Bogus stock plays on prime time should irk you.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the ads on prime time television for Boeing or Lockheed Martin.  They come on during dinner on CNN or 60 Minutes.  They show impressive-looking engineers with clear goggles looking through transparent engineering designs in super-techno environments, and play lofty music.  “And it is the how,” the announce says, “that makes all the difference.”  And the fighter jet zooms into the distance while a little kid smiles.

Huh?

Have you ever wondered why these idiotic, massively expensive ad campaigns run?  When is the last time you decided to by a 737 over dessert?  Why do they advertise this right after AARP insurance and right before the 4-hour erection warning?

{See Boeing’s Dinnertime Minidrama}

The answer is simple.  Its a stock play, wrapped in a govnerment contractor’s push for a fat sale.

Nobody is trying to sell you a jet.  Nobody cares if you think the latest fighter jet is the most technologically advanced.  What these companies DO care about is your demand for their stock, and your support of your congressman’s desire to fund that jet.  They want you to remember that lofty ad when your broker brings up stocks to buy, and when someone challenges the validity of yet another make-work project in building what may be an unnecessary piece of equipment.

{See Lockheed Martin’s Touching Philosophy}

And it works.  You will see companies pick up the pace and voracity when they are about to merge or file a bankruptcy, or when a CEO is about to parachute out with a hefy package. 

“And it is the How.”