Professor Elam

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  • Professor Elam

    Iran the Whole World is Watching

    Charles Krauthammer along with Tom Sowell is a one of the best observers on the scene. 

    Satellite communication means that revolutions are on display in a way that the Soviet invasion of Czech never was. Indeed this is the Global Village that McLuhan described in the 1960s, no not HIlary's village. 

    The US no matter what your position has spent billions of dollars and several thousand lives to bring change to the mid east, The biggest possible change would be real democracy in the one regime that is the most threatening Iraq. 

    As Krauthammer says, will Mousavi rise to he challenge?  There were numerous revolutions, some big time in the past century the shooting in Yugoslavia that got WW I going, the collapse of the czars in Moscow in 1917, but none of that was on television and You Tube, it is now. Will a Yeltsin or the Polish shipyard worker rise to the occasion?  A revolution in Iran would solve all the problems that both we and their neighbors in that region would favor. 

    Meanwhile of course America is mourning the 'best known person in he world' weird Mike Jackson. 
    What a diversion….

  • Professor Elam

    Rasslin’ As Ted Turner Would Say

    First read my posts on June 20 about the movie Hard Times and then June 22 about Trump buying WWE Raw Wrestling. 

    My comment to Lee Ann's insightful post of Trump strategy. 

    I would guess WWE ratings will rise, hard to skyrocket from here but we shall see, movies were big in the depression for a few cents you could to inside and escape the depression for ninety minutes. WWE offers the same sort of thing coupled with a sort of rage revenge scenario that plays out in the good guy bad guy tag team wrestling match. This will likely resonate with the audience that grows more restless over job losses, this is what the get the big guys and their salaries is all bout, Obama is tag teaming corporate America, hmm good I ought to make that a blog post. 

    See my post on the movie Hard Times. June 20, Same thing. Okay I told you twice….

    Indeed P T Barnum of circus fame made the comment that one would never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. I should add  a book on him to our reading list. 

    Summing up, in Hard Times attitudes grow hard. As I have mentioned here on several posts, it is only a matter of time until part of the country in relatively good shape, the SE, realizes it is literally supporting the part in bad shape, California and the midwest and New York. The Administration will really be risking its popularity if it chooses to 'bail out' California, a Dem laboratory for progressive ideas that have failed. 

    ''Sports' which are really not sports at all like wrestling and roller ball seek to tap into this sort of social dissatisfaction.  This is the ultimate good guy bad guy revenge game endlessly played out in the various personna that the wrestlers intentionally mimic.   The Coliseum in Rome provided the same thing, ever see the Chariot Race in Ben Hur, an older movie but what an expensive scene.  In that scene Charelton Heston drive, yep the gold and white chariot, the bad buy the black and red. Understanding the socionomic trends is key to success in public entertainment. 

    Nothing new under the sun as they say. 

  • Professor Elam

    Writing Lab

    For those of you in ACCT 3314, you do not have to return the re writes by Monday. You do have to return them re written for a grade.

    You can obtain assistance at the writing lab, no they will NOT re write your paper for you. Please have  your paperin both paper and electronic format when you go there.

    Writing Lab at Palo Alto Community College

    210 486 3232

    Applied Science Building #110

    Monday – Thursday 8 AM – 7 PM

  • Professor Elam

    Ethics Question of the Day

    From a blogger elsewhere

    If Mark Sanford had cheated on his taxes instead of his wife, he would have been a cabinet member by now.

    Hmm, I teach the ethics class here at A & M, we have seen several cabinet members get a pass on their views of responsibility vis a vis the IRS code, including the now chief enforcer Secy of Treasury Geithner

    So, in the wake of both infidelities of numerous politicos on both sides of the aisle, remember Elliot Spitzer?, is this just a private matter, remember the defense of Bill Clinton, that we should ignore?
    Maybe you missed this one on Republican John Ensign just last week, frankly there are too many of these to catalog lately, okay I mentioned two Dems and two Republicans, fair and balanced….

    Hollywood types change mates as though they are just another wardrobe accessory, and no one seems to think any less of them. Jen and Brad are  history. Clint Eastwood has seven children by four different women. If it is okay on the left coast, is it okay on the right coast, different scene, different theater. But both involve  actors vying for your vote at the box or Congressional office near you. 

    Does tax infidelity equal marital infidelity, does tax infidelity matter more in the case of being a role model at the cabinet level?  Does one trump the other?  Does it matter which theater (marrriage, taxes) we are in? Should your behavior matter in your appointment?  Some cabinet wanabes lost out over nanny care social security filings, they did not pay the social security matching, but lately that does not seem to matter…… Do you care? Should we care?  These guys and gals I think take an oath to uphold uh er ah,  well maybe not…..

    Congress-the national asylum for the incompetent
    Mark Twain

    Okay gang, I await your sound off!

  • Professor Elam

    Prof Sowell on College

    Regular readers of the blog are aware that my favorite columnist is Tom Sowell, the Milton Friedman endowed prof at Stanford. today he takes on the notion that graduating 'more' students from college is necessarily a god thing. 

    All of you have attended other colleges be they community colleges or upper level schools. Think about how many students really have not interest in being there. Indeed the eventual graduation rate of the best school in Texas is about 60%. Lke the cpa exam pass rates those are UT Austin and College Station, the others are a lot lower, well Okay I have seen the grad rates for public schools I suspect the private schools with their stratospheric tuition are MUCH higher. 

    This campus is considerably different with our non traditional students. But I would agree with Dr. Sowell, the last two rows of students at Tx State should have been somewhere else. 

  • Professor Elam

    GM Timeline

    One bad product decision after another led to the downfall. 

    A good sketch of many poor decisions, cars are not soap.

  • Professor Elam

    Trump Buys WWE Raw

    You got to hand it to Trump, he usually has his finger on the action. We have written how the mood of America has turned decidedly negative. Wrestling is  a sort of come hither negative, the good guy versus the bad guy, all hype and some action. Roller Derby became popular during the 1930s. Wrestling was popular also. And so The Donald buys into wrestling. 

    Picture 6Her name is Kelly kelly. Trump is refunding the ticket price to attendees on his opening night here in Green Bay Wisconsin. Free, always is a crowd pleaser in a recession. Free tickets, lots of showgirls and show off guys, something for everyone, the perfect diversion for a crowd bored with negative news. 

    We'd rather be McMahon the seller….

  • Professor Elam

    The Powder Rooms were Spacious

    THis Yout Tube depicts flying in another era.
    The date of 1958 cannot be right. The 707, referred to as the Jet Clipper in the promo was not certified by the FAA until Sept of 1958.  I would guess the actual date is early 1960s. I have sent this on to our resident expert Prof Richard Green.  Prof Green flew 707s for TWA!

    Note that everyone is dressed up, no tee shirts and sneakers.  And as they used to say in the military, the smoking light was on!

    The managerail cost take is that originally spacious interiors justified the high price of flying. As flying became more and more of a price conscious commodity, space was used to maximize seating, consider that photo of the powder room, hardly what one enccounters today. Flying the plane is a fixed cost as to the plane crew and fuel.  Increasing hte number of passengters lowers break even point. And now of course airlines routinely cancel flights for most any reason. And still the airline industry has not made money on passenger flights over the course of its history.

  • Professor Elam

    The Panic of 1792

    NO that wsa not a typo. Even before there was an official Wall Street there was a Wall Street panic.
    Even then people were shorting stock and speculating on which institutions would or would not make it.
    Such antics date back to the Amsterdam Excahnge in the early 1600s.

  • Professor Elam

    A Practical Application of Managerial Accounting

    We discussed the Starbucks closing in class last Wed. Well, here is what managerial accounting is all about. 

    Is the space that Starbucks vacating available?  If so start studying up on alternatives, perhaps
    Mocha Java in San Marcos. A local in San Marcos started his own starbucks type venue in two locations and has been going strong. As one student remarked Wed, I have always seen a line at the drive up window a the present Starbucks location by the whataburger. 

    So rent the same space and be ready to open the day after Starbucks closes.  Mocha Java only uses one coffee bean and multiple variations of the with various flavors, hot cold, you know the routine, and of course uses students from Texas State for workers. I would add I saw the owner running the place for the first two years. My guess is that one could build on the traffic begun by Starbucks. 

    The concepts of break even, target profit, and budget as well as TQM will all be necessary to make a go of it. Standard costs and variances from Chapter 10 will certainly be necessary as customers will expect exactly the same taste every time for each variation.  See what this is all about?

    And you will need to be able to tear apart your financial statements week to week to track your progress. 
    Gross margin will be terribly important. 

    Just another example of what this course is all about.