Stockstradamus AKA Stocky’s Blog

Sometimes I read a news story that makes me laugh for the moment and sometimes there are those stories that the more you think about them later the more you laugh. For days on end.

I came across a DJ News Service story posted on a message board that has MSFT puffing out their chests and bragging how they, not AAPL or GOOG, will dominate the mobile/smart phone market.  

First of all, who knew MSFT was big into this market? Second of all, I guess that explains all the crappy UI’s on all those phones.

But let’s go to the story:

In short, some new and very powerful forces are attacking Microsoft´s leading position in the business of creating new generations of smarter cellphones, a business that Microsoft says is increasingly key to its future.

What is Microsoft going to do? In essence: Nothing different, according to Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft´s mobile products manager.

Do nothing different?? Sounds like a winner of a strategy there Scott.

Meanwhile, its new rivals in Google and Apple are starting from scratch in a complex business they don´t know much about, illustrated best by Apple´s recent stumbles introducing its iPhone.

Apple’s recent stumbles with the Iphone!!!????? You gotta be fucking kidding me. It was only the most succesfull release of a consumer electonics device in the history of mankind!!! What delusional fuckwads.

“We´ve emerged as a leader and are positioned for long-term success,” Rockfeld said.

Microsoft hasn´t changed much in how it sells its phone software, but it has been tinkering with how it adopts and implements its mobile strategy. As a consequence, in recent weeks, Microsoft´s mobile software unit has been reorganized, and two veterans of Microsoft´s Xbox videogame unit now play key roles.

XBOX360?!?!?!????? You mean the product that has yet to make a penny profit and who’s losses are above 6 BILLION dollars and still counting?????

Don’t stop there Scotty, why don’t you bring in some key veterans from The Zune. Or if they are too busy working on their resume’s you could pull some people from the Vista team. Unless they are too busy providing help for customers who are trying to roll back to Win XP after installing Vista. Geeze what dolts.

Microsoft is confident it not only can continue leading the market but also be the one responsible for driving its overall growth.

“What we´re doing is sticking to our strategy,” Rockfeld said. “We are built to scale and can grow as rapidly as the smart-phone market grows.”

MSFT shipped 11 million “smart phone units” in 2007. AAPL shipped 1 million Iphones in Q4 2007 and expecdts to ship 10 million Iphones in FY 2008. That comes to …. 11 million Iphones. Imagine that. The same number as MSFT shipped in 2007. While AAPL is just getting rolled out worldwide.

That MSFT strategy of not changing anything sure sounds good to me.

Could these MSFT Morons do any worse if they were trying to run the company into the ground??

Buy AAPL.

Is Stocky smarter than most of the people on Wall St? Maybe not. But am I smarter than Mark Long? (mark.long@dowjones.com)

Goddamn right I am.

Who is Mark Long? He is the guy who wrote this in a DJ wire report this morning:

Halliburton’s shares were hit Friday along with other energy-services firms after rival Schlumberger posted weaker-than-expected results and offered a bleak portrait of the months to come.

Weaker than expected results?????

• THEY BEAT ESTIMATES FOR BOTH THE TOP + BOTTOM LINE!!!!!!!!!

Bleak portrait of the months to come?????

• THEY SAID NO SUCH FUCKING THING!!!!!!!!!!!

As I detail in my previous post, the ONLY issue SLB had was pricing pressure for a small part of their North American business. But because of morons like Mark Long the stock got crushed - down 12% on Friday.

Today, it’s down another 4% to $95. This is fucking criminal. Douchebags like Mark Long don’t deserve to be running a Dairy Queen never mind reporting on multi-billion dollar corporations.

Not everyone on Wall St. is so stupid. Here is how some of the higher than room temperature IQ types have reacted to SLB’s quarter today:

• Friedman, Billing & Ramsey raised their price target to $124
• UBS Reiterates it’s BUY rating
• Wachovia on Monday reiterated its market perform rating for Schlumberger Ltd

When the action settles, just buy the stock. Existing oil production is in decline, SLB’s technology and services slow the decline. They will make tons of money for years to come.

This story got almost no play in the Boston Media. I couldn’t find it in the Globe or the Herald. Although it might very well be in The Herald and just buried beneath the piss poor new web site design.

We go to a bostonchannel.com item for this:

BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick has signed a $280 million spending bill that gives pay hikes to various public employees, including the state’s district attorneys and himself.

 

But Patrick said he wouldn’t accept the 4.8 percent pay raise unless it’s recommended by an advisory panel he will appoint.

Previous mentions of this spending bill in the Boston Media noted that Patrick and his Lt Gov would not accept the pay raise. Now we find out that he will accept the raise IF it is recommended by a panel he will appoint.

We can add this to the list of Life’s sure things. Death, taxes and a recommendation for a pay raise for Gov Do-nothing. If you attempted to get odds on this from Vegas they would tell you to forget it. It’s a sure thing.

Does Deval actually think we are this stupid? Apparently he does.

And what about this nugget?

The spending bill also includes about $453,000 to double the governor’s staff in Washington so it can better direct federal dollars to Massachusetts.

Isn’t that what we pay Kennedy + Kerry for? What the fuck is all that money going to be spent on? I’m guessing we’ll have a few nationwide searches for new personnel that will end with new employees who happen to be supporters of Gov Do-Nothing.

Christ, this state is pathetic.

Normally I don’t really think I’m that much smarter than most of the people active in the Stock Market but days like yesterday make me wonder.

The action in the oil services sector yesterday was SO FUCKING STUPID I’d rather bang my head against my desk than write about what happened.

The only consolation I get is knowing with 100% certainty that the long term story is more intact than ever. The short term story is intact too despite what the fucking morons did yesterday.

SLB - Schlumberger is the king of all energy services companies. I love listening to their earnings calls as they describe how they continue to kick ass. Yesterdays call was no different. They beat estimates handily. Profit up 35%, revenue up 20%. Great results and ahead of the estimates.

So why did the stock drop 12% yesterday??? Let’s take it from a WSJ article:

Third-quarter profit at Schlumberger, which is seen as a bellwether for the sector, was up 35% on strong international growth, but analysts saw only the depressing results from North America,  

Depressing results for North America??? SLB only gets 25% of it’s revenue from North America and the vast majority of the “depressing results” was due to weather related downtime from Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Overall revenue was only down 3% in North America for reasons (weather) not related to ongoing demand or pricing pressure.

SO WHAT’S THE BIG FUCKING DEAL?!?!?!?

What went over the wires was a quote from the CEO from his answer to the first analysts question. Pricing has declined in recent quarters for work SLB does on North American land based Natural Gas rigs. This is a pretty small part of SLB’s business. They say it will likely continue to decline due to overall high supplies of Nat Gas (less pumping) and an abundance of equpment available to do the work. BFD. A nice cold spell this winter and Nat Gas supplies will be down and pumping will ramp up. Even if that does not happen, who cares. It’s not that big a part of SLB’s business.

When asked where the bottom of the price decline was, The CEO said he didn’t know. How could he know? What other answer could he be expected to give? He already said 2008’s declines would continue to be “single digits” but who could possible know beyond that?

So that’s the quote that all the stories jumped on:

“Where the bottom is I really don’t know,” Mr. Gould said. 

That single quote, referencing a tiny part of SLB’s business, on a day when they blew away earnings estimates, took SLB down 12% and crushed the whole sector.

OIH, the ETF that tracks the sector tanked 6% and my beloved FSESX Fidelity fund which counts SLB as almost 25% of the fund was down over 7%.

This sector has been on a huge run recently so some profit taking could be expected but for a gem of a stock like SLB to go down 12% in 1 day is fucking criminal.  

SLB’s counterparts report next week, including the universally hated HAL - Halliburton (Great company - weak stock) which only went down 3%. Which in itself is fucking stupid since HAL has much bigger exposure to North American Nat Gas work.

Expect a not so great quarter from HAL which will likely take the sector down further. 

Or as a friggin genius analyst said:

“If [Schlumberger] isn’t safe, who is?” asked Dan Pickering of Tudor Pickering Energy in a note to clients. “North America really hurt [Schlumberger]. Rest of the group is probably guilty until [they] prove themselves innocent.”

Except that North America DIDN’T REALLY HURT SLB!!!!! Other than that, your note to your clients is accurate you fucking dolt!!!!

Excuse me while I bang my head against my desk………………….

OK, I’m back. That felt better.

So, to end this really long post, buy some SLB, NOV + RIG next week, assuming the market does not continue it’s nose dive. The era of cheap oil is O V E R. SLB, NOV, RIG and companies like them will be pumping profits for years + years. 

Our do-nothing Governor is beginning to hear some faint criticism from his allies. Todays Boston Globe has a story about a group of Black Harvard Students holding a candlelight vigil to protest the do-nothing Governor doing nothing about violence in Boston.

Oh, wait. My Mistake. The Governors not a Republican???? Scratch the candle light vigil/protest. Let’s call it a “visit”.

Holding lit candles while wearing black suits and dresses, members of the Harvard Black Students Association visited Boston last night to add their voices to the chorus of those challenging Governor Deval Patrick to combat black-on-black youth violence

This follows yesterdays story which also laid a velvet glove on Gov Do-Nothing:

Among the 1,500 mourners was Governor Deval Patrick, who had been admonished a few days earlier by Odom’s mother for doing too little to quell gun violence in the city, the kind of complaint regularly directed toward mayors, not governors. Dickerson told the congregation that some had criticized Kim Odom for “calling the governor out” and asked whether Odom should expect more from Patrick because he is black.

Gun Violence in Boston has been on the rise for several years despite what that series of lying though their teeth billboards on the Mass pike behind Fenway have said. What’s interesting is occasionally the Globe gets it right. Just a few days before these stories were printed the Globe had a story about 3 major cities in Massachusetts where shootings have recently decreased by 45%. Drastically improving the lives of everyone who lives there.

But progress has been made in reducing gun violence, according to police statistics. Reports of shots fired have declined 45 percent through August, and the number of people struck by gunfire has dropped to seven, from 25, through August 2006, according to police. The city had five gun slayings last year but went nearly 10 months until recording the first gun killing of the year, on Sept. 30. New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, a former prosecutor, is a supporter.

…

Hockert-Lotz, who has publicly praised Sutter in opinion pieces published by the Standard-Times newspaper, said Sutter’s approach, and the drop in gun crimes, has given him hope. “New Bedford is the safest it’s been in the 20 years I’ve been doing business,” he said.

The Cities are New Bedford, Fall River and Taunton. 3 of the roughest cities in the State.

Well Holy Shit!!! You might think. Why couldn’t Boston do the same??? Bristol county must have some extra special gun laws to accomplish such a drop in Gun crime. Let’s get busy doing the same thing in Boston. Imagine how many lives could be saved!!!

Sorry, but you would be wrong to think that. It appears that no one in Boston or the State House is interested in reducing gun crimes by 45%. If they were they would be using the Bristol County model. There is nary a peep about what’s going on in Bristol County.

The reason??? 

O’Berg and police in New Bedford and Fall River are pointing to the aggressive move by Sutter as a key reason gun violence and reports of gun violence have seen double-digit drops in the three Bristol County cities since January, when Sutter took office.

While other prosecutors in Eastern Massachusetts seek to hold someone as a danger to society on a case-by-case basis, Sutter requests a hearing whenever anyone is arrested on gun charges.

“We’ve pushed the envelope,” Sutter said. “We haven’t had a 100-percent success rate, but we certainly are pushing it.”

Dangerousness hearings have been held in 58 cases, according to Sutter’s office, and defendants have been ordered held in 45 of them. Fall River has had two gun-related homicides so far this year, and there were two during 2006. But Police Chief John Souza said his city is more peaceful, as the reports of shots fired have dropped by 40 percent through September.

 Go figure. Locking up the scumbags who commit these gun crimes reduces the amount of gun crimes? How shocking is that?

One thing we know for certain is that Gov Do-Nothing will be doing and saying nothing about the success in Bristol County. To advocate locking up inner city thugs would risk a “visit” from the likes of Al Sharpton.

That’s an outrage Gov Do-Nothing will not stand for. And of course, speaking of outrage, there is none from Steve Bailey.

As I said in my very first post on the Howie situation, for someone like Howie who has spent his entire career ridiculing the misfortunes and missteps of others to find himself in this position is just laughable.

Especially since his current predicament was totally avoidable and entirely his own doing.

To Quote Dean Wormer: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.” In Howies case it ends up being expensive. At week 4 the running total of lost money NEVER to be recovered (it’s gone, baby gone) is: 

84,615.45

Go back to RKO, Howie. This should be easier for you than it was for D+C. WEEI openly mocked those 2 loudmouths and they bent over and took the money. They weren’t even locked into a contract like you were. They could have gone on the air someplace else. For a lot less money, sure but they at least had that option. You have no options. You can’t go on the radio anywhere. You’re not very good on TV, not that NECN pays very well anyways. You could up your workload at the Herald to 4 columns a week but how much can you really make at the Herald?

Stop delaying the inevitable, cut your losses and go back.

Howie, the clock is ticking. Step away from the lawyers and get back to work for Entercom before your bank account gets hurt more than it already has.

Unlike Billy Bulger you have no monthly kiss in the mail to take care of you and your family. You need to actually work for a living. And it could very well be even worse than that. As todays globe points out:

Entercom has already put Carr on notice that he could be liable for significant damages if he doesn’t fulfill his contract.

Do you really want to start paying lawyers to defend that kind of lawsuit at the same time you’re paying lawyers to appeal yesterdays decision? On just your Boston Herald salary? As that clock ticks, the damages grow. You could lose everything you own. Well, not the Florida property, you + OJ got that covered, but everything else.

When is that next Tuition payment due? What’s the in-state rate for Umass Boston? Am I making this clear enough for you?

Take the money and go back to RKO. All of the people who will be laughing their asses off at you would do the same thing. Me included. So suck it up and go back to work. D+C did it and they are bigger loudmouths than you.

When you get back on the air trash the bosses and the company. It’ll be great for ratings:

“Talk radio is a different animal,” Fishkin said. A host disgruntled with the station “might make for good radio. It’s about getting the viewer interested, creating controversy, not being boring. Controversy goes a long way in talk radio.”

Howard Stern was at his best before he went into therapy when he was ranting and raving about his boss Tom “Cheapasano” and dissing everyone in management. More ratings makes for more Clam Plates for Howie.

Go ahead. Take the dough.

Remember the courtroom scene in the movie A Few Good Men where Tom Cruise objects to a question asked of a witness and the Judge quickly overrules the objection? Whereupon Demi Moore jumps up and says:

“Your Honor I *Strenuously* Object!!”

The Judge looks at her likes she’s a whack job and issues the same decision again overruling the objection.

That’s what Howie’s Lawyers looked like yesterday. The same arguments in front of the same Judge only this time they really, really, really meant it. Gosh darn it, they were strenuously objecting this time!!!!!

Just like in the movie, the Judge didn’t change his mind. He upheld his decision and issued a disdainful ruling which I take from Todays Globe:

“Carr is not, as he argues in his brief, ‘in essence [subject to] a lifetime employment agreement’ with Entercom,” the Judge wrote. “And wherever he legally finds himself, it is of his own conscious doing. He has not, as he publicly claims, been placed into some form of high-paid indentured servitude by this Court.”

Stocky loves the reference to Howie’s “indentured servitude”. For more on Howie’s slavery complex see my earlier Kunta Howie post.

What does all this mean? 2 things:

IMUS IN THE MORNING!!!!!!!! (on WTKK)

Howie takes the Entercom money. And likes it.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years about our Hero Cap’n Carr, it’s his love of money.  

How much money is a big question. The Globe story says todays ruling “ratchets up Howies salary” by forcing RKO to match the WTKK offer but that offer was full of incentives based on ratings. It’s also unclear whether the morning drive time slot is considered part of the contract that RKO must match.

One possible scenario for Howie to save face and make his WRKO comeback would be for RKO to dump his nemesis Tom Finneran and let Howie have the morning drive slot for what he can claim is a much bigger salary.

Stocky admits that scenario is fairly unlikely but it’s not impossible. Could they move the Felon to afternoon drive? Would his probation officer need to approve that change in work hours???

Still lots of questions left unanswered. 
 

That didn’t take long.

FBN’s first 5 minutes of programming yesterday morning included a sports report. Odd for a business channel but Fox did say they were targeting more main street as opposed to wall st.

Not that CNBC is paying attention but … this morning on Squawk Box they also did a sports report, giving the scores of the 2 baseball playoff games and the Monday night football game. Joe Kiernan ended the report with “Now you’re up to date on Sports”.

Other than events like the Super Bowl and even then only in the context of how it affects business have I ever seen a segment on sports on CNBC.

What’s next? Local traffic reports? I guess we should watch FBN to find out.

Brian Maloney has another post up on Howie Carr. In it he contends that WTKK “quashed” rumors of an Imus return.

In another way, Greater has also positioned itself well: recent rumors that Don Imus might return to WTKK were quickly quashed. Instead, the company says it will wait for Howie’s legal battle to end.

Stocky is unsure how you could conclude that committing to waiting for Howie’s legal battles to end translates to “positioning itself well”. The legal battle could drag on for months. Waiting for that is a good position????

Contradicting himself in the very next graph Maloney says:

But WTKK desperately needs Howie Carr to join its lineup as soon as possible.

So how does commiting to waiting potentially months make them “well positioned”? What they need is someone other than a Temp in the morning slot. And they need it yesterday.

I still say that unless Howie settles and/or wins his case quickly with WRKO it will be Imus in the morning on WTKK.

But WTKK “QUASHED” that rumor, right? No. They didn’t. Here is the quote from a Jessica Heslam blog entry that Stocky missed. Just the title of the link should tell you what you need to know: “No-imus-for-now”

When asked if Imus could return to WTKK, station spokeswoman Heidi Raphael said today: “As you know, we are pursuing another avenue for mornings and we expect to prevail.”

That’s “QUASHED”???? Where in that answer did they say No? Maloney falls for the baloney but Stocky won’t.

Let me translate that for you: Howie better win his case ASAP or it’s Imus on WTKK.

Not a good start for FBN.

It took all of 49 seconds for one of the newsreaders to get something wrong.

Hitachi has a new chip (actually, smaller recording heads) that will allow hard drive makers to dramatically increase the amount of storage they can fit on a disk. Except the newsreader Chick called it Memory, not Storage.

Does it really take a geek to know that hard drives provide storage, not memory? Anyone who has ever compared PC’s or laptops before buying one at least knows that they are different things.

She looked good though.

And then we got an explanation that Hitachi is an ADR along with a definition of what an ADR is. Talk about unimportant info. Does it trade on the NYSE, NASADQ or AMEX? Who really cares if it’s an ADR and what an ADR is? 

Could be an internet first here. Who wants to live blog a game and sit through all those crappy commercials. Tivo blogging - way behind real time - is the way to go.

I had no intention of doing this but something made me jump out of my seat and fire up the laptop. No, not the back to back bombs by Manny and Lowell. It was the shot of John Henry’s reaction to Lowell’s HR.

Was that the wrinkly plagerist from the leafy suburbs, one Doris Kearns Goodwin with Henry???? Christ almighty. Didn’t we get enough of these get-a-lifers after the Sox won in 2004?

I’ve had enough of “The Sox as a religious experience”, thank you very much. Just the sight of her makes me want to gag. The only thing worse than seeing her would be another shot of Ben Affleck. Or maybe John Kerry could tell us all about “Manny Ortez” again.

Just go the Fuck Away!!!!

(Ready to un-pause the Tivo now. Some more “skip thru commercial time” built up)

So early this morning I’m getting ready to roll out of bed and as usual I’m listening to D+C on WEEI. On comes an ad for Nikki Tsongas. Typical crap about voting for someone who will “change Washington” and “bring home the troops”.

Which is all the more galling given the fact that Nikki’s main accomplishment in life was sleeping with Paul Tsongas.

But that’s not what this is about. At the end of the ad which slams Jim Ogonowski and praises Tsongas by name there was a disclaimer stating that no candidate had anything to do with the ad. It was paid for by Abortion Loving Democrat Women, AKA Emily’s List.

Stocky is embarrassed to admit that the first thing that came to mind was “Hey, that fucking commercial is illegal!!”

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law specifically forbids those type of ads within 60 days of an election. That Stocky knows this is evidence that I need to get a life.  

This will get no play anywhere.

The election will come on Tuesday and Tsongas probably wins. Who cares if months or years later, Emily’s list pays a fine. That’s assuming anyone even notices what they did.

Although just imagine the hysterics if the NRA started running ads for Jim Ogonowski. The Globe would be calling for congressional hearings.

Howie oh Howie. Wherefore art thou Howie????

Awful quiet on the Howie front. No leaked stories to the press from either side.

Hmmmmm. No idea what this means.

I still see Howie back at WRKO. He’ll take the money. What choice does he have?

We are now past week 3 of what should have been Howie’s new job at WTKK. The running total of lost wages is:

 75,961.55

Looking at that number my thought was “That’s a lot of fried clam plates”.

How many? Good question.

A delicious Clam plate at Kelly’s is $16.95. Add a Frappe for $3.95 and a large Coke (Diet, of course) for $1.95 and you get a total of $22.85.

Add the typical Howie tip and you end up with a total of $22.85.

That ends up being 3,324 Fried Clam Plates.

Put in perspective that comes to 1 fried clam plate a day for the next 9 years, 5 weeks and 1 day. (Howie, if you’re checking my math and why wouldn’t you, what else do you have to do, don’t forget the leap years.)

Despite what you may be thinking, it gives Stocky no joy to report this. I’m just serving the public.

Yes it must be true.

I think yesterdays story in the Boston Globe about Black Men being held to higher standards than whites in the workplace is just pure bullshit.

How does the Globe define “higher standards”? Are they being asked to work longer or harder for less pay? Nope. Are they given impossible to meet deadlines and then disciplined when they don’t meet them? Apparently not.

So what are the big outrages? Let’s see:

A Black guy named Michael James got a few comments when he wore shorts on a Casual Friday. According to him the obvious reason is because he’s a black guy. This is how far we’ve come in America when some guy with bony legs gets a comment about wearing shorts and he thinks he’s Rosa Parks.

Donovan Mcnabb makes an appearance with this complaint:

He said even when he plays well in a game, critics will say of him: “We would have scored more points if he would have done this.”   

I don’t know if Donovan has been paying attention to the media lately but there’s this new thing called Cable. On it they have lots of stations that do nothing but broadcast sports and do analysis of sports 24 hours a day. There’s also this thing called talk radio. There are entire stations who do nothing but criticize athletes 24/7.

If the only commentary allowed for a QB who played well is “He played Well.” There would be lots of dead air time.

And just a suggestion Donovan. The next time you’re in the Super Bowl and are trying to bring your team down the field for a needed score at the end of the 4th quarter try not to puke in the huddle. You choking dog.

Now back to Michael James:

James makes accommodations because of his 6-foot-2 height, which, he says, has made people view him as “threatening and menacing even though I’m the most peaceful person out there.” He shies away from making declarative statements at work, to prevent himself from appearing too aggressive. “I say, ‘What are your thoughts about it?’ rather than demanding they do certain things,” James says. “I put it out there in a fashion that they feel they have a choice.”

Let’s see … according to James his management style is not to act like a dictator. Instead he solicits opinions from others to gain a consensus; thereby getting buy in from those who will be doing the work.

THAT SOUNDS LIKE WHAT THEY TEACH AT FUCKING BUSINESS SCHOOL!!!!!!

But James does it because he’s a victim of Racism??? Give me a fucking break. 

More wisdom from James:

James finds the persistent negative stereotyping that accompanies having brown skin baffling. “It’s like we have our priorities in the wrong place,” he says. “My success shouldn’t be dependent on how I look or how well I can replicate what you’re comfortable with. It should be about what I bring to the table and how I help the organization advance in its goals and objectives.”

His success shouldn’t be dependant on how he looks??? What a noble concept. Too bad it’s illegal to practice that in America. Preferences must be given to women + minorities. If you’re a white guy forget about what you can bring to the table, black guys like James get the advantage.

Just a little more from James:

“I’ve been terminated from [a] job,” says James, who didn’t want to specify which company, “because I’ve taken on the top leaders based on ethical principles.

Now that’s a great career move. “Take on the top leaders”, that will get you far. I bet he lasted in that job a lot longer than some white guy with no affirmative action protection would have.

The whole premise of the article is such bullshit. EVERYONE modifies their behavior to fit in at work. It’s not a fucking elementary school playground. White + Black have to conform or they get canned.

Well, at least the hetero white male will get canned.

If you’re like Stocky, often times while reading a column in the Boston Globe a couple of burning questions come to mind:

        Who are these twits who write for the Globe?

And

         What the fuck do they do all day? It can’t be much.

Alex Beam answers question number 2 in yesterdays column leaving us with one less mystery of the universe to ponder.

It’s true that I hang around the house a lot …

Thanks for clearing that up Alex.

That description of Imus is courtesy of Brian Maloney at savewrko.com. While I don’t quibble with the description I do disagree with his conclusion. That Imus is too old to be a contender for his old position at WTKK.

The arguments against that are many:

Imus’ last contract still had several years left on it when he got fired so a new 5 year deal won’t run that much longer than his last deal. He received a multi-million dollar settlement from that contract. If he was too old + tired to continue he could easily retire with plenty of cake.

The Citadel contract has to be at least 3 years if not 5. Citadel will put him on scores if not hundreds of it’s own stations. Why wouldn’t WTKK?

Boston was one of Imus’ few major markets. By his standards he did pretty well here. You know Citadel will be shopping him to someone in Boston. Let’s see …. which talk station in Boston does not have a morning show???? Hmmmm, WTKK!!!!

Brian thinks that since Howie has 5-10 years left, WTKK will sit around and wait for Howies legal issues to get settled. That’s absurd. Howies situation could drag on for months and ultimately could end up with Howie not being allowed to work for WTKK. In the meantime WTKK’s ratings/revenues sink. What manager would risk their job by sitting on their asses and waiting for Howie.

The safe choice is to go with the known quantity. Imus.  

And as old and rapidly aging as Imus is, don’t forget about his wife. Without Imus on the air she goes back to being just another almost pretty blonde with a geezer husband waiting for her inheritance.

Before Imus got canned she had appearances on Oprah + Martha Stewart lined up to promote some dopy book she supposedly wrote. Imus probably needs to get back on the air just so he can get laid again.

She will make sure he works until the day he drops because once his fame is over so is hers.

They both could be getting Fucked by Don Imus.

In Deirdre’s case it’s dependant on Don’s Viagra prescrition staying current.

In Howie’s case it’s the new Imus/Citadel broadcasting deal.

As Drudge initially reported and Howie Kurtz follows up on, Imus is ready to strike a deal with Citadel.

Citadel Broadcasting, which owns 243 radio stations, including ABC Radio Networks, plans to put the I-Man in the morning slot on the powerhouse New York station WABC, the source said. The program would be offered in syndication to other stations around the country.

Italics added by Stocky.

It just so happens that Citadel does not own a Boston station. Imus, as untalented as he is, was still “successful” in Boston on … wait what was the station he was on …. WTKK!!!

You know the WTKK folks have to be considering cutting their losses and picking up Imus again. Imus is likely to come a lot cheaper this time around so if he was worth it before why wouldn’t he be worth it now for less money?

Citadel has a bunch of small stations that ring Boston who no doubt will have Imus on so why not syndicate him out to WTKK and “dominate” the dim-witted shut-in demo that Imus brings you?

It makes perfect sense.

The only potential problem is if Imus doesn’t want to screw a good friend like Howie.

Oh, Wait. HOWIE SUED IMUS AND WON!!! (at least his wife did)

Don’t think that old geezer Imus is too far gone to remember and don’t think he wouldn’t love to stick it to our man Howie.

Where does that leave our hero Cap’n Carr??

It leaves him pulling a D+C and crawling back to WRKO. Without the WTKK morning slot what is he going to do? Take the money of course. And like it.

And don’t think WRKO hasn’t considered this scenario. They are still operating as if Howie is coming back. I think he is.

Lots of Howie Coverage at savewrko.com but you heard this here first.

Well, here we are at what should have been the 10th day on the air for The Cap’n. Time to add another weeks paycheck relegated to the dustbin of Howie history.

Added to week 1 and the lost Oct 1 starting bonus it’s with a heavy heart that Stocky brings you:

67,307.70

{Insert Dr. Smith Voice Here} Oh, the Pain!!!

Stevie has another anti-casino column today which starts off with a lame shot across the Bow of Gov. Moonbat. Stevie calls him “Governor Slots”.

That’s Stevie being “hard on the governor for embracing gambling” again. But as he takes a tiny slap he can’t help but fall into swooning mode:

I have been hard on the governor for embracing gambling. But to be fair he is a man with great ambitions for the state - a very good thing - and he has been honest enough to say we are going to need new money to pay for it. 

If Stevie was really interested in being “fair” he would note that it’s only recently that Gov Moombat has “been honest” about needing money to pay for all of his “ambitions” AKA campaign promises.

During the campaign Kerry Healey nearly lost her voice screaming about how ridiculous all of Deval’s promises were. SHE WAS THE ONE who said over and over that there wasn’t enough money to do the things he was promising.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that our intrepid “business reporter” Mr. Bailey never wrote about this during the campaign. It’s only now after Deval is governor does Bailey become Mr. Authority on the states revenues and budget.

What’s really amazing is that at no time during the campaign was Deval in danger of losing. He had a huge lead yet he was falling all over himself pandering for votes; a puppet of the special interests.

God forbid his next election is close. Who knows what he’ll promise all the special interest groups.

His only response to Healey during the campaign was his mythical $750 million in waste and inneficiency he was going to eliminate from the budget.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any press releases on that one. In fact, one of the first things Deval did was restore millions of dollars in cuts the Romney administration had made in order to balance the budget.

But back to Stevie. He has a much better idea for generating revenue than casinos:

The math is not complicated: 10 cents a gallon yields $300 million; 20 cents a gallon is $600 million. The Massachusetts’ gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1990, is 23.5 cents a gallon; in New York it is nearly 39 cents. And unlike gambling, we won’t have to set aside a dime to treat the victims of raising the gas tax.

Raising the Gas tax. Gee, there’s a new idea. But what about the $750 mil Deval is going to find in waste + inneficiencies??? Oh, wait. He’s going to use that money to give us “property tax relief”. Or is it the 1000 new police officers he promised? It’s hard to keep these broken promises straight.

Could the lead Business reporter for the globe spell all this out or does it take some dope with a blog like Stocky to do this?

Apparently the answer is some dope with a blog.

This fund continues to rock. Most of the holding are mostly trading with the price of crude but there are days like yesterday when crude goes down but these stocks go up.

Rarely do you see the opposite action. Over time FSESX is putting some serious seperation between it’s own value and the price of oil. While pullbacks are guaranteed to occur this fund will rocket higher. Take a look at the returns from the top 10 holdings. All of these companies have bookings several years out.

With returns Year to Date of more than 50%, Stocky loves this fund more than life itself.  

With the Cap’n down to only 1 paycheck, it’s hard to imagine that he won’t come crawling back to WRKO like D+C did to WEEI. 

Who has deeper pockets, WRKO or Howie?

Reportedly, Howie would have scored a $50K bonus if he was on the air at WTKK by Oct 1, 2007.

It’s now Oct 2nd and no Howie on WTKK.

As Bill Clinton would say, “I feel your pain, Howie”.

50 large. That’s gonna leave a mark.

How long can Howie go before he pulls a D+C?

If you’re keeping score at home, our 1 1/2 week total is:

58,653.85

That’s a lot of fried clams. It’s hard to imagine that Howie could go back on the air at WRKO but the same was said of D+C on WEEI. It seems unlikely but it’s not impossible.

If Howie loses the court case(s) what other choice will he have?