The news of the past week was dominated by the brilliant scoundrel, Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, and the death of beloved Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. Could there be two men at the top of their professions more different? Today I’ll focus on Ernie because I feel like he’s almost been a member of the family. When I was a kid I learned early that I was a member of various tribes that helped define my identity. I learned I was Jewish, white, and Cub. I was a member of an offshoot of the main Tribe, because I was…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Many Super Bowl watchers are familiar with the Doritos Brand Global Crash the Super Bowl Ad Contest, a competition Frito-Lay has been running since the 2006-07 football season. This year, Doritos received 4,900 videos submitted from 29 countries made by independent filmmakers — not ad agencies — to compete to have their ad played during the Super Bowl and receive $1 million. A panel of judges consisting of Doritos executives, advertising experts, and actress Elizabeth Banks picked 10 finalists. Those finalists’ videos are online currently and will be voted on by Web viewers. Two videos will be shown during the…
The latest statistics show confidence building steadily for small businesses while Wall Street staggers over plunging oil and copper prices. The oily bankers and hedge funds bet big on the frackers in West Texas and North Dakota, and some of those leveraged loans look as solid as Venezuelan bonds today. But for most of the folks we deal with on a daily basis, business looks rosy. The Detroit Auto Show has its mojo back. Cobo Hall has the pizzazz of the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show held last week. It’s amazing what 17 million cars can do for American machining.…
Henry Kissinger’s recently published World Order, is an extremely thoughtful meditation on international harmony and disorder. He validates the truism that wisdom comes with age. (He’s currently 91.) I doubt that he could have written this book at age 50. Kissinger relies on his great knowledge of history and his years of foreign service experience. The book is peppered with subtle, yet diplomatic digs at Obama’s foreign policy. He faults Obama’s inconsistency towards both allies (such as Saudi Arabia and Israel) and enemies (Putin, Assad and Iran), as well as the U.S.’s recent alternating engagements and withdrawals (Libya, Iraq/Syria). Kissinger…
D’Addario Makes Instrument Strings on Long Island The words “I’m not that interested in guitars” sound strange coming from Pat Metheny, a 20-time Grammy-winning guitarist. But he can explain. “Musical instruments are just tools,” Mr. Metheny said recently inside the 110,000-square-foot headquarters of the instrument string manufacturer D’Addario, in Farmingdale. “My awareness of them is fairly limited. What I care about is their results.” That includes a certain “brightness” of sound, he added, as well as consistency. “If the string gauge was off even a millimeter on my guitar, I’d know it in a fraction of a second,” he said. Mr. Metheny…
There is a famous quote in the Talmud, the revered Jewish commentary, “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” Our society puts a great value on human life, but the life preserving business is a complicated expensive challenge for patients, doctors, insurance companies and governments. I want to share with you some fascinating insights on this topic brought up in a podcast of NPR’s show Radiolab. Sovaldi (Sofosbuvir) is a drug for treating Hepatitis C that was released in December of 2013. In the U.S. it costs $1,000 per pill, which you take…
For those of us who live in the United States, shop on Amazon and eat French fries at McDonalds, the world feels pretty flat. But the world economy is trembling underneath us every day. Ten years of pouring sand and water into fracking wells in Williston, North Dakota, and what were once thought to be played out Texas oilfields where they played football on Friday Night Lights has changed our world by bringing back $2 gasoline. Ben Bernanke’s contrarian approach at the Federal Reserve stabilized a busted banking system and helped rejuvenate the emaciated American economy, which easily could have…
I’ve spent a lot of time listening to pundits blab their predictions as I’ve been recovering from knee surgery in December. Today I’m ready to blab my own. 1) 2015 will be a very nice car year, but a terrific truck year in America. Gas prices will probably fluctuate between $2 and $2.50. There are a lot of small businesses that have dilapidated vehicles begging for replacement. The depreciation law makes a $25,000 pickup a no-brainer for a landscaper or plumber driving a beater that poorly represents his or her business. Look for light trucks to be up 25%. Big trucks should also have…
HARTFORD, Conn. — As a decade-long push to make a national park out of Samuel Colt’s 19th-century gun factory won approval, elected officials hailed the project as a way to boost one of Hartford’s poorest neighborhoods and honor the revolver as a marvel of manufacturing. Notably absent from the celebrating was Colt’s Manufacturing Co., as it and other gun makers say a strict gun control law has left them feeling unwelcome in the state. The factory, distinguished by its blue onion-shaped dome, opened in 1855 and is perhaps the best-known symbol of an era when gun companies in the Connecticut…
As the oil price plunges, gloom and ill-will, oddly, abound BE CAREFUL what you wish for. After years of grumbles about a historically high oil price, the cost of crude has tumbled. But cries of woe are outnumbering the shouts of joy. Exporters, oil-company shareholders and industry suppliers are all contemplating a future of oil at $60 a barrel—or below. So too are all the people who lent money to them. Markets are pricing in the pain and pessimism immediately, while seeming to discount the future gains to energy users. Russia’s currency is at a record low, falling below 60…