Pick up those new GPS systems, now on sale at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and other fine stores for under $100!

Don’t forget that flat-screen TV that’s suddenly within your price range!

Remember to stop by the gigundo superstore to stock up on potato chips, lawn furniture and frozen shrimp!

Swing by the enormous drugstore! Get medicine! Print 100 pictures for only $1.00! While you’re there, load up on toys, nostrums and personal care products! The holidays are almost here!

Hit the department store for pantyhose, shoes, perfume, purses, and those fabulous studded denims you’ve had your eye on — they’re all on sale today only!

On your way home, stop by your local American automobile dealership and nab a new Ford, Chevy or Chrysler! Terms are great! Quality has never been better!

If you’re an investment banker, kick the tires on an underperforming entity! You’ll be glad you did!

Somewhere out there in this great, shining land of ours, there’s a product, service or asset waiting for you! We’ve been in the doldrums far too long! Make Black Friday lead to Black Saturday and then Black  Sunday and then a tsunami of Black Weekdays! Get out there and express your love of all that’s good and strong about our nation! Let commerce ring!

Today it is reported that Donald Trump, clearly not feeling the pinch of the times, is upgrading his mode of travel and putting his old 1968 private jet on the block. A nice tour of the facilities may be found here on this very site.

As jets go, it’s pretty standard. The interior looks like a huge stretch, with inverted glassware and the customary burnished wood everywhere you look. Lots of nice seating. Very comfy. Potential purchasers may wish to remove the enormous TRUMP that festoons the side, as well as the large pouf of ruddy, flaxen hair that has been surgically attached to the front dome, but beyond that it’s pretty much in walk-in condition. The price is reported to be between $4 and $8 million.

This doesn’t seem like a lot, frankly, to own a piece of history. I was reading a magazine called Malibu Times last weekend, don’t ask me why, and the smallest, most run-down cottage in that community is going for $4 million and a lot of places are $15 million and up. It’s clear there’s a lot of money around in this supposedly challenged economy. In a few months, employees of the top three bailed out banks, the ones that crawled out from under their TARPs,  will be receiving some $30 Billion with a B in Bonuses. That means $250,000 for each, if it was distributed equally, which it won’t be. Some will get BMWs. Others will receive half of Romania.

Nobody said that everybody was equal in our society, of course. I mean, you know, we’re all equal, but some are clearly more equal than others. That’s capitalism, God bless its tiny heart. But the gap, ladies and gentlemen, is getting to be wide enough to drive a revolution through. More than 10% unemployed. More than that under-employed. And Donald Trump is upgrading his jet. Something must be done!

I say all the readers of this site should consider getting together and purchasing the jet. No, no. Wait a minute. I’m not kidding. If they’re publicly asking for $4 million, I’ll bet we could get it for $3 million. With current financing being the way it is, putting the plane itself up as collateral we could probably finance, say 85% of it. That means coming up with less than half a million. We can do that.

Once we have the plane, we could all share it, or even use it for some good purpose. Take food to people who need it. Escort children on rides around scenic locations. Make a whistle stop to various communities who have never seen a private jet, even an old one like this, and instruct them in how successful people conduct themselves. It could be a traveling Museum of Affluence, teaching an important lesson to us all about… something.

Perhaps these are not the best ideas. Maybe you can do better. But certainly, a communal ownership of such an important artifact will not only provide an important social purpose, it may also prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. I mean, imagine if the Russians got ahold of it.

Let me get the ball rolling. I am personally ready to put up $250 toward this project. That’s all I can afford right now. My daughter is thinking of going to grad school and my son has decided that he doesn’t really like having a job he has to go to every day. Perhaps you can do better. If so, please do so. You know what they say. From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.

Sometimes you just don’t know what to think.

On the one hand, there’s Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, which takes an outraged look at the havoc that the financial crisis has caused on your basic, working (or now non-working) American citizen. Yeah, I know, a lot of you folks would drop Mr. Moore off a mountain made of his own money if you had the chance. But the guy can make a case.

His point is that our economic system is controlled by idiots, con-men and selfish, greedy SOBs who don’t give a damn about us and run the system for their own benefit. I don’t think you have to be a flag-waving leftie like Mr. Moore to agree with that one. I think a lot of Glenn Beck people would sign on to that premise.

The fat man in the hat is also righteously peeved that the Government bailed out all those big banks and insurance companies that nearly brought us all down. And again, there’s a fair chunk of right-thinking America that’s hopping mad about that, too. So maybe Moore’s anti-capitalist screed is actually an interesting nexus at the point where right and left converge in hatred of the system that rewards failure and lets the bad guys run the next iteration of the machine. Nobody ever lost money at this point underestimating the anger of the American people.

And of course we all have plenty to be angry about. We could spend the next decade yelling at, prosecuting and punishing the moral morons and stupid geniuses who gave us our recession.

But then there’s James B. Stewart’s exhaustive, exhausting look at the “Eight Days” that shook the world back in September of 2008, in the September 21st, 2009, issue of The New Yorker. It’s a tick-tock about the week that the guys who run global capitalism bumbled their way toward the decision to go socialist for a while and bail out the system that pays for their limos.  

What you see is how close we all came to losing pretty much everything — our collective life savings, our homes, the insurance that protects us from disaster (subject to acts of God and any other consideration they can think of to avoid paying you).  We get a worm’s-eye view of familiar figures like Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, Bank of America’s Ken Lewis, Lehman’s clueless Dick Fuld, pre-bonus John Thain of Merrill, the gang from AIG, thrashing around trying to figure out how to prevent the entire mess from going down the drain it was circling.

If you haven’t looked it up, you should. If it shows nothing else, it demonstrates how in a crisis the false divisions that separate one global behemoth from another, and private enterprise from Government, dissolve, leaving a management team all working for the same big corporation. You know it. You work for it too.

So that’s where I’m stuck, another year older and deeper in debt, as the old song goes. On the one hand, you’ve got to hate the fact that the miscreants wriggled off the hook, and that in many ways — just like after the fall of Communism in eastern Europe — the same creeps who screwed things up are back running the store, the new boss same as the old boss. All those big bailouts make a lot of people want to scream, and truly, there are so many things to despise about Wall Street. On the other hand, where would we be if the so-called free-marketplace had been allowed to go down, to be righteously allowed to fail? Every single person now reading this, and even those losers who aren’t, would be up the creek.

I don’t know where I come out. I’m confused. So I guess I’ll just handle that like everybody else these days. I’ll get mad! Ah, that feels better!

There are increasing signs that this puny little recovery of ours is gaining strength, sitting up, and looking with interest at the nurses. Most pertinent is the current unfriendly pursuit of sweet little Cadbury by those aggressive cheese movers, Kraft.

Do you know how long it’s been since a rapacious, unfriendly takeover has been mounted? I can’t think of the last one that caught my notice. Its existence signals a certain kind of belligerent confidence that can only take place in a healthy capitalist economy. It shows that the big machine that actually runs this place is feeling its oats.

In order to mount an unfriendly takeover, phalanxes of lawyers, bankers, consultants and executives must line up, confer, and pile up billable hours in pursuit of a goal that almost always ends in one kind of disaster or another. As has been demonstrated by thousands of years of evidence — beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire and extending all the way to the collapse of assorted 20th-century conglomerates, most takeovers don’t work. The only ones that have a shot at success happen when two organizations decide they truly can’t live without each other. Even then, small life forms and most of the underbrush gets trampled.

A hostile takeover is even less fun, except for the upper tier of capital and a small cadre of visionaries inside the conquering army. But let’s not be party poopers. Where there is no M&A activity of this kind, all we have is day to day business grinding along without dreams of glory. Haven’t we had just about enough of that?

So… go Kraft! And bring on the next wave of irrational enthusiasm for deals that make all kinds of strategic sense! If destructive mergers make a comeback, can new investment instruments be far behind?

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?

First I would like to thank all those who have written in with their comments, suggestions, quasi-serious jokes and trenchant observations. This strategic plan could not have moved to this stage without you.

Now then: Potential means of getting this transaction accomplished are various:

1. Friendly joint venture on synergistic operations. Attractive but limited in value. In such deals, each side keeps its brand, its independence, and its treasured access to key customers and businesses. Very little upside for the acquisitor and too much for the target.

2. Reverse takeover of U.S. corporation by Canada, Inc. Several of you have suggested this. It has its points. But the concept is ultimately unstable. We have a perfect example of such a maneuver: the Time-Warner/AOL merger. In that, a deluded CEO decided, in a so-smart-he’s-stupid move, to allow his gigantic corporate government to be taken over by a smaller and less mature entity. In practice, it was like having a bunch of scruffy Visigoths taking over Rome, which didn’t work very well the first time either.

3. Friendly merger of equals. Better, but still not perfect. A merger of equals is basically a polite term for an acquisition of one party by another in which the target retains much of its original structure. It would involve significant payment up front by the corporation, plus significant incentives to the target’s senior management to remain in place, at least during at attenuated transition period. Integration issues would abound, and much of the existing, unnecessary infrastructure would have to be retained for an unacceptable amount of time. Friendly, merged entities give mergers and acquisitions a bad name, and the reputation for a high rate of failure that they enjoy.

4. Straight transaction. The 1971 suggestion that U.S. Corp simply buy out every Canadian citizen is amusing on its face, and would cost somewhat more now than it would have at that time, but it would guarantee a happy, affluent employee base in the newly unified entity. Such a buyout would create issues, however, with existing employees of the corporation, who, having joined from birth, essentially, would suddenly be thrust into the role of second-class citizens without the huge nest egg enjoyed by the acquired populace up North. Such resentments are difficult to manage. On the upside, a direct purchase of Canada from either its citizens or the United Kingdom, which reportedly has something to do with them, would ensure a free hand for those seeking to administer the transition and the shape of the new enterprise. Simple, clean, quick– and very expensive.

5. Hostile takeover. Leverage their assets. Purchase them with the debt created by the deal itself. Enforce the new arrangement with force, if necessary. The reality is that the target cannot really claim the ability to defend itself. There would be minimal loss of life. The property, operations and employee base would be acquired. The small and rather limp national management structure would be phased out immediately. We could even offer attractive exit packages to those who wish to depart. After the dust settles, most would have stayed, and a plan for zero-based operations could be swiftly developed and executed. Marketing efforts could be implemented to develop new branding, flag, anthems, etc., for the entity. A new currency would be called for, which would be quite simple, exchange rates now being equal. Think of the excitement! The creativity that would be called for! The opportunities for growth and the development of new horizons!

Obviously, further study is necessary. Plans for this strategic initiative have been in development now for more than 200 years. It should not, however, take another 200 to get them field stripped and ready to go.

Yesterday we laid the groundwork for a major, strategic acquisition of a very attractive, synergistic and complementary property that is geographically contiguous, has plenty of upside and, for the most part, speaks the same language.

In that regard it is worth noting that up-front costs could be largely offset by an almost immediate divestiture of what is basically an independent, free-standing entity within the acquired corporation: Quebec. While not trading at a very high multiple, its sale or spin-off could generate significant equity and rid the new corporate entity of lingering legacy and cultural issues. There are many potential suitors for what is clearly a very attractive property, the most obvious being France, which is still smarting from its loss in the French and Indian Wars and has a high-profile CEO in search of global profile. Other tactical post-merger actions to rationalize high upfront costs abound, but will be discussed at a later date.

I would like also to offer at this juncture, before proceeding further, my thanks to those of you who weighed in so far with your thoughts and alternative suggestions. Some were patently facetious, while others drifted into issues pertaining to execution that must await subsequent installments of this strategic plan.

As always in the pursuit of any focused acquisition discussion, alternate scenarios do suggest themselves. Most notable has been the notion of setting our sights not on our neighbor to the north, but our amigo to the south. In that regard, I hasten to state that, in my opinion, the acquisition of Canada does not preclude the development of plans pertaining to equally intriguing possibilities involving Mexico, the former proprietor of vast segments of our current asset base, including Texas, California and most of the Southwest. In my view, however, one must put the cart before the caballo. Large global corporations get themselves into trouble when they overextend their holdings, as any study of Rome, Britain and Time-Warner (TWX) will tell you. This is not to say that a hemisphere-wide master strategy might not lie somewhere down the road. Right now, however, let us keep our eye on that which can be achieved in the near and intermediate term.

We have already looked at some of the global issues facing the current incarnation the corporation, which is now more than 230 years old and still functioning rather well for a mature organization. Day-to-day leadership of the entity has floundered recently, but as we all know it is difficult to sustain the quality of management over time, and on the bright side we can state with some assurance that the underlying power structure is still rather robust, and the class that operates it firmly entrenched in power regardless of who is sitting in the corner office.

Still, recalcitrant issues exist that would almost instantaneously be addressed by the proposed transaction. On a somewhat more granular level, then, let’s look at just a few:

• Need to expand customer base/sales territories: The U.S. frontier is a thing of the past. Even the depths of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are crawling with identical strip malls and high-end boutiques. Look at a map. There’s a lot of Canada up there, most of it in desperate need of consolidation and branding. It is, quite literally, as big as all outdoors; similarly, there are many, many small to midsized urban centers in need of large glass boxes and roads leading to them. The existing corporation has the capital and the know-how to get the job done. All we need is the land and the customer base to justify the expansion, which in our view would be almost instantaneously accretive;
• Limited natural resources: Once again, the acquisition offers an immediately solution to this problem. Oil is, quite literally, seeping out of the ground up there, and there is a wealth of other minerals, lumber and, of course, wind;
• Stagnation of culture: Perhaps most disturbing about current trends within the existing corporation is a “been-there, done-that” mentality and a certain calcification of the spirit of adventure, unlimited opportunity and entrepeneurial drive that made us great not only in our own estimation but in the mind of the world as well. This corporation is viewed now — internally and externally — as increasingly insular, hostile to new recruits to the enterprise, and set in its ways. Canada is, in this sense, far more congenial to some of the core cultural issues that once defined us. They have cowboys, for instance; real ones that actually have something to do more with cows that with guitars and funny hats. There are innumerable other existing synergies that speak to the ease with which integration of the acquired party could be effected, including consistencies in language, cuisine and even pop music, where Canadian artists routinely pass themselves off as American without fear of reprisal.

There are other operating gaps in the corporate fabric that this acquistion would address. Lest the benefits be perceived as purely opportunistic or lopsided, however, it must be recognized that the acquiree would benefit from the deal as well. For its part, the acquisition target needs capital, infrastructure and some sense of what to do with the enormous acreage at its disposal with which, frankly, it’s done very little for the several hundred years of its existence. This lag could quite naturally be laid at the feet of its original stewards — the French and British — but the entity has been essentially on its own as a free-standing corporation for quite some time and there’s really no excuse for all that wasted space.

With so many compelling arguments in favor of the potential acquisition, we must at the same time allow that there are also powerful contradictory trends and considerations that must be addressed as well. Before we arrive at a discussion of conceptual execution strategies, then, it is incumbant upon us to do so. 

Next: Roadblocks and other barriers to entry.

Word comes in today’s USA Today that Thanksgiving, once a non-religious holiday in the United States, has finally morphed into one in which we collectively worship at the central shrine in our culture: Wal-Mart (WMT).

That’s right, new studies of our consumer behavior show that as soon as the first round of turkey is tucked away, an increasing number of us are going online to shop at our favorite stores, and some of us are even leaving the couch for a while to get the Xmas season started early.

In recognition of this fact, stores are now moving their Black Friday promotions to Thanksgiving Thursday, so that people can get busy dumping their wallets into the collective maw of our mercantile establishment.

And so the time we must spend with our families, fruitlessly not working or shopping, once again shrinks to a size even more miniscule than it was before. Already many of our holidays have become excuses to buy new cars or bulk up on consumer goods offered for that day only at fabulous prices. Now Thanksgiving is wide open too!

Ka-Ching! Now… On To Christmas!