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Let me say this about that.

I am often amazed by how little most folks actually know about how things work in their lives.  I don’t necessarily mean physical things like refrigerators, thermostats, or cell phones.  I mean institutions like banks, insurance companies and the stock market.

I know a number of guys who claim success investing in the stock market, but when pressed, display a pathetic lack of knowledge as to how the whole thing works.  This lack of knowledge can often fool people into thinking they are making money, when in fact, they aren’t – or at least not as much as they think.

Say for example, John wants to invest $1,000 in “BloJo Inc”, a $10 stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange.  He calls his broker to handle the transaction and is charged a 3% ($30) commission – resulting in an actual purchase of 97 shares, or $970 of “BloJo” stock.  Three months later, John’s broker tells him he is going to sell the stock at $10.50 per share for a total of $1018.50 and make him a profit of 5%.  He also charges John a 3% commission for the stock sale totalling $30.56.  Since the sale took place within one year of the purchase, John must pay federal ‘ordinary income’ tax on his profit ($1018.56 – $970 = $48.56) of  $17.00.  But wait, John lives in Atlanta and must also pay a 6% state income tax of $2.91

John will tell you he has earned a 5% profit on his investment.  But he has paid $60.56 in commissions and $19.91 in taxes – all of which results in a $61.91 or 6.2% LOSS !!  John is a dumbass, but he’s not alone.

Take another activity aimed at the intellectually challenged Americans – casino gambling.  Last year, U.S. casinos took in nearly $100,000,000,000 in revenue – that’s $100 billion American gamblers wagered on a long term mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY  !!  That’s right.  Casinos only allow games to be played in their establishments that make it mathematically impossible to win in the long run.  Sure, you might win on a single roll of the dice, but if you continue long enough, it is impossible to win.  So, what do you call a group of people that spends $100 billion per year on a guaranteed loosing proposition?  That’s right – dumbass.

Probably the most misunderstood “necessity” in American life is term life insurance.  Insurance companies spend millions in advertising telling you that no American family should go without the “protection” of term life insurance.  It’s the worst investment you can make – short of the ‘investment’ you might make at the casino.  The cost of term life insurance is determined by a number of factors – age, health, family medical history – even education levels and socio-economic status.  Insurance companies use “actuary tables” that take all these facts into account and predict the most probable date of your death. For example, the tables show that a male my age, in perfect health, can expect to live an additional 17.44 years.  The cost for me to buy term life insurance would be calculated to assure the insurance company gets a tidy profit, even if I live the full 17.44 years.  If I die earlier, the insurance company’s loss is mathematically offset by guys who live longer than 17.44 years.  You are better off putting the premiums in a CD. People who believe term life insurance is a sound investment could be characterized by the term – dumbass.

The old saying that “A fool and his money are soon parted”  certainly applies to the average U.S. citizen.  It is regrettable because most of us could avoid giving our money away simply by paying attention and ‘doing the math’.  I don’t hold out much hope that a great awakening is going to occur in America, however, simply because the fastest growing segment of American society is – dumbass.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo

Menopause - 101

Let me say this about that.

I, not unlike every other guy on the planet, could not define “menopause”  if you held a gun to my head.  We know it exists, we know that it’s bad, we know it can turn a perfectly normal female into a ‘Babbling Beelzebub Banshee Bitch’  for no apparent reason – we just don’t understand what it is, exactly.  It’s kinda like gravity – we know it’s there, but we’re at a loss to explain what causes it.

Men don’t experience menopause, so we have no frame of reference.    (Any guy that tells you he’s going through “male menopause” is simply trying to attach a sympathy-inducing term to the fact that he’s getting old and is pissed-off that his life didn’t turn out better than it did.)    It’s really not our fault.  From childhood men have had to rely on women to explain menopause to us.  Regrettably, women are apt to describe menopause, like everything else, in terms of …    (more…)

Let me say this about that.

I’ll just come right out and say it.  I’m overweight.  To expand (pardon the pun) on that description, one could say that I’m rotund,  ample, stout, generously proportioned, corpulent, full bodied, oversized, plump, gordo, prodigious, gravitationally complementary – or most simply, I’m a lard ass.  I’m only six feet tall, but I’m always the tallest guy in the room – when I lie down.

I wasn’t always fat, but the last 10 years or so, I have steadily added to my bulk to the point that every time I go to the beach, the tide comes in.  There are a number of reasons for this steady increase in my gravitational profile.  Mrs. Shambo, for one.  She is a great cook, so good in fact that she is currently writing a cookbook.  She constantly wants to try new recipes on me and I’m happy to oblige.  It’s not that I want to eat all the time – I’m just being supportive.

Living in a neighborhood where ‘cocktail hour’ is celebrated with the same reverence as the selection of a new Pope doesn’t help either.  Walk down my street any day after 5:00pm and you can’t get to the end of the block and still pass a ‘breath-a-lizer’ test.  We don’t have an “Alcoholics Anonamous’ here ………  simply because everyone knows each other.

Mrs. Shambo has been trying to get me to buy an exercise machine to help lose some weight.  She points out that ever since she bought her “AssMaster 3000″  that she has dropped 10 pounds.  Funny coincidence, my nickname in college was “AssMaster” , but that was…    (more…)

This is the year the federal government conducts our constitutionally mandated census.  Tens of thousands of part-time workers will soon set about counting noses and asking all sorts of privacy-invading questions.  An interesting exercise for sure, but I am proposing an even more beneficial national measurement – a nationwide IQ test.

I believe it would much more beneficial to find out if Americans are getting smarter, rather than just getting more numerous.  But, developing a test for measuring the national intellect wouldn’t be easy, so I am giving the government a little head start by suggesting the following test. 

Please answer each of the following questions truthfully and add up your scores at the end of the test:

NATIONAL IQ TEST FOR AMERICANS…    (more…)

People of Walmart

Let me say this about that.

What is it about Walmart that attracts people?  Why do people flock there in droves?  Why do people go to Walmart without a clue as to what they are going to buy?  What is it about this American institution that is so attractive to so many diverse age groups, races, and socio-economic levels?  It’s one of the great mysteries of our time.

If you live in a small to medium-sized town, there is a Walmart near you.  They are as ubiquitous as Starbucks in shopping malls, fleas on a dog, Baptist churches in Georgia, hookers in Las Vegas, calories in french fries.  Well, you get my drift.  If you live in a small town where the nearest shopping mall is at least 50 miles away, chances are…    (more…)

Let me say this about that.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I am no fan of eating out.  In my view, restaurants are places you go when 1) you have a wife that can’t cook, 2) you can’t cook, 3) you enjoy being demeaned by ‘actor wannabe’ waiters in ponytails, 4) you have more money than common sense, 5) good food is not high on your list of pleasures, 6) you enjoy waiting an hour and a half to be served cold food, or 7) as was the case in most of my 35 years experience eating out, you’ve just finished a 14 hour work day and you’re in a foreign country.

Before I retired, my work almost always required that I travel somewhere other than the town in which I lived.  Frequently, it involved travel to a foreign country.  In my estimation, I have eaten in restaurants over 11,000 times in my lifetime.  You could call me an expert.  You could call me eminently qualified.  You could just say, I know what-the-hell I’m talking about.

Of all the restaurants I have patronized around the world, there are less than 1% I would go to any trouble to revisit.  And, in this blog, I’m going to share with you my five favorites in all the world.

Granted, any listing of superlatives is usually subjective and represents the opinion of the opinion-giver.  However, if the data base the opinion-giver is using is larger that 11,000 data points, you can pretty much figure there must be something to it.  And another thing  to consider, my favorite restaurants are MY favorites.  None of these have celebrity chefs.  None are world famous.  None has a batch of Michelin stars. 

My favorite restaurants have the following traits: 1) great food, 2) great service, and 3) great atmosphere.  But there is a 4th dimension to my favorite restaurants that is lacking in most restaurants, including the famous ones.  In my favorite restaurants, they make you feel like they are glad to see you.  To me, this MAKES a great restaurant.

So, here we go…    (more…)

Greek austerity program protest

Let me say this about that.

Since my retirement, Mrs. Shambo and I have made a habit of spending at least one month/yr. outside the United States.  It’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s educational.  Just like the man who can’t “see the forest for the trees”, you really need to get out of America once in a while to gain a true perspective as to what our country has become.  After spending a month or so in Europe, I believe I have seen the country that fits perfectly as the model for the America of the future – GREECE.

For years, I believed France was the ultimate model for the future of American society.  France has shown expertise in all the things America currently holds dear:  sparse work ethic – gridlocked government – political correctness – whining – con artists – a barren sense of common courtesy – tattoos – and a grinding attitude of superiority that only a high school cheerleader could match. 

Nothing really works very well in France – by design.  Take for example the TGV (bullet train).   The damn thing is a technological marvel capable of…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

A guy makes a return visit to his doctor to get the results of his tests from the week before:

Doctor:  “Well sir, I have bad news, and I have really bad news.  The bad news is that you have cancer.  The really bad news is you have Alzheimer’s.”

Patient:  “Well, at least I don’t have cancer.”

It’s an old joke, but it partially explains one of the reasons I started this blog six months ago.  Mrs. Shambo was convinced that the idle time that accompanies my retirement was going to lead to the atrophication of my brain.  She reasoned that if I had some mental stimulation, I might avoid the onset of decreased mental capacity – or worse, even Alzheimer’s disease.  Mrs. Shambo worries a lot.

But, as all married guys know, “if Mamma’s happy, you’re happy”,  so, I started writing the LMSTAT blog.

The other reason I agreed to do the blog was that…    (more…)

P.O.F. Airlines

Let me say this about that.

When, in America, did marketing and advertising become a euphemism for tolerated prevarication?  When did every advertisement we see in print or in the broadcast medium become a bald-faced lie – and – when exactly did we decide that we were OK with it?  If the pharmaceutical industry’s advertisements are to be believed, for example, then the world must now be devoid of disease, pain, malady, soreness, attention deficiency disorder or irritable bowel syndrome.  The fact is, the world’s population has all manner of health problems and the pharmaceutical industry is a big pack of (don’t want to get too technical here) LIARS !!  But the really sad part is that we really don’t seem to mind.

I don’t mean to pick on the poor ‘ol pharmaceutical industry.  Most U.S. industries are as bad or worse.  Let me give you an example of one industry that has gotten so bad, it is now completely incapable of telling the truth – (more…)

Twenty years ago, I saw a cartoon in the newspaper that depicted a father scolding his son who he caught studying a mathematics text book.  The caption read:  “Put down that text book, go outside and practice your jump shot”.  The point of the cartoon, of course, was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the salaries of athletes versus the rest of us who required an education to earn a living.  At the time I thought it was a bit far-fetched at best, and at worst, could send a wrong message to kids facing a choice between studying hard in preparation for getting a job - or -  putting all their energies into trying to make it as a professional athlete.

What a dumbass I was.

In the twenty-first century, professional athletes have become the ’samurai’ of American society.  They are rich, they are famous, they are (generally) above the law, and their asses are Frenched-kissed by…    (more…)