David Carraturo's Blog, page 6

Robin WIlliams - RIP

I had never known or even heard of John Irving when I was 16 and on the set of World According To Garp with Robin Williams. I had the good fortune of meeting both men in the wrestling scenes as an extra.

Robin Williams was a strange dude, even back then ... but a great comedy talent and I would say a great actor based on his Good Will Hunting performance (among others).

Rest in peace, I hope you are in a better place.

I am the third person (in yellow shirt) to come over to Garp after he is shot.

http://movieclips.com/ZF7Ly-the-world...

Interview from the fall of 2012

Here is a local interview I did in the fall of 2012 with "Let's Talk Writing" host Vincent Dacquino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnGXx...

Nice PR for RBC Decathlon charity event

I received some nice PR for a charity event I am competing in.

http://eastchester.dailyvoice.com/spo...

Off topic, RBC Decathlon

I just signed up to compete for the 3rd year in a row at the RBC Decathlon (thedecathlon.org). This is truly a great event and last year under 200 Wall Street professionals raised $1.4 million for Sloan Kettering Children's Cancer Research.

I am 49 and am past any type of athletic prime for half the events, but for the other half I compete and ranked top ten in bench press, dips, pull-ups, 500 meter row and football throw. For anything with running, I did horrible, so I only finished 41st overall, but I did beat out former Olympic Decathlon Gold Medalist Dan O'Brien by 60 points. I also broke the record in the bench press with 42 reps of 175 pounds. The closest to me was the overall winner who did 40 reps.

This year I have lofty goals. I want to continue to raise money for the event ($3,000 goal) and I also want to shatter my bench press record with 50 reps before my 50th birthday and to also be crowned the strongest man on Wall Street (a separate award).

If all goes well, I am thinking of writing an exercise book geared towards the over forty generations.

Spark of idea

It is so exciting when your ideas for a book come together. Finally, after two and a half years, I have begun to officially write the third part of my Cameron Nation trilogy. I like the early ideas so far and what is good is that I am constantly thinking about the story line. Onward I go. This is probably going to take 6-9 months to take shape.

Option/Purchase Agreement for Columbus Avenue Boys

I just entered into an Option/Purchase Agreement for my novel, Columbus Avenue Boys....Stay tuned.

Video of my appearance on "Let's Talk Writing" hosted by Vincent Dacquino.

Video of my appearance on "Let's Talk Writing" hosted by Vincent Dacquino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnGXx...

Latest talk at Tuckahoe High

I had a good set of appearances at Tuckahoe High, for the 9th Grade English classes.



http://bronxville.patch.com/articles/...

http://eastchester.dailyvoice.com/sch...

Midweek Thought for October

The population of our country has a strong foundation of self-sacrificing to preserve our way of life in the greatest country in the world for the next generation. I have three beautiful daughters and there is nothing I would not do to help them as they mature into young women.

The best example of this is the generation of brave men and women who felt real hardship and pain but sacrificed (some gave the ultimate sacrifice and never had that chance to now be grandparents) far beyond the comprehension of the people of today. Take a moment if you can, but do it quick, because over World War Two veterans are dying at a rate of 20 per day. Speak with them or even read about their time in battle and the life they led prior to the war years. Then, think about your current way of life and the hardship you currently endure. It is nothing compared to the sacrifice our grandparents/great-grand parents made for us.

I joke to friends that the United States is the only country in the world where our poor/low income families are obese. In many areas of the globe, the poor are emaciated and starving, enver knowing where their next meal may come from. Poor have the latest iPhones and $200 sneakers. The depression era population never had similar luxuries (an iTypewriter??) and for the most part boxcars carried the drifters and a hobo around the country to find work any way they could. Could you imagine a low income person from New York City being told to hop a boxcar today and head out to North Dakota (where the unemployment rate is under 4%) to work for an energy company in the Bakken Shale. It is simply not going to happen.

Where does this laziness, lethargic work ethic come from. Here is my theory and it all made sense to me after watching a documentary in 2009-10? (I forget the name of it but it was real good). They made a point that since the hardship and sacrifice they endured as the “greatest generation” who grew up in the Great Depression and World War Two that their children would not suffer like they did. The hardship was so bad and made such an impact on them and their society that when the men came back from the war and the baby boomer generation began to grow that the mothers and fathers were so grateful to be safe and secure back home in the United States that they coddled their children and savored their time in peacetime (understood based on their circumstances). They were so happy to not be fighting or to not be out of work and struggling that they celebrated through their children. By celebrated I do not mean they threw a party, instead these new parents that had endured so much just wanted their children to live in a utopian society. Social Security benefits were now being received for a few decades by the early 1960s. Then the Johnson administration focused on the war on poverty by passing Welfare legislation. During the War in Vietnam, the children of the greatest generation were being asked to fight an unpopular war and they rebelled. Sex, drugs and rock & roll. Twenty years later, the children of the children of the greatest generation (the grandchildren!) had a grand idea. “Let’s take the entitlement society a step further” and President Clinton signed into law affordable housing legislation with the goal of everyone (regardless of credit or means) owing a home (what could go wrong?). It seems to run in 15-25 year cycles as the next great idea was Obamacare because everyone needs free healthcare (sure, free). Again, what could go wrong? As with Social Security, Welfare, Affordable Housing and now Affordable Care the problems would not affect the generation of people/legislators who enacted the policy into law, it will affect their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. It is clear to me that the Social Security and Welfare programs are close to insolvency. Lax affordable housing requirements enacted in 1998 led to the banking crisis of 2008. Obamacare will lead to the ????? crisis of 2024. Time will tell.

On a different but correlated note, I am not a huge fan of regulation, but I am a big advocate for stricter punishment of criminals. I am talking about white collar criminal punishment. I believe that if executives of corporations were held personally responsible for their criminal deeds (expanding the Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Act - RICO) then there would be more personal responsibility put back into the equation in the private sector. I am all for corporations making maximum profits and allowing their executives to make millions, but the high compensation comes with a price. C-level executives and board members of public companies should have more “skin in the game”. By this I mean that if something were to go criminally wrong under their watch then their personal wealth could be at risk. By doing this, more high level employees would take greater care and place more emphasis on ethical behavior. This is creative destruction to the core.

A good example of this the financial industry after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act signed by President Clinton (do you see a pattern here!!). Prior to Glass-Steagall, there was a separation of ownership of brokerage and banking firms. In the years after you saw a plethora of mergers and acquisitions of brokerage firms (formerly structured as partnerships) by large banks. Brokerage units became larger, and better capitalized and the former partners now became shareholders/employees of the banks. The risk factor was removed. When they had been set up as partnerships, the brokerage partners who traded for the firm had to take calculated and minimal risk with the firms capital. If a trade went awry it could cost them not only their bonus for the year, but it could take down the firm and their net worth (Kidder Peabody-remember them?). Now as a division of a major corporation/bank, after the risk of losing their personal assets was removed, bank/brokerage employees were more at ease to accept riskier trades. Over lay this with the growth of the sub-prime mortgage market (which exploded after affordable housing legislation) and the end result was the banking crisis of 2008.

My point today is that bubbles start not at the end when they pop. They start 10-20-30 years earlier when uninformed/ill-equipped/incapable politicians decide to coddle society by expanding social programs. I believe that the generous people of our great country will take care of their family/friends/community in a better manner than the federal government. Philanthropy is far more effective in caring for the sick/poor/less fortunate than a massive, corrupt federal government program. Incentivize high net worth individuals and corporations to give more to charitable causes (maybe a double tax benefit?) while the federal government reforms and/or cuts outdated, bankrupt legacy social programs.

More can be read via my two novels, Cameron Nation: Going All-in To Save His Country and Columbus Avenue Boys: Avenging the Scalamarri Massacre. www.cameronnation.com.

A Monday Thought

For quite sometime now I have considered myself the eternal optimist. I am always one to see the glass of life as half full, not half empty. Over my professional career, I have blown away all of my goals and objectives and have lived a very comfortable life. I am far from rich, but regardless, I have never “wanted” and my kids have never seen a day of life below a very comfortable existence. Great vacations, a nice house, two cars, a dog and all the extra-curricular activities you could think of.

I bring this up to lead into a discussion on consumer confidence. Surprisingly, last month, the Consumer Confidence Survey and the Consumer Confidence Index both improved dramatically versus August levels. The perception is that consumers are more positive in their assessment of current conditions like the jobs market, business conditions, employment and their financial condition.

Call me crazy, but I just don’t see it and like I said above, I am an optimistic person by nature. I remember the great line by President Reagan, “if your neighbor is out of work it is a recession, if you are out of work, it is a depression.” So true, but yet in the current quagmire, I believe we are painfully in the middle of a depression and recession (derecession??). Ask all around like I have. Listen to whisper conversations at the football and soccer games this fall. People are scared about employment and rightfully so. More people are worried about not just being out of work (which way too many are) but they are opening their eyes in the morning and not knowing if it will be their last day at work. Those that have been out of work for extended periods of time have had to take jobs below their prior income levels. Bonuses from prior years (which are the life blood of Wall Street employees) has been dramatically reduced over the past few years. Wives, who have not worked in the “real world” for years or even a decade are now slowly making their ways back into the part-time employment picture (receptionist, school aide, etc.)

And what do people have to say for this - absolutely nothing. In a good/recovering/improving job market, disgruntled employees would simply shop their ware to a competitor. Those days are gone and employers and employees know it. Everyone is on the frontline digging sandbags and hunkering down. No one I know is talking about their great stock pick or how well their mutual funds are doing, the new car, summer house, lavish vacation. The item front and center is being employed and JOBS.

This worry and angst is spilling over into consumer spending and consumer confidence. To put how important consumer spending is to our GDP, you have to realize that it accounts for 70% of our U.S. economic activity. Excluding iPhone5 sales and having to pay $4.29 for a gallon of gas (in New York) and there has been little room for leisure purchases. I simply can not see the broad economy improving anytime soon under the current economic conditions.

I hate to damper your outlook even more, but simply take a walk around your downtown neighborhood. Look for three things – For Sale signs on homes, For Rent signs in darkened store fronts and Markdown signs in retail establishments. If these depressing reminders that we are still mired in a derecession are still plentiful, then the confidence of the people will not come back for quite some time. Overlay this with an expected drop in the stock market between now and the end of the year (if Obama is reelected) and I do not see blue skies ahead.

Basic understanding of many economic statistics is lacking for most Americans. Let’s dissect a few. Unemployment Rate – is the measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed by all those in the labor force. Full employment is somewhere around 3%-4%, recessions typically have 7%-8%, and depressions and severe recessions are usually double digits. The problem with the unemployment rate stated in the news is widely misleading. The government calculates unemployment using six different rates, U1 – U6 which measure varying aspects of unemployment. The official rate all of us see in the news is the U3 and occurs when people are without jobs and the have actively looked for work within the past four weeks. This is the rate that has been used since the Clinton administration. The problem with this rate is a deteriorating economy can actually improve the rate as the amount of people who stop looking (discouraged workers) are taken out of the equation while the amount working may simply stay the same. If September had 100,000 people out of work and 1,000,000 in the labor force working or actively looking for work the U3 rate would be 10%. The next month, October, had 90,000 people out of work but the labor force was reduced by 50,000 due to disenchanted workers or those that dropped off the four week looking for work criteria then the labor force would be 950,000. The U3 rate for October improved dramatically from 10% to 9.5% the headlines would read. But, look at the numbers, the only reason the rate went down was because 50,000 people left the labor force. Maybe some retired (there are more and more aging babyboomers), but I would argue that a higher percentage of the 50,000 were disenchanted workers. The unemployment rate stated prior to the Clinton administration was the U6 rate, which includes people not looking for work and are unemployed. A derivative of this rate is the under-employment rate which accounts for those people who are still working but making considerably less than prior years (the examples mentioned in my first few paragraphs). Both the U6 unemployment rate and the under-employment rate have remained painfully high during this weak recovery and in fact both of these rates are firmly in the mid-teen double digits. Not a good boost to consumer confidence.

This segues into my next economic statistic related to the strength of economic activity. For all government forecasts of Gross Domestic Product, a 3% annual rate is used for calculations. Some years are expected to be 5-7% in post-recession recovery times. A few negative quarters of a mild recession usually lead to a -.5% - flat +0.5% annual GDP. However, 3% is the average. Last week, Q2-GDP for the US was revised down from 1.8% to 1.3%. Inflation at 1.7% (another fun with numbers calculation) is currently running at a rate slightly higher than 1.3%. So guess what, real GDP is negative. Another horrible consumer confidence measure.

My last bit of depressing economic analysis is the above mentioned inflation rate. The last I checked, the main components to weekly purchases for a family are food and energy. However, the inflation rate cited by the government excludes these items and the 1.7% rate looks quite impressive (yet still outpacing GDP growth). If you include the price of gasoline, utility bills and food the inflation rate hitting middle America is quite high.

Again, like all my rambling thoughts, I try and correlate them to make my point. Consumer Confidence is not good, and I do not see it improving under the Obama administration. The last 3 ½ years have been a disaster and I do not want to see them get worse. Please, please, please do not elect this man again. His policies are destroying this country. I want to wake up happy on November 7th and feel confident that President-elect Romney can begin to repair the mess he inherited. Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina voters take note.

More can be read via my two novels, Cameron Nation: Going All-in To Save His Country and Columbus Avenue Boys: Avenging the Scalamarri Massacre. www.cameronnation.com.