You might say Michael Reid is obsessed with Prussian Blue. Ever since he saw The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, Michael has been fascinated by this color, Prussian Blue, which was made by accident in Berlin in 1704. A chemist was rushing to create a batch of cochineal red (made from insects); the chemist accidentally used potash contaminated by the iron in animal blood. All this turned the mixture a deep blue – Prussian blue.
Thoughtful Investor
Friday, March 8, 2024
Prussian Blues
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Conclusion of Killers of the Flower Moon
By Michael Hooper
In the final chapters of Killers of the flower Moon, author David Grann visits Pawhuska, Oklahoma. There he watched a video recording of a performance of the Osage ballet Wahzhazhe. The opening statement of the film talked about the Osage walking in two different worlds, living predominantly in non-Indian society, while trying to hang onto the threads of their culture and tradition of the past. “We walk in two worlds.”
The ballet touched on the history of the Osage, including the reign of terror. In a funeral, one of the mourners, representing Hale, wore a mask to hide his face of evil. At the event the author met Kathryn Redcorn who’s grandfather divorced her grandmother and then wed a white woman in 1933 and began to suspect that he was being poisoned by his second wife. He told visitors’ relatives don’t eat or drink anything in this house; not long after he dropped dead, he was only 46 years old.
The author also looked into the death of Charles Whitehorn. It took place about the same time as Anna Brown death in May 1921, yet no evidence ever surfaced implicating Hale or his henchmen in his murder. Evidently he was last seen May 14, 1921, around 8 PM outside of the Constantine theater and then his body was discovered two weeks later on a hill about a mile down from downtown Pawhuska. He was killed by with a 32 caliber revolver. After Whitehorn‘s death, his part Cheyenne widow Hattie had married an unscrupulous white man named Leroy Smyth, the marriage had been orchestrated by Minnie Savage, a shrewd, immoral capable woman, who ran a boarding house in Pawhuska. The private eyes suspected that she and other conspirators had arranged Whitehorn’s killing in order to steal his head right fortune. Overtime many of the investigators came to believe that Hattie Whitehorn was complicit in his death.
in any event, the evil of Hale was not an anomaly. Many other people had the same motivations, to get the head rights, in chapter 25 he read a lost manuscript titled the murder of Mary Denoya Bellieu Lewis
The script was compiled by Anna Marie Jefferson, the great great grand, niece of Mary Lewis. Lewis had two marriages that ended in divorce and in 1918 in her mid-50s she was raising a 10 year old adopted child. That summer Lewis took her daughter to liberty Texas. She was accompanied by two white men, including Thomas Middleton and his companion. With Louis money they bought a houseboat and stayed on the river, then on August 18, 1918 Lewis vanished, Middleton had pretended to be her adopted son in order to cash several of checks. Witnesses said that on the day of Lewis disappearance, they had seen a few miles from her houseboat, a car heading toward a snake infested swamp. On January 18, 1919, investigators went into the swamp and pulled out her body. Middleton’s companion confessed to beating Lewis over the head with a hammer. The plot was conceived by Middleton. After she was killed. The plan was to use a female associate to impersonate her so that the friends could collect the head rate payments. Greed.
Greed, jealousy, envy, are probably the most wretchedly, abusive, destructive vices. Anyone full of envy is a miserable person. I know someone who will not go on Facebook because he says he feels jealous and envious of all these people posting photos of themselves prancing around Italy, the Bahamas, Paris. He can’t stand it, he can’t appreciate someone’s good luck or happiness.
I’ve often found that some of the most greedy people who want instant success and instant happiness and instant wealth are gamblers. You see him at the casino around the roulette table. I remember I saw this one Asian guy drop $600 and went back to the ATM and got another $600, probably lost that too.
On page 303, the author said Hale might have orchestrated, and led the bloodiest and longest killing spree of the Osage but there were countless other killings that were not included in the official estimates, many of them were never investigated, and some of them were never even classified as homicides, even though Family knew something was extremely suspicious about their loved ones death.
It turns out that Scott Mathis, the owner of the Big Hill Trading Company in chapter 26 was guardian of at least nine wards; of those seven had died and two of these deaths were known to be murderers. And the Osage had a higher standard of living than most Indians, so that you would expect them to live a little longer. Louis Burns a historian of the Osage said he doesn’t know a single Osage family, which didn’t lose at least one family member because of the head rights. There are so many of these murder cases there are hundreds and hundreds.
The author also met with Marvin Stepson the grandson of William Stepson who was a victim of the reign of terror. The likely killer was Kelsie Morrison the man who also killed Anna Brown. It turns out that William’s wife Tillie, married Morrison, but grew suspicious of Morrison, especially after he talked about the effects of poison strychnine. Tillie told her lawyer, that she wanted to prevent Morrison from inheriting her estate, and to resend his guardianship of her children but before she had those changes made, she died of suspected poisoning, and Morrison stole much of her fortune.
Grann interviewed another person by the name of Mary Joe Webb. Her grandfather Paul Peace was a victim who didn’t show up in the FBI files and whose killers didn’t go to prison in 1926. He suspected that his wife was poisoning him, Webb believes the poison came from the Shouns brothers the doctors who were evil and had messed up the autopsy of Anna Brown.
Webb said this land is saturated with blood. Quoting scripture, she says, "The blood cries out from the ground."
I want to say something about the Author, David Grann. I would say that he did extraordinary research, reading over thousands pages of old FBI files contacting and interviewing multiple people including receiving help from a woman in Topeka named Sara Keckeisen of the Kansas Historical Society.
I’ve done some limited research on various topics and people over the years including Mary Huntoon, a prominent artist and Topeka and I looked at hundreds and hundreds of documents actually thousands of pages of documents to write an article about her. Let me tell you it’s not easy to sit through all that stuff and decide what is important want to leave out.
Heather and I watched Killers of the Flower Moon last weekend. It’s more than three hours long but I recommend watching it. We actually watched it in two parts. The movie has many strong points, but should have been cut. Some of the scenes are redundant like when Burkhart is poisoning his wife, we see four or five times Burkhart sticking needles into his wife. Probably could have cut that down to maybe one or two moments. Another scene that could’ve been cut was when Hale spanked Burkhart for shooting his mouth off about something, it’s clear Hale has total control over Burkhart. We don’t need a spanking scene to prove it, and I don’t think it was in the book; Hollywood drama.
Otherwise, I thought the movie did a great job explaining the cause of the Osage nation; so much was stripped away from them, and how all of these white people came in like vultures to take advantage of them, everybody from the banks to the car dealers to the Undertakers, they were always overcharging the Osage for everything. I thought the acting was good, and I thought the portrayal of Molly Brown was good. The bankers did not work as fiduciaries when they were guardians. These people wouldn’t even allow Molly Brown to take out enough money to travel to Washington DC so she could plead for the federal government to come back to the Osage nation and investigate all these murders. I would’ve liked to seen a news clip of the creation of the FBI. The movie seems to portray a love story between Burkhart and Molly Brown, but there’s no love there, a good husband, and a loving person would never poison his wife.
One thing that is very clear is the discrimination and prejudice against the Osage people. The bankers guardians car dealers all work together to take advantage of the Osage.
How could’ve this been different for the Osage? If the leader ship structure including the sheriff, the mayor, the leaders in the banks, car dealers, grocery stores, if they were all native Americans, and particularly Osage nation members, this wouldn’t of happened.
Osage leadership could have prevented fraud, and the taking advantage of Indians in their banking affairs or financial affairs. The ownership and collection of monies from oil would have been in the hands of Osage. Then there would’ve been less rip offs, they couldn’t have been so easily targeted.
But American government did not train or elevate, talented Osage people into these positions. Indeed, it was probably difficult for them to get an education, become a lawyer, become a doctor. become a banker. Nevertheless, there were a few Osage that did rise into leadership positions, but not enough, particularly in the merchant, legal and justice infrastructure.
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Casey's Growth Playbook Works
By Michael Hooper
Stock in Casey’s General Stores (CASY) has returned 114% over the past five years, plus paid $7.09 in dividends during that time period.
Casey’s is poised for additional growth in 2024 with the acquisition of 22 Lone Star Stores in Texas that will be rebranded as Casey's stores
Casey’s is the No. 5 seller of pizza in America. Casey's breakfast pizza has grown in popularity.
At 22 times earnings, CASY stock is fully valued, but it almost always trades at this high multiple, with the stock trending up as EPS has grown over the years. The company deserves this 22 p/e ratio because of its growth rate. I see so much upside with the company's strategy that includes acquisitions and new builds. As a result I predict this stock may hit $310 per share. CASY closed Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, at $285.58.
As a boy, growing up in Iowa and Nebraska. I was familiar with Casey’s. The firm is based in Ankeny, Iowa.
Over the years. I have been impressed with how Casey’s has increased the quality and variety of its freshly baked foods. I saw the stock go up continuously over the years and thought I missed it. During the Covid crash of spring of 2020, all stocks corrected and I found myself with an opportunity to buy some of my favorite companies at a discount. I bought multiple stocks, including Casey’s at $130.25 per share on March 27, 2020. I have continued to add to my position since then, and recently added more CASY shares based on everything I see happening with this company, including strong margins for gasoline, high inside sales margins, vigilant cost containment and growth of its prepared foods business.
John Lawrence, analyst with Benchmark Company, issued a buy rating on the stock and gave it a price target of $312 per share.
Lawrence and other analysts met with Casey’s management recently at the ICR conference in Orlando. Management noted that fuel margins and profitability in the fuel business remain robust, as the last 10 quarters have yielded margins of over $0.35 cents per gallon and five of the last six quarters have been over $.40 per gallon. It appears this higher level of gas margin is sustainable overtime, Lawrence wrote.
In the third quarter, management said margins for prepared foods and dispense beverages was 59%, which is incredibly good. Total inside sales margin was 41.1%. Inside sales were about $1 billion in the third quarter, representing about 30% of total sales.
Lawrence said that over the last few years management has increased its new unit growth rate by making several acquisitions. He said the playbook calls for acquiring operators at a 6 to 9 times earnings range. CASY is then able to use its scale and food expertise to grow the high margin food component, which makes the acquisition profitable, he said.
The merchandise side of the operation continues to demonstrate solid growth in both the grocery and food service segments, he wrote.
Operating expenses continue to show improvement as same-store labor hours were cut by 2% last quarter, Lawrence wrote. Customers now have the loyalty club and the broader private label assortment to offer its customer base. The unique model that resides at Casey’s continues to yield higher levels of profitability. Management is using its scale to acquire operations, and then being disciplined on taking costs out of the business, Lawrence wrote.
"We continue to recommend purchase of CASY shares as management continues to execute the playbook," he wrote.
Lawrence said his $312 price target is based on 20 times fiscal year 2025 EPS estimate of $13.57 per share as the higher unit growth rate and consistent fuel margins in the mid 40s should enhance the multiple.
I live in Kansas, but travel to Nebraska often and stop at a Casey’s in Auburn, Neb. I usually buy fuel, go inside for a bathroom break and buy a doughnut or a water or a coffee or perhaps a juice drink. Maybe some popcorn. When my son was growing up, he always ordered the pizza. It’s not surprising. This pizza is a hit. The company recently added thin crust pizza.
Customers buy a lot of pizza and beer, the two go together, like Ebony and Ivory.
The company recently announced plans to hire a chief pizza and beer officer.
Casey’s has a history of serving smaller towns in the Midwest, they can make a business go with a population as little as 300. They have some stores where it's the general store for the whole town; for basic groceries like milk and juice, eggs, bread, and coffee. And if you’re a member of Casey’s rewards program you get a discount.
Casey's has entered several mid-tier markets and is doing quite well. The company's new store in North Topeka is going gangbusters. Casey's is building a new store near Highland Park High School in Topeka. I imagine those high school students will buy its pizza.
A relative of mine has noticed many kids buying the breakfast pizza at the Casey's in Geneva, Neb., before they go to the high school there.
Casey's market cap is around $10.5 billion. Company has $409.89 million in cash and $1.65 billion debt.
The company said it operates over 2,600 convenient stores. Founded more than 50 years ago, the company has grown to become the third-largest convenience store retailer and the fifth-largest pizza chain in the United States. The company says Casey’s provides freshly prepared foods, fuel and friendly service at its locations. Guests can enjoy pizza, donuts, other assorted bakery items, and a wide selection of beverages and snacks.
The company said approximately 50% of Casey's stores are still found in areas with populations of 5,000 or less. In contrast, roughly 25% of Casey's are now located in areas with populations of 20,000 or more. Casey's has a strong balance sheet and owns nearly all of its assets, which allows the company to consistently take advantage of growth opportunities.
Conclusion
CASY stock is a keeper. I recommend buying this stock and holding it for the next three to five years as Casey's continues to implement its playbook.
Monday, November 20, 2023
Topeka Native Brad Garlinghouse Cleared of Wrongdoing in Crypto Currency Lawsuit
By Michael Hooper
In the world of cryptocurrency it’s sometimes hard for the government to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Attachment Styles, Trauma & Transcending Pain
By Michael Hooper
In Widen the Window, Elizabeth Stanley says early life experiences, especially with our parents and other important caregivers, powerfully reverberate throughout our lives, especially in how we interact with other people and cope with and recover from stress.
In Chapter 6, the author says attachment styles are developed based on our relationships with our parents and primary caregivers from childhood.
She says empirical studies suggests that about 3/4 of adults keep the same attachment style throughout their lives.
Attachment styles
She describes attachment styles as communication patterns, and relational strategies which get encoded in our brains as implicit and procedural memory. Our attachment style affects how much physical closeness and contact we have with others, our social engagement with other people and groups. She defines four attachment styles.
There are avoidant adults who tend to operate with a narrow window, who cope by avoiding contact. Their mother tended to dislike contact with her babies.
Insecure, anxious child gets this way through a mother, who interacts with them unpredictably and inconsistently responding to her own emotional needs and moods first not her babies needs
Anxiously attached adults tend to prefer intense and enmeshed relationships. They tend to find isolation stressful, and they fear abandonment and seek excessive reassurance.
Infants will develop an insecure disorganized style of attachment when their parents are some combination of neglectful, abusive, depressed, or traumatized themselves.
The predominant disorganized relational strategy is, “I need contact but I can’t let my guard down.”
Childhood adversity
In Chapter 7, the author says a man she dated when she served in the Army called her a trauma magnet. This makes me wonder why she attracts so much hardship and pain?
She says individuals who experience trauma and adversity in childhood often endure additional traumatic events later in their lives. It appears certain people develop lifelong patterns of trauma and despair.
In her chapter on childhood adversity she says empirical research shows that early life chronic stress leads to structural changes in the developing brain. Children with early life, chronic stress, are likely to develop larger and hyperactive amygdala the survival brain region, and they are more likely to develop a smaller, prefrontal cortex, the thinking brain region.
There are clear, neurobiological reasons why someone from a "challenging" upbringing is more likely to have difficulty making good decisions, controlling impulses, regulating emotions, developing supportive relationships, and recovering from stress.
Stanley says we can rewire our thinking, we can experiment with new internal and external tools to access a wider range of adaptive responses during stress. We can learn to interrupt the survival brains, default programming, and the coping habits we adopted in childhood.
The author, Yiyun Li recently wrote in the New Yorker about feeling anguish over the suicide of his son Vincent at age 16. He says anguish comes to us from the Latin, Angustia means narrowness, lack of space, narrow passage, limitations, confinement, imprisonment, and pettiness.
Can we say narrow window, Stanley's go-to metaphor!
I have a friend of mine, who is a fellow artist. He’s very talented, but he’s always in a state of self analysis, he says his life is meaningless and worthless. He’s always making these statements on FB about his insecurities. I call them fishing expeditions, to lure someone in who is going to provide him assurance that his life is OK and worth living, that he is a talented artist and so forth. I fell for this trap a few times, but I gave up…..I tried to help him but he goes back to self loathing. It’s like he’s on a loop.
In the song, Candy Says, by the Velvet Underground, she sings, “Maybe when I'm older, what do you think I'd see If I could walk away from me?"
If you figure out how to rise above self loathing; get off the loop, and it seems the world opens up to you.
I recently read a book by Chloe Cooper Jones, I met her at the Kansas Book Festival, she wrote a book, called Easy Beauty, and in there she talks about how her generation of people are so self-absorbed, and that we need to go through a period of un-selfing in order to get away from all this self absorption.
I like to transcend all of this self-absorption by studying the world of ideas, and how these ideas might be used to change or improve society. I like to study art and ask myself how can I paint a better picture. How does a musician capture the purity of a song?
Lately my wife Heather and I have been singing along to old songs by the Carpenters, is there a more sweeter sounding voice than Karen Carpenter?
In church, my friends Mike Cox and Gordon Haight and I sing together. My voice is not that great, but together with these men, we sound like Crosby Stills and Nash and Young.
David Bowie says you can be a hero for just one day.
One day, Heather and I took our two children and a foreign exchange student Momo Yamaguchi of Japan to a Native American drum event near Holton. We listened to these elders pounding the drum and chanting and singing and howling. We heard the awakening of their souls, the sound of sorrows. A sublime dimension.
The tiny window that I created around my anguish seems to have disappeared and now I’m looking for ways to connect with music, and art, poetry, laughter and love, a highway to transcendence.
I would say, my attachment style is moderately outgoing, with a curiosity about people, and a willingness to share a friendly smile, and a kind word, to perhaps, engage with a soul. I like working by myself but I enjoy the camaraderie of working with others toward a larger goal.
I remember, Jude Highberger, who used to attend meetings with this group. He and I had a discussion about attachment styles.
He said, “I carry every one I ever met with me.”
Wow, What an example for us to follow.
Shock trauma
In chapter 8, she says shock trauma is in another way for the Window to narrow. Shock trauma is when the body feels an acute or unexpected event that has a major effect on the mind-body system. During shock trauma we experience too much stress, and emotional intensity, thereby overwhelming our window of tolerance. These events could be like a hurricane, or a tornado or a fire or a divorce or a childhood death or something major. She suggests that we should take some time to make a list of experiences of shock trauma throughout our life. Write down all these shocking and earth-shattering events that tore up your heart. Once the list is complete take some time to think about it evaluate what happened and perhaps what could you have done differently and how we might act today.
Elizabeth Stanley is trying to be scientist and therapist in her book. I'm not sure she is succeeding at either endeavor. She is at the center of all these issues because she has been through these trauma events, with real-life combat experience, which seems to deepen the depressive nature of the content of this book.
At the end of chapter 6, the author encourages you to reflect in writing about your own attachment styles both as a child, and as an adult, and that as a part of this exercise, you should speak with your parents, your siblings, or other people who knew you as an infant and a child. Is this really appropriate? Is there any lasting value in this technique?