Month: May 2014

Do the Little Things Right

2014 UT Austin Commencement Address by Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Lessons learned from basic SEAL training:

  • If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
  • Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie.
  • When you’re up to your neck in mud, start singing.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some “egregious infraction of the rules” was ordered into the mud.

The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over 8 hours till the sun came up–eight more hours of bone chilling cold.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything– and then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm.

One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted.

And somehow– the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

Full Transcript:
McRaven to Grads: To Change the World, Start by Making Your Bed

How to Profit From Climate Change

narwhal northwest passage

Whether you believe global warming is an act of God or an act of humans as a proxy for God, the important thing is that we can profit from it. Here’s how:

The Arctic is Melting!

The Northwest Passage will become traversable for supertankers. Expect to see lower shipping and freight costs for metals producers and energy suppliers. Go long Miners (XME), Oil & Gas (FRAK, OGZPY, RNFTF), and Global Shipping (SEA).

Arctic countries will have longer agricultural seasons and melting glaciers make natural resources more accessible. Boom times ahead for Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, Iceland. Go long Scandinavia (EWD, NORW, EDEN, EFNL, GXF), Canada (EWC), Russia (RSX). Take positions in RUB, DKK, CAD futures.

melting-glacier-polar-bears

Drought and Famine

Massive drought means more wildfires, and private firefighting is a growing industry employed by big insurance companies. Buy flame-retardant manufacturers such as Albemarle (ALB) and Chemtura (CHMT). Service providers like MSA Safety (MSA).

26lede_wildfire_span

T. Boone Pickens beat you to the water game, but you can invest in investors of water rights through PICO Holdings (PICO). Or, track water indices such as the S&P Global Water Index (CGW), NASDAQ US Water Index (PHO), NASDAQ Global Water Index (PIO).

We’ll need drought-resistant crops, of course. Go long Monsanto (MON) and Syngenta (SYT). Agricultural commodities in general will likely become more precious, and investment is accessible through agriculture ETFs like DBA.

A Rising Tide Floods the Poor

South Asian countries will lose significant land mass as they fall into the ocean. Take short positions in Bangladesh, India (INDA), and Vietnam (VNM). I don’t really like shorting dividend-paying assets, so a better play may be to avoid moving there.

Island nations like Fiji and Maldives will disappear underwater, so visit them while they still exist. Now that’s priceless.

Green Initiatives and Stuff

If you enjoy railing against the inevitable and believe that government subsidies can form a sustainable business model, opportunities abound in carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, electric cars, solar panels, and carbon-capture technology for power plants. Green tech is already overbought, but trend-chasers can show up fashionably late by investing in clean energy (PBW), solar (TAN), and nuclear power (NLR).

douche

If, on the other hand, you think that climate change is a passing anomaly and we’ll revert to the mean in due time, do the opposite of all of the above.

See Also:
Windfall

Disclosure: I am long SEA and MON.

Unable

2BS

Eleven years ago, I crash-landed a Cessna in Las Vegas after the control tower issued instructions for a high-speed landing that I didn’t have the experience to execute.

In the aftermath, I underwent an interrogation and checkride with an FAA Safety Inspector who decided not to revoke my license. I was a competent pilot, he decided, albeit a stupid one.

In parting, he suggested that I reinstate a standard ICAO phrase in my vocabulary: Unable.

Unable is the most underused word in aviation. It means the air traffic controller just told you to do something, and you can’t do it. No reason needed.

As humans, pilots are prideful beings. Many learned to fly in the service. The tower could ask for a double barrel roll on short final and the pilot response would undoubtedly be Wilco.

Remember when JFK Jr. crashed his plane off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard by flying into low-visibility conditions? Nah, ATC didn’t tell him to do that. He had two women in the plane with him. I imagine it must be difficult to say Unable to two women, one of whom is your wife.

o_NUCM

Pilots have a hard enough time citing unable when facing down a life-or-death situation. It’s even harder on the surly bonds of earth, where death happens slowly. The employer who asks you to work weekends does not suffer the consequences of your failed marriage. The investor who sends you to Vegas isn’t the one gambling with the life of his company. Unable.

A control tower can’t see wake turbulence, icing conditions, or mechanical distress. According to NTSB investigators, no matter how ridiculous a tower directive, the cause of accident always ultimately comes down to pilot error — for being unwilling to say Unable.

No Air Traffic Controller has ever died from pilot error.

See Also:
Just Say “Unable” –AOPA

Unionizing Against Uber

Uber drivers on strike in SF (March 2014)
Uber screenshot: Striking drivers in front of Uber HQ

When I became a UPS employee, I had to pay a $35 fee to join the Teamsters Union. I wasn’t employed long enough to even recuperate my union fee, but that is a story for another day.

At UPS, the drivers, loaders, and dockworkers all work for the labor union. Only the managers and supervisors actually work for UPS, Inc. The unions formed because laborers need to organize to wrest their fair share from greedy corporations. Those aren’t my words; that’s in the Teamsters’ Mission Statement.

Last week, I met a former UPS supervisor.

“Those Teamsters were the worst,” he said. “They knew which boxes had iPhones and shit from the packaging, and would hide them behind fake walls and steal them. I had to break up several theft rings.”

I guess this was part of the Union’s mission to wrest their fair share from greedy corporations.

Uber drivers united
Uber drivers united

This past weekend, with the help of Teamsters, Uber drivers banded together to form their own labor union.

Uber was supposed to be a neutral platform, a portal to a liberated marketplace unimpeded by the taxicab tyranny. Uber even calls its drivers “partners”. Partners with no equity.

Uber drivers work for themselves, but only in the sense that Uber does not provide a commercial insurance policy and drivers are legally culpable in the event of an accident.

Uber does help with things like financing luxury vehicles. A large proportion of Uber drivers are former taxi drivers with scant savings. They can’t afford the towncars needed to drive for UberBLACK.

uber fi2

At the SHARE conference, a Lyft representative described how Lyft was empowering underserved consumers by providing them with access to vehicle financing (but only for luxury SUVs). Clearly what underprivileged consumers need are Ford Explorers and Cadillac Escalades so they can get their kids to school like ballers.

Finance a Lyft-branded Explorer today!
Finance a Lyft-branded Explorer today!

To qualify for Uber’s financing program, the driver must have an active signed “Payment Deduction Authorization Agreement” and must make 90% of their monthly payment from Uber earnings. As a result, supposedly self-employed drivers lock themselves into 5 years of indentured servitude to the tune of $50k.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

In other news, Uber is now valued at $10 billion.

Happy Anniversary, eToys!

15 years ago today, eToys IPO’d on Wall Street.

etoys IPO

Screen Shot 2014-05-19 at 8.13.15 PM
Screen Shot 2014-05-19 at 8.11.17 PM

Look at the rubbish that kids had to play with in 1999. No wonder millennials lack creativity.