Did you know that Al Gore has an investment management business?  It’s called Generation Investment Management and is a roughly 30-person firm based in London.  Generation’s investment philosophy (not surprisingly) is centered on the idea of socially-responsible investing, with an eye towards companies promoting green initiatives designed to combat the man-made effects on global warming.  I learned about the firm upon reading about the 150 million pound mandate that it won from the Church of England.

I’m not trying to go all conspiratorial on everyone here, but the existence of an investment management business under the Gore umbrella makes me scratch my head in wonder just a tiny little bit.  I mean, I appreciate his cause célèbre – global warming seems to me as real as the day is long – and Gore has played in instrumental role in pushing the issue to the forefront of the global consciousness.  Kudos to him for that.  But having an asset management business built on the back of his message seems to stretch the lines of do-goodery.  On the one hand, I appreciate what his $10 billion or so can do for the world of green startups from a capital-sourcing standpoint.  But on the other hand, supposing his firm charges a standard 1% management fee on those assets, Generation is clipping $100 million or so a year in fees.  That’s not a bad business, particularly so for its chairman, whom I’d imagine has a generous slice of the partnership.

I’m not suggesting that there is anything untowards going on here.  Rather, I’m just beginning to question Gore’s motives in all of this climate change business.  After all, that’s exactly what it has become – a business.

In a stroke of genius during these tough economic times, a couple in Maryland has decided to raffle off their home.  Stuck with a mortgage they can’t afford and a market that is less than forgiving, necessity sure proved the mother of invention.  Knowing the house would fetch nowhere near the appraised value of $1.3 million, this enterprising couple instead decided to sell raffle tickets at $50 a pop, hoping that the cumulative amount sold would cover the value of the home.  The winner of the raffle is slated to receive a 6,000 sq. ft. custom house with six bedrooms, 4.5 baths and two kitchens on a two acre lot.  And, most importantly, the winner will receive the house mortgage free and will not be on the hook for any administrative costs (closing, etc.).  Think about that.  A $50 ticket can buy you a very nice house in what appears to be a perfectly nice suburb that is within shouting distance of the beach and located just outside of the U.S. Naval Academy home of Annapolis (a 30-45 minute drive to DC).  And your odds are much, much better than, say, winning your state lottery jackpot.  Plus, since the couple is required to partner with a charity in order for the raffle to be deemed legal, you can rest easy in the knowledge that all funds received above and beyond the value of the home will be given to the charity.  Another couple in Maryland did the same thing a while back and the charity they worked with received $214,000.  Not too shabby!

So far, roughly 22,000 tickets have already been sold.  The original plan was to sell 31,500 and hold the raffle on December 31st.  However, the couple has decided to reduce the target amount to just 27,000 and has also pushed the raffle date back to January 23rd.  So there’s still time!  Sure, maybe you don’t want to actually live in Maryland, but at the very least you can own an investment property whose upside optionality is off the charts (given the ridiculously low premium paid). 

To learn more about this house, visit their website: http://www.fiftydollarhouse.com/. 

You can also read a recent NY Times piece on the practice of real estate raffles.

I’m watching a reality show called Trauma: Life in the ER and there’s a guy who was brought in with a meat grinder attached to his hand.  A butcher shop employee, it appears he reached his hand into the grinder to retrieve something, thinking the slow-moving contraption wouldn’t have time to snag him.  Unfortunately, the poor guy was sorely mistaken.  Now the doctors, with help from the hospital’s maintenance crew, are using a wrench to send the gears in reverse, which will hopefully spit out the dude’s finger.  My guess is it emerges a crumpled, mangled mess.  In any event, you should think about this poor guy the next time you complain about your job!

Update – Miraculously, the finger emerged unbroken(!) and only required a few stitches to fix.  Lucky dog.

There was a fun piece in today’s Washington Post that explores the culture of ineptitude and inaction that plagued the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the reign of W.

My favorite part:

In 2006, [director] Henshaw was replaced by Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a South Carolina lawyer and former Bush fundraiser who spent years defending companies cited by OSHA for safety and health violations.

Foulke quickly acquired a reputation inside the Labor Department as a man who literally fell asleep on the job: Eyewitnesses said they saw him suddenly doze off at staff meetings, during teleconferences, in one-on-one briefings, at retreats involving senior deputies, on the dais at a conference in Europe, at an award ceremony for a corporation and during an interview with a candidate for deputy regional administrator.

His top aides said they rustled papers, wore attention-getting garb, pounded the table for emphasis or gently kicked his leg, all to keep him awake. But, if these tactics failed, sometimes they just continued talking as if he were awake. “We’ll be sitting there and things will fall out of his hands; people will go on talking like nothing ever happened,” said a career official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to a reporter.

In an interview, Foulke denied falling asleep at work, although he said he was often tired and sometimes listened with his eyes closed.

There are two things that stand out in the above passage.  First, I can relate to the wonderful awkwardness the arises when people sitting across from you in a meeting choose to get some shuteye while you speak.  This has happened to me on too many occasions during my career (the Japanese are particularly notorious for dozing off at inopportune times), and I marvel at each occurrence.  Seriously, how could anyone consider such behavior to be acceptable?  Never in my life would I imagine falling asleep in a meeting.  Even if I was so tired I needed to sit on a tack to keep my wits about me, I would NEVER fall asleep in a meeting.  Plain and simple.

Second, I love the guy’s horribly lame attempt at glossing over the fact that he was thinking horizontal while attempting to remain vertical during meetings.  “…he was often tired and sometimes listened with his eyes closed.”  Did he really think that would fly as an excuse?  Even if he were awake, what makes the act of listening with one’s eyes closed any more normal?  During my next meeting, I’m going to clap randomly when someone else is speaking.  So long as I’m still listening, it’s all good, right?

I absolutely love stuff like this:

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

As you may recall, I posted an example of cosmic irony a little while back (kidnapping expert gets kidnapped in Mexico).  This morning, I ran across two more examples while perusing the headlines:

1. A reporter for NPR was unfortunately among the 64 employees recently let go by the station (after roughly thirty years of service, no less).  The layoff came while she was completing a series on how Americans are coping with the increased number of layoffs in the current economic downturn.
2. An Australian swimmer is believed to have been snatched by a great white shark while swimming off the coast of Perth.  After some thrashing about in a pool of red and the discovery of the swimmer’s shredded wetsuit, the expectation is that the man was devoured completely by the shark.  As it turns out, the poor guy was a defender of great white sharks, having campaigned for their protection over the course of many years.

Lizzi and I just had dinner at P.F. Chang’s in Oakland (after obligatory stops at Best Buy and Barnes & Noble – gotta love American consumerism).  Just as an FYI, American-style Chinese food is WAY better than the real deal.  Absolutely no contest whatsoever.  Trust me on this one.  Those of you who have traveled to the mainland know exactly what I mean.

Lizzi and I ventured into San Francisco today (we’re staying across the bay with family in Oakland) for some shopping and catching up with friends.  I know the statistics point to us being in the midst of the most severe economic slowdown since the Great Depression, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the crowds we saw today.  People everywhere.  Stores swamped.  Massive lines at the checkout counters.  Makes me wonder if the numbers are off and things aren’t as bad as the sensationalist media would have us believe or if we Americans are still perpetrating the very practice that got us into this mess – spending money we don’t have.  Here’s hoping it’s more the former.

I realize that my previous couple posts probably make me sound a bit sour.  Perhaps it’s my subconscious rebelling against the fact that I turn one year older tomorrow, but I feel in perfectly good spirits.  To prove it, I’m going to post a brilliant Bud Light commercial that the censors kept hidden from us.

I’m watching Morning Joe on MSNBC, just as I do most nights before heading off for bed, and I’m finally putting ink to the fact that Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough’s co-host, is useless.  Her value-add as a sidekick rivals Yoko Ono’s in depths explored.  Just as they say ineffective people in the business world are empty suits, Mika is an empty seat.  She just sits next to Joe looking very awkward as she strains to find something to do and/or say, moments occassionally interrupted by her reacting to something Joe says in the most generic way possible.  The only talking she does is either completely meaningless or is read directly from the teleprompter as she either leads the show to commercial or ticks off the news headlines.  In the meantime, she just stares blankly at the screen while attempting to find the perfect spot to sit her venti Starbucks coffee.  Worthless!

Below is part of the transcript from this past week’s “Meet The Press”.  This section of the discussion centered on the outrageous Bernie Madoff fraud (which has every right to be scrutinized with the utmost prejudice) and involves an exchange between Andrea Mitchell, CNBC’s Erin Burnett and David Gregory (the program’s host).

MS. MITCHELL:  Well, and, in fact, you have people who invest in these fund of funds…

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. MITCHELL:  …and these are supposed to be the people who do all the due diligence beyond the regulators, and they were looking to put all of this money in a nondiversified way into a fund which had a teeny two-person or three-person accounting and….

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL:  …and no computerized analysis?

MS. BURNETT:  And collect a fee for doing it.

MS. MITCHELL:  And collect the fee.

MS. BURNETT:  Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL:  Exactly.  So the SEC has a lot of answering to do.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MS. MITCHELL:  And, and, in fact, John McCain was absolutely right in looking at that.  But the, the—it’s not just this SEC, it’s previous SEC chairmen. It’s not just Christopher Cox, it go—this goes all the way back…

MR. GREGORY:  Right, right.

MS. MITCHELL:  …to 1999.

I am posting about this because it provides a wonderful glimpse into the tendency for people to happily speak (faux-) authoritatively on topics they clearly know little about.  This practice is quite common among talking heads, who routinely find themselves blabbering well beyond their depths.  My gripe with the above is Ms. Mitchell’s rambling about the failings of fund-of-funds.  Granted, those professional investors involved with Madoff have plenty to answer for and deserve every bit of chastising they receive.  However, Mitchell’s rationale rings hollow on the basis that she makes absolutely no sense.  When complaining about Madoff’s shoddy bookkeeping, Mitchell veers off into the land of “what the?” by lamenting “…and no computerized analysis?”.  What does that even mean?  This is clearly the statement of a woman who has little knowledge of the topic at hand but is making random statements that sound heavy to give the appearance that she’s switched on.  Without a doubt, those investing in Madoff were missing the critical “analysis” piece.  That much is clear.  But putting “computerized” in front of it is blatantly devoid of any substance and is clearly designed to provide the illusion that the issue is complex.  The reality is that the word “computerized” doesn’t make the issue any more complicated than putting the word “sophisticated” in front of “Charlie Weis’ offense” makes said offense potent.  I know nothing about medicine but I do know that all doctors are required to take a hypocratic oath.  The next time I muse about the death of a patient that makes the headlines, I’ll make the blanket statement that the doctors should’ve exercised more hypocratic discretion while treating the patient.

And by blaming the lack of computers being used for analysis, was the implication that the analysis being conducted was by abacus instead?  And what, in Mitchell’s mind, should those computers have been analyzing?  That would’ve been a good follow-up question, which I’m quite certain would’ve been met with several seconds of awkward silence followed by random bumbling in an attempt to save face.  You’d think she would be more versed in all this given that her husband, Alan Greenspan, is one of the most prominent economists of our time.  Perhaps she got this by hearing Greenspan rue the bubble he helped create by complaining, “If only we had more computerized analysis!”.

After demonstrating her ineptitude on the details of the Madoff scam in one-half of a sentence, Mitchell then makes the random jump in logic to claim that the SEC has some answering to do.  Yes, they do, but the SEC’s ineffectiveness and the ignorance of professional investors are not necessarily linked.  And how can she make the statement that it goes all the way back to 1999?  Where did she get that date from? I would’ve loved for Gregory to ask Mitchell who the chairman of the SEC was back then.  Again, crickets chirping.  That would’ve been fun.

Time has just posted its picks for 2008 pictures of the year.

My favorite:

This is what philosophers refer to as cosmic irony.

My holiday gift for everyone this year will be a ShamWow, by far the greatest product ever devised by man.   Curious to know what it does?  Wonder no more…

Isn’t that just delightful?!?!  And how money is that pitchman?  Seriously, that guy rocks.  He’s so good, I may throw in a SlapChop as well…

Did you catch that “you’re gonna love my nuts” part?  Hehe.

Turns out the guy in the infomercial is a failed comic turned pitchman extraordinaire named Vince Offer.  Back in 1999, Offer made a low budget film called The Underground Comedy Movie, which is apparently one of the worst movies of all time (this despite assembling a cast of Slash, Gena Lee Nolin, Joey Buttafuoco and Michael Clarke Duncan!).  The New York Times said that the movie “stands as a monument to ineptitude and self-delusion”.  I guess the Gray Lady was underwhelmed by the superhero Dickman, which was a man dressed as a giant penis who defeated his enemies by squirting them with semen.  Come on!  Where’s your sense of humor, NYT?  Meanwhile, over at the New York Post, the film received zero stars along with this ringing endorsement:  ”[The Underground Comedy Movie] may be the least amusing comedy ever made…How can the War Crimes Tribunal indict Slobodan Milosevic but let Vince Offer still walk the streets?”  Ouch!

Following the horrendous failure of his movie, Offer turned back to his career as infomercial pitchman, but not before he pursued lawsuits against the Farelly Brothers for copyright infringement (“We’ve never heard of him, we’ver never heard of his movie, and it’s all a bunch of baloney”), Anna Nicole Smith for breach of contract (she backed out of the movie for fear it would hurt her career – ha!), and the Church of Scientology (he was reportedly shunned and defamed by the church once he disowned it and it’s ways).  I love it.  Absolutely love it.

This guy is so awesome at hawking useless products, he even had his own writeup on Slate, which sarcastically referred to him as the next great TV pitchman:

Can Vince become the next Billy Mays—a ubiquitous, mercenary pitchman hawking products up and down the TV dial? I don’t see why not. If anything, the current moment’s more suited to Vince’s smooth-talking condescension than to Mays’ earnest fervor. Jaded consumers expect to get snowed and almost distrust the very pretense of trustworthiness. As my friend who’s been tempted by the Shamwow puts it: “What I think I like about Vince is that he is upfront and seemingly comfortable with his schtick. He appears to be saying, ‘I am a carnie huckster, you know it and I know it, but that’s OK because this product is that good.’ “

Someone please make a True Hollywood Story about this guy!