Star Witness This morning we are waking up to the most explosive part of the Trump Hush Money trial in Manhattan, the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer over a decade in days gone by. At the early part of the testimony, the bulk of the pitter patter from the cable news legal/litigation pundits is about what the prosecution wants of Cohen and how the defense is likely to try to undermine…
4AM Again In the early decade of my career, while living in Rockville Centre on the South Shore of Long Island, I was 36 scheduled minutes on the Long Island Railroad into Penn Station. Penn is at 7th Avenue and 33rd Street. My office in those days was at Park Avenue and 48th Street. Once I had tested the waters of New York commuting, I knew that I was not built for rush hour travel,…
Slip Slidin’ Away We’re into the first week of the Trump “Hush Money” trial in Manhattan as the jury selection process or “voir dire” is underway. As of yesterday, seven jurors including the foreman have been chosen. That leaves five more regular jurors and six alternates to go. I have predicted for some time that the criminal prosecution process was going to be the great unraveling of the Trump candidacy and perhaps the Trump existence…
Nice Try Like everybody these days, my inbox and credit cards are inundated with fees for every service under the sun. The concept of micro fees and subscriptions has become a big issue in modern life. One of the reasons I subscribe to Rocket Money for $8.99/months is that they regularly remind me of all the small and large subscription fees I am being charged, which forces me to reexamine my services on a regular…
Living Dangerously I recall reading about John McAfee, the founder of the anti-virus software company, McAfee. His later life reads like a cheap thriller novel or Dateline episode. After selling his company and declaring its software products scams that consumers should uninstall, he moved to Belize, only to get caught up in a murder scandal that had him running in exile from the small Caribbean country, often referred to as the Mosquito Coast. From there…
Saving the Planet There are many big issues that can overwhelm us and make us small, insignificant and. Probably first among those issues, alongside world peace and the need for universal fairness and equality, is climate change. What used to be a hotly debated and very politicized issue has, through our day-to-day life experiences, particularly with the changing weather patterns, become more of a foregone conclusion. What we are left with is the big question…
Trump and Pump Just this morning I read that the plan to take Truth Social public through the Digital World Acquisitions (DWAC) SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) was getting derailed by one aberrant investor that wanted to get a bigger piece of the pie. There was a certain ironic justice in that potential outcome of derailing Trump’s latest get-rich-quick scheme, but alas, I see that the vote went through anyway, which means that someone prevailed…
Playing With Your Life One of the areas that I spent a great deal of time in during my professional life was the arcane arena of life insurance. Somewhere over the years, the business of life insurance took some very strange turns in this country. To begin with, the lobbying army that represents the industry is formidable, and they have done a wonderful job of making an arcane arena all the more arcane by purposefully…
Repricing the Universe FIRST TRIP FILLER STORY IN CASE I DON’T KEEP UP About 20 years ago a guy came on the scene in New York City, and he became a bit of a phenomenon. His name was Jimmy McMillan and he coined the expression the “The Rent is Too Damn High!”. He formed a political party with the same name and ran for the Mayor of New York City in 2005 and 2009 and…
Bangkok Bound Tomorrow we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok. That means we are going from a Muslim state to a Buddhist state (Thailand is 94% Buddhist). Our stay at the Mandarin Oriental here has been very pleasant. The facilities are very nice and the service is excellent. These people know who they serve and as I look up at the ceiling of our room I see another sign of that. There is a small…