Radio Shack, Charles Tandy, Dick Jenrette, Jack Wolgin

"I am a man of means, by no means."...Roger Miller, King of the Road

Confusing brains with a bull market was my hallmark. Sadly, I was never as smart as I thought I was...but later in the game and after getting my ass totally whipped another time or two; my stock market paranoia took over and not believing management, until proven otherwise, ruled the roost. Made a real winner out of me.

My first meaningful stock disaster (I had two) and one that shook my very soul started its journey around 1962-63. A prominent security analyst with Drexel, Harriman (This was long before Mike Milken arrived on the scene.) had recommended to me a POS called Atlas Credit run by a guy out of Philly called Jack Wolgin.

Jack was a piece of work. He had a hard time walking directly from A to B. It was always a stroll by way of Z. He would fuck you for practice even if it didn't do him any good. And he made a gazillion fucking dollars playing his game.

Atlas financed home improvements, specializing in roofs. The company sold the financing with the roofing at outrageous prices and outrageous interest rates. So outrageous, that in 1965 the State of Pennsylvania passed a law forbidding Atlas's practices.

But the stock was a huge success. A good stock market (brains and a bull fucking market) helped propel the stock from the low single digits to the high teens. Naturally, needing income and knowing that trees don't grow to the sky, I got my clients out. Little did I know that I was right for the wrong reason. More better than being wrong for any reason.

That stock performance (it all happened in less than two years) empowered me to become powerless over my own bullshit. Arrogance took over and the clients who didn't follow my advice were thrown over the side of the boat. Hanging up on the people who helped feed my wife, four kids and the dog plus supply me with booze, became part of my schtick.

I hadn't as yet crossed the Rubicon and turned into a full blown functioning fucking drunk but was well on the way. Had then, have now, the patience of a moth on a hot light bulb.

So naturally when my Drexel broker friend called me with another genius idea paying attention to him became a must. He was promoting a stock that was selling at $12. In looking at the balance sheet the company's short term debt jumped out at me so 'No' was my answer. He kept calling, with me declining as the stock kept going up. Finally, at $18, I figured that he was right and I jumped in with both fucking feet.

Believing that moderation is fatal and diversification breeds mediocrity every poor son of a bitch who knew me ended up owning what proved to be a total piece of shit. The stock started sinking.

I panicked and flew back to Boston to visit the company based on Commonwealth Ave. in Boston and then to see the underwriters in NY (DLJ). Being slow but not stupid I knew I was up to my ass in alligators when it hit me that the company was being run by two guys, a Jew and an Irishman. A dangerous combination.

Dick Jenrette in NY, the underwriter, told me that there was nothing happening to be concerned about. That turned out to be complete and total bullshit. He had his own axe to grind, whatever that was. The stock kept sliding. I had even promoted my Mother into it. What money that I hadn't pissed away supporting the Princess, the 4 kids and the fucking dog was in that asshole stock, called Radio Shack.

At near $2.00 a share Charles Tandy came in and acquired it. The Irishman and the Jew had devised a simple bookkeeping ploy that covered up a serious shortcoming, which I, in my arrogance, failed to see. Radio Shack, named after the radio shack on ships, was capitalizing costs against mail order sales. When the sales didn't materialize pop went the weasel.

And there I was, one more time, busted on my lower case, jewish ass with the same wife, four kids and a dog that the Princess called 'Honey'. Something she absolutely never called me. My second ex-wife continued that pattern but she preferred 'Asshole' to passive, aggressive silence.

Starting all over again from zero was grim but ignoring the Princess's entreaties to drop dead I went on to greater heights though very bruised.

Having gone from being a travellin' man (a success) to farmer (a disaster) to car salesman (big success) to stock broker (a success) to stock broker (a failure) back to stock broker (a success) didn't really fill the Princess with love and admiration for my decision making ability.

But it was onward and upward, one more fucking time. Renewed optimism, energy and new friends to make in places ranging from NY, London and even Omaha. That stuff for another blog.

Confusing Brains With A Bull Market...Lesson In Buying High, Selling Low

In 1950 my first father in law conned me into moving to Mason City, Iowa (Aka River City or Mason Fucking City).

It is so hard to believe now, that my being a farmer seemed reasonable to me. Being young, arrogant, a few years out of the army, I naturally thought that I was a fucking genius. A natural born anything I chose to be.

Turns out that farming is an art, damn near genetic. A Bronx Jew, castrating, slopping hogs, worming sheep, milking cows, and feeding cattle were things that my genes couldn't accommodate. Plus my father-in-law turned out to be more than a little perfidious, but understood the 'lay of the land'. He drowned leaving me to be a genius on my own.

Sitting on a fucking tractor, cultivating (plowing in straight lines) what seemed to be, endless rows of corn, was the ultimate in eye glazing boredom. My feelings about marriage had not yet settled in except that at least in marriage arguing over the kids and/or money did break up the boredom of it all.

The worst of it though was my failure to recognize that farming is really a commodity business. A commodity business controlled by the weather, the government and the inclinations and convictions of the so called investing public. And how the fuck could I ever dream that Cargill, a company I'd never heard of, could have such an enormous impact on my life.

During first year of my farming life, may the Lord have mercy on my arrogant soul, I went to the St. Paul Stockyards and bought a set of 25 Black Angus 700 LB. steers, fed them out and sold them at a big profit. So the next year I doubled down, bought 50 Black Angus steers, fed them, made a bigger bunch of money.


By the third year I knew that I was a fucking genius and bought 150 White Faced 700 pound steers out of Texas. 700 pounds seemed to be my magic number. The fact that my feed lot was the only one in the 'neighborhood' with cattle in it never really registered on me, until it was too fucking late. The really smart operators were not feeding.

My timing was nothing short of horrendous. Cattle prices went straight to hell, didn't pass go, and every time one of those fucking steers put on a pound I lost money. You couldn't stop feeding those fucking animals and you couldn't sell them at less than 1,100 hundred pounds without taking a real hit because of the weight loss from moving.

The Kosher market started at 1,600 pounds which was a lifetime away. Kosher Jews ate only the front end of cattle. To make the front end close to palatable you had to really fatten the whole of the animal. Kosher Jews by definition have strong teeth, powerful jaws and tough stomachs.

Been there, done that.

That was a painful commodity price lesson. Very fucking expensive. Tough to make money buying high and selling cheap.

I also bought 4 carloads of oats, 10% margin, made some money. Would have made more but this dumb Bronx Jew was putting up hay and was too busy tossing bales of hay on to a trailer, to sell the oats when I should have. I didn't know enough to call the broker. Though I had to go to his office to buy or sell. Made for a very expensive hay crop.

But now that making money in oats seemed so fucking easy, the commodity world was my cupcake.

Being a commodity genius really suited me. So I bought 4 carloads of corn on margin, thinking that I had Federal price supports to back me up. Prices started moving up sharply. Greed took over. Commodity advisory services predicted substantially higher prices. Selling seemed stupid. But stupid is as stupid does. Trees were going to grow to the sky and I was one smart Bronx Jew watching my money grow with the speed of a weed.

Then President Eisenhower appointed Ezra Taft Benson to be Secretary of Agriculture. A very powerful position in those days. Benson with his appointment declared that he only believed in price supports in times of .disaster thereby causing a price disaster. Corn went off the limit every day for days and I barely got out with all my ass and money.

Then there was the time that breeding sows to ‘come in’ during December to feed out the pigs to sell as fat hogs in February seemed really clever. Everyone knew that hog prices always went up in February. But not the year this commodity guru (that's me) had them. Turns out there was a huge carryover surplus of those fucking hogs from the previous and hog prices went the way of my money. Straight to hell.

'Farming' is a misnomer. You have to know and understand more than just how to raise crops, operate farm machinery, help sows 'come in', castrate pigs, milk cows, feed cattle, worm sheep and rotate fields with the fucking weather being the real elephant in the farmer's room.

Operating and making money in that complicated world was out of this Bronx Jew's realm. It was easy for me to confuse brains with a bull market, which is the curse of all commodity and stock market speculators.

Been there, done that.

The plus has been real lessons in paranoia, which does improve peripheral vision.