Late

Our last blog was on January 22, yes January 22, I just broke one of my management rules, I have been LATE.

I preach to students, associates, managers, never be late. I have been very late.

The reasons why one is late: three - discipline, organization, awareness. I better start listening to myself.

It's March, meaning those New Year resolutions have utterly worn off and spring fever is about to set in: a good time to take inventory and manage better.

HOLLYWOODLAND -- Academy Award Winners 2018: The Complete List: http://bit.ly/2oTfjge

ON THIS DATE - Not exactly an uplifting anniversary, but it's now 448 years since what's believed to have been the first assassination using a firearm. (The victim, James Stewart - the first Earl of Moray, not the fictional Sen. Jefferson Smith who went to Washington - was the regent of Scotland, an illegitimate son of King James V and died after a power struggle with Mary, Queen of Scots, his half-sister.)

TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T ALREADY KNOW - How internet usage has changed since 2000: A study from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future finds that "total hours per week online has steadily increased from 9.4 to 23.6," since its first report more than 15 years ago.

MILLENIALS & MONEY - Bank of America has a new survey: Millennials are proving that they are just as good as or better than older generations when it comes to money management habits like saving and budgeting, according to the Better Money Habits® Millennial Report released ...

Millennials (ages 23 to 37) are saving (63 percent), and they are more likely to say they have a savings goal (57 percent) than members of Gen X (42 percent) and baby boomers (42 percent). ... Forty-seven percent of millennials have $15,000 or more in savings, and 16 percent have $100,000 or more in savings.

NEED A BUCK – The Treasury Department announced a hefty borrowing schedule for the next six months: During the January - March 2018 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $441 billion in net privately-held marketable debt ... During the April - June 2018 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $176 billion in net privately-held marketable debt, assuming an end-of-June cash balance of $360 billion. The government's borrowing needs have been rising as federal deficits have increased. The deficit for the 2017 budget year, which ended last September, totaled $665.8 billion.

The federal budget deficit is on track to blow through $1 trillion in 2019. If it does, it would be the first time since 2012 the U.S. economy will have to support a deficit so large, highlighting a basic shift for the Republican Party, which has traditionally prided itself on fiscal conservatism.

ON THIS DATE PART DEUX - It's also now been 59 years since a Texas Instruments engineer named Jack Kilby applied for a patent for "Miniaturized Electronic Circuits," also known as an integrated circuit. (Also known as a microchip.) The invention "gave rise to the information age and heralded an explosion of consumer electronics products.

VA TROUBLES - The chaos in the White House is overshadowing the chaos at Veterans Affairs — which is truly extraordinary, since what's happening at the VA right now is NUTS.

The short version: After the VA's inspector general reported that VA Secretary David Shulkin used taxpayer dollars to pay for his wife to go to Europe, the VA secretary has been telling anyone who will listen that Trump appointees in his agency are conspiring to undermine him. He started handling his own media relations because he doesn't trust the agency's communications staff. And he told Politico the White House gave him the green light to "purge" his agency (a senior White House official told me they did no such thing, and aren't letting Shulkin fire Trump appointees).

POTUS WEEK: Monday: Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president meets with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Tuesday: Trump hosts the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. Thursday: Trump holds a Cabinet meeting. Friday: Trump meets with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

GOOD READ - "She Left Harvard. He Got to Stay," by Tom Bartlett and Nell Gluckman in the Chronicle of Higher Ed: "Did the university's handling of one professor's sexual-harassment complaint keep other women from coming forward for decades?"  http://bit.ly/2oIrWvJ

BUSINESS STAT - India regained its status as the world’s fastest growing major economy in the October-December quarter, surpassing China for the first time in a year as government spending, manufacturing and services all picked up.

COLLEGE CHRONICLES – Jobs in Higher Education: Vice President for Finance and Administration - St. Lawrence University invites nominations and applications for the newly-reconfigured position of Vice President for Finance and Administration. The next Vice President must be a bold, entrepreneurial, intellectual, and collaborative leader with strong management skills and financial acumen and have the ability to reimagine the traditional structures for finance and administration at an institution of higher education.

Located in Canton, N.Y., St. Lawrence University is a coeducational, private, independent liberal arts institution of about 2,500 students. The educational opportunities at St. Lawrence inspire students and prepare them to be critical and creative thinkers, to find a compass for their lives and careers, and to pursue knowledge and understanding for the benefit of themselves, society, and the planet. Through its focus on active engagement with ideas in and beyond the classroom, a St. Lawrence education leads students to make connections that transform lives and communities, from the local to the global.

Reporting directly to President William Fox, the Vice President is the Chief Financial Officer of the University and provides strategic and operational leadership for all financial areas of university life, including the development, implementation, coordination, and oversight of new programs that will fit with the goals of strategic budgeting in diversifying revenue streams. These areas include: auxiliary enterprises, such as bookstore, hotel, and properties; enterprise risk management; current and future summer programs; and potentially additional campus services (to be determined in alignment with experience).

The Vice President’s responsibilities currently include financial planning, revenue and expenditure analysis for decision-making, development and execution of the operating and capital budget, supervision of all accounting and control, oversight of debt financing and the University’s investment portfolio, management of banking relationships and payroll, coordination with the Vice President for Community and Employee Relations of salary and benefits programs particularly in the area of health insurance and pension fund oversight, all financial audits, insurance programs, environmental health and safety, bookstore and purchasing, and enterprise risk management. The Vice President for Finance and Administration plays a central role in integrating fiscal planning with strategic program planning. The Vice President, along with a staff of approximately 35, oversees the University operating budget and endowment. As administration functions are added to the Vice President’s portfolio, the number of staff supervised by the Vice President will increase.

St. Lawrence University seeks an experienced financial professional with a record of achievement in positions of increasing scope. The ideal candidate would hold an MBA or other relevant advanced degree and would demonstrate many of the following: track record of success as a senior financial officer of a complex organization; high-level financial planning, modeling, and analytic skills; strong background in accounting, information technology, and financing capital projects and improvements; track record of excelling at making difficult, timely, and financially responsible decisions; experience with and knowledge of debt management, risk management, and financial audits; understanding of budgeting and finance models at liberal arts-based institutions; ability to effectively present complex financial information to varied audiences; appreciation for the role of shared governance, including the ability to engage with constituents in a consultative and collaborative manner; and demonstrated understanding of how sound financial and administrative management furthers the quality of education and services provided to students, faculty, staff, and other members of the University community.

The search process is currently underway and will continue until the position is filled. Nominations, inquiries, and expressions of interest should be forwarded, in confidence, to:

Susan VanGilder, Partner, Matthew Bunting, Managing Associate, Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, LP

STLAWVPFIN18@Storbecksearch.com

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Michelle Graves …famous government leader; Allison Krich … a milestone birthday; Maria Suffredini ….famous niece; Antonio Villaraigosa (65) Los Angeles, CA.;  Oprah Winfrey (64) Montecito, CA.

MARKET WEEK – The threat of a global trade war spooked stocks last week, but a market rebound on Friday illustrates how investors continue to brush off policy uncertainty to send U.S. indexes higher.

Stocks tumbled in early trading Friday as investors digested the Trump administration’s plans to introduce tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum imports. Markets had mostly recovered by the end of the day. The S&P 500 closed up 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average pared earlier losses to end down 0.3%.

Investors said that although the proposed tariffs are limited in scope, they could signal a ratcheting up in U.S. protectionism that could spark retaliation from trade partners.

European leaders Friday threatened to hit back at the U.S. with tariffs on American-made products such as Harley Davidson motorcycles and bourbon.

“Trade wars have the potential to destroy capital and punish markets,” said analysts at Voya Investment Management in a research note Friday. “It is predictable and probable that this will lower global trade and with it global growth.”

The U.S. tariffs are likely to benefit domestic aluminum and and steel producers such as Nucor Corp. and U.S. Steel Corp. but weigh on companies that use a lot of those metals, such as aviation giant Boeing Co. and carmakers like Ford Motor Co.. Those companies are are likely to face higher prices that they will either have to absorb, eating into their profitability, or pass along to consumers.

Still, many analysts saw the turmoil created by the tariffs as a chance to buy stocks at a cheaper price. A Credit Suisse report last week showed that spikes in the CBOE Volatility Index are typically followed by market strength.

Periods when the VIX rose above 25--a level the index eclipsed during intraday trading Friday--were followed by an average 6.9% return for S&P stocks in the next three months, according to Credit Suisse data.

SPORTS WORLD - Controversies big and small have taken over sports.

There’s the breaking news of the day, with the Arizona men’s basketball coach Sean Miller denying he ever talked about paying a recruit $100,000, despite a recent report saying the F.B.I. had him on tape doing so.

On Wednesday, the debate about how best to treat and prevent concussions infiltrated baseball via Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier. Feeling the effects of a concussion after twice running into the outfield wall in an exhibition game on Saturday, Frazier said he started to feel better after guzzling water on the advice of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who is in camp in pinstripes this week. It’s not clear why, or if, the water actually helped.

Of course, any talk of sports controversy these days has to include Russia. With the country’s newest Olympic medalists still basking in the glow of their success, the International Olympic Committee lifted Russia’s suspension stemming from a doping scandal. The country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, said he wanted everyone to move on.

And no, we didn’t forget about football: N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell is said to be demanding millions of dollars from Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, after Jones challenged Goodell’s new contract, and Papa John’s is football’s favorite pizza no more.

Good luck getting any extra rest before your days and nights belong to the World Cup in Russia this summer.

SWAMI’S WEEK TOP PICKS –

NHL Pick of the Week – Saturday 3/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TSN: Pittsburg Penguins (37-25-4) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (39-21-7), Crosby v. Matthews (if he is healthy), Toronto wins 4 – 3. Season to date (10-3).

NBA Pick of the Week – Saturday 3/10 8:00 PM EDT, ABC: San Antonio Spurs (36-27) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (37-28), Thunder over Pop’s crew, 94 – 87. Season to date (3-1)

Season to Date (6 - 3)

DRIVING THE WEEK - Internal White House war over the nature of the steel and aluminum tariffs will continue ... Senate takes up the bank regulatory reform bill on Tuesday with passage expected within a week ... Joint Economic Committee hearing on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. featuring CEA Chair Kevin Hassett. Perhaps members will take the opportunity to ask about the tariffs.

President Trump on Monday meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ... ISM non-manufacturing survey at 10:00 a.m. Monday expected to drop to 58.8 from 59.6 ... February jobs report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. expected to show a gain of 200K, no change to 4.1 percent jobless rate and a 0.2 percent increase in earnings.

Next Blog: Dear Rink Rats

Until next time, Adios

Claremont, California

March 5, 2018

#VIII-24-366

CARTOON OF THE WEEK – Sidney Harris, The New Yorker