Held a meeting with the CFO of one of the largest construction equipment manufacturers in China. Their main business is wheel loaders.

Me: You and your competitors have very high margins, some are even higher than Catepillar (NYSE: CAT) which is the global leader. Is there any risk that as you all add capacity those margins decline?

Chinese CFO (through tanslator): Uh so he says that there is no risk of a pricing war.

Me: Ok can you tell me why that is?

Chinese CFO: Uh so he says China has 5 main wheel loader companies. And all are good companies and will not start a price war. Also he says the 5 CEOs of the companies meet every month for a dinner and they all agree not to make a price war against each other.

Me (to the translator): Did he really say that?

Translator: Yes.

Me: OK, moving right along.

Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Recently, everytime I’m at Blockbuster video (NYSE: BBI) or waiting in line for a payphone or getting my chest hair lasered (ask your depillitator for “the Kaiser”, your lady will be grateful) I’ve been getting dragged into the healthcare debate. Usually I just pretend I’m on Total Request Live:

Carson! I think Obamacare {QUICK DEEP BREATH} by Barrack Obama {QUICK DEEP BREATH}) should be the number 1 video because Barrack is soooooo hotttt and everyone should have should have rad healthcare and it should cost way less and Obama rocks my world!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!

If however you actually want to waste your time arguing about healthcare we thought we’d take a few things we commonly hear and give you some IN YOUR FACE FACTS to drop on your friends and make them hate you more than if you just make outrageous claims that you can’t back-up. Mostly what’s below is true, mostly, and if that standard is good enough for science and math, it’s good enough for us.

People say: For-profit health insurance companies are the devil and the reason we spend so much more on healthcare than other countries (Note: this is a recurring theme of the hot selling book “Healing of Amercia” by T.R. Reid, now available at your local grocery store).

IN YOUR FACE FACT: Healthcare insurance companies make between 5 and 10% profit margins (p.5). So even if you usurped all these profits (assuming you could run the companies just as efficiently) the most you could save is 5-10% of the cost. And by the way many states already have not-for-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. If not making profits made insurance companies give you the same care at lower costs then these BCBS plans would be blowing up like a totally sweet Jenna Haze automatic blow-up doll. But they’re not, they’re slowly deflating like blow-up dolls tend to when you make them wear a spiked choker against their will. Mostly.

Reader The Paleofish sent in a link to Hugo Chavez in action, sticking it to uppity hotels.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he seized the landmark Hilton hotel on Margarita Island because its owners dared to impose conditions on its use by his government to host a summit there last month.

“To hold the conference we had to ask for permission… and the owners tried to impose conditions on the revolutionary government. No way,” said Chavez.

“So I said, ‘Let’s expropriate it.’ And now it’s been expropriate

The hotel was a Hilton, the second Hilton to be seized by Hugo Chavez. How does this affect your portfolio? Quoting myself, something I love to do, this was our first piece on Piratery:

But setting up a lair in a place like Isla Margarita, located off the northern coast of Venenzuela, would be an environment with relatively low piratery penetration but proximity to major cruiseline and OPEC oil routes. An added bonus, Isla Margarita is where non-pirate berserker Lope de Aguirre reached his crescendo.

Revisiting this recommendation, we would downgrade Isla Margarita to “Not a good place to set up a pirate lair” due to the Venezuelan government’s growing presence in the quasi-legal seizure business.

Have you heard the news? Garmin’s (NASDAQ: GRMN) new nuvifone is new?

Recommendation: Short Garmin. It may be my irrational fear of oomlats, my hate of redundancy in advertising or my rational fear of combo devices, but any company that is working all three of these angles, isn’t a company worth a damn. If they had changed the name to “noovifone” they may have had a hit.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently on a boat. Later on, I was on a dolphin doing flips and shit, but mostly I’ve been on a boat. And all I could think as I idly sailed about was:

“People call this a sport? Raping mother nature’s winds for your own pleasure? Hundreds of feet from your competitors, who like you, are wearing dock shoes, and Nantucket reds and have the complexion of snow. Where is the sport in that? And what is that Somali looking man doing with that RPG?”

Sailing needs something. It needs conflict. It needs physicality. It needs to be more impactful. It needs to feature boarding and grappling hooks.

When Black Beard did the first America’s Cup race back in 17whateverthehell, they didn’t race each other in boats that cost tens of millions dollars, helmed and manned by sons of privilege. They fought each other to death in pilfered pinnaces, helmed and manned solely by maroons and sons of bitches. Race? The only race was to see how long you could survive, and how much whoring and pillaging you’d take down before death.

So obviously things are different. And that’s why sailing needs a sea change, three of them actually.

First things first, the aforementioned grappling and boarding is allowed in all sailing races. Let’s see how many Ted Turners are “courageous” when they face the chance of being gutted from groin to gill by an Australian ex-con named Roggie. As a bonus, this return to its classical roots would make sailing the world’s most popular spectator sport.

Second. All yacht clubs ban popped collars, people with names like Preston, and people rich enough to own a boat. Yacht club membership will remain an exclusive status, but the criteria for admittance will change. Instead of a blue blood test, there will be a red blood test. You have to have killed a man on the sea, justly, to become a full member. Junior membership will be bestowed upon anyone who has won a knife fight or bedded a mermaid.*

Third. Grappling and boarding is also legal at any point on the sea. If you are a “boater” and you love being on the ocean, then you better be able to handle your business with a cutlass. Any boat seized after being boarded would then be lawful property of the seizers, the male crew would be subject to death or impressment, the female crew would be subject to slavery.

*Manatees do not count, regardless of how hot they look. I’ve heard all the hot manatee claims before, and that crap won’t fly with me.

Meeting rescheduled for 90min later on 10min notice.

IR contact: “Our leader needs to have a nap.”
MrJuggles: “Ummm…”
IR contact: “He usually naps until 3pm but since you have traveled so far he will meet you at 2pm.”
MrJuggles: “Thank you.”

America will blow up the moon, we have the technology, the time is now, science can wait no longer, children are our future, America can, should, must, and WILL blow up the moon…And we’ll be doing it during a full moon so we make sure we get it all.

Quote from Mr. Show in 1996

I don’t mean to be that monkey, but why are we blowing up the moon? Has it come to this? I understand that this is a search for water but at $79 million, aren’t their cheaper local sources? Isn’t this the kind of thing that leads to more global warming? E.g. sourcing water from the moon and then shipping it here burns more fossil fuels than even bottled water, according to my model at least.

Recommendation: Short moon real estate. While it’s likely to benefit from increased scarcity, it’s also likely to be negatively impacted by being exploded.

A number of our investors have contacted us, asking us questions like:

• are you still alive?
• where are our dividends?
• have you stopped posting due to being brutally murdered?

The answer to all these questions is yes, yes and yes.

Or it’s that the stimulus is working but we have to respect our arrangement with the Blog Czar. If you missed the Abstract Investment Idea Investment and Recovery Act of 2009 (you did), you also missed that President Obama appointed a Blog Czar to oversee the compensation levels for authors of arcane and imaginary investment ideas. It’s only fair that compensation is regulated for these blogs given the staggering amounts of taxpayer money they have received from the federal government. Obviously, we at Long or Short have received far more than our share of the pseudo-real investment blog bailout. Again, it’s only fair.

We were also able to negotiate an agreement whereby we submit our commentary for regulation rather than our compensation. You see, if our compensation is regulated, we will no longer have incentive to research new, cutting edge fabrications for publication*. However, if our commentary is regulated, but we are still well-compensated, we will continue to be productive as ever, dreaming up incredible and illusory investment opportunities which we can then publish to the public. Unless, of course, the Blog Czar regulates our speech. Which he normally does, because if he didn’t, what would he really have to do? It’s only fair.

So, in summary, we are alive. We are still as inventive and imaginative and profitable as ever (moreso!). And we are excited to bring you all the commentary that isn’t regulated by the Czar (probably not much, to be honest) and to reap massive profits on that which is censored.

As you can see, it’s all quite fair.

* We will also be unable to contribute to the ruling party at the levels we would like to (if we are overly compensated).