               |
MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER By Mike Gasior The title of this month's edition stems from the amazing media circus I have borne witness to the past few weeks regarding the steroid "scandal" in Major League Baseball. Those of you who have been readers of this hideous newsletter of mine for any period of time have long ago realized that I have a difficult time suffering crybabies, and have an even deeper loathing for hypocrites. For those and other reasons I find myself unable to restrain making a couple of comments on America's current social condition. Of course I will also share a couple of thoughts of a financial and economic basis to prevent people from seeking an immediate refund of their subscription fee for my newsletter. I certainly want everyone to think they are getting their money's worth for their publication dollars. First let me make an official announcement: HEDGE FUND SEMINAR IN GRAND CAYMAN We just finalized the details with our hotel in Grand Cayman and can now tell you that the "Providing Services to the Hedge Fund Industry" conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman Resort on May 18th, 19th and 20th. I received several phone calls and notes from friends on the island letting me know the Hyatt was going to be closed until December, but the beachfront component of the resort is currently open for business, and we are in a very nice meeting room steps from the beach and pool. There is still some availability for the sessions and you can view the entire program description as well as register at this link: http://www.afs-seminars.com/cayman.html The session in Bermuda last year was terrific and I'd love to see you there. GREAT SESSIONS BEING HELD IN LOS ANGELES, CHICAGO AND NEW YORK I will also be presenting four extremely popular sessions in the next month in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and would love to see you or your colleagues attend: Securities Operations, Processing & Accounting Hedge Funds Introduction to Securities & Markets Swaps and Swap Derivatives THIS MONTH'S VIDEO CLIP IS "UP" In keeping with the theme for 2005, the video commentary this month will focus on the marketplace for preferred stocks. While it may seem as though this topic is ripe for extreme boredom, there have been many innovations in this segment of the market in the last decade, which has dramatically changed the landscape for a product historically appropriate for widows and orphans. You can view high-speed and low-speed versions of the clip on the homepage at: LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT CAST THE FIRST STONE First and foremost, let me cop to lifting the "mother's little helper" line from a Beatles tune. But frankly as I watched the recent nauseating news conferences by Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, the lyric popped into my head and I haven't been able to shake it. And before anyone starts getting all up in arms over the comments I am about to make, I think it is reasonable to ask yourself the following questions first. If the answer to any of them is "yes" I don't think you can say boo to me by the end: --Have you ever taken any antidepressant? The above list is a lot shorter than I could have made it, but based on the statistics I've observed there should only be about 14 people in the United States who can claim to have said "no" to all the questions. Those are the only people who can legitimately bust my chops about what is coming next. Barry Bonds reported to spring training a week ago and decided to immediately hold a press conference where he continued to be defiant and angry about the whole situation and has yet to publicly admit that he's ever taken anything. Jason Giambi used his press conference to "apologize" to fans for letting them down, although never directly addressed the topic of taking steroids. In testimony elsewhere he has admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs, although unfortunately for him, he apparently couldn't get his hands on the kind that make you better at baseball. I also think that Yankee fans wouldn't had even felt an apology was necessary Mr. Giambi averaged 50+ home runs for the past few seasons like Mr. Bonds. There was even an interview by George Stephanapoulos with Arnold Schwarzenegger with Mr. Stephanapoulos asking the governor if he had to do it over again, would he have still taken the steroids during his body building heyday, which he has always openly admitted he had. I give Arnold credit for answering quickly and directly "absolutely". I don't mean to suggest that I believe that taking them was a good idea, but I definitely like the candor and honesty of the answer. It's a lot better than the usual weasel type of response that politicians are more famous for. Perhaps some of you might remember that about a year ago I dropped an almost flippant comment into this newsletter stating that professional sports should just let the athletes take whatever the heck they want and then there would be nothing to police anymore. I was surprised at the amount of email I got scolding me for such a horrible and reckless comment, and I truthfully don't remember getting one note that even remotely agreed with the idea. This is where the seed for this month's comments was born. I'm quite tired of the hypocrisy and "holier than thou" attitude that seems to permeate from nearly ever crevice of the American social landscape. The media has widely reported how the election this past November was said to be one of morals and of values. The politicians offer that America is somehow sick of things like the Janet Jackson stunt of last year's Super Bowl, Howard Stern and the torrent of foul language in our popular culture. But how does one explain how "Desperate Housewives" and "Sex in the City" are among the most popular television shows? Why is it that the porn industry has larger revenues than both mainstream Hollywood movies and the live gate at professional athletics? Somebody must be watching these programs and buying this porn, no? And please don't begin passing judgment on me as some overly moral, Holy Roller type either. I don't have anything at all against "Desperate Housewives", "Sex in the City" or porn. All three have their place in society and there are clearly swarms of people who enjoy them very much. I'm simply trying to paint the picture that there clearly plenty of folks out there who on one hand lament the state of our values, and then use the other hand to change the channel to watch Terri Hatcher naked in the shrubbery. Now let us tackle the issue and crisis of "performance enhancement". FACT: Last year American sprinter Kelli White won both the 100 and 200 meter world championships in Paris, only to have her titles stripped from her after testing positive for the stimulant Provigil. COUNTERFACT: The United States Air Force officially adopted Provigil as the stimulant of choice for pilots flying extended length combat missions. I particularly love the irony of the above situation, but it only begins to open the chasm that seems to exist between what is considered acceptable behavior for the general public versus what is okay for professional athletes to do in order to improve their performance. Consider these other behaviors deemed acceptable for the general public: --Back near the beginning of the 1990's stock market rise, Barron's did a very interesting piece (with charts and all) showing how the increase in stock prices was in almost perfect proportion to the increased use of Prozac and similar anti-depressants. --There have been studies that claim over 80% of men who use the various medication to enhance "male performance" are using it to make their experience more enjoyable and don't actually have the condition that these drugs are marketed to treat. Talk about a recreational drug. --One of the fastest growing drugs out there isn't even a drug. It's a poison that is injected into people's faces to paralyze the muscles called Botox. Imagine traveling back in time 100 years or so and explaining this idea to someone you found on the street. This list could go on and on and on. Why should someone give up Big Macs when they can take a drug to reduce their cholesterol? Why go on a diet to lose 100 pounds when I can have part of my stomach surgically removed or the fat sucked out via liposuction? Balding? Just rub some cream on your head or take a pill and maybe your hair will grow back. There are lots of professional musicians and actors making use of the high blood pressure medication Propanolol to help them with the problem of stage fright. My doctors are aware of my somewhat brutal travel schedule and have offered me an assortment of drugs to help combat jet lag, including a steroid you inject into your skin. So far I've declined these offers. When you begin to examine the world around you, there is an endless list of conditions, both life threatening and trivial, which have benefited from the advancing use of modern science. We should all thank God for the wonderful world in which many of us are privileged to live. But let's get off of the high horse that too many people seem to sit. Let me make this extremely clear. Even with my backhanded suggestion of letting professional athletes do whatever they'd like, I am very much against performance enhancing drugs being allowed into sports. I was a VERY serious track and field athlete from age 9 through high school and can still recite all my personal bests in the events I competed in. Since I was a sprinter and jumper I used to marvel at the records set by Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics as well as those set by Bob Beamon and the sprint team in 1968 at Mexico City. I didn't appreciate at the time how cool it was that I could cleanly and accurately compare my results to athletes who came years and perhaps decades before me. But how do we compare the records that will soon be set by Barry Bonds to those set by the immortals Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron? That's the thing we cherish about sports; which is that it isn't just a competition to beat the guys you are currently playing against, but an immortal contest pitting the athlete of today versus the heroes of the past. Baseball has steadfastly hung on to the wooden bat for precisely that reason, but an outside influence like pharmaceuticals has now invaded the perception of history. It is a problem that now plagues many sports today. The three sports that I have competed in at high levels were track and field, tennis and most recently golf. All of them individual endeavors and the winners vividly determined without the need for corrupt judges or scoring. The champion is easily separated from the loser by anyone watching the event. Although I did it myself as a kid, I'm not sure if I can compare the track and field records of today with those of Jesse Owens, Bob Beamon or Lee Evans. Steroids and other performance enhancers created that cloud. In my other two sports, tremendous advances in equipment have dramatically altered the game. I started out playing with a wooden racket as a kid, and then played with aluminum and early graphite rackets during my college and professional days, marveling at the increase in power I enjoyed. Still, today's game bears little resemblance to the glory days that I remember. I can remember watching Rod Laver and thinking there would never be a more talented all around player than him again. But in today's boom-boom game I wonder if "Rocket" Rod would have even have even won a single Grand Slam tournament. I suspect he might not have, and that is definitely a shame. Technological advances in both clubs and ball construction have even more dramatically affected golf than tennis. Today there are usually at least 100 PGA Tour golfers who drive the ball further than Jack Nicklaus did during his heyday in the 1960's. I'll beg to suggest, however, not a single one of them is a better player. The improvement in equipment isn't all bad for some people since it has served to extend the career length of many players. I don't have to go back any further than last weekend for an example, in which 53 year-old Jay Haas beat the number one player in the world, Vijay Singh in the World Match Play Championship. It actually struck me very funny a few years ago when Augusta National, home of The Masters golf tournament, decided they would lengthen the golf course to make it tougher. This drew comments that they were trying to "Tiger proof" the course and none other than Charles Barkley claimed racism was behind the decision. What is funny about the comment is that even before they lengthened the golf course, there were probably only 10 or 15 players with any sort of legitimate chance to win The Masters. When you lengthen the course there is now likely only 7 or 8 players with a real shot, and Tiger would definitely be one of them. Earl Woods made the very poignant observation that if you really wanted to "Tiger proof" a golf course, make it a few hundred yards shorter. That way power is reduced in the equation and now maybe a hundred guys would have a chance. The summary of my ramble is that it remains important to try and keep these performance enhancers out of sports at all levels, but we need to stop acting as though everyone should be shocked and outraged. The athletes are simply following the same exact path that seemingly everyone in the general population is traveling on. The path to better, faster, higher, longer, smarter, more attractive and longer lives that would be desirous by anyone. To expect that athletes would want for anything less for themselves would be culturally foolish. If sports genuinely want to discourage this type of cheating, the sporting organizations will need to begin treating the situation as if it were actually a serious one. Even with supposedly tougher measures recently adopted by Major League Baseball, I think a player can now test positive for steroids many, many times before they will actually be banned from the game. Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose (easily two of the best players who ever wore a uniform) are still banned from the game for life and not in the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball. You tell me which offense Major League Baseball considers "serious". Barry Bonds can probably suck down steroids like they're M&M's for the remainder of his career and easily be elected to the Hall of Fame on the first-ballot. He'd just better not bet on it. MORE STUPID POLITICIAN TRICKS Although officially retired from politics, former senator Bob Kerry stuck his foot back into the picture with an editorial essay that appeared in USA Today several weeks ago. I won't bore you with the entirety of his foolishness, but I will quote for you my favorite part: "Social Security and Medicare are seen as a vital part of American life. They represent a powerful intergenerational contract between younger Americans in the work force who agree to be taxed on behalf of older, eligible Americans." Contract? Agree? Personally I have signed many, many contracts in my professional life, but I can sincerely not recollect signing this one where I "agree" to be taxed to support older, eligible Americans. Please understand that I don't have anything personally against older Americans or Social Security per se. I'm simply sick of politicians on both sides of the aisle making these sorts of outlandish claims as to what anyone may or may not believe. It would be my preference that they just clearly state what THEY think or believe, however, this trait seems all too rare in today's politics. I cannot and will not speak the people of 1935 when Social Security was first being discussed, but here is my suspicion. If given the choice between the Ponzi scheme that Social Security would eventually become, or their own account that received contributions from their pay and employer, I suspect they would have chosen the latter. I'm still not sure if personal accounts will do much to solve the current Social Security problems, but it would have been a fabulous idea in 1935. TWO EXCELLENT DVD'S Most everyone who knows me knows of my love of all types of music and I have shared some of my favorite musically themed DVD's with my readers in the past. Just recently I acquired two videos, and although they are quite different from each other, both are incredibly interesting to watch. The first one is a somewhat abstract title, and a little difficult to find (although Amazon has it for $22.48) and is titled "Mayor of the Sunset Strip". It is a documentary chronicling the life and times of Rodney Bingenheimer, and if you have never lived in the Los Angeles area or are under 30 years old, "Rodney on the ROQ" was, and is, a legendary figure in the emerging rock and roll scene in LA as a disk jockey on KROQ who helped introduce the world to the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, David Bowie all the way up to No Doubt. His story is both fascinating and extremely sad. I won't even begin to list the artists who show up in this film because they are almost too numerous to mention. What I will tell you is that if you didn't already know this was someone's actual life story you'd begin to think it was a Spinal Tap/Forrest Gump type of spoof. If you love music, I promise you this movie is something you definitely have to see. Video number two is 210 minutes of just the best pure musical enjoyment you can imagine. Recorded live at The Cotton Bowl in Dallas over June 4th and 5th, 2004, the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival features some of the greatest musical talent from various genres of the past 40 years. I'm not going to do offer you much more than the following PARTIAL list of who you will see playing live on this DVD: --Eric Clapton That list of the most recognizable names also pales in comparison to less well-known players who are equally talented. No pretense. No competition. No B.S. Just world-class musicianship from the opening to the end of this two-disk package. So go buy it, pour yourself some of your favorite beverage and crank it up as loud as you can without the neighbors calling the police. BRAINTEASER First and foremost, I came across the question I'm about to propose to you and thought I was quite the smart Alec genius, which I am prone to, and then became fairly agitated when I realized that I'd been had. So without helping you too much, think this situation through completely before snapping your answer off. There is a trick here. "If I were in Hawaii and dropped a bowling ball in a bucket of water which is 45 degrees F, and dropped another ball of the same weight, mass, and size in a bucket at 30 degrees F, both of them at the same time, which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket first?" Give it some serious thought before peeking at the answer, and remember that I warned you. http://www.afs-seminars.com/brainteaser_Feb2005.html And the answer to LAST month's brainteaser is: Henry should have Gretchen pull the trigger again without spinning. We know that the first chamber Gretchen fired was one of the four empty chambers. Since the bullets were placed in consecutive order, one of the empty chambers is followed by a bullet, and the other three empty chambers are followed by another empty chamber. So if Henry has Gretchen pull the trigger again, the probability that a bullet will be fired is 1/4. If Gretchen spins the chamber again, the probability that she shoots Henry would be 2/6, or 1/3, since there are two possible bullets that would be in firing position out of the six possible chambers that would be in position. Copyright 2005, Michael Gasior. All Rights Reserved. |
||
Home | Register | Courses | Course Locations | In-House Seminars | Consulting Services | 2008 Schedule Newsletter | Video Commentary | Radio Shows | About Michael Gasior | Glossary | Alumni | Links | Contact Us |
|||
AFS Seminars LLC:
500 Chamberlain Hill Rd. : Middletown, CT 06457-5564 Tel: (860) 347-6568 Fax: (860) 347-6258 |
|||
Material Copyright © 2008 AFS Seminars LLC |
|||
February
2005 Newsletter
