Friday, February 01, 2002

NOW I Understand!
I got this from a former colleaguewhere I used to work.
For those of us having a hard time understanding this Enron thing .. .. ..
Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
Communism: You have two cows. You must take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
Enron: You have two cows. You borrow 80% of the forward value of the two cows from your bank, then buy another cow with 5% down and the rest financed by the seller on a note callable if your market cap goes below $20B at a rate 2 times prime. You now sell three cows to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at a 2nd bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more and this transaction process is upheld by your independent auditor and no Balance Sheet provided with the press release that announces that Enron as a major owner of cows will begin trading cows via the Internet site COW (cows on web).

Heh.
He Has My Vote
SiliconValley.com reports on Colin Powell at the World Economic Summit:
U.S. Secretary of State Powell seemed most animated when he talked about the causes, namely finding a way to cure the conditions of hopelessness and rage that fuel people who have nothing left to lose. Powell, once considered an afterthought in the Bush administration, may still be on the margins there. But to people outside he has become a major political leader. I would vote for him for president.
So NOW Will I Have More Fun?
Today I am a blonde, sort of.
I went to the hairdresser's yesterday to get a trim and get my hair lightened because the stuff I put on made it much to dark and much too red. So, the result, which is not what I expected, is that I now am a blonde with red highlights. I could tone it down, and maybe I will. But, for now, I think I'll give myself the experience of being a blonde. I might even like it.

Like Gloria Steinham, I lost track of my real hair color years ago. I'm sure by now there's lots of gray, and I'm just not ready to look like a grandmother, yet, although I will become one for the first time this July.