To our Friends and Clients,We continue to see good companies who were negatively affected by the downturn look for a reliable and consistent funding source. In recent months, we have helped several companies out of restrictive and unsuitable lending facilities, if you know of someone that needs growth or turnaround capital, please give us a call.
Bank failures reached 233 (2008, 2009, 2010) this past weekend. The FDIC still reports that over 700 banks are in trouble and at risk of being closed. Our current assessment: This thing could drag on for awhile! How is that for being precise? When you look over the list banks closed so far, it is apparent that construction and real estate development lending is the “nightmare on Elm Street Episode II”. We chuckle because the first Freddy was popular during the Texas banking crisis.
We are members of the International Factoring Association and recently attended the annual conference. This year was a record for attendance and over 330 Factoring companies were represented. What we found remarkable was the stark—- very stark—- difference in the attitude of the crowd this year versus last year, without exception everyone’s volume was up, problems were down and growth opportunities were present. Last year’s attendance was down and the sky was falling.
Boy! What a difference a year can make. We recently spent some time on a capital raise for a bank deal in California, which allowed us to get face time with hedge funds in New York etc. Most of these firms are more interested in new deals than in the previous twelve months. Our experience has been these firms lead the general market. This optimism will eventually make it to Main Street. We are encouraged!
Eyjafjallajokull reminded us once again about our little plans and designs, specifically how insignificant we are in the big scheme of things. This reminds us how much we miss George Carlin, his take on the “saving the planet” is a classic view of the Earth day hoopla. [watch this classic]
History of the Middle Finger: Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as ‘plucking the yew’ (or ‘pluck yew’). Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew! Since ‘pluck yew’ is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative F’, and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute!
The word Diarrhea is sort of gross, basically really gross and we are sorry to gross you out, but when Yankee Chan Ho Park explains why he had a bad game it is worth a serious belly laugh. Apparently in his home country, they are slightly more forthcoming about their sicknesses. Listen to the background, like a bunch of teenagers. [watch now]
We like to share “feel good stuff” with our readers from time to time (most of the stuff we can’t share). We ran across this the other day that warms the heart and reminds us how much potential we have that our mind keeps us from tapping. [watch movie clip]
For those of you looking for a good workout without “going to the gym” try these sometime. Bear Crawling (can be done without a kid on your back) is a full body workout that works everything from your toenails to fingernails or just go to Bikram.
Just to keep things in perspective… College students will spend about $4.2 billion yearly for alcoholic beverages—which is more than is spent on operating campus libraries, college scholarships and fellowships combined.
We say good bye to an ole friend we lost this year: [amazing video]
We think it marks progress in the war on terror when the bombers don’t even know the right fertilizer to blow up – Faisal Shahzad literally
didn’t know sh*t. The Taliban even seemed sort of embarrassed. Love it.
Recently at the Texas Banker’s Association meeting in San Antonio we picked up this little nugget of information which may be the best travel tip we have ever heard of. If you fly Southwest, attempt to get your boarding pass in the Mid Bs so you get on early enough to pick your seat mate and most of the time get an aisle or window. If you are too early in the As that super fat person can always sit next to you, if you are in the Cs, you may not be able to avoid sitting next to the undesirables. Thank you Kim Shoemake.