As many of you know, I am on Twitter a lot... maybe too much. I find that it gives those random thoughts that collect in that spontaneous corner of my brain a place to go so they don't pile up and cause some sort of "thought aneurysm".
Well, a few things have come up lately that I cannot talk about in 140 characters or less, so in no particular order, here they are:
Most consumer product designs are shit. I am reading and have almost completed the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. In it one of Jobs' most common comments about products under development by Apple or by anyone else is "This product is shit!" The more I have listened to how Steve focused down on the most seemingly trivial details of his products (sometimes to the detriment of the final design), the more I am becoming aware of how horrible products are. Some are designed to sell but not designed to function. Others, I just don't think the creators care. We bought a Red Devil 'stick' vacuum cleaner to use to pick up small amounts of tracked-in dirt or spillings. What a noisy piece of crap. Feels like it is going to fall apart. The dirt cup and filter is a nasty mess and the sound will run away small animals. We blame it on the Chinese, but they build what we design, and let's be honest, American consumer goods were mostly crap before they were made overseas (see Chevy Vega).
If you believe Planned Parenthood, you will believe anything. After the latest kerfuffle concerning the Susan B. Komen for the Cure Foundation's rescinding their $9 Million grant to Planned Parenthood and then re-committing the grant after the media and publicity firestorm, I thought about PP's claim that their "women's health" practice is totally walled off from their abortion practice/business. That is about as believable as a pediatrician who sells kiddie porn on the side stating that "There is no connection between my two enterprises. The books are kept separate." Yeah, right.
Since my two golden retrievers are not allowed to participate in the Republican Primary Caucus, they decided to participate in a Carcass of their own, finding a deceased deer already picked clean to the bones down by the creek bed. The ghastly remains reminded me of a what a profitable small business will look like after Obamacare kicks in in 2014 and after all of the new taxes get enacted to pay for more new programs and our exploding deficit.
I read where the US money supply has tripled, with the Fed printing close to $3 trillion since March 2009. With this much money sloshing around in the US and in the world (since the US Dollar is still the world's benchmark currency) PLUS all of the juicing that the ECB has done in the Eurozone, where is the inflation? My recollection of the definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods. If that is the case, then something doesn't seem right does it? Interest rates are near zero, manufacturing is just starting to pick up, if you discount for discouraged workers, the jobs figures are getting worse and the only prices that seem to be going up are commodities (gas, oil, food, etc.) Silver and gold are hovering at nearly the same prices as a year ago. Where did all of that money go? I think it went onto the balance sheets of large financial interests to prop up ghost assets in order to keep the house of cards (derivitaves) from collapsing. At some point, like a strategically placed hit by the yellow woodpecker in Angry Birds, it will all start tumbling down. Inflation will skyrocket and suddenly the US's $15 trillion debt will look like a rounding error. It can happen, folks. Remember Weimar Germany and its hyperinflation?
People make fun of Ron Paul and his fiat money, joking that it is something you use to purchase an small Italian car, but the more I read about the Fed and the US Treasury, the more I am convinced that the fix is in. Unfortunately, the fix is never permanent and the value of money always returns to the mean. Bullion and property are usually the only things that you can count on to remain valuable after a crash and, as long as you retain bullion in your possession (even hiding it), it cannot be nationalized like property can. My take: the 'fixers' in Washington are doing everything they can to get us past the 2012 presidential elections before they let it all rip. I believe that they feel that Obama is compliant as long as they let him have his social programs and that Romney is the least harmful of the current bunch on the Republican side. They now know Obama, so he will be their man in November. Remember, the really rich and powerful people care not a whit about political parties. At that level, anyone can be bought and political influence probably gives the greatest ROI of any investment one can make. Even gold and silver.
This morning I was ranting on Twitter and I tried to make my point through several consecutive tweets. 140 characters is not a lot of room to relay a big thought and one follower, @dogwalkblog took me to task on this point. He is a great blogger, but he has a history of media experience behind him. I have passion, this blog and 8000 tweets behind me, and I think I have become a better blogger for having gotten "out there" and expressed myself.
So, with that said, I will make my point about how I disagree with the President in what is fair.
President Obama opined in his State of the Union address earlier this week that he wants to make things fair so that all people have a fair shake at whatever it is they want a fair shake at. Jobs? Income? Health? Free throws? 4 minute mile? Marriage? I don't know...
Let me start out by saying LIFE IS NOT FAIR and thank God for that fact. If it was fair, virtually no one would push to exceed and succeed, because there would be no reward for doing more than is required to just get by. Fairness in results means that no one stands out from any other.
But, if he was talking about fair play, I might just have to agree with him. Rules are created by societies to act as boundaries for behavior. Rules are also constantly changing. Some rules are not fair. Some rules are created by leaders to "guide" individuals toward a desired result and some rules are made to be beneficial for one group and unfair for another. Forty or fifty years ago, there were a bunch of unfair rules for minorities and women. Now, most of those rules have not only been overturned, but have even gone further toward unfairness to the "majority" that benefited in previous generations.
One statement I made on Twitter is that business is pretty much fair for those just starting out. The rules for new businesses are quite well defined in the US and just about anyone can start up and make a go at it. I would argue that it is easier now to start a business than at any time in the past. With everyone having access to a computer, a phone, email, fax and credit cards, there is little that can stop a determined person from owning a business.
Some would make the case that trying to get a bank loan to start a business is unfair. I would imagine that any poor and/or minority individual would think that the deck was stacked against him/her because they asked their banker for a $50,000 loan to expand their business. When the banker turned them down, it had to be because the borrower is a (fill in the blank) and the banker is prejudiced.
Well, I am a white male and it took me putting together a large business loan years ago to realize that banks don't take risk. They may do risky things, but they will not take a risk on YOU without collateral to back up every penny of what they lend you. I was taught, like I suspect most of us were, that banks loaned money just like your Mom and Dad might lend you $1000 to buy your first car. WRONG. The only way that would happen is if you put your $1000 baseball card collection up for collateral. Today, if you cannot get a loan, it is probably because you have nothing to back up the amount of the loan.
Truism: you have to have money (assets) to borrow money. In other words, most of the people that can quickly borrow money don't really need it and the laws are written such that it is advantageous for them to do so. Not fair is it?
(Recession exception: currently banks are so uptight because of regulations, fear or lack of capital, that even if you are creditworthy and have collateral you may not get a loan and that just isn't fair.)
Even if you are really smart, you can fail miserably at business. If you have little education, you can still make it in business. Is that fair?
After 3 years of preschool, 12 years of primary education, 4 years of college and 2-4 years of post-graduate work, you can still wander around looking for the right job. Sure, you could work for something beneath your education and preparation, but that wouldn't be fair would it?
I could go on and on with examples of fairness, or lack thereof, but you get the drift.
The key to my argument against Barack Obama helping make things fair is that I don't really trust those that will be assigned to make the new rules. Do you? It is one thing to come up with a game and write down a page or two of rules then start playing the game. It is another thing to stack layer upon layer of rules and new rules followed by exceptions and carve-outs, then being told "Enjoy the game" knowing that if you violate the rules you could end up in jail or with a huge fine. How fair is that?
I will close with this immutable truth: there will always be a small group that sets the rules and those rules will usually favors themselves. When a disaffected group rises up and unseats the ruling class, they will soon become the privileged ruling class and the cycle will continue. You can NEVER depend upon benevolence to temper power, especially in groups.
If your primary method to achieve fairness is to take from one group to give to another, the haves will not be happy. They will do all they can to stop the taking (including changing the rules in the middle of the game.) However, if you raise yourself up and earn what you make or accomplish, you may soon find yourself in the good company of the haves and your closely held view on fairness may change whether you want to admit it or not.
Changing your attitude, outlook and opinion as you mature? That just isn't fair to others, is it?
Newt Gingrich won Saturday's South Carolina Republican Presidential primary with 40% of the vote. Mitt Romney came in a distant second with 28% of the vote. This was a big win and it underscores the roller coaster season that this primary has given us.
Many of the pundits on the right are coming out against Newt. Conspicuously present in this attack is Ann Coulter and S.E. Cupp, but they are just the most verbal. Most in the punditocracy are decidedly anti-Newt. This puzzles me. Do they know something that I don't know, do they fear that Newt cannot win against Obama, or does he threaten their turf?
I have liked Newt for a long time. I remember distinctly the night that the Republicans took over the House in 1994. The Rs had been out of power for so long, they had gotten comfortable living in the shack behind the big house. Newt riled them up, got a whole new crew elected and they stormed the mansion. This move affected politics in DC for the next 10-15 years.
When I heard Newt was running for President, I was excited. He is an idea guy. So am I. Not all of my ideas are actionable (or practical). Neither are his, but at least he puts it out there. If one is timid and never floats an idea for fear of it being ridiculed or shot down, then we will be stuck with the status quo. Guess what? We are stuck with the status quo. By this I mean business as usual. No matter who is in power, the wheels turn in the same manner with the same grease. The party in power and the President steer the beast, but the inner workings are pretty much the same as they always have been.
Side note: there are those who say that Barack Obama has not accomplished anything in his presidency and has kept none of his promises. BS! The problem with BHO is that he has kept most of his promises, except for the one about reaching across the aisle to the opposition. He reaches across alright, only to slap the Republicans up the back of their heads just to keep them in their place.
My attitude toward Newt since he announced has been about as up and down as that roller coaster. He has moments of brilliance, followed by gaffes or by circumstance (such as his second wife Marianne's interview with Brian Ross of ABC News.) Romney, however is "steady as she goes". Romney is DC, Newt is AC. But like electricity, AC gets the job done over the long haul. DC just powers the small jobs.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that a lot of the pundits don't want the boat rocked. Newt was cast out as Speaker of the House just four years after he took the job. Was he that bad of a leader, or did he want to take them where they did not want to go? I don't know the inside scoop, but I suspect the latter. You only have to look at the Arab Spring to see a similar trend. The genuine revolutionaries knock down the walls and storm the castle, only to have the 'elites' push them aside and take over when the heavy lifting is done. Isn't that the deal, let someone else fight and die for the cause, then swoop in and grab the reins?
What scares me about Newt is he desperately needs a Dick Cheney-type to run the day-to-day. He needs a brilliant Chief of Staff that knows how to work with him. He must come out immediately and identify his team. Show the country that he is ready to get it done. But is there anyone there? Is "Team Newt" just an Army of One?
People in the know are scared that it will be all Newt, all the time and you can't run it that way. In many ways he is like Bill Clinton, but Clinton had some competent folks behind the scenes. Where is Newt's backfield and his team and coaches on the sidelines?
Yeah, he is calling audibles, gaining yardage and winning a few games, but he still needs a great team to go all the way to the Super Bowl.
Barnes and Noble has something that Amazon.com doesn't have... presence in most metro areas. If I ran B&N, I would look at allowing online purchasers to have an option of picking the book up at their local store, even if the person ordering it was standing in the store while he ordered it.
I would offer a "Pick it up in 30 minutes" deal. You would have to wait the 30 minutes to pick it up so that if someone tried to game the system, it might be a little more inconvenient, but really, does it matter? If I have Amazon Prime, I can have the book in two days with free shipping or I can have it tomorrow for $3.99 shipping. When you factor in the deep Amazon discount on books, the $3.99 shipping charge is trivial.
Sure, a B&N "picker-upper" would have to pay sales tax, but they do already (which may be why bn.com is much less successful than Amazon.com.)
This distribution scheme could potentially decimate the shelf inventory at your local B&N, but, so what? With the size of that company and their advanced distribution system, they could have them restocked the next day.
What better way to compete against "get it cheap and have it the next day" than to "get it cheap and have it before lunch"? B&N's cost structure with all of their existing brick and mortar stores is fixed and long term, so why not leverage it? Plus, there is always the possibility that the picker-uppers may see something else that they need, adding to the profit potential.
One other item I would look at that Amazon does not do, is leverage the total media experience of the Nook. Amazon.com owns Audible.com (audio books), Kindle (e-books) and Amazon (paper books) but does not integrate any of the three. If someone would drop $9.95 for a Nook book, I would allow a $12.95 option to get the audio version with it. Also, if someone paid full freight ($36.95) for a paper book, I would fix my computer system to automatically give that account the Nook version and the audio version for free. (Personally, I finish 100% more books on audio than I do with the dead tree version.)
I mean, what is the long tail cost? Nothing. "Oh, but there is value in the audio production" one might say. Well, compare the value of a $36.95 book to a $16.95 copy of the same book delivered in two days to your door. I see no difference, except for the act of getting it when you want it. Is that worth $20 plus tax? Value valuation changes. Get with the program...
While these traditional companies spend millions of dollars protecting their old-school flanks, they are getting killed on the forefront.
Back in October, Andrew Breitbart, the much-maligned purveyor of BigGovernment.com and several other 'Bigs" posted this tweet:
I am one that likes to check out different styles of music so I followed his link. Here is what I found.
Give it a spin. Who knows, you may like it.
It snagged me with its catchy beat, peppy tune and those whiny vocals (yes, Andrew, it is emo.) After I watched the video, I clicked on several others that came up and decided that I would put Grouplove in the plus column, although I secretly wondered if they may have been involved in Occupy Wall Street (just kidding, guys.)
So, tonight I was at a local concert. It was a festival-style show where there are multiple bands. I had purchased the ticket because I wanted to see @GavinRossdale and the newly re-formed Bush. There was a room called the Budweiser Lounge where a poster in the hallway indicated that at 8:15 the featured band would be Grouplove.
Grouplove? Hmmmm. I remembered the name, but I couldn't remember any of their music. Instead of heading for the main stage area, I hung out in the lounge and grabbed a spot right up on the front rail. Soon, the sound check was complete and the band came out. I must say, the sound guys forgot that we were in a small indoor room. I almost lost an eardrum.
Suddenly, I remembered their music after I heard the first few notes. It was a great twenty minutes, though I had to move to the back of the room to conserve my hearing. (For those of you who know me, you know that this is a rare move for me, but pain is pain...)
This sort of musical serendipity started about 12 years ago for me when Napster first came out. I had been 'borrowing' music from other people, mainly through UseNET newsgroups. This was tedious and slow. Back then I had a 56K modem (it might have been a 33K modem) and the songs were broken up into multiple chunks which had to be reassembled in the proper order after downloading. There were newsreader programs that would do this reassembly automagically for you, but you still had to download a sequential list, beginning to end, or it wouldn't work.
When Napster arrived, all of this changed. You could search for music (actually you searched for files, but what the hey), then click on a sharing host computer that looked promising and watch it download. Napster would tell you what the download speed was and what folder the music was in on the host's computer. It would even let you look at the directories of the contributor. THIS WAS HUGE. It allowed me to look for a specific song, find it on someone's computer, browse their computer and see if there was anything else I might be interested in. After all, if they had one song I wanted, they might have others.
In doing this, I was able to discover numerous artists and songs that I would have never found if I had been stuck with FM radio or if I could borrow a friend's mix tape. Some artists were good. Some totally sucked. Sometimes I would find out about a show coming to town featuring a group I had never heard of. I would then search Napster to see if I might like it. Many artists benefited from my ability to 'try out' new talent by my concert attendance and purchase of their CD (remember when people bought CDs???)
The music industry didn't get it back then and they still don't get it now, but it is too late for them. They threw themselves under that bus, but I digress.
This new-style serendipity consisted of social media, Twitter, YouTube, Band of the Day app on iPhone, on-line ticket ordering and a little bit of luck. You gotta love the internet.
The latest news is that Germany is being told that it must act quickly to save Europe and to stave off the impending apocalypse. The plan now is for the European Central Bank (which is prohibited from purchasing sovereign debt of member nations) to loan money to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Then, in a money-laundering quid pro quo which would land any legitimate (or illegitimate) businessperson in prison, the IMF will, in turn, loan money to these nearly bankrupt states.
But, here is the kicker... by doing this little transaction, the burden of risk shifts from the ECB and the EU nations, and falls upon the members of the IMF. The United States comprises almost 18% (if I read this chart properly) of the risk and the EU members are in total about the same. The money still needs to be 'printed' by the ECB and the Federal Reserve, but now we (US citizens) are now on the hook for a sizeable chunk of the debt that will NEVER be paid back.
Why do I say NEVER paid back? Well, historically, very few countries ever pays the US back for anything. Most of these loans end up being grants or at the very least rarely paid back in full without the lenders taking a serious haircut. Why should they pay it back? What is the penalty for default? Could we foreclose on their natural resources? Doubtful in this day and time. Hell, we haven't even taken oil from Iraq (which the left swore was the reason we invaded that country.)
[Let me digress for a moment. The jihadists claim that the great Satan rapes and desecrates their land by stealing their oil. Last time I checked, oil was trading at $100 per barrel and we were stroking some seriously large checks for that oil. Perhaps what they really mean is that they aren't getting a cut of the action. That sounds like a domestic political issue to me, not a reason for global jihad.]
Let me cut to the chase. Any money loaned to these bankrupt countries will be like pissing in the ocean. None of the countries (with the possible exception of Spain) have done anything to make a serious cut in their expenditures. Recently ABC News spotlighted a Greek man who retired at 48 years of age with a $45,000 annual pension. The next week ABC also described the retirement benefits of a US Congressmember with 20 years of service. This amount was purported to be just north of $40,000. Sure, the former Congressman may get the gold plated health care, but compare that to the Greek. I doubt he pays for his health care either.
If a nation is paying 48 year old healthy men to go into retirement for 30-50 more years at a pay rate that exceeds the average salary of a currently working US citizen, and if they are powerless to reduce this amount SIGNIFICANTLY, then they will never get out of debt. Period.
Think about it. Say you have maxed out your credit cards and have gotten all of the equity out of your house. You make X dollars, but you spend 150% of X every year and reducing next year's 5% increase in projected spending to 4% is viewed by your spouse as a draconian cut, what good would it do to give you a loan for half a year's salary? Would it fix anything?
The only way out of this global crisis is widespread hyper-inflation. For some miraculous reason, we have avoided inflation so far, but with several trillion new dollars (unbacked by any real assets) having been pumped into the economy in the past three years, it has to happen. It has to. No way out of it. When it hits, the collective debt becomes proportionally smaller as the dollar becomes less and less valuable. Debtors win. Everyone else loses. Perhaps holders of gold, silver, other precious metals, real estate and commodities will do OK, but the economy around them will be devistated.
I just read in the Wall Street Journal that MF Global, former Senator and Governor Jon S. Corzine's investment firm, took $1.2 Billion from customer's account, more than double that which was previous estimated.
A couple of days ago I tweeted that the ex-Guv/ex-Sen must have forgotten that only government can play fast and loose with money (both theirs and other people's) in that manner without suffering the penalty of illegality.
Now it appears that they have stolen (there is no other word for it) a HUGE sum of money. What will the penalty be?
At what point does over a billion dollars become a big enough sum to warrant swift and harsh retribution by the authorities? At what point does the management of that company forfeit everything that they personally own in order to make investors whole? At what point do these people spend the rest of their lives in jail?
A long, long time ago I sat on a jury which convicted a ghetto guy of grabbing 10 cartons of cigarettes from a 7-11 and dashing out the front door. Yes, he was a repeat offender, but he did not threaten the clerk with a firearm, nor did he hurt anyone in the process. He had gotten off easy with his earlier offenses and I think that our jury wanted to teach him a lesson.
Can someone explain to me how MF Global is any different from the ghetto dude, except that MF Global has upped the stakes by 10,000,000X?
I am still stuck on this Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) phenomenom. I listened to a bit of Randi Rhodes on XM Radio today and Nicole Sandler was filling in for her. Nicole was talking to John Nichols of The Nation magazine about the growth of the Occupy Movement. It was quite funny listening to them talk about how the "Occupants" are willing to stay out there throughout the winter. These people are so righteous that they are willing to suffer to make their point. Awwww.....
I thought about starting my own Occupy movement, but then I remembered that I have to work the rest of the year. Damn...
So, they talked more and more about the income inequities and how the 1% have all of the money and the two of them actually said that the reason that the 99% are so bad off is because the 1% took all of the money. Seriously, they said that on the air.
Rather than discuss macro-economics and how wealth is both created and destroyed by the whim of the market, I was curious if I could be wrong about how the 1% has sucked all of the oxygen out of the corpus economi of the 99%.
I went searching for statistics on the internet. Median income is a number that jumps out, but is pretty much a useless figure for what I needed. Median means that half the people make more than this number and half make less. If 99 people made $100 and one made $1,000,000, then the median income would be $100. That is an extreme example, but useful.
SUMMARY OF FEDERAL INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX DATA, 2010
I used these figures for my calculations. The numbers look about right, but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of them. If you find better numbers, let me know.
Here is what I pulled from these data:
In 2010, 139,960,580 taxpayers made $8.426625 Trillion in income.
This number is reported income, not just wages, etc. Wealth, which is a measure of one's assets is not counted here. It is just the amount of money that individuals 'took in' last year.
If you subtract the number of taxpayers in the top 1% and the amount of money they made from those two numbers you have the lower 99% making $6.741153 Trillion for an average of $48,651 per taxpayer. (Yes, there may be more than one taxpayer per household, but that doesn't matter for this illustration.)
If you take the total amount from the top line, the average for all Americans was $60,207 in 2010.
Subracting the 99%'s average from the 100% average, you get $11,556.
If we were able to confiscate the total amount of 'excess' revenue that the filthiest of the rich made and redistribute it amongst the least of us, every taxpayer would get a windfall gain of $11,556. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that every household has two taxpayers in it. That would add roughly $23,000 to each family's annual income.
Would that amount allow every American to have a significantly better life? You think? Seriously...
The unintended consequence of this equality is that the rich would no longer be compelled to pay most of the taxes. The bottom 75% would see their taxes increase by about 10% which would consume over half of the windfall.
Additionally, the myriad of things that the rich pay for because of our 'bought and paid-for' tax system would largely go away. Such things as art galleries, Nordstrom's, 5th Avenue in New York, Mercedes-Benz dealerships, almost all pleasure boating, exclusive resort destinations, medical research from foundations, huge numbers of service jobs, university endowments, museums, sponsorships for races, marathons and non-football, basketball and baseball sporting events. The list goes on and on and on.
No one would be able to invest enough to create dynamic businesses. Without the possibility of making big sums of money, many big ideas would remain just that... big ideas.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be seen as taking up for the fat cat hedge fund brokers. But, think about it. Could Steve Jobs have become so rich if people like me had not been willing in 1977 to purchase an Apple II for well over $2000 (close to $5000 in today's value)? I really couldn't afford it, but actually I could, because I did. That was back when NO ONE young had credit. That computer was paid for by my wife and I with cash, the cold, hard variety. (If I had not purchased that computer, I probably would not have created a business that is almost 30 years old, either...)
Those iPads and iPhones that all of the #OWS Occupants have that allow them to amplify their impact and importance brings Apple a 40% profit margin. Do you think that is enough? I should hope so. By comparison, Big Oil makes about 9%. Who is ripping off who? Plus, where is the iPad and iPhone made? China, of course. Why not in Cupertino? I think you know the answer to that one.
Back to the bankers and Wall Street types, the ones that attract the ire of the Occupants. If these big money guys want to buy and sell real and unreal products, let them. It is almost all gambling anyway. Derivatives, hedge funds, CDOs, all of these instruments are just the financial version of building a new kind of slot machine in Las Vegas. Let the federal government build a huge wall around it and let the boys play. Let them win big and let them lose big. No one bails out losers in the casino and they shouldn't on Wall Street either.
Just make sure that wall is tall enough to keep legitimate retirement funds and 'inexperienced' investors out.
Nothing frosts me more than hypocracy and inuendo. These #OWS protestors (at least the ones that kicked it off in the beginning) I believe are really frustrated and hurt by what has happened in the past two decades. These people fundamentally had more in common with the Tea Party than they care to admit. But once the fruits and nuts took over, it became Bizarro Woodstock, losing all legitimacy.
Unless a seller is cheating by price fixing, no buyer needs to pays more for a product than it is worth to them. It is just that simple. $499 iPhone? $139 jeans? $89 Oakleys? $149 Ecco boots? No one put a gun to anyone's head to make them overpay for these products. Wal-Mart has similar products for 1/3 the price. And if anyone of the Occupants bought a $499 iPhone or paid $90 for a share of Enron stock (before it plummeted to $0), remember; it was because they WANTED TO.
Asterisk note: Each blog posting I do, I swear that it will be short, then it ends up looking like a manifesto. So, here is another attempt at brevity (maybe that is why I tweet and blog... sort of the yin and yang of modern communications.)
Much has been said of the American Dream lately, especially in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that are sweeping across the country and the world. Sweeping every place, except apparently, where these protestors are encamping.
I spoke in an earlier posting about the American Dream and what it is. I then read a piece in the DogWalkBlog about the haves and the have nots. It has made me reconsider what qualifies as the American Dream.
Using the same logic that I use to mock the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who deign to represent ALL of the black Americans, who am I to foist my idea of what The Dream looks like upon all Americans? Like the song Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, is The Dream still a house, a white picket fence and two cats in the yard?
Wasn't it presumptuous for Clinton, Bush 43 and just about every politician over the past 25 years to pimp home ownership? Why have we allowed home construction to become the de facto core of our nation's economic engine?
Let's get over ourselves and allow the People to decide what their dream looks like... even if their dream house is a cardboard box under an overpass with a nice shopping cart full of recycled possessions.
Recently in the US there has been quite a controversy over the issue of debit card transaction fees. These fees are the money that the "system" (Visa/MasterCard, banks, clearinghouses, etc.) charge to process a transaction at the point of sale.
Previously, it involved a rather complex set of rules to apportion the amount that the system would charge to move money from the purchaser's bank account to the business' account. Take a look at this page which describes some of what is involved with a merchant account, then try to figure out what a transaction will cost you if Visa handles the transaction.
On that Visa link, don't you just love the term 'reimbursement'? It sounds like you are getting something back, doesn't it? Actually it is the amount that Visa reimburses the card-holding financial institution for the transaction. Also, it looks like a complicated government tax form, doesn't it? So complicated that you can never actually figure out what it will cost you, as a merchant, to take the card as payment. You just wait until the end of the month and you pay the fees.
There is HUGE money in transaction fees. The dirty little secret is that the customer almost never pays for any of them. (Rarely, you may see a four or five cent per gallon discount for paying cash for fuel at a gas station, but other than that, most credit cards disallow this practice.)
As a merchant, I have had to play this game for decades. When my company was in retail, we would sell a lot of big ticket items (computers, printers and service.) We would cringe if a customer reached into their wallet and pulled out an American Express card. "Oh, no!" we would exclaim. If we wanted that money deposited into our account the next day, that transaction would cost us around 5%. So, if someone bought a $3000 computer system (not atypical back in the 1990's), $150 would go directly to Amex.
The customer would feel great, because they just extended their one year warranty to two years, and they got some protection from a bad purchase from American Express.
What did we get? Well, we saw our profit margin (which averaged 20% at the time) immediately go to 15%. So, now we pocket $450 instead of $600. "Wow", most would say. $450 is a lot of money to keep just for delivering a computer system. How a merchant has to dice up that 15% profit is the subject for another post.
Suffice it to say, merchant fees for credit cards have always been a touchy subject for retailers. The recent dust-up in Washington concerns debit card fees, but these fees are twin sons of different mothers.
There has been an uneasy peace between the banks, the interchange companies (Visa, MasterCard, etc.), the merchants and the cardholders for decades.
What, I believe, has caused the fee system to come to a boil is the fact that many people do not use cash anymore. So what happens is that every one of their purchases goes onto a debit card or a credit card. So, in my previous example of the computer system, if a customer purchases a $1000 computer system, between $25 and $30 goes to credit card clearing house and that gets divvied up between the bank, the card company and the interchange company. I can live with that 'tax' in order not to have to worry about bounced checks, or even worse, extending credit to someone.
The cardholder gets their product, a few airline miles, an extra year's warranty, some peace of mind from buying a lemon and it costs them 12% to 30% interest (assuming they do not pay the card down each month) plus some annual fee which they just close their eyes and pay.
Everyone's happy, right? Well, no one is ever really happy. Everyone wants more for less.
The trouble with the current situation is that each transaction has a transaction fee. In the case of debit cards, it was usually about 44 cents. On big ticket items like my computer systems, that is a rounding error. But, when you pop into 7-11 and buy a Big Gulp for $1.49 and swipe your debit card instead of giving the clerk two ones, the store owner (usually a small businessman, often an immigrant) loses 30% of his sale. Right off the top. If you look at business that live off of small transactions (convenience stores, fast food, street vendors, craftpeople, etc.) these fees become a huge tax on their profit. Talk about regressive. And the purchasers are none the wiser... they just buy more, because it is almost like play money. They never see the cash leaving their wallet.
So what is a merchant to do? The "system" isn't going to give in. They like how it works. It requires a huge infrastructure to support these transactions, but once built, it is like the golden goose, laying them golden eggs.
Like often happens when the little guy has no clout against the behemoth, where else can the little guy turn but to the government for help? And if you want to fight big business, who better to enlist in your battle but the Democrats?
The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was created and enacted while the Democrats held majorities in the House and Senate, and also held the Presidency under Barack Obama. It was a response to the sins of the 2000-2009 decade and (IMHO) was largely punitive while it tried to dial back the ability of banks and investment firms from going crazy again. During debate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D, IL) inserted an amendment aimed at reforming interchange fees. Originally targeted at an average 12 cents per transaction, they settled on an average 24 cents per transaction, down from a prior 44 cents.
Of course, the banks lobbied hard to keep this out of the final bill, but failed. So, last month, several banks announced monthly fees to make up for the estimated $20 Billion they will lose annually by not collecting the prior amount. Notoriously, Bank of America stated that they would start charging $5 per month if a cardholder used their debit card at least once per month (ATM transactions excepted.) Wells Fargo and SunTrust have also begun to charge $3 to $4 to their customers.
Like squeezing a balloon filled with water, it just starts sliding around, but the amount doesn't change. There has been a big hue and cry over this, with many saying that they will just start using cash again, or start using their credit card instead of their debit card. I doubt much will change in the long run. People like the convenience too much. If you think about it, $60 per year is the average annual fee for credit cards and people have many cards in their wallet. This fee effectively becomes an annual fee to use a debit card.
It has shifted the burden of transaction costs somewhat off of the merchants, back onto the consumer, where I believe that it really belongs. The goal of Sen. Durbin of punishing the banks isn't going to meet its goal, because banks will make it up elsewhere.
Similar to the argument surrounding the Fair Tax, will the consumers see a slight drop in the cost of goods because the merchants will no longer shoulder the full burden of interchange fees? I doubt it. Cumulatively it is a lot of money, but on an item-by-item basis, it is pennies.
The point of this whole blog posting is that the best (or worst) of intentions often usually spawn unintended consequences. The unintended consequences are often usually worse than the problems they were intended to solve.
Am I proposing that nothing be done to cure the ills of society? No, but our economic and social structure is delicately balanced and whenever the heavy hand of government gets involved with its one-size-fits-all approach to problem solving, strange things are bound to happen. Just remember the water balloon.
Life isn't fair. There are going to be winners and losers, but it all eventually comes around. Remember how insanely worked up we were about Japan in the 80's? Remember how Wal-Mart was going to ruin America in the 90's? Remember Global Cooling in the 70's? Remember the Hunt brothers and how they were going to ruin the silver market?
It is funny... I find myself almost feeling sorry for banks and health insurance companies as they battle onerous legislation and regulation coming out of Washingon. I have to pinch myself occasionally to remind myself how much I hate banks and health insurance companies. I have to remain cognizant of the fact that bankers (in relation to loaning ME money) don't take risks. Every penny they loan me is collateralized, so the notion that bankers are supposed to support new businesses by loaning them several hundred thousand dollars is a fantastic myth (unless the business owner has that amount of assets to put up as collateral.)
Similarly, every August when I get the estimate for next year's health insurance costs for my small business and the rates jump by 25%, but the agent can negotiate them down to an 18% rise, am I supposed to feel good about that? Can I raise my prices by 25% every year and get away with it? Why can't I charge huge amounts of money to provide IT support to medical practices (after all, isn't it they who are driving up the cost of health?)
Needs and wants cost money. The more needs and wants, the more it costs. Period. It is an immutable truth. Write it in crayon on your bathroom mirror. You are going to need to remember it.
And also remember what happens if you ask the government to help.
The gist of the article is that TV has for the most part avoided the disruptive effect of the internet on its business model in the manner that it has affected the print media world. (Please read the article for a much more in depth analysis.) And thanks to @feliciaday for linking to the article.
A few points came to mind for me while reading it. Here they are:
From a social point of view, people will still need to watch their shows at the same time. Nothing is more bizarre than watching someone tweet about something on TV when they are time-shifting with a DVR. I like pausing shows while I step away for a few minutes or when commercials come on so that I can zip past five minutes of them. I also like to pause while I comment/rant about something so that I don't miss anything in the show. If social was important to me, I wouldn't be able to timeshift. The biggest part of social is the interaction between viewers in real time via the comment feed.
Commercials embedded at the beginning of video clips which CANNOT be fast-forwarded through may make lots of advertisers happy, but it really pisses me off. The number of ads you get assaulted with watching TV clips is insulting. Fifteen to thirty second ads to watch a 2:30 video is redonkulous. I won't do it.
I am an 'older' person, or as the politically correct crowd (of which I am a total outcast) would say, "a person of age" and I still prefer to watch my TV on a, wait for it... a TV! Especially if I am watching with others, it beats hovering around the computer screen. Of course, you can run cables from the computer to the 50" on the wall, but that is kludgey. Also, in many cases, the quality of the videos off of the internet is vastly inferior to broadcast TV. Yes, yes, I know there are products that provide an interface to TVs and there are TVs with Netflix, YouTube and other media built-in, but none of them are as simple to use as a TV remote and/or a DVR.
Advertisers need to face the fact that few people actually watch commercials. With the short attention span of most <40 year olds being the stuff of legend, what makes them think that the viewers are even watching the show? When I zoom through the commercials at 3x on my DVR, I still see the brand but I don't hear the message. Many commercials don't even have a message anymore, it is just flash and imagery and brand. As an alternative, maybe they could start playing the show, flash a 2 or 3 second sponsorship slide where the commercials would normally go, then PiP the commercial while the show plays on.
I can see in the not-so-distant future having a feature on your PC/Mac/tablet/phone where you can take a video on that device and 'sling' it to your network-connected TV screen. Your TV would go directly to the video feed and start playing what you were watching and your remote would allow you to stop/start and control the playback. Now that would be cool. (Hey, why couldn't we do that with music as well???)
Subscription model for video. Everyone wants to get paid for their work... I get it. I am not a tightwad, but I just cannot bring myself to pay Apple $2.00 to watch a TV show I could have seen for free. I know some people do, and maybe it is because I am a "person of age", but that doesn't sit well with me. Now, I will admit to having borrowed music back in the Napster/Limewire/Soulseek era. I still don't see the serious harm this does, but that is a discussion for another day. Today, I am a recovering musicaholic who gets his fix using Rhapsody. (I have recently signed up for the free version of Spotify, but I still like Rhapsody.) Just about any song I want is on Rhapsody. I can put it on a portable player for a limited time, I can even download it on the fly with my iPhone. $14.95 per month. Does Avenged Sevenfold care if I have played Welcome to the Family 10 times? Do Givers care if I listened to Up Up Up twice, with ten other songs on their album that I haven't even listened to? Why can't I have a Rhapsody for video? Play anything at anytime as long as my account is current. Simple. (The-Asterisk note*: because it is so simple and makes so much sense, this will not happen for a long, long time.)
The cable companies, cell phone providers and other ISPs (including FiOS) have long fought the ability for you to get unlimited internet to your device. Especially if the bandwidth is consumed by streaming video. They see this as you raiding their refrigerator. I do not know the economics of the MSO, but if you just look at the numbers, you see that you get 100+ TV channels for, say, $44.95 per month plus if you get all of the premiums, you can be pushing $100 per month. Just how much TV can you consume? Assuming you have a job and something of a life, you may see five hours of programming per day and I bet most of that is spent on the same few channels. (So, if you could just pick 15 channels and reject the rest, would your bill go down? Hmmm. I had the same question about buying an album and only listening to two songs, but that is also another blog post for the future.) Back to the numbers... paying for top end internet speed can run you more than $70 per month. What is the monthly recurring cost of that service to the MSO (I am not talking about the infrastructure here)? I do not know what it costs to connect to an OC-192 ring, but if you spread it out across all consumers on their network, I bet it is a pretty low number; and probably a lot lower than what the MSO has to pay TV content providers. So save the crocodile tears for another day.
It is a shame that we consumers have to wait decades for the old ways to die before we can get what everyone will eventually have... a virtually unlimited pipe to the internet delivered to their device. Hell, South Korea has the fastest internet download speed followed by Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia. Freaking Latvia has over twice the average download speed as the US, which is in 26th place. Plus there are HUGE swaths of the US that have absolutely NO option for high-speed internet except for satellite (HughesNet or WildBlue). Just think, over a trillion dollars (that is $1,000,000,000,000) spent in the past two years to stimulate our economy and I still have no broadband in out the country and I am only 10 miles from the nearest town.
I recently read the book "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future," by Robert Bryce. In it he discusses how China has pretty much cornered the world market on the rare earth elements that provides the raw materials for essential components of Lithium Ion (L-ion) battery cells and extremely strong magnets used in electric motors and generators.
China's approach is that these materials in the unfinished state are worth a lot less than they are as part of finished goods. Well, this makes sense. These goods are valuable as well as strategic.This is also why China is taking a proactive stance in Africa to endear themselves to various poor countries that also hold reserves of many of the materials that they need.
(China's human rights reputation, as well as their lack of any aversion to doing "what it takes" to do business with third world kleptocrats is the subject for another blog post.)
So, yesterday in the Wall Street Journal there is an article titled "Log Exports Hammer Mills." It is a story about how lumber mills in Oregon cannot find any wood to saw because the Chinese are paying a premium price ($600 per 1000 board feet) for raw timber. The highest price that a mill owner said he could afford to pay is about $475 per 1000 board feet. What self-respecting businessperson is going to ignore a 25% premium on as much product as you can produce?
In the piece, one freighter heading to China had just loaded 30,000 logs. That is a LOT of logs and keep in mind that is just one ship. So far, as of June 2011, the Chinese had imported 204 million board feet of U.S. timber compared with 141 million for all of 2010.
Instead of exporting sawed and finished lumber, we are exporting the logs themselves. Not only are we cheating ourselves out of the value added profits from producing finished goods, we are disallowing hundreds of mill workers to go back to work.
Is this a corporate decision to sell this valuable commodity to China at the expense of neighboring American businesses? Or should the government through its foreign policy make a decision to restrict exports? If the government did it, wouldn't many (loggers, timber companies, shippers) complain that it is restricting trade? If the companies got together and decided not to sell to China, wouldn't they be accused of colluding and creating a cartel of sorts? And if we did restrict exports, couldn't China metaphorically flip us the bird and go elsewhere to purchase the wood?
This is pure opinion on my part, but I believe that Obama is trekking happily on the political equivalent of the Bataan Death March because he has something to prove.
You have seen people like the "crazy" preacher on the street corner in the tenderloin district, or others with a Quixotic air about themselves, who seem to revel in the fact that people don't like them and look down on them. It is almost a self-perceived badge of courage and honor. "If I piss off the right people, then I must be doing something meaningful" they seem to think as if that gets them a little bit closer to their promised land.
I truly think that he is brushing up his Bona Fides, proving that he can put it out there saying "Damn, the torpedoes... Full speed ahead."
But what is he aiming for? What is his goal?
President of the World.
That's right. Head of the UN. Bill Clinton wanted it, but never got it. If BHO got it, he would have bested a Clinton twice...
Remember, Obama is still a young man. He has many years ahead for himself, and he certainly doesn't want to have to 'work' for a living. He is proving that he can pretend to be for economic growth while camouflaging his lust for taxes. He can act like he wants to balance the budget, but he really wants to give the rich a 'haircut'. In other words, he is proving to the right people that he is a chameleon and can morph to blend in, yet stay true to his core beliefs.
Yes, even with control of all branches of the government, he still had to deal with the pesky legislators. If he was Sec. Gen. of the UN, he would have free reign with all of the easy votes he could get from despotic regimes and third world backwaters. The only thing he needs to worry about would be the permanent five members of the Security Council, specifically the US. I am sure he has a plan to change the charter, but first he has to be elected.
His four years in Washington is really an encoded message to the world letting them know where he stands and how much heat he can take.
I was recently perusing the DailyKos and I came across this video. Take a look...
It all sounds so convincing, doesn't it? Great artist, patriotic pictures, hard working Americans just trying to do what is right and, of course, evil businessmen trying to scarf up everything good about this country for themselves. What could be wrong with that story?
I grew up in the 1960's. I can remember, through the lens of a naive kid, how things were. We were pretty happy in our lives and things were pretty simple.We seemed to have enough money, but we really didn't... or did we? My dad had a 'good' job at the railroad, but he worked his butt off. Outside. In the heat. In the rain. In the cold. Nasty work, but he had a job. We barely had enough money to make ends meet. I remember milk was 4 cents at school. If we took a nickle with us to buy a carton, we had to bring the penny back. Seriously. Did we know we were poor? Not really, and there were others a lot worse off than us.
Patches on pants and torn clothes were not a fashion statement, it was just part of growing up. My mom would mend them, which was OK. My teeth are still crooked because kids didn't get braces back then. We didn't have the money for braces and there was no peer obligation to get them.
When school started, we bought our books and meager supplies ourselves. No one made the other kids show up at school with extra supplies to share. We bagged our lunch since there was no free lunch program. Incredibly, we were able to learn without the use of whiteboards and dry erase markers, computers on every desktop, projectors with touch-screens in the classroom and security guards at every entrance.
And what about those great jobs everyone reminisces about? Were they really that good? I don't think so. Factory jobs were not an object of people's lust. Factory jobs were routinely derided as human abuse, with people lined up at their machines doing mind-numbing, repetitive work in oppressively hot workspaces, day in and day out. What was the answer to this misery? Unionize!
After unionization, wages went up and work rules changed. Some workers started making more money. Good for them. Manufacturers saw their costs starting to skyrocket, and dealing with workers became such a hassle (between union rules and OSHA rules), they put more emphasis on automation. Workers subsequently had less "work" to do and less workers were needed, so those that remained demanded more money by striking (which you must admit, striking is extortion in it's rawest form). Life was finally getting sweet for the proletariat.
Meanwhile the evil corporations were seeing foreign competitors eating their lunch (can you remember how we maligned the Japanese in the 70's and 80's and it was a common belief that they were going to eventually own the USA? After them it was the Mexicans and now it is the Chinese as the bogeyman.)
So businesses started "shipping our jobs overseas". I love that term. While it is true that some factories were literally shipped overseas, more likely it was that instead of refurbishing and upgrading the US factory for the next generation product, they just retooled and built new in China or some other Asian country that had less burdensome OSHA and EPA restrictions and the labor force would work for pennies on the dollar.
At this point, those crappy jobs that everyone liked to complain about and strike against to squeeze more money out of the captains of industry were starting to look pretty good. It seems that the Golden Goose had gotten cooked.
About the time that the whole manufacturing contraction should have caused a catastrophic collapse of business in the US and in the world, the Internet came along. WOW!!! Who could have predicted that? Suddenly value and riches were being created out of thin air. President Clinton likes to take credit for that boom time, but Khrushchev could have been president and the economy would have done well.
Almost overnight, there were gobs of money sloshing around. Like water from a swollen river filling a reservoir, the money had to go somewhere. Coincidentally, the government had recently forced banks to relax their lending standards for home mortgages, threatening them with penalties and prosecution if they didn't help un-creditworthy minorities purchase homes and be able to participate in the American Dream.
And these weren't just any homes. Many were McMansions, homes bedecked and bedazzled with the latest cool features. Loans were worked and reworked to get buyers to qualify for interest-only loans, but no need to worry, just re-fi in a few years when the equity has built up (due to the bubble, of course.)
To put the cherry on top, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were waiting there to gobble up bundles of these mortgages, stamp them with a tacit US Gov't Seal of Approval and sell the bonds to willing masses awash in the overflow from the tech bubble.
Then, 10 years ago, 9/11 disrupted everything. The market was already trying to correct, but the government expanded greatly to meet the threat, military spending blew up (pun intended) and various stimulus packages were tossed out like aid packages from relief helicopters.
Finally in 2008 the levee that had been holding back all of the bad economic voodoo burst. You all know what happened next. Credit shut down, banks almost went bankrupt, many nations teetered on the brink of insolvency, businesses pulled back and started laying off hundreds of thousands of workers.Millions started collecting unemployment insurance.When that ran out, it was extended and extended and extended again (rumor has it that Obama wants to extend it for yet another year.)
What a mess!
So, let's see where we are now. Minimum living standards compel the average American to have cellphones for everyone in the family, an apartment or home equipped with air conditioning, a dishwasher, a microwave, a refrigerator and cabinets full of prepared food, cable or satellite TV, Internet, several computers, several cars and several bathrooms. People feel entitled to full medical coverage. People of lesser means expect their children to be cared for before, during and after school with meals, books, and various forms of daycare. It is almost considered child abuse if you don't enroll your kids in soccer, T-ball, dance, karate, cheer or a host of other rather expensive activities. I could go on, but you all know the drill.
Over the course of 40-50 years we have priced ourselves out of our simple existence and like a junkie needing a fix, it is not easy to do without. In fact, there is no one that would even consider going back to the way things were. But this exposes a dilemma. We (the collective 'we') have pushed all of the undesirable employment opportunities off-shore, we have gotten used to working in service jobs (but not the really menial service jobs that are best left for legal and illegal immigrants), and we have gotten used to employers being willing to pay decent money for us to have those jobs.
But, a funny thing happened on the way to the bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing credit crisis... after massive layoffs (done under the cover of the crisis and the fact that every other company was laying off huge numbers of people), employers found that they really didn't need all of those people after all. Efficiencies and automation have obviated the need for a whole cohort of workers.
So, now we have massive unemployment of unskilled, under-skilled and even highly skilled people. Some of these people are living in homes they cannot pay for and which no one will/can purchase from them. Lifestyle 'requirements' have exacerbated their cash flow needs.
Even with all of this credit ugliness, the majority of the unemployed are just 'victims' of a naturally occurring phenomenon that happens in regular cycles. Unfortunately, this latest cyclical downturn was delayed for about two decades while fortunes were made, and in many cases, lost.
Looking at this situation on Labor Day 2011, it should be obvious to anyone who wants to take a serious look at things, that most of the lost jobs are not coming back... ever. The tech revolution of the past two decades slowly and silently used computers, software and the Internet to do the heavy lifting for companies so that when they laid off their 'excess' workers, the company continued to run.
So, what CAN we do?
Those people who have the fire in their bellies that compels them to do something will find something. They will leverage new tech and use it to fix old problems. Some will hire others while some will continue to work alone. The economy is not a zero sum game. New jobs and new value can be created out of thin air... it just takes effort and that old trait, gumption.
I don't have much hope for the masses who are running out of year #2 of unemployment coverage. Unemployment checks, food stamps, WIC, Section 8 housing, etc. is not what makes an enviable existence, but it does allow you to exist. The wait for someone to hand someone a job is going to be a LONG wait.
If you take an honest look at the history of labor you will realize that the prosperity that we had between 1946 and 2008 was an anomaly. Before that time, much of the workforce in the world was agrarian and those that were off of the farm and into the cities were semi-skilled laborers. People that did basic work have never, in the history of mankind, done well for themselves. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has always been huge. The gap narrowed in the 20th Century due to technology, labor unions, activist churches, government rules and pressure, and in many cases it was financed by credit with future generations being responsible for the debt service.
Most of the new jobs are going to be truly knowledge worker jobs. Sure, there are going to continue to be skilled, physical labor jobs and the people that can do the tradework will do well, maybe even better than before. High tech jobs are going to be in demand, but even those jobs are going to be involved in wrenching re-definition.
What I worry about the most is the people that held low-skill or semi-skilled jobs. What are they going to do? After 2-5 years on the dole, will they be willing to retrain themselves to do something that is completely foreign to them? Will being out of work for so long "poison" their desire to find work?
What this country needs... actually, what this world needs, is the next Internet-style disruptive technology to occur. And when it does and the visionaries who were involved with the development become extremely rich, the people that were invested in the plantations of the old ways will develop a little three and a half minute piece protesting the new way and they will invariably use the new way to get their old way word out.
Monday afternoon, my wife and I took our first ride on Norfolk's new light rail system, The Tide. I won't go into all of the details of the massive cost overruns and the fact that the train's maiden voyage was close to two years behind schedule. That is past.
The Tide actually began official passenger service at 6AM on Friday August 19, 2011. Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) had originally announced that they would allow passengers to ride for free that weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Wisely, they extended the free trips through next weekend.
Before I describe my experience, let me first preface my comments by letting you know that I am a huge rail fan. I have always enjoyed riding the rails. My father was an Norfolk and Western RR (now Norfolk Southern) employee and each summer as a child, I would get an employee's pass, board the Pocahontas or the Powhatan Arrow and ride it to Narrows, VA where my grandmother would meet me for a week at her home in West Virginia. Even then (mid-1960's) it was obvious that passenger traffic was unimportant for the nation's railroads, as the passenger train would pull onto sidings waiting to be passed by faster freight trains. Stops in Crewe, Petersburg and Roanoke were interminably lengthy and the stations were old and tired (they had not yet reached the stage of nostalgic quaintness.)
I was even on that fateful Employee Appreciation railfan trip with the Norfolk & Western 611 steam locomotive when it derailed on the N&W main line while running though the Great Dismal Swamp on May 18, 1986.
Whenever I would visit cities I would ride their rail-based mass transit (I have never been a fan of buses and I find their schedules a bit unwieldy.) Some places I have ridden include Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Tampa, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Zurich, Prague, Tokyo, Oslo, Brussels, Vienna and this doesn't consider funiculars or cities I have misplaced in the corners of my mind.
So, I think it is obvious that I like trains.
We boarded at the Newtown Road Station, the eastern terminus of the line which is conveniently located within a mile of our home. The parking lot was half full and we just missed boarding a train that was just leaving. We stood on the platform for about 15 minutes awaiting the next train. When it arrived, a few passengers disembarked, but for the most part the train stayed quite full. A good number of us boarded and it was standing room only.
(We had originally intended to ride the train to Harbor Park for a baseball game on its inauguration day, but the line for the train wrapped part of the way around the Newtown parking lot and was reported to have taken over an hour to get on board, so we waited a few days.)
As we boarded on Monday, we saw a significant number of small children taking up seats. Yes, I know children are people, too, but when you are joy-riding for free, the parents could have put the kids on their laps to give the other non-paying passengers a place to sit.
Each stop added more people to the cars as we made our way into Downtown Norfolk. The din got louder, too, when we picked up pax at the Ballentine Station which is near Norfolk State University. Most kids (even the older ones) have forgotten where their vocal volume control is.
We got off the train at the MacArthur Square Station just because we wanted to get away from the crowd. The platform at most of the stops is a bit confusing. The driver announces the station and tells you to "Exit to the right" or to the left, but no one really listens. Because the platform walkway is so narrow, people tend to bump into each other like ants on a picnic table as some scramble to get on board and other head off of the platform.
I fully realize that this has been an opportunity for lots of people, some whom have never ridden on a train, to ride the train for free and to check it out, so our inbound experience should not be indicative of the situation when the fares go into effect.
We took a leisurely stroll down Granby Street and eventually chose a restaurant. After our meal we left the restaurant and made our way to the Monticello Station just one block from the NorVa. Waiting on the platform, a westbound train approached, so we decided to board it and ride it past the York/Freemason Station to the terminus at EVMC/Fort Norfolk. Just before the train left the station several boys came on board. Loud and jumping around, these kids couldn't have been much more than 10 years old. Because the time was around 9 P.M., I remember wondering where their parents were, but that is not the subject of this piece.
It was about a five minute ride to the end of the line. When we arrived, the driver exited the control cab just in front of where we were sitting (and where the boys were hopping around) and walked the length of the double-car to an identical control cab at the opposite end. We were ready to go.
Between the two stops, the driver made an announcement that the last stop for this train would be the NSU Station. Just beyond the elevated NSU Station platform is the train's maintenance garage, so I assumed that they were putting this train car to bed for the night. He also stated that another train would be following this one by about 5 minutes.
We waited and waited for that train that was 5 minutes behind. We noted that we had not seen another westbound train which would have had to have passed us in order to make the return trip. Almost 20 minutes later we heard an approaching westbound train. We opted to not get on, but several people on the platform did.
Like the watched pot that never boils, the only thing boiling was my wife's ire at this situation. "OK. This is the last trip we make", she said. "We could have driven down here, parked at the MacArthur Mall garage for $2, gone to dinner, walked back to the car and we would have been home in 10-12 minutes. If we were paying for the train, it would have cost us $6 and we would have added an hour to our evening in transit." I couldn't really argue against her logic.
The eastbound train finally arrived with many of the people still on board that had hopped onto the westbound train. Making our way east, we picked up a good number of passengers until we got to the NSU Station platform. There were probably 40 or more people waiting for the train. It was almost 10 P.M. I recognized several of the people as having been on the same train that we were on before we bailed out at Monticello, so it was obvious that there was no "5 minutes later" train.
What was most frustrating was that until 10 P.M., the Tide is supposed to be on an "every 15 minutes" schedule. This was clearly before 10 P.M. and we waited over 30 minutes for the next train. Is this typical? Was there something wrong with that vehicle that made them take it out of service? We don't know and were not told. Having trains make express runs, or having certain trains end early is not unheard of but the situation is usually made clear before the doors close and it pulls from the station.
Giving HRT the benefit of the doubt, there may have been issues with the train. The driver should have been more accurate (but we would have done the same thing had he been more informative.)
We are taught to learn from our mistakes, so here is what I would like HRT to learn and to do to make us want to come back and Ride the Tide: Post the times the trains are scheduled to pull into the station. Post these times clearly on the inside walls of the platform shelter with arrows indicating direction. Simple. Also post a feeder bus map and schedule adjacent to the train schedule.
If I am going to go downtown for dinner or a show, I am NOT going to want to show up at the station for the ride home at :14 when the train was scheduled to arrive/depart at :13. Waiting 15 or 30 minutes for the next train would be especially annoying in the winter or if it was raining.
We have all become creatures of comfort. Riding light rail is an option for almost all of us. It can be fun and convenient as well as rewarding in the respect that we are not clogging the highways or using more gasoline, but it is not a necessity like public transit is in cities such as New York. We need to be able to depend on the train coming to the station at its appointed (and known) time. It would be really cool to have a mobile smart phone app that would show you exactly where the train is and which way it is headed to help you time your arrival at the platform.
There have been overwhelming numbers of passengers this week and I applaud HRT for allowing a large number of people to get their feet wet a couple of times for free before introducing fares. I have held the opinion for a number of years that public transit should be free or close to free. This week's experiment with free underscores the fact that if you give something away for free, people will line up to get it even if they don't need it. I still think it needs to be cheap (maybe $1), but not free.
The comment I have heard the most from people I have spoken to this week is "... it really needs to go to the Oceanfront, ODU and the Naval Station."
I am proud of my city, Norfolk, VA, for having the guts to go ahead and build this train in spite of Virginia Beach's years-long wavering, and then their bailing out altogether on a commitment to extend the line. I think the Beach now realizes that it made a mistake, but they will never admit it.
My hope is that the train is a success in spite of its limited coverage. I know that a Virginia Beach extension could not get completed for at least 15 years. Norfok could take it to the Naval Station in 5-7 years if they could find the funding. Both of these time frames are too long to be able to leverage the good will and reward the patience of riders who wish to be able to commute between ODU and all points east.
There are a few things that need to be tweaked about the service and the schedule, but I think it is fundamentally a good rail line. I invite you to give it a run, come downtown for dinner or shopping, and I may just see you on the train heading home after a show at the NorVa.
As much as I want to not watch them, I still am drawn to the Sunday morning news talk shows. Today, as can be expected, the top subject is the debt ceiling deadline coming up in just 16 days.
There is always a Democrat and a Republican on there, trying to "not negotiate the deal on TV." I am watching Rep. Chris Van Hollin (D-MD) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Fox News Sunday.
Democrats almost always argue by pointing to the absurdity of the Republicans' stance. The Republicans almost always argue from a heartfelt, pragmatic point of view that the system is f'ing broke and needs to be fixed NOW.
As I listen, I keep thinking that this argument is not congruent. We should remember that just because one can argue convincingly and well, that the argument is not necessarily sound.
I must be a little slow, because, it really just came to me listening to Van Hollin justify raising taxes to match the "framework" (I love that term) of the Clinton years, when everything was balanced and peachy.
So I came up with a story... an analogy of what is actually going on in DC. I think I have decrypted the BS to show you exactly what is happening.
For you to understand my analogy, you must remember that in government, once something is budgeted, it can NEVER be removed without inflicting a mortal wound on the body politic.
Here is the analogy:
You work and you have a decent job. Every year your employer gives you a pay raise whether you deserve it or not. You get used to this pay raise and treat it like an obligation. You are doing so well that you get a few credit cards and you start buying yourself stuff. You go out to eat twice a week, you vacation in the Caribbean every year. You buy a really nice house and furnish it well. You are making payments on your house, but you also took out an equity loan on the increased value of your house. Instead of paying down the credit cards, you took the equity money and bought yourself a big 32' boat. Since you now have a boat, you need to use it and it costs $600 to fill it up each time you go fishing every other weekend.
One day your employer calls you into his office and tells you that not only can he not give you your expected annual raise, he tells you that you are going to have to take a pay cut. "*$#%@" you say. He can't do that to me. But he does.
So, you run out and get a few more credit cards. You still have good credit since you have been making your minimum payments and banks really, really like it when you pay back very little principal. Ahhhhh. That's better. Now you have some money.
Because you have a lifestyle and you deserve it, you keep doing what you are doing, but you start doing even more. You go out to eat three times a week, fill up the boat four times a month, you send the older kids to the best colleges and let them intern in Europe over summer vacation on your dime. Life is good.
One day, all of your cards are maxed. Your equity loan is drained. Your house is worth less than all of the debt you have attached to it and your checking account is empty. NOW, WHAT DO YOU DO?
Simple. Demand a pay raise from your boss. A really big pay raise. So, you march into his office and demand your raise. Your boss says no. You are pissed. You put a sign in the front lawn of your employer telling everyone that your boss is a tightwad and won't give you a raise because you have debts that need to be paid. He needs to do the right thing. You go on TV and say that he needs to eat his peas and broccoli. You stomp out of your next salary meeting with him.
Your boss really likes you so he puts you into counseling and wants to help you get out of this mess. He tells you that he will co-sign a new credit card for you on one condition. You must quit spending so much money. You balk. You tell him that everything you spend money on is important. He says that in the past two years you have run up four new credit cards to the max and that you are spending more now than before he hit you with the salary cut.
You tell him that if he agrees to increase your pay every year for the next 10 years that you won't increase spending much more and that you will use most of the extra money to pay off some of the credit cards (and oh, by the way, you will need three more credit cards to get you through.)
Your boss tells you to just cut your spending back to what it was two years ago when you were eating out only twice per week and boating only twice per month and you kids were going to an in-state university. You are incensed. The nerve of the man. You can't cut back. The restaurateur expects you to visit him every week. The marina really needs that extra gas money that you spend. Those professors at Yale can't do without your generous payments.You just CAN'T spend less.
Maybe, just maybe, you can not spend more, but you surely cannot cut back.That just wouldn't be fair. Besides, you are going to agree to quit spending more on some 'stuff' in the future. Isn't that good enough?
Your uncle steps in and says that maybe the employer could let you keep working, and you can get the three new credit cards if you promise on your mother's eyes that you will cut back in a few years. You think really hard and after much groaning and whining, you kinda, sorta agree.
SO. Here we are on Sunday July 17, 2011. What do we do? The President (you) won't cut anything without a promise of new credit cards (increase debt ceiling) AND a pay raise (tax increase). Your boss (majority of taxpayers/TEA Party Republicans) won't agree because he knows that he can't trust you as far as he can throw you. The credit card companies (T-bill holders) are going to turn on you like all creditor do if you stiff them, unless you pay them back. (At least they won't break your knees like the Mafia would do.) Your uncle (Sen. McConnell) wants to cut a deal so that the house of cards doesn't fall, but EVERYONE knows that it eventually will. If not now, then in a few years.
As most of you know, the United States federal government's Executive Branch (that is the President's part, for those of you who have recently graduated from public school) is in a fight with the Republicans in Congress to raise our debt limit ceiling. This is a statutory limit on the amount of money that the government is allowed to borrow... the government equivalent of our credit card's credit limit.
At this date (July 13, 2011) the Republicans are hanging tight in their negotiations to disallow an increase in the debt limit until the President and his allies in the Senate agree to cut spending by a significant amount. Also, as of this date, no one knows how it will end up. This debt ceiling increase requirement is not uncommon, but finally the Right has put their foot down to say "No more."
The howlers on the Left claim that it is just posturing so that the "rich" don't have to pay any more in taxes. Funny, how the TEA party is populated by normal, everyday people, not just rich white guys. Heck, there aren't enough rich white guys around to create any movement beyond a strong lobbying effort.
But, I digress...
My point is, what have we gotten for the $14 Trillion that we are in debt?
As late as the early 1980's we had less than $1 Trillion in national debt. Now, just 30 years later we have 14 times as much debt? The value of the dollar is about 2.5 times less valuable now as it was then, but what do we have to show for it?
As someone who is sneaking up on 60 years of age, other than some technological advances like computers, cell phones, computers in-everything and advances in the fringes of health care, not much has changed for me in 30 years.
My house is the same, highways are virtually unchanged (except they fall apart much more quickly, now), the Space Shuttle program was just getting off the ground 30 years ago. We are flying virtually the same airplanes, cars are just a bit nicer, cities look the same, trains are the same, etc.
Yes, we are mired in a very expensive war and that has cost a lot of money. But other than the war, I don't feel any significant difference from 30 years ago. And most of the significant advances that I enjoy came from the "eeeeeeevil" private sector.
The left will tell us that the middle class has gone nowhere in 30 years. Yes, some rich have gotten richer, but you have to admit there are a LOT more rich people now. I must note that the middle class has a lot more 'toys' per capita than they did 30 years ago. Heck, everyone has a lot more gee-gaws that they don't really need.
My point is that the federal government is the same way. Ask anyone if they have enough money and you will find that 99% are just a few dollars short of having what they really need. Even the super, filthy rich seemed to be compelled to accumulate more. I guess it is just the hoarder in all of us. The government is run by people. And people always want more.
Like the whiney brat at the checkout counter at the local grocery store screaming for a candy bar, the people that give out goodies from the government neeeeeeeeeed everything they have and reeeeeeeeeeally need more.
All in all (including most of the war) it all has been a collossal waste and where has it all gone? We are not that much better off from $13 Trillion of government spending.
Let's ALL suck it up and let the Republicans be the adults in the room, but hold their feet to the fire for the long term. Every time they have done it in the past, the predicted doom and gloom does not come to pass and we enjoy a few years of respite. This time will be no different, but we MUST prevent future Congresses from going back to the same old same old.
I am just tired of all of the whining. If I want to hear whining, I can go to the grocery store...
After the horrific attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan (peace be upon that God-forsaken country) by Taliban 'insurgents', a Taliban spokesperson spokesman stated that this attack proves that the Allied forces have not been able to secure the country and have therefore failed.
What it actually proves is that if you are willing and expecting to die to make your case or prove your cause, then nothing can be secure. Period.
When people are willing to work months and years to insinuate themselves into a job, a community, an organization under a false pretense; when they are willing to endure the mental anguish of living a lie for a very long time; when the culmination of their life is to make a bold statement that actually is more like taking candy from a baby then it is a Rambo-like hero action, then YES, it proves their point.
But that IS the point isn't it? When a warped, irrational group of people casts aside 10,000 years of civilized, societal growth to make certain death a goal (more about this in a moment), it is virtually impossible to stop them. All that the civilized society can do is help them achieve their goal of certain death as quickly as possible before they can do much damage.
The ugly back-story of the likes of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah and the other mostly Muslim groups is that there is one significant portion of their group that does not adhere to the "Death as a Goal" mantra. That group would be their leadership.
As with 99% of political leaders (and don't kid yourself, these clowns are political, not religious leaders), they lead from behind as a "Do as I say, not as I do" authority figure. Their fiery rhetoric along with peer pressure drummed into the heads of the willing foot soldiers for years and years will cause their adherents to give the ultimate sacrifice.
Of course, the leaders must live on to plan, organize and strategize the next struggle against the great Satan, right?
Without these human bombs, these leaders know that they would have no chance against 10,000 years of societal progression.
To paraphrase General George Patton, "The object of Jihad is not to die for your cause, but to convince someone else to die for your cause."
I just read this piece by Charles Krauthammer about how beholden the Democrats are to unions with their rabid support and how Obama is quietly putting up roadblocks to our trade deals with other countries to protect these unions, all the while touting the need for more jobs and more exports.
It sickens me to imagine another four years of Barack Obama.The thought of his reelection makes me think of that religious group that would rather let their sick child die than allow professional medical help, since medicine violates their 'religious' sensitivities.Well, our dear President is allowing his 'religion' to stop him from doing what is right for our great nation.
My hope to cure this 'problem' shifts to the November 2012 election which, while still early, is starting to heat up with competition between Republican challengers. I will withhold comment on the current field. Who knows if any of these people can cause Obama to be a one term President like Jimmy Carter?
Obama is pedal to the metal to put the country in a Carter-like situation where the people have no other choice but to give him the boot. The question is, does he have enough time between now and November 2012 to totally jack up our collective situation to where the solution is crystal clear?
Back to the subject of this post. What worries me the most is that someone like Sarah Palin or Donald Trump or any one of the high fliers of the current field of challengers that does not get nominated would mount a third-party campaign for President.
Because of the Electoral College this would spell disaster for the rebel cause. For those of you who have recently graduated from public school and don't know how it really works, when Americans vote for president, they are actually voting for electors. These people meet for a statewide Electoral College in December where they formally cast their vote for President. The number of electors for each state equal the number of Representatives plus two for their Senators. So, for Virginia with 11 Congresspersons, we would get 13 electoral votes.
The problem with this situation is that for most states, it is winner-takes-all. Let's say Obama gets 38% of the vote, Romney gets 37%, Palin gets 22% and all others get 3%, then our 12 electors would cast all of their votes for Obama. If you count the left vs. the right, it is obvious that the right wing candidate should garner the votes, but it doesn't work that way.
I am here to say that all thinking US citizens should demand a Constitutional Amendment doing away with the Electoral College and replacing it with a popular vote by individuals. Additionally, the Amendment should require a majority, not a plurality to win. Therefore, if the person with the most votes does not get more than 50% of all votes cast, a run-off election between the top two vote getters would occur on the last Tuesday of November to finally decide who will be our next President. There would be NO write-ins. Just mano-a-mano.
Spoiler candidates, like Ross Perot in 1992 who singlehandedly put Bill Clinton in office, or established third parties, such as Libertarians, Socialists, Greens, etc. should not be able to throw elections by siphoning off votes for similar-minded candidates.
In the general election on the first Tuesday in November, people can express their true views and vote for the candidate that best extols their governing philosophy. Most likely, neither the Democrat nor the Republican candidate will receive 50% of the vote, but they will probably be the #1 and #2 vote getters. We can suss out the true winner in three weeks. Meanwhile, if the results shows a Romney candidate that a Palin candidate or a Trump candidate got huge numbers, he would have to govern toward that side of the tacit coalition to win.
There are those who are deeply invested in the politics and gamesmanship of the elector system. It is easier for a candidate to game the system by focusing on states where he/she is electorally weak, ignoring the states that are 'in their pocket'. Tough. Our world is infinitely different in 2012 than it was in 1787 or even in 1968 when Nixon defeated Humphries and the last serious attempt to fix the system was taken. Most of us have probably never seen a candidate on the stump unless you live in New Hampshire or Iowa. So what? All of us have the Internet and 24/7 news on cable or satellite. If we cannot make an informed decision, we should not be voting anyway, so let's just get on with it.
Because there is no check box on the ballot for "Holding nose but voting for XXXXX" this amendment would fix the inequities of the elector system and also provide a valuable, tangible indication of what the voters REALLY think.
by Walter Isaacson. In it one of Jobs' most common comments about products under development by Apple or by anyone else is "This product is shit!" The more I have listened to how Steve focused down on the most seemingly trivial details of his products (sometimes to the detriment of the final design), the more I am becoming aware of how horrible products are. Some are designed to sell but not designed to function. Others, I just don't think the creators care. We bought a Red Devil 'stick' vacuum cleaner to use to pick up small amounts of tracked-in dirt or spillings. What a noisy piece of crap. Feels like it is going to fall apart. The dirt cup and filter is a nasty mess and the sound will run away small animals. We blame it on the Chinese, but they build what we design, and let's be honest, American consumer goods were mostly crap before they were made overseas (see Chevy Vega).
