Talking about timing tipping the Times (ugh)

Mick makes a good case that a newspaper website won't approach Google in ad revenue. I say there's great potential to improve the NYT content and grow the readership. The NYT is different from all other US papers - it's more widely read by the powerful and wannabes. To the rest of the world, it's the single daily which represents America. It's just that it's so mismanaged and so disrespected that it can't exploit it's uniqueness.

My focus is the stock price. Right now there's nothing in the price for the trophy value or brand value of the business. In a bull market it could easily be worth $5b to own the NYT + 58% of the NYT building + a stake in the Red Sox + About.com + The Boston Globe and some other stuff, but even after the 50% rise since I placed my bet a few days ago the market cap. is only $1b. That $5b guess is without thinking about a hook-up or takeover by a Yahoo! or Google or Microsoft.

Another factor here is that the market may have bottomed - I think so. It touched 7,500 just before Obama started to announce that his economic team would consist of sane experts like Volcker and Summers. Before that it was possible that the US economy would be governed by socialists. There's a Tsunami of money sequestered in zilch interest assets like gold and Treasuries. If that flows back into equities, there'll be an overshoot to the upside taking us back to 12,000 at least. Another tip was Genco (para 6) - a dry bulk shipper under the cosh thanks to the 90% drop in the Baltic Index. Genco's up 60%. I'd still tip potentially bankrupt GM (some good cars, much lower gas prices, incentive to reform the cost base) and Xstrata (base metals). Last Friday the market saw unexpectedly bad employment figures and went up. That's not any bear market I recognize.

Timing tipping The Times (ugh)

Yesterday I wrote a discursive piece tipping The New York Times Company. By hideous yet happy chance I seem to be on the same wavelength as the management.Today they announce Times Extra which upgrades their front page to a 3rd party content aggregator. A small step, but significant. The Times has potential. It's America's best known journal despite treachery, disgrace and mismanagement and it's a major owner of the brand value of New York City itself. NYC has global recogniton approached only by London and Paris as a city of the imagination. Once the NYT figures out its global potential on the web, it could gain a massive boost to circulation and advertising. This little step today may prod the market to see NYTco as an internet growth play to own rather than a dead trees decay play to short. Price today - $8.10. Market cap - $1.16b.

Tipping the Times (ugh)

This blog is a great tip sheet for those who know. 10 days ago I wrote:

A propos of nothing, on Friday I went long the New York Times at $5.14. I can only imagine good news from here on. How could it be worse?

The stock is presently at $7.70, up 50%. I get a kick from making money from assets which I detest since it proves I can detach my judgement from my emotions. Gold at $250/oz was another case. I dislike gold as an asset. So much of its value derives from the collective mass mania of the world's central banks in the late '70s, early '80s - one of the least remarked, most obscene squanderings of other people's money yet perpetrated. Anyhoot I do loathe The NYT. Also the profession it defiles, print journalism, is obviously done for. So here's why I think the stock can go to $20 within 6 months:

1. Staring death in the face forces management to do what needs to be done.

2. There are ways the Dems can give taxpayers' money to the NYT without a straight bail-out. Job ads is one used by UK government and quangos to boost their favourite organ, the Guardian, which prints a weekly 100+ page supplement for jobs in social work and worse.

3. The NYT brand could become scintillating. There's excellent content and a vast archive. An imaginative editor would ditch the incredibly boring line up of commentators (does anyone enjoy reading Krugman, Brooks, Dowd, Herbert, Rich, Collins? Why not a line-up of Paglia, Kos, Coulter, Steyn, Carville, Richard Dawkins? People who people want to read. Make your own list. I'd call the commentary team ' The Galacticos' after Real Madrid's soccer stars.

4. The first internet bubble was predicated on the value of eyeballs. Eyeballs bring ads and more eyeballs and more ads. The NYT has quite a few eyeballs now, but could attract vast numbers more with a re-design and a think locally, act globally mindset for it's web business.

5. The NYT brand has been poisoned, but there's an antidote -run it as a newspaper rather than a propaganda organ for the eternally juvenile. Maybe now that Bushitler isn't around to shore up the liberals' religion, their energies will be freed to write about the world as it is. Or maybe the scummy propagandists will just go away. I'm not asking for a paper that agrees with me - tho a Paglia-inspired, Palin-loving NYT would probably become compulsory reading across the political spectrum - I'm asking for a proper wall between editorial and reporting, as well as truthful reporting, better writing, better design and a vision to attract a vast pile of eyeballs across the globe.

6. The sun will rise tomorrow. The biggest factor now in the stock market panic is fear of the unknown. When I read today that Obama positively proclaims that there won't be a windfall tax on oil companies, I thought this is proof that he's not insane. The rally of the last couple of weeks is mainly due to that realization as evidenced by his economic apppointments. An unqualified opportunist is ok, a Chavez-like nutcase would not have been a buy signal. Bombed out businesses like the NYT suddenly have a decent presumption of a Clintonesque administration and can bounce back hard. In the last couple of weeks I've loaded up on NYTco, GM, Genco and Xstrata.....the stinkiest stocks I could think of that I vaguely understand. Each is different, but each has been massively depressed by fear of the unknown. You read it here, Anatreptoids. NB these are all highly risky bets that can go to zero overnight, so you should only make them if you can absorb the entire loss or know how to control the loss using attractively priced hedges (that's the black magic).

7. There are plenty of would be predators on the Times. The Sulzberger family must be exceptionally receptive now to a bid at say $20, under $3bn for the Boston Globe, the Times, the NYT building, a stake in the Red Sox and other sundry assets. Compare last year's $10bn valuation for Facebook or $5bn for Dow Jones. Things change.

Writer's block

I've been a

 little pre-occupied with my snorkelling trip to St John, USVI, and last week 

a distillery tour in Kentucky with a couple of friends. My wife's invited far more Thanksgiving week guests than we have sleeping places and it's too cold to sleep in the shed. Also I have little to add on American politics, tho I'm mulling a few thoughts on how the new administration is in a great position to do radical things such as cut company taxes, abolish the union stranglehold on public education, commence an infrastructure program, drill for American oil and initiate a nuclear power program. 

But the real reason for writer's  block is my trauma at the new images of the Anatreptic tag team. I have a face like a chimpanzee, while Mick's mask looks like a super-hero, Wonderwoman perhaps. My self image is Green Lantern.

A propos of nothing, on Friday I went long the New York Times at $5.14. I can only imagine good news from here on. How could it be worse?

Public squalor, private consolation

Hey ho. America chose government by barbarians, and bullshitters. Voluntarily to be governed by 3 such scoundrels as Obama, Reid and Pelosi says something profound about America. Too bad. It's not just that these folk are political anathema, it's that they seem so unworthy as people. I doubt America will become quite like Belgium, but once the institutions have been captured, it's tough to avert national decay. The USA is now on a flight path to state-funded abortion on demand, human embryos (babies) as inputs to an obscene medical industry, state control of parenting as well as education, re-invention of the Constitution, marriage de-sacralised, normalisation of pedophilia thru early sexualisation (why not? if embryos and other animals are objects to be used, why not children, in fact why not anybody who can be coerced?), state control of speech, the political centre moved to Alinsky/Ayers territory, the abolition of a virile military, the creation of an internal security force of community workers - an American Stasi, state control of private enterprise, und, und, und....Mormons and Catholics, watch out. You'll be tolerated as emblems of freedom of worship providing you turn into non-threatening sects which endorse the social dogmas of the secular religion.

Of course mere decadence is just a phase because the decadents lack courage and will. After some catastrophe the new America (if that country exists) may turn to a Puritan culture, a more compelling religion than liberal dreams. It's called 'Submission'.

The picture is of a daughter's first encounter with a turtle in the wild in St John last week.

Ugh!

Mick wrote:

I'd like to be classy too, which for now means I'll have very little to say about the President-elect.

Not me.

1. Barack and Michelle have risen thru affirmative actions and racial preferences, which is as un-American as it gets.

2. He's surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, of which omissio veri is pre-eminent.

3. He lacks both intellect and eloquence.

4. He has always made the most politically cowardly choice in his votes.

5. The campaign finance fraud and electoral roll fraud were close to his team and associates.

6. He killed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in Illinois, then lied about it. It's hard to design something more disgusting in politics.

7. The Left will now use amnesty and other tools to re-jig US electoral demographics. The fault lies mainly with the decent people who voted Republican in 2004, but switched or didn't vote this time because they misread Obama, lulled by the media''s utter deceit. I hope this is politics as usual, but doubt it.

By the way, if it was 'the economy, stupid', who of all the candidates had the strongest brand on that issue?

Thoughts on election eve

It's 3am. I'm in a house on St John, USVI, with my brother-in-law from New Hampshire and 1 each of our younger daughters. The girls are taking to snorkelling like fish to water. They seem to find the hot tub even more fascinating to snorkel around than the Caribbean. By this time tomorrow Obama will be probably have been elected to run their country. Funnily enough my girl is pro-McCain, tho I've told her nothing except my preference and given her a children's book on both candidates. Her excellent, black teacher is for Obama and world peace. Our delightful, Jewish, Manhattanite neighbours in suburban NJ are for Obama. I'm a gambler and I bet that these folk have more paradise points than I do, but they're for Obama. In 2 weeks I'll be on a bourbon distillery tour in Kentucky with a Buchanan/Gingrich reading PhD student from Houston. He's a 'conservative' for Obama like his law professor friend from Austin and his State Dept friend back in Kentucky from Islamabad. I think his drive is anti-McCain for his aged mannerisms and Iraq war staunchness and he's anti-Palin for her religion. Every day I get sent video links and articles by Brooks/Will/Hitchens and the rest about why not Palin/McCain. The senders range from intelligent friends to sarcastic dolts. They think that they are high info people, but they're not. Their sources have pre-sieved the info and they've pre-sieved their sources.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the zeitgeist calls for a young, black, academic, secular messiah figure to rebalance the interests of state and individual. Maybe if America could just empathize more with the rest of the planet everyone would feel better. Implied apologies are acceptable, no need for America to grovel. How can I be right, when I'm aligned with outmoded Christianity and the busted economics of Thatcher and Reagan?
 Well, gentle reader, I am right, they are wrong, but it's tedious now to rehearse the argument. The mass delusion that floats a total fraud like Obama is the end of Gramsci's 'long march thru the institutions' and I must say I'm impressed. The impenetrability of Obamans to reason argues that this election isn't about reason. There's a hunger for a secular religion and Obama is dish of the day, frothed up to titillate political palates across a broad spectrum of the credulous, whereas Palin or Romney, say, represent self-control, self-definition, service to life, service to patriotism, service to one's spouse, service to Christ, but are a living reproach to self-centredness, to infantilism, to selfishness raised to a principle of therapeutic culture.....that starvation, that aversion to the symbols of reproach. makes Obamans of them all, but not of me. Oh, no.
Assuming Obama, then I doubt the outcome will be accepted as in the past. The egregious fraud, the racist voting pattern, the media treachery, the support of Chavez/Hamas/Ayers/Farrakhan and the Euroweenies renders that outcome disgusting, anti-democratic and anti-American. I think my Obaman friends think it's democracy as usual, but Obama says he'll do some provocative things. The Freedom of Choice Act he plans to sign asap seems so downright evil that it's tyrannical. Then there's The Fairness Doctrine, and a swathe of liberal fascism that may drain democratic consent. I suppose that's why Obama's planning a civilian army. The coercion he's used against straying media will be more vicious when he controls the DoJ and the IRS.
Dark thoughts, but a good thought is the straight talk from the Catholic bishops on politics and abortion. And so to bed.

The Declaration of Dependence

I didn't invent the title phrase, but it fits the issue before America. If Obama wins, then America will have preferred a man who

-advocates 're-distribution', meaning 'theft', of private wealth by the state to its clients,
-has a pleasing baritone and non-threatening manner,
-thwarted the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in Illinois,
-opposed funding the military in Iraq unless the Commander-In-Chief declared a date for US retreat,
-is a close, long-term associate of anti-American racists, criminals and terrorists,
-is the preferred candidate of Iran, Hamas and the New York Times

over a man who

-is a hero,
-takes political risks,
-was right about Iraq,
-has deep political experience,
-is anti-socialist.

Not a tough choice, you'd think. But for decades the giant US government has paid the Left to re-construct the country's DNA and spawn a coalition of tenurists, identity groups, social engineers, risk-avoiders, radical secularists and naifs who want to expropriate the wealth earned by better men and women and then control their lives.

The time calls for happy warriors like Sarah Palin. This experience is forging her. She will have been tested as very few in politics.

Uncorrelated.com down

I'm a minor member of this group blog. The site is down thanks to obscure arguments about processor cycles and MovableType scripts. Meanwhile I commend the site of a fellow member on Uncorrelated, Anne Leary. She and I both use Blogger, the free Google service, which by and large just works.

Christian the lion

What a story!

Mark's Republic

I've long assumed that this Presidential election would be a landslide. Obama is so unqualified, so disqualified by background, so left-wing, so unexecutive, so incoherent that my confidence in the US electorate made me confident in a heavy defeat for Obama. That should have been more certain given the VP picks, Fannie Mae, Surge success and so on. But I was wrong. With 2 weeks to go the polls definitely lean Obama. I console myself by imagining a conservative renewal in the next 4 years, but I know that the Left today are more formidable than in 1976. They have no shame and will likely use the DOJ and every other tool to infiltrate Liberal Fascism deeper still into the social DNA of America. As we skip towards that lengthening shadow, let me set down some principles for Mark's Republic to improve the US Constitution:

1. Voting shall be a privilege reserved for adults over 25 who pay tax. Military service also shall qualify a citizen to vote.

2. Taxation shall be the same for every citizen, $10,000 or less per year, and shall only be paid by non-military voters. The only sanction for non-payment shall be omission from the published list of voters. Government shall shrink as necessary to fit this taxation and taxation shall shrink as necessary to fit this government. Unless agreed by taxpayer referenda requiring a super majority to be renewed each year, there shall be no other tax except tax hypothecated for emergencies. Tax from each taxpayer shall be divided equally between each state and the United States.

3. Elected representatives shall serve for the honour of public service, but not for pay, and shall be subject to term limits at the federal level.

4. Preferences on any grounds or none shall be legal in the private sphere, but illegal in the public sphere.

5. There shall be no public health service, but no child or military veteran shall be denied medical assistance for want of funds.

6. Marriage shall be a wholly private institution. There shall be no legal implication other than the overriding social interest to protect children. Spouses or anyone else may use the law of contract to define any material aspects they wish.

If your first reaction is 'how simplistic', think how the Framers would react to what we have now. Imagine the liberating effect on private enterprise, private charity, civic equality and civic pride.

Update: Barbarian Barney Frank provokes this apt quote from Robert Heinlein in The Corner-

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a "warm body" democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction.... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome.