Circle of Confusion

Instead of camping out in the wild, I decided to camp out at General Chang’s garden just outside of Mariposa. We will do the wilderness another time. Thank you Adobe (see previous post).

Because of Katrina crisis, China's leader postpones trip to US

By Joe McDonald, Associated Press | September 4, 2005

BEIJING -- President Hu Jintao of China yesterday postponed his official visit to the United States this week because of Hurricane Katrina...

And look who I saw on Tioga Pass: none other than Mr. Hu's medicine man, Dr. Forest. I wonder whether the Chairman knows he is here to "drink some pure heavenly water..." and is he bringing some of these aqua back to the chief?

Now on to the subject at hand: misery tax. I wonder if your profit is largely the the result of other people's suffering, like the gulf coast along Louisinan presently resulting in small jump in gasoline price, should extra tax be levied?

Joe called from his yacht yesterday. He was sailing Martha’s Vineyard this Labor day weekend. His portfolio was up a few hundred mil (his words, ‘a few hundred mil’). He donated $500k for hurricane relief.

“You should donate a hundred, two hundred mil, maybe half of your gain from last week.” I said since much of his gain was in oil and gas.

He told me to get real. “Who is going cover me when I go bust?” he asked.

“Don’t be too greedy and you won’t go bust.”

“If I am not greedy, I wouldn’t be sailing now and slurping uni (sea urchin) and tobiko. What about you? You did pretty good last week and you are roughing it out in Yosemite. Putting up a tent in somebody's backyard is camping? You are a disgrace to Yosemite. Stuck in limbo my yinyang. And how much did you give?”

"do you have any abalone over there. I can't finish mine here." I quickly changed the subject...

Joe is one of the good guys I met in Wall St. We used to worked at S&P’s years ago back in the dotcom boom when blokes became millionaires daily and I had a pocket full of stock options from several dotcoms. He used to joke: “You’re Standard and I’m Poor’s”. Joe vowed then: “if I ever made a hundred mil a year, I would donate 20% to charity!”

As the calamity of Katrina unfolded on General Chang’s big screen in front of me, and Bill is urging me to "finish the dog gone abalone already", I wondered should there be misery…er…tax? Joe profited handsomely from Katrina. I know because he was loading up his portfolio betting the hurricane “will slam the gulf coast with total devastation.”

“Pray for N.O. L.A.” I saw that on the back of a truck as I left L.A. on Friday. I thought “LA sucks sometime, but why pray for no la?” Then I realize it’s New Orleans, Louisiana.

My thoughts and prayers goes to N.O. L.A.