As you may have heard, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is running for President.  Click for the unofficial site.  Interestingly in fairness to all he wants to run in both the Rep and Dem primaries in South Carolina.  While this will no doubt provide a much needed relief from what has been an entirely scripted, boring campaign by nearly everyone involved, the reason I mention this is to remind you that yes

everything new is old again, there are few new ideas under the sun specifically comedians running for President. And the parallels are remarkable.

In 1968 comedian Pat Paulsen also ran for President, pledging he would not run if nominated and would not serve if elected. The similarities between the two  are amazing.  Once again popular culture seems to predict rather than follow such events.

Both comedians rose to fame on a then popular comedy show, Colbert on the Daly Show and Paulsen on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The stock market had just hit 989.03 for the first time in 1966. similarly the  Dow just hit a new high above 14,000.

An unpopular war provided the backdrop for both shows.  Indeed the Smothers Brothers finally went off the air due to their comments about LBJ and the war.  Daly is a bit smarter taking jabs at both parties though primarily the Republicans.

In b both instances the President’s popularity had dropped significantly.   Johnson for whom the Presidency ad been a dream though an accident due to the Kennedy assassination, actually chose not to run again in 1968 rather than face the voters over the Viet Nam War.  Bush cannot run again but prospects for his party do not appear good given the 2006 mid term elections. 

The comedians style is similar, poking fun at conventional wisdom and politics.  Each enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity once discovered on their respective shows.  Colbert got is own show on Comedy Central after proving popular on Daly, Paulsen would get other TV gigs based on his basset hound droll appearance.

This is happening forty years to the year.  The fact that comedians could make fun of the process in both instances suggests that the extreme low ratings for actual politicians at each time registers a public dissatisfaction with all of them and so they take delight in someone who spoofs the entire process. 

Did you see this in the UNT paper?  Apparently Bearfire  is serious about building an artificial ski slope outside Forth Worth, TX.  The trick will be a astro snow type invention.
Only problem is raising the $700 M, well gee, call Arlington, they like these projects, at least you can ski more often than the Dallas Cowboys play football.  Do you think this will happen?

Fox Business News launched this week against CNBC. Is there room for another business channel?  Murdoch thinks there is a room on the world stage as more emerging markets hit the ground running.  But first we have to as tey say play in Peoria. I can’t find this on my new DISH tv, has anyone seen it?

Neal Cavuto, Fox business anchor, originally started on CNBC as did Terrt Keenan.  The media pie keeps being broken, it will be interesting to see just how interested America is in B News.

You Tube has gone from the kid’s room to the boardroom. More and more companies are using employee videos to enliven and communicate their objectives.  One company specializes in re editing such digital media into a broadcast for the company.

Should we be doing this at UNT Dallas Campus?  Wanna be the next
Speilberg of University documentaries?  Grab that video camera and start shooting!

Is this more effective than the traditional corporate print ad, proclaiming, WE CARE?

Why is video more effective?  Where do you think this will take us?   Sound off!

Meanwhile, breaking news, Facebook is truning up the heat on Google.   This article shows just how hot this segment is, and how the race for talent is heating up.

Your tax dollars are not working .  This article describes how lobbying buys govt earmarks for products that agencies never wanted anyway.  Gee, I could stand a lot less of this kind of government, and to think I had to justify everything I did as a bankruptcy trustee. 

The current energy ‘crisis’ is apparently going to last long enough to foster real innovation.  The last one peaking in the 1980s did not.  Now Hamburg’s Sky Sail uses a para sail to reduce energy consumption for ships. The website here features a video that is most interesting. Note the use of the accounting term in the video, the cost will be amortized in three to five years offset by fuel savings.  Sky Sail offer several advantages over a mast type sail system.  The sail is 100-200 meters in the air where the wind is more predictable and stronger. It hoists from the bow of the boat so that it does not interfere with loading cargo.  And it does not heel the boat like conventional sails. And it can be used within 50 degrees of the wind so upwind energy is possible also.

Click on the image above and you will get the idea, now this is out of the box thinking. 

CFO’s third article about SARBOX, five years later is here.    Will we be a rules based or principles based system? Will we go to International Rules ala IASB?

Go to the Sept Archives and scroll back to the Sept 7 post for the other articles. ll in all a good summary of where we are and where we are going.

Here on the blog we have been folllowing the implosion of the two Bear Stearns Hedge Funds.  It is front page and center on the latest B/W magazine cover.  Here are issues to consider in reading this article.

Hedge funds are NOT regulated under the Investment Company Acts of 1933 and1934 which cover mutual funds yet they are accounting for one third of daily trading volume, is this a good idea?

These lawsuits suggests that either the manager or the investors or both did not know what they were doing, is this transparency?  My math teacher in high school used to say that two heads are better than one, unless of course, it represents a pooling of ignorance, gee I guess that finally happened in this situation.

Jeff Skilling the former CFO of Enron sits in jail doing 25 years in the FED Pen. He is appealing his conviction. Yet both the Bear Hedge Funds and Enron resulted in the same thing for investors, everyone lost all their money. If Skilling had called Enron a Hedge Fund would he be a free man today, or conversely should the managers of the Bear funds be wearing the same orange coveralls as Jeff today?

What stance should accountants take on their responsibility in reporting to shareholders on such investments?  Are existing statements adequate for disclosure?  See our next post and read the Global Audit Report on Reserve all semester which not one person has bothered to read yet……

Johan Goldberg suggests that the unrest in  Belgium will soon spread to the rest of Europe. Scotland would like to wave bye bye to England, the Basque in Spain feel the same way.  Yugo split into six countries, will we see more of the same?  Quebec just nearly split from Canada not long ago, look for a re play of that scenario.  Interesting article, the world may be more fractured than one might think.

Now imagine Alsaka and Western Canada splitting from the US and Canada. The two have natural resource economies that are more the tax target of their other states than anything else.  Could we end up with southern California, AZ, and New Mexico becoming part of northern Mexico?  You will recall that in 1836 the map refelcted that reality, there are those that would have it that way again.

The Manchurian Candidate as a movie and book described how a person could be mentally programmed for assassination. Now

advertising execs are using MRI scans to examine what stimulates one to buy.  We have data mining and meta data to help Amazon track what you want to buy. Now we are examining the brain to get you there even faster, a good ide? I report you decide.