Obama's "Justice" dept OK's giant beer merger

The US Justice dept signs off in a merger of Anheuser-Busch Inbev NV and SABMiller PLC.  The merger is $108 billion and creates the larger beer company in the world.  And it will pretty much eliminate competition in the US.  After this merger, if you want to drink beer, you gotta buy it from the one beer company left.  What ever they will call themselves.  And they can charge anything they want, and we have to pay it, or do without beer. 
   A merger this big should never be approved.  It is so big as to create a monopoly.  And fleece consumers left and right.  So much for Obama looking out for the people.  He's looking out for crony capitalists.   

Donald Trump's family do good things for him

The children all look really good on TV.  Grownup, articulate, well spoken, properly dressed, well groomed, well educated, and solidly loyal to their father.  Speaking as a veteran parent, a guy who can raise that many good children is a guy deserving of respect.  And his wife Melania, showed great love and loyalty to Donald, in addition to being really hot.  Donald must be a pretty decent husband to attract and keep a woman like that.  Too bad they sabotaged her speech.  Melania would make a helova lot better First Lady than snooty Michelle Obama. 
   Anyhow, family counts.  Trump has some really good family. 

A place to prune the bureaucracy

A government-industry group is trying to reduce the accident rate in "general aviation" (Cessna, Pipers, Beechcraft and the like).  General aviation is running at 1.5 fatal accidents per 100,000 flying hours, where as business aviation is running at 0.5 fatal accidents per 100,000 hours.  So there is room for improvement. 
   There is general agreement that an angle-of-attack  (AOA)  indicator in the cockpit would do a lot of good.  Angle of attack is basically how much the nose is pointed up.  Point up too much and the wing stalls, airflow goes all squirrely, lift drops off drastically, the controls stop working, and the plane falls out of the sky  like a stone.  If this happens close to the ground, say while making an landing approach, the plane will hit the ground before the pilot can recover the aircraft. 
   And, such AOA indicators do exist.  And not too expensive.  You can buy one for about $1500.  But, only for "experimental" aircraft.  "Experimental" means home built, flown only by the builder, not legal to carry passengers.  For "certified" aircraft, factory built planes, legal for anyone to fly or fly in, the same AOA system might cost $10000 to $25000.  Same AOA equipment, the outrageous price hike is the cost of doing FAA paperwork, required on certified aircraft. 
   A Trump administration could do something about this government sponsored rip off. 

Words of the Weasel Part 35

Describing a 1989 British Land Rover in a Wall St Journal article.  "We did hit some weather. There's a lot of water ingress with this truck, but that's part of its charisma." 
   Water ingress.  Yeah right.  Any real person would say "It leaks like a sieve."  Part of its charisma???  Detroit figured out how to make a waterproof car back in the 1930's.  I've owned and ridden in a lotta things over the years,  Fords, Chevys, Dodges, Caddy's , Mercuries,  They all had problems of one kind or another, but none of 'em leaked rainwater.  For that level of build quality, you gotta go to England. 
   He also admits the Land Rover was only doing 11 mpg and burning oil at the same time.  Another example of British engineering at it's best.  A plain old V8 Chevy pickup will give you 16 mpg. 

Magical thinking at the Wall St Journal

Granted, it was a letter the the editor,  not an editorial or op-ed piece, but they published it, which means they think it has value.  The subject was bank reserves, a traditional sticking point between regulators and bankers.  Reserves are cash, or  liquid assets owned by the bank, which they can use to keep going when their loans default. Regulators always want the bank to have more reserves, bankers always want less.  If a bank cannot pay out cash to depositors making a withdrawal, the bank is in serious trouble.  Word gets around, at the speed of light, and all the depositors hot foot it down to the bank to withdraw their funds while they still can.  This is a run on the bank, every one wants all their money, right now, and no bank can do that, they don't have reserves that big, and all the money the depositors entrusted to the bank have been loaned out.  Poof,  one vaporized bank, FDIC has to pay off the depositors. 
    The WSJ letter write proposed that banks  purchase "put options" on their own stock.  A put option is short selling, a bet that the stock price will fall before the short seller has to deliver the stock.  Anyhow, the writer feels that this dodge would create "regulatory capital" ( what ever that might be).  This is pur magical thinking.  When loans go bad, a bank needs cash, or really liquid investments, like US T-bills which can be turned into cash on short notice, to pay off depositors.  Banks cannot give "regulatory capital" to a depositor at the teller's window, they need cash. 

Baton Rouge is horrible, just like Dallas

My sincerest sympathies to the slain officers, to their families, and to the entire city.  Their loss is too great to describe in words. 
    This is the third attack on police officers within a year.  It's frightening.  It shows a breakdown in the social order in the country.  Laws are obeyed in America because the majority of the people think they ought to be obeyed.   If opposing (shooting) the police becomes the dominant thinking, we are in deep trouble.  It will get to the point that people are afraid to go to the store, for fear they will be robbed or killed, or both.   
   And I don't know how to fix it, other than getting rid of Obama who is egging it on.  And getting our schools to pull up their socks, and teach the need for civic participation in government, and less glorification of  violent troublemakers in history.  Like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Allende,  and others. 

Season Five, Game of Thrones

I'm a year behind.  I don't have HBO, and Netflix doesn't let the show out until a year has gone by.   So I watched the first two discs of season five this week.
  Metza Metza.   They suffered badly from the curse of the cameraman.  The cameraman is on a "turn the lights out" kick and the scenes are so dark you cannot even see the actors faces.  It's really dark.  I guess the cameraman thinks it's "arty" or something.  I think it sucks.  I think that turkey cannot read a light meter, and doesn't know how to set up the lights, you know a key light, a fill light, and avoid throwing double shadows.
   I am loosing track of the plot.  Arya is getting mixed up with a sorta religious group that lives in massive masonry buildings.  Arya wants them to train her to fight.  She certainly doesn't want to become a nun, that's not Arya.  Why she thinks she needs more combat training is beyond me.
   Anyhow, season five is not as good as previous seasons.