As IF Times

link Why Groupon Is Poised For Collapse.

Lurking underneath the hype of crazy valuations for ‘social networking’ companies recently are some sobering realities of their business models.  Talk abounds now of a $100 billion dollar valuation for Facebook for example.  Ahem.  Groupon has seen a meteoric rise from only 3 years ago to achieve some real eye popping valuations in advance of their much anticipated IPO.   But what are people buying?  This article gives a revealing look at the mechanics of the Groupon model.

For those not steeped in finance, it’s essentially a mechanism to give short term loans to small businesses, which, under the right terms, is a good thing.  It’s somewhat eerie to consider that the financing model looks strikingly similar to the whole housing mortgage disaster which crippled the American economy just recently.  In both cases, money was essentially lent on favorable terms in advance to people on the financial fringe on the expectation that the carrying cost would be offset by rising house prices or by increased sales volumes in the case of the Groupon model.  Now that I think about it, that’s the same model used to sell Government treasury bonds.  Hmm.

This all works as long as things go as expected.  What are the odds of that not happening?  I’m sure the flinty eyed MBA’s and actuaries at the big investment firms have done their risk calculations to arrive at a resultant valuation for the IPO.  After all, to float a $100 billion market cap company, you’d have to convince a lot of smart people, not just the rubes buying 100 shares for their grandkids.  The truth is, many investments are good investments only because everyone else thinks they are, not neccesarily because of fundamental reasons.  Stock investing is prone to the dictates of fad just like accesories in the fashion world.  Compounding that is the reality that many investment professionals drink from the same cup as far as market wisdom; the Bernie Madoff scam proved that just recently.

Actually, I think the Groupon founders are geniuses for creating such a finance model since it obviously fulfills a need in the marketplace.  The reality is that no one gets something for nothing in business.  Consumers may get goods at a discount using their services, but definitely not to get their stock.  If it were me, I’d wait for the discount.

link When race is mentioned in the Chicago Tribune – chicagotribune.com.

More idiocy masking as objectivity.  The ill advised policies of political correctness actively pursued by liberal sensibilities are fast becoming caricatures of stupidity.  In the animal world, only the highly advanced humans would ignore the most basic tenets of survival.  The natural equivalent of all of this politically correct nonsense would be if Wildebeest were to blithely frolic about while all around them lions began to gather. This is fantasy, we would never see this because Wildebeest are not that stupid.

In the human world, thanks to moronic notions of fairness, people are asked to literally turn a blind eye to the nefarious elements of society.  Apparently, the label of racist is the most heinous of all things one can be accused of, more to be avoided than other sundry labels such as, oh let’s say, murderer, child molester, or Internet creep.  We know this thanks to the exploits of Fidel Castro, Roman Polanski and of course recently, Anthony Weiner.  Because of this mentality, we have an entire expensive and cumbersome bureaucracy dedicated to making life miserable for the travelling public at airports including the prototypical Swedish grandmothers and nursing infants.  Rather than scrutinize the segment of society that has historically been most at risk to cause grief and mayhem to innocents, why not be inclusive and give the Mexican prisoner treatment to everyone? This despite the fact that troublemakers tend to have distinct characteristics of appearance and background.

The non-reporting of all the facts that pertain to the rash of mob attacks in many US cities, but in particular as depicted by this Chicago paper is fomenting the same type of willful stupidity.  If the ‘kids’ involved in the mob attacks are not only generally, but almost exclusively black, wouldn’t that be germane to the story?  When the Tribune reports that packs of ‘kids’ were attacking innocent civilians, are the readers supposed to imagine a gaggle of Richie Cunninghams mobbing them?  What if you had to fill out a police report?

“Well, let’s see, there were 7 or 8 of them…they were young… all had arms…some had hair….”

“Any other distinguishing characteristics? Hair color, race perhaps?”

“Oh no, we didn’t notice whether they were all black kids wearing baseball caps askew,  baggy pants  and speaking Ebonics or not, no sir, none of that occurred to us because we’re not racists at all, no sirree…”

The whole charade is farcical.  For some to pretend that racial issues don’t exist and that those dynamics don’t come into normal social interaction is ostrich behaviour at its best.  When the current President of the United States is elected into office coming out of nowhere, with no executive experience, no history of legislative achievements and with a closet full of sketchy collaborators, there is no explanation for it other than the naked truth.  He was elected because he was black.  Given similar qualifications, no other person would have been elected if they didn’t have the racial advantage.  If fact, much has been made of this milestone in American history.  This achievement has been endlessly trumpeted by the liberal left as proof of society’s evolution.  The only thing this has really proved however is that a black president can be just as incompetent as a white president.  But hey,  at least they were inclusive.  The policies and results derived from Obama’s time in office would never be tolerated by the public and media if he were not black.  In fact, any criticism of his agenda is construed as a racist attack.

Nevertheless, Obama proves that people of color can achieve high office and indeed THE highest office, so the on going arguments for politically correct sensibilities are outdated.  The old chestnut of the disadvantaged inner city black youth has less validity.  The  achievements of Obama, of Oprah, of Condaleeza Rice, of Colin Powell, although exceptions, prove that the possibility for great success exists for black people and that resorting to anti social, criminal lifestyles is an option, not a destiny.

The delusion of the left over the foibles of people of any color perpetuates the segmentation of people and prevents true equality in society.  It’s unclear to me why people should be regarded as one big homogeneous glop.   It is an affront to rational thinking.  Stupidity and brilliance are present in all peoples and as such, instances of both should be pointed out, especially by an ‘objective’ media.  Those that ignore this are the true racists.