Malcolm U. "Buck" Pitt...Thanks-a-Lot

I found out a few minutes ago that Malcolm U Pitt, Jr...aka "Buck" Pitt to anyone who ever was lucky enough to go to Camp Virginia, I found out that he died early this afternoon. I am not sure that Buck would want a lot of fan fare surrounding his death. I am not sure he would want to see a lot of downtrodden looks and despondent mourners. That was not his way. I think that second to my dad, Buck Pitt and his best pal Petey Jacobs had the most profound "adult" influences on my life to date. Buck and Petey, reinforced all the things my dad was trying to teach me about fair play, sportsmanship, doing the right thing even when no one is looking, humility, giving 100% all the time...and a host of other qualities that I still strive to fulfill. Buck Pitt was a living testament to all the things my dad was trying to teach me as a kid and as a young adult. He was 3rd party evidence that the qualities that mattered, did in fact exist in the world and they mattered more than I could imagine.

I am not expert on Buck's life by any stretch and there are many people who knew him far better than me. However, I was one of the lucky few who got to learn from him and see him live his life by the principals he held dear. He came from a generation that took care of business. They did not talk a lot, they didn't have to. Buck let his actions speak for themselves. He was not a self promoter and was always happy to let others take center stage, yet he was always there, supporting, teaching, listening. Buck came from a generation that believed in hard, clean competition. While I never saw him play, I know that on the football field Buck Pitt would knock your lights out with a clean hit during a play, and then help you up and tell you "nice play". He played hard, he played to win, and he played by the rules. His victory was not to be interpreted as your defeat. While I know he wanted to win on the athletic field as badly as anyone who ever played sports, he also did not want have his victory leave his opponent feeling like someone who lost.

Winning was important to Buck Pitt, but the way you played the game mattered more. The world needs more Buck Pitts and Petey Jacobs. While I fear we may not find many more like them, I am heartened by knowing that there are thousands like me who were privileged to know them. They taught many of us the right way to compete, on the sports field and in life.

"When the great scorer comes to mark against your name, he writes not if you won or lost, but how you played the game." I doubt a lot of people have heard this message before, and even fewer heed its call. I know where I learned it. I know who lived it. I am sorry we lost him but eternally grateful to have known him.

Buck Pitt, for what you did to help me and thousands like me, Thanks-a-Lot, we can never repay the debt, but are better for having it.

An Obama Victory and the Economy

I want to be on the record a week prior to the election. This election looks like it is going to tilt in favor of Barack Obama and the democrats. It looks like we are simply haggling over how big of a majority the democrats will hold in both houses of the legislature and whether or not pusillanimous, left-wing, ninnies like Al Franken will be swept into office along with Obama.

What I want on the record is....I will bet what is left of my entire portfolio, which is not a very big bet any more, that as soon as Barack Obama is in office, and maybe even right after the election, the tone of the economic news will change, and change dramatically. The tide of economic bad news washing over the working folks in this country will begin to subside and miraculously, the the economy will cease to be the worst since the Hoover administration. We have seen this in the past. Almost immediately after Bill Clinton won election, the economy that at the time was the worst sice the depression according to the press, was suddenly out of recession and the "economy stupid" which propelled Clinton to victory was on the road to recovery. To his credit, and with the help of the republican victories in 1994, Clinton stayed out of the way of the economy and enjoyed a rising economic tide for the vast majority of his administration.

Part of me is looking forward to an Obama victory so the hourly bludgeoning of our economy by the mainstream press can abate. Obama and his buddies are going to get a tremendous head start on getting the economy back on track from the press. Negative stories will fall from the headlines and hopefully the general feeling of economic helplessness will begin to recede. However, my fear, and candidly my expectation, is that an Obama administration along with a big majority in Congress will tax the producers in the country to the point of breaking. There is no way that rational and motivated producers in this economy can stand the barrage of income redistribution that is headed their way.

Let's enjoy the rays of media sunshine after the Obama victory. I suspect that it will be the eye of the hurricane. Once Team Obama unravels the capitalist fabric of this nation, it will take years, maybe generations to repair. Mark those words too.

Global Warming...Life's Little luxury

It is funny how global warming has dropped off the front pages of the paper like the value my of now meager portfolio. It seems to me that if the threat of global warming was killing polar bears as we speak, if we were less than ten years away from irreversible global doom, if the rising tides were going to wash across the streets of Manhattan, then shouldn't the global warming alarm be sounding just as loud when the Dow is at 9,000 as it is when the Dow is at 14,000? The alarmists seem to have been pushed not just below the fold, but off the pages altogether. Maybe global warming isn't quite as bad when people are more worried about the mortgage than the polar caps. Never mind the data that show the oceans actually cooled over the past few years...that never stopped the global alarmists. But the Dow dropping into the tank, now we have something a little more pressing to occupy our time.

I guess when $ 4.00 coffee at Starbuck's is no longer an affordable luxury, global warming isn't either. Maybe Al Gore is too busy trying to figure out to recoup his losses to blab on about his latest weird science. If nothing else I hope he is bawling out Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for being asleep at the switch. I guess he lost more in any given day than I did over the past month. When you have that much at stake, the polar bears are probably better swimmers than we thought.

"The Wealth" versus "Your Wealth" Obama doesn't know the Difference

Whether or not one favors or opposes Barack Obama there are things about the senator that are undeniable. Senator Obama makes very few mistakes on the campaign trail. He chooses his words very carefully, and he means what he says. So when Senator Obama tells a plumber in Ohio that "when we share the wealth everyone is better off" there is no doubt in my mind that he means what he says and believes in his heart that if we share the wealth we will all be better off. The problem with Mr. Obama's statement is that he refers to "the" wealth, as though wealth were a public asset, like federal parks, public waterways, and interstate highways. I guess this view of wealth as a public trust should not come as a surprise when one considers that Barack Obama has never worked in the private sector of our economy, the part that creates wealth. He has always worked in the part of the economy that relies on the wealth created by others. If Obama understood how wealth is created, he would have rephrased his comment to state "when we share your wealth everyone is better off". That would have been an accurate statement to Mr. Plumber from Ohio, but I am pretty sure that is something that Obama does not understand.

If I figured out a way to hack into Warren Buffet's account at Berkshire Hathaway and took $ 100M and gave them to the most destitute in the Richmond area, I would be a thief and should go to jail. However if Barack Obama and his tax and spend pals in congress decide to take 50% more of the money I earn on a monthly basis and give it the most destitute in Richmond, it is called "sharing the wealth". Maybe Obama and his Ivy League friends can explain the difference to me, because I can't see it. Obama meant what he said to that plumber, he just said it in an way that demonstrates his lack of understanding of free market capitalism. He is going to spread the wealth, yours, mine, and that plumber's. If Obama is going to pick my pocket, I wish he at least understood what it was he was really doing.

Liberal Democrats and Celebrities...Dumb and Dumber

Some people can throw a baseball 95 mph. Some people can hit a golf ball 350 years with a high degree of accuracy. Others can run faster than the wind blows. These people's talents result in unequal outcomes in terms of their ability to perform in the professional sports business. As a result people with these talents earn salaries and bonuses that make them among the richest people on Earth. Some people are smart. Some people work very long hours and sacrifice pleasure for the sake of their work. Other people are very effective leaders and motivational communicators. These people are often successful in "the real world". They have jobs and do things better than their competition in the market. These people are called "the rich" by demagoging liberals. For some reason equal opportunity and equal rights to liberal democrats, including the likely next president, means that results in income and wealth should be as close to equal as possible. We should share the wealth. I am at a loss for words when our next president and the rank and file of his party are essentially socialists, who, in an effort to ensure their political power, work tirelessly to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not. Some people are smart. Others are not. There is very little correlation between being one of the smart people and being a member of the US Congress. In fact, many of these people are either dumber than the average dolphin or they are so blinded by ideology and the lust for their own power that they will say anything and do anything, no matter how moronic. Very sad times for the pathetic state of our leadership...or lack of leadership.

It would be funny if it were not so sad that celebrities confirm all that most normal and thoughtful people think of them...that they are self absorbed, shallow stooges who should keep their mouths shut when they are not reading a script, singing a song , or chatting mindlessly in the privacy of their own homes. It is kind of sad when people think you are an imbecile, it is really sad when you prove it every time you open you mouth to comment on topics which you do not have the mental capacity to understand. When we want a celebrity to comment on the root cause of the financial crisis and the viability of the proposed solutions, we will ask...in the mean time, chomp on your tofu, count the shoes in your closet, and ponder the ramifications of next year's hem lines. Leave thinking to people who are equipped to do it.

Barney Frank & Barney Fife - What's the Difference

If anyone has listened to Barney Frank recently and at the same time watched the meltdown of the financial system, one can't help but think that barney Frank is about as effective as a member and now leader of the House Finance Committee as Barney Fife was as deputy sheriff of Maybury. Neither Barney's had the slightest idea how to do their jobs, neither had the gumption to admit their shortcomings. and when times got tough Barney Fife tended to shoot his pistol off in his holster. Barney Frank shoots his mouth off and makes himself look as silly as his alter ego. The biggest difference between these two is tat Barney Fife's incompetence is intentional and makes us laugh. Barney Frank's incompetence is a result of his blind partisanship and makes us poorer. America loved Barney Fife. Americans who understand the financial crisis in America loathe Barney Frank. Frank has earned the nation's ire. He was asleep at the switch as his pet projects Fannie and Freddie crumbled taking the US financial system with them. Frank blames everyone else for his failings. Does anyone wonder why no one respects the US Congress. Barney Frank is leading the move to the bottom of the barrel, and he is the only one in the country too obtuse not see the obvious. What a loser, how can this guy still be in congress, he is a disgrace to us all.

Washington Observations & Suggestions

It looks to me like Barack Obama will be the next president. If I could tell Obama just one thing, it would be to remember that no country has ever taxed its way back to prosperity...never happened never will. My biggest fear is that he will be obligated to the left-wing socialist wing of the democratic party - the folks that hate corporations, that hate profits, that hate people who are successful and who have never held a job that requires business acumen. I am fearful that his obligation to them will force his hand to tax the people who make our economy work, at a time when the economy is in its most fragile state in 75 years. His plans for tax increases will wreck the economy with 100% certainty.

It is amazing, or pathetic, that Barney Frank has red ink all over his blubber-laden body, but according to his self absorbed rants he has no responsibility whatsoever for the financial crisis. It is truly remarkable that the chairman of the house finance committee could be either so irrelevant or so weak that he has had no hand in financial affairs for the past two years. If he did not wear the stench of rotting investment portfolios slaughtered directly or indirectly by the Freddie and Fannie failures, he might have a shred of credibility, but he does, so he doesn't. What a putz. He has no clue his "who me? the other guy did all the bad stuff, I did all the good stuff" attitude is why most of America despises the current members of congress.

I was so disgusted to see that the members house of the representatives were admittedly swayed in the vote for the financial bailout package by the upcoming elections. Huh....maybe they could just vote for what is right, what is best for the country, not what is best for their election chances.

Does anyone in the mainstream media understand that this crisis is not a failure of capitalism, but rather further evidence that central planning from well-intentioned do-gooders? If banks are coerced to lend to people who cannot possibly repay their loans....why is anyone surprised when they don't? Sometimes these liberal elitists who want to appear so so smart, do things that are so so dumb.

Keith Olbermann = SNL Fives Times a Week

You've probably never heard of Keith Olbermann. He hosts a lightly watched commentary show on an irrelevant cable network. However, if you have never watched his show, I highly recommend it. Keith unwittingly hosts a 60 minute Saturday Night Live sketch every night of the week. If you like "Weekend Update" on SNL, you will love Olbermann. His manufactured outrage at anything conservative, anything Bush, now anything Palin, and his attempts to insult his rivals who trounce him in the ratings is a riot. Olbermann is either a total moron or a comedic genius...maybe he is a little of both.

No one watches MSNBC or the Keith Obermann laugh machine, which is truly a shame. In a time of national concerns about economic conditions, rising oil prices, and terror fascists, Keith is a ray of humor five nights a week. His insights are as deep as the best thinking from Rosanne Rosanna-Danna. After Sarah Palin's speech at the RNC, Keith managed to deliver the following line "well, if you like that sort of thing, then you liked that" really Keith. If I like chocolate, would like like a Nestle Crunch bar? One of his latest rants includes a treasonous accusation that John McCain is holding out on a plan to secure Osama Bin Laden's capture, that McCain's promise to follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell indicate that he has a plan and the wherewith all to capture Osama, but he will not let us in on his plan unless he is elected president. His disdain and camera turns as he tries so hard to look Ivy League is pure comedy. I hate to burst Keith's haughty bubble, but his buddy John Kerry also said that if he were elected president he would find and capture Osama bin Laden...after reading him his rights and getting him a lawyer no doubt. Anyway, I don't recall the fake or misdirected outrage at John Kerry when he made an almost identical campaign pledge. That's okay, no one holds comics to much of a "truth standard". Anything for a good laugh is what I say, and Olbermann delivers in spades, 5 nights a week.

When you are channel surfing away from the shows you want to watch, give Olbermann 5 minutes of your time, you will get a great laugh and you will double his ratings.

The "Would you have a beer with this person" Credential....

I have, since I became of legal drinking age, frequently used the hypothetical "would I want to have a beer with this person" as a test of my true feelings about a public figure. I recognize the many shortcomings of this analysis and that no one but me cares whether or not I would want to have a beer with a public figure. However in this election year, when the dung is flying like it had wings, I thought this was a good non-partisan topic and a good record of my personal vetting of those in the political square.



Bill Clinton. I never voted for Bill Clinton. I liked some things he did as president, disliked others. As our president, I detested his lack of conviction for anything but his own political fortunes. However, would I have a beer with Bill Clinton, you bet I would. Imagine the stories that guy could tell. I also bet that we wouldn't have just one beer and might even start getting into the scotch before the evening was over. I guess there would be a lot of cutie girls hanging around as well. Would I have a beer with Bill if his wife were to tag along? That is a high tariff to pay, and frankly I think that it would take all the fun out of the event, so Bill Clinton solo...you bet! Beers and cigars. Bill with his betrothed...not so much.



Another guy I think would be a blast for beers, but who I am guessing is more likely a whiskey drinker would be James Carville. While he is a pit bull's pit bull in the political arena and I rarely am backing his candidate, I love his conversations, his analogies, and his ability to emote such pure disgust for his opponents. I think he is smart, funny, and on the wrong side of the political aisle, but would he be a great drinking buddy, without question.



While she might not have time as the mother of five kids and the governor of Alaska, I have to think that Sarah Palin would be fun to chat with over a beer. I bet she drinks beer and likes it. I would like to hear her hunting and fishing stories and how she toppled the entrenched and corrupt republican pinheads in her state. Sarah Palin would easily pass the beer test, but she might have to leave early to tend to all that is on her plate.



Barack Obama....I know I am not voting for him, I disagree with many of his ever changing positions on the issues. However, I think he is sincere in what he is and I think he would be a great person to have a few drinks with and debate great pie in the sky issues. I am guessing he be a rather philosophical conversationalist, so I may have to get my points in early in the night while I am still on my game rather than after the third pitcher.



John McCain...I have the utmost respect for John McCain. Do I want to have a beer with him....maybe not.

I cannot imagine having a beer with Joe Biden. I think it would be one of those conversations where I spend a lot of time admiring the art work hanging on the wall as I quietly sip my beer, looking for either a way to enter the one-way conversation or a way to go home.

Obama's Political Brilliance is Truly Stunning

I am not sure who was the first person to say this, but the last person I heard say it was my dad...a republic is in trouble when the the mass of the population figures out that they can get money by voting for candidates who will take money from someone else and give it to them.

Barack Obama is now proposing an additional tax on the oil companies to fund a $ 1,000 check for "working" families. This has to be the best campaign gimmick ever. Obama is offering every "working" American $ 1,000 for their vote, which is not that brilliant by itself. The political brilliance comes with his plan to make the oil companies pay for his walking around money. Obama is buying votes at $ 1,000 a clip and it is not going to cost him a dime. You have to appreciate the sheer political brilliance of this move. However, as a citizen of this country that one day my be led by this rookie, it sets the standards for ethics at a new low. I guess Obama is a new kind of candidate after all, one whose audacity would make the Clintons blush.