Pruning Day On The Blog

Another beautiful early morning in Dove Canyon today. And I mean early. We posted the blog last night at 11:05 and we was tired. After posting, we checked Bloomberg to see how the openings in Europe was doing and how the mid day was going in most of Asia. No major surprises, so we knew we could hit the sack without worrying about any pressing news. The DOW futures were looking to open down just a touch.

We started to get ready for bed and remembered that we were 78% done with Grisham's new book, Litigators. If you do not own a kindle, you should know there is no page count. The pages you have read are expressed as a % of the book. But I Digress.

We decided to read a few more pages. We finished the book about 12:25. Stupid is, as stupid do. Yeah were were dragging a bit this morning but got Man Child to school. We got back had our tea and waited for Mr. Market to open. (more on that later).

I had arranged to take Devin's Escolade to get detailed today, so I asked my brilliant hard working executive assistance Ellen to meet me where the Truck was being detailed, and so she did. That put us in the office at about 8:15. I had an 8:00 teleconference to prepare for and had about 10 minutes to check the market before hand. Zzzzzzzzz Still No Volatility.

After the phone call, we went through some mail, took care of some calls and looked at some financials for our company. And then as if a thief pilfering the time out of our life, to our stupefaction, it was lunch time. (Whoa, where did that come from.) Now my plan was to see what wonderful woman was doing, but she was out fixing my car.

Now that is a funny story or will be several years from now. Here I offer to get her car detailed and ask her to dive my car. I had a weak moment a few years ago and bought a very nice convertible, Devin likes on thing about my car, IT IS NOT HERS. She really does not like my car. So when saddled with my car for the day, the last thing I wanted to hear was her telling me the tire pressure sensor went off. I explained that the low profile tires are pressure sensitive and on cold mornings the tire pressure drops and sets off the alarms. She explained to me that the warning sign on the dash board said that tire pressure was low, she was going to have a flat tire, the car would roll, explode and cause the Euro to collapse by 2:07 in the afternoon. Ok I might have got some of that wrong, but she did get a warning.

Anyway she took my car over to our "tire place". Does everybody have a "tire place"? I mean come on, I have actually been in conversations and said "You should go to my "tire place" and see my "tire guy"." Anyway they put some air in the tire but the warning was still on the dash board only now it was saying we might get a flat and Russia will stand with Iran when they invade Israel. Think the CIA just picked that one up? Mmmmm. Anyway I went over to our "tire place" and there were three guys there trying to figure out how to shut off the warning. It is always nice to see three guys covered with grease and oil in greasy oily jumpsuits and tools in their pockets frolicking around your baby infant cow leather seats. They got it shut off. We offered a tip and they refused to take it. (I had to look around to make sure we were not in Utah.) Usually they have the tallest guy there wave the keys over my head and make me jump for them after I hand them a 20.

By this time lunch had slipped through my fingers so we ran over to Wendy's and had a single with cheese. (Hope my doctor isn't reading this.) While congesting my colon with animals fats and proteins,

we watched a few of our options pop, MORE LATER, and read the cover story on the WSJ about the interesting speech our President made in Osawatomie, Kansas.

In what only can be called a catalyst for a class warfare in the United States, he blames big business for all the problems in the US. He told the audience that children can no longer expect to join the middle class even of they work hard and play by the rules. While quoting Theodore Roosevelt he blamed the financial crisis on "the breathtaking greed of a few". (Ignoring the fact that it was former administrations including Bush and Clinton who encouraged government backed mortgage guarantors -Fannie May and Freddie Mac to lend money to peoples who could not afford to pay them back because it was good for the economy.) He went on to say Republican's and their policies enabled irresponsibility. This obviously set the tone and the strategy of this President for the balance of his tenure. Historically it has proven dangerous to embrace economic woes as a political strategy. This is ironic in light of the recent gradual improvements in the economy, which from a timing standpoint would play to his reelection bid. The strategy will be well received from the Occupy Wall Street Crowd, but I wonder if those individuals camping out in the various venues vote or provide economic support to the Party.

Until I read this article, I was confident that we would have 4 more years of President Obama and his administration of academics and idealologists (please do the homework and enlighten me if, Besides Hilary, there is ANYONE on the cabinet with any practical business experience). Now I am not too sure. Now I can't blame him for this tactic as it is easier to fan the flames of a sluggish economic recovery versus trying to explain how improving industrial production, a slowly shrinking unemployment number, well managed inflation curve, and a very slowly improving but improving housing industry is all good for slow but sustainable growth. But what kind of leadership is that? He may have "jumped the shark" with this speech.

Before we started the blog today it was time to see who has been naughty and who has been nice. We have 53 readers and are averaging 34 openings everyday. That implies we have some ferrule buds to prune. We do not like to get e-mails from anyone we do not want to read. Sometimes it's a real hassle opting out. Some times its awkward opting out. If I see someone go a month or so without opening the e-mails, it is safe to assume they have lost interest or in a few cases I have offended them so they stop opening. I have had two people call me and ask me to be taken off because they are in the business or they are an officer in a publically held company and we respected that request, built today we pruned 7 people who have not opened the Salve Lucrum e-mail in about a month. Three were people I did not even know who they were? So after the pruning, we are back to 46 readers. Thank you all for living vicariously though my almost daily drivel.

Tonight we had a get together of our sales people in our "Founder's Bar" It was nice to see everybody again. They just finished 3 days of meetings and most looked very punch drunk. They were definitely on information overload. After an errand or two I was home enjoying a veggie pizza with Devin and Jack. Ok Jack to his cave food to the Manchild Cave, but I got my welcome home daddy hug. Then Devin and I enjoyed a few minutes of TV and it was get ready to blog time.