Who Will Stop The Rain

This has been the summer of anniversaries:

80 years: ‘Gone with the Wind” & “Wizard of Oz”

75 years: D-Day, allies landing on Normandy Beach, France

65 years: Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring separate public schools as unconstitutional

55 years: Nixon’s Resignation

50 years: Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon & Woodstock Music Festival

40 years: Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, Middletown, Pa.

30 years: Berlin Wall coming down

Some good and some not so good.

Lately we in this country are creating new anniversaries:

Chicago 7 people killed, 48 wounded this past weekend

Dayton, 9

El Paso, 21

Virginia Beach, 12

Aurora, Ill., 5

Thousand Oaks, 12

Pittsburgh, 11

Annapolis, 5

Santa Fe, Tx., 10

Parkland, 17

Sutherland Springs, Tx., 26

Las Vegas, 58

Orlando, 5

Ft. Lauderdale, 5

Burlington, Wash., 5

Only the sites and numbers change; nothing else does.

Anniversaries celebrate accomplishments and help us remember days we hope to never see again.

Let’s hope we all have the courage to change the course of America away from the violence.

UNIVERSITY SECOND CLASS – The story never ends:

The University of Southern California has agreed to pay $50 million to the University of California at San Diego and apologize over a star researcher’s departure that led to a closely watched academic-poaching lawsuit.

The backstory: In 2015, Paul S. Aisen, a professor of neurology, defected to USC from UC-San Diego, and took his multimillion-dollar Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study and its staff with him. The dispute between the two institutions turned ugly and gave rise to a rare court battle.

In its apology, USC said its past actions “did not align with the standards of ethics and integrity which USC expects of all its faculty, administrators, and staff.” With the $50-million penalty and USC’s mea culpa, the lawsuit has been settled.

MONEY FOR NOTHING - Saudi Arabia directed about $650 million to American universities from 2012 to 2018, according to an Education Department report on foreign gifts to colleges in the United States. That’s good enough for third on the list, behind Britain and Qatar. And the total from Saudi Arabia is likely to be far higher than it appears, since universities are inconsistent in how they report such contributions.

The current focus is on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which last year played host to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi monarchy’s crown prince. An official in the Saudi leader’s campus entourage was later suspected of having played a leading role in the dismemberment and murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. This past spring MIT decided to subject its research collaborations with Saudi Arabia and other nations to stricter scrutiny after a groundswell of public criticism.

WHEN CARS WERE KING - Before Keith Krach was a Silicon Valley-billionaire-founder, he was a rising star in my hometown, Detroit, the Motor City.

The vice president of General Motors’ emerging robotics venture, he was a regular guest at the country club where the boss of his company, Roger Smith, and Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca hung out. Mr. Krach couldn’t help but think he was on track to be chief executive of GM, then among the biggest and most valuable companies in the world.

In 1987, though, he left Detroit behind to take a significant pay cut and join a software startup in Northern California. “I thought that was kind of the way of the future,” he recently said. He went on to found Ariba, an e-commerce network that achieved a $40 billion market capitalization, and later run the DocuSign Inc. electronic-signature company.

As prudent as Mr. Krach’s bet seems today, it was shaky when he made it.

When Mr. Krach changed careers, Americans’ most prized possessions didn’t have screens or buzz in our pockets; they rolled up in driveways and fit in garages. U.S. auto makers churned out more than seven in 10 cars sold in U.S. dealerships, and 15% of the working public relied on the industry for its livelihood. A car (not a cellphone bill, student loan, or Peloton exercise bike) would be a person’s second-biggest purchase behind a house.

Mr. Iacocca’s death this week reminded me of just how much ground the auto industry has lost since the car-company CEO was king. In the mid-1980s, The Wall Street Journal called Mr. Iacocca “the most famous industrialist in the world.” He graced magazine covers and was heralded for greenlighting innovations spanning sexy pony cars and boxy minivans. A Gallup Poll listed him behind only President Reagan and Pope John Paul II in a ranking of the world’s most respected men.

“He was a rock star,” former Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda said Wednesday, the day after Mr. Iacocca died. Mr. LaSorda joined Chrysler from GM after Mr. Iacocca’s time, but his father, a labor leader, negotiated with Chrysler’s legendary boss in the 1980s. Mr. LaSorda said auto executives were “totally engaged in product development, telling designers how high to make this or how long to make that. That’s a really good example of what the legend is all about.”

Names like Bob Lutz, Harley Earl, and Henry Ford II were the Elon Musks of their time. Mr. Iacocca, whose career began in 1946 at Ford Motor Co. , outshined them all and was a proxy for an era when the car industry was the pinnacle of innovation.

Steve Miller, a well-known turnaround artist, got his start at Ford in the late 1960s, well after Mr. Iacocca had become famous and gave the go-ahead to creating the sporty Mustang. On Tuesday, Mr. Miller said he sprinted to Detroit after graduating with his business degree from Stanford and joined the Dearborn, Mich., auto maker because the pay was good and the product was at the center of society.

Mr. Miller would later follow Mr. Iacocca to Chrysler after Mr. Iacocca was ejected from the driver’s seat by Mr. Ford, even though the company was minting money. It was a headline-grabbing clash of personalities.

Mr. Miller arrived at a Chrysler on life support. Why? Because Mr. Iacocca was spending the only money left on trying to update a product lineup he viewed as “crap.” Much like a startup founder today, Mr. Iacocca was trying to create whiz-bang products—including little-lamented K-Cars and hyper successful minivans—using someone else’s money.

The saga of Mr. Iacocca’s pitch to the U.S. government for loan guarantees is well known, but here is something we often forget. Chrysler was able to win Congressional backing in 1980 because almost every congressman in America came from a district propped up by the auto industry. Constituents from California to Rhode Island were taxpaying members of the middle class because of a job in a car factory, or a job as a supplier of auto parts, or a job selling cars.

“We’d approach it like this: ‘Dear congressman from Utah. In your district here are how many jobs [that] come from Chrysler, Mr. Miller said. He recalled former House Speaker Tip O’Neill telling Mr. Iacocca that his desperate and successful push for rescue financing was proof all politics are local.

That’s because the car business was woven into every town in America.

Before Mr. Miller’s time, in the 1950s, people would go to try to see behind big sheets of paper that shielded the showroom windows at Dean Sellers in Detroit. Somewhere behind that covered glass sat a freshened version of Ford’s Thunderbird or Galaxie and kids strained for a sneak peek before the official reveal. Back then, sheet metal was redesigned every year, hitting the market at the same clip as today’s software updates for devices or the latest binge-worthy series from Netflix. There is now far more enthusiasm for leaked pictures of the next iPhone or details on the next line of business Amazon.com . plans to disrupt.

We still hold automotive chiefs in high regard. GM’s Mary Barra often tops a list of most powerful women, for example, and Bill Ford headlines economic conferences. Car enthusiasts aren’t extinct, but the industry—with the exception of Mr. Musk’s Tesla Inc. —has handed the mantle of technological leadership over to the likes of Uber Technologies Inc. or Google. Names like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg far outrank even the most successful of Detroit’s recent CEOs, like Sergio Marchionne or Alan Mulally. Go ahead, name today’s CEOs of each of Detroit’s Big Three.

Sure, we are promised that the industry’s best days are ahead, but those days are expected to involve automobiles where drivers aren’t needed. We’ll all be traveling smartphones on wheels.

For a hint of how things are changing, look at attitudes toward driving. The percentage of teens with a driver’s license has tumbled in the last few decades and more young people are delaying purchasing their first car—if buying one at all. About a quarter of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2017, a sharp decline from nearly half in 1983.

Consumers are far more likely to know what Apple Inc. unveiled at the latest Worldwide Developers Conference in June or at a star-studded product event in March than to be able to tell you what’s next for BMW or how much an electric car costs.

Or consider the fading fortunes of the motor show. Detroit’s annual North American International Auto Show, which was the toast of the business press and host to outlandish vehicle reveals, is moving to summer from its customary January dates.

Sure, the weather will be better, but the main reason for the move is that it couldn’t compete with the other corporate extravaganza in January: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Tony Bennett (93), Kevin Gallagher …famous NY Giant fan, Tom McGuire ….what can I say, The Man, Barack Obama (58), Lauren Thompson (37).

MARKET WEEK - Dollar Strength, Hold the Cheese: Since 1986, The Economist has periodically given econ professors a chance to up their RateMyProfessor stats with the Big Mac Index, a gauge of relative currency strength represented by McDonald’s Big Macs.

How it works: It makes the concept of purchasing-power parity...digestible. If one currency can buy something (like a Big Mac) at a lower price than another currency, the first currency is comparatively undervalued.

The most recent McStandings:

The euro: A Big Mac is now 19% cheaper in the eurozone than in the U.S. Six months ago, it was 17% cheaper.

The Russian ruble: A Big Mac costs 65% less in Russia, making the ruble the most undervalued currency vs. the greenback.

The Swiss franc: A Big Mac costs about 14% more if you trade your fondue for Special Sauce.

This is about more than burgers. After climbing 4% in 2018, the dollar has gained almost 1% this year. Politicians from President Trump to Sen. Elizabeth Warren have criticized dollar strength as a disadvantage for the U.S. in the global economy.

•        The S&P 500 has fallen every day this week, entering today's session following its worst four-day stretch in two months. The index rose as much as 1.1% Thursday before closing down 0.9%.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note, which helps set borrowing costs on everything from mortgages to corporate debt, slid 0.14 percentage point to 1.894% yesterday, its largest drop since May 2018. 

U.S. crude-oil prices closed down 7.9% Thursday, their biggest one-day drop since Feb. 4, 2015, as analysts worried that slowing demand will lead to a glut. Prices are now down 19% from their April highs and 29% below their 52-week high hit in October.

A look under the bun. Meatless patties from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are selling like hotcakes. But some nutritionists and customers are raising questions about the health benefits of plant-based patties versus burgers.

Under water. Farmers in the soggiest parts of the Midwest are facing the toughest year many can remember. The seed and supply companies that rely on them are starting to suffer, too.

Packed for profit. Amazon has set new packaging rules for food makers and most other companies that sell through its site, aiming to waste less materials and shipping space—and cut costs.

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA - A manhole will become a maintenance hole, artisans will replace craftsmen and firefighters and police officers no longer will be identified by their gender in Berkeley, California’s city code under an ordinance passed by city leaders Tuesday.

The City Council voted unanimously to replace more than two dozen terms often used in the city’s municipal code with gender-neutral words.

“In recent years, broadening societal awareness of transgender and gender nonconforming identities has brought to light the importance of non-binary gender inclusivity,” council member Rigel Robinson wrote in a letter to the council in March.

Berkeley’s current municipal code contains mostly masculine pronouns, according to a city staff report.

“It is both timely and necessary to make the environment of City Hall and the language of city legislation consistent with the principles of inclusion,” Robinson said.

Broadening social awareness of transgender and gender nonconforming identities has led to sweeping changes across the state.

In 2014, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that replaced “husband” or “wife” in state law with the gender-neutral term “spouse.” In 2017, California became the first state to provide a third gender option on state driver’s licenses, identification cards and birth certificates with the passage of Senate Bill 179.

Berkeley has also instituted some other changes. In February, the city began extending the option to all employees to receive a name badge with a preferred pronoun printed alongside their professional title.

Anyone know of any real estate to buy in Canada…I have to get out of here!

SIGN OF THE TIMES - Median household income in the U.S. was $61,372 at the end of 2017, according to the Census Bureau. When inflation is taken into account, that is just above the 1999 level. Over a longer stretch — the three decades through 2017 — incomes are up 14% in inflation-adjusted terms.

Average housing prices, however, swelled 290% over those three decades in inflation-adjusted terms.

Average tuition at public four-year colleges went up 311%, adjusted for inflation, by his calculation. And average per capita personal health-care expenditures rose about 51% in real terms over a slightly shorter period, 1990 to 2017.

Wages stalled but costs haven’t, so people increasingly rent or finance what their parents might have owned outright. The unreachable goal for some: becoming a homeowner.

ON THIS DATE - Today marks 158 years since then-President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861, which imposed the first ever federal income tax, during the first year of the Civil War. ( A progressive income tax at that —taxpayers paid a 3 percent levy on incomes between $800 and $10,000, and then a higher rate after that.)

DRIVING THE WEEK - Monday: Earnings (Loews, Marriott, Shake Shack, Tyson Foods)

Tuesday: 74th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing; earnings (Disney, Discovery, HubSpot, Match Group, Planet Fitness); job openings data

Wednesday: Samsung Galaxy Note 10 unveiling; earnings (Booking Holdings, CVS, Lyft, Monster Beverage, NYT, Roku, TripAdvisor, Zillow)

Thursday: International Cat Day; DEF CON begins in Las Vegas; earnings (AMC, Dropbox, Uber, Activision Blizzard, Kraft Heinz), Roger Federer turns 38; PGA’s The Northern Trust begins

Friday: Producer prices data; first day of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca; wipe down couch in preparation for National Lazy Day

Saturday: National Lazy Day

SWAMI’S WEEK TOP PICKS –

NCAA RINK RATS COLLEGE FOOTBALL PRESEASON PICKS –

1). Georgia Bulldogs

2). Oklahoma Sooners

3). Michigan Wolverines (pray)

4). Clemson Tigers

5). Alabama Crimson Tide

SCIAC –

1). Chapman Argyros

2). Redlands Bulldogs

3). Cal Lutheran SATs

4). La Verne Leopards

5). Claremont-Mudd Republicans

Other –

St. Lawrence Saints (6-4)

MLB Game of the Week – Saturday 8/10 7:10 PM ET:  Cleveland Indians (66-45) vs. Minnesota Twins (69-42).  This is the weekend The Twinkies begin to lose it in the American League Central. Tribe wins 8 – 6. (Season to Date 4-1)

2019 Season to Date (18 - 13)

Next Blog:  Jackass of the Month and Words of the Month.

Until next time, Adios

Claremont, California

August 5, 2019

#X-5-394

2,790 words, five minute read

CARTOON OF THE WEEK – “He Replied All”, Admir Bilca

RINK RATS POLL – Do you like OVER or UNDER?

____ Over

____ Under

____ Huh?

QUOTE OF THE MONTH – “Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots.”

—Ben Hogan

Rink Rats is a blog of weekly observations, predictions and commentary. We welcome your comments and questions. Also participate in our monthly poll. Rink Rats is now viewed in Europe, Canada, South America and the United States.

Posted at Rink Rats The Blog: First Published – May 3, 2010

Our Tenth Year.

www.rhasserinkrats.blogspot.com

Midway

Here is a lovely poem by Chaun Ballard, that sums up this week as far as this writer is concerned:

Midway

So now when the ghost askes me

my age, I say, I’m stomach over

the waistband; I’m button up

and neck-tied; I’m shoes no longer

the last squawking on hard wooden

floors; I’m totem pole carved with faces

of the past; I’m apple for lunch, walnuts,

and pleasant dinners; I’m red cross

bloodletting and good credit; I’m

my father in that faded Polaroid

taken somewhere in Northern Michigan;

I’m high school reunion almost

checked the box: maybe; I’m electric

slide and pre-79 music, hallelujahs

and morning glory; I’m open

book and lamp light; I’m Achilles

if he lived during the Renaissance;

I’m nearly in danger of not being

a danger; old enough to say,

you were good and died young.

SUMMER COLLEGE CHRONICLES - MORE BAD NEWS FOR COLLEGES: BUDGETS SUFFER AS INTERNATIONAL ENROLLMENT SLOWS: Over the past three years, international enrollment at Oregon plummeted by nearly 1,000 students — a more than $32 million hit to recurring tuition revenue. It's a nightmare scenario for universities struggling to hold on to a lucrative market as the flow of foreign students to American colleges slows — for the first time ever — in the era of President Donald Trump.

Oregon isn't alone. Miami University in Ohio is looking at budget cuts this year as "interest by international students wanes." A California State University Northridge official told the student newspaper there that a decline in international students during the past four years has equaled a loss of about $6.2 million in revenue. Schools including the University of Tulsa, Kansas State and Robert Morris University have cut academic programs, in part because of declining international enrollment.

The number of students enrolling for the first time at American colleges in fall 2017 dropped nearly 7 percent, according to the 2018 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, an annual survey taken by the Institute of International Education. That followed a 3 percent drop the year before.

Experts warn there is much on the line. American universities have long been a major source of soft power for the U.S. They've educated world leaders and attracted the world's best scholars. They say something needs to be done to stem the decline, or America's global standing could sustain damage — especially as other nations, such as Canada and Australia, aggressively seek the students that otherwise would have come to the U.S.

If That Was Not Enough - A new tax on universities and colleges will fall on a wide range of their earnings, not just their endowment income. The 1.4 percent excise tax, established under Republicans' broader 2017 tax overhaul, will not only hit colleges' and universities' earnings from their investment funds, but all sorts of other money makers as well.

For example, interest earned on loans a school provides directly to its students would qualify, as would money they make from renting facilities outside of room and board provided to students. Profits earned from running a hospital, booster clubs and alumni organizations could also count. In other words, it's far broader than the endowment tax label lawmakers commonly use in describing it. The statute doesn't even use the term endowment, instead focusing on a category called "net investment income," which includes money schools earn from things like capital gains, interest, rents, royalties and dividends. "This tax doesn't care if the asset is in an endowment or not," a senior Treasury official explained.

Some 40 schools are expected to face it, according to a department estimate. Lawmakers exempted public schools, targeting wealthy private schools with the tax if they have at least 500 full-time, tuition-paying students and assets of at least $500,000 per student. Treasury is taking feedback on the proposed regulations, meaning they could be revised.

Finally - Ken Burns tries to rally Hampshire College alumni. The filmmaker is chairing fundraising efforts for his alma mater after it had to slash staff and plans to enroll just 15 new students this fall. The liberal arts college is one of many small private colleges under financial pressure.

PAYROLL 101 - How much does a College Professor make in the United States? The average College Professor salary in the United States is $151,554 as of May 31, 2019. The range for our most popular College Professor positions (listed below) typically falls between $72,068 and $231,040.

https://www1.salary.com/College-Professor-Salary.html

TOP MOVIE BOX OFFICE – Disney’s “Avengers: Endgame” is now the highest world wide box office champ:

POTUS, INC. - President Donald Trump's net worth rose to $3 billion, a 5% gain over the past year, thanks to a jump in the value of an office-building deal he once sued to prevent.

The increase in Trump's wealth reverses two years of declines and brings his net worth back to 2016 levels, according to figures compiled by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index from lenders, property records, securities filings, market data and a May 16 financial disclosure. It comes despite setbacks at his family company, including the cancellation of two new hotel chains and reduced business at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and seven golf courses.

PLASTICS - Taking a stand against flimsy forks that can’t handle Montreal poutine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that his government will ban “harmful” single-use plastic products as early as 2021.

Canadians throw away about 3 million tons of plastic waste each year and less than 10% of that is recycled, per the BBC.

Trudeau introduced “targets” for companies that sell or make plastic products to address the waste they produce.

Why now? China said it would stop importing plastic waste at the end of 2017, leaving many countries scrambling for an alternative destination—or a plan to stop producing so much waste.

Now, plastic bans are in vogue. The European Union and New York State have announced similar measures in recent months. Hawaii and California get virtue points—they banned plastic bags years ago.

Canada may be fixing an image problem. Last month, the Philippines sent back about 100 shipping containers of Canadian trash a private company had tried to leave north of Manila a few years ago.

We have sipped, packaged and played our way into a global plastics crisis.

Activist consumer groups are pushing for less use and less production, while industry aims for increased recycling.

Plastics demand is projected to only increase — and the footprint of plastic pollution will grow with it.

Just 9% of plastics were recycled in the U.S. in 2015. (Globally it was estimated to be about 20%.)

SHOW ME THE MONEY - Forbes just released their world's highest-paid athletes list, which highlights the top 100 earners over the past year (June 2018 to June 2019).

NBA dominance: 62 of the top 100 earners play in a U.S.-based league, and the NBA, alone, accounts for 35 of them.

No NHL players in the top 100.

SALARY CAP - 1999–2000 highest-paid

NHL: Jaromir Jagr ($10.4M)

NBA: Shaquille O'Neal ($17.1M)

MLB: Albert Belle ($11.9M)

NFL: Troy Aikman ($10.75M)

2019–2020 highest-paid (by average annual value)

NHL: Connor McDavid ($12.5M)

NBA: James Harden ($42.8M)

MLB: Mike Trout ($35.5M)

NFL: Russell Wilson ($35M)

SIGN OF THE TIMES – The United States lost nearly six million manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2010. It has regained just under 1.5 million manufacturing jobs since then.

BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to Bob Dole (96), Tim Gun (66), Corlan Ortmayer Harrison …famous ULV alumni, Arnold Schwarzenegger (72), Jordan Spieth (26), Sandro Suffredini ….a famous gamer.

MARKET WEEK - Equity funds monitored by EPFR posted their fourth net inflows in the past six weeks, a sign that retail investors have grown more bullish on stocks as the Fed prepares to ease monetary policy. Equity funds recorded just five weeks of inflows between December and June, EPFR said.

The Swiss franc is up nearly 4% against the euro since late April and now stands at its highest level in two years against the single currency. Uncertainty over Europe’s economic outlook and indications that the European Central Bank may cut rates further into negative territory have boosted demand for the franc, a popular haven.

On this day in 1946, the Bretton Woods Agreement was signed in Mount Washington, N.H., pegging major foreign currencies to the U.S. dollar, fixing the gold price at $35 per ounce, and laying the groundwork for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Finance students please note this, re: Case Study #3.

It’s China’s World - For the first time, China accounts for more companies on the Fortune Global 500, which measures the world's largest corporations by revenue, than the U.S.

On the list out this morning, China has 129 companies (including 10 in Taiwan), and the U.S. has 121.

As the Chinese Century nears its third decade, Fortune’s Global 500 shows how profoundly the world’s balance of power is shifting.

For the first time since the debut of the Global 500 in 1990, and arguably for the first time since World War II, a nation other than the U.S. is at the top of the ranks of global big business.

ON THIS DATE - On this day in 1884, Charles Dow, partner in Dow Jones & Co., published the first modern index of American stocks in his “Customer’s Afternoon Letter,” a two-page financial bulletin. The 11 stocks included nine railroads (Chicago & North Western, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Lake Shore, New York Central, St. Paul, Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, and Louisville & Nashville), a steamship company (Pacific Mail) and telegraph giant Western Union.

On July 22, 1969, Apollo 11 while on the back side of the Moon, the transearth injection burn is successfully completed. During this day the spacecraft Columbia passes the point in space; 33,800 miles from the Moon and 174,000 miles from the Earth, where the Earth’s gravity takes over and begins drawing the Columbia homeward.

ON THIS DATE PART DEUX - 25 years ago today (July 22, 1994), O.J. Simpson pleaded "absolutely, 100% not guilty" to the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

What followed was one of the most infamous trials in U.S. history. It lasted from Nov. 9, 1994, to Oct. 3, 1995, when Simpson was found not guilty.

O.J. was, however, found liable for the murders in a civil suit two years later and ordered to pay the survivors $33.5 million. 25 years later, the families have collected less than 1% of the $33.5 million.

SCIENCE - "How NASA has kept Apollo moon rocks safe from contamination for 50 years," by Science News' Lisa Grossman: Lunar samples have solved plenty of mysteries, with more answers to come.  Science News

DRIVING THE WEEK – Monday: Earnings (TD Ameritrade, Whirlpool)

Tuesday: Earnings (Chipotle, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Snap, Visa, Hasbro); new U.K. prime minister announced; WTO General Council meetings begin; existing home sales

Wednesday: Earnings (Boeing, Deutsche Bank, Facebook, AT&T, Tesla, PayPal, Ford, UPS, Caterpillar); new home sales; Robert Mueller hearing on Capitol Hill; figure out a way to celebrate International Self-Care Day and National Tequila Day at the same time

Thursday: Earnings (Alphabet, Amazon, AB InBev, Intel, Comcast, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Astrazeneca); international trade; National Intern Day; European Central Bank Governing Council meeting

Friday: Earnings (Twitter, AbbVie, McDonald’s); Pan American Games begin; early GDP data; “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” released (Tarantino, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Leo...)

ANOTHER YEAR OF REJECTION BY AUGUSTA - 2019 Masters Tickets Random Selection:

“We have completed the random selection process for 2019 Practice Rounds and Daily Tournament tickets and regret your application was not selected for tickets. Be sure and visit masters.com for up to the date Masters Tournament information."

As a reminder, you will be notified next May when the ticket application process begins for the 2020 Masters.

Thank you for your continued interest in the Masters.“

Sincerely,

Credentials Committee

Masters Tournament

Twelve straight years (ugh).

TOP FIVE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAMS AT THE ALL-STAR BREAK:

1). New York Yankees (64-34)

2). Los Angeles Dodgers (67-35)

3). Houston Astros (64-37)

4). Atlanta Braves (59-41)

5). Minnesota Twins (60-38)

TOP FIVE WORST MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAMS AT THE ALL-STAR BREAK:

26). Seattle Mariners (40-62)

27). Kansas City Royals (37-64)

28). Miami Marlins (36-61)

29). Baltimore Orioles (31-67)

30). Detroit Tigers (30-65)

MORE PEOPLE HAVE …Walked on the Moon (12), survived a ULV faculty meeting (13), swam across Lake Erie (20), attempted to escape Alcatraz (36), signed the original U.S. Constitution (39), than men who have scored against Mariano Rivera in the postseason (11).

Congrats to the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee New York Yankee Mariano Rivera.

SWAMI’S WEEK TOP PICKS –

MLB Game of the Week – Saturday 7/27 7:10 PM ET:  Chicago Cubs (54-45) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (53-48). Always fun to listen to Bob Uecker call the radio broadcast of Brewer games. He is one of the few remaining “old School” baseball broadcasters (SiriusXM Channel 855). Brewers win a key game in the National League Central race, 5 - 3. (Season to Date 3-1)

Next Blog:  Jackass of the Month, Words of the Month, Preseason College Football picks

Until next time, Adios

Claremont, California

July 22, 2019

#X-4-393

2,352 words, five minute read

CARTOON OF THE WEEK – RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous), The New Yorker

RINK RATS POLL – Do you wear a helmet when you ride your bike?

____ Never

____ Yes

____ Sometimes

QUOTE OF THE MONTH – “The universe took its time on you, crafted you precisely. So you could offer the world something distinct from everyone else. So when you doubt how you were created, you doubt an energy greater than us both.”

—Rupi Kaur

Rink Rats is a blog of weekly observations, predictions and commentary. We welcome your comments and questions. Also participate in our monthly poll. Rink Rats is now viewed in Europe, Canada, South America and the United States.

Posted at Rink Rats The Blog: First Published – May 3, 2010

Our Tenth Year.

www.rhasserinkrats.blogspot.com