Budget Surplus: PSWBLMLO

The House has passed a budget plan that would allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire, and have surpluses by the year 2012. The Senate Budget Committee will look at a similar plan today, and you can bet there’s going to be another budget shootout between Congress and the White House.

Do you want the government to have a budget surplus?

Think about it: If the government has more money than it needs, it means you and I, the people who fund the government, have less money. We don’t need a government surplus.

I want the government to spend exactly what it takes, and no more. Nothing left over for “surplus,” because the Federal Government’s surplus is my personal deficit.

Government Surplus.
That’s a euphemism for PSWBLMLO:
Pile of Stuff We Bought with Your Money that’s Left Over.

That would make a great bureaucratic office: The Office of PS WB LM LO (pronounced “piss web lem loh”), except I think they already have one of those in Washington.
Actually more than one, come to think of it.

Euphemisms can be fun, when properly used.
For example, this budget plan that is working it’s way through the alimentary canal of Congress is a prelude to what the government wants to charge you for its existence. We used to call these “taxes,” but taxes are not PC—politically-correct, unless you’re using them as a battering ram about the head and shoulders of your political opponent.

No new Taxes.

Instead, we will have “budget reinforcements,” a handy euphemism first coined by the Swedish Finance ministry, no doubt on the occasion of some high level meeting in a hot tub somewhere overlooking a Fjord near the North Sea. There are also euphemisms for Budget Reinforcements.

Our friends in the heart of Texas, Austin, a few years back built a new airport on an old Air Force base. Didn’t want to tax people for the new place, but they needed budget reinforcements. Voila: in true, Austin-tatious government gobblety-speak, the “Passenger Facility Charge” was conjured—at $3 a head—for anyone flying through Austin.

I think The State of Minnesota had the best take on this:
Did you know they abolished their State Unemployment Tax?
It’s true.
But the state now collects a re-employment insurance tax. Same fee, of course, but when viewed through the lens of fiscal euphenimity, it can be perceived as constructive…even regenerative.

The problem with these fiscal fogs of polysyllabic prevarication is that they mask the problems they’re causing. Remember, we’re really talking about the idea of the Government operating with a surplus: extra money left over, which, as we all know, will result in poorer people, and broker companies.

Have no fear—there are linguistic treatments to be applied to these issues as well. No longer will we have poor in America…we’ll just have Fiscal Under-achievers.

Warren Buffet, by the way is not one of these, topping Forbes’ list of billionaires at $62-billion.

And lest other shareholders become distressed over losses this year, just use a trick from the Calgene playbook, which once described its results as “Negative Gross Profit.” Or as another corporate captain once described it, “negatively impacted profitability.”

I think that’s probably spot-on as a description of what your life and mine will be like if the government raises its budget reinforcements in order to create surpluses. If you like the idea of the government having more money than it needs, then you’re looking at a bleak future in which you will have less money than you need.
Then we’ll all have negatively-impacted profitability.

Headcold Portfolio

I spent half the weekend on cabs, airplanes, or airport terminal benches. The other half of the weekend I spent on over-the- counter meds for a raging headcold, exacerbated by the travelling. Nothing like coming down from 37,000-ft in a pressurized cabin to make your head feel like it’s going to explode.

How do you handle a cold?

I prefer to medicate and hibernate.

Dose me with what ever works best, unplug the phone, and let me sleep it off.

That’s what I did Saturday night, upon returning from New York. I had left town with a cold, but thought I’d done the right thing by going to the doctor for a couple of injections and two prescriptions. Can’t imagine what I might have felt like had I not seen the doc before leaving town.

So I spent the past 48-hours pumped full of prescription-strength decongestants, an antibiotic, and a fleet of OTC meds to ease my head, which was stuffed beneath a feather comforter and pillow against the light of day.

While at the Equities Magazine investors’ conference in New York, we were pummeled with questions about The BizRadio Network. Very interesting that, despite the decidedly negative mood on Wall Street, there is still quite an appetite for good deals. There are still dollars to be invested into the right idea. The interest level was high, and there were plenty of inquiries about what we’re doing with the Network.

Heard some interesting stories, too, about companies that are involved in various areas of the economy: renewable power, healthcare applications, business software applications, and even containers for making your next move a little easier.

And there’s always one odd-ball attendee who won’t leave you alone.

You know the one…peppers you with questions about everything.

Doesn’t know when to stop.

Can’t take a hint ( or a hike.)

This guy was incessant.

Had a comment for everything, and was barely able to catch an answer before asking another question. I finally reached my limit when he tried to pitch some vacation time share scam on me, just for logging-on to a website to watch a presentation.

That's it.

Time’s up.

You’re toast.

Please leave.

That’s the end of my string of patience when dealing with the public.

Be nice, but be firm.

Be hospitable, but be wary.

I told him I didn’t have time for such shenanigans, and it was nice visiting with him, goodbye.

One thing this knucklehead asked did get me to thinking, however. He wanted to know what I thought would be a most likely place to invest. At that point in his incessant inquisition, I don’t remember exactly what I told him, but it was along the lines of looking at where society was going, what our needs are, and what companies would supply those needs.

Only shut him up for a moment.
But upon reflection, I think that’s still sound advice, regardless of your situation. The first baby-boomer just cashed her first Social Security Check, and there will be millions more in the next several years. As we age, and live longer, there are going to be needs in healthcare, energy, and nutrition.

This weekend, I created a Headcold Portfolio of companies who were profiting from the misery that I and ten-thousands of others are enduring with the cold and flu season.

This is not an unlikely quintet: Novartis, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Cadberry-Schwepps.

Novartis is into a lot of drug manufacturing. They just decided to not market a diabetes drug in the US that the European Union permitted because domestic approval is too tough to achieve. They also make a wonderful mixture called Thera-Flu, which has helped ease the stuffiness in my chest.

Procter & Gamble is one of the 800-pound gorillas in American Industry, with its fingers in nearly every aspect of the domestic consumer scene. Nyquil is one of its wintertime staples, providing “that restful sleep my body needs.” I have no idea how much of this stuff they sell each season, but it’s worth it.

No medicine cabinet is complete without a bottle of Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson makes several grades of acetaminophen for OTC use.

GlaxoSmithKline is the make of Flonase, a once-a-day nasal inhalant that has weaned me from all other antihistamines. Gone are the hours lost in the stupor of an allergic aftermath.

Cadberry-Schwepps is the final member of my medicinal quintet. I carry several pieces of this company with me at all times, in the form of Halls Cough-drops.

So it’s not too hard to come up with a list of companies whose products you use each day. Even when the village idiot sneaks in and peppers you with questions, there are ideas that can be developed with a payoff.

On the Road from NYC

Traveling has become a chore.
There is no longer the charm and romance associated with flying to faraway places when you must partially disrobe and be subjected to all manner of inquiries to get into an airport.
Such is life in America in 2008.

I've been on the road to New York this week.
That's a misnomer, of course.
I didn't drive--I flew, and was driven around by cabbies when I got here.
That, too, is a unique experience.

The weather made the news in New York this week.
First snow storm of the Winter.
What wonderful timing.

What a difference a day makes in Manhattan.
One day is sunny and bight.
The next is a study in charcoal shades, accented by the blazes of Yellow Cabs hissing through the slushy streets.

On the way to the airport this morning, I tried to figure out what color New York is when it has snowed. The hues are impossible to define in chromatic terms, unless you attached a dirty adjective to each scene.

Dirty black asphalt.
Dirty brown-grey buildings.
Dirty white snowbanks...pure as the driven slush.

Yet even in its greyness, NYC holds all within its hypnotic trance.
Rumbling through the cold, murky streets on an early Saturday morning, the city still charms.
But I wouldn't want to live here.