Category Archives: Commentary - Page 4

Triple Gunnars

Posted by on August 22, 2013 No comments

Ok, so now I have three pairs of Gunnar glasses.  I figure I have enough experience with them now to make a compare and contrast review if you are considering any of these models.

My first pair was the Groove model.  When I got it, I was somewhat disappointed by the rubber arms  – I was thinking they were metal from what I saw in the pictures.  The Groove has good-sized lenses and a decent wraparound design.  However, the Groove’s nosepads are not articulating.  If they don’t fit right, you need to bend them into a comfortable position.  I actually gave up on the Groove for an extended period because I could not get the nosepads to stop digging into my nose.  That is what led me to my second purchase.  But while waiting for shipment of my second pair, I was able to find a position that fit and felt excellent, and they became my standard work glasses.

The next set I purchased were the E11vens.  My primary reason for buying them was the hard plastic, fixed bridge.  I figured that would be better than the nosepads that were burrowing into my skin on the Groove.  When I got the E11vens, I was disappointed by the cheap black plastic.  Plastic doesn’t have to be cheap-sounding, but this is.  Very tinny and light sounding.  However, despite that,  the E11vens are lighter than the Groove and the bridge is comfortable.   Also, this model excels in an area that the others don’t.  It’s wraparound design is totally up on your face, like goggles.  Because of this, if you get dry eyes, these will keep the moisture in your eyes and you will praise them at the end of the day.  The other positive about the E11vens is they have the largest lenses of the models I own.  This means you can look all around without needing to move your head as much.  While I was using the Grooves at work and the E11vens at home, Woot had yet another Gunnar sale.  This time, they had a model I’d been watching and hoping for.

I purchased the Emissary model last week and just got them today.  The full name is Attache Emissary, to give you an idea of the image they are trying to convey.  And when I opened the box and pulled the glasses out, I was stunned.  They were beautiful.  Where I was disappointed with the materials used in the other two, I was highly impressed with the sturdy feel of the metal frames and their hinged arms.  The glasses felt feather-light, but they probably weigh about as much as the E11vens.  It’s probably just a perceptual trick because the Emissary frames are so thin and the E11vens are so bulky.   The lenses were tiny, unlike the other two.  The Emissary looked very similar to the Ray Ban prescription glasses I wear.  So from a stylistic perspective, there is no comparison.  If you want style, this is the one to have.  But that style comes at a price.  The lenses are very small, so you need to move your head more to keep the your vision through them.  Because they are small, they don’t have any of the wrap-around benefits like the E11vens, so your eyes may dry out quicker.

Looking at the Gunnar online store, The Groove isn’t available anymore, nor is the E11ven, and the color of Emissary I bought isn’t available.  That’s all fine.  Woot is a clearinghouse for older and discontinued stuff, and the glasses work just as well as the new models.  The model I have my eye on now is the Epoch, which is similar to the Emissary, but with thicker frame lines.  Go for four?  Why not?  I used to have a massive collection of sunglasses in my younger days.  I guess this is the adult computer geek version of that hobby.

Gunnars

Posted by on May 29, 2013 No comments

I’ve been a Woot buyer for a while, from back when Woot was cool.  But even now, you can still get some good deals.  Anyway, that aside, it was a few months ago that I saw one of my co-workers wearing these yellow glasses.  He said he got them on Woot.  I recognized them as Gunnars and was curious as to whether they were worth the money.  He said he noticed the difference.  I tried them on and because of the slight magnification of the lens, I took them right off and said “no way.”

Weeks go by and my co-worker is wearing his Gunnars every day.  Every once in a while I ask, “they’re working ok?” and he says they’re great.  The joke in our department is that they are future glasses and when wearing them you can “see future.”  On a more practical level, if the glasses didn’t work, he would’ve stopped using them.  So, the next time Gunnars showed up on Woot, I went for it.

I purchased the Groove model.  When I got them, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The arms were simple rubber and the nose pads were stationary and tiny.  But I got over that and wore them to work.  After an extended time, the nose pads started really hurting me.  I adjusted them over and over but couldn’t find a good position.  So I ended up wearing the glasses less and less and eventually they just ended up in a drawer.

Another Woot sale came along and I decided to purchase another pair, one with a different bridge.  I decided on the e11vens, since they had a solid plastic bridge.  When I got the glasses, again, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The whole frame was a glossy black plastic and felt a little on the cheap side.  But the glasses look like something Tony Stark would wear, so there’s that, anyway.  At the time I ordered the e11vens, I played around with my Groove’s one more time and found a very comfortable nose pad position.  With that modification, I started wearing the Groove’s consistently.  Now I had a pair for work and one for home.

The real question is, do they work?  Yes, they do.  You’ll see a lot of reviews saying that Gunnar’s are overhyped, overpriced, and pointless.  After using them, I have to disagree.  I’ll admit, when I first researched Gunnars, I was totally put off by the hyper-aggressive, buzzword-laden marketing they used.  Since that time, the company seems to have toned the hyperbole down and the message is a lot more palatable.  I read some quotes from their founder and they made a lot of practical sense.  Basically, Gunnars are safety eyewear, and that’s not sexy.  It wouldn’t be very cool to be wearing “safety glasses” at work, and who would ever buy them with that label?  So I understand why they did what they needed to.  Now, with some real testimonials and word-of-mouth behind them, they can afford to be more realistic and practical with their message.

Now, some of the arguments against Gunnars say that that all they are is tinted glasses and all you need to do is go out and buy blu-blockers from the dollar store to get the same effect.  That’s fairly untrue.  Some of the features that Gunnars profess (and probably way over-hyped) are actually beneficial.  I’m not going to look up what their special marketing words are when discussing the features, because they don’t matter.

One feature -  I ‘m pretty sure they call this “microclimate” – is the wraparound style of the lenses.  It doesn’t need a buzzword to be effective.  I know this works because my eyes don’t dry out throughout the day.  You may think it’s a placebo effect, but physical proof that my eyes aren’t drying out is that I get “sleep” in my eyes at the end of the day, which means my eyes are tearing more than sufficiently.

Another feature is the slight magnification, the part that freaked me out when I first put the Gunnars on.  This magnification is optimized for up to about a 3 foot distance.  Don’t wear Gunnars for driving or even for walking around, they don’t work for far distances and you’ll get a headache. 

Gunnars hype the optically pure lens material and anti-glare coating.  Eh, I would hope glasses would be clear and anti-glare, especially at that price.  And the tinting, it’s not sunglass tint, it’s like shooting glasses.

So, can you use blu-blockers?  Sure, but you won’t get a wraparound fit, so your eyes will dry out.  The tinting will be darker and more pronounced, which I can’t see that doing any good.  You could use shooting glasses, but you won’t get the near-range magnification.  Cheap sunglasses probably aren’t as optically pure as specialized glasses, so maybe there would be a bit of distortion.  And, purely for vanity’s sake, in an office environment, wearing Gunnars may be considered edgy, but wearing actual sunglasses would be either tacky or plain weird.

The other real question is, are they worth it?  For $100, I wouldn’t think so.  Luckily, they are a Woot recurring item, so you shouldn’t have to pay that much.  At Woot prices, they are definitely worth the money.

No News is Good News

Posted by on April 22, 2013 No comments

Having a hyper-connected civilization is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, we have been able to share knowledge and ideas at an unprecedented rate, which has certainly advanced the technology of our world.  On the other hand, we have been able to share stories of misery and fear wider than what is prudent.

Many people are reluctant to consider humankind as a global civilization, but these people are constantly bombarded by news (almost always bad) from other countries around the world.  Even more common, is the reporting of news across our country, again, almost always bad.  I seems it has become normal to worry and fret and become angry over people and situations that we have no connection to and will never have any connection to.

A shooting here, a dying child there, animals running from a wildfire, record cold temperatures way up there.  These things don’t matter.  They are daily trivia and conversation starters.  They do not have an impact on a national scale.  Yet, the news is full of these stories every single day.

It is not helping that the news is becoming more entertainment-oriented.  Fox News is moving towards more of op-ed reporting, instead of reporting the news, they have a personality delivering their opinion and analysis of the news.

In discussing what I felt as strange about my workplace leaving the news channel playing the Boston bombing all the time and my co-workers streaming live news at their desk on the manhunt for the bomber, I created a really long sentence.  No, seriously, it was suspected that these people who were glued to the news coverage were trying to feel connected to a national tragedy, like “where were you when 9/11 happened”?  I can’t really understand why it takes an event of misery to make people feel more connected.  And oddly, it doesn’t really work that way when the event is local.  In those cases, people tend to shut themselves in.

Think local, do local, care local.  Those are the people that really matter.  And if we all do that, everyone is covered.

Serving You More By Providing Less

Posted by on April 16, 2013 No comments

Long after I’ve stopped using Quicken, the emails still continue to amaze me.  Here’s the quote to start off this topic:

“Many of our customers ask why we discontinue certain services and the answer is simple—to better serve you.“

Today I got an email from Quicken stating that I had to upgrade to Quicken 2013 because they were shutting down services for Quicken 2010.  Which services? 

  • Transaction downloads
  • Online Bill-pay through Quicken (not sure if that’s different from banks’ EFT-style payments)
  • Stock quotes and portfolio management through Quicken
  • Technical Support (except online self-service)

Well, 3 of the 4 items are Quicken-provided services, so if they want to shut them down, I don’t have an issue with that.  It’s the first item that bugs me.  The transaction download portion has a server component and a client component.  The Quicken software is the client.  The banks run the server component. 

I know how banks operate: slowly.  There isn’t any way Quicken could force banks to update their software by their imposed deadline.  Many banks will have these libraries integrated with their own software, so there would need to be some rewriting involved and major amounts of testing and documentation.  Not going to happen.

What option does that leave?  Time-bombing the client so that it will become inoperable on a specific date.  Downloading transactions is what the majority of people would use.  The bill-pay, I’m not sure of.  But, in order to better serve you, we think it’s best to not let you do this any more.

I can’t remember if I still have Quicken installed somewhere or not, but I’m going to be testing this out.  First, if they did manage to get all the banks to upgrade their code and change the format of the QIF file, then it should fail to import into MS Money.  Otherwise, I’ll guess that you can manually download transaction files and import them.  This is a slight inconvenience, but it’s not rendering Quicken unusable.  However, at that point, you have the same level of functionality of MS Money Sunset, so why not use a better application?

Here’s the bottom line.  There’s nothing new in banking.  There’s no reason to upgrade banking software.  Quicken is milking this cash cow for as long as they can.  By practicing forced obsolescence, they are forcing their customer base to choose between paying forever or leaving them.  I made my choice.  Mint.com is certainly helping people make a choice. Hmmm.  I think I need to revisit mint.com and see what’s happened since the last time I gave them a try.

Quit It

Posted by on April 7, 2013 No comments

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-quit-job-now-151346969.html

Now here’s a real doomsday article:  Quit your job or get fired.  And this speaks to the heart of the problem – 24-hour news, which has certainly caused a serious decline in people’s outlook on life.

Let’s start with the basic problem of 24-hour news.  You need to fill up your time with something. So you pull anything that will attract an audience, which usually means extremist positions.  Putting the sensationalism aside for a moment, watch the news for a while and see how much of it has any bearing on your day.  Miners trapped somewhere?  Landslide in South America?  Violence in the Middle East?  What’cha gonna do about it?

So you hear about this every single day.  There’s always a crisis somewhere, why do we have to absorb the world’s misery?  How long can we do it before we become tainted by that misery?  It’s too late.  When did this change?  1980.  The start of CNN.

Older generations remember “the nightly news”.  You had an hour, maybe two hours of news.  And the harsher news was the 11 o’clock news, which was reserved for adults who stayed up that late.  When CNN came, there was news all the time, which then spawned competition, and we go from there.

It’s no surprise that since that time, people have become less trusting, more cynical, and more paranoid.  If you hear a story every single day about rapists, it doesn’t matter that every story is in a different city thousands of miles away from you, the news makes it sounds like it’s local.  You act more defensively, which makes other people act defensively.  Then you end up where no one will help anyone.

But anyway, back to the story.  Here’s a person listing the reasons why your job is worthless and if you don’t quit now, you’re just going to get fired.  It’s a terribly narrow-sighted view of employment.  Is he right?  Sure, for some positions in some industries.  But he applies the fear to everyone, pitting employees against their employers.  He fosters distrust, which become material when it is fully believed.

I read a line somewhere that said “Nobody ever gets fired.  They always fire themselves.”  When someone starts suspecting that they are being targeted, they’ll behave in a way that invites suspicion.  “What I fear most has come upon me.”  If you want to take that further, you could apply it to all of the negative news that is programming people to expect the worst.  Personally, I’ve never been happier since giving up on TV and news.

In this article, the pundit says some pretty silly things, like  “If you’re stuck in a cubicle, you have a target on your back.  Temp staffing is sweeping the nation.”  What business operates fully on temp labor?  A business has processes and rules.  Why would a business bring on a bunch of temps, train them, dispose of them, and then do it all over again?  From a meeting I just had yesterday, my employer invests about 50k to keep an employee for one year.  That’s why we want to hire the right person the first time.

The 10 reasons to put in your 2-week notice list is so random and contradictory that I can’t even address it.  “Money is not happiness” and “Abundance will never come from your job” are a couple of head-scratchers.

So, with all of this doom and gloom talk, what’s the proposed solution?  Not sure.  A “compromise” is offered where you can keep your job (while you can, I guess) and do side work or start a new business of your own.  But the actual solution?  The title says to quit your job.  The pundit says temp staffing is sweeping the nation.  The pundit also says that companies are replacing employees with cheaper temp staff.  So, the solution must be to quit your job and work as a temp for less.  Which works out well for the pundit since he’s in with a temp staffing company.

What kind of gall does it take to help companies destroy their workforce and then tell the remaining workers, “Just give up, already.”

Mainstream Pawn, Not Just Yet

Posted by on March 15, 2013 1 comment

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pawn-shops-mainstream-141414562.html

I’ve been doing pawn shops long before it was cool.  I’ve always been on the buyer side except for one time in my reckless youth, which I swore I would never do again after seeing my article with a “sold” ticket on it for $300, when I had received $30 for it when I pawned it.  In the many years I’ve been visiting pawn shops, I’ve seen some changes and some things that never change.  I’ve been in small mom-and-pops, large mom-and-pops, and chain/franchise shops and they all need help in some way.

No matter where you go, a clean pawn shop is a rarity.  They may start out clean, but they fall into disrepair faster than any other retail location.  A Cash Converters in PA used to be a pleasant “shopping” experience, but returning to it a few years later, it had become scary and depressing.  It just doesn’t seem possible to hire a staff that can overcome the futility of the pawn industry.  There is no incentive to make things nice, because it doesn’t seem to matter.  My biggest pet peeve and the issue I least understand is why doesn’t the staff at least clean the items before putting them on display?  Seriously, it’s maybe 15 minutes of time.  Surely there’s 15 minutes in a day where there are no customers needing assistance.

The next issue is that you frequently have a dozen of the same things, which is usually the same thing you can buy new anywhere else for only a little bit more money (which is point #3).  You can have six or seven Nintendo Wiis and XBoxes and PS3s.  All kinds of generic DVD players.  Bunches of power drills and other tools.  In the smaller mom-and-pops, it’s like sifting through a garage sale.  Larger mom-and-pops are like indoor landfills.  One shop I visit has bins of wrenches and sockets.  Bins.  As if someone who needs a 1/4” socket will root through the 60 or so 1/4” sockets in the bin until they find the exact one they want.

The last issue is value.  I know first-hand how little a pawn shop will pay for an item and I have seen some internal reports on the profit margins of pawn shops.  The reason pawn shops become incubators of worthless junk is because the owners or managers don’t understand turnover.  The chain that does understand this is Cash America.  They discount items based on how long they’ve been in inventory.  Other chains and mom-and-pops don’t do this.  So when I see a generic MP3 player that is priced higher than a current model would cost on Amazon, I know that item will never be sold and it will end up in the display case forever.  For as big a deal is made over pawners over-valuing the item they’re pawning, pawn shop managers are just as much at fault for hanging on to unrealistic pricing.

See, if I ran a pawn shop (and it is a possible fallback venture if I ever became unemployable), this is how I’d do it.  Obviously, the standard pawnbroker guidelines are followed, but…

  1. The store is clean.  And by clean, I mean floors, windows, counters, carpet, and seating.
  2. The pawning area is separate from the sales area.  This gives pawners some dignity and makes things less uncomfortable for buyers.  I first saw this idea at Cash Converters and it stuck with me.
  3. Items are cleaned before being put on the shelf (see #1).  Items are organized well, like CDs and DVDs.  You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to just offer to alphabetize a pawn shop’s DVD shelves for free.
  4. Believe it or not, a sparse sales area is more disconcerting than a jammed-to-the-walls area.  There is a balance that has to be found.  At the same time, there is no reason to have seven of the same model of anything on display when three will suffice.  This is especially true with CDs and DVDs.  No one wants to see The Matrix 20 times when browsing.
  5. Items are discounted by age and social media would be used to communicate the discounts. 
  6. Online inventory searches would be a must.
  7. My secret marketing trick: if there are multiple of an item, price one or two at the price you want to get, then mark all the others up at a higher price.  When the cheap one sells, mark down one of the others.  The buyer feels they got a better deal relative to the other ones offered.
  8. Secret marketing trick #2: Bundling.  Like in the example of the tool bins, bundle them.  Find all the sockets to make a full set, match them up with some other tools and sell a whole tool set cheaply.  Sell ladders with electric pruners, sell air compressors with bikes, sell matching component stereo pieces.  Come on, all these pieces are your inventory, they don’t have to be treated as individual items.  This reminds me of an estate auction I was at where if the auctioneer didn’t get his minimum bid, he’d throw something else in with it.  If you wanted that new thing, you’d have to take the other stuff, too.  Turnover.  Do it or get buried.

Ayn I Rand. I Rand So Far Away.

Posted by on January 22, 2013 No comments

For a while, I’ve been watching “patriots” circle-jerk over Ayn Rand and I never understood why.  So, I took a short amount of time and read a short book of hers called Anthem, which I assumed would be typical of the Rand philosophy.  I can say I have no further desire to read a Rand book.  For as much as conservatives scream about the evils of socialism and communism, the world that Rand wants is just as evil, just in the other direction.

To me, Anthem is a tribute to selfishness and hubris.  The final chapters are filled with an excess of “I”, “me”, and "my”, which is meant to contrast with the whole rest of the book, where the primary character refers to himself in the plural, “we”.   This book’s story is set in an absurd world, because it’s the only world that you could even begin to justify the main character’s actions and beliefs.  Some future world where humanity has regressed to the dark ages and is controlled by a collection of councils, who have mapped out everything so there is no personal choice.  And somehow, people today think we are moving in that direction?

As I neared the end of the book, knowing what was going to happen, I thought I would write a blog post as an epilogue to the story, describing what would happen when this extreme individualistic philosophy grew.  Turns out I didn’t need to.  The book already had it covered.  The primary character took over an old house, claimed all its possessions as his, planned to convert it into a fortress, planned to build an army and wage war on the existing community, make his house the capital of a new world and be the absolute leader.  This is a good thing? 

At the turning point in the story, where the character begins to learn at a hyper-accelerated pace and surpasses the entirety of humanity in knowledge, it is not dwelled upon that he stole items from various councils to accomplish his learning.  While it sounds understandable to break the laws of an absurdly oppressive future world, the general message, reinforced in the closing of the story, comes across as “Do whatever it takes for your own benefit.”  This is something to strive towards?

The problem with this book and the current flavor of individualism is the inherent exclusiveness.  Coming along with that is the despise and near hatred for fellow humans.  In this mindset, everyone is out to get something from you and you’re not going to share anything with anyone you don’t deem worthy.  In this mindset, you have no need for anyone else – unless you need something from them, of course.  The viewpoint that a person has no value whatsoever and contributes nothing to society is the default instead of the exception.  Trusting no one but yourself is the overriding belief.

So what becomes of a society of individuals?  How does anything move forward?  How can there be any progress without shared resources?  Consider a bunch of individuals living by a stream, each using the water for daily life.  A new person comes along and dams the river upstream so he can do whatever he wants to with the large pool.  That’s his right; he’s doing whatever his individual desires want.  The others downstream suffer.  Without any governing body, I suppose the dam owner would simply be run out or killed and the dam destroyed.  Sounds like an incredible world to live in, where whatever you make is yours and only yours.

The concept of radical individualism like portrayed in Anthem and in the equally absurd previous example are possible when there is no overpopulation crisis.  If someone cramps your individual freedoms, simply move farther away.  This, accurately, is how America got started and is how and why it grew so powerful.  but with as crowded as America is now, we have no choice but to be socialistic.  We do not have the space nor the independence (as in lack of dependence on others) to make this happen.  Maybe being a farmer in the rural Midwest would be suitable for such people, but not everyone can attain this.

There’s always such a big cry from the people who feel they’re being repressed.  “Why can’t I?”  “The government won’t let me (insert anything here).”  The answer is that what you want is not good for society.  Not everyone can go and start building a nuclear power plant, because not everyone will get it right, then we all have to pay for the mistakes.  The answer this book purports is that it doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is that it is good for me.  Although in the closing chapters the book came very, very close to using this phase, it didn’t.  The phrase, usually reserved for unmentionable acts, is “The end justifies the means.”  And to have a society built on that belief would be a terrible one to live in.

I’m Taking My Ball and Leaving. Screw You Guys.

Posted by on October 10, 2012 No comments

On: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-workers-youll-likely-fired-131640914.html

Fresh in the news is a story about a business owner warning his employees they might be fired if Obama is re-elected.  This story cannot be let go without commentary.

Here’s the summary: the business is profitable despite the bad economy, but if taxes are raised or levied on him or his business, CEO will cut jobs or just flat-out close the business.

Included in the lengthy email is a story about how CEO grew up modestly and sacrificed to build his company.  More words describe how he lives and breathes his company.  More words about how he never takes time off work because he is constantly running his business.  This passionate essay is hard to ignore, after all, who doesn’t appreciate hard work?  But, as he even admits, a lot of his employees work hard also.  But, the message is pretty clear.  His ego is well in charge.

Let’s address the issue of taxes.  If taxes are raised on him or his business, he’s quitting.  If his taxes go up, he’s going to punish his 5,000 workers and the economy by closing the business.  First, this is arrogant, selfish, and childish.  Second, it’s unnecessary since he could sell the business without hurting anyone.  Now, if taxes go up on his company, he’s cutting back or closing the business.  The greatest thing I learned from the FairTax book is that taxes are nothing but an expense to a company and they will pass that expense on to the consumer.  So if taxes/expenses go up, either prices go up or profit margins fall.  If CEO is threatening to fire people, it’s because he wants to preserve his profit margin.  Additionally, it shows that CEO feels the best course to efficiency is by eliminating people.  Of all the possible way to increase efficiency, less people is the route he takes.

Let’s address the issue of compensation.  The whole letter is supposed to make you feel like CEO is just like you, and in the early days of the company, I’m not going to argue, he probably worked side-by-side and was just like the other workers.  Then, things grew and CEO elevates higher and higher, leaving the rank and file behind.  I don’t argue this; this is how business operates.  But a business owner has technically two sources of equity: the salary and expenses he costs the company, and the intrinsic value of the company itself.  But to say you sacrificed and continue to pour all your money back into the business is somewhat egregious since obviously some money goes to living expenses and the value of the company is a safety net other employees don’t have.

And the touting of sacrifice brings me to the final and most important point.  Why are there people like CEO?  Why isn’t everyone like CEO?  CEO and others like him would like you to believe that you are either not capable of operating at their level or that you are lazy and worthless.  And that’s not true.  The fact is, the majority of people don’t enjoy building and running companies.  It’s a lot of work.  But so is manufacturing, so is farming, so is digging a ditch.  And people do these things because they enjoy doing them.  Damn you if you think you are somehow more valuable to society because your enjoyment is building a business and having others make money for you.  You are doing what you do because you like doing it and presumably you are good at it.

That’s why this CEO letter is so pathetic.  If he truly loved his job and enjoyed what he did, there would be no stopping him.  He would absorb the changes and continue.  But where are his thoughts?  They are not focused on the success of his business or even on his personal success, they are focused on what he feels he is losing.  He wants more.  Are these the people we should be respecting?

The bottom line is this.  If you are not enjoying your job anymore, quit, and shut the hell up.  Otherwise, you are acting like a baby.  Grow up and do the right thing.  Life will go on without you.

Bank Breakups

Posted by on July 27, 2012 No comments

Now this requires comment: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/insight-banks-bristle-breakup-call-040505806.html.  In fact, I’ve hesitated from doing commentary type posts, but I figure I have some things to get out, so I’ve created a new post category for these.  I can move some of my prior posts into that category as well.

William Harrison, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co – "It gets back to management and risk-taking, and you can screw that up at a small bank or a large bank."

Correct.  But when you screw up at a large bank, your impact is magnified.  It’s also harder to do at a smaller bank because there are less hands involved and it’s harder to hide your actions.  Notice that the quote is not from a CEO of a small bank.

Robert Bostrom, general counsel of Freddie Mac from 2006 until last year – "The financial crisis was a 200-year event in the making that would have happened regardless of how big the banks were."

I can’t find any relevance to the 200-year figure pulled out of the air here.  The stock market began in 1792 and there was a crisis in 1817, but I suspect that Mr. Bostrom is implying that everything from the beginning of the US stock market contributed to the situation we are in now.  To say that this would have happened regardless of how big banks are is just insane logic.  What a cowardly display of denial of responsibility.

"People around the world, like me, for example, need the services of these big integrated investment banks," said the founder of a major private equity firm.

How many people are like you, Mr. Anonymous Private-equity-firm-founder?  How many banks are needed for your services?  No disconnect here.  It’s entirely possible his statement could have been, “I need the services of one integrated investment bank.”

Richard Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo – "There is this conventional wisdom that big is bad or risky.  I don’t think there is any evidence that that is the case. Banks fail mainly because of concentration of risk."

A fair statement.  You can be big and diversified.  But you will also be slow to react and burdened with an oversized expense structure.  But in complete agreement with the statement, banks do fail because of concentration of risk.  Why do they insist on doing so?  And if the bank was smaller, its impact on the economy as a whole would be lessened.

Bill Isaac, former chairman of the FDIC- "We need a good discussion about how these institutions might be simplified and much better regulated."

Ok.  The whole structure of corporations is flawed, and it’s interesting to note that Google has gone down this path and is destined for the same result.  One company that tries to do too much and cover too much area will collapse under its own weight.

As much as I hate war, there is something to be learned from it.  Multiple smaller units will outperform a single large unit provided they all share the same vision and battle plan.  As you conquer more area, your supply line increases and slows response and adds vulnerability.

As much as I am involved with software development, there is much to be learned there as well.  If you develop a large application, it becomes harder to change over time due to internal and external dependencies.  Larger applications operate slower because they consume more resources.  Well-designed applications can fail in one section without affecting the whole.

You want a good example?  TD Ameritrade created TD Bank.  They can have all the brand identity, cross-promotion and integration they want, but they are separate entities.  You want a good non-financial candidate?  Microsoft should create Microsoft Hardware and separate the hardware design/manufacture from the software development.  Big companies like to tout that their many departments shield them from losses when one department suffers.  There’s nothing that should stop one company from investing in another partner company, but when they lack that separation, the company as a whole must suffer for the failures of the one department.

It seems everyone on the outside knows what needs to be done, but no one is willing to take the first step.  Everyone on the inside is blinded by the alternate reality.

7 Reasons

Posted by on February 10, 2012 No comments

I read a recent article with 7 reasons why we’ll always need cash.  It was less than convincing.  Some rebuttals for the article’s arguments:

You need cash when dealing with the smallest businesses.  These smallest businesses need to understand that being cash-only is limiting their customer base and inconveniencing the customers they do have.  They need to accept that CC processing fees are a cost of business and set their prices accordingly.  If they cannot compete, they must re-evaluate what makes their product, service, or location advantageous. If they don’t have a reason to be advantaged, they will not stay in business.  This is why they are the smallest.

You should live off cash when you have a tight budget.  I disagree with this.  The worst spenders will simply run through all their cash and wonder, “Where did it all go?” and they won’t know.  The answer is to use a credit card or debit card and log every receipt every day in financial software, whether it be Mint.com, MS Money, or (ugh) Quicken.  No one save cash receipts, if they even get one.  Then, once logged, you need to look at the numbers in front of your face and think about them.  At the end of each month, run the reports that show where the money goes.  Knowledge is power.

You’ll need cash when technology fails.  The example given is paying via phone NFC, but the article ignores that credit card processing is much more robust.  There’s a difference between BK saying “our credit card machines are down” and your mechanic saying the same.  In the first case, you just drive down the road to McD’s.  In the second case, there will be a manual “knuckle-buster” machine to process your card.  If a business wants (and deserves) your money, they will have a manual way to get it.

You need cash in case of emergency.  This one is kind of hard to dispute, especially seeing how people love taking advantage of others in trouble.  However, emergency doesn’t mean you are helpless.  You have options available to you.  All you have to do is ask if they take credit cards.  If not, move on.

You need cash when you need to remain anonymous.  The article uses a quote that explicitly says “maybe as a way to avoid taxes”.  I shouldn’t need to give a rebuttal.

You need cash when you depend on tips. The article again suggests that cash is good for misreporting income for taxes.

You need cash for the homeless.  This is because you can’t hand a credit card to a homeless person and have them charge you a couple bucks.  And supposedly also because most charities don’t accept cards when they are out on the street.  However, it is possible to donate through a website or PayPal.  And if you really want to help the homeless, buy them a meal or give them a blanket or clothing.

So overall, it’s not so much a list of reasons why we’ll always need cash, but more of a list of weak excuses why we haven’t completely gone cashless.