Since 1976, there have been nine films in the “Rocky” franchise, costing about $270 million but with revenues of about $2 billion. The first in the series won a well-deserved Best Picture Oscar at the 1977 Academy Awards. In each, Rocky or Creed is the lead character, and he suffers greatly. In fact, he becomes a bloody mess just before rallying and becoming great again.…
When I was with Citicorp out of New York, my biggest customer was Trammel Crow of Dallas. He was a man of immense wealth and absolute integrity. One of my first duties in underwriting his credit was to verify a story that he repaid a debt he didn’t know about and had no legal requirement to repay. It was only about $240 thousand and had…
Last week, inflation in Argentina reached 501 percent – staggering but not even near the worst in Argentine history. Partially as a result, the Argentine president promptly resigned. I was in Argentina two months ago and noticed that prices were cheap when spending American dollars. (The only over-priced items we noticed was anything to do with their World Cup victory this year.) With soaring interest…
One of the many problems with guns is that they make everything more complicated! When my father handed me my first gun, there was no paperwork, but that was in the last century. It wasn’t complicated. Today, when a decedent owns a gun, it will be an asset in settling an estate, but it can get very complicated, especially for the executor or administrator, exposing…
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As we all know, husbands and wives can often disagree. The recent case of a young Air National Guardsman leaking confidential reports illustrates the point. I would characterize him as young punk with more opinions than thoughts, who should learn that the punishment for treason is, as Samuel Johnson’s famously said “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to clear a man’s thoughts.” Wives…
I’ve been saying it for almost a year now — “this ain’t your father’s inflation.” I was surprised last year when people “freaked-out” over the outbreak of inflation. Of course, I knew that, since the outbreak of inflation during the early 1980’s, we have learned a few things and even had a new tool. Year-over-year wholesale prices rose only 2.7% last month, close to the…
I’m a gun-lover. I enjoy holding anything so finely machined and listening to the quiet click as a finely lubricated cylinder rotates. Of course, I also marvel at the contrast between that beauty and the horror it can cause. At age 13, my father gave me my first shotgun (.410), and I still have it. In fact, I have lots of guns. Actually, I’m not…
It was probably because I watched too many “James Bond” movies when I was young, but I got struck by the wanderlust-bug and became determined to see the world. Wisely, my geography professor told me that travel takes a great deal of money and gives you very little knowledge in exchange . . . but you do gain far better perspective. He was right! Most…
Despite being a lifelong gun-lover who owns many guns, I side with my Democratic friends that “something” must be done to reduce gun violence. However, stopping the flow of new weapons into our population is not likely, due the NRA hostages in Congress. We need to reverse the flow and remove guns from the population. With a population of 335 million, we have almost 400…