FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH (1907) – Written by Thomas William Lawson, a writer and stock manipulator who made a fortune from shady stock deals … in between advocating for cleaning up Wall Street to shut down those fleece jobs. The reforms Lawson campaigned for were taken up decades later when Franklin Roosevelt appointed future Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas to head the Securities Exchange Commission.
Coincidentally enough the overall feel of Friday the Thirteenth put me in mind of FDR’s cousin, Theodore Roosevelt. The novel did that with its New York setting, with the way the story takes place late in T.R.’s presidency and most especially with the way it dealt with ethics in the marketplace.
Jim Randolph, one of the novel’s main characters, is in the T.R. mold: he may be a bloated rich pig but at least he’s a bloated rich pig with a sense of noblesse oblige. Jim shares Teddy Roosevelt’s disdain for the Trusts and for con men who use the stock market to rip off their clients.
It’s not as if Jim Randolph is as fiery as Teddy Forstmann was in his opposition to Leveraged Buy Outs during the 1980s, but like Forstmann he has a sense of what makes for a healthy economy and frowns upon the fly-by-night operators who thrive on irresponsible “frenzied finance” as Randolph calls it. Continue reading
Murky Mueller and his criminal cohorts had a busy week. I’ve already weighed in on it but here’s a take from folk hero Lloyd Marcus. 
GAME ONE: FLEXJET VS COLORADO – Part of the fun of Polo is the way that men and women often play on the same team. In this instance, Melissa Ganzi led Flexjet – Official Balladeer’s Blog Nickname: The Aviators – against Colorado – Official Balladeer’s Blog Nickname: The Red Sleeves.
As Murky Mueller and his Funky Bunch of Hillary Donors put the nation on notice that attorney-client privilege exists only at the Uniparty’s whim, it’s easy to recall the Businessman’s Coup plot against President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. 
It makes for interesting food for thought as we watch the bought and paid for career criminals who hold political office get less and less subtle. 
CORPORATE FASCIST MARK “SKIPPY” ZUCKERBERG VOWS TO CONGRESS “I WILL WIN OVER EVEN THE FEW OF YOU THAT I DON’T OWN OUTRIGHT!” 
At Skateboard-guide.com they know that teamwork always plays a significant and crucial role in every field and sports is no exception. There are both indoor team sports and outdoor team sports. 
On a CNBC appearance Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, joined the many other black business and community leaders praising President Trump for the way his economic measures have maximized opportunities for African-American jobs. 
Meanwhile, Hillary “Bugsy” Clinton, the preferred candidate of those pompous snobs, pretentious asses and cowardly conformists, continues to ramble incoherently and blame everyone else for her humiliating – and well-deserved – defeat. 
WITHIN AN ACE OF THE END OF THE WORLD (1900) – Written by Robert Barr. No doubt about it, Barr was obsessed with the notion of humanity possibly bringing on its own demise through ill-considered scientific tampering. Recently Balladeer’s Blog reviewed another of his stories, The Doom of London, which mined the same creative territory. 
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