weekender

I'm not sure if your mocking me or the other person. if its me, your a idiot for thinking im judgmental and not worthy to share the planet with me. if its the other poster, i agree wholeheartedly with your wise and insightful comment. Nice story of a happy consenting prostitute. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/kristof-from-the-streets-to-worlds-best-mom.html?src=twr&_r=1& "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

You sound like a pimp or a customer. Which is it Professor? Prostitution is legal in some counties in Nevada. Why would you conclude that a person who supports women who work at a legal trade in their home state, while living and working in another state, be an operator of a whorehouse, or a customer of a whorehouse? Why would being an operator of a legal whorehouse, or a customer of one, be a bad thing? Do you have some personal issues that make you squirmish when it comes to activities between consenting adults? Are you a right wing conservatard who can't tell the difference between truth and fiction, watches Faux Spews and believes that the information presented there is truthful, and listens to Lush Rimjob, the drug addled gas bag that is the beacon of factual information for Right Wing Conservatards and other two digit IQ moron bastard shitheads? NYT has a recurring story line about human trafficking. its disgusting and truly depressing. maybe the girls at the bunny ranch are consenting. they look like low class white kids with daddy issues to me. so i bet they are. i dont believe they represent the majority of prostitutes in the country. certainly not according to the NYT. its sad and a crime in most parts of the country for a good reason. i suppose im just a moron bastard shithead though. I replied to your post solely because its relevant to my thoughts. Not because i expect and adult response from you. i dont think your capable. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

a Bitcoin suicide, possibly. could be death by natural causes or completely unrelated to her business. but if i had anything to do with First Meta, id be concerned right about now. http://nypost.com/2014/03/05/bitcoin-firm-ceo-found-dead-in-suspected-suicide/ "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

it is also not insured. if someone steals your money from a bank you are insured by FDIC. more realistically the bank goes under but if Bonnie and Clyde 2.0 clean out the bank you are safe. Same with a brokerage account with SIPC. i am willing to speculate on investments but i would like to think i can only lose my money due to my own stupidity. not because someone can literally steal it from me. thats not a small thing. id say that adds an entire new level of speculation to the equation. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Mine were tied up in Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and equity in my house back in 2007. Shame you didnt learn your lesson in 2007. You really should just keep your money in USD's. that currency can be left at any Federally insured bank and i have found can be used in every transaction known to man. surprised you have not heard of this. on a serious note, i read in the paper that with the collapse of MT. Gox, 6% of the Bitcoin float has vanished. Thats really a large number and bad for the 6%. on the upside, it makes the rest of them more scarce and valuable. Ok, so that wasnt very serious either, i admit. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

The author is being a bit dishonest. the priest does not own it. Catholic priests take a vow of poverty so do not own their residence as he is implying. The Pope doesnt own his apartment and this guy doesnt own this building. the Archdiocese does. when he dies it will be re purposed. the school was closed because the church felt they could not maintain it. i have no idea why but its right there in the article that the money for this property is payed for by the sale of other properties. they are separate issues and he ties them together in a dishonest way. Hate Catholic priests and the Catholic church all you want but at least be honest about it. they have made enough mistakes over the last 2k years, it should be easy to do without falsehoods. NYT is being lazy. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

they make me keep different passwords for different systems and they must be changed constantly. my Bloomberg terminal even has a cool thumb thingie. of course non of us can do this so the rule is to keep all updated passwords in your front drawer so people can get on to your systems if needed. sort of defeats the purpose but who am i to argue with compliance. they are terrified the cleaning lady will come in, log on to my system, then proceed a hostile unregistered takeover of MAN (re manpower or if your as old as me, kelly girls). Thus bankrupting our firm. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Wow. So much intellectual (and I use that word very loosely) dishonesty in that article it's hard to know where to begin. But I will start with: The source of reference material does matter. Its great how he quotes Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard as saying "extremely rare". then claims that is Harvard speak for zero. such a sad stretch to get what you want out of a very clear statement. if anyone would like to read a great book about this sort of thing from a truly great man, Dr Gould, read this. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, New York: W. W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-02705-8. 347 pp. He is very funny and its not a dry read at all. I know its hard to believe that you will laugh reading about fossils but its true, i promise. It became clear to me the guy had a sense of humor when he appeared on the Simpsons as himself and made me laugh out loud. find that episode too. its worth it. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

another arrest for money laundering does not help the credibility. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/the-quick-rise-and-abrupt-fall-of-a-bitcoin-champion/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 ive been clear on this, i do not care about Bitcoin's success or failure. either way it impacts my life zero. as a banker, its success is just one more product i can profit from. so if anything, i lean more to hoping it becomes mainstream. im not impressed though. it needs to become less famous for drug/money laundering and more famous for being a legitimate alternative to the dollar. as a general rule, the more pot smoking hippies endorse something, the less i am impressed with it. i suppose this could be the exception to the rule. -edited some typos "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Wow, ok. Wow what?? You want to insult me then disprove my math. Given you adjust the topline revenue number but change nothing else in your model. Explain how you cannot get the bottom line number? you cannot, because it cannot be done. its just addition. Of course it can be done. I do it in the example I give above. All I was doing was indicating how it can be misleading or downright false in a scenario with large differences in margin. That model is very usefull when there is a down or upturn in revenue, across the board. The same model is highly incorrect when used to calculate impact of discontinuance of a single produc line, as also provided in my example. If my extremely simple model above with extremely simple math makes no sense to you then I don't know what to say. that is what the model is. it takes into account everything you are claiming. you are assuming they are not and they ignore those things. thats what the analyst do for a living. very intelligent people who spend their life modelling these things so you and i can just add them up. i just took it for granted that you understood that. i feel we are miss communicating. you are mentioning things that i have taken for granted. things that are in the models already. sorry you feel i am financialyl ignorant. i wish i could better explain i am not. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Wow, ok. Wow what?? You want to insult me then disprove my math. Given you adjust the topline revenue number but change nothing else in your model. Explain how you cannot get the bottom line number? you cannot, because it cannot be done. its just addition. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

its very simple. if you change the topline in your model, and nothing else, you then can use basic math to adjust the bottom line. thats what the WSJ did. its what everyone does. insult me all you want. my argument is simple and sound and well within the financial industry standards for financial modeling. and yes, i am an equity trader at an investment bank. i have been for 20 years. i read earnings models as part of my work and i do not understand your point or why you feel you cannot simply get to the bottom line from adjusting the top. it makes no mathematical sense to me. im sorry, i can only assume you do not understand financial models. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

CVS announced the topline number. using current earnings models, the bottom line number is what WSJ is quoting. All they are doing is taking the current consensus numbers and using basic math. this is a standard process in financial reporting as far as i know. It also seems very simple and reasonable based on simple accounting. topline changes, run it through the model and adjust the bottom line accordingly. I do not understand why you feel that is bullshit. i dont know what aggregate ratio number is, so cannot comment. i have not heard that term used in financial modeling before. there seems to be a miss communication between us. i accept that my posts seemed to be backing my margin comment. it was not my intent. i was always talking about the bottom line impact. to be very clear again. my original comment on margins was an off the cuff cynical rant based on nothing but my opinion. i was attempting to be humorous, mostly. CVS disclosed hard numbers that i feel have a material, albeit not drastic, impact on earnings. so i felt the right thing to due was admit my margin comment is probably wrong based on the hard numbers. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

my margin comment was just my opinion that i admitted was based on nothing. i retracted it when the company released the charge to top and bottom line because it showed a material number. i dont get why u are asking me for an earnings model. my point is simple. the company has stated that it will lower their guidance. who cares what i said about margins when the actual numbers are public. sorry u feel my comments are bullshit. i feel im being clear edited a typo "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

im sorry i do not understand your question. you are not using terms i understand, my apologies. i gave you the cut expected to revenues and earnings as quoted in the WSJ. the topline and the bottom line for the stock. what happens in the middle, between revenue and earnings, was not relevant to my point. to be more clear. my entire point was i originally thought it would not have an impact and it does. as quoted, it has an impact on both the top and bottom line in a material way(revenue and earnings). The stock was off 1% today on 2x the avg daily volume for the last 21 days. thats not a rounding error. hope that helps make my point. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

. I heard this morning that they do about 120 billion a year with 2 billion coming from tobacco. Yeah so I looked it up....those are sales numbers, not profit numbers. They say nothing about the actual margin on cigarettes. Being an x-smoker, I can tell you stores like CVS had rediculous prices for smokes, sometime 3 bucks a pack more than a gas station. I bet they made 20-40% Right...but the 120 billion and 2 billion mentioned above are still sales numbers and give absolutely no indication on the margin on cigarettes during that sales period. You couldn't even calculate it from those numbers....it doesn't even say anything about profits. it is easily calculable. below are the revenue and earnings cuts or topline and bottomline. or sales and profits, to you use your language. no matter what you call it, the math is there WSJ-The drugstore chain estimates it will lose $2 billion in annual revenue from tobacco and other sundries as a result, which amounts to about six to nine cents a share this year and about 17 cents annually from next year on. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

I'm a free market guy. that is why i am cynical about motives. i have a good understanding why public companies make decisions. its about their balance sheets NOT their ethics. it has no bearing on where i will shop. i shop where i want based on customer service and prices. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

. I heard this morning that they do about 120 billion a year with 2 billion coming from tobacco. Yeah so I looked it up....those are sales numbers, not profit numbers. They say nothing about the actual margin on cigarettes. yes those are the topline numbers, however, i already showed the bottom line numbers too. the cents per share. it was not a rounding error. it was a real number. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

That's silly. I linked the entire chart. Using simply the aggregated EU is artificial. Each country has its own health plan, and its economy is not 100% synonymous with the aggregate EU economy. Compare as many industrialized countries to the US as you wish. I stand by my point. except we are not a European country. we are more like a third world country. liberals are always pointing out how the rich own all the wealth. conservative like to point out half the country doesnt pay income taxes. our make up is nothing like Italy or France. AND its getting worse because we seem to only want poor people from the third world to immigrate. we are doomed and this is why i responded to another thread explaining why im retiring in Italy. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

>"No, I tend to be cynical too, and as long as they are selling junk food and other "unhealthy" items, I will question their integrity." i totally agree with you. it can free up tons of prime real estate for even higher margin items. they are talking about strategic partnerships with hospitals and medical practices. thats just few examples of why im a cynic on this. i have no doubt the decision was about the bottom line and not ethics. With that said, however, my original comment was on cigarettes having no margin left. that was wrong and i have to man up and admit it. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

. I heard this morning that they do about 120 billion a year with 2 billion coming from tobacco. i reject your reality and substitute my own. i mentioned my opinion to my assistant and he pointed out what you shared with me. i suppose i have to admit my opinion seems to not be based on very sound logic. i hate when the facts do not align with my opinion. i will admit my possible error here. i made my assistant get my dry cleaning for pointing out my error at work though. that will learn him to question my brain. edit to add: im being told thats about 6-9 cents a share this year and 17cents a share annually. thats not a rounding error. thus confirming my fallibility. also, im kidding about my assistant. i thanked him for bringing me up to speed. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

im a cynic and see no reason to applaud them. in the past cigarettes had enough margin that large corporations like CVS, 7-11 and WAWA(shout out to the mid-atlantic) could price them below smaller stores and bodegas. This would get people in the stores to buy other items and refill their prescription. the decline of cigarette smoking in the US and huge increase in taxes has destroyed the margin. so they moved into other things like energy drinks and more groceries. i hear the sushi at the Duane Read on Wall Street is pretty good. if they did this when it hurt the bottom line i would applaud. now its a gimmick because they can no longer benefit from the sale of cigarettes. this decision was about bottom line and has nothing to due with ethics. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

because i made a lame joke? id say the rest of my post was quite mature but whatever. tough room. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

yea, im replying to myself. in my defense, i find i am the most interesting person here. NYT feels this is a good thing because it allows people the freedom to leave a job they did not want or work less than they wanted. i suppose there are those lucky few who have plenty of money but no insurance. it really seems like a stretch to me and i feel the NYT will say anything to defend The President. just my 2 cents. from the NYT editorial thanks to an increase in insurance coverage under the act and the availability of subsidies to help pay the premiums — many workers who felt obliged to stay in a job that provided health benefits would now be able to leave those jobs or choose to work fewer hours than they otherwise would have. In other words, the report is about the choices workers can make when they are no longer tethered to an employer because of health benefits. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

why are people choosing to not supply labor? it could be because they are discouraged. from a WSJ column: CBO's conclusion is that ObamaCare will encourage people to supply less labor by deciding not to take a job or by working fewer hours. The law's insurance subsidies are gradually taken away as income rises, "creating an implicit tax on additional earnings," the CBO observes. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante