Check it out: https://oddyssea.com/2012/08/30/oddyssea-video/

Is there an eligible voter with an IQ higher than room temperature who is still truly undecided about the upcoming election? Nope. Yet we still have to suffer through 70 some days of blathering from the candidates and their lackeys which is truly wasted effort, money, and time. It makes reasonable people want to stick their heads in the sand to turn off the extraneous noise.

It’s time to reform elections for President, Senator, and Congress-Critter. Once upon a time when the world was “big” – and I mean big from a time/travel/opportunity perspective – it made sense to have a drawn out process before an election so that candidates could physically travel to visit with prospective voters in their native habitat. But now things are different, you can be anywhere in the good ol’ US of A in a day’s plane flight. Voters are inundated with 24×7 chatter via media, social media, propaganda, and advertisements. The world has shrunk and because of this change, we need to revisit and amend our campaigns.

What seems sensible to me is an election day minus 30 days kickoff. Allow 30 days of campaigning etc for Presidential, Senatorial, and Congressional elections. Allow private citizens and corporations up to $100 of contribution total during an election cycle allocated to whichever candidates / races they specify. Outlaw PACs. Revoke the tax exempt status from any religious outfit / union that mixes in politics during the election period. In short, make the voting period shorter, take out the special interests, and let people do actual work without all this wasted effort.

If we were to take this proposal, we could redirect all the cash being wasted into useful things like infrastructure, education, healthcare, police, firefighters, and defense. Who wouldn’t like that few extra billions put to work instead of pissed away with candidates lying about their opponents to a public that has long ago decided how they would vote.

Why not I say? Let’s make it so.

Just in case you had any confusion about what you’re voting for in the 2012 election, I prepared this handy chart to help sort things out. Feel free to use it and share it!

Go read it over on the Oddyssea site! The First 30 Days.

Mike, you’re kidding right? You don’t even like Facebook (we know, we read your blog and tweets) how could you have a post with such a title?

Investing is all about finding value and exploiting it. At a market cap of $100B you’d have to be crazy to buy stock in a $4B barely profitable company despite the many other assets it boasts. However, at $20B market cap, while still richly valued, there could be some upside in the investment.

$FB has $4.33B in sales trailing 12 months. It has net cash of nearly $10B on the balance sheet. It has Free Cash Flow of $1.7B ttm. As of market close August 16, 2012, the market cap is $42B and price per share is $19.87. If we back out the total cash / share of $4.37, we get intrinsic worth of $15.50 / share and that girls and boys, is interesting as an investment opportunity.

Recently we saw the first tranche of insiders being able to sell and it put downward pressure on the stock. I think we’ll see a bounce up in the near-term until the next insider sell off. That could be the right time to take a position if you are so inclined. I’m now considering it and that’s not something I ever expected to be able to say!

So, YMMV, but a mid-term win could be possible as $FB reaches the $16-18 / share price range. Caveat Emptor, as always.