“When a Mere Ass-hat Just Won’t Do”
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Before I talk about this Disco Ball Market, I want to take a second to explain why I love this country and I love going to work every day, despite the imminent Tsar Bomba of Damocles hanging over this economy thanks to the near-brain dead or simply evil (your pick) statist government with which we’ve been collectively saddled.
You see my line of work brings me into contact with blindingly smart people every day. And not just smart people, like your average egghead dufus at State U., but smart ambitious fellows not unlike Le Monsieur Le Docteur de Le Fly. People who want to actually do and create things in a clever and efficient fashion that no one has considered before.
It gives me such hope, you see. (Aside: Can I use that word, or has it been wholly discredited like the otherwise once-honorable “liberal?”)
Anyway, it gives me hope for this benighted land, that we might still have the IP to make it “on to the next,” as Jay-Zee would say. These are the people that are continuing to create value every day, even in the worst of market circumstances. And here I am, just lucky enough to stumble into them every now and then, and maybe lend them a hand along the way.
Without getting too deep into specifics, let me proffer this example of the young man I met this morning…
This guy used to be in plain vanilla big project software consulting. Serendipitously, or unluckily depending upon your tolerance for such things, many of his clients were large state governments. You know the drill if you’ve been exposed — this is a client base characterized by horrendously long sales cycles, diffident bureaucracy, inefficient and/or politically-driven decision making — you know the drill. The biggest net positive to that kind of customer base is that it’s magnificently sticky, if perhaps only by dint of inertial motion (thanks Newton).
You’re probably saying “so what? — there’s a myriad of private sector gov’t suppliers out there, and they all sell for about 5.0x cash flow and maybe 0.75 to 1.0x sales.” Big whoop, right?
Well, that’s where the innovation I so love comes into the picture. This young man came to realize, via quiet hard analysis and slow revelation, that the value he could extract from his customer is so valuable to the outside world, that he can afford to pay them and himself, and still make four to five times the margins he was originally making in his original model.
Think of that for a second. He can afford to pay his clients to allow him to do what he does, which also happend to be a value added, money-saving service to them. You think that’s going to drive some demand for his products, maybe?
I love my job. God Bless America, and screw Damocles while You’re at it.
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This Disco Ball Market is turning and turning and sparkling and sparkling, and it’s even worse on my poor M. Le Fly’s brain than the chemical laser-krunk, electro-youtube sonic Ecstacy-Assist “the kids” are replacing Gloria Gaynor with these days.
Sometimes I feel like one of those “lucky ones” of the generation X+ who were too young for Viet Nam, but too old for the Gulf Wars, but replacing those armed conflicts with the twin piers of “Disco” and “Electronica.” Much like the tenets of war, the universal deficiencies of bad club music remain eternal.
One is driven to speculate as to whether the Spartans and Etruscans had to winnow their young from the atonal lull of the thumping lyre. Better than warring with the Athenians, I guess…
Watch the dollar. If it breaks down, we will continue up. However, today’s action in gold and silver seem to be signalling, if weakly, that we’ll have a pullback here. I may lighten on some of my calls, at least temporarily.
In the mean time, the banks BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation [[BBT]] , Citigroup Inc. [[C]] , KeyCorp [[KEY]] , and Pacific Capital Bancorp [[PCBC]] and my favourite (sic) L.E.D. techs, Cree, Inc. [[CREE]] and especially Veeco Instruments Inc. [[VECO]] look very strong, telling me this is not an “about to plunge” market, no matter the sweaty-palmed Denninger-types’ trepidations.
Please also remember to take any spare change lying around in the cushions and apply them to a short of ArvinMeritor, Inc. [[ARM]] , so I may defeat mine righteous enemee (sic), CA, and proceed to the Elite Eight.
Thanks in advance.
Update: The real thang, yo’ —
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I 450 300]______________
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