This TomCar rocks!
I have added a few new cool blogs to my blogroll. John Mahoney – founder of Instant Information pens a tech blog with a lot of smart insight and he loves Apple as well which never hurts. I met him this week and his new Company is way ahead of the curve in organizing financial information.
On Widgets and badges – a favorite area of mine – I Added Tim Post whose blog Flying Seeds is new, but deep.
Eddy has a great post on breaking down the argument – this company can’t get any bigger .
New Highs are coming from some different, mundane sections – Mcdonalds, Walgreen’s and Smith and Wesson ( one that I own – and blogged about buying back in June at $7 ).
I love old Smith and Wesson and have sold a little but holding until the trend breaks. I love McDonald’s but am buying some Chipotle’s instead this week. I hate that I don’t own Walgreen’s. They are the best at selling me my drugs!
In the I need to puke department, Ford STEALS (LOL) Boeing’s CEO and Internet gaming execs are the FBI’s new Biiitches. I would love to rant, but Bill Cara does it perfectly here:
Boeing had paid Alan Mulally a base salary of $825,000 plus $736,000 bonus. Moving over to captain a sinking ship does have its rewards though as Ford Motor Co has agreed to pay him $2 million base annual salary plus 4 million stock options and 600,000 restricted stock units plus $7.5 million signing bonus plus $11 million to replace the Boeing future compensation package he walked away from. I wonder how many points his agent got.
The one thing that Mulally didn’t get was something acceptable to replace his Lexus. Maybe Ford would like to give him a Taurus to show him how bad things really are.
Now why would an individual investor care about Ford or General Motors now that those two leading American corporations have become dependencies of (i) the NYC banks (who worry about a Ford-GM credit failure bigger than all of Central and South America combined, in the unlikely event the latter should ever happen at once), and (ii) Washington (where Job One is to fool the American people into believing that working two jobs at McDonalds is better than one at a factory like Ford or GM?
Speaking of McDonalds, Value Line reported on the company this week, exposing the truth about what’s wrong with the U.S. economy.
Instead of creating wealth, entrepreneurs and capitalists like Alan Mulally and the good folks at McDonalds have decided to get theirs. Sell assets for royalties, and use the cash flow to increase dividends and buy-back shares because that, ladies and gentlemen, is going to increase the stock price (for now) and incidentally their personal bonuses (for as long as they hopefully have the gig).
From your pocket to theirs. Why?
If you are interested in holding shares of an auto manufacturer, why not just look to (Cara 100) Toyota Motor, which doesn’t need the likes of people like Alan Mulally or Bob Rubin and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs? Toyota simply manufactures cars (like the Lexus) that intelligent people want, and they make good money doing it, and have credible financial statements to boot.
So Washington doesn’t want you to bet on sports (they had another internet gaming executive arrested this week); they’d rather you gamble on Ford and GM shares in an equity market they tell you is transparent and fair, and not controlled by Washington and Humungous Bank & Broker. Not!
As always – right on Bill.
Michael Parekh applies the capitulation and doom and gloom headline contrarian call to the Middle East . I have been hanging with some smart Israeli entrepreneurs who unfortunately share the same gloom. The trader in me says any major stock market weakness this fall will be focused on this conflict AND housing BUT will be a great buy!
Finally, I have added the TomCar (pictured at the top of the post) to my new favorite products. Although already a small phenomenon, I expect the TomCar to EXPLODE in popularity here in the United States (at least the Southwest). I spent a little time driving one this week and we did our best to destroy one :) (sorry Ram). The car was developed in the Israel, by the father of a friend of mine (Ram) – over 15 years ago. They have set up small manufacturing and a headquarters here in Phoenix – lucky me. It is fund investment we are considering. If you have the opportunity to drive one – take it.
Tomcar is very cool. I looked at the site and no pricing. What’s up with that? I doubt it they have passed or plan to pass emissions and safety standards for mixed use but how cool would that be to drive to work? Not on the highway but…
I couldn’t disagree more with Cara’s assesment of Mullaly and Ford. First off, I’ve got a few buddies who are Ford execs and they don’t drive a Focus. They get to buy Jags, Rovers and Aston Martins…….Anyone who wouldn’t drive a Vanquish, DB9 or DB8 over any Lexus is emotionally impaired.
Why buy Ford instead of Toyota? Because Toyota is priced to perfection and the top two global auto makers are backed into a corner. That makes them extremely dangerous. Dangerous to Toyota. Neither Ford nor GM are a lost cause. In Europe, both do a fine job of whipping Toyota’s ass as they also do in South America and are doing in China. When, and it’s only a matter of time before they do, they get their shit together in North America, Toyota will no longer walk away with cherry deals at list price. Toyota and Lexus will surely do just fine even with a resurgent GM and Ford but they won’t be doing so with such stupid profit margins. They’ll actually have to work a little bit. In addition, there is a reasonable chance the G8 has agreed to attempt an orderly monetary rejiggering of the dollar against primarly Asian currencies. Another significant strike against Toyota’s profits as their fat margin vehicles are all made in Japan.
If you wanted to buy Toyota, it was years ago, not now. And Mullaly appears to be of a little more depth than taking this job to pad his paycheck alone. Anyhoo, what’s wrong with making jack? Is that now out of vogue?
Ciao.
“Maybe Ford would like to give him a Taurus to show him how bad things really are.” – ouch! re BDG’s comment; isn’t it cheating to pretend the Euro models are Ford even though they’re ostensibly the same company?
I guess if BDG is buying to back his optimism and he turns out to be right he’ll make out like a bandit because I don’t see many people sharing that positive outlook.
BDG – my friend – you are missing my point. All for him making Jack. All against the system that values the Jack he is making. No man is worth that. It is insulting and is everything that is wrong with Wall Street.
WRT Toyota, I have no opinion on the stock although it is in my long-term trend portfolio and likely wont continue its unbelievable strength, but FORG and GM are its BIIIITCH right now.
You have one thing right the DB9 is awesome and although your ornaments will be stolen as bling everytime it is left out and it will spend more time in the shop than a lexus, any normal human would still prefer it :)
The Tom Car retails for 12-whatever depending on what you want. at 12k base, these things are priced wayyyyy better than anything ever made that does what it does.
The military loves this becuasue it is transportable into war
I do agree that our society seems to be eroding at the edges because of our predisposition with “getting ours” regardless of how or at the expense of whom. That said, I’m not against someone making unlimited dollars IF we are living in times where most people are benefitting. Otherwise, I agree a little common sense and restrain would be in order because all these people are doing is galvanizing the general populace and thereby nearly guaranteeing the party will come to an end. Whether that is Wall Street, politicians or corporate leaders.
Maybe I wouldn’t be so glum if you bought me one of those Tomcars.
Signed,
Eeyore
lol
Not bag eeyore
time to go leave some commnets over at the blogging times tribute pages my man