Shake Shack SHAK

Shares traded up to $52.50 this morning.

If that euphoria doesn't indicate sheer madness in the stock market  nothing else will.

A hamburger.   When this baby breaks, get the hell out of the way.

President ZERO's economic recovery. Just the facts.

Final 2014 GDP is 2.4%, higher than the 2.2% in 2013 as well as the 2.3% in 2012.

From where I sit if  you want to determine the health of the economy look at a chart of West Texas Intermediate Crude.

Jeff Foxworthy on ‪#‎Montana‬!

‪‬

1. If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you may live in Montana.

2. If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't even work there, you may live in Montana.

3. If you've worn shorts and a jacket at the same time, you may live in Montana.

4. If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you may live in Montana.

5. If "vacation" means going anywhere south of Missoula for the weekend, you may live in Montana.

6. If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Montana.

7. If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may live in Montana.

8. If you have switched from 'heat' to 'A/C' in the same day and back again, you may live in Montana.

9. If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you may live in Montana.

10. If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both doors unlocked, you may live in Montana.

11. If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you may live in Montana.

12. If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you may live in Montana.

13. If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph -you're going 80 and everybody is passing you, you may live in Montana.

14. If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you may live in Montana.

15. If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction, you may live in Montana.

16. If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you may live in Montana.

17. If you find 10 degrees "a little chilly", you may live in Montana.

18. If you actually understand these jokes, repost this so all of your Montana friends and others can see, you definitely do live - or have lived - in Montana.

Time flies. 29 years ago today.

I watched this explosion in my office in LaJolla working at Drexel Burnham Lambert.   Life is short.    

529 Plan Change

The new change is welcome.   I feel sorry for the legions of parents who have been hoodwinked into putting their hard earned assets into 529 plans and not having the ability to change their investment posture as they see fit.  Generally it is THEIR money for the benefit of THEIR children.  The cradle-to-college mentality of the government is rather shallow.    The laugh is on the taxpaying parents who are now saddled with paying for FREE community college education for so many losers who belong to the Free Shit Army brigade so prevalent in America today.

As of January 1, 2015, a 529 plan account owner may make Investment Option changes TWICE per calendar year or upon the change of a beneficiary.

Prior to January 1, 2015, an account owner was only permitted to make an Investment Option change ONCE per calendar year or upon a change of beneficiary.

Undocumented Flying Machine over the White House!

I saw this in the news the other day that President Foodstamp doesn't have an Iron Dome over the White House (yet) so maybe the drone that went down inside the WH compound should demand amnesty, a free college tuition, iPhone, healthcare, etc.  I am sure mandatory DRONE REGISTRATION will be coming any day now.

I wonder when Amazon will be delivering dope with Drones in Colorado?  Come to think of it maybe it is the easiest way to have new golf clubs delivered to the Golfer-in-Chief.

I doubt if shotguns would work to stop a droning but come to think of it, it also might be awful tough to have a shooter at the ready at 3:08 am with his load of 3.5 inch BBB ready to unload!

In the end, if drones are outlawed remember only outlaws will have drones.

Technology is changing folks.  Drone on!!!

Jordan "JP" Parisian getting it done...........

Jordan Parisian fishing and hunting

In Memory of Jane B. Shingleton

Good Afternoon.   My name is Dean Parisian.   I am humbled and honored to speak today and to you Bruce,  to Brad, to Cathy, Betty, and Susan and to your spouses and your children, as we all are, I’m saddened by your  loss.

 When I go to Websters and look up the word “CHIEF” it describes one who is of high rank,  and of great influence.   Make no mistake, the world is less one Chief today.  But there are other places in the dictionary we might find words to describe the Chief.  For sure, we might see a picture of Jane next to the words, TOUGH and OPTIMISTIC!

By profession I am a money manager.  By birth I am a member of the MN Chippewa Tribe.  Over 20 years ago I was introduced to Dr. Bill and Jane Shingleton.  They made the decision to hire me and to entrust to me the financial legacy of the Shingleton family.   

In working with Jane I encountered the same issues many of you encountered.   When I would call,    the first order of business was to get her to turn down the volume on  CNBC.    

Over the years my admiration and respect for her only grew.  She was always so incredibly tough.   What were to be 15 minute phone calls were usually an hour.   I had no crystal ball and my impeccable track record of being 100% unable to predict the future only magnified things!     And the questions, the questions  never ceased.  We will never forget the questions.

As many of you know, and this may elicit a chuckle,  Jane was as concerned with the 2 digits in her accounts to the right of the decimal point as she was in the 7 digits to the left of the decimal point.     In my work,  she often wanted me to make phone calls on her behalf.  Her requests usually went something like this,  “Dean, You tell them that you are calling for Jane Shingleton and that she wants something done and she wants it done RIGHT NOW.”  For Jane, It was always,  Right Now.  There was no time for tomorrow when it could be done today.

I have never met a successful pessimist and  Jane  was truly an optimist.  She believed.   She knew bad times wouldn’t last.   And Jane lived life.  She lived it large on the courts and on the golf course.  She loved a party, she wasn’t scared to dance.    She knew how to laugh.   She knew how to give.  Jane got things done.  She played to win.   So proud of all of her friends, so proud of all of her family.  Pride in her relationship with Duke, so happy in the mountains, she was, a Carolina girl.    

For MeMA’s grandchildren I will share a quote that she often shared with me.   Here it is.   “The truth will set you free but at first it will make you miserable”  If Jane were here today she would want me to provide a teaching moment,  so Jane this is for you. 

Part of growing older and maturing requires us to stare reality in the face and take a bite.  No one is always going to tell you the truth.  They are going to shade it and make it sound nice.  But what we need to hear is the truth, because it is the truth that sets us free.  Facing the truth can be painful and difficult.   Often we don’t like the truth.   We don’t want to admit that some of the problems in our lives were brought on by poor decisions. 

Jane,  was as truthful to me as she was to all of you.   She called it the way it was.  A spade was a spade.   MeMA lived the truth  and today she is truly free.

In looking around it is easy to recognize the tremendous personal legacy that Jane and Dr. Shingleton have left the world.  It’s obvious to see in their children the results of how much work Jane put into her family.  All of you,  are a testament to her,  to her great ambition, to her smarts and savvy, and to her love.  Jane was so proud of all of you, your accomplishments,  and always wanted nothing but the very best for each of you. 

The story of the personal legacy of the Chief and of Dr. Bill will continue.  Each page of the story will be written by the people in this room.  The story of the Shingleton family is not yet complete.  There is work to be done.  The Chief  would want it that way.

In closing, as the great Indian Chief, Chief Seattle said long ago,  “There is no death, only a change of worlds.”   Jane and Dr. Bill are together again and they left this world a much better place.   May God forever bless my friend, Jane Shingleton. 

Thank you.

Meanwhile, WINNING north of the border.........

Earlier this month, Target announced it would close all of its 133 stores in Canada, laying off the 17,600 employees north of the border.  Target's "employee trust" package for its Canadian workers, announced last week, amounts to around $56 million, providing each worker with 16 weeks of pay.

The golden handshake "walk-away" package handed to ex-CEO Gregg Steinhafel last May is in roughly the same ballpark at around $61 million, including severance of $15.9 million.

 

 

Saving for College Education

Working hard, saving money, opening 529 plans, monitoring investments in a zero-interest rate environment of your doing for my sons  and then paying a massive exorbitant state and federal income tax for the children of total strangers to attend community college for FREE is surely fair and equitable.

I feel I can do more.

(Sarcasm off)

Cherokee's won the US Taxpayer GIVE-AWAY!

Notes From The Chief:

Over the past three years, we have worked diligently to improve the overall quality of health care for Cherokees. Providing world-class health care in a timely manner has been our priority from the day I took the oath of office, and today we take another giant leap in serving that level of care to our citizens.

We were notified this week that Cherokee Nation was selected for the Joint Venture Construction Program with the Indian Health Service. Under the program, tribes that build health care infrastructure can receive federal funding for decades to assist with staffing and operations. This means our new hospital campus at W.W. Hastings in Tahlequah will receive an additional $20 to $30 million per year for at least 20 years, and quite possibly many more decades beyond that.

A new state-of-the-art facility in Tahlequah is now closer than ever before and will be among the finest health care facilities in all of Indian Country. The additional $20 to $30 million will support our citizens and all American Indians who seek quality care, by funding more doctors and more equipment and providing more services than ever. Under the partnership, IHS will pay the salaries of our talented health care providers, increasing the size of our medical staff faster than would have been possible otherwise. Construction should begin very soon.

This partnership with IHS will improve the health outcomes of Cherokees for the next two to three generations and beyond. Thanks to this program, our grandchildren and even their grandchildren will be healthier and happier than we could have ever imagined just a few years ago.
Osiyo -

The Cherokee Nation is the largest tribal health care system in the country. We service more than a million patient visits annually and have more than 130,000 active charts. That’s quite a strain for any health system, and has been a strain on W.W. Hastings in particular. Built 30 years ago to serve 65,000 outpatient visits each year, Hastings now serves more than 400,000 outpatient visits annually. To put that in perspective, the current size of Hastings is one-third of the size needed to adequately serve our population. It’s not difficult to see that it is a health system in danger of cracking if something isn’t done right away. We saw that, and we took action.

The door was shut tight on this IHS Joint Venture program just a few years ago, and it did not appear as though it would be reopened. But our Cherokee Nation Government Relations and Health Services groups lobbied IHS and congressional leaders to open the process and let us prove that we could be good partners in providing the best health care possible to Native Americans in our area. I testified before Congress, pleading with them to give us this opportunity. We met with leaders on Capitol Hill for two years, and our hard work paid off. 

The Joint Venture program was reopened for all tribes to apply, and our staff here at Cherokee Nation worked diligently to ensure our application was the most viable and successful plan of action. I cannot underscore enough how important this team’s hard work was in making this day a reality, and I’m so grateful to the congressional leaders who signed on to give us a shot at this partnership. After all the dust settled from two years of phone calls, visits, congressional testimony and so much work on the ground, we learned that our application was selected in the top three from a pool of 37 applicant tribes. We were over the moon.

I believe IHS saw that we had already committed $100 million from tribal casino profits to construct this health facility and other clinics, and they knew we were serious about rebuilding our aging health care infrastructure. I believe they saw Cherokee Nation as a good bet, putting our money where our mouth is. All the hard work was worth every moment, to improve the lives of our fellow Cherokees.

It’s a great time to be Cherokee, and we have much to be proud of. We’re experiencing a true renaissance in the Cherokee Nation, ushering in an era of sweeping changes in health care and making decisions that will have a ripple effect for generations to come. It truly doesn’t get better than this.

God bless all of you, and God bless the Cherokee Nation.

Chief Bill John Baker

Climate Change

Here are some of the worlds billionaires fighting Climate Change  (global warming) in Davos.

Flowers blooming in D.C.

Saw a picture of the SOTU.  Funny as hell.   There was one black (Obama), one white(Biden) and one orange dude (Boehner)  all standing together.

What a picture of waste and corruption.  

Led and delivered by lobbyists.   Six years into this Administration, nearly 8 trillion deeper in debt.

It can't get much better than that.  Just how many people can they fool is the real question.

President "Robin Hood" and his SOTU

Great summation..........

"You didn’t build that business, but I have made great strides in building the government. And the government loves you & you need it."

Race Hustlers Creed

"The quest for equal rights has been corrupted into a demand for equal results."

Larry Elder

Just the Facts under Obama the past 6 years

The following are 27 facts that show how the middle class has fared under 6 years of Barack Obama…

#1 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale now earn less money than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.
#2 American families in the middle 20 percent of the income scale have a lower net worth than they did on the day when Barack Obama first entered the White House.
#3 According to a Washington Post article published just a few days ago, more than 50 percent of the children in U.S. public schools now come from low income homes.  This is the first time that this has happened in at least 50 years.
#4 According to a Census Bureau report that was recently released, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
#5 In 2008, the total number of business closures exceeded the total number of businesses being created for the first time ever, and that has continued to happen every single year since then.
#6 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”.  But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”.
#7 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”.  But in 2014, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans in that age range considered themselves to be “lower class”.
#8 Traditionally, owning a home has been one of the key indicators that you belong to the middle class.  So what does the fact that the rate of homeownership in America has been falling for seven years in a row say about the Obama years?
#9 According to a survey that was conducted last year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.
#10 After accounting for inflation, median household income in the United States is 8 percent lower than it was when the last recession started in 2007.
#11 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.
#12 At this point, one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “in collections“.
#13 When Barack Obama first set foot in the Oval Office, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, that number is sitting at only 59.2 percent…
#14 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 32.8 weeks.
#15 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#16 At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, our yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars.  Last year, it was more than 314 billion dollars.
#17 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is over 101 percent.
#18 The U.S. national debt is on pace to approximately double during the eight years of the Obama administration.  In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate about as much debt as it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.
#19 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.
#20 The poverty rate in the United States has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years.  This is the first time that has happened since 1965.
#21 From 2009 through 2013, the U.S. government spent a whopping 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs.
#22 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.
#23 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had full-time jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.  But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have full-time jobs.
#24 One recent survey discovered that about 22 percent of all Americans have had to turn to a church food panty for assistance.
#25 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.
#26 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are living with only one parent are living in poverty.
#27 According to a report that was released late last year by the National Center on Family Homelessness, the number of homeless children in the United States has reached a new all-time record high of 2.5 million.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

The incredibly foolish decisions that have been made by Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve have brought us right to the precipice of another major financial crisis and another crippling economic downturn.

So as bad as the numbers above are, the truth is that they are nothing compared to what is coming.

We are heading into the greatest economic crisis that any of us have ever seen. 

Lower Brule and Human Rights Watch

The following is reprinted from 2009.   The great work done by the Human Rights Watch on the criminal conduct toward the Lower Brule citizens is one small step in Indian Country and unfortunately HRW does not have the resources to do this great work on Tribal Council conduct on reservations from Montana to Wisconsin.   In my short 20 years of experience working in Indian Country and having lived across Indian Country since 1965 this goes on in the majority of reservations.  Yes, majority, not minority.   Believe it.

 

Saturday, September 12, 2009

There are many questions that Lower Brule Sioux tribal members need to be asking. Here's some for the Lower Brule Sioux membership to bring to the next Council meeting.

What independent firm or advisory shop did the due diligence on the Westrock transaction? What is the experience of the firm that did the due diligence? What were the terms of the transaction? How do we know we got the best price for the Tribe? How was the deal structured? If the deal was purportedly in the works for three years did we or did we not "pay up" for the "new" institutional trading desk and asset management unit that was started a month ago? Why did we a buy a small Broker-Dealer based in New York instead of conducting a national search for available Broker-Dealers to buy? What ramifications will there be with insurance issues of owning a Broker-Dealer? Where will FINRA suits come into play against the firm and the Tribe with tribal sovereignty issues? Did the Tribe consider a joint venture with another Sioux tribe to cut in half the risk of the investment and further diversify into other business lines? Did the Tribe speak to the professionals at First Nations Development Institue for help on the deal? Who is looking after our investment that is independent and unbiased and A)understands the securities business B) understands the institutional trading business and C) understands the asset managment business or do we simply rely on what we are told by Westrock? What is the compliance record of Westrock with FINRA and the SEC? Given that most retail brokers gross production levels are off significantly from 2007 after the 2008 financial debacle did we agree to lower price terms over the course of the negotiations or did we wind up paying top doller for this revenue stream? What liabilities, if any, did we inherit upon closing? How can this acquisition help ALL of the Lower Brule Sioux tribal membership and why is the Tribe using brokers to help tribal members when they probably should be using fiduciaries like Registered Investment Advisory firms instead of salesmen-brokers to cut trading costs and commissions for tribal members. There are many reasons that Lower Brule Sioux Tribal members need to be careful in who they entrust their hard-earned assets.

Greatest joke of the entire week.............

You simply can't make this up...........

*BULLARD SAYS LESSON OF QE IS IT WORKS `FAIRLY WELL'

 

For those of us who are tired of the rampant bullshit this takes the cake! 

But the President said we are in a recovery...............

For what appears to be the first time on record, Powerball Lottery Sales declined year-over-year. As the following slides show, lottery sales declined 19% in FY14 vs FY13 and even more stunningly reflective of a nation whose disposable income (and hope) is in such short supply,sales in the first half of FY15 are down 40% from the first of FY14.

Twisted..........

If you pay the dime you may not dine in jail stripes.    Shakespeare was right! 

Days of old in San Diego............

Picture taken down on Mission Beach, San Diego.  Courtesy of Dr. Roger Goebel of Uniontown, PA!

President ZERO on education............

So, President Obama officially unveils his "You idiots are paying for everyone elses education" plan.   I am thinking there is going to be a lot of pissed off people who went into debt to go to college......so, when do taxpayers get something for "free"?

Rough day for the Parisians in Paris..........

The terrorists did some carnage for sure.  Too bad there weren't some .12 gauges at the ready for them when it started.  It reminds me of the old bit of French humor amongst the shooting community in America.  My grandfather, Victor Napoleon Parisian fought in the fields of France during World War 1.    I bet he could identify with this humor.......

"French rifle for sale.  Never fired and only dropped once."

Main Street versus Wall Street

It's not a joke.  It's a criminal enterprise.  Since 2008 the banksters have been making off with billions that are completely insured by the American taxpayer in the form of bailouts.