My Sick Mind

... listen to these lyrics from songs older than you.  Gain some perspective, and stop worshipping celebrities of any age. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap - 1968. "Young Girl" Y oung girl, get out of my mind My love for you is way out of line Better run girl You're much too young girl With all the charms of a woman You've kept the secret of your youth You led me to believe you're old enough To give me love And now it hurts to know the truth Young girl, get out of my mind My love for you is way out of line Better run girl You're much too young girl Beneath your perfume and your make-up You're just a baby in disguise And though you know that it's wrong to be in love with me. w OK, then.  That's one.  How about this Beatles' classic, "I Saw Her Standing There" 1964. Well, she was just 17, You know what I mean, And the way she looked was way...

Without going into a long song and dance , let's look at a few details: Firstly, today the Dow Jones Industrial Average breached the 22,000 mark.  That was enough of an event for them to make up "DOW 22,000" hats and make a big deal out of it on CNBC.  Is it a big deal? Yes and no. It's a big deal if you own shares of Apple, McDonald's, Boeing, and United Health who, combined were responsible for 867 of the move from 21,000 to 22,000.  The Dow is a weighted average, so stocks with higher share prices (like Goldman Sachs, who was responsible for the last 1,000-point surge) have a bigger influence. Conversely, if you were a shareholder of IBM, Goldman (recently) and GE, you were negative 462 points. So, as you can see, the largest companies are responsible for the gain.  All those in the middle (the other 23) were just hanging around. That's a bigger influence than a handful of winners and losers. It's why the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 2000 are be...

We live in a world where all one has to do to be considered a woman is to add breasts and parade around in women's clothing.  That's it.  He's a she, now, and you're a horrible person if you still call him "he," because - well, she wants to be called a woman.  Inside, there are all the man parts, and none of the women parts, but we are forced to do it because "she" wants it that way.  OK then.  That's a degradation of standards. When you lose track of standards, anything passes for ... anything.  That's how the ball starts rolling downhill, and this ball has been rolling downhill for decades.  It didn't start with confusing sexual orientation, and it won't stop there either - but it isn't helped by it, and I chose to lead with it to demonstrate a point, such as it is. We have elected a president who, by some standards, is the "people's choice."  What Lyndon Johnson called "The Silent Majority" was ...

As usual, during earnings season, there is something going on.  This week more than most. On August 1, two of my companies report.  ACCO brands, which makes almost all of the office supplies that you are stealing from work reports.  We are expecting 26 cents.  In the last quarter, they beat expectations and confirmed guidance.  As a result, the stock declined into the last three months.  I am expecting another earnings beat and anticipating the stock improving on its current share price - if not for anything else - just for a sheer value standpoint.  While the world has been watching Facebook, Amazon, Google, et al., hard product companies like ACCO continue to earn money.  Let's see what Tuesday brings. Pfizer also reports on the first. Jim Cramer refers to it as a "bond," since it regularly trades in the $32-per-share area and pays a 3.8% dividend.  That kind of makes it a bond.  Shareholders like me aren't interested in holding...