While checking my page views on Google + on Sunday(last) at 7:00 p.m. (E.S.T.) I had 1,024,571 views. At 12:03 a.m. Monday I discovered that I only now had 964,924 views! The Oracle of Ottawa was shocked that my Google + account was now counting backwards. What ever could be the cause of that?
Freedom of Speech is now selective?
Well it just so happens that the Oracle of Ottawa was making some pretty cutting comments on videos that were describing that insane Alibaba initial public offering that went off last week on the New York Stock Exchange. The Oracle of Ottawa didn't agree with the whole thing at all.
We have all heard about Gresham's Law, which states basically that bad money drives out good money. Well the Oracle of Ottawa is smart enough to be able to project that a little farther and to come to the stark conclusion that bad securities on a once good stock exchange will drive away all the good stocks. When you are ready to allow old thing, no matter how big it is, for one dollar more, we are on a real slippery slope people.
Of course the whole thing was a rather strange glitch that I am sure the best and brightest at Google are on top of. But it does give one pause doesn't it? The Oracle can't but help feel that if I only commented on cute and cuddly kitten videos nothing regarding my page views would have occurred. But what ever you do, don't comment on peasant Chinese securities offerings of Variable Interest Entities on the New York Stock Exchange!
The Oracle of Ottawa has been watching television for darn near as long as television has been around. My earliest memory is watching The Friendly Giant on the mother ship of the world famous CBC. It was pretty awesome on the 26 inch Zenith with the wooden curtains! The whole broadcast universe back then consisted of less than five channels. The Oracle still has very vivid memories of watching the development of the United States Gemini space program. And I can still vividly remember that summer night when man first walked on the moon, and the screams of my mother when Oswald was capped on live television. Television back then was important.
Television - Finally at the fork in the road?
Now the Oracle of Ottawa watches his television on a bitchin' 42 inch Samsung, with the digital box, with way more than one bundle. There is something on channel 1 through to channel 999! And even though he has enjoyed it for a couple of years now, the Oracle of Ottawa is still blown away sometimes by the images from high definition. But like most Canadians the Oracle of Ottawa has a lot of gripes with his local cable provider.
The main bitch that the Oracle of Ottawa has had and still has with his cable provider is trying to get rid of that bundle buried in the bundle(s) that he has already paid for. The Oracle of Ottawa calls this the STC bundle. And it doesn't matter what bundle you pick you always get stuck with the STC bundle. You just can't be rid of it. The STC bundle consists of the Sheets, Towels and Chopstick channels. For some weird reason in Canada and with Rogers Communications you just can't be rid of these useless channels.
Most Canadians don't give a shit about what it costs. We just want what we want, and some body better give it to us or we will make other arrangements. The cable companies still claim that it is technologically impossible to provide pick and pay! And they still deny that the cable box does not tell them everything that I do through their cable box remote! The Oracle of Ottawa is very relieved that his tax dollars have been spent maintaining the CRTC regulatory agency. These pick and pay hearings I am sure are going to bring us all a lot of relief.
So far it has been mighty funny watching the corporate whore lawyer from Bell spout the old same tired crap. But this time there is real fear in his voice. The Oracle of Ottawa just loved that. Pick and pay is coming, and it will no doubt be forced down the overfed throats of the corporate whores of media. May we all get to feast in our equal shares of the burnt savory offerings!
Tim Hortons has been around darn near as long as the Oracle of Ottawa. It was one of Canada's most iconic and loved brands. The old days were the best. All the baked goods were actually baked in the store. Not received frozen and then microwaved by a temporary foreign worker. There fore each Tims location had its own finger print so to speak. There were no purchase or time restrictions once upon a time. And you could even smoke right at the table! Seems like the lost coffee shop of Eldorado don't it?
Board meeting at Burger King?
Now that the Oracle of Ottawa has left or rather, abandoned the rat race of this present locked down world, he finds himself less and less at the Tim Hortons. The last straw came when the corporate over whores in marketing at head office decided that that they would discontinue the extra small coffee size. And after tasting the new Dark Roast, the Oracle of Ottawa decided that it was all just a corporate whores marketing plan to 'frame' Tim Hortons more with the Starbucks crowd. If I wanted to go to Starbucks I would just go there. But I have never been in a Starbucks in my life and I am not changing that anytime soon.
As you get older and wiser, you realize that everything eventually comes to an end. It takes a brand with the highest morals and standards to preserve over long periods of time. An example of a brand that has survived since 1833 is C. F. Martin & Company the legendary maker of acoustic guitars. These brands are becoming more and more scarce as time goes on. The Oracle of Ottawa has come to the hard realization that the brand of Tim Hortons is in all likely hood just not going to survive the near future.
The worst, most untimely marketing campaign of all time?
When the Oracle of Ottawa first heard about the rumors that Burger King was in talks to take over Tim Hortons, the Oracle of Ottawa dismissed it all out of hand. The first thought that went through my very ample and brilliant head was; "Ain't ever gonna happen". But with the price of $94.00 a share and the backing of the Oracle of Omaha, the Oracle of Ottawa had to concede that it has a likely 50 -50 chance of actually happening.
What is most dismaying is that a scum, nearly dead brand such as Burger King could just march up to Canada flash some filthy cash and the board of Tim Hortons just seemed to cave in on the spot! The only reason that Burger King is doing this deal is to prop up its own nearly dead business model on the life blood of another, in the near future hope that there will be a bigger fool out there somewhere where by the Wall Street Bankers will be able to flip it over for a couple of million or billion, depending on the fool that can be found at the desired time.
It is all really depressing. But there is a silver lining. Somebody somewhere here in Canada will take a close look at the original Tim Hortons model and do it all again from scratch. Many ground floor opportunities are and will be had, and the Oracle of Ottawa will be watching out for them. And you should to Dear Reader...
When the Oracle of Ottawa bought his first stock he was called a fool, then later on, having survived and thrived, he was called lucky, continuing on until the time of this writing, people just call the Oracle of Ottawa "Sir". As mentioned many times before in this humble blog, stocks have been very good to the Oracle of Ottawa. Now the Oracle of Ottawa is not Warren Buffet, nor does he ever want to be. The Oracle of Ottawa has no desire to be listed as one of the richest Canadians. The Oracle of Ottawa just wants to enjoy a benevolent level of prosperity, read all the books he has never read, so far, and write the truth to power in his blog, completely unowned by any corporate whore.
Capitalism? Nuttin' to it!
Right from the start the Oracle of Ottawa had no trouble on what and when to buy. There is a ton of literature and success stories on that. The Oracle of Ottawa is an old time value investor. He simply seeks a stock that is priced at or below its book value, between two and ten dollars and with a P/E ratio of less than 10, with a dividend between 2 and 55 percent and recently, a P/S ratio less then 3. The Oracle picks one stock every month, which he calls "Stock of the Month". Been doing it for years and years.
Soon the Oracle of Ottawa had a pretty wacking portfolio of stocks very deep into the money. But the great Oracle sweated on when to sell a stock. The Oracle of Ottawa found the decision to sell much much harder then the decision to buy. Oddly enough, every one else the Oracle knows, has the same problem in reverse. They always sell a double right away and sweat about what to buy next. Don't be like everyone else. Taking a mere double will never make you rich. The Oracle discovered that buy and hold is still very powerful, and that it is not unusual to get a ten to fifteen bagger! Ya, you read that right, 1,000 to 1,500 percent profit is not out of the ordinary with the Oracle of Ottawa.
Then, after much gifted thought, as the Oracle of Ottawa is an "85", he realized that it could all be reduced to a simple rule of thumb (ROT), or what the undergraduate text books refer to as heuristics. And the rule of thumb is: NEVER OWN A STOCK YOU WOULDN'T BUY. When the statement arrives at the end of the month, the Oracle lists all his stocks in the money by percentage difference of book to market value. Then he lists the top 19 stocks in order for the month past. Yeah it does take a while to do it by hand, especially when you own way over 100 different stocks! Then you go through the list checking the fundamentals on your favorite quote sight, and you sell the stock that has gained the most, but appears to be at the point of being unsustainable. i.e. Sell that stock that you presently own, but would never buy.
The Oracle of Ottawa will provide a simple example of two stocks. One is a very large REIT that the Oracle purchased many years ago when it was not a very large REIT. He paid $2.60 a share at the time. Today the REIT is one of the TSX 300 stocks, and is selling for nearly $27.00 a share. Another ten bagger. But it is still paying a monthly dividend with an annual yield of nearly 7 % ! And its P/E ratio is under 7! Aside from the price, this is still a value stock. Keep this one. Now going done the list, the Oracle sees that he has another stock that he bought for around two bucks that is now pushing 15 bucks a share, and the dividend yield is only a lousy 1.4%, and worst of all it is at 100 times earnings. The Oracle will sell this stock as soon as possible. It is now a growth, momentum darling. Never Own A Stock You Wouldn't Buy! Get it?
It is hard to believe that once upon a time in Canada Rogers Communications was one of the most loved companies in Canada. If memory serves, it always made the top 100 Canadian Employers List. If you had a tech or billing problem there was no long aggravating voice mail tree, someone actually answered the damn phone and took care of you right away. And back in the days when Ted Rogers ran it all, you hardly ever had to call.
Ted Rogers - Spinning in his grave?
Now all telecom companies in Canada are totally despised and dreaded. Rogers doesn't seem to have any real employees any more, but rather an army of minimum wage contractors and temporary foreign workers, that know nothing about your problem and couldn't care less. But you can be sure the marketing never stops. As the price keeps creeping up on your cable package the quality of the content seems to slipping the other way in rather perfect proportion. A thousand channels and nothing on.
It was just before the last Labour Day weekend that the Oracle of Ottawa noticed that his Cisco cable box had been re-programed with what appears to be software for the new Rogers PVR, version 3.0, that can tape 8 shows at once! (Who wants that??) The Oracle of Ottawa was not amused, but there was no way you could do anything about it. There was a two hour wait time to talk to a tech rep that weekend. Which makes perfect sense. Force crap on the customer and then send all the tech reps home for the long weekend so you won't have to pay for overtime. Meanwhile, we are stuck with cable boxes that are as slow as a fat pig in thick shit.
Meanwhile there is no baseball on due to faggot tennis, again! There is no one to call on this either. The Oracle of Ottawa tried one night recently, and was told by a thick East Indian accent, that; "Sir, you cannot complain"!! You can't make this stuff up. When my cable box was re-programed, the Oracle waited a very long time again to find out that I couldn't complain, but while I was waiting the Oracle heard that stupid PVR pitched endlessly.
Rogers Communications has a lot of serious problems. The first and largest, is poor management. The second is that they are in too many business's that they don't know anything about, such as production and content creation. This goes equally for all the giant telco's in Canada at the time of this writing. Have you ever tried to watch the Discovery Channel lately? And where did all the baseball games go that the Oracle always used to enjoy? Note to executive suite: Yachting is not a sport!
But the lads at Rogers have a monopoly. Where else are the proles going to go? Well, would you be surprised if the Oracle of Ottawa told you Dear Reader that it is quiet possible that the whole business model of the Rogers monopoly could be shortly just a bad memory? The Oracle of Ottawa has noticed the marketing of the first HD TV wireless TV boxes by Bell at his local mall. Hmmm... a wide area network otherwise known as a WAN. No infrastructure to maintain. No large barriers to entry. How long will it be before someone simply sets up a dish and just re-brodcasts what is in the clear on the aether? The Oracle of Ottawa can see very much inexpensive choice on the very near horizon. Think about it...
The Oracle of Ottawa certainly does not own Rogers stock. And if you happen to be an owner or a manager of a very large holding in a portfolio, the Oracle of Ottawa strongly recommends that you start getting rid of it all in the very near future. With the advent of the wireless HDTV box and very many providers Rogers, Shaw, Telus, and Bell are shortly going to be Titans without a business.... Like video rentals, remember that?
Could it soon all be gone, like it never existed? Good riddance!!!
Motion will however not help unless we have things moving. Simon Blackburn, Think, The World, p. 244
The Oracle of Ottawa was much chagrined at the Business News Network's unexplained multi hour disappearance of the "stock ticker" or "banner" or as commonly known by real stock market freaks; the tape. The hours of adrift were from about 9:00 a.m. to its reappearance just before noon! It is strongly suspected that either Bell Media did not pay the bill to the media supplier or a young insane marketing intern somehow got the keys to the control room, determined to prove that all those numbers at the bottom the screen really took away from all the guests and the marketing power of all the funny and silly penny stock ads! It was of course a total fail.
No Numbers - No Watch!
The only reason a financial network has its own dedicated talking heads, marketed guests and those funny penny stock promotion ads is to provide a soothing drone to one who is only interested in the unfolding of the tape! Those funny numbers at the bottom the screen. The above mentioned other idiots provide no real and / or otherwise useful information and are really only allowed to appear to fill in the top 75% of the unused screen. To ensure a future on the air and the continuation of this "network" it be very wise indeed for all parasites or rather personalities to always keep this rude fact in the highest priority.
It is just another demonstration of the absolute insanity of the marketers grip on media in this part of the world! We have a news channel with no news! (Sun News TV), We have music channels with no music! (Much Music). We have a History Channel that contains practically no history! A science channel with hardly any science. (Discovery Channel) The Oracle of Ottawa could go on but it is all too depressing.
But we do have a mere handful of decent offerings. The much beloved CBC. The highly respected BBC. The ever vital American PBS stations. And CPAC! Whose ratings, I will bet, are such that Bell Media would kill for if only it wasn't so illegal!
The tape is all that matters!
The day that has just passed marked the one hundredth birthday of the great man Marshall McLuhan. Canadians, once, as a nation took great pride in having such people among us. Canada pioneered much of what today is called "old media" and great men like Marshall McLuhan foretold with eerie accuracy the new media of today. But with the advent of the world wide right wing agenda, forced on us by the corporate whores, we now have media that is captive first and foremost to fart catchers and spin doctors and every soul killing flavor of marketing.
This great truth has been molded, shaped and distorted by the evil of the right into what the Oracle of Ottawa has recently grimly discovered; The message now is the appearance of the medium.
Here is a wonderful aspect of Marshall McLuhan that most people don't know about. He was a devout Roman Catholic as much as he could be all his life. And the real shocker, an avid proponent of the Rosary! How weird is that? Listen carefully to this wonderful interview conducted by Father Patrick Peyton.
