The Nutty Professor

It doesn't get any better than this. Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, has suggested that we paint our roof tops white to control global warming. He hypothesizes that lighter colored roofs would reflect heat into space rather than having it absorbed by darker surfaces thus cutting down on the use of air conditioning and saving money on energy usage.

Dr. Chu is a Nobel Prize Physicist who is known for his research on laser cooling. He is from a family of scientist that have excelled at their craft. He, however, must be riding the loony bus now. Proposing that hotter countries paint their roofs in order to save on air conditioning is akin to blowing on fire to cool it off. At least this cabinet secretary did not have a tax problem to go along with his 'white roof theory'!

Even if global warmist were truly correct, this kind of stupidity would bring their cause down. These guys would have you believe that man is causing this gigantic planet to warm up thus eventually causing the polar ice caps to melt, even though science has already proven that the world has actually cooled over the past several years. It is obvious that the theories behind global warming are incorrect or we would not have such lame ideas coming about. He is also suggesting that roads be more of a concrete color and that this would also help.

Since I am not a scientist and have never played one on T.V. I have a couple of questions:
If we paint our roofs so that we reflect heat into outer space, what happens on those cloudy days when the heat is being reflected back by the cloud cover? Will the heat then bounce around like the ball in the old pong video game? Why not just build several million giant mirrors to reflect the sunlight back to the sun!?

With trillions of dollars of debt, how are we to pay for this painting program in the U.S.? I am certain that we will need to use an eco-green paint to not place any unnecessary chemicals or carbon release into the atmosphere. The poor will not be able to afford to have their roofs painted so I guess we could create jobs for painting roofs. To cover a typical roof would require over 5 gallons of paint. Buying 5 gallons of paint from an online site for green paints would cost upwards of $260.

I think about the reflective qualities of concrete and white in general and I believe that it would cause major disruptions in air travel. We would have all of this reflective material bouncing heat and light back into the air and pilots from airlines as well as the space shuttle would have difficulty seeing. I say this because on a recent trip to Florida, driving down I-75 with its concrete color and the sun at high noon, I had to put my sunglasses on to keep the highway from blinding me.

This whole idea just stinks of lunacy and further weakens the cause of Global Warming. I am not a conservationist nor eco-terrorist. I use fossil fuels, electricity and water because it is there. I depend on it to be there. I do not recycle because I will not sort my trash unless there is something in it for me. Trying to decide if certain plastics are recyclable or not is just too much for me to fathom at this time. Having multiple trash receptacles is a waste of space in my garage. My car belongs there not my trash.

However, I am not opposed to finding alternative energy sources. But I am opposed to trying to rescue the economy by creating jobs around energy sources such as wind, thermal, hydro or solar. These ideas have merit but not on a grand scale except for maybe hydro power. We are a nation that depends on flicking the light switch in the up position and having the lights come on. Go green if you want to but just don't go goofy trying to do it. And definitely do not force it upon so many just to support a weak theory surrounding Global Warming.

These are my words! Please post yours!

A Letter From Da Boss...

...to those employees that do not understand who created and own the job that they currently hold.

To All My Valued Employees;

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes, Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero! Nada! Zilch!

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, is it the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

Signed,

Your boss

These are not my words. But they are my sentiments. I have posted it as a response to the continued attack on those who create jobs in this country but are being told by our representatives and other wealth envy citizens that they do not pay enough and are too "greedy". Our government does not create jobs and cannot create 4.1M, 3.0M or 2.5M whatever number Obama thinks he can create in jobs. Government creates taxes and that is all. The federal government is the largest employer in the country with 1.8 million bureaucrats not including the quasi government postal service. So if getting a federal job is your goal then you can get a government created job.

Please post your words before it is too late!

It's Over Now! "The Economy is Sound..."

...despite the temporary "mess" it's in, so says the White House economic adviser, Christina Romer.


Is this deja vu? Did I hear this somewhere before? Did someone get ridiculed for making this statement some time ago? Short answer is yes.



Then Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain made these statements on Monday, September 15, 2008: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong"even though as he described "tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street." Although at the time the U.S. economy was experiencing relatively low unemployment (6.1%) and had seen some modest growth. On this same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 498 points or 4.4%. Barack Obama's campaign issued this statement to those comments:

"Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going on in the lives of ordinary Americans...apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis."

Now the Obama administration would have you believe that the economy is sound? We have lost over 12% off the DJIA since January 20, 2009. Unemployment currently sits at 8.1% and we are to believe that the economy is sound! This from the same president who wrote in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that the "recession could linger for years and our economy could lose 5 million jobs." Did something happen this week that I missed? Was it because we had the best week in many months on Wall Street they came to this conclusion? That I doubt since our President told us to not look at the "gyrations" of Wall Street as a measuring stick. I can't understand it. What a difference a day makes.

There is a silver lining is this announcement though. And that is finally this President and his team of "know-it-all's" have finally wised up and ceased with the FEAR tactics. I blogged about Obama's Hope over Fear a month ago. But it seems as though someone somewhere finally got to them and gave them a clue. If you keep saying its bad then it will continue to be bad. They may be trying a little psychology here with this sound economy strategy. Let's see, it just might work. I want to think that he is now trying to lead instead of scaring us into believing that it will get better even though he has now used FEAR on our food supply, but that's a story for another day. And maybe Santa Claus will come down my chimmney on April 15th too!

That's my word! Please post yours!

"Hope Is Not A Strategy....

...nor is it a goal."

I recall several years ago I was giving a quarterly presentation in front of my colleagues, Regional Manager, Regional V.P. and Division President on my business plan for my branch. Things were going well until I received a challenging question on my estimated sales growth. I begin the answer with "I hope to be able to..." then it went down hill. These words resonate with me until this very day from my Regional V.P. "Hope is not a strategy and definitely should not be your goal." I spent the next 30 minutes defending every aspect of my quarterly business review while my colleagues grimaced and some snickered(better you than me). I survived and learned a valuable lesson and so did they. Never use Hope as part of an answer. Yet we have allowed ourselves to believe that Hope is the panacea for our ailing economy.

Americans voted for Hope on November 4, 2008. And Hope is what everyone keeps talking about when it comes to our economy. Here is how Barack Obama defined Hope during a campaign stop in New Hampshire last January; “Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside of us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there is something greater inside of us.” That was then this is now!

I waited patiently for Timothy Geithner to bring forth his plan to spend the balance of the TARP funds in Hope of shoring up our financial institutions. Yet I am still waiting. He detailed a plan of still planning. I watched his boss, President Obama, tell us on Monday evening that "my Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, will present to you on tomorrow the plan..." Geithner did say that it would be costly, "This strategy will cost money, it will involve risk and it will take time." We Hope that all of this works!

Attacking the financial collapse on three fronts:

1.) Working to restart the flow of credit. I don't hear a detailed plan in this. Must be Hope.
2.) Removing bad debt from the books of troubled banks. He did give greater details on this front.
3.) Providing assistance for ordinary Americans and small businesses. I'll wait for the plan.

Hoping for the best is the same as not having a strategy. It is dangerous if you do not take into consideration that the worst could happen and act from that standpoint. The Obama administration along with our congressional leaders are not acting rationally. We are in for a tough and long haul. It is going to cost trillions to put this Hope into action.

The final stimulus package that will go to the president will be about $790 billion. It will include lots of spending that should be part of the normal budgetary process but because Obama believes he has to do something now it got rushed to completion. Yes, something had to be done but why did it have to be done so quickly without much thought and oversight? Why was Kruella D'Pelosi given so much latitude with which to comprise such a bill? Why did the entire Republican delegation vote against it in the House? Why did all but 3 Republicans not vote for it in the Senate? Mr. Obama insists that he has to do something. But things done in haste always end up with waste. Since I have no idea what the compromise package is I will reserve criticism until it is presented. But remember that if you borrow from the economy then put it back as spending you haven't added anything except debt. But remember this: Hope is not a strategy!

Yet the American people hold out for Hope! Its what keeps some us going each day.

Thats my word. Post yours!

U.S. Automotive Bailout

Enough already!

The automotive industry should not expect a bailout package.

The American taxpayer is already on the hook for over $700 billion dollars in the current financial market meltdown. How much more can a man bear? The automotive industry should have foreseen their problems with soaring gasoline prices throughout the country. Demand for the vehicles that they were making started to dwindle yet they did nothing to improve their business model except bury their heads in the sand.

We have to step up our pressure on Congress to let them know that the US treasury cannot become the lender of last resort for failed business models. Congress approved $15 billion in bailout to the airline industry post September 11. This was money guaranteed to an industry where only a handful of players, Southwest and Continental to name two, had cash on hand to survive the downturn and passenger fear of flying prior to the terrorist acts. All the while not one dime was spent bailing out all of the dot com business failures in 2000 and 2001. I would have loved to see Web Van survive.

Should the auto industry be allowed to enter bankruptcy? Probably would be the best answer. For at least as an entity in bankruptcy they can continue to operate as a debtor in possession and restructure debt and contracts to allow for a stronger company post bankruptcy. Yeah, the shareholders of these organizations would lose out but the investors knew that going in. Buying stocks is a risky business and not all investments are good investments.

Who else would lose? The unions most certainly would stand to lose. Contracts could become void or re-negotiated to make for a more favorable business climate. Waste would be eliminated throughout but innovation would be increased. There would be the human toll of possible loss jobs.

Should retailers such as Linens n Things, Circuit City, Mervyns, and Tweeter ask for a bailout because of their inability to survive in a competitive yet challenging economy? Sure why not, these companies are no less important as the U.S. automakers. Should we bail this industry out we send another signal to all other industries that if you cannot succeed then the taxpayer has your back. This has to stop and has to stop now. .

Instead of interfering with the market forces, Congress must find a way for the automotive industry to fast track themselves through the bankruptcy and reorganization procedures.

What about Honda, BMW and Toyota? They too operate in the US. Yet they are not lining up to get their check. Hmmmmm, I wonder why?