A Small Consumer Victory

In an economic era where consumers are feeling the pressure on rising costs (fuel, goods, services, housing, interest rates) and in stagnant wages, any small victory is celebrated. Millions of households spend well into the hundred of dollars a month on communications such as cable/dish TV, Tivo, land line, cell phone and broadband. We have all gotten used to increasing costs of these services despite the fact that these should be easier year over year to deliver. Providers hide behind the guise of "better services" to justify these costs.

While this may be valid, there are instances where it is not. Take the recent announcement by the Baby Bells to keep the Universal Service Fund cost in the DSL bills of its customers. This was not the USF cost itself, rather it was a thinly guised price hike to their services. This was not well received by customers or the FCC. Today we have a retraction announcement stating that this additional fee would be removed.

Note that the Marketing folks here try to spin the removal as a "we listened to our customers and responded" situation rather than the likely impending FCC investigation and fine for their decision to keep the fee in tact. This type of move creates mistrust and alienates their customers. While DSL remains a cheaper option than cable broadband, I would be hesitant to get myself locked into a situation with Verizon where they could raise rates on me in the future. Comcast has already done this to me in the past and I would leave them in a heartbeat if I had other options.

One step forward, two steps back?

It seems that some employers are considering opening up external sites to Web 2.0 type sites to lure young employees. Yes, the job market is getting more competitive and progressive employers now see value in employees that understand social networking type sites in that they can leverage these sites for their own marketing purpose.

ATT (SBC) and Naperville

Fiber to the home? Apparently only if Ma Bell thinks you will be profitable - ie you live in an affluent area and are likely to pay their high rates. It seems that the baby bells don't think that they need to deliver their new services (phone, data, TV) to all citizens equally as they did with the deployment of phone lines. Remember that global accesibility charge on your bill?

It's a tough call for municipal's like Naperville that want to be on the cutting edge of technology but don't want to do so at the expense of some of its citizens.

Wiretapping Ruled Illegal

The Federal Courts struck down the national wiretapping today stating that:

"... the controversial practice of warrantless wiretapping known as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" violated free speech rights, protections against unreasonable searches and the constitutional check on the power of the presidency."

Hopefully this gets upheld in the Supreme court and the newly-elected, Bush-nominated Justices come to their senses and uphold our rights as set forth in the Constitution.

Steadman Band

Get your free MP3's of Steadman Band!!! Really good music at an unbeatable price.

Adventure Window?

Here's an interesting NPR Article trying to reason out why and when we each start/stop pursuing new adventures in life. Whether it's music, sushi, sports, friends, or work it seems that our willingness to pursue these new interests tail off after 25 until they almost dimish after 39.

Some notes from the article:
- 16 to 23 yro is the experimental age
- If you don't eat sushi by 40, you're probably never going to start
- Non-adventurous people tend to be focused, have been with a single company, and are likely to be successful but not creative in the sense of "out of the box" thinkers.
- I'd like to consider myself as still adventurous at 30: starting eating sushi around 2003 (27 yro), love new physical challenges, and still pursuing activities out of my comfort zone.

Minority Report Interface

Here's a cool video that shows the future computer interfaces. I hope this becomes mainstream sooner than later.

Also, I'm proud that BMW supports this type of idea exchange. My kind of company.

More Great Oil News

More great oil news released tonight shows how neglect in the oil industry can be used to drive global oil prices up by lowering daily supply that the market expects to see. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am a chemical engineer and have worked in the industry before. However, I do pick a fight with any industry that can profit (ref largest quarterly earnings in US corporate history) from their own neglect. Lawmakers should make regulations that force the industry to pad inventories with enough oil to protect the markets from these type of scenarios.

Only the upcoming week will tell if this has an impact on gas prices across the nation.

Jobs, Inflation and the Future

Anyone out there reading my blog should know that I like to provide general personal finance and Macroeconomic advice and analysis. Here's a good article I found recently that summarizes America's current condition.

To Summarize:

• Jobs are being added, but not at the expected rate
• Energy and other costs are rising faster than salaries
• Consumer Spending (70% GDP) is weakening
• Recession may be possible
• Those with credit card debt or ARM/No-interest/Variable Home loans are at risk (See default and foreclosure numbers)
• "Bernanke (Fed Chair) is determined to ensure corporations do not lose gains to wage increases, while ensuring workers stay productive. In other words, people will be working more while not bringing home any more money."

My recommendations/insights:

• Employers will eventually have to raise wages so that consumer spending can recover. Consumers can reduce their spending now (ie Save your money) to drive corporations to lower prices (not likely due to higher energy prices) or pay employees more to get higher productivity (ie effective talent that converts to bottom line).
• Employers are likely to offer top talent higher wages/benefits in this cycle rather than give adjustments to current employees.
• Seek new positions internally/externally to capture this increase.
• Do not get trapped in the variable interest balloon. Do not over extend your finances.

Community is where it's at

Community based websites are all the rage these days - Craig's List, MySpace, Digg, etc.... Here's some insights into developing one of these sites from the Craig.

Sushi Rematch!

Yes, we found our sushi eating hole - All you can eat floating sushi M-Th.

Our first showdown was last week with a honorable win of 14-11-11, Mike-Joe-Okaey. This week's rematch proved a truly impressive battle. Okaey, aka the "Sushi Sprinting Master" protected his honor with a 20-20-21 win. Bow to the gastronomic master.

"Unlimited" Cell Phone Data (EVDO )?

EVDO is the new high-speed data connection for wireless users on the CDMA type network (ie Sprint and Verizon). These service providers sell data packages to wireless customers so that we can check our email, browse, and instant message. Some of these packages are tiered to provide up to XX MB per month while others are "unlimited". However, the definition of "unlimited" is outlined in their terms of service and apparently doesn't correspond to what any reasonable consumer would define.

A recent post on ArsTechica details this. While it is clear that there are limitations to a cell phone tower's bandwidth for voice and data, it seems that this re-definition would be similar to the service provider claiming that there are limits to unlimited night and weekends due to over or excessive use. Another analogy would be like limiting a cable customer to a certain number of hours that they could watch or limiting a phone customer with unlimited US minutes to a certain monthly usage. The provider should realize that some of its users will be super users while others will fall into the more normal use category. Further, they should realize that if they market the service as "unlimited" it really should be unlimited, that is without limits.

Any other interpretation of this marketing term would render the service inferior to its expectation. The government should be legally enforce a change to this practice to protect consumers. How would you feel about McDonald's advertising french fries as Healthy Fries? What reasonable person would consider them healthy?

Google Maps (Mobile) now has traffic

Google Maps for the mobile phone (Java based) v1.3 now includes traffic data for 30 cities in the US.  Combined with a GPS unit, this makes a very nice, free mapping solution.  It's only a matter of time before Google releases some way to announce turns for a mapped route.

You can test drive this new feature here and see what the traffic map looks like in your area.  Google expects to come out with this data on their desktop version in the near future.

Here's a sample image:

Microsoft in Healthcare

Microsoft is now getting into healthcare software.  They are now a direct competitor with GE Healthcare, my current employer.  Read on about their growth strategy.


Technorati Tags: microsoft, healthcare, software

Negotiations - First Offer

I've been involved in several negotiations recently and have revisited my class materials.  One of the first things that you learn in the class is when and why make a first offer.  This article clearly covers this topic.

Leadership

A recent article on FastCompany.com titled "Everything I Thought I Knew about Leadership is Wrong" presents some good points about what a leader should do today.  Here are some main points for those of you who are interested:

Main Points

-Compensation tied to profit-and-loss performance is a short-term motivator.  May not align management to long-term objectives.
-Maximizing personal economic success in this situation means long hours and myopic focus.  Company risks becoming a place where the best people do not want to work.
-A culture that expects dominating negotiations (not just winning) is fundamentally destructive.  It may be sometimes better to leave some value on the table, to make customers feel like partners.
-Never lose sight of the fact that we're in business to creat a first-clas organization and to survive.
-More expansive definition of victory.

3 Jobs of a Leader

1.  Make sure the organization knows itself.
    -Durable principles that underlie an organization
    -Leader should embody those values.
2.  Pick the right people to be part of the organization and to create an environment where those people can succeed.
    -Encourage others to help develop strategy
    -Collaboration and teamwork at every level
3.  Be accessible.
    -Make it known that everyone can contact you.
    -Respond to important communications, even those that would embody the organizational values (see cancer story).

Fast...no I mean really fast

0-60 in 1.67 seconds for $500K?  Possibly.  Now if the TKR handles well too, that would make it worth it.

Tax Time - AMT Calculation

I am a firm believer in getting a "feel for the numbers" as some of my old Chemical Engineering professors used to say.  It means that you should familiarize yourself with the calculations to a point where you have some judgement as to what effect a change in a certain independent variable (income, state and local tax, capital gain, timing) will have on a dependent variable (your Federal Tax).  As many of us head into middle life and the inevitable middle to upper class salary range, we need to keep a watch on our exposure to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). 

The AMT can be painful.  Unfortunately the government has let the AMT thresholds stagnate and lag behind inflation.  This means while salaries and prices have increased with inflation, the AMT thresholds remained constant (ie low).  As time has passed more and more individuals have fallen into the "owes AMT payment" category or what I like to refer to as the "so you thought you were paying lower taxes" present.

Here is some background on the AMT and how you can calculate it for your own circumstance.  It's not pretty.  But it's definitely worth the excercise so that you can gauge when you will be exposed to this neglected and unnecessary alternate tax system.

Also you will definitely want to calculate your AMT if you:
          a) Make more than $75,000 in a year
          b) Have a lot of capital gains
          c) Have a lot of Schedule A deductions

Get it while the getting is good.

Microsoft's recent announcement puts a damper on one of my beloved free applications - PSTools.  I use this suite on a daily basis to monitor and kill windows processes.  I'd recommend downloading the current version while they remain free and not part of Windows.

I am so pround to be and owner of the Subaru WRX. I think this video just reaffirms this. I need to learn to take corners like this....avoiding the car damage of course.