It's called the 52 Week Low Club.
Its members are those companies whose stock price reaches a new low for the year just ended.
Dow's stock price dropped 8.41 percent today -- down to $12.31.
Like the Wall St. Journal's "Deal Blog" noted the other day:
The only thing Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris needs now is a plague of locusts.
Some readers may ask why we spend time looking at and opining about Dow Chemical Co.
Since much of our audience lies in far off lands and never has set foot in the heart of the Petrochemical Underarm of Texas, this is an understandable question.
See, Dow Chemical Co. is why there is a Brazosport.
Dow built the burgh of Lake Jackson so it could have a place for its workers to live, and in due time, the subsequent confederacy of municipaligies that sprung up around the area that today comprise "Brazosport" owe their existence, not to mention their paychecks, to Dow and the affiliated petrochemical-related enterprises that support and feed off it.
So there's the answer to the question.
(What would this place be like if Dow had never set roots here? That's an interesting topic for conjecture, but not one we'll tackle now; still, if we had our druthers, we like to fantasize it as an idyllic sanctuary for wildlife where men and women could bird watch, fish, hunt, surf, boogy board, swim and, yes, even play some golf, or at at least a spirited game of croquet... oh well.)
Today, looking at Dow, it's clear the multinational behemoth is in a ditch, and if the buck stops at the top, like Harry Truman once said, the blame for it lies in the lap of Andrew Liveris, the Australian-born head of the company.
He made a deal for Dow to take over Romn & Haas in a move that hinged on the success of Dow joining forces with Kuwait's national oil company for form a joint venture, but then the Kuwaitis got cold feed and backed out, leaving Dow in the lurch to come up with the money to complete the Rohm & Haas acquisition.
Now the lawyer have ahold of it.
All these manuevers were undertaken in the midst of a worldwide credit crunch and recession, when people who pull the money strings were retreating to their bunkers and the workers of the world were waiting and watching for pink slips to be delivered.
None of this inspires confidence in the man at the top of the Dow food chain (and we're not even bringing up the shabby treatment Dow has given the citizens of India over the Bhopal disaster.)
The next shoe to drop will be Dow cutting its almight stock dividend, which Liveris previously had pledged was sacrosanct, while Dow's stock price continues to move in the $13 to $14 price range (previous 52-week high was $43.43.
So Liveris (pictured above with wife) deserves to be laid off just like all the other Dow workers who are getting laid off.
Will this happen? We don't know. But we're Brazosport Proud to be the first to call for it.
Another in a series from Wilson in St. Louis
"What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering."
--- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"To know for sure, I'd have to throw with a normal hand, and I've never tried it."
--- Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, when asked if his curve was helped by the absence of an index finger. Brown pitched in 1914 for the St. Louis Federals.
"When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas."
---- John Updike who died tuesday
"Sex is like money; only too much is enough."
---- John Updike
"O Presidente da Esperanca" (A President of Hope)
—- Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, jan. 21, '09
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- when yellow will be mellow -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen." — Rev. Lowery giving the benediction at the inauguration
"They wanted to make absolutely, positively certain that W. was gone. It was like a physical burden being lifted, like a sigh went up of “Thank God. Has Cheney’s wheelchair left the building, too?” —- Maureen Dowd, NY Times, Jan. 21, '09
"But now Obama comes out of nowhere just when good politics has never mattered more. A complete collapse of the global financial system is not unimaginable. In uncharted waters, billions and trillions gush from governments everywhere, frantically shoring up banks that squandered trust. One thing looks grimly certain, however we get out of this: future deep debts threaten public services, long-lasting unemployment, real pay cuts and changed prospects in need of a new politics.....If ever the world needed saving, it's now. So here comes the man who says he can. It's an American mystery that this great pool of genius has usually thrown such minnows into the White House. But the monumental present danger has summoned forth a man who promises the intellect, character and power of persuasion to match the hour." — Polly Toynbee, Manchester Guardian, Jan. 21, '09
The author died today at 76. Lung cancer.
Born in 1932, Updike spoke for millions of Depression-era readers raised by "penny-pinching parents," united by "the patriotic cohesion of World War II" and blessed by a "disproportionate share of the world's resources," the postwar, suburban boom of "idealistic careers and early marriages."
President Obama makes the cover of Mad Magazine.
While Rome burns, eh.
Americans forsake their luxurious, two-ply toilet tissue for the low-rent one-ply.
Maybe this'll lead to a comeback of the ol' reliable Sears & Roebuck catalogues.
[link]
Click here.
Tool around.
Zoom in, zoom out, zoom around.
Clarence Thomas looks as if he's asleep.
Dick Cheney is scrunched down in his wheelchair, wearing a black Fedora, as if he's thinkng, "BAH."
Time Mag's Swampland blog, where we found the photo, says:
Extra points if you spot the following celebrities in the crowd: actor Denzel Washington, rap mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder, New Yorker editor David Remnick, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, wheelchair-bound Dick Cheney and America's coolest married couple, Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z. (Hint: The Hova is wearing a big brown fur cap, and holding a gloved hand to his mouth.)
We interrupt our Road Trip Picturefest to report that Dow Chemical will cut 500 jobs at its Freeport megafacility.
I did not attend this show on the recent trip to Lost Wages.
What a perfect blend of old and new, schlock and wonder.
To reach Grand Canyon National Park, where the natural beauty evokes audible, genuine sounds of awe such "Whoa" and "Golly," one must pass a cartoon-theme RV park/restaurant based on The Flintstones.
This is an image of me on the left and my friend H on the right, jumping up in front of the logo from The Beatles Love show that's performed by Cirque de Soleil at The Mirage in Las Vegas (H's wife Virginia took the shot.)
Beatles Love is a fantastic show, especially if you grew up to love The Beatles music as is the case with me. Other shows seen on the trip to Vegas were Rita Rudner, Penn & Teller, Bette Midler and Mystere, one of the other Cirque de Soleil shows (there are 4 of them) that are playing in Vegas.
Everyone in LV says the economy is having a big effect on the town. The house at Penn & Teller was a third full, for instance, and the tickets were discounted, as were the tickets to Bette Midler and Mystere. The way that work is if you're staying at one of the hotels on The Strip, they'll leave a message at your room and say since you're such a valued guest, you can get half-price tickets to so-and-so show tonight if you like. Or, you can go to one of the discounted ticket outlets to get a deal.
There are a number of high-rise buildings in the midst of construction on the LV Strip, but the thing I noticed is that the huge cranes on the top of the buildings never are seen hauling anything up. Whether that means there are construction delays caused by the recession I cannot definitively say.
There are, however, plenty of foreign visitors there thanks to the value of the once-mighty Dollar.
To my credit, I did my best to help the Vegas economy by losing $100 at the craps table in an astonishingly fast 20 minutes.
I haven't filed a blog post in more than a week, which is a bit unusual for me, but nobody's complained so I think I'll just post some photos I took on a recent road trip (which is coming to an end, tomorrow, most likely) and not type any more posts for a bit.
I'm only going to post one photo per day. (see 1st photo above)
Is this plan OK with you?
Andrew Liveris, the Australian who runs Dow Chemical Co., probably is due a good ass-chewing by his company's board of directors.
The guy got too smart for his britches, taking on a big (and overpriced) merger in the midst of a recession that essentially was contingent on the completion of another big deal that blew up in his face, cause of, well, that aforementioned recession, which has everybody everywhere pullin in their horns (except for the swashbucklin' Liveris.)
Instead of delicious shrimp on the barbie, Liveris put the shrimp in a microwave and set the timer on too long. Kablooey.
If Dow is forced to cut its dividend to shareholders, it may be Liveris who's on the barbie. We'll see.
Meanwhile, a lot of hardhats around here are wondering how they're gonna pay the rent.
For the particulars, Banjo says check out the Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal.
#1 -- Watch snakes fight.
Lake Jackson, the economic hub of Brazosport, is essentially built in the middle of a swamp, though you might not realize it when you drive by the mall, the Wal-Mart Supercenter (turn right at KFC to get to both places) and other such places.
Be that as it may and despite all the other modern conveniences you might find in, say, Pearland, Lake Jackson is crawling with snakes.
(Quote/unquote is fairly regular feature of The Brazosport News and is compiled by a fellow named Wilson in St. Louis who once worked for The Houston Post, The Riverfront Times and The Houma Courier. He coaches youth basketball and soccer in his spare time and is an avid recycler.)
"Nothing is more frightening than human history."
----motto of Museum of Historic Torture Devices, Wisconsin Dells
"Bruce Bartlett says that 'people are so risk-averse that they are hoarding money, refusing to spend' and that 'tax rebates don't work because people save them.' People are not hoarding cash and refusing to spend. They are not saving. They do not have money to save. They are paying down debt or they are broke. Tax rebates? Mine went into my gas tank."
- Debra Wiley of Inglewood, CA. in a NY Times Letter to the Editor, Dec. 30, '08
"Again, he was drawn compulsively to that which he found loathsome. Television, he could plainly see, would be the death of literacy and the handmaid of instant gratification. It would instill cheap and commercial values and incite the nastiest forms of populism. He fell for it like a ton of bricks. He wallowed exuberantly in its corruption. He was a natural. He was perfectly well aware, as his diaries show, that he was expending his spirit in a waste of shame. But he enjoyed it and excelled at it, and he may have hoped to turn the greatest weapon of crass modernity against itself."
--- Christopher Hitchens, The Weekly Standard, 5.5.03, in a review of "Malcolm Muggeridge: a Biography." (Muggeridge photo, above right)
"There was nothing unusual about how he was taken into custody. He was treated exactly like we treat anybody else."
- Lt. Eric Shuhandler of Gilbert, Arizona, about the DUI arrest last night of Charles Barkley
Early this morning we were reading that Dow Chemical Co. had taken out full-page newspaper ads in Kuwait that were characterized as an "open letter" to the citizens there, telling them that the partnership between that country and Dow was a wonderful, wonderful, honorable and good thing.
That's always the last gasp of just about any corporate endeavor about to head south.
And sure enough, some 12 hours later, we read via Bloomberg that all bets are off on the $9 billion venture known as K-Dow.
This isn't good news for the local workforce in the Greater Brazosport Area as a number of Dow employees avoided getting whacked cause they were working for the new K-Dow operation.
And if you own Dow stock, fasten your seatbelt.
The stock market watchers at 24/7 Wall Street say, "Look for Dow to drop below $15 this week, and it may not recover for months."
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