How Music Can Help Veterans with PTSD

A couple months ago, I went to see a Sister Hazel concert at the House of Blues in Cleveland. I grew up singing “All For You” and had even gotten into some of their newer music so I was excited for the show. The opener was a singer by the name of Joe Bachman whom I had never heard of. I was getting a drink at the bar when he started playing, and his music immediately turned my head. After his first couple songs I was a fan. After the end of his set (and a night out in Cleveland), I was a friend. He put on one of the best shows I’d ever seen, but the most powerful moment of an electric performance was when he played “A Soldier’s Memoir.”

Joe introduced the song with the story of how he was performing for a group of friends and military personnel in May of 2011, when a high ranking military official came on stage and asked him to announce Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US Special Forces. It took some convincing because the news wasn’t public yet, but Joe obliged and the place erupted in cheers. Not long after that show, a psychologist friend of his who was also a member of the US Navy approached Joe and asked him write a song about PTSD. Joe again obliged and wrote a vivid and moving piece with his dear friend and Nashville Songwriter Mitch Rossell. I’ve never heard a concert venue go as quiet during a performance as when Joe started singing A Soldier’s Memoir at the HOB in Cleveland. The emotion in the air was tangible and by the end of the song, there was not a dry eye in the house. After listening to the song and having it tug on our collective heartstrings, everyone understood the gravity of PTSD.

Joe recently published a music video of A Soldier’s Memoir featuring US Military veterans. The video is designed to raise awareness about PTSD. There are 2.3M veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and 20% of them have PTSD, 19% have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 7% have both. An average of one active duty service member takes his or her own life each day and an average of 22 military veterans commit suicide daily. Most of the active and former armed forces members who have committed suicide had PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly abbreviated to PTSD, is a debilitating anxiety disorder that occurs after someone experiences a traumatic event. Those suffering from PTSD have recurring memories of the stressful events and feel helpless, anxious, or scared even in the absence of danger. Flashbacks to and nightmares about traumatic experiences torment people long after the events have passed. PTSD may also present with depression, self-blame, sleep disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, and interpersonal difficulty.

PTSD has emerged after every war throughout history, but under varying names. Civil War veterans were said to be afflicted with “Soldiers Heart” upon returning from battle. Soldiers were said to suffer from “Combat Fatigue” or “Shell Shock” after World War I. In World War II, soldiers were said to suffer from “Battle Fatigue” or “Gross Stress Reaction.” PTSD gained notoriety as “Post Vietnam Syndrome” in soldiers returning from the Vietnam War, but it was not until 1980 when Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was entered into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel, which defines psychological maladies.

Traumatic memories associated with PTSD are typically visually based fragments that emerge as a vivid whole when someone with PTSD is stimulated by similar sensory information to what occurred in the memory. A loud clap of the hands can cause such a flashback for a veteran because it resembles a gunshot. The flash of a camera may also prompt memories of combat because it is reminiscent of an explosion. These automatic neurological responses can make living a normal life difficult for someone suffering from PTSD, but there are ways to alleviate some of the pain.

Listening to or creating music activates the parts of the brain responsible for cognitive, sensorimotor, and emotional processing. While the cause is unknown, using music to engage of these parts of the brain has been shown to improve the psychological and physiological health of people suffering from PTSD.

Music heals the soul and can help veterans with PTSD in many ways. Joe Bachman’s single, “A Soldier’s Memoir” is a moving song that raises money for The Boot Campaign, which raises awareness for the perils that veterans with PTSD go through after returning from serving our country. The Boot Campaign raises funds for military programs meeting the physical and emotional needs of the nearly 50,000 American heroes injured in battle and the families of the 8,000 killed since 2001.

Please take a few minutes to watch the official video for A Soldier’s Memoir by my friend Joe Bachman, featuring Chris “Oz” Ferrara and Brian Walsh. You can donate to The Boot Campaign by purchasing A Soldier's Memoir on iTunes here. I also strongly recommend checking out the rest of Joe’s music here.

PTSD is a very real threat to those people who make extraordinary sacrifices to defend our country. Music won’t cure them all, but a song can soothe a weary soul and this song will help raise awareness so that our veterans can get the care they need. Please consider sharing it with your friends and family.

 

Follow me on Twitter @Aaron_Kraus

Facebook to buy BlackBerry?

Facebook to buy BlackBerry?

In what would be an unlikely marriage, yesterday it was reported that Facebook might be interested in buying BlackBerry. The perils of BlackBerry have been well documented on this blog, but the highlights include a massive restructuring, failing products, and a 40% reduction in their workforce.

BlackBerry has a tentative deal with Fairfax Financial to sell the company for $9/share, but Fairfax is having trouble obtaining the funds for the transaction.

BlackBerry is not an example of where the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The company as a whole has little value, but some of the parts have great value and are coveted by other companies. BlackBerry’s patents, and particularly their security network and smartphone component technologies, would be desirable to many companies.

This meeting with BlackBerry is feeding rumors that Facebook is going to develop a smartphone. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has denied that rumor, saying the development of a smartphone would be a dumb strategy. Looking at the company and its strengths, developing a smartphone would overextend Facebook by taking them out of the software market and make them compete with Apple and Samsung in the hardware market. It is not a natural transition for the world’s largest social network.

There may be other synergies though as BlackBerry finally released its BBM app for iPhone and Android last week to wild success including 20M downloads already. Facebook could certainly put use to BBM technology to improve its messaging platform with particular emphasis on mobile users, which is the company’s fastest growing population. Even so, the situation is still murky and it is doubtful Facebook would be interested in BlackBerry. The due diligence period for the BlackBerry and Fairfax deal ends next week, so it’s likely news of the company’s next move will be out soon. 

Also Read:

15% of U.S. youth are neither in school nor working

15% of U.S. youth are neither in school nor working

According to a study released last week, 6M people age 16 to 24 (15% of that population) are not working or going to school. The indolence amid this population is troubling considering these are the individuals who should be building experience, expanding their knowledge base, and beginning their contribution to society. Without education or experience, this population is likely to be dependent on entitlement benefits to survive. This means that rather than contributing to society, they would be likely to be a drain of economic resources. Looking at it further, there may be more to why these people are unemployed and uneducated.

The same study showed 49 states have seen in increase in poverty and 45 states had their median incomes fall. These are two factors that predict the success of young people within a community. Other community level variables that predict success include internet access, college graduation rates, income inequality, and public safety. Vermont tops the list of supportive states while New Mexico is at the bottom. States that provide more support have lower levels of indolence. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money.

 

Today's 4 Top Headlines

Time was a bit tight today, so here are four more headlines in one post. Back to your regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. 

The JPMorgan deal with the Department of Justice is at risk of collapsing. The primary source of contention over the deal is the bank’s insistence on being reimbursed by the FDIC for the liabilities linked to WAMU. The DOJ is saying that isn’t an option. The DOJ is also balking about JPMorgan’s desire to get protection from any future legal probes beyond what it is currently involved in.

LinkedIn beats estimates, but drops future guidance. Shares of the professional social network dropped 4.4% after posting EPS of $0.39 and revenue of $393M, but delivering revenue guidance of $415M-$420M below the $438M consensus.

BlackBerry met with Facebook to discuss a possible bid.  The meeting occurred last week and details are still unclear. It is unknown to this point if Facebook has expressed an interest in BlackBerry, which recently made an agreement with Fairfax Financial holdings to go private. Fairfax has been rumored to have trouble securing the necessary capital for the deal, so BlackBerry has continued to explore other options. Shares of BlackBerry were up as a result of the talks with Facebook.

Yelp announced earnings today and they weren’t pretty. The company integrates social and mobile technology to provide the location and reviews for businesses. Shares are down nearly 9% in after hours trading after the company announced it lost $2.3M ($.04/share) on revenue of $61.2M. These numbers are all worse than a year ago, partially attributed to an increase in sales and marketing spending, which grew to $34.1M from $21.3M.

 

The 5 Key Takeaways From Apple's Earnings Call

The 5 Key Takeaways From Apple’s Earnings Call:

Yesterday Apple released its results for its fiscal fourth quarter. Apple beat expectations on the top and bottom line posting $8.26 EPS compared to projections of $7.93. They posted quarterly revenue of $37.5B compared to a projection of $36.8B. iPhone and iPad sales at 33.8M and 14.1M units respectively barely met expectations. Regardless of how Apple beat expectations, the stock is down about 3.5% since it released earnings after close on Monday. Here are five things that may explain investor’s lack of faith:

Apple’s margins are down. Essentially, they aren’t making as much money on each product as they used to. This may be a function of increased R&D spending.

CEO Tim Cook will not rapidly give in to activist investor Carl Icahn’s strong push for Apple to buy back $150B in stock, but he is considering it. He also said Apple has given $36B back to shareholders in the form of dividends and repurchases over the last five quarters.

The tablet market is viewed as an opportunity. Apple wants to create the best product and cement customer loyalty. Considering Apple is losing market share to other tech companies in all its sectors, a shareholder would hope they are going to try and recapture some market share and not just defend what they currently have.

Many believe the iPhone 5c was priced too high at $549 dollars. So many believed this Apple’s stock dropped 5.4% that day. Tim Cook suggested that the 5c wasn’t priced to high, but that people had misbranded it as an entry level phone, which he stated is a role filed by the iPhone 4s. Blame the customer for misunderstanding the purpose of a product, that is the first new thing Apple has done since they created the iPad!

Many, including this blog, have called for Apple to engage in radical innovation rather than just incremental. People want to see a new to world or new to market product and not just the next version of the iPhone or iPad. In addressing this assertion, Cook was vague and wouldn’t commit to putting out a new product. I guess that is why investors are backing off from Apple. They have enough cash on hand to fund a small government, but eventually that will all go away if they can’t innovate.  

More on Apple:

The Issue With Apple TV

Today Apple is expected to release its latest iPad.

Apple hires Burberry CEO to lead retail and online operations

Microsoft Offers $200 Gift Cards For Used iPads

Initial Reviews for IOS7 Are Not Pretty

The Role of Innovation in Organizations

The Curious Case of Apple Stagnation

Why Despite Strong Numbers Apple is in Trouble

 

The Top Six Performing Beer Companies

The top six performing beer companies:

Beer is drank around the world and there are over 2,000 brewing companies, yet there are less than 20 publically traded companies that specialize in beer. 2013 looks to be a soft year for brewers as people are consuming more wine, liquor, and craft beer, but some companies are still showing strong growth. Seeking Alpha used FiRM analysis to determine the top six in terms of Finances, Resources, and Market.  Their results show:

  1. Tsingtao Brewery Co – China’s second largest brewery
  2. Grupo Modelo – Controlls 63% of the Mexican beer market with brands like Modelo, and Pacifico
  3. Anheuser-Busch InBev – Often thought to be American, the company is headquartered in Belgium and among its 200 brands are Budweiser, Stella, Beck’s and Spaten.
  4. Heineken NV – Dutch brewer founded in 1873.
  5. Comp. Cervecerias Unidas – Has agreements with many of the brewers above and distributes in Chile, Argentine, Cayman Islands, and Lichetenstein.
  6. Boston Beer – This company was founded in 1984 in Boston and its beer is sold to consumers under the name Samuel Adams.

It's 5:00 somewhere, cheers! 

Toyota outpaces GM and Volkswagen to remain the world’s largest car company:

Toyota outpaces GM and Volkswagen to remain the world’s largest car company:

Toyota’s sales rose 2.8% to 2.5M vehicles in Q3 ahead of GM’s 2.4M and Volkswagen’s 2.33M. Toyota is Japan’s biggest company has now led sales by volume in two of the last three quarters. Over the last nine months, Toyota has sold 7.41M vehicles to GM’s 7.25M and VWs 7.03M. In the U.S., Toyota’s Q3 shipments increased 12% to surpass Ford, but it remained behind GM.

 

New Candidate for Worst IPO of All Time Goes to: Arian Foster?

IPO is short for initial public offering. As the name implies, during an IPO a company offers shares of ownership of itself to the general public for the first time. A company typically goes through an IPO to turn some of the equity in the company into liquid cash by selling small parts of the company. The person who buys a share during the IPO, just like at any time, is entitled to a share of all future value created by the company. Essentially the company gets cash it can use immediately and shareholder bets the company will increase in value so his investment grows. If the value of the company increases, then so does the value of the purchaser’s one share. If the value of the company goes down, well, you get the idea.

Historically, a company’s IPO price was determined by how much money they made. That all changed in the 90s when the tech and .com boom started. Companies that weren’t profitable started going public on the promise they would be in the future. This made valuing companies difficult, but investors feared missing the next big thing did it anyways. Going public before being profitable has become the trend since then. Companies like Twitter, who is going public in a few weeks, is currently losing money to the tune of $65M/quarter, but since people expect it to be profitable in the future, the company will have no problem raising the $1B in capital they are seeking.

A great illustration of this new model is what happened to Tesla Motors earlier this year. Tesla was an innovative company making sexy electric cars. The company needed more money for research and development, and decided to file an IPO to generate capital.  In June 2010, the company was still losing money, but the stocked debuted at $17 a share and went up to $23.89 that same day. Three years later, the price was still right around $27 having only climbed about $6 in the time since its IPO, but news came out the company was profitable for the first time. On this news, the stock price shot up and was $182 at time of writing.

Last week it was announced that Arian Foster, 27 year old three time all pro running back of the Houston Texans, was essentially filing for an IPO through sports marketing firm Fantex. Instead of offering shares of a company to the public, Foster is offering a share of his own future earnings. Fantex has acquired the right to 20% of the football player’s future income and plans to sell that 20% stake to investors for $10.55M. $10 will buy one share of the 20% of all Arian Foster’s future earnings owned by Fantex. Fantex is discounting its shares by 5% to underwriters to sell 1.055M shares to the public. Fantex is also taking 5% of all proceeds received from the agreement with Foster. Therefore, (check my math here) If Foster earns $20M in a given year, $200,000 (10%) will go to Fantex in fees, and $3.8M will go to the shareholders. Your one share would be get you about $3.60 which is barely enough for a Pumpkin Spice Latté from Starbucks. 

Arian Foster is a savvy businessman, but this is unchartered territory that Fantex is feeling out.  Buying a share of Foster as an investor means you’re betting his net worth will continue to rise over the course of his life. His current three year contract with the Texans was signed last year and is worth up to $43.5M.  $12M of that was a signing bonus that is not covered under the contract with Fantex and he has already earned more this year. The contract covered under the filing is worth up to $23.5M through 2016. Remember, contracts in the NFL are not guaranteed so if he gets cut or hurt, that number drops to $0.00.

According to the filing, for Fantex to earn money on its investment, Foster must derive 75% of his total income from future NFL playing contracts and endorsements. Foster would have to enter into at least one more multi-year NFL contract with compensation terms that compare to his current contract and generate revenue from endorsement deals in amounts significantly more than what he has now for investors to see a return on their investment.

Foster is an aging running back on a 2-5 team that is starting its third string quarterback, and just lost their defensive captain for the season. Oh and Foster exited last week’s loss against the Kansas City Chiefs prematurely with a hamstring injury. In addition to a knee surgery, Foster has missed games with previous hamstring and calf injuries. What is more, he was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat at the end of last season. What I’m saying is that his stock is down.

Aging running backs do not get big contracts, even ones that are coming off three consecutive all pro seasons. As was seen all over the NFL this last weekend, all it takes is one play to end a football career and running back is the easiest position on the field to replace. Getting another big contract is an extremely unlikely scenario for an ephemeral and aging running back with a list of injuries.

Regardless if he stays healthy and works hard it’s unlikely Foster gets another big contract, but the thing is, contractually, he doesn’t even have to try and get one. If he doesn’t want to, Foster doesn’t have to work again. As stated in the SEC filing, “Foster has no obligation to take any action to generate brand income…” The dude can take the money generated in the IPO and run like teammate JJ Watt is chasing him up the sideline for an overaggressive celebratory bear hug as long as he plays two more years in the NFL.

Here is a number to consider: 78%. 78% of NFL players are either bankrupt or in significant financial troubles within two years of retirement.  I’m not saying Foster will be one of them, but if he does go broke or experience financial duress, Foster doesn’t have to pay Fantex and therefore shareholders. That’s right, according to the filing, Foster does not have to pay anything to Fantex or his shareholders if it looks like his financial situation is going south.

Fantex describes itself as the, “First registered trading platform that lets you buy and sell stock linked to the value and performance of a pro athlete brand.” According to its website, “Fantex creates a unique brand building platform for athletes to increase the reach and engagement of their brand.” They are interested in creating the most value for their clients, not shareholders. This seems like an interesting version of fantasy football where short term investors can buy stock in an athlete. If you’re saying I can buy stock in say Warren Buffett, I’m interested, but not Arian Foster.

This whole thing is a fascinating concept, but be wary. Unless you’re interested in buying a share of Arian Foster (which also just feels kind of creepy) for sentimental reasons similar to the reason you’d buy a share of the Green Bay Packers (a publically owned team you can buy stock in but get no voting power or rights to future organization value), stay away from this IPO. Keep in mind, Foster agreed to sell 20% of his future income for $10M, meaning he thinks he is getting a better return than people who buy part of his income. He’s betting that 20% of all of his future income will be less than $10M. If he’s not betting on himself and this whole thing is predicated on him working hard and earning more money, why should you?

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