"Up A Spanking 62.4%"

That's how Alan Abelson described one of his sources in Barrons this week after admitting the fellow was down 35% in the prior year. Now deducting 35% from 100%, then increasing the remaining 65% by 62.4% results in 105.56%. Thus over a two year span, that worthy earned an astounding 2.28% a year.

Ming can hardly wait to pillage his piggy bank giving that clod funds to invest. Sometimes meatball mathematics should be examined with a jaundiced eye to see just how badly investment gurus do. At least that fellow stayed around to recoup his losses. Most hedge fund honchos close up shop only to open new funds so as to not have to get back to zero before collecting their 20% fees on net gains taxable at capital gains rates rather than ordinary income rates which such fees are, all such treatment courtesy of their lobbyists' efforts in Washington.

Only Megalomaniacs Need Apply

Want to be important but have no accomplishments to buttress that desire? Want to control people but have no money to influence their behavior? Want adulation but don't even remotely deserve any? Ming has the answer for you.

Run for public office. Promise the Great Unwashed whatever they want to hear. Lie shamelessly. Remember, the bigger the lie, the less likely it will be dismissed as an untruth. Most people still have a tenuous hold on reality and cannot envision anyone so flagrantly sporting with the truth so they tend to believe a really big lie.

It is clear that anyone that wants public office is unworthy of holding public office because their motives are so very impure bordering if not exceeding the pathological. So vote for Ming. He is impelled by everything that motivates your garden variety politician and then some. This could be your last chance to get a really good philosopher king that has all the answers. Don't wait. Vote now and vote often even if you don't live in Chicago.

Good News

Billy Mays lives. Ming just saw a T.V. advertisement for something improbably called The Big City Slider Station. There was Billy, annoying falsetto and all, flipping hamburgers and inveigeling you to send for some crappy gadget for those of you too challenged to shape a hamburger pattie on your own. But that's not all. He'll also send you another perfectly useless gadget designed to slice your fingers for those few of you too poor to own a knife. Just pay the exorbitant shipping and it's yours free.

Only in America can you keep on earning money after you're dead. In fact, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley cleverly made their best career moves after their demise.
Who knows how much you can make after you're gone. Bet you just can't wait to find out.

The Noble Nobel

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as the Mahatma or Great Soul never won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was nominated more than once, but never won. To garner the answer to this paradox, Ming had to finally fall back on that time honored cliche upon which all decision making bodies operate. Form over substance. They couldn't get the guy to wear a tuxedo. After all, whose going to stand around dressed to the nines to hand off an award to someone who shows up in their underwear? Q.E.D.

How Do They Know?

True story. Ming was at the newsstand in the Path train station two levels below the street at the former World Trade Center site trying to read a newspaper without paying for it when some tourist asked if he was a New Yorker. She wanting directions to Battery Park which the gracious Ming gallantly provided without even mugging her.

The question is how did she know? Admittedly, Ming says earl when he means oil and oil when he means earl but she couldn't have known that. Was it Ming's shifty look? Was it his ability to snarl without provication? On the other hand, Ming can always spot a tourist. They all look like refugees from some toothpaste commercial and actually try to look people in the eye. Some of them even smile which no real New Yorker would ever do in mixed company let alone in public.

Ming is now practicing in front of the mirror saying things like "gosh", "howdy", "excuse me" and other things New Yorkers would never say so he doesn't stand out should he ever venture west of the Hudson River.