H'ingTFU

[LarryHoward]

We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) .

I have a Honda Diesel 12 KW generator. You meant we would have no "Commercial Electricity" if you guys did not do your job.......

To hell with Beau's storage locker. You're much closer.

its heavy.......

But it is on wheels

[kimbottles]

We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) .

I have a Honda Diesel 12 KW generator. You meant we would have no "Commercial Electricity" if you guys did not do your job.......

To hell with Beau's storage locker. You're much closer.

its heavy.......

But it is on wheels

And I have a crane in the same garage too!

[LarryHoward]

We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) .

I have a Honda Diesel 12 KW generator. You meant we would have no "Commercial Electricity" if you guys did not do your job.......

To hell with Beau's storage locker. You're much closer.

its heavy.......

But it is on wheels

And I have a crane in the same garage too!

When are you going away? I have a utility trailer with a ramp. I'm sure I could get high dollars for that generator after the next hurricane or ice storm here. Or just keep it as a backup to my propane whole house setup.

[Rob McAlpine]

Zircon encrusted tweezers.

Dental floss tycoons are ruining this great country of ours.

Mental toss flycoons are doing worse.

[kimbottles]

We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) .

I have a Honda Diesel 12 KW generator. You meant we would have no "Commercial Electricity" if you guys did not do your job.......

To hell with Beau's storage locker. You're much closer.

its heavy.......

But it is on wheels

And I have a crane in the same garage too!

When are you going away? I have a utility trailer with a ramp. I'm sure I could get high dollars for that generator after the next hurricane or ice storm here. Or just keep it as a backup to my propane whole house setup.

I will PM you the spare key location.....

[Ish]

We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) .

I have a Honda Diesel 12 KW generator. You meant we would have no "Commercial Electricity" if you guys did not do your job.......

To hell with Beau's storage locker. You're much closer.

its heavy.......

But it is on wheels

And I have a crane in the same garage too!

When are you going away? I have a utility trailer with a ramp. I'm sure I could get high dollars for that generator after the next hurricane or ice storm here. Or just keep it as a backup to my propane whole house setup.

I will PM you the spare key location.....

Don't be silly. Insurance won't cover it unless there is an obvious break in. It's OK, we won't do much damage. Damn, should have done this while you still had all those Harken goodies in there.

[derekb]

What drives me nuts is the complete blinders to measuring or evaluating what is important rather than some headline grabbing data point about a derivative of the important thing. (a ways off topic - but was talked about in Good to Great - Jim Collins book on exceptional companies so can apply to the original subject too)

1) Real wages in cash terms are reported to be down - but what are they in terms of purchasing power given that a DVD player was once $800 and is now $50? My grandparents did not have cell phones, GPS's, Game Systems etc so it appears there are a lot more things in our lives than before.

2) Other places have lower wages but who cares, what is the wage cost vs value of output.

3) Debt can be good or bad depending on how it is used, if it is used to produce a ongoing future cash flow (investment) it can be very good - if it is used to get a non performing thing today vs later it is bad.

4) Statistics matter, you need to know what is being measured, how it was measured and what that is in real numbers and percentages.

5) Many companies are in the business in extracting an annuity from you - Cell Phones, Insurance, cable TV, Newspaper Subscriptions etc. where you pay a predicable amount regardless if you consume the good or not at the rate you paid for. As a consumer you need to limit your wasted outgoing cashflow on these things.

I could go on but I need to get to a meeting here at the rather large place I work (how did I get so employable with Kim as a mentor?)

Derek B

[kimbottles]

What drives me nuts is the complete blinders to measuring or evaluating what is important rather than some headline grabbing data point about a derivative of the important thing. (a ways off topic - but was talked about in Good to Great - Jim Collins book on exceptional companies so can apply to the original subject too)

1) Real wages in cash terms are reported to be down - but what are they in terms of purchasing power given that a DVD player was once $800 and is now $50? My grandparents did not have cell phones, GPS's, Game Systems etc so it appears there are a lot more things in our lives than before.

2) Other places have lower wages but who cares, what is the wage cost vs value of output.

3) Debt can be good or bad depending on how it is used, if it is used to produce a ongoing future cash flow (investment) it can be very good - if it is used to get a non performing thing today vs later it is bad.

4) Statistics matter, you need to know what is being measured, how it was measured and what that is in real numbers and percentages.

5) Many companies are in the business in extracting an annuity from you - Cell Phones, Insurance, cable TV, Newspaper Subscriptions etc. where you pay a predicable amount regardless if you consume the good or not at the rate you paid for. As a consumer you need to limit your wasted outgoing cashflow on these things.

I could go on but I need to get to a meeting here at the rather large place I work (how did I get so employable with Kim as a mentor?)

Derek B

Boy, does it ever make a Father's heart happy to hear that his son got all of the right messages without becoming unemployable. (Must have been due to SWMBO's input!)

[JoeP]

1) Real wages in cash terms are reported to be down - but what are they in terms of purchasing power given that a DVD player was once $800 and is now $50? My grandparents did not have cell phones, GPS's, Game Systems etc so it appears there are a lot more things in our lives than before.
Derek B

Good post Derek, but even if luxuries like DVD players are priced less, from my experience (and I may be wrong) necessities like food, power and fuel continue to rise at a faster pace than real wages, so for people in the lower income brackets it is tough, even if they don't buy the "discretionary" items.

[Olaf Hart]

Just to clarify, that was me just blowing off steam.

The truth is, I love the company I work for. This particular manager is new to the company and I do think she feels she has something to prove. On a personal level, she and I get along great. I support her efforts to kick ass and take names. No one has been doing that around here and that's why we have the problems we have.

The division I work in is energy trading. We do physical trading (you would have no electricity if we didn't do our job ) and financial derivative of that. The traders themselves are not a problem. In fact, the trading function isn't really a problem either, other than the fact that they've been allowed to be rogue for the past decade. The biggest challenge has been the fact that we are now organized where there hasn't really been any organization and it's exposed a lot of the holes that have opened up due to bad practices in the past. I just happen to be the guy who keeps falling into them.

Most of this I brought on myself. My communication skills have never been the best. Not that I can't articulate well, but I seem to always misjudge the amount of articulation (usually too much) and to whom I direct it (usually the wrong people). Timing is also critical and because I sometimes get too deep into the sheep dip, I lose track of time...going home before getting in touch with that person I told I would get in touch with before the end of the day.

I try to look at it as a learning experience. I put myself in these uncomfortable positions because I feel it helps me grow.

But dayum, there's only so many kicks in the balls I can handle...

Sons, I know SFA about IT, but it sounds like you need to be more strategic.

The best strategy comes from a knowledge of detail, so you are right there.
Its hard to be doing the detail and putting the fires out, and at the same time climb above the mess and look down on it in a strategic sense.
Can you get yourself out of putting out the fires?

There are probably good strategic people out there, if your brain wont go there.
Find one and smuggle them into your team.

My son took a job in the IT section of the LSE when he left university. They had a custom site delivered by a joint Microsoft / HP consortium.
It went down an average of four times a day, he was called out of bed twice a night every second night.

So he developed a career in QA systems, and is now a national lead in a large US IT consulting firm.

IMHO you should back yourself and do whatever it takes to get above the shit.

Disclaimer... advice is only worth what you pay for it.

[derekb]

1) Real wages in cash terms are reported to be down - but what are they in terms of purchasing power given that a DVD player was once $800 and is now $50? My grandparents did not have cell phones, GPS's, Game Systems etc so it appears there are a lot more things in our lives than before.
Derek B

Good post Derek, but even if luxuries like DVD players are priced less, from my experience (and I may be wrong) necessities like food, power and fuel continue to rise at a faster pace than real wages, so for people in the lower income brackets it is tough, even if they don't buy the "discretionary" items.

I do not know the answer to this question I just know we report a meaningless answer - I know housing and energy are up since 2010 more than inflation, but do not know the whole picture.

[BeauV]

Here are the inflation rates since 2008 based on the CPI (Consumer Price Index):

2008 215.3 3.8%
2009 214.5 -0.4%
2010 218.1 1.6%
2011 224.9 3.2%
2012 229.6 2.1%
2013 233.5 1.7% (Source: Federal Reserve) 2013 is an estimate as the final numbers are in yet.

Here's a graph of more years: (Source: US Government - Wikipedia doesn't specify which part of the US Gov.)



The middle number in the three columns at the top is expressed in dollars. So if a basket of things cost $215.30 dollars in 2008 the same basket of things should cost $233.50. The next question is: "What's in the CPI?" You can read about it here: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/community_education/teacher/calc/ Basically, it's everything. There is also a number that political types toss around which is called the Core Inflation Rate, which doesn't include Fuel, Food or Housing. I find that number to basically be not only useless it is often used for such egregious political motives that it's worse than useless. I won't bother you with it now. You can read about Core Inflation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_inflation

The next question is: "How have Fuel, Food and Housing faired compared to this general inflation?" Well, the reason that the Core Inflation number removes these three things is that they are highly volatile and will cause the CPI to jump up and down a lot. The reasoning is that one doesn't buy a house every day, and reasonable buyers will buy when prices are low, so reporting a volatile number like the cost of houses will erroneously drive the CPI way up and way down. We've certainly lived through that recently. Suffice it to say that from 2008 to about 2011 housing price went down a LOT. Even in up-beat real estate markets like San Francisco, where housing has gone up almost 25% this year alone, housing went down by about 35-40 percent in 2008. Fuel, on the other hand has gone up and stayed up. In 2007 I was planning for $50/barrel as a floor price for energy deals I was working on. It has stayed well above that floor. Don't confuse the spot price for oil - oil that is bought on the margin at the last minute - with the average oil price reported in the table below. The spot price makes headlines, but only a complete idiot would pay spot for a commodity you know you're going to buy. The average oil price is as follows:

Year Price Inflation adjusted price
2008 $91.48 $98.58
2009 $53.48 $57.92
2010 $71.21 $76.01
2011 $87.04 $90.08
2012 $86.46 $87.68
2013 $87.13 $87.52 (Source: US Fed)

So, you can see that oil (inflation adjusted) is actually down from $98.58/barrel to $87.52/barrel. Do remember that this is oil, not gasoline. The price of gasoline is influenced strongly by local refining capacity, taxes (which have been going up a lot), transportation costs, etc.... But, do have a look at what the average price of oil did in 2009. That's what happens when the economy shuts down and there's no demand.

Again, here's a graph with more years in it. You'll notice right away that the inflation adjusted price today is almost the middle of the range from the '80s. But that during the '90s and the '00s we had oil that was basically at the same price it had always been. There's a lot of debate about what's keeping oil prices so high right now, it isn't shortage. We have FAR MORE oil than we can use.



I don't have graphs for food, like these. But it's safe to say that while prices on things "feel" higher, they actually aren't much higher. We all have our favorite items that have gone up. But, as Derek pointed out, a lot of other things (computers, TVs etc...) have gone way down. The most significant driver of this has been the movement of manufacturing out of high cost places like Detroit and into low cost places like Viet Nam. This sucks if you're a worker in Detroit, but it's great if your an auto buyer in Portland OR.

BV

[Ish]

That's an interesting bunch of graphs. I was just going through old receipts we found for my stereo gear, and I just shut a window showing that my Luxman amp, which cost $700 in 1980, would cost over $2000 in 2013 dollars. My #1 reaction to that was that I had a lot more disposable income in 1980.

[Orestes Munn]

That's an interesting bunch of graphs. I was just going through old receipts we found for my stereo gear, and I just shut a window showing that my Luxman amp, which cost $700 in 1980, would cost over $2000 in 2013 dollars. My #1 reaction to that was that I had a lot more disposable income in 1980.

Nah, you were just dumber. I know I was.

[BeauV]

Hey Ish, what kind of mileage did your car get in 1980 and what's it get now?

For us:

Boat hauling:
1980 Suburban 10 MPG highway and 6 MPG in town (it was a big block with about 400hp)
2013 Porsche Cheyenne 22 MPG over all over about 27 MPG highway and 17 MPG in town (with 440 hp)

Commuting:
1980 Ford Mustang 12 MPG Highway and 8 MPG in town (0->60 in 5 seconds with a souped up 289)
2013 Mini JCW special 37 MPG highway and 22 MPG in town (0->60) 5 seconds with a turbo 1.4 L engine)

So the gasoline price is higher, and because the Porsche is a luxe-boat that Stacey loves the car is more expensive with all that leather and nice suspension and stuff. But the fuel consumption is actually about 2 to 4 times better. You can't use the purchase price as the only determinant of operating cost. doh!

B-)

[Rob McAlpine]

Go ahead, blame it all on us oil guys. Natural gas prices are at a near historical low when adjusted for inflation. It's a terrific energy value, abundant in spite of, not because of our government.

Want economic growth and better employment? Give business a stable, predictable tax and regulatory environment, so that business can have some measure of confidence in modeled rates of return for serious capital investments and hiring.

All I see is tax and regulatory uncertainty. Why do these guys love employment but hate employers?

I need either another or one less glass of cabernet.

It's more fun to talk sailing, or dental floss. Raising it up, waxing it down.

[BeauV]

I agree - no more politics and finance - let's go sailing or something! Life is too short.


To change the subject entirely, here's something that a dear friend sent me because she knew that I have a close friend who lost his two dogs of 15 years and his son who was 22 this year in an accident. It was a terrible year for my friend, a year when he really had to HTFU, and I sent this story to him earlier today. It caused a few tears and a lot of joy. So.... here goes.

===============================

A letter from the Post Office... this is absolutely the best! We don't know who replied, but there is a beautiful soul working in the dead letter department who understands LOVE..........................

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month.

The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought that we could, so she dictated these words:

Dear God,

Will you please take care of my dog? Abbey died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I'm happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and play with balls. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog.

I really miss her.
Love,
Meredith

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey & Meredith, addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office.

A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away. Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog.

Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in so I'm sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.

Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much.

By the way, I'm easy to find. I am wherever there is love.

Love,
God

[Ish]

Hey Ish, what kind of mileage did your car get in 1980 and what's it get now?

For us:

Boat hauling:
1980 Suburban 10 MPG highway and 6 MPG in town (it was a big block with about 400hp)
2013 Porsche Cheyenne 22 MPG over all over about 27 MPG highway and 17 MPG in town (with 440 hp)

Commuting:
1980 Ford Mustang 12 MPG Highway and 8 MPG in town (0->60 in 5 seconds with a souped up 289)
2013 Mini JCW special 37 MPG highway and 22 MPG in town (0->60) 5 seconds with a turbo 1.4 L engine)

So the gasoline price is higher, and because the Porsche is a luxe-boat that Stacey loves the car is more expensive with all that leather and nice suspension and stuff. But the fuel consumption is actually about 2 to 4 times better. You can't use the purchase price as the only determinant of operating cost. doh!

B-)

Well, in 1980 I had a 1978 Toyota Celica. It is the only car I ever bought new. Now, I have a 1991 Toyota Celica. It gets slightly worse mileage because it's a bigger engine. I'm still at about 30 mpg but it costs me 4X as much.

[Rob McAlpine]

Aw crap Beau, who cut the onions in here? My eyes are leaking.

[Britches]

Aw crap Beau, who cut the onions in here? My eyes are leaking.

Agreed. I really hope no one walks into my office right now as is sniffle like an idiot...jeesh.

[Tigger]

Another one like Beau's ...

Once upon a time a grade 2 student had to deal with her mom dying of cancer. After she returned to school, she wanted to send her mom a message, so we got her to write a note, and tied it to a balloon filled with helium. So far, so good ... released the balloon, only to see it get stuck in a tree. What to do ... somewhat sheepishly, called the Fire Department (on the non-emergency line) and gave some background and asked if they could come and help to free the balloon. They showed up with every piece of equipment they had ... the balloon went on its way skyward with the message attached, the little muffin felt good, and there was not a dry eye in the place. One of the days in a career you'll remember forever.