UGA gets a trip to Baltimore

G was taking the bar exam in Baltimore on Feb 22-23.

He stayed at a motel near the Convention Center (where the exam was administered).

UGA went with him because UGA espouses constant vigilance (whether he practises that or not is another thing) and G needed some vigilance to make sure he was at the exam on time (G also had the motel give him a wake up call and took two alarm clocks - so not all the pressure was on UGA).
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Coke raises dividend

Following a few days after their successful post merger quarter, Coca Cola announced they were raising the dividends.

It is a pretty high payout ratio with, by my analysis, about 60% of net incoming going into dividends. Of course that may be do to the fact that Warren Buffet, who holds 200,000,000 shares, is a big fan of dividends.


This article discusses the dividend.

Merger Went Well

Last week, Coca Cola announced that the first quarter after full intergration after the Coke company bought the bottling company was a big success.

Net income was up about 65% (to about $5.7B), revenue was up about 40% (to about $10.5B). Product sales was up about 6% (only 5% if you don't count the Dr. Pepper that came with the bottling company).

Coke Bear is very, very pleased with himself.


NYTimes article on the successful quarter is here.

A Wily Coyote Experience

We are doing a refinancing. A financial fact checker from Chase Mortgage called us. She needed some basic information from Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo wouldn't talk to her. Wells Fargo wouldn't even agree to a three way call with her, us and them. So we had Chase call Wells Fargo then mute themselves while we asked Wells Fargo the questions. One of the questions was "what is your name?" which was put to the Wells Fargo person answering the other questions.

She said, "Rebecca H." I asked if her last name was spelled 'Ache' but she said that it was the letter 'H'. I said that given that I've told her my name and my address and my social security number to get the basic financial information of 'account balance', that this seemed a little one sided. Rebecca H. responded that it was company policy. We hung up.

The Chase fact checker called and told me they had all the info and that she (the fact checker) had enjoyed the conversation. I told her that what we had done was similar to those contraptions that wily coyote built expect for the giant spring and the rocket and the fact checker said she loved the metaphor.