5044 Brush fire 3 - investment account

Sunday, January 17, 2016

"The beauty and intricacy of a person's mind has little or nothing to do with outward appearances."

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First, some extraneous thoughts:

Microsoft keeps urging me in popups to "reserve my copy of Windows 10".  Why "reserve"?  Are they in danger of running out of copies?

The huge Power Ball lottery.   I am amused by the people who accuse ticket buyers of being mathematically challenged, pointing out the enormous odds of winning.  So what?  Even though I never buy lottery tickets, I don't see those who do decide to take a chance on huge winnings as mathematically illiterate.  The way I see it, someone has to win, someone will win, and I have exactly the same chance of winning as that person.  So two dollars is not too much to share that person's chance at a billion or two.  (However, I don't have the same attitude toward buying tickets every day.  There are better ways to spend that money.)

Anybody else getting whiffs of McCarthyism from the Republican candidates?  (An interesting detail -- Joseph McCarthy's grave is on the banks of the Fox River.)

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Back in November I got a call from Piper.  He was sending me some papers he wanted me to sign.  He's moving his clients' accounts to a different custodian.

So, the papers arrived.  Currently the custodian of my account is a well-known Wall Street bank.  I didn't recognize the name on the forms to which he wants to move my account.  He's also changing the brokerage that holds his license.  As of January 1, his relationship with the old brokerage ends.  I don't know the right terms for all this stuff, or the nature of the relationships, but that doesn't really matter.

Anyway, having never heard of this new custodian, I did some research, and I really really don't want to transfer to them.  This issue has consumed a lot of physical and emotional energy lately, and I'm tired of it.

They're in Alabama.  (Immediate bells went off.  Alabama?  Would I be depending on graduates of the Alabama public school system?) A bit over a year ago they fired several top executives because, uh, somebody was using company funds for yachts, summer homes, vacations, or whatever.  Digging a bit deeper I get the impression that this company is a good-old-boys country club run for the sole benefit of the good-old-boys who figured they'd found a goose that lays golden eggs with very little attention required.  

Lots of other unpleasant details.  

The most damning, as far as I'm concerned, is that in the summer of 2014 an employee took a laptop home and lost it in a restaurant bathroom.  The damning part is that client records (personal info, SS#s, account numbers, account activity, etc) are kept on the laptops, the employees are allowed to take them home, and nothing was encrypted.  A lower-level employee said that purchase of an encryption package had been submitted for the budget every year, and every year it had been rejected, "no funds in the budget" for that.  But check out what the executives are paid.  This is a clear indication to me that the safety of client data is very low on their priority list.

They've got some large nasty lawsuits going on, some from those fired executives, at least one multi-million dollar suit alleging shady business practices, and so on.  Of course, they might even prevail.  I don't care.  What matters is that there have been some very bad decisions made, and the culture of the company is such that an employee does not feel free to bring problems to management's attention for fear of being seen as "not a team player", or "rocking the boat", which is never a good thing.  They were fined (a piddling amount!) for the lack of encryption, and I have been unable to find anything about what they're doing about security now.  Doesn't matter.  I am not convinced that the attitude that lead to the cavalier treatment of client data is not endemic.  It'll crop up somewhere else, in some other form.

After a hundred years in business as a private company, they've been bought out by one of those fast-growing folks who snap up "companies in turmoil", as these folks have been described, at a bargain price, such purchase frequently to raid the assets or at least to absorb them.  This could be a good thing, but according to what I have been able to find out about the agreement, they are going to be allowed to operate autonomously.  I presume under the same management.  Not a good thing.

I asked Piper why he chose this particular bunch, and what I got back was a long screed about how wonderful the new brokerage firm is (is that what you call the folks he now works under?), but nothing about the custodial idiots in Alabama.  So, then I did the research on the brokers, and they're fine. 

So, no, I'm not going to sign the forms to move my account.  If Piper can't handle it where it currently is (does it matter who he's licensed through?  Maybe it affects how he's paid?) then, well, oops.

Piper is getting frantic.  In my latest email to him (I won't talk to him on the phone anymore, especially not about this) Friday I asked what our options are.  I know him well enough to know that now he's going to go into high gear to convince me, but my mind is made up, heels are dug in, and I really don't want to discuss it further.

Up in the air right now.

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Something else I know about Piper -- "research" is a foreign concept to him.  He used to send me some of the most outrageous emails, you know, those mass mailings forwarded all over the world that originate with satirical "news" sites as truth, but are obvious blatant lies to anyone with half a brain, but believed by people who WANT to believe them.

I always responded to those with articles and sites that refute them, usually Snopes.com, but he never learned, and I finally had to get a bit insulting -- "please, before making yourself look like a total ass, do some minimal research before forwarding this crap".  He stopped including me in his distribution, but I'll bet he still believes that crap.

So, I'll bet he took someone's recommendation in choosing that Alabama bunch without ever doing any research of his own. 
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3602 Who votes Republican? And why?

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Too many people don’t know the difference between “possible” and “probable”.

--  Me  --

(...especially where gossip is concerned....)

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I was thinking about Rocky's comment on my previous post (go read it, I'll wait).  I know quite a few people who vote Republican all the time, and most of them are normally reasonable and intelligent people. If they are friends, it's understood that we never never ever talk politics.  Or religion.

Piper took a long time to learn that.  He kept trying to "educate" me.  He couldn't understand how I could be so invested in stock and real estate, and not vote my self-interest.  He finally gave up, but he will still rail in front of me at people who make stupid financial decisions, who don't work, who use "the system", and he fumes at the "socialist" government that forces him to pay for those people's mistakes.  There's a large "I made it, why can't they" component to his rants.

So, anyway, I was thinking about my politically conservative/Republican friends.  How would I define them, what are their characteristics? 

They seem to fall into two very different groups.

One group is Rocky's rich white men, some rich white women, and women who live off the rich white men.  This group is not as large as the second group, but  they have the money to contribute to candidates, and money counts heavily. Money wins elections.  These people see government as a good investment that can help them acquire more money.

The second group is much larger.  These are people who make just a little bit too much to qualify for social programs and financial aid.  They work hard.  They aspire to the good life they see on TV.  They are less well educated, tend to distrust "book-smarts", and are the target audience for Madison Avenue advertisers.  They fall for buzz words and sound bites.  They tend to be patriotic and love their cars and their guns.   This is a very large group.  They vote.  Votes win elections.  They fiercely resent that the government is taking money from them and giving it to people they see as less deserving. 

Think about the conservative political rhetoric.  It's tailored to appeal to the second group.  But the first group knows the real agenda (nudge nudge wink wink).

I said that the second group falls for buzz words.  Here's an example.  Say "socialism" to a member of that group and you get an immediate spittingly negative reaction.  Now ask that person what socialism is.  Dollars to donuts you won't get an answer beyond that it's bad.  They seem to equate it to the perverted form of communism practiced in Russia.  (I wonder if they are aware that the Israeli kibbutz is pure communism?)  If you want to get punched out, point out to them that their local fire department and police force are socialistic.  And how about bridges and the highway system?  Socialism.  Streetlights?  State colleges?  Utility rate regulation?  Socialism.  Ask them if they really want every road to be a toll road, including the street they live on.

Pure unadulterated capitalism puts profit above everything else.  The first group loves capitalism. 

Socialism puts profit secondary to the social good.  Pure unadulterated socialism discourages innovation.  

The ideal is a mix of the two - capitalism dominating for non-necessities, socialism dominating for necessities.  The first group, the group with all the money and ability to control "the message", hates being restricted in their quest for profit, so they want to ensure that the second group, with all those votes, rejects socialism.

It seems to me that the only argument should be in defining what is a necessity and what is not.

Shall we discuss health care?
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3252 Sexy thoughts

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

If you’re standing with one foot in the past, and one foot in the future, you’re pissing on today.
-- Old Italian saying --

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Raising the debt ceiling thing. Look it up. If it's not raised, the US will default on obligations for the first time in history. A doomsday scenario.

There may be valid reasons for not raising it, but what pisses me off is that the Obama-haters are gleefully mentally masturbating to the thought of the consequences - completely forgetting who and what got us to this point. The more stupid of them would ensure it happens for that reason alone.
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2988 Shifting the Blame

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
-- Sidney J. Harris --

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I wrote the following in my post " 2108 Ok, I'm a Conspiracy Nut", dated November 9, 2008, when it seemed to me that the Republican party was royally screwing up the campaign, doing everything possible to ensure that they lost the election:

The pundits are all blathering about the "split" in the Republican party. I think there's another split they've missed. I think The Powers of the Republican party didn't really want to win this election. It helps to explain some of the stupidities of the Republican campaign.

The next President is inheriting a royal mess. There are things that will have to be done that will be very unpopular. Many of those actions will look very socialistic, which will strongly alienate the Republican voting base, who will not understand the absolute necessity for those actions. Many problems will require more than four years to show improvement.

So if the next President and Congress does a good job, and gets things turned around and headed onto the right track, it probably won't pay off during the first term, and it could be at the cost of popularity. So why not let the Democrats take that heat, instead of the Republicans? 2012 is the right time to waltz in and reap the benefits.

So, did I call it, or did I call it?
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2038 The Conspiracy!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

I'm not going to footnote (i.e. link) anything because you can find anything you like on the internet, so have at it.

Ok. Here's what I've heard and/or read lately, no assurances that any of it is true, but when do you ever get assurances with conspiracy theories?

My Very Own Conspiracy Theory:

Point 1: The US economy is a mess. The debt is enormous. Tax relief, let alone anything like health care assistance will be impossible. Foreign affairs are a mess. The world hates us. We're in one war we can't win and another we don't dare lose, and we can no longer afford either.

Point 2: I hear that Sarah Palin's handlers are having fits. They've had some practice debates, and some mock news conferences, and they've been total disasters. They'd like to cancel the upcoming Palin/Biden debate, or postpone, but that doesn't seem possible. People are freaking. There are those in the GOP rarified levels that would like her to voluntarily withdraw (but I'll bet she keeps insisting she's ready), but it probably wouldn't help anyway (that "experience and judgment" thing McCain thinks he has going for him would be shot full of holes).

Point 3: I hear that Palin was recommended to John McCain by none other than Henry Kissinger.

Point 4: Of all the people in the world who suffers least from cognitive dissonance, I'd put Kissinger pretty far up there. I see him as coldly logical.

Point 5: I think Kissinger knew exactly what he was doing, and I think others were involved.

Conclusion: The GOP wants to lose this election. They will be happy to hand the whole mess over to the Democrats, who will be forced to do some unpleasant and very unpopular things to clean it up. The American public has a very short memory. In a few years, they'll forget who created the mess, and all the anger and frustration of the cleanup will be dumped on the Democrats (who not incidentally don't know how to use the media to the same effect as the right), and in 2012, the Republicans will be able to waltz right in, and look like saviors. And in running McCain and Palin, well, it's not like they sacrificed any of their valuable players.

How's that for a conspiracy theory?

(Oh, and don't forget what the Mayan calendar and Nostradamus and some interpretations of the Bible have to say about 2012.)
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