Tuesday, December 8, 2015


Its obvious we can't live without profiling. Get over it.  Profiling is used in every aspect of our life from building an investment portfolio, to picking a mate, a car or anything else.  Prejudice is DUMB.  Profiling is SMART.

Thursday, August 27, 2015


We first published our blog below about the Solyndra scandal on September 26, 2011.
There's an incredibly misleading editorial about the Solyndra scandal in a leading New York newspaper. A simple review of the company's prospectus immediately highlights the following:

1. Several executives had compensation approaching a million dollars.
2. There were at least 25 million stock options made available to various parties.
3. Large hedge funds were significant owners of the company's shares.

The editorial blames the bankruptcy on a "stunning collapse in the price of solar panels".

It is obvious that before an investment of $500 million occurred analytical reports should have been written forecasting the trend of solar panel prices (if the company did not have enough big commercial customers that should have been easily detectable to anyone that took the time to review the company's position in the marketplace).

To compare the financial crises with the solar panel market is patently absurd. Home prices have risen for many years whereas solar panel prices were really a commodity product.

The idea that risking is what its all about is a joke on its face. Its easy to take risks that are totally wrong, but success is determined by wise decisions. The outlook for solar panel pricing in the United States was obviously negative since the number of companies that have been started in just a few years indicates relatively simple ease of entry and requires no particular technological advantages.

Another disadvantage the solar companies faced is the fact that oil producing countries want to keep any alternative sources of energy out of the picture even though most oil is used for cars and trucks, not power generation. Coal is the only true competitive alternative to solar energy and reducing the demand during the next decade would cause serious additions to unemployment. Unfortunately most of the coal miners could probably not be working in the solar industry.

The relationship between the hedge funds, all sorts of people in government and whether there were unions involved in the Solyandra workforce is only the tip of what seems to be a huge potential scandal of political power with our money.

Thursday, August 13, 2015


Its not considered acceptable to tell the masses of the people that they are economically uneducated and their own worst enemy. The rule is one man, one vote. The Democratic party has figured out how to tell the economically ignorant a lie about how our system works. They get way with it because the average man struggles to make a living. Its easier to have a scape goat than to seek the truth.

The government did not bail out the banks. That is a total lie. The financial system of this country was falling apart. The impact on the "common man" (which is all of us), would have been so devastating that the resulting unemployment, loss of pension funds, etc. could have overwhelmed everyone. The government did not save the "rich banks"; it saved those of us who are the depositors of the banks, the receivers of their loans and dependent on them for millions of jobs. The Democratic party finds it expedient to outright lie to the people.

The second lie is that the rich, whomever that is, have benefited far in proportion to the rest of the population. I reiterate again why is the government so worried about any particular class of people rather than working together to solve our problems without promoting class warfare.

Lets get something clear between us. Lets say I have $1 million dollars. If I take that money and rip it up then $1 million dollars disappears from the economy. But if I take that money and spend it, give it to the plumber, the car manufacturer, to the restaurants and some to the government. then the $1 million dollars is circulated throughout the economy. What I don't spend I invest. Lets say I buy stock with my $1 million dollars. I get the stock but someone else gets the $1 million dollars and no matter who it is, they take that money, spend it, invest it and it keeps on circulating. But its still only $1 million dollars. The only question of any relevance is how to turn the $1 million into more money, plant, equipment and capital and have it circulating through the economy.

The only thing the Democratic party wants to do is keep you uneducated. The more of you who become more economically educated the less of you will agree with the Democrat's self-serving, power preserving, education diminishing, democratic policies.

Warren Buffett is looking out for his own A-S. He is more concerned with you buying his own product, like Geico, (which is the worst insurance company I have ever dealt with) than helping you become educated.

Just remember what Warren Buffett wrote on June 26, 2006, "The only condition to this committment is that the Foundation must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gift as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes."

Wednesday, August 12, 2015


There could be 100 instruments in a symphony orchestra. Be as it may, classical music is not mainstream. Many orchestras have gone out of business for lack of public support.

Now think of these 100 instruments with 100 players and hundreds if not thousands of note combinations that are played at any particular symphony. In the front stands the music conductor, generally knowledgeable about all the pieces in the orchestra and having the job of bringing them together into symphonic harmony so that an audience may enjoy the outpouring of the music. Thousands of notes, just a hundred people and a conductor pulling it all together. It's no wonder so many conductors never make it big time. Think of the genius of Beethoven, Bach or Mozart writing the music for each and every piece. Complex, yes and generally unappreciated by society.

We are all managers of something, whether its our family, a job, our business, from a small corporation or a gigantic one, from an island, to a city, to a state and on upwards.

Whether the most powerful force in our government or not, the President stands as the conductor of an awful large orchestra. One of the major questions we are faced with in an election year is which future President will "conduct" the pieces of this ultra large orchestral phenomenon called the United States as to bring out the great music that our founding fathers would have hoped for without over blowing majority rule or undermining minority rights.

We must ask the question of whether a republic democracy can ever play harmonious music when the various players can't agree on the notes to be played. As long as the dissension of voter views stays so wide spread we may feel we are this great democracy. That might even be true if the standard of living hadn't stop increasing 20 years ago. Politicians in general don't want to conduct, they want to build power bases.


Everyone expects President Obama to win the first debate.  If Candidate Romney has the wisdom to present the facts clearly and strongly, he should win the debate easily.

  1. The socialistic policies of Europe have resulted in an 20% plus unemployment rate in Spain and Greece. Italy and Portugal are heading in the same direction.
  2. Japan has become a no growth economy for over a decade because it too followed the wrong policies.
  3. The chaos in the Middle East is as bad as it's ever been, if not worse.
  4. The domestic coal industry has collapsed.
  5. The price of natural gas is so low that no one will make much money producing it.
  6. Only 25% of the people in Afghanistan can read after all this time.
  7. There is no sound reason the Ambassador in Libya should have not been protected.
  8. The economy has been buoyed by only Federal Reserve policies of "zero" percent interest rates.  
  9. The head of the Federal Reserve was originally appointed by President Bush and only reappointed by President Obama because he had little choice at the time.
  10. The democratic political rhetoric about the plight about the middle class is bogus because all the places the middle class work can only provide them with more income if the economy has stable, steady, faster growth.
  11. The use of labels like "middle-class' and "ultra-wealthy" can be turned on the President by pointing out economic truths.
  12. The Democratic solar and wind power initiatives are failing and even have included malfeasance and misfeasance - "Solyndra".
  13. The economy is at a standstill  - real unemployment is well above the reported unemployment figures.
  14. Democrat Pelosi's son worked for the largest purveyor of subprime mortgages.
  15. Barney Frank drove Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into bankruptcy with his political agenda.
  16. Although well hidden, President Clinton was a major perpetrator of the housing fiasco.
  17. Obama's head of the SEC, Shapiro, was involved with Bernie Madoff.
  18. The President's agenda called for the demise of "Don't ask, Don't tell" when everybody's sexuality should be their own business.
  19. Under Obama, killing babies is not even questioned as long as the pro-abortion position gets votes.  
  20. The constant attack on the top one percent never points out that they pay most of the taxes anyhow and that President Obama never hesitates to take large political donations from them. 
  21. The Democrats never have the courage to claim that federal income taxes should be paid by everyone as a citizen of this country.
  22. The President never points out that low tax rates are usually from charitable deductions and tax free municipal bonds which are both perfectly legal government tax policies.
The argument is not about who care about the middle class because both candidates do.  It's about whose policies will give the middle class and all class policies more.  

Friday, July 24, 2015


Drugs, alcohol and schizophrenia or other mental illnesses have been involved in most mass murders from Dahner to Bundy to the South Carolina atrocity, etc. etc.

Major mental institutions have been closed. We don't treat mental illness with any degree of intensity.  The South Carolina murderer wanted to kill Blacks, Hispanics and Jews (who are both considered primarily white).

The belief the South Carolina murderer had of "Blacks taking over" was a delusion.  Other sick people have expressed their psychotic, schizophrenic tendencies thru believing they were the Messiah or some other mental derangement.

You take alcohol your mind can become confused. You take certain drugs your mind can become confused. Confused minds do strange things including shooting people in fits of mental breakdown.

Our society does not get rid of tobacco, alcohol, drugs, etc.

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Dahmer, Bundy, were all users of these mind altering products.  When sick minds use these substances, especially at the average age of about twenty when first psychotic breaks are likely to occur, unfathomable tragedies are likely.  

Monday, July 6, 2015


This will be the last comment on Chicago.

The number of Chicago shootings in the last week, including both killed and wounded, is astounding.  The sociological and demographic implications will become clearer as the number of safe places in the city shrinks.  There is no outrage proportionate to the problem. The results will clearly  not be good.


If a certain segment of the population was removed from the murder statistics, the number of deaths per capita of the total population would be significant lower.  Although these statistics are posted on the Internet, as a nation we are not allowed to talk about this segment that has a very high gun death rate.

We focus on the horrible mass murders seemingly perpetrated by the segment of the population with much lower murders per capita.   This is appropriate as all these outrageous acts can not be explained with just simple words.

The nation doesn't have the backbone to face up to the statistics.  We look back over our history and we are convinced to blame ourselves for the murder rate.

Until we face the truth of which groups are committing a disproportionate number of murders in America, we will never fix the problem.

Politics in this nation has turned out to be all about groups, you go after the Christian vote, the Jewish vote, the Gay vote, the Union vote, the Women's vote, etc.  Grouping people together is commonplace.

When it comes to facing the gun issue, an "inconvenient  truth" is shoveled under the rug and everybody loses especially the poor.  On this issue, grouping is called prejudice.  

Saturday, June 13, 2015


Hillary Clinton recently claimed that prosperity is not just for CEOs and Hedge Fund managers.  She conveniently forgot that prosperity may not just be for Ex Presidents either.  

Furthermore, she doesn't bother to point out that if state governments, university endowments, unions and others did not give hedge funds their assets to manage, hedge fund managers would be making a lot less.

She said that democracy is not just for corporations. She left out almost everyone works for "corporations". Corporations are the basis of how we organize together for a substantial part of our lives. 

She conveniently left out that the entertainers and Hollywood people that support her are billionaires and millionaires  and CEOs.  To be more precise, she forgot to point out that almost the entire retirement and pension system is funded in one respect or another by our corporations.  She also left out that a significant portion of the wealth of the country is invested for the benefit of millions and millions of future retirees in the stocks and bonds of these corporations for which "most of us" work.  She also doesn't seem to care or know how the economy functions (for another time).

She should not be running for President because her campaign will be based on these kinds of deceptions and outright belief that the electorate is "stupid".


Wednesday, June 3, 2015


If you want to be really disgusted with the functioning of the Justice Department, take a look at the extensive list of antitrust cases filed under the Department's website.

The Justice Department has brought cases against Alcoa; a company that's gone nowhere, Eastman Kodak; a company that is virtually out of business, Microsoft; as it came under intense competition, IBM; still around but not really ever growing, etc. Now they are finally attacking Google, as it's primacy in the Internet market comes under fierce attack.

I decided to just pull a case at random. It's hard to believe but in 1993 our Justice Department, yours and mine, actually filed a case against a company for attempting to maintain the retail price of HOCKEY SKATES WITH V2 BLADES. There is no more inept view of our country than the destruction brought to the business community by the insanity of having an antitrust case over hockey skates.

Another example of a government department that's overzealous, over sized and out of control.


I decided to put the website back up because so many people reached out and requested I do so.  Thank you to all of our loyal followers. 

Friday, January 16, 2015


It may have been going on for a long time but there's a serious flaw in the Democrat's political stance.

When President Obama says he is for the middle class and not the rich cats of Wall Street it makes me disgusted because it's a big lie.

Millions of people work for his so called "Wall Street". Pension funds, mutual funds, banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies, real estate companies, payroll processors, consultants, accountants, lawyers and the list could go on and on.

Does President Obama mean that his supporters, George Soros,  Bruce Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, George Clooney, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Beyonce and Jay Z are the rich cats of Wall Street.  These people are multi-millionaires or billionaires.

The Democratic party should be held to explaining who exactly they are referring to.  Do we want to keep the majority of our people ignorant of economic realities?

Does he mean if a middle class person is invested in the stock market that they are rich cats of Wall Street? His whole political equation is so stupid that its not worth writing about anymore.

I've written hundreds of blogs.  Some were significantly correct and a few were somewhat wrong.  I tried my best to be objective and fair and for the most part I think I did a good job.

This will be my last blog and want to thank all the people who have followed the Osherow Institute.  May all be healthy and happy.


Shepard Osherow. All Rights Reserved