The brilliant Ruth Wisse wants me to apologize, so I do. I apologize for my whole family past and present; I apologize to all Americans who love America. Ruth points out in several articles that a large swath of Jewish immigrants, beginning around 1890, came to the United States with fervent communist ideas. That is understandable since they came from... Continue reading

My life has been very different than most people’s. Starting as a student at the University of Chicago, I was introduced to the concept of reading original documents. It has shaped me, positively and for a more interesting way to live. Then while starting two corporate marketing research departments, I learned how to easily handle data. Which I have done... Continue reading

As a business advisor it is rare to get credit for good advice. It is even rarer to get credit for advice that has a major impact. Most people forget they got advice and assume they would have done the right thing of their own accord. Which may be true. From the advisor's perspective that isn’t how the world looks.... Continue reading

That is the title of the first chapter of a prominent book in 1964 by Marshall McLuhan. The meaning, outside the book, has been widely discussed. To me it means that the social uses and forms of communication of many media is different from anything in its content. Light bulbs, automobiles, TV, books, etc are the media and the message... Continue reading

I know the history of San Francisco because I started the first unlicensed bus tours of the City in 1972 (Third World Tours). I had to develop the spiel for the tours and train the bus drivers. So I know that San Francisco has a long history of extremist, stupid, legislation that has often resulted in positive outcomes; lucky. Because... Continue reading

Stewart has been a friend for 50 years. We last saw each other in the early 90s when we had a 20th anniversary of the Point Foundation founding. At my home. Our reunion was not joyful. The whole former board of five men had gone in different ways and had little in common in our respective lives. I was on... Continue reading

I am the first prominent Jew to give public money advice. My book is The Seven Laws of Money. What is the connection? (The original edition is the only unabridged version) After eight years of community organizing including creating a graduate student organization at the U. of California Berkeley, a friend, Salli Rasberry, asked for advice on raising money for... Continue reading

I am the first prominent Jew to give public business advice. What is the connection? Let's start with my background in banking. I knew from my seven years in banking that banks have little to do with business. Banks lend only to sure things. They prefer to lend on a gold mine in a secure stable country. The mine can’t... Continue reading

I have never talked about my portfolio because I don’t discuss investments in any circumstances. The problem with me giving investment advice is that I am not around when it is time to change the advice. I could recommend that you buy a stock and a week later I sell it and forget that I told you to buy it.... Continue reading

That is what friends and family keep telling me. However, the new California political party Common Sense supports my position. The founders of Common Sense are known by me to be the anti-dimwit politicians of the last 50 years. There are two reasons I call the political world ‘dimwit.’ First is my personal experience over a lifetime. The second is... Continue reading

In the first battle of merit vs woke, merit won. That was the real battle described in the last blog, the recall of the San Francisco School Board members. The School Board was 100% woke; changing the names of 44 schools such as Lincoln and Washington because the historic figures were not woke. The Board wanted to paint over an... Continue reading

I did nothing in the School Board recall election in San Francisco last week. But I dealt with the same issue in 1961. The two most powerful political groups in San Francisco, today, are the Chinese Americans who were organized in the 1980s by the late Rose Pak; they elected the mayor before the current mayor. And the Lowell High... Continue reading

Oil price rise causing inflation In 1974 we faced an OPEC oil embargo that raised the price of oil and immediately created domestic U.S. inflation. That Inflation continued for 12 years and at one point in 1980 reached a 12% rise in the CPI measure of inflation. This was the first of its kind oil price- caused inflation. One-of-a-kind events... Continue reading

I am most recently disturbed by new regulations that require Venmo and Zelle to report to the IRS all transactions over $600 and require my crypto bank to report all transactions over $10,000. I am an ordinary American citizen who has never been to prison, never been convicted of a crime, served in the Army and paid over a million... Continue reading

The butt-showing male pants came out of prison, as did the angry-at-women-and-the-world, rap. The same is true for wokeism. I personally have never been a prison inmate, I only spent a few hours in jail after a political demonstration and visited at a recidivist prison near Tokyo. I had many acquaintances in the Prisoners Union. It is pretty clear that... Continue reading

The subject of my wonderful friend, Ed Roberts, came up today. Ed died in 1995 and I wrote an obituary the following year. You might enjoy reading the obituary I wrote. It is important. I wrote it because I knew the world would never understand who Ed was and why he was the most influential person of the 20th century.... Continue reading

Alex is visiting, on an annual trek from Canada. Our conversations are hours long. My real close friends are defined by their interest in the world, everything, not just the issues that impinge on their lives. None of my close friends were on the Railroad to Retirement (salaried jobs they were doing to earn a pension.) They were all learning... Continue reading

“San Francisco has definitely become third-world.” The problem with saying that is that 93% of the people who live here have no idea what the third world is. San Francisco has 850,000 residents. Of this 50,000 came here after living in a third-world country (Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, Philippines, India etc.) Possibly 5,000 San Franciscans have visited a third-world country (not... Continue reading

Five of America’s long-term patterns have converged to do terminal damage. First, America was founded by Puritans and their progeny have been a dominant force in shaping American values. They are strongest in the Northeast, home of the major colleges and media institutions. The Puritan value system has many elements that include hostility to the idea that someone else is... Continue reading

There has been recent discussion in literary circles about the change in public attitudes toward General Robert E. Lee. Statues of Lee have been removed in many parts of the South along with the names of streets of many of his generals. This is a big change from the elevation of Lee and the Confederacy to a high status as... Continue reading

This is continued from the last blog. It is about the second Japanese documentary film that dealt with dolphin killing at Taiji, Japan. In the mid-1970s I heard from a friend that there were rumors of an annual Japanese dolphin slaughter. I have gone to Japan every year since 1970 so I added the source of rumor to my travel... Continue reading

Two Japanese documentary filmmakers emailed me while I was in Tokyo in the early 2000s. I met with them at my favorite coffee shop in Shibuya where there are some private rooms upstairs for business meetings. I was interviewed for one film for my role in stopping the American anti-whaling movement. The other was my role in postponing the American... Continue reading

I was just brought up to date on Stephen Wolfram’s project to find the key to the universe which he released online last year. He used many of the simplest math statements to generate entire universes with hundreds of thousands of outcomes. The problem has become one of knowing which one is the closest to the universe we live in.... Continue reading

In 1971 Federal Judge Robert F. Peckham directed a settlement between Bank of California and a class of women and minorities that agreed to six of the top 18 bank members of management being women and 6 be black and other minorities within five years with funds set aside for special training. The agreement was signed by other major California... Continue reading