we get. It is we, after all, who have listened to the urgings of demagogic confidence tricksters, and believed their promises of irreconcilable goods. We should have paid attention instead to the wise words of Benjamin Franklin that apply as much to economics as to politics. He who gives up freedom for security, he said, will end up with neither.
Read the whole piece.
