Today’s Poser

What’s the point of having many billions of dollars if you can’t fuck with people? — A prominent Democrat politician

Bloomberg

Found on Mostly Cajun blog

And $61 billion. If Trump’s billionaire businessman model worked in the presidency, won’t Bloomberg be even better?

Hate

Why do so many people despise Trump with a white-hot hate? Let me count the ways:

He’s a phony, a fraud.
He reminds them of Mussolini.
He named his son Baron.
He is a serial liar
He’s a billionaire.
He has a very attractive wife who has a foreign accent.
He embarrassed the deadbeat NATO members.
He plays too much golf.
He is against late-term abortions.
He does not embrace shit-hole nations.
He fires people who work against him.
He uses locker-room language from time to time.
He is too opinionated and speaks his mind.
He is adored by the smelly shoppers at Walmart.
He fights back against those who are trying to take him down,
He is vainglorious.
He is a global-warming skeptic.
He would like to find common ground with Russia (against China?)
He calls out corruption and incompetence.
He is a racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, fascist homophobe.
He likes to get something back for US taxpayer dollars.
He is overweight and has orange hair.
He loves America and wants to make it great again.

Afterward: Yes, even Nancy Pelosi too!

Talking Points

Michael Bloomberg is teasing a run to become the Democrat presidential candidate. Imagine that I am a talking head on cable TV and here are some points that I might make:

- Our population is aging ... as logically are our presidents. But, Michael Bloomberg entering the Democrat primary fray might bring a new first. If Bloomberg were elected president, he would be inaugurated shortly before his 79th birthday ... and most of his tenure would be while he was in his 80s.

- Bloomberg is just one more old white guy .... and a member of the Davos elite. This hardly lines up with current political winds. He has said he would roll back Trump’s tariffs ... and go back to the Obama national defeatist stance.

- Bloomberg’s entry is an act of political desperation. He and a lot of the Democrat leadership apparently believe that the current cast of candidates are all sure losers against Trump.

- Bloomberg was a reasonably good NYC mayor ... but his stop and frisk actions ... his banning of large soft drinks ... and his reversal of his term limit could cause embarrassment.

- Bloomberg has poor national name recognition ... he only has a 6% approval rating, far underwater.

- Bloomberg is a rabid gun control advocate. not sure this will play well in middle-America

- Bloomberg is a plutocrat worth $52 billion and a Wall Streeter. He like Trump is a New Yorker which, in this case, might be a negative.

- Bloomberg is also a radical on climate change ... a left of center position

- And finally, like Warren, Bloomberg is rather opaque as to what would be his foreign policy ... other than he will likely, out of spite, reverse many of Trump’s initiatives

If I Won the Powerball

When  I was a youngster I dreamt of having a million dollars. Today this amount is but a piffle ... if you don't have at least a billion, you are a nobody. So this Wednesday's Powerball drawing has given me a chance to upgrade my dream ... and go for being a billionaire. If I'm so lucky on Wednesday, the issue then would become ... how to spend all this dough? Let me suggest some interesting ways:

- Set up the Potts Foundation to combat global warming ... fund it with 500 million dollars

- Get some new wheels ... perhaps a Rolls

- Like many of the Silicon-Valley billionaires, spend money to live forever

- Hire Jim Cramer to manage my money

- I might emulate Rupert Murdoch ... get divorced and marry a young chippie ... see: Daily Mail Article

- Buy a 200 foot yacht and park it off of St. Barts for the winter

- Buy a gun for every registered Republican voter who doesn't already own one

- Provide full-ride college funding for all my grandchildren

- I might even purchase a sports team

Faceplant

I have an incurable disease ... old-fogeyism.  As a result I have no business blogging about Facebook.  I don't understand its popularity.  And I don't understand its intricate mechanics ... nor do I care to learn.  Somehow I have gotten registered as one of its billion or so users and keep getting those annoying messages that there are things pending for me there.  Yawn ...  It is just one more cyber-technology I would prefer not letting into my life.  Ditto Twitter.  Texting has me perplexed.  Why would one take the time to type a message to someone when one's voice message is oodles more efficient?  And I keep hearing ominous things about how Facebook is using or is going to use all the dumb things (I must be careful here ... my daughter is a big user) that its users post on its tens of thousands of racked computers to invade their privacy bubbles.  No thanks.

Now, this stupid company is going public this spring with a stock offering which will probably value it close to $100 billion.  That's billion ... not million (see ENews Account) ... enough money to rescue Greece from its financial predicament. And that 27-year old puke, Mark Zuckerberg, will become a multi-multi-billionaire (sidebar: I haven't seen the movie, Social Networking, either, nor will I).  Is this rational?  Not to me ... but it clearly is to the millions of Facebook aficionados who will be clamoring to buy this initial public offering (IPO) which might value Facebook at something like twenty-five times its trailing annual revenues (see: IPO Details).  This clearly is insane ... but then so was Google's IPO that came out at $85 per share and is now selling for $580 per share (= a market valuation of $188 billion).  So Facebook should get this hyperbolic initial market valuation which will likely then be even more insanely eclipsed by its soaring stock price during its first day of trading.

Caution to all of you who want to take part in this Wall-Street mania ... yes, you might make a pot of money if you buy this stock early-on.  But caveat emptor ... at some point this bubble will burst and Facebook will take a faceplant ... it might take days or months or even years.  But, be assured, it will happen ... mainly because Facebook's product is so ephemeral.  (It might take somewhat longer, but the same fate should also eventually happen to Google.)

Gotta go ... I have to take my Studebaker in for an oil change.