The Politico story that president O has played as much golf in 9-months as Dubya did in 2 year 10 months has me back to contemplating getting out the irons to play a little golf now that cooler weather has arrived.
Stories like “CSU’s Claussen fires 4-under 68 in opening round of Las Vegas tourney” discourage me though. If I were ever to fire another 4-under, it would likely be on an executive length course (e.g. short & quick) like it was the first time.
Unfortunately, when I finished with my 68 I was reminded there were still 9 more holes to play on the back 9.
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There’s something appealing about a short executive course, although I read recently that Boca Raton Executive Country Club was closed. Time & money. When we were living in Boca, 2002-2003, off season rates were something like $10/person including cart if you ordered a book of 20-games, I think it was.
The rates at the local club (www.pinedunes.com) are a little higher: Saturday and Sunday are $79, but a Monday-Thursday $39 senior rate looks promising. Not sure how old you have to be to qualify for the Sr. rate but if it’s 55 or 60, then I’d be able to swing it.
Your security clearance doesn’t authorize you to know whether I ask for that rate for Elaine.
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Periodically I like to extend invitations to past and present presidents. You may recall that when he was out working cutting brush at the Crawford White House I invited George Bush to come by Uretopia Ranch to cut some brush for us, too. So far, Dubya hasn’t shown up, but I still keep the Husqvarna Rancher 455 chainsaw more or less ready in case he changes his mind. I*’d even run into town and get some diet pop if I knew he was coming by.
In the same spirit I’d invite Mr. Obama to visit East Texas for a round of golf. Heck, I’d even pay for his round, too, as long as it’s the Monday-Thursday $49 rate. Might even be able to scare up a local democratic party representative, depending on schedules.
Might give him a chance to see one of the few things that mounts up even faster than the federal debt: The number of swings it takes me to get out of the sand traps on the 11th hole.
If you picture going to Honeyman State Park in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and installing a putting green? Something like that. 11 and I don’t get along. But then neither do 12, 13, 14….
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Taking my cue from the people in Washington, I have recently developed a improved golf scoring method called ‘Off Budget Golfing.”
The way it works is pretty straightforward. Most golfers use the equivalent of ‘cash basis accounting’. These simple golfers start on hole 1 and play through to hole 18. Add up strokes, lowest stroke count wins. Simple, but obviously outdated since it’s not the way IRS, the federal government, or real slippery corporations do things.
Accrual Golfing: First, I have an intricate set of rules that allows me to define my “fiscal game”. Usually, that means the scoring on the first three or four holes is associated with a past game. When someone asks me “What did you shoot last week” I tell them “Oh, 115…” I leave out the part about the four shots left to play the coming week.
If that past game happened to be a pretty good one, I use a technique I call ‘score averaging. Done properly, I can usually get a 5-10 stroke credit carryforward, since the results of the previous game are subject to accelerated depreciation. So automatically, on the 5th hole, I’m usually 4 or 5 under par.
Then I have set up the golf equivalent of Section 179 which allows me to deduct all the strokes on my three worst holes in any fiscal game. That often gets me up to the tee box on the 8th hole still 4 or 5 under par. As you can see, this makes me a formidable golfer.
Next, I disallow certain travel expenses, such as off-fairway excursions. Can’t count since it was not even close to business travel, got it? Usually save 10-strokes or so using that one.
Then, if the ball is struck and disappears, it is assumed to have gone into a special high security hole that no one knows about outside the Senate Golf Committee’ staff, so I count only as many strokes as it took to launch the ball into oblivion.
Water traps are treated off budget, too. If I splash a ball, it’s as good as done – and that’s my stroke count for the hole. It just went ‘off budget”, right?
Even with all my new found sleazy golf accounting tricks, I sometimes find that I’m carding 90 or more by the 17th hole. In which case, I elect to report my score as an offshore currency equivalent. If, for example, I move my score to my Cayman Islands golf account, I multiply the US score by 80% to convert it to local scoring. You have to be careful with this, however, since any score in Cayman Islands golf m put back in am American scoring account has to be multiplied by 1.25, although if you know the right folks in Grand Turk….
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If this sounds like an absolutely crazy way to score golf – you’re absolutely right - it is!
Yet if this is crazy for golf scoring, or we applied such absurdities to other iconic American sports like Baseball of Football, why is it less crazy when we invest absurd abstractions for the ‘scoring’ of federal, state, local and corporate accounting?
Didn’t the US government itself just announce last year that Lehman and AIG were mulligan’s? And isn’t the Fed trying to become course marshals with a hidden rule book that no one ever sees?
And what about GE? Are we going to spot them one club length inside bounds and play on like nothing’s going on? Citi? What – 5-yard penalty, replay the down?
Think about it. What would the world be like with the FASB scoring sports? I’m not waiting. I’m going to start creative account in golf immediately.
Hey! Maybe then I could score one of those green Master’s Jackets? The first one to implement the latest & greatest special accounting rules wins…am I right?
I wonder if hosting president Obama for golf would be tax deductible for a regular human? I expect it would be for a nonhuman corporate entity….
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Send your comments to george@ure.net
The UrbanSurvival Mall:
Peoplenomics This Week
“Economic Island Theory”
While we wait patiently to see which big commercial real estate outfit will be the first to hit banko, what the public reaction to the Obama declaration of national medical state of emergency and so forth will be, we’re at a fine point to consider one of my pet economic theories. I call it “Economic Island Theory” and it works with countries, states, cities, neighborhoods, and people right here on your block. If you want to understand who has power, Economic Island Theory is the ticket…no fancy formulas needed. Job, home, and Life counseling - all in one byte-sized theory.
“Live on $10,000″ Updated
With another round of layoffs due to start later this month…a round which will start to axe many of the middle managers who have managed to avoid the HR grenades…might I suggest a preemptive tactical move? Voluntarily dropping your lifestyle back a bit, since we’re all being marched down that road by either circumstances or some out-of-control-PTB types who write checks to Washington lobby and to anti-reformers in California! A good starting point, at least if you’ve still got $10-bucks is my e-book “How to Live on #10,000 a Year…or less!”
It’s an automatic download. It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left… Click here for the index and details.
MyGroPonics
My commodity broker JB Slear and I have written a simple book to get you started on high density hydroponics. It’s an example of how someone with a little creativity, access to a few ‘dollar stores’ and willing to try out some new farming techniques can grow an amazing amount of produce sin a very small space – like even an apartment balcony (if it gets some sunlight). Sound interesting? It’s just $10 bucks here…
No, when you tell your browser to ‘empty your cookies’ of web sites you’ve visited, it probably won’t get them all. Why? Because there is a whole class of ‘browser-independent’ cookies that will gobble up space on your hard drive, but more important is they will sneak out information about you without you being aware of it. Ever week I get emails like this one:
“Thanks again for the Maxa Tools recommendation, I never knew how much additional garbage gets attached every time I browse. “
Test drive it free by downloading it. To upgrade to full functionality will be $35 bucks. Is your privacy worth it?
Once you try it out, click the upgrade button (!) on the upper right hand side for the $35 unlock to get it to remove even those nasty and highly intrusive ‘non-browser specific’ cookies. Bonus: You computer may run faster. I’ve taken 1,000 37,970 41,837 cookies off my machine now. It’s just amazing. (I might ask their CTO to add one more digit to the “Total deleted till now” window…)
Attn: Mac Drivers: MCM does support the Safari Browser, but that does not mean it is compatible with Mac OS. Maxa-Tools only support the Windows world….so far. Given Jens and the other engineers time…
Feeling Thorny?
Want to be a thorn in the side of the Old World Order? Simply click here and send a link to this site to everyone on your distro list…Nothing more dangerous than sharp, clear-thinking upstarts who ask a lot of questions, eh? Unless you believe WTC-7 fell over on its own, of course….
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Last week’s report is here. For back issues of this site, click here. (Goes back to 1997!)