Big K

Mack-Cali Late to the (Follow-On) Party

I was looking at the April Value Line report on WRI. It is
shocking to see how this once very successful business has been run
into the ground. While WRI's properties are performing adequately,
unfortunately, the management has trashed the business over the last
decade. They allowed the debt to balloon to $36/share. How does a
fairly small company like this allow their debt to grow to $3.2
billion? The good news is that they have solved the problem by adding
more shares, reducing the debt to somewhere between $20- $26/share.
The bad news is the debt is now $20-$26/share. If they kept all the
dividends to pay off the debt, at the now lofty new dividend rate of
$1/year, it would take 20 years to pay off this debt.

This is what killed the REIT industry. Borrow, borrow and borrow some
more, and don't pay down any debt, just roll it over. Oops, credit is
cut off to the debt junkies. The drinking party is over.
Accordingly, WRI will stagger in a stuporous hangover for years, and
that is if the retail situation doesn't get any worse. Now that
rolling the debt over may no longer be an option, WRI is a potential
bankruptcy candidate, despite a fairly robust business. It's time to
remove the fools in the executive suite and replace with people who
know how to balance a checkbook.

The Major Indices Need a Makeover

I'm not in favor of frequent changes in index makeup. Every time a new flavor of the month stock pops up or one already in the index falls on hard times, there is an outcry for changing the index. Like in a third grade class, the annoying boy who thinks he knows all the answers, "oh oh oh, use my picks...". Willy nilly manipulation in and out stocks from the DOW would make the index meaningless, especially for comparison and trending purposes. Because the DOW is made up arbitrarily, based on popularity, most professionals use the S&P500 index. Here, replacement can be made based on objective principles, on a specified frequency. If you watch the DOW, all it needs to do is be representative of a good cross section, which is does. Yes, the banks and autos are down, but all of them are, and that is the correct measure of today's economy. Replacing BAC with the next popular stock like Google would be render the index useless.

Some Bank Behemoths Now Sub-Single Digit Midgets

I don't know why the folks in government don't ask to see AIG's books to see what the liability is. Perhaps they are afraid. I keep hearing about the 500 trillion dollar shadow banking system. Could AIG be sitting on the top of this heap with hundreds of trillions of dollars in future losses for the taxpayer? What is the depth of their corruption?