It's just something silly to think about. What if?
In this imaginary world....around 2008....some Bain Capital guys walked into Solyndra and bought them out completely...ahead of their campaign kiss-up to the Obama team, thus avoiding a handshake deal and $535 million (half a billion for simplicity's sake).
On day one, Bain buys the company for a pretty good price....fifty percent less than what their CEO says is their worth.
On day two, Bain Capital fires the CEO, and half of the top layer of the management staff. Nothing personal, but their vision is 180 degrees from reality.
On day five, Bain agrees that the technology is workable, but not in California. They agree to move the entire plant to Tennessee. You as an employee, are given this simple offer....come with the plant and get a moving package. You chose no.....you get a termination notice and two months notice. You chose yes, and start preparing yourself for Tennessee.
On day sixteen, there's these real estate guys looking over the property in California and willing to pay a fair price. Bain agrees to sell immediately.
On day twenty, Bain gets some Tennessee state officials to agree to a massive tax relief package, with almost no property tax. The property that they will be using? It's all donated by the state....free of charge. The state even agrees to pave a road and build a parking lot around the new plant....free.
On day thirty, Bain has some Tennessee senator lined up and prepared to give them tax credits in the 2009 budget year.....so they are building and selling solar panels out of Tennessee, with zero federal taxes coming into play. It's a simple three-line piece that no one even notices in the federal law book.
On day four-hundred, Bain is operating Solyndra at a fair profit.
On day five-hundred, Bain Capital sells their Solyndra operation for $700 million in profit over what they bought the company for.
The sad thing to this story....Solyndra never gets a chance to squander a half-a-billion from the US government or the tax-payer.
It'd make a great TV commercial.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
This Odd Gal
This is we know.....a US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, NC....ended up landing in Maine today. Some gal onboard......made a comment to a stewardess that she had a device surgically implanted inside her. Naturally, this kinda perked the stewardess up and got everyone into a excited episode.
Cops came out to the plane in Bangor, and removed the gal. The plane left....nothing of interest found on the gal.
So I started to dig into this story. She's a French citizen, but officially....she's from Cameroon. It's an odd thing....she gets a ten-day ticket to visit the US. Being a French citizen.....you don't need much of a visa to visit the US. If you'd been a Cameroon citizen....you'd have to lay out some details and have a different type of visa.
Then there's this odd thing.....no baggage. She apparently just showed up at some airport and displayed a ticket. I assume she has some carry-on stuff with her.....but no checked bags. Who travels from France to North Carolina with no baggage, for ten days? Well...it's hard to think of someone who would do that.
What's the whole story? A humble guess. I'm thinking that some rich wealthy guy from Cameroon....has a US visa and lives all-year-round in North Carolina. He's married. His wife came up and will be gone for two weeks. He has this former girlfriend.....and invites her to fly out immediately to entertain him for the period. She's a bit naive...packs nothing, and expects to have a suitcase of North Carolina clothing by the end of the ten days. Oh, and she has implants of a certain nature....just not the type that TSA worries about.
The guy who bought the ticket? He's hoping that some idiot newspaper dopes in North Carolina don't start putting this together and ask his wife for details. Just a humble opinion.
Cops came out to the plane in Bangor, and removed the gal. The plane left....nothing of interest found on the gal.
So I started to dig into this story. She's a French citizen, but officially....she's from Cameroon. It's an odd thing....she gets a ten-day ticket to visit the US. Being a French citizen.....you don't need much of a visa to visit the US. If you'd been a Cameroon citizen....you'd have to lay out some details and have a different type of visa.
Then there's this odd thing.....no baggage. She apparently just showed up at some airport and displayed a ticket. I assume she has some carry-on stuff with her.....but no checked bags. Who travels from France to North Carolina with no baggage, for ten days? Well...it's hard to think of someone who would do that.
What's the whole story? A humble guess. I'm thinking that some rich wealthy guy from Cameroon....has a US visa and lives all-year-round in North Carolina. He's married. His wife came up and will be gone for two weeks. He has this former girlfriend.....and invites her to fly out immediately to entertain him for the period. She's a bit naive...packs nothing, and expects to have a suitcase of North Carolina clothing by the end of the ten days. Oh, and she has implants of a certain nature....just not the type that TSA worries about.
The guy who bought the ticket? He's hoping that some idiot newspaper dopes in North Carolina don't start putting this together and ask his wife for details. Just a humble opinion.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Marion Barry
If you live in DC....you pretty much know the history of former mayor Marion Barry, who today, is a city council guy. He's also in his late 70's, and he's fairly unhealthy in various ways. This past weekend...he was supposed to fly all the way to Vegas for some event. He arrives, and immedately has leg pains. The best that the doctors can say.....is that Marion is suffering from blood clot in his leg. Part of this comes from the air travel, and part from his unhealthy status.
So Marion in recovery status for the next couple of days, and then the hospital will release him in Vegas. The question is....how would Marion return to DC?
What I see here....is the epic of all movies...."Traveling with Marion".
Some guy simply holds up his hand and says he'll drive Marion Barry from Vegas to DC. It's a four-day drive. There has to be some great stories that Marion is going to cut loose on and probably give you enough material for three books. It is the opportunity of a lifetime.
I admit.....he probably will sleep an hour here or there....but he's going to tell you some things that you just don't hear from political figures today.
If I could be the right guy, at the right place, with a Crown Victoria...this might be interesting.
So Marion in recovery status for the next couple of days, and then the hospital will release him in Vegas. The question is....how would Marion return to DC?
What I see here....is the epic of all movies...."Traveling with Marion".
Some guy simply holds up his hand and says he'll drive Marion Barry from Vegas to DC. It's a four-day drive. There has to be some great stories that Marion is going to cut loose on and probably give you enough material for three books. It is the opportunity of a lifetime.
I admit.....he probably will sleep an hour here or there....but he's going to tell you some things that you just don't hear from political figures today.
If I could be the right guy, at the right place, with a Crown Victoria...this might be interesting.
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Greece, The First Month
Most folks who write up on Greece and it's Euro troubles....just talk about the demonstrations, and the bank instability. So I'd rather be creative and lay out how things would be in the first month after they dump the Euro.
So it begins.
The military discovers on day one of the episode, that they really don't have a lot of fuel on hand....maybe enough to run two weeks at best. When they ask for fuel allotment money from the government, they are told to ground all helicopters and aircraft. Tanks and trucks? Put them in the depot. The coast guard? Just enough fuel to run minimum operations.
The police chiefs around the county discover that their stash of fuel will last around seven days. They ask the government to allocate a vast amount of emergency fuel, but the government admits that they just don't have enough money to do more than run a 50-percent operation for the foreseeable future.
Ambulance crews? They are the only government service that gets a full allocation of fuel.
Airports suddenly run into an odd problem. A tourist plane will land and expect to pay in Euro....then are told that they need to pay in newly created Drachma. The pilot calls his headquarters in France, to discover his credit card isn't approved for such a currency yet. The headquarters also questions the exchange rate. Meanwhile the passengers disembark, to discover that the tourist bus to carry them off to the hotel....which was supposed to be "free"....isn't free. The driver wants Euro....not Drachma....and he wants the equalivent of thirty bucks for each person....for a lousy forty minute drive to the hotel.
When the tourist arrives at his hotel....he finds that the contract that he signed six months ago is still valid, but the hotel has added a fee onto the tab (for all drinks and food), so that $10 meal you had.....is now $12 instead.
The cleaning lady at the hotel? Well.....she wants only Drachma...not Euro....and she won't give you clean towels until you tip her in advance.
That fancy all-day tour-bus ride that you had advance booking on? Well....it's still in effect but the driver encourages you strongly to tip him as you enter the bus for Euro, not Drachma. That's the only way that he will turn on the AC unit and keep you chilled all day.
The tourist trap gift shop outside the hotel....that sold you a junk item for $10 in Euro before? Well....it's now $8 in Drachma, but five days later....you notice it's $10....and by the end of the two weeks....it's $14 in Drachma.
The bartender at the hotel establishment? He'll take Drachma, Rupees, Euro, Dollars, and even Russian Rubles.
The local lady shopping for groceries? Well....on day five of the event....she finds the grocery mostly empty and the guy in charge admits that he's having to pay in advance for each item he buys to sell. So his cash flow is slow now, and he hopes in five days to fill half the store. Beans, by his estimation....is a guaranteed thing. Don't be getting hope hopes for American mustard....this year, or next year.
The local bank? They only open between 10 and 2. There's a limit of how many Euro that they will accept each day and convert to Drachma. You ask your Grandma to accept a bundle of Euro, and show up each day to exchange the money for you....because you just don't have time to waste with sixty people in line.
TV and radio? Well....several of the folks have disappeared from the nightly newscast and generally, there's just on-the-air chit-chat....no remote video or conversations with people on the street. No one wants to see video of empty store shelves or people drinking booze on the street.
Your doctor will see you, but he prefers Euro....not Drachma. He's supposed to accept the state-run policy and you only pay a minimum fee. He just laughs when you suggest a minimum fee situation. He refers you to the nurse and refuses to do anything for you.
The gas for your car? Well....it goes up by twenty percent over night, and some gas stations demand Drachma only, while others prefer Euro secretly (under the table).
Some fancy pants Greek political figures would like to go out and do speeches but find that people are confrontational. So it's best to just hide out, drink what booze you hid away for a rainy day, and plot for another election, upon another election, upon another election. Heck, you might gear the nation for six elections per year.
At the end of the first month....there's a bunch of angry people....and no solution in sight. If you are twenty-two and educated.....you might as well pack a bag and agree to work in Italy or Amsterdam for minimum wage. It puts food on the table. These younger folks? They probably won't ever return. They are bound to absorb themselves into life elsewhere and give up eternally on Greece.
Somewhere in the months to come....you suddenly have a rise in Greek women advertising for American gentlemen for marriage. American guys suddenly start to evaluate Thai, Russian, and Greek women on marriage possibilities. Suddenly, some single guy from Ripley, Mississippi is reading up on the Greek Orthodox Church and a Greek diet of rabbit, peasant, chickens and fish, with some kind of goat yogurt that tastes kinda like buttermilk.
Life in Greece, as we know it....is about to change.
So it begins.
The military discovers on day one of the episode, that they really don't have a lot of fuel on hand....maybe enough to run two weeks at best. When they ask for fuel allotment money from the government, they are told to ground all helicopters and aircraft. Tanks and trucks? Put them in the depot. The coast guard? Just enough fuel to run minimum operations.
The police chiefs around the county discover that their stash of fuel will last around seven days. They ask the government to allocate a vast amount of emergency fuel, but the government admits that they just don't have enough money to do more than run a 50-percent operation for the foreseeable future.
Ambulance crews? They are the only government service that gets a full allocation of fuel.
Airports suddenly run into an odd problem. A tourist plane will land and expect to pay in Euro....then are told that they need to pay in newly created Drachma. The pilot calls his headquarters in France, to discover his credit card isn't approved for such a currency yet. The headquarters also questions the exchange rate. Meanwhile the passengers disembark, to discover that the tourist bus to carry them off to the hotel....which was supposed to be "free"....isn't free. The driver wants Euro....not Drachma....and he wants the equalivent of thirty bucks for each person....for a lousy forty minute drive to the hotel.
When the tourist arrives at his hotel....he finds that the contract that he signed six months ago is still valid, but the hotel has added a fee onto the tab (for all drinks and food), so that $10 meal you had.....is now $12 instead.
The cleaning lady at the hotel? Well.....she wants only Drachma...not Euro....and she won't give you clean towels until you tip her in advance.
That fancy all-day tour-bus ride that you had advance booking on? Well....it's still in effect but the driver encourages you strongly to tip him as you enter the bus for Euro, not Drachma. That's the only way that he will turn on the AC unit and keep you chilled all day.
The tourist trap gift shop outside the hotel....that sold you a junk item for $10 in Euro before? Well....it's now $8 in Drachma, but five days later....you notice it's $10....and by the end of the two weeks....it's $14 in Drachma.
The bartender at the hotel establishment? He'll take Drachma, Rupees, Euro, Dollars, and even Russian Rubles.
The local lady shopping for groceries? Well....on day five of the event....she finds the grocery mostly empty and the guy in charge admits that he's having to pay in advance for each item he buys to sell. So his cash flow is slow now, and he hopes in five days to fill half the store. Beans, by his estimation....is a guaranteed thing. Don't be getting hope hopes for American mustard....this year, or next year.
The local bank? They only open between 10 and 2. There's a limit of how many Euro that they will accept each day and convert to Drachma. You ask your Grandma to accept a bundle of Euro, and show up each day to exchange the money for you....because you just don't have time to waste with sixty people in line.
TV and radio? Well....several of the folks have disappeared from the nightly newscast and generally, there's just on-the-air chit-chat....no remote video or conversations with people on the street. No one wants to see video of empty store shelves or people drinking booze on the street.
Your doctor will see you, but he prefers Euro....not Drachma. He's supposed to accept the state-run policy and you only pay a minimum fee. He just laughs when you suggest a minimum fee situation. He refers you to the nurse and refuses to do anything for you.
The gas for your car? Well....it goes up by twenty percent over night, and some gas stations demand Drachma only, while others prefer Euro secretly (under the table).
Some fancy pants Greek political figures would like to go out and do speeches but find that people are confrontational. So it's best to just hide out, drink what booze you hid away for a rainy day, and plot for another election, upon another election, upon another election. Heck, you might gear the nation for six elections per year.
At the end of the first month....there's a bunch of angry people....and no solution in sight. If you are twenty-two and educated.....you might as well pack a bag and agree to work in Italy or Amsterdam for minimum wage. It puts food on the table. These younger folks? They probably won't ever return. They are bound to absorb themselves into life elsewhere and give up eternally on Greece.
Somewhere in the months to come....you suddenly have a rise in Greek women advertising for American gentlemen for marriage. American guys suddenly start to evaluate Thai, Russian, and Greek women on marriage possibilities. Suddenly, some single guy from Ripley, Mississippi is reading up on the Greek Orthodox Church and a Greek diet of rabbit, peasant, chickens and fish, with some kind of goat yogurt that tastes kinda like buttermilk.
Life in Greece, as we know it....is about to change.
Friday, 11 May 2012
When Robbery Doesn't Mean Much
I get my old hometown newspaper, and it's amongst the fifteen odd papers that I tend to read to stay abreast of the world.
So this week....comes the issue noting a robbery attempt (actually two) back on 27 April. A gal walks up to the Subway shop along the main drag leading to the town around 7:30 PM. She enters....wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. She indicates to the guy running the shop that she's there to rob the shop, and she's got a gun (although it's never shown).
Now, here in Arlington....the Subway guy would have tossed open the cash register and thrown the $188 to her in a heartbeat. No argument. No hassle. Just give the lady robber the money.
But this is Bama.
There's apparently a ten-second pause here.....although the newspaper journalist doesn't really indicate that. It's a fairly long pause.
On second one.....the Subway guy is thinking....man, this is like one of those TV show robberies you see on Barnaby Jones or CHIPs. This vision of a 1973 TV show flashes in his mind.
On second two.....he's now thinking about the possible TV interview with the Channel thirty-one blonde gal and how he'll explain the whole situation in simple direct quotes.
On second three....he's now thinking about that Jeopardy episode from last night where he answered all of the New Testament questions in rapid fire.....impressing Grandma and Aunt Jean. Grandma suggested he ought to go off to divinity school....maybe launch a TV minister's career.
On second four....he was thinking if he'd paid back his neighbor for the can of turpentine that he needed for the paint brushes.
On second five....that episode at the Memphis hotel flashed for a second....over that strange lady from Burlington, Vermont and how he lost his billfold that night.
On second six....he was contemplating the wasted time he'd spent watching the whole Lost series, which really crapped out by the final eight episodes.
On second seven....he was thinking maybe learning golf really wasn't a bad idea.
On second eight....he was wondering if Subway would ever give him a regional division chief job.
On second nine....he was wondering if Diet Mountain Dew was really that bad.
And by second ten.....he kinda figured if you were going to rob someone....you'd flash the gun. And she didn't really flash no gun.
So the unnamed Subway guy.....just said "no". He wouldn't hand any money over to the dopey young gal. He had violated every rule in existence in DC, Maryland and Virginia. The gal turned around and left.
A while later....she showed up at the Minnow Bucket....telling this guy that she had a knife and wanted cash from his cash register. In the same fashion....the clerk at the Minnow Bucket paused....did his ten-second thing.....and refused. She ended up walking out again.
Cops indicate that she let in a black Oldsmobile Alero and very distinctive because it had a sunroof....which the vast number of Aleros just never were ordered with that option (I can only assume on this).
The thing about guys from Bama....is that unqiue pause. In ten seconds....we are calculating a fantastic number of things....thinking about episodes of Steinfeld.....comparing 1988 F-150 against a 1998 F-150....and thinking about fresh pancakes with extra syrup. By the tenth second......we usually come around to this stupid question....if you had a gun...you'd show it. So if you aren't that serious about this....then it's not a big deal.
So this week....comes the issue noting a robbery attempt (actually two) back on 27 April. A gal walks up to the Subway shop along the main drag leading to the town around 7:30 PM. She enters....wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. She indicates to the guy running the shop that she's there to rob the shop, and she's got a gun (although it's never shown).
Now, here in Arlington....the Subway guy would have tossed open the cash register and thrown the $188 to her in a heartbeat. No argument. No hassle. Just give the lady robber the money.
But this is Bama.
There's apparently a ten-second pause here.....although the newspaper journalist doesn't really indicate that. It's a fairly long pause.
On second one.....the Subway guy is thinking....man, this is like one of those TV show robberies you see on Barnaby Jones or CHIPs. This vision of a 1973 TV show flashes in his mind.
On second two.....he's now thinking about the possible TV interview with the Channel thirty-one blonde gal and how he'll explain the whole situation in simple direct quotes.
On second three....he's now thinking about that Jeopardy episode from last night where he answered all of the New Testament questions in rapid fire.....impressing Grandma and Aunt Jean. Grandma suggested he ought to go off to divinity school....maybe launch a TV minister's career.
On second four....he was thinking if he'd paid back his neighbor for the can of turpentine that he needed for the paint brushes.
On second five....that episode at the Memphis hotel flashed for a second....over that strange lady from Burlington, Vermont and how he lost his billfold that night.
On second six....he was contemplating the wasted time he'd spent watching the whole Lost series, which really crapped out by the final eight episodes.
On second seven....he was thinking maybe learning golf really wasn't a bad idea.
On second eight....he was wondering if Subway would ever give him a regional division chief job.
On second nine....he was wondering if Diet Mountain Dew was really that bad.
And by second ten.....he kinda figured if you were going to rob someone....you'd flash the gun. And she didn't really flash no gun.
So the unnamed Subway guy.....just said "no". He wouldn't hand any money over to the dopey young gal. He had violated every rule in existence in DC, Maryland and Virginia. The gal turned around and left.
A while later....she showed up at the Minnow Bucket....telling this guy that she had a knife and wanted cash from his cash register. In the same fashion....the clerk at the Minnow Bucket paused....did his ten-second thing.....and refused. She ended up walking out again.
Cops indicate that she let in a black Oldsmobile Alero and very distinctive because it had a sunroof....which the vast number of Aleros just never were ordered with that option (I can only assume on this).
The thing about guys from Bama....is that unqiue pause. In ten seconds....we are calculating a fantastic number of things....thinking about episodes of Steinfeld.....comparing 1988 F-150 against a 1998 F-150....and thinking about fresh pancakes with extra syrup. By the tenth second......we usually come around to this stupid question....if you had a gun...you'd show it. So if you aren't that serious about this....then it's not a big deal.
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