You Can Be Richer Too!

Stupid articles and papers telling us the obvious wastes our time. Businessweek featured such a totally wasteful piece discussing someone named Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan professor, who wrote an article titled “Economists Nail It: You Can Never Be Too Rich.” Do I need someone to tell me that it is better to be rich than poor? Even the reporter, Peter Coy, who is a primary commentator/reporter for the magazine offered the obvious remark, That may seem to deserve a Homer Simpson “Duh!” award for most obvious research finding of the month. So why even post this report? The answer must be that he has space to fill.

This has been a great year to be just a little bit richer. If you were already rich you might have become a lot richer.

In just the four months of this year the Dow Jones Average increased by 14.3% and the S&P 500 increased by 13.2%. Understand that you did not have to be particularly smart to choose the right stocks to have earned that money. You simply had to buy an S&P 500 index account and your $1,000 would now be worth $1,132 today. If that investment had been $10,000 you could sell your gains now and have $1,320. Enough to buy that new giant TV or pay down a burdensome credit card.

So what’s the problem. “Your Money” reported that 55% of the people surveyed did not believe this has been a good time to invest.

So when is a good time?

You see article after article crying about the wealth gap between the rich and everyone else.

Sad to say it but the average man on the street is unwilling to take the chances that the rich take. Perhaps that is one of the reasons you may never be rich.

The Syrian Dilemma

June 14, 2013

This article was originally posted on April 28, 2013. Nothing has really changed since then except the White House now confirms that Assad has used chemical weapons. Jeffrey Goldberg posted his opinion today (June 14, 2013) on bloomberg.com that simply reinforces my views. “Five Depressing Thoughts About Arming Syria’s Rebels” is worth reading.

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President Obama made public his opinion that the use or movement of chemical weapons would be a “red line for the United States.” He said that in 2012. Now there is evidence that those kinds of weapons were used in small quantities.

That puts the president in a box if he really does not want to become involved in the Syrian Civil War. No action by the United States indicates to the world that our words mean nothing. That will frighten our friends around the world.

Republican congressmen and senators are using this situation to paint the president in the worst possible light. Mike Rogers (R-MI) appeared on Charlie Rose on Bloomberg TV on Saturday April 27 where he demanded leadership by the president on this subject. He proposed a variety of vague actions the president should take. However, when asked what specific actions the president should take he became even more vague and said we should not “put boots on the ground” in Syria.

There is the problem. Republicans and Democrats alike want the United States to take action but stop short of putting American troops in Syria. No wonder. The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan has been dismal. Iraq appears to be on the verge of a civil war. Afghanistan will probably be overrun by the Taliban in most of that country, with the exception of Kabul, once American troops have mostly withdrawn.

The Syrian test is obvious. How much gas can Bashar Assad use and still avoid entry of the United States into their war? Is it the number of people killed? Ten is OK but 100 aren’t? To me the question ought to be, when Assad falls what will happen to those chemicals? He won’t fall?

Reports appearing yesterday in the Los Angeles Times are that the number of business men and industrialists leaving Damascus for cities outside Syria is on the rise. They can see the hand writing on the wall.

Articles like this, Lawmakers: Syria chemical weapons could menace US are meant to prepare Americans for another war. This reminds me of the scare tactics used by the George W. Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. The difference might be that Barack Obama wants to avoid war. Then again may be not. After all his directions have been even more aggressive than Bush’s. Obama did catch and kill Osama bin Laden. Drones are now utilized far more than those days of the Bush administration. The Strait of Hormuz is regularly patrolled by the U.S. Navy.

America’s Dying Industries

This comes as no surprise. Still it hurts to see these numbers. As you read each of these items you know the reason for the decline in business. This was published on Huffington Post. The reasons are as follows:

The photofinishing decline was the result of the digital camera era and the sharing of photos on internet web sites.
The high cost of labor now makes appliance repair more expensive than buying a new item.
Advertising revenue has declined at most newspaper and magazine publications thanks to the internet and smartphones.
Manufacturing of consumer products is now cheaper in most other nations of the world.

– Photofinishing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -70%. $15.509 million to $897 million

– Recordable Media Manufacturing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -53.6%. $4.144 billion to $3.311 billion

– Money Market and Other Banking

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -51.2%. Industry revenue in 2012 $834 million

– DVD, Game and Video Rentals

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -49.6%. Industry revenue in 2012 $5.894 billion

– Newspaper Publishing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -48.1%. Industry revenue in 2012 $29.302 billion

– Women’s/Girls’ Apparel Manufacturing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -57.7%. Industry revenue in 2012 $8.603 billion

– Costume/Team Uniform Manufacturing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -49.9%. Industry revenue in 2012 $986 million

– Appliance Repair

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -44.5%. Industry revenue in 2012 $3.684 billion

– Hardware Manufacturing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -44.5%. Industry revenue in 2012 $7.484 billion

– Shoe/Footwear Manufacturing

Revenue decline 2002 to 2012 -39.6%. Industry revenue in 2012 $1.712 billion

Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist

When the Federal government rescued the banking industry in 2008 there were 734 banks involved according to CNN. The list is here. You may recall that the idea of bailing out the banks was based upon a proposal submitted by then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson near the end of the Bush administration. Initially the proposal was rejected by the congress. After the stock market took a significant drop the proposal was passed. Many people, primarily Republicans, opposed the bail out. Many condemned the idea of “too big to fail.”

This past April 9 Congressman Brad Sherman (CA – D) and Senator Bernie Sanders (VT – I) introduced bills in both houses to define too big to fail financial institutions with the purpose of breaking them into smaller units that could fail without impacting the country.

There are no cosponsors to these bills. According to govtrack.us there is a 2% chance the proposal will get past a committee review and a 0% chance of enactment.

So where are all the indignant people who voiced their dismay in government bailouts?

I am not a reporter and I do not have the resources to walk through the offices of senators and congressional members.

This lack of concern does tell us that on camera pronouncements mean nothing.

What will happen when the next bank failure occurs?

Democracy is on Decline in America

Rural America vs. Sensible Gun Control

Multiple opinion polls have shown that more than 80% of Americans support expanded background checks to make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns. Senators Joe Manchin (Democrat from West Virginia) and Pat Toomey (Republican from Pennsylvania) struck a bi-partisan deal to accomplish this objective. The proposal failed 54 to 46. You see passing anything in the Senate requires 60 votes of the 100 in that body.

It is accurate to say that those living in rural areas are more likely to need a weapon for protection. Even those people in rural areas must worry about criminals and the mentally ill. So why would they oppose an expansion of a regulation that already exists to gun shows?

The NRA and other pro-gun groups have won another round for no limits on gun ownership. Democracy has lost. This nation is less safe. This nation is less united.

U.S. Federal Government Honesty

Kim Jong-Un, leader of North Korea, has threatened to shoot a missile at the United States. If he can’t manage that could he be responsible for the bombing in Boston? If the United States wanted to avoid a war with North Korea, would our government hide the fact that North Korea was the source of the bombing from the American people? I am just asking.

Manufacturing Megatrends That Will Change Your World

How fast is the world changing? This interesting article points out the rapidity.

By Paul Tate on the http://www.manufacturing-executive.com web site on March 19, 2013.

A quick snapshot of the companies listed in the Fortune 500 ten years ago is a sobering exercise. Over half of those organizations have now either disappeared off the list, or no longer exist, at least in their original form, notes Frost and Sullivan (A business consulting firm that offers market analysis, market research, and reports) vice president and Megatrends analyst Richard Sear.

So how do you avoid becoming one of the world’s lost companies over the next ten years?

The most critical role any business leader must perform is to identify and plan a successful path forward for the future of the enterprise. That means identifying and understanding the trends that are going to transform your business in the years ahead.

The problem is that anticipating the future in today’s world, where the speed of change is so rapid and sudden, innovative disruptions are so common, may seem like an impossible task.

There are essentially two approaches to grappling with this difficult task. The first is simply to sit back and allow new technology and business models to converge into your business and then react as best as you can. The second is a proactive stance to understand and embrace change, and therefore be in a position to capture growth opportunities faster and more fully. What’s your risk profile?

Frost and Sullivan’s Sear has identified a series of global megatrends that he believes are set to fundamentally transform the world we live in over the next decade or so — and which will have a major impact on the future of manufacturing and its growth prospects.

They are:

* The City as a Customer: The emergence of new megacities around the world, especially in Asia and Latin America, linked by highly urbanized corridors of development. These will become the world’s key centers of economic growth, creating new and different markets for manufactured products and creating significant logistics challenges for delivery to customers.

* Social Change: The combination of an aging workforce in many western economies, with the growth of demanding, impatient and tech-savvy Generation Y consumers who expect higher degrees of personalization in both products and services.

* Technology: The increasing development of virtual worlds, augmented realities, big data, and pervasive robotics will change the way both manufacturing companies and consumer markets operate and develop new ideas.

* Smart: Extensive embedded intelligence in physical assets and products – often call The Internet of Everything – will see a significant shift towards smarter, more connected products with vast supporting networks and real-time applications.

* New Business Models: These fundamental global shifts will require companies to re-assess how they do business, and how they deliver value in the future – resulting in more collaborative operating models with a greater emphasis on delivering ‘Value for Many’ and frugal engineering approaches.

* Infrastructure: How will you be affected by a greater focus on how the world harnesses its energy resources, and creates new, more sustainable and lower cost ways to store and utilize future energy?

* Beyond BRIC: The rapid rise in new markets and fast-growing emerging economies around the world in the decade ahead will create new markets, new global competitors, and new manufacturing opportunities that will force companies to re-asses their global production strategies and footprints. Where will the hot spots be and how will they change your future plans?

Manufacturing seems destined to play a key role in both reshaping existing industries and enabling others to emerge as these megatrends push the world beyond the end of this decade.

The companies that make the effort to understand and plan effectively for this future, change the way they make decisions, redefine the value they create, and restructure how they deliver that value, are likely to be the ones that will survive and thrive.

So how are you now seeking to better understand the disruptive long-term trends that could determine the future of your business?

Are you adopting internal strategies that will make your enterprise more adaptable to the fundamental economic, social, technological and industrial changes ahead?

What other megatrends do you think will impact your business future?