Yesterday I offered what I believe was a surprisingly mature, incredibly modulated response to the Microsoft (MSFT) announcement that it was appropriating my brand with its new search engine: Bing.  In response to my moderate outrage, the internet lit up like a roman candle. Quite a few fine outlets either simply re-ran my news release or had their own thoughts on the subject. Here are some of my favorites: 

The Big Money, which got picked up on Reuters… 

… Wired 

… TechCrunch

… The Daily Beast

… and even the august Wall Street Journal. 

If you read the comments that attend these postings, it’s clear that some people got it and some really didn’t. A bunch of technoids compared me with Spike Lee, who sued Spike TV when it changed its name from whatever it used to be. Others scolded me for forgetting to mention Bing Crosby, although they might have been kidding. One group that DID get it, I’m a little sorry to say, is the gang over at Microsoft Search. They replied to my polite onslaught as follows: 

A Letter to Bing

Dear Bing (the Author),

We couldn’t help sit up and take notice of your offer of services from one Bing to another.  We were moderately surprised and mildly excited. As you might have guessed, today is quite a big day for us.  Even so, we dropped everything when we saw your press release this morning.  After an emergency meeting (three people were invited, all declined), we’ve decided to take you up on your offer.  We’re not certain what exactly this would involve. We’re not certain it would pay much (nothing, actually) but we look forward to starting a dialogue and hope we can work together soon.  Let’s do lunch. In the meantime we are sending you a case of moderately priced cigars.

 Your pals,

Bing.com

It’s clear I’ve got them on the ropes.

Today Microsoft announced it would be launching a new search engine that will compete with Yahoo and Google in the vast hunt for search bucks. In an incredible act of branding sagacity, they announced that the name of the new search engine will be: Bing. 

In response to this, today I have issued the following news release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BING VS. BING

LONG-TIME FORTUNE COLUMNIST AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR STANLEY BING CONDEMNS “BRAND INTRUSION” BY NEW MICROSOFT SEARCH ENGINE, ALSO TO BE NAMED “BING”

OFFERS SERVICES TO NEW ENTITY FOR “ANY REASONABLE OFFER”

NEW YORK, MAY 28, 2009 – Stanley Bing, FORTUNE Magazine columnist and best-selling author, today expressed “moderate outrage” at the branding of the new search engine to be offered by Microsoft, also to be called Bing. At the same time, Bing the Author took the unusual step of offering an initial olive branch to Bing the Search Engine, proposing that the two powerful brands merge into one for which Mr. Bing could be the logo, corporate symbol and spokesman, to the extent that it fits in with his other duties. 

“This is an unprecedented case of brand intrusion by one of the most powerful and wealthy corporations in the world,” said Bing the Author, as opposed to Bing the Search Engine, which, unlike Mr. Bing himself, cannot be called for comment because it is not a person. “At the same time, I believe I can propose a solution to this problem that with work to the benefit of both Bings, me and the other one,” he added. 

Mr. Bing (the Author) issued these statements in reaction to the announcement, made today by Microsoft at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif, that the software giant is set to launch an $80 million to $100 million campaign for Bing, the search engine it hopes will help it grab a bigger slice of the online ad market. This huge campaign will be conducted by JWT, the massive advertising agency, and is viewed by many to be an attack on the market position of Google, long the search engine leader. Little notice has been taken to date, however, of the serious implications for Mr. Bing or, for that matter, any other Bings, which Mr. Bing made clear he doesn’t care about. 

“For nearly 25 years, I have jealously guarded the value of my brand,” Bing (the original) continued. “For several years, it was threatened by the enormous reputation of Rudolf Bing, the fictional presence of Chandler Bing and the high-profile persona of Stephen Bing. This, however, is the worst challenge the Bing Brand has faced to date, particularly in regards to my search engine optimization positioning.”

In conjunction with these statements, Mr. Bing has offered to open discussions with Bing the Search Engine and its representatives to iron out differences and challenges to each respective brand. “I think we’re a lot more powerful together than we are apart,” he added. “At least I’m pretty sure I am.” 

Bing (Stanley) indicated that the shape and specific nature of the merged branding opportunities have yet to be hammered out, but that he is available from the second week in June onward, for the most part, and would be willing to consider “any reasonable offer” for his services, or simply to provide no services, if that’s what seems best. 

Mr. Bing began his column in FORTUNE in 1995. Prior to that, he was at Esquire Magazine for 11 years, where he built a considerable following. He is also the author of numerous books and is the host of a popular Web destination on CNNMoney.com and writes regularly for Huffingtonpost.com. He has been cultivating the Bing brand since 1983. 

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. It has been establishing the Bing brand for about seventeen minutes.

Contact:  Stanley Bing
                   bingblog@gmail.com 

I will only add that I absolutely no intention of initiating any form of legal action against Bing (the Search Engine) unless he/it feels it would be mutually beneficial for us to do so. And that I do look forward to being massively well-optimized on my new friend.

Hi, David.

I read in a magazine someplace that you were interested in saving the New York Times. I think it’s a terrific idea. Something about setting up a non-profit foundation that would run it, so the pressures of the business would not impinge on Journalism being done there. I can’t think of a better idea. It’s clear the newspaper business is in some kind of trouble, with Craig’s List snatching all its classifieds and the citizen journalists getting things wrong so they don’t have to.

I have one other idea for you. It came to me when I was reading the Thompson/Reuters news rundown this morning. Here is the item I read in its entirety:

According to the AP, Unions that represent mailers and printers at The Boston Globe have agreed to concessions they hope will keep the newspaper, owned by The New York Times, publishing. The Boston Mailers Union voted 107-95 to approve $5 million in cuts, while the Boston Printing Pressman’s Union accepted $2.2 million in concessions.

That was really interesting to me. The Boston Globe, which I believe is owned by the New York Times Co., can only stay in business if the working people who help to distribute the newspaper give back a total of $7.2 million. I know that’s a lot of money to a pressman or mailer, particularly when it’s expressed in personal terms. But in the vast scheme of things, I was honestly quite surprised at the small scale of the problem that could wreck the business system to the extent that the newspaper might go under if it wasn’t solved.

So, Mr. Geffen, I guess I’m just suggesting that as you contemplate laying down hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a foundation to save Journalism – a truly laudable goal that just might be necessary to the preservation of our democracy – is it possible that some little wafer of that largesse might be applied to what appears to be a very small part of the much larger problem?

And to my readers: Yeah, that’s right, you guys. I’m talking about NOT sticking it to the Unions. You wanna make something of it?

It’s been a little while since I talked about the horrors of contemporary air travel.  Either I’ve become so desensitized to the situation or it’s gotten better in the last year or so, I don’t know. Either way, my head hasn’t flown off my shoulders in quite some time. Which made my experience of JetBlue the other day all the more rich and surprising.

I’ll just tell it to you as it happened. You can judge whether I’m over-reacting. I do sometimes.

My wife and I were in the exit row of the 5:59 JetBlue flight out of JFK to San Francisco. Because I love her, I took the middle seat and she had the aisle. The flight was on time. Everything was moving very smoothly. The general air of JetBlue jolly, democratic collegiality prevailed. All our bags were neatly stowed. I had placed my wife’s wheely bag, which is perfectly sized to go into the overhead compartment wheels first, and my backpack, which contained my beloved MacBook, up there, and neatly inserted her folded topcoat and my favorite sport jacket on top of our stuff.

As always, there is always one butthead who appears just as the doors are closing and requires immediate assistance for seating and stowage. Indeed, here he came, and with him, following close by, a very neat, very tidy, very trim gate agent with the passenger’s wheely bag in tow. The late arrival went back to his seat in the rear of the plane. The flight attendant began to look for an overhead compartment to put his bag. He selected ours, which was already rather full not only with our possessions but those of several others. The flight attendant opened the compartment door and immedately began violently jamming the new bag into a space that he perceived existed somewhere in the interstitial zone between everybody’s luggage.

“Excuse me,” I said to him, as he repeatedly mashed the bag into the imaginary space, “are you squashing our coats up there?”

“It is company policy that rolling bags take precedence,” he snapped. “You can put your coats on the floor.” I thought this was rather severe. If I had wanted to put my coat on the floor I would have already done so. Also, I have a thing about officious people with a tiny bit of power being mean to me. Call it an occupational hazard.

“Also,” I said as he banged and slammed the new bag into our stuff, “I have a computer up there, so please be gentle.” By now he had taken our coats out and tossed them onto our laps. Then he removed my wife’s wheely bag, which was superbly positioned, in order to fit in his load. That done, he once again began jamming and cramming my wife’s bag into the space that now no longer really could accomodate it.

“This doesn’t fit,” he said. At that point he took out my bag and deposited it into my lap. So all our luggage and carry-ons were now out of the position we had established for them. My wife is a patient woman, a fact she has proven time and again by continuing to favor me with her presence.

“I’ve been on a hundred JetBlue flights with that bag,” she said calmly, “and it fits perfectly if you put it in wheels first.” He was now violently mashing it handle first into the spot. At that point, I believe he bumped my wife. She says no, because she is a non-violent type and likes to avoid confrontation, but I’m pretty sure I saw her leap a bit out of her seat and say, “Oh!”

Several things then happend simultaneously. She took out a little notebook and pen — as the increasingly desperate re-loading of the compartment continued — and I leaned forward in my seat in order to see his name badge. She then wrote down his name in block letters: PATRICK. And he, having finally completed his task, looked down and saw her do it.

“May I see your boarding pass, please?” he said, and it wasn’t a request.

“Of course,” said my wife. I wondered if she still had it. Sometimes we all toss our passes once we’re on the plane. She hunted about for it. For a while it looked like she was going to have to get her bag down again, but then yes, there it was, in her purse on her lap. “May I ask why you want to see my boarding pass?” she mildly inquired.

“Well!” said PATRICK, “you are writing down MY name and I would like to see the name of the person who is writing down MY name.” He then regarded the boarding pass closely and I thought rather ominously. He then reluctantly handed it back, and then went up to the cockpit, where he gave us the evil eye until the doors of the plane were closing, at which point he left. At some point, I got up and put my bag and our jackets back in the place that was left for them.

I still wonder what PATRICK would have done if my wife had been unable to unearth her boarding pass from our mass of scrambled belongings.

I will say that the on-board flight crew seemed especially nice to us for the entire flight. Perhaps they were afraid of these two obvious troublemakers. Or perhaps they knew this gate agent. Don’t you know the character of the people you work with every day, particularly the scary ones?

I wish I could think of something to say about the recession right now.

I wish I could find an observation to make about the realities of the new economy.

I wish I had the power to offer some interesting strategies for dealing with the difficult operating environment in which we find ourselves.

I wish I could impart some wisdom on current trends in the commercial marketplace.

But I can’t. Half my floor is empty today. A few minutes ago, I sent an e-mail to my department that generated a veritable forest of OUT OF OFFICE replies. In the executive wing, many seem to have wandered off into pleasant digital space. On the west coast, a lot of folks seem to be “working from home.” Here in New York, the sun is shining very brightly, and there is a heavy, humid heat in the air that whispers one delicious word, and that word is BEACH.

I have no plans to go to the beach. I have no plans to go to the shore. I have no plans to do much of anything except go home. I will not be reading interesting business analysis on the plane. I will not be thinking about excellence or debt or equity, except perhaps the sweat equity it will take to put my lawn to rights when I get there.

I am hereby shutting down the part of my brain that thinks about things more than three days out. I hope you have the power to do the same, whether you have the permission to do so or not.  Go ahead. Switch it off.

Have a great long weekend, my friends. Sometime during that three days take a few moments to remember why we earned that extra lazy Monday. Go to a parade if you can find one. We don’t do enough parades.

I’ll talk with you Tuesday, God willing. Whatever we’ve all got going on will be waiting for us then, of that I am sure. Let it wait, okay?

I just thought, on my out of the office again, that I would point out that now the Star has a cover on Jon & Kate, outlining their odd marriage, which I can’t tell you about, because I will not read it, and this for two reasons.

1. I have decided to read nothing about Jon & Kate.

2. I am too busy.

This week my company had its big sales presentation. We go out there about the same time each year and try to move a few billion dollars worth of product. It’s going pretty well. Two observations:

1. People are jamming the restaurants all around Manhattan. It’s very hard to get a table.

2. Everybody is just as drunk as they always were in the best of times.

I take this to be another sign of economic regeneration. And now I’ve got to take off again. Another day. Another presentation. Another couple hundred million dollars. Wish us luck, ladies and gentlemen. As we go, so goes the whole shooting match, I think.

Look, I’m not that old. I’m certainly not out of touch. I watch TV. I read newspapers. I cruise the internet like a hungry shark, eating informational tidbits as I go, each and every day.

But sometimes when I go to the newsstand I look at the enormous rack of magazines and I think, “Who are these people?”

Both People and Us Weekly, for instance, feature dramatic developments into the lives of a couple named Jon and Kate.  I have no idea who these people are.

In People, for instance, there’s a big picture of this blond woman with very professional hair staring dolefully out at us next to a huge headline, WE MIGHT SPLIT UP. “Jon & Kate, A Marriage In Crisis” says the box above it. Then there are a bunch of bullets below the headline. But who the frig ARE they? And why don’t I know? 

In US Weekly, contrariwise, it turns out that Kate has her own bodyguard because Jon threatened to hire a P.I. when she got close to somebody named Steve Neild! Who is Steve Neild? Should I know? Why? Apparently, Kate is a mom of eight and she refused to touch her bleeding son during a press event? Really? Why would she do that? Did she do that? When? What kind of press event?

Have I been spending too much time with Madoff and Geithner and Bernanke and Thain and that whole crowd? Am I out of the culture? Have I lost my mojo? While I’m thinking about TARPs and bailouts and payoffs and pyramids and consumer confidence, have I lost sight of the important issues that are moving our society? Should I be watching more TV? A different kind of TV?

What else don’t I know about? Fill me in! Hurry!

NEW YORK, May 18 – Stanley Bing said on Monday that he plans to sell an undesignated amount of stock in his formerly privately held BingCo., and also plans a note sale to help repay funds he has borrowed from various sources. He also announced that he was taking a $872 million charge against earnings. The notes are being designed by his friend Stu right now, according to Bing, and will be very attractive.

The charge reflects losses on quite a few assets, mostly due to bad investments made after consultation with the best advisors in the business world.

These losses have been a drag on BingCo.’s cash position, which has declined since June ‘08.  The New York-based content company also announced the slashing of weekly dividends to children and pets, and an elimination of bonuses to all employees, of which there really aren’t any. At the same time, BingCo. management hopes the message will resound with Wall Street, which has shown virtually no interest in the Company since it went public some 18 months ago.

“We have no idea what it is the company does,” said Reed Barfinger of Barfinger & McGuffin, a firm that makes itself available for quotes to reporters who call it. “This lack of clarity used to be a huge asset, particularly in the online content world, but now people want at least an ounce or two of steak along with their sizzle.”

This could spell potential trouble for BingCo. In pre-market trading, the company’s shares fell about 2 percent to $0.14. Their 52-week high is $0.15, set last July 23.

BingCo. Executive Chairman and Chief Everything Officer Stanley Bing said in a statement that he will use the proceeds from the sale of shares and notes to pay back the $23,000 loan he received from CitiBank to finance the construction of a paved driveway at company headquarters.

Bing did not specify the size of the debt offering but said it would not be backed by the federal government, to which he also expects to owe some money very shortly in the form of a quarterly estimate.

Bing was among the institutions that recently underwent a “stress tests” of their ability to handle a deep recession, and was among those found to be quizzical. 

BingCo. does not give guidance. The company did however indicate it expects to be alive at the end of the year, mostly by accumulating more debt in order to pay the debt that comes with responsibilities and consequences.

We had a run up last week. For the last couple of days, we’re running down. There was good news among the bad and people were talking about sunlight for a while. This week, the credit markets are getting nervous again and we’re not so sure. Plus, it’s drizzling. Doesn’t May seem colder than usual? Does this mean there’s no more global warming? Or is this just a pause before we all quite literally melt down?

Are we recovering? Are we sliding back? Is the upswing over? Are we just taking a breather? Unemployment is still bad but not growing quite so fast as it was a few months ago. But Wal-Mart’s revenue ticked down a little. Does that mean people ran out of money in April? Will it be the same in May? How about June? Worse? Better?

See, now would be the time for those professionals with a totally disinterested position in the markets, if any such there be, to employ their skills to tell us what’s going on. Is this all emotional? Are there some metrics we should be employing to get a little bit of visibility into the future? Forget the future, how about right now? Is there an analyst, an economist, a professor, government regulator, seer, dowser or astrologer out there who can actually tell anybody what’s going on?

In the meantime, who should we be listening to? Paul Krugman? Nostradamus? Susan Boyle?

Okay, fans of the “who’s rich and who isn’t” debate, consider this young New York City couple:

They are in their mid-20s. Both have jobs. She makes $42,000 per year. He recently got a promotion at his firm, where he sells advertising, and now earns about $70,000. For you big fans of math, this puts their gross household income at $112,000. 

On that income, they live in a small walk-up apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. The neighborhood is very nice, treelined streets, good shoping nearby, museums, parks. Their building has mice, but they haven’t seen one in their apartment yet.  Last night, however, Gregor Samsa made a visit. Big, juicy bug about an inch long, and fat. Fell right out of a hole in the brick wall behind the non-working fireplace.  They now would like to move but really can’t because there aren’t any places around that offer a one-bedroom within their budgets unless they want to move to a rougher neighborhood or a space somewhere in the outer boroughs. That’s their choice, of course, and some of you would be quick to point out. They could, after all, choose to live someplace they don’t want to. But it wouldn’t make them happier. So they don’t.

They have no disposable income beyond that which they spend on occasional forays to burger joints that have a special deal for beer on trivia nights. He has three pairs of pants and two sport jackets. She has a fondness for shoes that finds expression once every three or four months, and is still paying off a youthful accumulation of credit card debt. He has saved a little bit for the future, but not much.

Are they rich? Not by the current working definition. But they do make a lot more, as a couple, than most people, certainly most people their age.

By way of comparison, my father, who was a professor at Columbia University and did some consulting on the side, never earned more than $50,000 in any given year. My mom was a social worker who started at $6000 per annum. When they moved to the suburbs of New York more than a generation ago, they bought a very nice house for $34,500. They traveled quite a bit and never saved more than a couple hundred dollars a year, but everything they wanted to do, they did.

Were they rich? They definitely lived better than most of the so-called rich that I know on a whole lot less money.

I met a guy last night at a bar who pays his ex-wife $1000 per day in support. He will have to do so for the rest of their lives. That’s his deal. This leaves him about the same amount to live on, which after taxes comes to about $240,000 per year. No wonder he’s nervous. By our current standards, he’s $10,000 away from wealth.  

Maybe it’s not how much you make, after all. Maybe it’s all about how much you manage to keep.

Debate continues to swirl around President Obama’s idea of what it means to be rich. Married couples who occupy the top 2% of the populace are now in that lucky position, since they earn about $250,000. Among the honors that attend this status is the right to pay more income taxes. Since that group for the most part already pays about 50% of its annual take in federal, state and local tithings, you can imagine the outcry.

On the one side are the populists who chide them. “Selfish rich people who make over $250,000 per year,” they say. “The world is starving. You sit atop the heap. And still you complain! Fie! Cough it up, mean and selfish rich people!” 

On the other side are the affluent few, sitting on their tuffets of green. “Really!” they reply, stirring their expensive martinis and downing tasty petit fours, “You wouldn’t believe how far my puny hundreds of thousands goes these days!” 

It’s easy to see who’s in the right here. No matter how they cough and whine, those who earn two and a half large are by any estimation swimming in it. Just look at how many things they can enjoy that we cannot.

For this purpose we will take a look at the Forbisher family of New York, NY, although we could most certainly find their counterparts in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami and Boston, not to mention all their outlying suburbs, and many places in the midwest frequented by the plump and shiny.  

The Forbisher Family consists of Bob and MaryAnn, and their children, Ned, Fred and Teddy, as well as a turtle named Mr. Bean and a bichon frisee/chihuahua mix named Eduardo. Together, they brought in a massive $254, 540 in calendar 2008. On that income they most certainly should enjoy all the lifestyle benefits that go along with their status as top-tier rich people. And so they do! 

On any given day, for instance, they can be assured they will have food. This immediately places them above a majority of the world’s population, and already classifies them as rich by many in less fortunate circumstances. The same must be said for the clothing they wear, which is ridiculously expensive but which they purchase anyway, proving they are rich. 

Ned, Fred and Teddy go to private school, like all super-wealthy entitled kids do these days, particularly but not exclusively in urban settings for a variety of reasons. They get a deal here, because Teddy is only in Kindergarten, so his tuition and extras only come to $15,000. Ned and Fred, on the other hand, top out at $35,000 each, bringing the cost of eduction for the Forbisher clan to almost $100,000. They are also, like rich people do, planning to go to college, which must be saved for, but they’re not worried because they’re so rich. 

Like all those who earn more than just about everybody else, the Forbishers live in a swanky apartment. On their income, they were able to afford either one tenth of a four bedroom apartment, or half a roomy three-bedroom apartment, but instead they chose to be frugal, as rich people sometimes are, and spent only $1.2 million on a perfectly serviceable two bedroom apartment that is worth $825,000 in the current market.

Living the life of the elegant class to which they belong, the Forbishers drive a fabulous car that would be the envy of many, in this case a 2005 Toyota Camry with 87,000 miles on it. One can only assume that they have chosen such a modest vehicle in order not to shame their less affluent neighbors.  Rich people sometimes do that.

For some reason that is unclear to us at the present writing, the family last vacationed in 2007, a short trip to a theme park in Orlando, Florida, at school break time, which Mr. Forbisher was heard by friends to describe as “a nightmare that will never be repeated.” It hasn’t been. Several years ago, they rented a modest house in the Hamptons, but inexplicably that luxury, too, has yet to be repeated. And while like many rich people Mr. Forbisher looks at magazines that feature amazing yachts, he has apparently so far failed to purchase one.

Instead, both he and Ms. Forbisher can be seen heading off to work each morning, she on the Fifth Avenue bus and he on the Lexington Avenue subway. We must assume that this is voluntary, since as rich people they don’t have to work too hard and never have to worry about money.

And so, while the rest of us working middle-class people scrape and save and work our fingers to the bone, rich people like these go about their cushy, indolent lives. Worst of all, perhaps, is the fact that on their stated income of more than $250,000, the Forbishers last year paid only $110,000 in taxes! Isn’t that shameful? Thank goodness that in the days to come we can all look forward to them paying their fair share.

The sky is blue. The trees are green. The birdies is on the wing. And the majority of our banks have flunked their stress tests. Does that make them sad? Nope. Are we worried? Not at all. Because while they are stressed, they are not stressed as badly as we might have feared. Two facts leap out. First, while 10 of 19 of our fiduciary institutions require some form of additional cash to keep from fainting, all they need, in aggregate, is a measly $75 billion.

Compared to the numbers we’ve been seeing lately in bailouts and fearful predictionary bloviage, why, that’s a mere bag of shells! And it turns out they don’t even want the money! “No thank you, Uncle Tim,” they are saying. “We’re gonna be okay after all.” Can you imagine?  

Best of all, it turns out that even if you take the very worst-case scenario, potential losses in this formerly fetid corner of our financial sector would reach only $599 billion. Not a T? Only a B? Ha! We sneeze at such numbers. 

Speaking of sneezing, it also turns out that we’re all probably not going to die of swine flu, at least this week. 

The fact is, there’s just so much darned good news around that I think we should all open our hermetically sealed windows right now, lean out over whatever avenue we work on, and no, not jump, just breathe in that nice spring air, which appears to be not quite as badly loaded with toxic hydrocarbons as we had feared. 

Who knows? We may have a panic gap here all of a sudden. What should we freak out about next, do you think? Should we look back once again to ascertain which was the worst in our lifetime, so that we can use that knowledge of the past, as economists do, to prognosticate the future? 

To examine this issue scientifically, I visited a cool new website that helps those trying to determine hierarchies of just about anything, scientifically, you know. My assessment of the worst panic of our collective time can be found here.  See if you agree.

Debt: What you buy things with. 

Cash: Employed to buy debt. 

Profit: What’s left after Generally Accepted Accounting Principles takes the rest. 

Revenue: What you see in 120 days. 

Interest: What they used to give along with the toaster. 

Free Market: see Unregulated Market. 

Unregulated Market: See Ponzi Scheme

Ponzi Scheme: The manipulation of markets by experts who use other people’s money to get rich. 

EBITDA: See OIBIDA

OIBIDA: Yet another acronym. 

Cash Flow: The actual amount of money an enterprise has on hand. Generally disregarded by Wall Street analysts in favor of Earnings Per Share (EPS). 

EPS: Cash that is left after the business does anything worthwhile. The figure is distorted by all sorts of one-time expenses, accounting tropes, write-downs, restructuring charges and other non-cash items. 

Capitalism: The manipulation of markets by experts who use other people’s money to get rich.

Now come on, you guys. It’s your turn. Got any terms you’d care to offer?

It’s quite possible that the light that we are seeing at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train. True, at the parties I went to over the weekend a certain number of people were unemployed. This was in Northern California, which has been hit pretty hard in the tech sector and in real estate as well. But people were of pretty good cheer. Of course, they were drunk, but that doesn’t necessarily impart automatic merriness. I’ve known a ton of grouchy drunks in my time. No, there was definitely a little bit of hope in the air. 

I think that may be because it’s starting to look like the nasty creepazoids who prognosticated the death of all human life on the planet will be disappointed in the end. The game is now to figure out who will get through this thing, because when we’re all safely on shore the survivors will find a world in which they are faced with significantly less competition. There will be more meat, more vegetables, more space at the campfire. Here’s my guess at who will be there: 

A number of hearty newspapers: Yeah, there won’t be quite as many as there were before. But the ones who stick around will still control about half of all local advertising. 

A bunch of lean, tough car companies: And boy, are they going to need to get their brands back on track. How? With advertising, ladies and gentlemen. Therefore…  

Mass media: Targeting schmargeting.  Who do you think those monsters are going to require in order to get back in touch with all the folks who once again want soap, cars and increasing amounts of pharmaceuticals? And beer! Don’t forget about beer! 

Lots of new Madoffs: Things will look better. This will bring out the oldest couple in human history: the gullible and those who will prey on them.  

A bunch of shiny new philanthropists: The markets will soar. New people will get rich. And for a time, while the shame of having been selfish idiots clings to the marketplace, there will be those who try to help others who have yet to rise from whatever tragedy has befallen them. Most of them will probably be the biggest bad guys from the days of yore, a thought that never left my mind when I attended the Milken Conference in LA last week.

Tons of stinky HMOs: You can’t kill those things. 

A small, gnarly band of Republicans: Wow, are those guys angry. Right now, they’re down. But when things improve and unfettered exploitation of the market is once again in vogue, they’ll come roaring back into the spotlight armed to the teeth and looking for liberals. 

Book stores: Will there be as many of them? No. Will there still be some? Yes there will. What about the Kindle? The Kindle! Aieee! Look. The majority of people I know who have Kindles are in publishing. They go around with their Kindles and talk about the end of their own business. Talk about boring! 

Regulation: Somewhere in our collective memory, the majority of us will harbor some vague memory that it’s bad when the FDA, SEC, FEMA and other regulators in Washington are run by former executives and lobbyists of the industries they are supposed to be overseeing, apparatchiks who are in fact enemies of the agencies they are supposed to be managing. 

Florida: I’m as worried about climate change as the next person, but I still think that Miami will be above water. Also New York. 

Other: If you can’t imagine a world without it, it’s probably going to be here, smaller, leaner, more sinewy, and better equipped to make the grade going forward. So relax. 

You will also note that Twitter is not on this list.

1. Ebola: We were all going to die of it. 

2. Bird Flu: We were all going to die of it. 

3. Y2K: Our computers were all going to die of it. 

4. Global Warming: We’re still going to die of it, but it ’s a more long term thing so only a few people are still on it. As a panic, it’s SO yesterday. 

5. Japan will take over the world: Until their economy went blooey. 

6. China will take over the world: Still a working paranoid concept, but again, collective ADD has moved on. 

7. Mad cow disease: We were all going to die of it as our brains leaked out of our ears. 

8. AIDS: Anybody who ate in an upscale restaurant would probably get it. 

9. Russsia would bury us: They said they would! 

10. Nuclear War: The jury is still out on that one.

11. The recession will last for 10 years: As soon as we get over this swine flu thing, that could well be back, given the number of shorts who stand to profit by it. 

Look, I gotta go. The day is young out here in California. We still have time for three or four mini-panics before our first martini. Have a calm weekend, huh?