KC Confidential

She didn’t obey the rules…

That’s another thing the working class believes in strongly – right and wrong – respecting the law. And the funny thing is, most of us consider ourselves working class, or middle class. Be sure to read the New York Times story on Wigan, a burg that always goes Labour that voted for Brexit. Despite only 25% of UK inhabitants being working class, 60% BELIEVE they are working class.

You never forget your roots. You might have an SUV and a sports car in the driveway (probably leased) but you remember when you struggled, and retain those underlying values…unless you WIN!

For far too long the emphasis in America has been on the winners.

And that means money. Hell, the media wouldn’t even publicize the MacArthur genius grants if they didn’t come with $125k a year attached. Is it hard to believe we’ve got a culture where the best and the brightest, the elite, bend the rules in their favor in order to succeed?

Bill Clinton comes from nothing, he’s arguably a hillbilly.

Hillary comes from something more. But after his Presidency Bill and Hillary blurred the edges, worked for anybody with the cash, barely different from a nitwit entertainer doing their act for a third world dictator.

Couldn’t they say no?

And they’ve got that bogus foundation wherein the money goes in and transparency disappears.

And now even their daughter Chelsea is a millionaire…really. Continue reading →

Recently, one of the speakers at Harvard University’s commencement exercises caused a nationwide sensation…  

A young African-American man from North Carolina named Donovan Livingston, who was receiving his masters degree from the School of Education, recited a “word poem” known as “Lift Off!”

In this address, Livingston spoke of the liberating potential of education.  The reaction online, where both a live clip of his remarks, as well as its text,were posted on numerous websites, was overwhelming.

CNN called it, “one of the most moving and meaningful graduation moments of all times.”  Harvard’s own website described it as, “One of the most powerful heartfelt speeches you will ever hear.”

The story went viral with hundreds of thousands of hits.  The comments on the various sites where the video of his speech was posted were overwhelmingly favorable.  Many said Livingston was destined to be president, so forceful was his rhetoric.

I read his speech with great interest and watched the video.

And to me, the content seemed commonplace for the genre;

“We were born to be comets!” – “I belong among the stars.  And so do you.” – “ I teach of turning content into rocket ships – tribulations into telescopes” – “Together we can inspire galaxies of greatness for generations to come.” – “No, sky is not the limit.  It is only the beginning.  Lift off.”

I was puzzled by the rapturous response to this collection of platitudes of the “Follow that Dream!” variety, which are standard issue for graduation speeches.  Even the usual fawning attitude by white liberals towards blacks couldn’t account for the enthusiasm it was met with.

I studied the remarks more closely and the reason became obvious. Continue reading →

Dynamic Pricing—get used to it!

It’s the new flip term to describe (sometimes) hard to move inventory and improve the bottom line.

Dynamic pricing is certainly not new.

It’s been around for decades—just not by its current catchy name.

Bars have called it, ‘Happy Hour.’

Airlines adjust their ticket prices by time of day, day of week and certainly by the season.

And movie theaters offer the same films at reduced prices during non-prime time showings.

They may call it Early Bird Shows, Twilight Pricing or whatever clever matinee terms pop out of their fertile marketing minds.

The latest enterprises to have changed their pricing philosophies to the dynamic way of thinking include airline frequent flyer programs. Continue reading →

We’re leaving eight billion dollars on the table!

You’ve got to listen to Live Nation head Michael Rapino on Peter Kafka’s podcast. Or maybe not. You haven’t got that much time and don’t care.

But then you can’t get a ticket to a show you want to see and need a scapegoat so you denigrate Ticketmaster and illustrate your lack of knowledge and contribute to the problem. And there you have America in a nutshell…a land overloaded with information where everyone complains and points to inaccurate facts.

Within the podcast Rapino delineates Live Nation’s complete business model and tells more about the company’s vision than you can get by reading a lifetime of Rolling Stone pieces. This is the music business education you’re yearning for.

It’s definitely business…and Rapino is one of the two most powerful people in the music business!

The $8 billion figure is the amount by which we underprice tickets.

Let’s go back a step.

If Drake or Beyonce play Madison Square Garden, what are the odds you can get tickets anyway? Superstar acts might tour every three or four years and millions want tickets, but not everybody can go. Just because you can tweet and pontificate on Facebook that doesn’t mean you can get inside the building. Which flummoxes you, that you have access on Ticketmaster, but you can’t conclude the transaction.

Because of the bots.

However this is not a technological problem, no, this is all about economics! Continue reading →

Seems like mass murders by radical Islam and Isis are becoming a regular event…

This past weekend the United States suffered the worst massacre since 911.

Fifty people were shot to death in Orlando Florida 50 with more than 50 others wounded by gunfire from a single terrorist. The details are still coming in, but it was a prolonged event of killing and murder in a gay nightclub targeted for no reason other than a terrorist attack on the United States.

While President Obama and democratic nominee for prez, Hillary Clinton condemned the murders, neither would refer to them as attacks by radical Islam.

Does it really matter?

These events are growing in number in the United States. \

And it’s clear these suicidal maniacs have no regard for human life and only want to deliver death and destruction to our country and our people. The targets are innocent people who for the most part are killed by cowards due to the fact their victims have no defense and are attacked in shopping malls, movie theaters, airports, night clubs and public places with no clear pattern.

One thing is consistent, the young men who commit the murders; their ages tend to be late teens to late twenties and they’re of Middle Eastern decent. They swear loyalty to Isis or radical Islam and are ready to die for their beliefs.

So what can we do? Continue reading →

I heard Tom Frank speak recently at the Kansas City Public Library about his new book, “Listen, Liberal”.  I’ve known Tom since 2003, when he interviewed me for his earlier book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

His latest book does to the Democratic Party what the latter did to the Republican Party, i.e. strips away all the ideological window dressing and shows what the real motivations of the party’s leaders are.

Frank’s book doesn’t disappoint, nor did his March 24 speaking appearance.

The organizing principle behind the book is very straightforward.  Frank contends the last two Democratic administrations have quietly but effectively taken the party away from its role as champion of the American working class and economic equality.

Instead, Tom shows how the real loyalties of the Democrats have shifted to the professional class, i.e. affluent, well educated, liberals who may have all the politically correct positions on social issues (“gays, guns, and God”) but who are just as adept at promoting their own financial self-interest as any reactionary Republican business mogul.

Indeed, the author gives dozens of examples, large and small, of how the Democratic leadership has betrayed their own political heritage.

Frank makes exactly the same point I’ve made in many of my posts here.

To the extent the Great Recession was caused by federal deregulation of business – which is debatable – almost all the deregulation occurred under Democratic administrations, a fact which is not debatable.

From promoting subprime lending, to repealing banking regulations, to striking trade deals that cause jobs to flow out of the country and cheap imports to flow in, Frank lays the blame squarely at the feet of the Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama administrations.  Continue reading →