Ken Nelson

The US government has 2.15 million employees. Walmart has 2 million employees.

Except for the military, the US Government’s work force largely has a reputation for incompetence and bureaucracy. These are the people that bring you the TSA, IRS, and countless other lettered agencies designed to be as unresponsive to the customer (you) as possible.

Compare to Walmart, with 2 million employees, all devoted to bringing me better products for better prices. I’ve met a dud or two working at Walmart, and while many of them may not be rocket scientists, they do know how to get me my stuff cheap.

I’d rather Walmart’s 2 million solve healthcare than D.C.’s 2 million.

I’d rather Walmart’s 2 million get me my mail than D.C.’s 2 million.

I’d rather Walmart’s 2 million feed the hungry than D.C.’s 2 million.

Do you doubt they could do it?  I don’t.

Oh there are some things the Feds need to have workers to do. For instance, the military. And the State Department. And that is about it.

When I lived in D.C. it was clear to me that everything on the west side of Independence Avenue could fall into the Potomac and the nation would be just fine. I’ve modified that notion to believe that the nation would be BETTER off if that happened.

We’d be a lot better off if the Government did a LOT less and places like Walmart picked up the slack.

No bailer outers need apply

They laid off 11,200 jobs last year, and 300 yesterday:

Duke said an essential part of Wal-Mart’s culture is always striving for greater efficiency. He said the company’s new fiscal year, which began Monday, is off to a productive start.

I wish our government had a similar culture.  A flat tax would make everybody equal shareholders and force the government to be efficient.

vs
Who has a better balance sheet?

Toyota struggles. It reminds me that no matter how good you have it, things could go severely haywire overnight. Everything could fall to pieces and you stand there wondering “what the hell just happened”.   I know, it’s happened to me. And I survived only because I’d prepared for just that occasion. Prepared emotionally (how to handle problems), financially (building up reserves), and in relationships (people willing to help). They all work together.

The point… Toyota will suffer, but survive and thrive. They have the corporate culture to do so – and.. .A VERY IMPORTANT AND… they have bazillions in the bank.

Compare and contrast to the U.S.     How does our culture look? Is it getting smart? Less corrupt? Which direction would you say our culture heads?  And how much, exactly, do we have in the bank? And what trend do our finances follow?

In other words, I’d bet on Toyota more than us right now.

I know it isn’t patriotic to say we suck, but looking at the details, I can come to no other conclusion. Sorry. 

Pollyannas will cry “this is the greatest country ever”. I’d mildly correct “was”.

Ooops, I mean the Secretary of Transportation.

 
Not trusted and not that pretty. What’s with $14 mil a year?

Is Katie Couric worth $300K a week (or $14 million a year)?

No clue. But I’m pretty sure CBS knows if she is worth it. They have polls, q-ratings, viewer focus groups – they know what she is worth.

So I’m not going to bitch about what she makes. But I’d certainly ask her to recuse from reporting on other “over paid” executives. Or to note, during a report, that they could only dream of making what she makes.

Not that I’d ever see it. I don’t watch CBS news, or any other broadcast news.  Ever.

My own, admittedly uninformed view, is that while anchors used to be “trusted”, now they aren’t. So any pretty blonde will do.  Fox News has a bevy of them,make a $500K offer and I’m sure one of them would happily jump ship to read a teleprompter a few blocks over.

Obama promises $5K per new hire to employers that have payroll and employee growth in 2010

First off… $5K won’t entice me. That won’t even pay a 1/4 of a new hire’s healthcare costs, much less make a dent in their payroll tax costs ($12K on average).  And, you know what, I’ve got to keep paying them in 2011 and 2012.  Nope, my hiring, as for ALL other businesses, will be driven by core economic issues as well as opportunities that employees can help capture.

The knowledge, however, that our government continues to be idiotic and so wasteful does make me highly UNLIKELY to hire anybody.  And it makes me think that our economic woes, largely government driven, will continue for the foreseeable future.

This Obama plan reminds me of the rooster that claimed the sun came up because he crowed.

Some companies will hire and expand this year. Their accountants will notice this tax credit and apply it. The government will then claim those jobs as ones they helped grow, confusing correlation with causation.

At the end, no more jobs would have been created, debt will have risen, and an un-measurable number of jobs would have been stifled due to fear of more government stupidity.

Airlines suffered record drop in traffic in 2009.

Freight also fell, by 10.1 percent, as "full-year 2009 demand statistics for international scheduled air traffic that showed the industry ending 2009 with the largest ever post-war decline," IATA said in a statement.

Hmmm… let’s see… 2009 is easily the least flying I’ve done in my adult life. I took just one flight in 2009.

• Security was a hassle. I was ‘selected’ for special searching on both legs of the flight. Meanwhile, I’m sure they let the Muslims through the express lane of security.
• Delta charged me almost as much for my bags as for my airline ticket.
  Even if I do fly in 2010, it won’t be with them.
• Internet was cool on the plane outbound. But not available on the return plane. Too bad I’d paid for a round trip Internet pass.
• My luggage was stolen. Nobody was arrested but they think it was an “inside” job.
• Rental car locations seemed to be in the next county. And why does it take 1/2 an hour to get me my car?  At a name brand rental place…

My son and I have extensive travel plans in the coming year to attend National and sectional shooting matches.  We won’t be flying.

Glenn Beck says “Get yours today on OrangeJuiceLine!”

Nah… I don’t give investment advice. Well, except I don’t think gold makes much sense if you plan for the apocalypse. I think brass does however.  But I digress….

But with this news that this is the longest cold stretch in Florida in over 100 years, my thoughts turn to orange juice:

National Weather Service Meteorologist Jason Hess said that it’s the length of the cold that is most significant.
“This is the longest stretch ever in 100 years of record keeping.”
A new daily record low temperature was set Sunday, Jan. 11, in the Crescent Communities, with the area reaching 17 degrees.
Since the beginning of January, temperatures have remained more than 20 degrees below normal. Temperatures normally should be up in the 60s during the day and the 40s at night, Hess said.

Brrr…. weather isn’t climate, but shouldn’t we be better prepared for COLD weather we have, not warm weather we wish we could get?

The other day somebody told me that warehouse space in St. George was “almost free”.  Apparently, some parts of Chicago, previously bustling now cost little as well:

That sign says a lot more than “price reduced”, or “short sale”. The next step must be “we will pay you”… except I know they already do in some cases. A friend of mines property value maintenance company just keeps going gangbusters. The company keeps up the value of foreclosed and abandoned properties.

Roy Clark checks a guest into the Empty Arms hotel (Hee-Haw)

2009 sucked for hotels:

In terms of the occupancy rate, 2009 was the worst year since the Great Depression (close to 55%). And last week was no exception with Smith Travel Research reporting the occupancy rate fell to 33.8 percent – the lowest weekly occupancy rate on record.

I’ve gotten good deals on hotels this year.  In fact, I may just see what places in San Diego are running. It may be time for a quick get away from this Arctic Oscillation…

Kim Kardashian, famous for being famous, makes $10K a day selling one commercial twitter posting:

The screencap above was from a slide show at Advertising Age about current rates in big-time online marketing.

The highest CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) was $364 at the very niche National Journal “Expert Blog” on Energy and the Environment.

 
The place to shop in Laredo

Laredo’s last bookstore is closing:

With a population of nearly a quarter-million people, this city could soon be the largest in the nation without a single bookseller.

The situation is so grim that schoolchildren have pleaded for a reprieve from next month’s planned shutdown of the B. Dalton bookstore. After that, the nearest store will be 150 miles away in San Antonio.

I LOVE that St. George has a Barnes & Noble. Even though I use the Kindle for most of my reading, I make sure to get plenty from Barnes & Noble so they will stay in town.

As to Laredo… I guess they need to read more.  Markets work.  Alas, a new store could be a long time coming:

Some worry that the closing could send a message that books and reading are not priorities in Laredo, a hot, steamy city of 230,000 that is choked by smog from trucks lining up at the border, which is home to the nation’s biggest entry point for trucks and trains.

Nearly half of the population of Webb County, which includes Laredo, lacks basic literacy skills, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Sometimes, you make your bed, and you lie in it, not reading.

Menhaden Herring 

Commenter Carl sent this article on the over fishing of a herring crucial as a food source for virtually all other fish off our eastern coast. It turns out this fish is also useful for making Omega 3 fish oil that many claim benefits human health:

The book’s author, H. Bruce Franklin, compares menhaden to the passenger pigeon and related to me recently how his research uncovered that populations were once so large that “the vanguard of the fish’s annual migration would reach Cape Cod while the rearguard was still in Maine.” Menhaden filter-feed nearly exclusively on algae, the most abundant forage in the world, and are prolifically good at converting that algae into omega-3 fatty acids and other important proteins and oils. They also form the basis of the Atlantic Coast’s marine food chain.

But they are in danger now due to one company:

For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year.

Science and common sense suggests we should ban further menhaden herring fishing. Immediately. But will we? Guess who protects Omega Protein?

Democrats when they are in charge:

and Republicans when they are in charge:

What can you say?  The country is clearly not in the best of hands.

New York Magazine deconstructs a fancy restaurants menu showing how its design lures you to higher margin dishes.

I want politicians to get us more energy not less, and that means nuclear to me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in, or in support of, other ways of making energy.

I’m intrigued, for instance, by the Honeywell Wind Turbine:

That’s it up on the roof. Cool!

The marketing for it says it will provide up to 18% of the typical home’s energy use and is designed to be put in where the power is needed:

The turbine’s installed cost is approximately 1/2 of the cost of traditional turbines with a lower installed cost per kWh (in class and size) than any turbine on the market. Adding to the value are federal and state rebates covering anywhere from 30% to 100% of the overall cost.

The Honeywell Wind Turbine comes complete with a computerized smart box, inverter and inter connect switch to wire the system into a household panel. The Honeywell Wind Turbine is designed to be installed where the power is being consumed and can produce 2000 kWh/yr in class 3, 2752 kWh/yr in class 4 winds at 33′ (height of 33’). The system has a MSRP of $5,995.

You can buy them for $4,500 + installation costs from an electrician. It then sits between you and the utility electricity. It does what it can and merges in utility provided electricity as needed. Clever…

Because our town discriminates against businesses, I pay about $800 a month for electricity for my office building.  Saving 18% of that would pay for the wind device pretty quickly…

So I’m intrigued and will investigate this a bit more.  I bet the city would bitch about it.

But we will see. I’ll report later.