Now Jack it is not the Soviet Union

For if it was the old Soviet Union the door to your apartment would have been kicked in, you would have been pulled out of your warm bed in the middle of the night, by several really nasty individuals, blind folded, dragged down the stair of the building and thrown into the back of a Black Maria.  There would have been a very cold ride to Lubjanskaja Ploschadj, 2, (Lubyanka headquarters of the KGB), where you would be shown the error of your ways, and allowed to change your mind on the subject, and come to your senses.

After you had come to your senses and realized the enormity of your error, and had professed to those present that this type of mistake would never ever happen again, as demonstrated by your own hand written and signed confession, never mind that you really did not write it, but it was your signature on the document, they (you know the really nasty individual who brought you to this place) would help you make sure that it would never happen again, since in the course of your conversion from the wrong path to right path you suffered a 9mm hemorrhage.

That was the old Soviet Union.  You know the place where you had the right to say anything ONCE.

Goldman Sachs “Muppet Hunt” Draws a Blank?

Where is the surprise in this announcement?  The Goldman Sachs “Muppet Hunt” is the moral equivalent to one “Elmer J. Fudd” looking for “Wabbits”.

So Goldman Sachs senior management goes on a “Muppet Hunt”, and surprise of surprises they dutifully report back to the Board of Directors that they have not found any “Muppets”.  That it was all just sour grapes by the recently departed, disgruntled, disaffected, “Not meriting promotion to Managing Director”, employee.  And that “No further actions should be taken.”(Let Sleeping dogs…). 

The “Muppet Hunters” are more than happy to report that everything is all right within the Goldman Sachs Magic Kingdom.  They dutifully report that Goldman Sachs Management and Employees are currently and in the past have been looking out for the best interest of their customers.  Additionally they are pleased to report that Goldman Sachs currently does not place the company’s interest nor has it ever placed the company’s interested above those of their customers (What a bunch of Boy Scout) (A Goldman Sachs Employee is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent).  That 99 percent of the nearly 4000 emails that reference the word “Muppets” were not comments on their customers but were references to the latest Muppet movie.

So management of Goldman Sachs has fulfilled the requirements of those immortal words uttered by of Governor William J. Le Petomane “We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!”.  And something they did, they investigated, and they reported that they found nothing (surprise), it was just one big snipe hunt.

Trust them if you want, but remember that a fool and his money are soon parted.

Apple Revealer of State Secrets?

Headline “Apple Map Accidently Reveals Highly Sensitive Taiwanese Radar Installation”

Apple now they are the destroyer/revealer of state secrets, at least that what the article in Network World implies.  Link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/101012-apple-maps-taiwan-263253.html?hpg1=bn

Reveals to Whom is the real question?  The United States, United Kingdom, France, NATO, Russian Federation, Japan, South Korea, the Peoples Republic of China?

Since all of these entities either have their own Reconnaissance Satellites or access to the data from someone who does have a Reconnaissance Satellite, many with resolutions on the order of at least 10 cm or better, they already know about it.  In the case of the United States we really know about the site, since Raytheon sold them the equipment, with DOD and State Department approval.

Who are the Taiwanese really trying to hide this site from?  The PRC?  That will be hard since the PRC for some time has had their own constellation of “Remote Sensing Satellites”.  Since January 2010 the PRC has launch 9 of the “Yaogan” series of “Remote Sensing Satellites” split fairly evenly between unit with Electro-Optical Digital Imaging and Synthetic Aperture Radar vehicles most in nearly circular polar orbit with orbital altitudes of 600 to 1200 KM.

I would not bet against the fact that the PRC already has had organic assets in the facility, and quite possibilities currently still have organic assets in the facility.  I would also wager that the PRC probably has better and more current maps and photo imagery of the site and surrounding area, and the rest of the island of Taiwan then the current government of Taiwan.

For some strange reason the average citizen of the world must have any and all satellite imaging of the site blurred so as to not cause concern to the Taiwanese government that their little egg nest has not only be located, and plotted on maps, but heaven forbid that unknown outside parties might know how many eggs are in the nest.  Because we all know that “We cannot handle the Truth”.

What to do about General Ward ?

Background:  See the following link to Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Ward for a very good run down of his impressive and distinguished career.

But his career is not the central fact in his current situation, General Ward is under investigation for numerous allegations the he spent or authorized the spending of several hundred thousand dollars allowing unauthorized individuals including family members to fly on aircraft operated by or for the United States Government, and spent or authorized the expenditure of excessive amounts of funds on travel expenses, and or failed to follow DOD policies and procedure in the spending or authorizing of these expenditures.  Additional he spent or authorized the expenditure of excessive amount of funds on other uncategorized activities.

These charges were serious enough that The Office of the Inspector General U.S. Department of Defense conducted a 17 Month investigation into the allegations and forwarded a 99 Page report with recommendations to the Secretary of the Army for his consideration and “appropriate action”.  The Secretary of the Army recommendation of “appropriate action” is unknown, but the report and the Secretary of the Army recommended “appropriate action” was forwarded to the Secretary of Defense, for his decision on the matter.  The matter currently resides in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Recently The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey has voiced his opinion that General Ward should not be punished and be allowed to retire with the Rank of General.  General Dempsey is not in General Wards direct chain of command, since the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not exercise any direct operational command function, they are theoretically an advisory group to advise the President and the Secretary of Defense on Policy matters, he can therefore voice his opinion.

To me General Dempsey pronouncement is a trial balloon to see how and if the American People, Member of Congress, and the Members of the United States Armed Forces will react to the possibility that General Ward will be allowed to skip on these charges.

If this were a lowly solider, sailor, airman, or marine and comparable charges had been alleged and the required UMCJ investigations had be held, that poor unfortunate soul would be lucky if they let them out of the service with anything less than a Bad Conduct Discharge.  If they were unlucky enough to get a Bad Conduct Discharge and if the maximum sentence that could be assigned to the charges exceed 1 year of confinement then this individual would gain the additional benefit of have to report that they have felon conviction on their record.

If General Ward is allowed to skip on these charges and retire at his last highest held grade (General) it sends a message that there is at least a two tier, if not three a tier justice system in the Department of Defense.  It would announce that there is justice system for Flag Grade Officers, and a justice system for the all of the other military personnel.  Some will argue that there are in fact three tiers in the UMCJ as it is currently practiced.  One tier for Flag Grade Officers, Another tier for Senior NCO, Warrant Officers, Company Grade Officers, and Field Grade Officers, and a third tier for lower grade NCO and enlisted personnel.

There is a series of public announcement spots on the Armed Forces Network, called “That not what right looks like” which are attempts to highlight daily situations were personal integrity, or walking the talk are important to an individual, especially when that individual is in some type of leadership position.  The troops are not dumb, they watch their leadership, the have their leaders disconnects between words and deeds memorized.  Just sit in a DFAC and listen to some of the conversations, it can be a truly mind altering experience.

If General Ward is allowed to skip and retire with out any consequences, and to this writer that is what it appears to be happening, then the Department of Defense should save taxpayers money and stop playing lip service to “That not what right looks like”, and a host of other public announcements that are dispensed to members of the armed forces

If General Ward is allowed to skip, it will be another rock added to officers who have displayed lack of integrity and corruption pile.  It could be a sign to other that this behavior is acceptable.  Yes, it was just a little over the line, after a while there is no line, then what.

When the troops do not believe their officers, they will not follow them.  We do not want that to happen with our United State Military, but it could and General Ward’s case could just be the start of our journey down that slippery slope, then again we could already be some distance down that slope.

Please note that individuals in the Operational Chain of Command, and General Ward’s chain of command have not voiced any public opinions of this matter, for it would be criminal on their part to do so.

To Secretary of Defense, by allowing General Ward to have his day in court so sunlight can be shown on the charges, the evidence, and the verdict could go some distance in reestablishing confidence in the system, after all it is said that  “Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant” Louis Brandeis.

General Ward has a great deal to risk by having his day in court, he could be found guilty of all or some of the charges and specifications, and if found guilty he could face the full extent of punishment that the law allows, and could end up with nothing.  But by the same token he has a great deal to gain by having his day in court, he could forever remove the blotch on his distinguished career.

General Ward could go silently into the night and accept a retirement at a lower grade, but this could result in the placement of an asterisk by his name, like with baseball statistic where the use of drugs was suspected in enhancing a player performance.

If General Ward does not want his day in court to refute the allegations, and clear his besmirched name then the Secretary of Defense must not reward him by allowing him to retire at his highest grade of rank.

Enlist Personnel and Officers of the United States Armed Forces should to be held to higher standards then the ordinary American citizen.  Officers should be held to higher standard then members of the enlisted ranks.  Flag officers should be held to higher standards than members of the company and field grade officer corps.  Flag officers are the leaders of the armed forces leadership.  If any individuals’ actions should be circumspect it should be these individuals for who the United States Government has appointed and entrusted the lives of citizens to.

Every now and then even I surprise my self

I was reading an article on the Harvard Endowment found at the following link http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-20/can-timber-rebuild-harvards-endowment.  In the article there was a graphic that compared the Harvard endowment 10 Year Annualized Return to 7 of it peer endowments (Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, and Cornell).  The 10 Year period of comparison for this report was June 2001 through June 2011.   And as one would expect all of the Endowments achieved these results via the efforts of some very highly competent and compensated professional money managers.

Entity	10 Year Annualized Return
Yale	10.1 %
Columbia	9.9 %
Princeton	9.8 %
Harvard	9.4 %
Me	8.6 %
Brown	7.7 %
Dartmouth	7.0 %
Penn	6.8 %
Cornell	6.4 %
Annualized S&P 500 Return (Dividends Reinvested)	2.3 %

I added the 10 Annualized SP500 as an additional reference, one should have an impartial bench mark.  I suspect that the respective endowment manager report their portfolios relative progress versus this benchmark to their respective Universities.  The 10 Year Annualized Return for the SP500 used in this comparison was calculated using the calculator provided on the site http://dqydj.net/sp-500-return-calculator/

Granted I do not have all of the high price talent, connections and resources that they have, and I certainly pale in comparison as to amount of funds that I have to invest, but all in all I feel that I have done reasonably well in comparison considering what I do and don’t have or know.   My 10 Annualized Rate of Return was calculated by Quicken accounting program, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt.

The average 10 Year Annualized Return for this group of Universities for the period in question is 8.39 Percent.  This groups average and individual 10 Year Annualized Return when compared to the 10 Year Annualized Return for the SP 500 is remarkable (3 to 5 times that of the benchmark).  Then again it could be a very poor benchmark, I don’t know.  For the same period my Quicken calculated 10 Year Annualized Return was an impressive (Well I consider it impressive) 8.6 Percent, not bad for an old retired Physicists/Engineer.

All that I am claiming, if I am claiming anything is that I consider my self to be very lucky and fortunate.  I feel that I am just another data point in the tale of the old blind hog finding another acorn or truffle.

My portfolio is an equal blend of three different model passive portfolios (Aronson, Yale, and Second Grader) that all invest in passive index mutual funds that have low if not the lowest management fees available to the average investor.  The particular on the various portfolios can be found at the following site http://www.marketwatch.com/lazyportfolio.  I do owe a sincere debit of gratitude to Paul B Farrell who generated the articles, and marketwatch.com for publishing them.

Now for the obligatory verbiage I am not currently nor have I ever been nor is it likely that I will ever be an employee of the Marketwatch.com or any of subsidiaries, or controlling corporations.  I do not know, nor have I ever met Paul B. Farrell, and to the best of my limited knowledge I do not know or ever met any of his family.  I am not currently nor have I ever been, nor is it likely that I will ever be an employee of The Vanguard Group.  I do have vested interest in the various mutual funds that make up these model portfolios since I own shares in them.

Finally and most important past performance is no guarantee of future performance.  But you do have to be in the game if you ever expect to have any chance.

Can Mitt Think on his feet?

Several notable members of the press have proposed a theory that Mitt Romney is “rhetorically at his weakest when forced to improvise or handle unexpected questions or situations.” James Fallows national correspondent for the Atlantic being just one of the press/media cohorts make this claim.

I have been on this earth for some 60 years and to date from my limited, and yes poorly sampled study of one, it appears that most of my life I have been expected, required, and forced to improvise or handle unexpected questions or situations.

Is not the ability to improvise or handle unexpected questions or situations that is at the heart of what the POTUS is expected to do?  I do not know about you the reader, but for me this is the most salient issue that I use to determine who I want to vote for in this office or for that matter any other office.

Do “We the People” of the United States of America not expect and not require that the individual who we elect to be POTUS have the ability to handle unexpected questions or situations?  Again, I do not know about you the reader, but for me I do vote for the individual who I expect and require to handle these questions and situations.

Do we also not expect and require that these events be handle in a controlled, confident, and effective manner?  The short answer is YES.

Are not these tasks the 3 o’clock in the morning situations?  Again the short answer is YES.

Can one spreadsheet your way out of these situations?  Not to my limited knowledge.

Can one find the answer/solutions to these situations in books of case law review and/or cited precedent?  Again to my limited knowledge I believe the answer to be NO.

Under laying this situation is the fact that he or she has volunteered to run for the elected office in order to be allowed to perform these tasks with our blessing, acquiescence and or approval, provide they have duly won the election.  This is an important office and “We the People” require an individual who has the where with all (intelligence, composure, instinct, experience, and humanity) to handle the pressure and hazards of the office, to effectively represent us not just in good times but especially to effectively represent us in the perilous times.

Does it appear that Mitt has what it takes to be a corporate officer?  YES, a corporate officers scope and area of concern are by design rather limited, to what is good for the corporation, its management, and its shareholders.  On the surface Mitt appears to be spot on for this job.

Does it appear that Mitt has what it takes to be POTUS?  From my vantage point the answer is a resounding NO.  The scope and area of concern for this office appear to be too broad and too different from his past experience and skill set in business.

To answer the question first offered in the title of the little essay, “Can Mitt think on his feet?”  I would say that he like all individuals he has some abilities in the area, but if his and/or my life really depended on his ability think on is feet, I am not sure that we would survive.

Along the same line of thought, I am not sure that Mitt really understands the term “We the People”, to date most of his actions would indicate that he does not, he can talk a good game, but it appears that he has no muscle memory, which would imply that he has never practice it.  I feel that Mitt understands the term “We, some of the People”, and it would appear that he has a great deal of muscle memory, which would imply that he has practice this exercise a great deal.  Which might just be the reason that it appears that he cannot think on his feet.

Sometimes you just want to Scream!

After reading Allen B West Marketwatch.com Outside the Box (and this was outside of the box) post of  Sept 18, 2012 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-republic-cannot-survive-so-much-dependency-2012-09-18 which contain some very remarkable words from a man about dependence on the Government, this from a man who from all appearances has been dependent on the Government from birth in 1961.

His father was a career military, so he was suckling the breast of the People and the Government of the United States of America from his first breath on this planet.  His mother was a civilian employee of the United States Marine Corp, is that double dipping of dependancy, again another dependency on the People and the Government of the United States America.  His parents were receiving retirement checks from the time they either retired from the military or civil service until their deaths from the People and Government of the United States of America; it appears that for a significant portion of their lives they were dependent on the People and Government of the United States of America.

After graduation from college University of Tennessee (dependent on the People and Government of Tennessee, and indirectly on the People and Government of the United States of America), probably on an ROTC scholarship (unknown by this author and only speculation based on his dates in his biography), (Would that be another dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America?), but at the very least possibility enrolled in an ROTC program, joins the United States Army, and servers 22 Years before retiring after an Article 32 investigation, which results in an Article 15, rather than an Article 39. (Again is that another dependency on the People and Government of the United States?).  While on Active Duty completes a Master Program in Political Science (Kansas State University (dependent on the People and Government of the State of Kansas and indirectly on the People and Government of the United States of America) and a Master of Military Arts and Science (United States Army Command and General Staff Officer College) paid for by the People and Government of the United States of America, again is that another dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America?

In 2004-2005, while drawing his retirement pay (dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America?) teaches US History and coaches Track and Field Deerfield Beach High School (dependency on the People and Government of the State of Florida and indirectly on the People and Government of the United States of America ?).

In 2006-2007, while drawing his retirement pay from the United States Government (dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America?) works for Military Professional Resources Inc., a defense contractor (again dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America) support United States operations in Afghanistan.

In 2008, while drawing his retirement pay from the United States Government (dependency on the People and Government of the United State of America?) runs for United States House of Representatives, he loses.

In 2010 while drawing his retirement pay from the United States Government (dependency on the People and Government of the United States of America?) run for the United States House of Representatives, and wins.  Now joins the incoming class of Representatives in January 2011, start drawing another paycheck with benefits from the People and Government of the United States of America.

These are words from an individual who for all intent and purpose has been dependent directly or indirectly on the People and Government of the United States of America for all of his life.  It is a clear case of not eating what you kill, of what is good for the goose is NOT good for gander. A clear case of do what I say NOT as I do.

Only God knows if Allen B West would be where he is today if not for being dependent on People and Government of the United States of America.

To paraphrase Shakespeare Julius Caesar 

“Yet Allen B West say many of us are dependent on the Government; and Allen B West is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men;”

Buffalo soldier speak with forked tongue, you are the poster child for people dependent on the People and Government of the United States of America, to be honest sir we all are poster children of people dependent of the People and Government of the United States of America, that is the whole bloody point to Government.