Alan Greenspan's Happy Ending

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From Nathaniel Branden's (Blumenthal's) appearance on Booknotes in 1989:

"[Alan Greenspan] was a member of our circle brought in by another member of our circle. He was reading 'Atlas Shrugged' as it was being written. I kind of love the story of Alan because it was -- all in its own terms -- a happy story. Because what made it interesting is that when Ayn first met him in an elevator, or met him through this other person, she was kind of negatively impressed. I liked him initially a good deal more than she did. There were reasons she didn't like some of his ideas. He was a Keynesian economically. He wasn't what he is today politically or economically. And he also at that time was a supporter of a then fashionable philosophy called 'logical positivism,' which taught that you can be certain of nothing. You can know nothing for sure. You can't even be certain that you existed. 

So he and I would have rather hilarious conversations in which he would try to convince me that one couldn't know for a certainty that one existed. And my task was to see how irrational this was and to prove philosophically that one could have such knowledge for a certainty. Ayn thought I was quite mad to even waste my time talking to a person who would be saying he doesn't know if he exists or not. I kept saying -- listen, this is a very intelligent man. He is a good guy. You're going to see this story is going to have a very happy ending. And eventually he did change his ideas on these various subjects. He did become a very close friend of Ayn Rand. I think that she really cared for him a lot. And they were devoted until Ayn Rand died in 1982."

Viacom Drop, 1 Minute View

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Apparently negotiations with Dish are going poorly ... if you were lucky, your scanner might have picked this up at 12:33, but every day trader on planet earth saw it at 12:34 ... these intraday pop and drop plays are not super common, and you'd have to be in front of the screen all day to catch them, which I don't like to do in my dotage, but if you're a youngster.... 

click to enlarge, get a big monitor

Tweets for April 18, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

The Hard Driving Type

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From Robert Byrd's appearance on Booknotes in 1989:

"[Senator Mansfield had] kind of a laid back style. I served under both Mr. Johnson when he was Majority Leader and Mr. Mansfield. Mr. Johnson -- the hard driving type. The type who would twist arms, cajole, threaten, plead and drive. Mr. Mansfield was just the opposite. He believed in letting every Senator go his own way, make up his own mind. He didn't attempt to twist arms. I did the floor work. Mr. Mansfield was back in his office reading the press, papers, and books and so on. So they had their different styles. Both were good leaders."

Funny how Byrd ducks the question of what he thought about Joseph McCarthy. 

Unintended Fruits of the G.I. Bill

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Funny bit from the transcript of Robert Christopher's appearance on Booknotes in 1989: he lives in "Old Lawn, Connecticut" (not Old Lyme). He has a great smoker's voice ... and died three years later of emphysema. 

On the issue of "Jewish dominance of the American media" he had this to say:

"That's one of the oldest lines in the book. Henry Ford was convinced of that and so was Henry Adams. It simply isn't true. There are some of the powerful media that are owned by Jewish families. The New York Times and the Newhouse chain. But there are a number of others that are owned by WASPs. The whole Los Angeles Times company -- the controlling family there is WASP. Dow Jones which owns the Wall Street Journal is owned by a WASP family. First of all, you can't honestly state that any particular ethnic [or religious] group ... controls the bulk of the nation's most important publications. But more importantly you can't demonstrate that there's any real connection between the ethnicity [or religion] of publishers and the way their papers handle the news. In many cases it's interesting -- Dow Jones is a good case, and the Wall Street Journal is an interesting case in point. The owners are WASP. As it happens right now the Chairman of the Board and the Editor of the Journal are both Jewish."

Tweets for April 16, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Sally Beauty Could Get Ugly

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Weekly squiggle review, Idiot Wave set-up in Sally Beauty (SBH) ... looks like a minimum move to $20.50 if I scattered the chicken entrails right ... I could have featured this last week instead of the telecom sector (IYZ), but for some reason chose that one instead, probably because it will fail quicker, ha!

Again, this is a weekly chart so the trade could take months to work out.  

Click to enlarge