Just a look at the front page of cnnmoney today is enough to give even the strong of stomach the extreme willies. Next to a headline that says, “Wall Street Braces for Ugly Day,” and video featuring a scary dude warning about the dangers of inflation, is a deck of headlines. At this writing, here they are…

• Income, spending higher than expected
• Mortgage mess socks ex-Goldman stars
• MBIA says more writedowns ahead
• Wilbur Ross bets on bond insurer Assured
• Dollar sinks further/Oil hits $103
• The 10 best cars – Consumer Reports
• Toyota’s unknown business partners
• Banks could see $600B hit from credit crunch
• 3 steps for living well in retirement
• How Sony won the high-def DVD war
• Don’t panic: That IRS letter is good news
• Furniture company – or hedge fund?

Aside from the interesting tease that a letter from the IRS is good news, there’s not a lot to feel good about here, unless you’re Sony (SNE) and right now popping champagne corks over its victory in the high-def DVD wars.

Of course, winning the format battle for who will provide the DVDs of the future is very good news… unless you think that maybe in five or ten years nobody will be watching DVDs anymore.  I just upgraded my Apple TV (APPL) and up popped a huge menu of movies I might actually want to see, in both regular format and HD.

Wow, I thought. There goes Netflix (NFLX). There goes DVDs. There, in fact, goes everybody but Apple unless somebody hurries up and figures out an alternative to Planet Steve. My new MacBook Air is functioning really well, by the way. I can’t say what I’m really going to need it for, of course, but as King Lear said when questioned about the size of his staff, “Oh! Question not the need!”

Anyhow, just look at those headlines. And they were actually updated nine minutes before I copied them into this blog. When I woke up and looked at them, they were even worse.

I’m expecting to wake up sometime soon and see a headline in the stack that says, “World ends with both bang and whimper. Bernanke soothes investors with indications of additional rate cuts.”

When I was a whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school, I used to love Fridays because I looked forward to freedom from the tedium of class, to watching cartoons over the weekend, to dressing the way I wanted to and not combing my hair. I got nervous on Sunday nights, knowing that I would have to put my game face on the next morning, and that always hurts.

Today Friday feels different. I like it, sure. The weekend will be fine, I have no doubt. But I yearn for this day, I dream of its arrival, because I know that when it is done there is probably no more that the week can do to us. Or at least that tomorrow we really don’t have to pay very close attention.

Not paying attention right now may be a key strategy for survival in the next 18 months or so. Or paying attention to something completely different. I’m thinking of getting serious about my bird-watching, how about you?

I read an interesting item in a trade publication this morning. It’s about Maxim Magazine, which many men read for the articles. The piece from the Hollywood Reporter runs in its entirety:

Painted Word

Maxim magazine has apologized for publishing in its March issue an unfavorable two and a half star review of the Black Crowes album “Warpaint” by a writer who hadn’t heard the entire album. “It is Maxim’s editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety,” editorial director James Kaminsky said Tuesday. “Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue, and we apologize to our readers.”

Okay, now what strikes you about this? Several things occur to me:

1. If Mr. Kaminsky had not apologized, I would not have been aware of his distress or the depredations his magazine had wrought on contemporary culture;
2. The apology did not make Maxim look any better, in fact created the impression that this happens all the time and that on this occasion they got caught;
3. It was probably better for the Black Crowes that nobody knew about it either. Now not only readers of Maxim know that the magazine’s reviewer thought the album was so boring he couldn’t even finish listening to it, but readers of the Hollywood Reporter do, too, and that includes a lot of people in the entertainment business, whereas readers of Maxim are not always in that psychographic.

I have given this a lot of thought over the last several years and come to the conclusion that it is almost never a good idea for anybody in our culture to apologize about anything, even when they are in the wrong. Apologies, for the most part, alert people to wrongdoing, perceived or actual, and merely whet the public’s appetite for retribution.

Some great non-apologies of the last 100 years or so:

• The Turks, who have yet to admit, let alone apologize, for the genocide of 1,000,000 Armenians. While this has rightly angered Armenians since the early 1900s, the rest of the world remains murky about what happened back then and the longer the Turks go without apologizing, the murkier and more forgotten those atrocities will be;
• George W. Bush, who at no time has ever indicated any public regret for the way facts were manipulated by his Administration in order to justify America’s entry in the war against Iraq. An apology would have led to a giant Aha! on the part of the American people and the media, and possibly led to his Impeachment. No apology, the debate rages, and history will decide. History is, as far as I can tell, a much kinder judge than the public.
• The big banking dudes who just raked in $100-million dollar paydays when they were fired. They helped to cause the horrible debt crisis that has plunged us all into the drink. If any of them have said they’re sorry, I haven’t caught it. So probably they didn’t really do anything wrong, right?
• My son, who didn’t get me a Christmas present this year. He doesn’t seem one bit contrite about it, and as a result I find I really don’t care about it any more.

This insight is totally counterintuitive with the prevailing wisdom on corporate crises, which always involve a swift apology, followed by a visit to the PR stockade. What’s the point?

Maybe business is like being in love… and means never having to say you’re sorry.

A little while back, I hit a nerve with some of you who, like me, had been chased to the ends of their patience by Chase Bank. Many of you commented at that time with your own stories of woe and your ideas on how to establish a future free from mindless, incessant solicitation.

Well, I have a piece of news for all of you, and for anybody similarly plagued by a swarm of snail mail from JP Morgan Chase offering you 0% financing and free credit cards until the day you croak and all that nonsense, on and on and on. Last night I dropped by my old apartment — the one that was on the Chase radar screen — and collected a stack of mail that the U.S. Postal Service keeps delivering to that mailbox in spite of my entreaties not to do so. But I digress.

In the mailbox was the following letter from the people at Chase:

Dear Mr. Bing,

As your credit card company, we value your business and want you to be completely satisfied with your credit card account. We are responding to your recent request to remove your name from certain types of solicitations and/or information sharing.

We are pleased to confirm that we have taken actions to remove your name from the solicitation and/or information-sharing type you requested. Please understand, however, that if offers were prepared for you before we fulfilled your request, you may still receive those offers until our actions take effect. After that time, however, you should receive offers related to those types of solicitations and/or information sharing. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

If you requested that we exclude you from mailings, your request will be honored until it automatically expires five years from the date of your request. If you move or otherwise change your mailing address, you will need to update your request to include your new address information.

If you requested that we exclude you from telephone solicitations, your request will be honored for the telephone number you provided. If that number changes, you will need to update your request to include your new telephone number.

If, in the future, you would like to change your choice, please call us for reinstatement details. If you have any questions, please call us at the toll-free number noted above. For your convenience, we are here 24 hours a day to assist you.

Sincerely,

Cardmember Services

I like that after five years they will assume that my distaste for their onslaught will abate, presumably with greater maturity, and they may begin again. That’s a nice touch.

Oh, by the way: Along with this letter in my mailbox were six catalogs from Frontgate, a confusing array of ads, entreaties and threatening notices from Chrysler about a leased car I gave back a few months ago, and six letters offering me a superb deal on a new credit card from Chase. Uh-huh.

I just had what I believe to be a very satisfactory discussion with a nice woman who has not yet gone postal at the Postal Service. I truly believe that in the near future the Government will begin forwarding this valuable mail to me at my new address.

I think I know what I will find therein when it finally does come through, and you know what? I can hardly wait.

Some poor goofy fellow writes me to ask about whether, in the current economic environment, I prefer an investment in stocks or in bonds. This raises several interesting questions. First, what kind of reader, after spending any time on this site, would ask this kind of information from me? And second, how can I live up to his expectations. I believe, after an appropriate amount of thought, I offer a cogent piece of advice for this individual. See if you agree.

There’s also another guy who works for a boss who acts like he’s running a mob instead of a corporate function. Anything he can do about it? What do you think?

It was a rollicking good time last night for Stanley Bing as he once again celebrated Oscar night in his traditional fashion.

Bing began the evening by not attending the Vanity Fair Oscar shindig for the 15th straight year.  ”I’m sure if I were invited,” said Bing, “I would be tempted to make an appearance, which would throw the rest of my evening off.” Bing expressed surprise that event had in fact been cancelled this year. “I had no idea my absence would be so devastating,” he added.

Instead, Bing dined on his favorite Oscar-night tidbits — tiny eggrolls, followed by a dinner of brown rice and pork chops, with an array of mixed vegetables on the side.

It was then time to prepare for the red carpet! Bing suited up in his customary festive garb, including boxer shorts from Joe Boxer and Fruit of the Loom white tee shirt, harmonized by a bathrobe from Restoration Hardware. “People appreciate comfort and those with the guts enough to let their personas determine their style, rather than the other way around,” Bing observed to nobody in particular.

This year, as sometimes happens, Bing was not nominated for anything, so he sat in the extreme right back of the audience, some 3000 miles away from the action.

It was a long evening, with many commercial breaks, during which Bing had time to avoid the photographers and shun several of the celebrities who had gotten on his nerves during that past 12 months. He enjoyed John Stewart, as he always does, but admits to being old enough to sort of miss Johnny Carson. By midnight, when it was clear that many of the awards were being given to Europeans whose movies nobody with a pulse will ever see, Bing decided to call it a night, avoid the traffic and head for bed. It was a short trip.

“Like I’m going to see some film about Edith Piaf,” he said when pressed on the matter by nobody. “This is probably why the euro is doing so well against the dollar.”

Today at Ask Bing, I answer a letter from one of my pals. Actually, I don’t know the guy. But he could certainly be one of my scotch-swilling, cigar-chomping, joke telling buddies around the table at my now all-too-infrequent poker games. He wants to know if he should take a raise and accept a new job, the caveat being that he would have to work for a woman, and be surrounded by a female version of the Ole Boy’s Club. This is not an easy question. Can a person in mid-career profoundly change his act? Take a peek and see.

Beyond that, it only remains to say have a nice weekend… and to get that started, don’t read the business news today. What you don’t know can’t bum you out.

1. They don’t sleep. I know quite a few people who have received phone calls full of ideas, dyspepsia and wind, from their mogul who is at that moment on an exercise bicycle… at 3:00 AM. The mogul never acts like it’s weird to be calling at that hour. They  just get lit up about something and because their personal boundary mechanism is out-of-whack, they don’t realize it’s inappropriate for them to do anything at all, let alone put on their headsets and get cracking in the middle of the night. Many claim they get some of their best ideas at that hour. This remains to be seen. Many things look either too good or too bad in the small hours before dawn. Since moguls have NO bad ideas, they default to the former.
2. They therefore come in very early and are often the last to leave. Many is the corporation where the boss’s car is the first in the parking lot in the morning and the final one to go through the security gate at night. This is not necessarily because they are the hardest working person in the company, although sometimes they are. It’s because the silence in their home is so profound that it can’t be faced while sober, and it’s not acceptable to start drinking at dawn. The office, jammed to the brim with people who will listen to the mogul’s noise and respond with some of their own, is far more congenial.
3. They eat blueberries. A few years ago it became mandatory for all moguls to become interested in anti-oxidants and proficient in their use. Now you can’t sit with a bona-fide mogul without engaging in extensive conversation on the issue. The good news is that holding up your end of the conversation won’t be a problem, because the mogul is doing it for both of you.
4. They are in 24/7 electronic communications. I saw a mogul in the shallow end of the Four Seasons swimming pool in Beverly Hills last month, talking into thin air on his Bluetooth headset. That’s what I’m talking about.
5. They yell. Actually, I should add to that. He was YELLING into his Bluetooth headset. Moguls love to yell the way babies love to cry. It’s one of their ways of expressing frustration, hunger, pique or rage when words fail them. It gets results faster than calm discussion or even a crusty memo. Also, the same way nobody civilized will yell back at a baby, nobody in their right minds yells back at a mogul, either.
6. They love their hobby. Warren Buffett recently told CBS News that he is so passionate about bridge that he would prefer it to the sight of a naked woman. The exact quote was, “You know, if I’m playing bridge and a naked woman walks by, I don’t even see her.” In short, they play as hard as they do other things.
7. They are only comfortable around other moguls… even ones they do not like. Which explains Davos.

So last weekend I was out on the west coast doing whatever it is I do on the weekends, and I noticed something interesting.

There’s this little bungalow around the corner from where we live out there. Two bedrooms, but just. One bathroom. It rests on about a quarter of an acre. Most of the front yard is scrub and driveway. Up until last week it’s been selling for $1.35 million. That’s right. You read it correctly. One point three five. Every time I passed it during the last few months I got acid reflux. How dare they?, I asked myself. And the answer came back immediately via that little, cynical inner voice that is my constant companion. “Because they think they can get it,” he said.

He’s a pain in the butt, that guy, but I generally listen to him. He’s often right.

In the last few weeks or so, I’ve noticed that the sign, which was all eager and bright and bushy tailed up until then (if a sign can be bushy-tailed), had lost one of its hooks and was now hanging askew. Also, the brochures that had trumpeted why $1.35 million was a great deal for a 500 square-foot abode were depleted, the little bin that held them gathering cobwebs.

Last weekend the sign was gone altogether. So was another one around the corner, which had been offering a slightly bigger cottage for $1.85 million.

I guess my bitter little inner man was wrong this time. Or working on old information.

I’m keeping my eye on that tiny house around the corner.  The headlines are once again a repulsive stew of doom and gloom, recession battling with inflation, thunderclouds obscuring the sun, that kind of stuff.

But one thing’s for sure. For those with a little bit of actual cash in the bank, this might be getting within shouting distance of the time to start looking at that house we could never afford.

When that little shack gets to half its original value, I figure it might just be worth a look. It’s in a nice, pleasant spot. And you know what they say about location.

Inflation in China is very high. It’s hard to figure how that will benefit us, but on a list of things that come under the rubric “grim satisfaction,” the continual travails of that sleeping giant always register. Bad air. Bad water. Poison in the children’s toothpaste they export. Dead dogs worldwide due to crud in the pet food they offer the world. The explosion of their chief internet provider built almost wholly on illegally purloined music from American labels… so while more rain on their parade is not really good news — particularly since it probably just hurts innocent civilians over there, it’s a laugh riot compared to the rest of the crop this morning. 

Credit Suisse, which today fired a bunch of their traders who misplayed some aspect of the mortgage crisis or other, leading to a modest, single-digit billion problem that will have to be managed this quarter. That’s sort of good news for UBS, which looked really deficient recently when it took a nearly $15-billion writedown. Perhaps they’re high-fiving each other over there.

Wal-Mart beat the Street’s expectations. Of course, at the same time they cautioned that ‘08 might not be the engine for growth that people might want it to be. Earnings came in at $1.04 per share for the fourth quarter and their stock lost four cents. Yeah, yeah, it’s rational.

The head of MBIA is out, replaced with a guy who thought he had retired. That’s always a good sign, except for the fact that people who come out of retirement are generally not as adept at bailout out the rowboat as they used to be. Still, a change will do them good, right? Or the illusion of change, which in our world is almost the same thing.

Let’s see… we’re getting down to some pretty slim pickins for those looking for a lift. Most people are not prepared for retirement, according to one study. That’s not good, especially for Gen-Xers looking to take over anytime soon. Even that new head of MBIA is 59. Where’s the new blood? Oh, I remember. In charge of risk management at the banks. Perhaps the world news offers more hope for the terminally optimistic?

Heidi Klum has offered to let Britney live in her house for a while, to help the ailing victim of celebrity back on her feet. That’s nice.

Bono was seen holding hands with Penelope Cruz in San Tropez. That’s like finding out that Al Gore drives a Cadillac Escalade.

And Castro resigned. That’s got to be good for somebody.

As we used to say, without irony: Have a nice day, everybody.

1. Attend the big white sale blowout at the mall.

2. Cut a cake simply because it was the third Monday in February.

3. Dance around with Abraham Lincoln to music by John Philip Sousa to make people aware of the GREAT DEALS available at Bud’s Used Cars. In fact, it is possible that he never actually knew Abraham Lincoln.

4. It is therefore improbable that he sat around Mount Vernon feeling bad that the celebration of his birthday had essentially eradicated festivities surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday.

5. Take a couple of days in Cabo over the three-day weekend.

6. Stand in line for 45 minutes for the all you can eat breakfast buffet at the Marriott, which is still pretty much worth it.

7. Get 60 messages on his BlackBerry before noon.

8. Spend several hours watching daytime TV because nothing else was on.

9. Google (GOOG) himself.

10. Recognize the right of Congress to legislate when people’s birthdays are celebrated.

I’ll tell you a funny story. Last night I went to one of those restaurants that feast on the egos of the rich and famous. The room is often filled with people who you would probably know if you saw their faces on the front page of some tabloid or business publication. It’s amazing that there’s enough air to breathe in there, let alone eat, with so many great narcissists sucking the oxygen out of the atmosphere. 

The place is rather small, with a bar in one small entry room and a bigger room past the portal of glory. People enter, remove their coats, and are then ushered at varying rates of speed to their thrones. I arrived at 7:30 to meet my friends for an 8:00 PM reservation. We were to be a group of three and only one of them was there, my pal Dworkin.

“I wonder if they could seat us a little early,” he said as we were finishing our drinks at about 7:45. I peered into the dining room, which was virtually empty. “Give it a try,” I said.  He returned from his chat with the maitre d’. “He says they’re still setting it up,” he said.

We ordered another drink. The bar was warm and cozy, filled with people drinking, eating at little tables that had no social cache, looking around to see if they could spot somebody famous going in to dine in the big room.

We waited. People began to arrive for dinner. I saw Vreeland, who I know from the corporation, come in with a few pals, doff his outerwear with flamboyance, hug a bunch of people at the door, and breeze into the castle keep. Then a great captain of industry appeared, was greeted with quiet, discreet cries of pleasure by the staff, and was all-but carried in a divan to his position of honor immediately. We continued to hang out at the bar. I was okay about it. It was a scene. I melded into it.

At 8:05, the dining room was still rather empty. I went to the maitre d’ and very politely asked if we could be seated now. He looked at me for a moment, making some inner calculation. I felt either under- or overdressed all of a sudden. “Your party is not complete yet,” he said.

“Yes,” I said very politely. I hate jerks in restaurants who make a scene about things. “But my friend Vreeland just went in there and there are still several empty seats at his table.”"Oh!” said the maitre d’. “Mr. Vreeland! Well…” And then he smiled at me indulgently, as if to say, “Come along, my friend. You and a man of Mr. Vreeland’s standing should not be mentioned in the same breath.” I felt a little tickle of annoyance scratch at the back of my amour-propre. “Besides,” he added, not unkindly, “we’re just setting your table now. It should be a few minutes.”

I thanked him humbly, backed off to the bar again, and stood there with my companion. There was nothing else to do. I generally don’t like to have six drinks before dinner so we just hung out. Glossy people continued to enter and receive a fine helmet-polishing followed by immediate conveyance to comfy seats in the sanctified enclosure within.

My tickle was now and itch. I approached the maitre d’ again. “How about it,” I said.

“Actually,” he replied, looking at his book carefully, “we’re still waiting for your table to finish dessert.” A little bolt of sulphuric acid shot from my stomach into the back of my throat. “I thought you were just finished setting it,” I said evenly. “Oh yes,” he said coldly. “We’re just finished setting it.”

“Look,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I’ve seen about two dozen people float by here and into the next room. It’s still half empty. I have just heard from our third party, who is stuck in a cab but will be here in minutes. Come on.”

“I’m sure they’ll be finished with their desserts very soon,” said the maitre d’.

At that point I uttered a short observation of no particular import, put on my hat and coat, and left the establishment. I was, in fact, simply too angry to stand there anymore. So I went outside and stood in the cold. It was nice out there. We’re all equal under that big black sky.

About two minutes later, the door to the restaurant opened and Dworkin popped his head out. “They’re seating us now,” he said. I went in, said nothing to the maitre d’, and took off my coat. We were then hustled in to a very fine table, right next to General Pinochet’s. Perhaps it was not him. I heard he died. So maybe it was somebody else. “What happened?” I asked Dworkin.

“The maitre d’ was very upset,” he said. “He said, ‘Is there a problem with the gentleman?” and I said, ‘Yeah, he’s not used to waiting for anything.’ And he said ‘Oh’ and told me to go get you.” Our other pal showed up a few minutes later and we had a very lovely dinner.

What was clear to me was that 1) If I had not thrown a tantrum, we would not have have been seated until early March and 2) If I had not distinguished myself as an angry, over-sensitive, egotistical wheezebag, we would not have gotten such a good table, either. It was by demonstrating all the pushy, aggressive, ill-tempered and self-aggrandizing portions of my personality that I showed my qualification for proper treatment in that establishment.

And that’s why jerks run the world.

Ah, the rosy flower of love! How beautifully it has worked out for so many people who have felt the sting of Cupid’s arrow while on the job! Or… not.

Antony and Cleopatra met and fell in love while he was out conquering whatever came in his way and trying to hold his position in the Rome Corporation against a host of hostile competitors. She was running the Egyptian field office. How their passion flowed! Then came the Battle of Actium, and he sailed into the naval engagement under her banner. Unfortunately, her ships were neither as light and nimble nor as well-armed as those of his adversaries. He abandoned the fight while others stayed to die, went home, and basically died of grief. She arranged for a gentle snakebite to ease her situation. So I guess that didn’t really work out so well for either of them. But when their romance was in full flower? Who would not envy such as they?

Henry the VIII! What a dude! Was there a day when he didn’t fall in love at the office? True, it didn’t always end in a positive way for the objects of his desire, but how happy the young (then older) King and his hopeful inamorata must have been for a while! I know a corporation whose King used to give little company earrings to his potential queens back in the 1970s. I imagine Tudor England was like that, only worse.

Here’s to the former CEO and the top PR person at another corporation I once knew well! Ah, how they made their colleagues sigh. Particularly when they both showed up in matching lime green velour jumpsuits to the company offsite in Orlando! My, how they quickened the hearts of those who reported to them, particularly when they saw the matching Porsches adjacent to each other every morning in the company parking lot. Of course, both were married to other people at the time. This didn’t pose much of a problem to them, however, since the CEO, as King David did with Bathsheba’s spouse, sent his beloved’s husband to serve in Rangoon for several years. Alas, in the end there was tragedy. He was fired. She was fired. They both went home to their respective mates. And the corporation went on, a little less loving but a lot more efficient.

A box of chocolates, too, to Jim Agee and Mary Cunningham Agee, who were the talk of the business world back when I was viewing my first anti-sexual harassment training videos. They were at Bendix together. He was the boss. She had very special access, people said. She quit and they were married. Now she’s an important philanthropist. Just the kind of story that makes your heart skip a beat on this particular day, isn’t it?

You know the corporate handbook. What we do every day is business, not pleasure. But just on the other side of that cold and heartless line is a forbidden world of love and blazing self-destruction. The opportunities for the blood to quicken are so manifest. Early mornings. Late nights. The heat and passion that attends deal mania. The dregs of disappointment during tough times, when people need comfort and a shoulder, and occasionally more, to cry on.

On this romantic holiday, let’s all raise a cup of very sweet nectar to Eros, who is no stranger to our shore. Tomorrow we can straighten up, fly right, and laugh at the idiots in the matching velour jumpsuits.

Today… here’s to you crazy mothers!

If the stock market was a person, what kind of person would it be?

I consider this issue this morning because of the way it behaved yesterday. First it was elated by Warren Buffett’s offer to back up bond insurers. I was there with the most gaga of the bunch. Later on, as the NY Times reports, the market got queasy about the fact that getting bailed out of their mess might cost the bond insurance guys a premium, and that Mr. Buffett would benefit by taking that premium, and that wow, this wasn’t the modern equivalent of Mother Theresa helping the poor of Bombay, it was just Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) making the most of a bad situation, which is what they do. And down the market went.

This got me to thinking, and from thinking to musing, and from musing to dreaming, and when I woke up a few minutes ago that question was sauntering around in my head: If the stock market was a person, what kind of person would it be?

Here’s my view. If the stock market was a person, it would be:

• Rich: There’s a lot of money in the stock market. Having all that money doesn’t really make it any happier, though.
• Nervous: In fact, being so wealthy and privileged makes it incredibly anxious. If peace of mind rests in the feeling that one has nothing to lose, the Market is the exact opposite. It has everything to lose, first and foremost in its anxious, monkey mind.
• Greedy: Over-riding that anxiety is a fine patina of opportunism and atavistic desire to get more, have more, to profit while others are screaming down into the ocean of defeat. When the greed overcomes the nervousness, the Market is happy and flies very high;
• Gutless: On the other hand, even the specter of a shadow of a doubt that things could go the other way and the Market starts heading for the exit. In a disaster, this is not the person you want in the lifeboat with you. If it doesn’t push you overboard, it will try to eat your leg;
• Intelligent: Nobody is saying the Market is stupid. It’s not. It’s just like a lot of my friends — too crazy to be smart a lot of the time;
• Irrational: I don’t care how many PowerPoint presentations investment bankers, lawyers and security analysts offer to me at boondoggles past, present and future, nobody will ever convince me that the Market is rational. Buffett to the rescue! Hurrah! Let’s go up! Oooh. Wait. Buffett’s motives are impure. Ouch. Let’s go down. Sure, apologists for the Market will come up with a million reasons it does things. So do we all.
• Ungrateful: All it cares about is what you’ve done for it lately. A lot of the time, in fact, when you DO give it something it’s been looking for, it doesn’t even say thanks because it claims it has already “baked that in.” It’s like giving somebody a present and finding out that, since they expected it, they’re not particularly excited about it.
• Moody: Sometimes you just don’t know what it’s thinking and it won’t tell you;
• An obnoxious drunk: And likely to give you really bad advice when it’s in its cups;
• Boring when sober: Ever sit next to it at dinner?
• Vicious when disappointed: Google (GOOG) reports terrific performance. The Market expected, however, ultra-super-googlicious performance. Whoops. Down goes Google stock.
• Never happy for very long: Witness yesterday’s performance. For reasons explaining this characteristic, repair to the top of the list and reread “Nervous” and “Greedy.”

That’s about it for me. I guess some of you have learned to be friends with this entity, and to work with it to make a lot of money for yourselves, and I applaud that. For the rest of us, the only question is, I guess…

Why in the world are we hanging around with this person?

On Tuesday, Warren Buffett declared that he has offered to assume liability for insurance on the municipal bonds that three major bond insurers now cover, to the tune of $800 billion.

The good news is that one firm has already rejected the offer, Buffett says. So it must feel it’s okay without the help of Berkshire Hathaway. I guess that’s not altogether a bad thing, huh? I mean, I’m not totally sure that I’ll be all right without the help of Berkshire Hathaway.

I own some bonds. Until recently, I thought they were completely safe. The idea that the insurance companies that cover them could fail never occurred to me. When everybody started talking about that possibility, I don’t mind telling you I felt a certain amount of unease. The phrase “wake up screaming” comes to mind.

Now here comes Warren Buffett to save the day, offering to prop up the situation not just with financial power, but with the one thing that we all need right now: confidence that there’s somebody running the store who just might know what’s going on and is prepared to put his money where his mouth is.

I get a kick out of Bono jumping in to ameliorate third world debt. I get goose pimply when I hear all the philanthropic stuff coming out of Davos. But this kind of thing really floats my debentures.

You have to look more than a hundred years back to find an act of comparable magnitude, I think. It was 1895. There was a panic in the markets. The U.S. Treasury was out of gold to back our currency. And J.P. Morgan stepped in to prop up the entire monetary system of the United States with his own capital and a bunch of money from abroad.

Every now and then we get to a place where certain individuals are doing better than the nation-states they live in.  It’s rare when one of them offers to fulfill a quasi-governmental role to re-establish confidence in the system that produced all that value for them.

So thanks, Mr. Buffett. Not just for the willingness to secure $800,000,000,000 in liability. There is that, of course. But also for giving us the feeling that there is a man behind the curtain, and that someday, some way, he’s going to make sure everything’s gonna be all right.

The Wall Street Journal starts our week with one of its classic observational front page stories. This one notes the prevalence of a new metaphor that is now running like grain through a goose through the CEO community. It seems impossible to describe the current business environment without using the word “headwinds”. 

For instance, the paper quotes Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, telling auto analysts on January 17: “As we look out, we’ve got to be realistic that we are facing some tough headwinds, particularly here in the U.S., with a relatively weak industry.”  Jerry Yang of Yahoo and G. Kennedy Thompson of Wachovia are also invoked, among others.

Business does this. I remember when I started out in business, you had to have excellence. Everybody had to have a (usually pristine and unread) copy of Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s lengthy, repetitive, preachy tome on the subject, In Search of Excellence, on proud display on their desktop. No meeting was complete without a segment in which people talked about excellence, the drive to achieve excellence, and a lot of cheering and hand-clapping in recognition of those who had in some way quantified or demonstrated extreme excellence.

Not long after we all searched for and found excellence, we moved on to Quality. We had Quality circles and Quality focus groups and Quality meetings to achieve Productivity. For about three years we had so much Quality everywhere that we actually killed it. Now nobody can talk about Quality without getting a pretty good laugh at the mention of the word.

As I noted, Quality was often a screen for the process by which Productivity was achieved. In case you didn’t know, which I’m sure you do, Productivity was a euphemism for firing people and making other people do their jobs. When you have fewer people doing more, you ipso facto have more Productivity. That is why I have always hated Productivity. Speaking personally, when I am achieving maximum Productivity, I am usually exhausted.

Buzzwords function to mask the true meaning of things. That’s why the most prevalent ones at any time usually have to do with something nasty. In the case of Excellence, you had a bunch of middle managers patting each other on the back in an orgy of self-congratulation. Quality was an excuse to plunge an organization into what amounted to a Stalinist socialist re-education program, delivering the afflicted company to the doorstep of Productivity, which produced Re-Engineering that created Decruitment of Excess Personnel, then some Headcount Rationalizations and then everybody was looking for their Cheese, which apparently was moved. 

And now we have Headwinds. Oh Captain my Captain, your fearful ship boldly wends its way forth over the choppy waves! The headwinds are vicious — but it’s a good vessel, fitted to perfection and utterly rightsized! The crew is dedicated! Our uniforms are crisp and natty, their golden buttons glowing in the spume and sunshine! Yes, the Headwinds are brisk, but we can make it! If anyone can, we can! After all, don’t these Headwinds afflict us all? I mean, isn’t everybody using the same word to describe them? Onward! Headwinds be damned!

It was a decent metaphor, I’ll grant you that. But there’s one thing about buzzword like it. They’re all killed by overuse. And we’re pretty much there, I think.

Here are a few suggestions for replacements as the credit crisis deepens, the dollar hawks up phlegm and everybody growing increasingly squirrelly about 08:

• Heavy Lifting, as in “We’re going to have to do some heavy lifting to get the year off the ground, but we’re hopeful.”
• Monkey Meat, as in “The rest of the quarter looks like a lump of monkey meat.
• A Bag of Worms, as in “This is a fine bag of worms we’ve gotten ourselves into, but we see the later part of 08 still pretty solid.”
• A Deep and Muddy Swamp, as in “The continuing failure of our debt instruments is leading us further and further into a deep and muddy swamp from which there looks to be no escape at this time other than to live through it and try to come out the other side alive.”

Goodness. That doesn’t sound very euphemistic, does it? Why don’t we just say that business stinks and forget about it?

Word comes today that Macy’s (M) is going to focus more on its local operations, whatever that means, and in so doing will probably be cutting some 2300 management-level jobs.

We’re seeing a lot more of this lately. In the old days, when I was a kid, management moved swiftly and decisively to cut mostly low-level and support jobs in its periodic effort to cut costs. Many is the cutback season I recall in which the executive class received its bonuses and continued to dine on fine silver while the tuna-in-a-baggie set was shown the door. Since it often took more than ten such workers to equal the cost of one mid-level vice president, this was a bloody process indeed.

Today, things may be moving in the area of increasing efficiency. While a decline in management will perforce entail a reduction in its support staff as well, the overall decruitment of those who cost the corporation more will, in the end, I think, mean a lower body count with increased bottom-line impact.

Still, this is extremely bad news for middle management. It’s clear that the human shield of low-cost employees has been all-but expended, and ultra-senior management has discovered that the middle layer may be expendable.

This requires all people in that middle tier — which includes most of us — to ponder the question of fungibility. Those who are fungible may be replaced by others who are also fungible. It is therefore advisable for those who do not wish to be expendable to maximize their unique value to the enterprise, thus minimizing the fungibility inherent in all organizational jobs. If you cannot be replaced by another similar moving part, you are less likely to join that doomed 2300.

Some brief concepts:

1. Establish a matrix of reporting relationships, so that any one senior officer in need of a cost savings cannot take you out;

2. Get involved in multiple, time-sensitive projects that require your work/presence for a period not less than the time in which cutbacks are being contemplated;

3. Plunge into a host of remote activities so that you are difficult to find. I have personally known at least half a dozen people who were not terminated because they were not around to be fired.

These are just a few introductory ideas on the subject. I wish I had more time to talk about it, but I have to catch a plane on the way to a remote location at which I will be attending a large number of meetings so my boss doesn’t have to.

Yesterday, the Dow ended up with its face in the mashed potatoes again.  It’s ironic that while the nation is engaged in the most hopeful, positive political campaign in decades, the financial markets are hawking up phlegm and getting ready for the Big One.

Good news comes in the form of rumors that the Fed, bless its expanding little heart, is once again considering rate cuts. By next year at this time, I believe it’s quite possible that the rate will fall through zero and go out the other side. At that point, the Fed will actually be paying banks to lend money. Lenders will then pass along that increased cash flow to borrowers.

There is some precedence for this idea. Several years ago, one could go to buy a car and get either zero financing or cash back on that transaction. The model would work very much like that, according to Newt Farlurnst, an quantum economist formerly with a major New York hedge fund who is now working at Arby’s in Terra Linda, California.

“There is no structural reason why interest rates should always be expressed in positive integers,” says Farlurnst, who received his doctorate in string theory in an alternate universe that intersects with our own only at certain key academic locations. “With interest rates breaking through the event horizon at zero, they enter into a region governed by completely separate economic laws than the ones that are messing up our global financial system. This can only be an improvement.”

Rumors are that Mr. Bernanke is now considering this, along with other proposals now on the table to halt the advancing recession that is either not happening, already started, or soon to be over. 

It is believed that the chairman is growing increasingly frustrated with having to reduce interest rates every week, since each decision involves hundreds of hours of meeting time, endless boring discussion and the incessant requirement to look at spreadsheets, all the while knowing that his final decision — to keep the air in the balloon by reducing rates — is actually never in doubt.

“Bernanke may just want to take an end run around the whole thing and get to negative interest rates right away,” says a source of mine who is about as trustworthy as any of the prognosticators now working the beat. “At that juncture, the gloves are off, the banks are incented to give everybody money in bucketloads, the economy takes off like a rocket. Everybody will be lining up to take on debt. It’ll be a lot better than getting a free toaster, even.”

It may be asked asked what the economy will do when those in charge of our money, having given all of it away for negative return, run out of it.

“Don’t worry,” says my source. “They can print more.”   

The Wall Street Journal informs us this morning, in a banner headline on Page 1, that voters today will be focusing primarily on the question  of character.

This must be a challenging piece of news for many politicians. You can imagine the briefing meetings:

“Hey,” says the consultant charged with the responsibility of molding the candidate. “It seems that the voters aren’t as interested in our positions on the issues like health care, the war in Iraq or even the economy.”

“No?” says the candidate. “What are they interested in?”

“Character.”

“What does that mean?” the candidate says, shifting nervously in their seat.

“Well, it means you have to have some.”

“What kind are they looking for?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says the consultant, growing somewhat impatient. “Character isn’t something you can triangulate based on polls. It’s something you have independent of other people’s demands. It’s inside you.”

There is a thoughtful silence. ”I’m sure I have some in there someplace,” the candidate says at last. “But you might want to check where I can get a little bit more, just in case.”

The good news for the candidates is that Character, having been absent from much of the business universe in 2007, is at this moment wafting around looking for anybody interested in anyone who wants to spend time with it. 

There are many things that make up Character, but its most attractive features are well known:

• Character is honest, and always does what it has promised to do; 
• Character is simple and straightforward and always means what it says;  
• Character tries never to do things that will hurt people just to make a little bit of money or get a vote;
• Character is loyal to its friends and polite to its adversaries;
• Character has empathy for those less fortunate;
• Character is guided by principles that do not change with the weather or the polls, but is not so stiff-necked as to impose its views on others who are not persuaded;
• Character listens to other people and cares about what they say.

There are other qualities voters are ostensibly looking for today: experience, new ideas, a renunciation of the decades-long pattern of partisan stupidity. But none of them are as important, it appears, as the demonstration of this very precious and elusive entity.

My sense is that right now we can tell very clearly who’s got it and who ain’t.

I like Character and I think you do too. Let’s just hope it doesn’t blow it all today, and  sticks around long enough to determine what happens in November.

1. My first thought when I woke this morning was…

a. “I can’t wait to get to the office.”
b. “I wonder what’s going on with my bond insurer.”
c. “Two more weeks for Britney, huh?”
d. “Whazzat.”

2. I’m really looking forward to…

a. Super Tuesday
b. The next rate cut
c. More news about Britney
d. My muffin

3. I think the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is…

a. Good for America
b. Bad for Google
c. Very unsettling
d. All of the above

4. I think Google’s attempts to torpedo that deal are…

a. Good for America
b. Bad for Microsoft
c. Unsettling
d. All of the above

5. I believe we are being best informed about…

a. Our political process
b. Our economic system
c. The battle between Sam and Adnan for Britney’s soul
d. Cheese

6. I am afraid of…

a. John Malone
b. Barry Diller
c. News about John Malone and Barry Diller
d. My next haircut

7. My goals for this week are…

a. To get out and vote!
b. To go short on hydrocarbons
c. To eat less gluten
d. To make other people do my work for me

8. By the end of the day, I hope to finish…

a. The blogs on the upcoming primaries
b. My analysis of global market conditions
c. A nice sandwich
d. This quiz

Score yourself 1 point for every a), 2 points for every b), 3 points for every c) and absolutely no points for d). I feel sorry for all you D people people. You’re obviously not aware of politics, economics or the news about Britney. Come on. Get with it.

Getting there. It’s horrible. There are no tickets. The planes are filled with crazy people on the way to be defenestrated.

Arriving at the airport. Bedlam. Woodstock without the drugs.

The hotel. It’s okay. A little disappointing. But hey. You’re not gonna be in your room for the weekend, right? Still… that airshaft was not exactly the view of the Arizona sunrise you were expecting.

In the lobby. Oh Christ. There’s Bob Enema, yes, and the fact that that’s his real name is proof that there is a God. Always hated the guy. Big friggin blowhard. Now he’s surrounded by an entourage. Bob Enema with an entourage. That’s what the Super Bowl is all about.

Gotta go out and party. Party party party. Party hearty. Drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking, but you can’t get drunk. Too many professional obligations. That’s why you’re here. Work the Super Bowl. Biggest sales opportunity of the year. Party hearty.

Which parties are you invited to? That’s a lot of it, too. You may not be invited to the Commissioner’s Party. On the other hand, if you are, you may not be invited to the VIP area. You may have to stand outside the empty VIP area and realize that you are prostrated by the fact that you can’t get into a place that real VIPs don’t want to go to.

Eating and drinking and meeting and eating at meetings and drinking after meetings and then there’s no way to get back to your hotel. Six hours in stinking traffic, stuck in the limo with Ernest and Juanita from Pittsburgh. Who are they? Are they connected to Sales or some other part of the organization? Are they vendors? Did they win a ticket? Who the frig are they?

Where are you seated in the stadium. Can you get on the field? There’s Waffinger, he’s junior to you and he’s on the field! How did he get there?

Look at all those tiny little guys out there on the modular turf. Go… one of the teams. Neither of them come from my home town, so it’s weird. I think I like the guys who are losing. I always root for the team that’s behind. Go team that’s behind!

Beautiful here. Gigantic crowd, everybody happy. Super Bowl is nice. I’m lucky to be here. Look at the lights over the stadium, cutting through the desert night. God bless America.

That was a good game. Wow… I had a lot of beer.

Now look at this. A miasma of humanity. A sea of flesh. Pushing. Everybody pushing. Can’t move. Trapped by this gigantic, writhing mass of people. Where’s my car? Gate what? Walking now. Walking and walking and walking. Ah, there’s Andre.

Sitting now. Sitting in the car and waiting. An hour. Two. Ah, we’re out of the parking lot at last.

Anyhow, all in all, I figure I don’t mind one bit that I’m not going to the Super Bowl. Been there. Done that.

Also, you know… I don’t have a ticket. Anybody got one?