8 things that are worth a lot less than they used to be

Everything seems to cost more, right? In California a 3 bedroom fixer upper is $1 million, after all. But is “everything” really worth more of your hard earned dollars than ever before?  Or, are there some things that are worth a lot less — less money, less time, less angst, or less mind-share — than ever before?  Maybe this is the time to stock up on these less valuable things.  Maybe there will be a turn around!  Or, maybe it’s time to let them go peacefully to the junk heap.

With that, I decided to start a list of things that are worth less now than they used to be. This is just a start.  Please add to this list.

1.  Getting on TV – with the proliferation of video outlets, it’s not too big a deal to be recorded and replayed. When Walter Cronkite said your name, the country heard. When your neighbor Darrell films you falling off your roof and landing crotch first on a post, 14 people see it. Unless there is a “LOLcat” involved, in which case it’s a lot more people. Today’s reality TV stars are just an interim step towards eventual video meaninglessness.  Reality TV stars would give their left fake breast for the nearly 400 million views of YouTube’s “Charlie bit my finger”
   
   
2. News anchors – with more outlets, news anchors like Brian Williams matter less. And with the end of “Fair and Balanced” rules, they also don’t even have to report facts.  News anchors today can report opinions, Anderson Cooper style.  Maybe news anchors are tomorrow’s reality TV stars.  It’s all about the editing, not the facts, which leads to  . . .
3. Facts – Rest In Peace, factual data. The internet has allowed anyone with an opinion to post a conventional wisdom as fact. For example, does Pandora have positive gross margins? Do a search and find both yes and no answers (the correct answer is yes).  And don’t even get me started on federal budget reductions that are really reductions of future increases that still amount to increases.  Say that three times really fast.
4. Candy – Sure, candy might cost more today, but now that I’m older, halloween candy seems much less alluring.  It’s worth less in my book.
5. The Dewey Decimal system — Do you remember that 229 is for Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha?  I think I was tested on that once.   Well, that knowledge is worth a lot less now.  File the Dewey Decimal System under 929.281
   
6. Cool hair – Paul Saffell always had the best hair in my high school. Still does, in fact.  I always wanted hair like that – feathered with that perfect center part.  Well, cool hair isn’t worth nearly as much as it used to be.  Since I’m essentially bald, I may be merely hoping hair has become worth less.  This isn’t Paul, but what great hair (if you’re 14 in the 70s)
   
   
7. Digital storage – At the beginning of the internet bubble, a gigabyte of storage would cost you $50.  Now it costs you $0.10.  If only cars followed a similar price decline.  A new Ferrari would now cost $400.
8. That great Farrah Fawcett poster – A must have when I was 12.  It was guaranteed to make you the coolest boy on the block.   Now I only see her ditzy performance on David Letterman

So what do you have?  What things are worth a lot less now than they used to be?

Quit saying “Investment” when you mean “charity”, “stimulus”, or “100% guarantee”

Solyndra recently went bankrupt.  The solar firm took with it nearly $1 billion in investor dollars, including $500m in debt from our tax dollars.  Your household’s share of that decision, by the way, was $6.

Now the government is in uproar.  We lost money on an investment!  A formal investigation has been launched, and I will tell you what they find.  The government folks who approved the investment, to quote George W Bush, “misunderestimated”.  They didn’t understand the risks, they didn’t understand the industry, they got it wrong.  They will be publicly castigated and then summarily fired.  If we were China, someone may actually be executed.

I hear people describe themselves as investors all the time.  I hear them describe what they do as “investing”.  Yet the financial goals often attributed to investors and investments, as well as the investment process itself, are missing.  Just because we call it an “investment” in education or green jobs or what have you, does not make it an investment.  Charities are not investors.  Governments are not investors.  Not if they can’t stomach the risk of failure.

Risk capital involves the potential for loss, and the government just rediscovered this.  They lost money on Solyndra.  The fact that people will lose their jobs for it will reinforce government behavior to not take risks, to not innovate, and to not change for the times.

The losses due to Solyndra are not just financial.  The loss is any chance of using “government” and “entrepreneurial” in the same sentence.  There was a chance, as a new generation of politicians and bureaucrats gained power, born with the internet and armed with the word “entrepreneur”.  Now, I fear it’s gone the way of the Dodo, a successful land war in Asia, and the Dewey Decimal System.

The power of words, the limits of help, and death

I am sadly reminded today of the power of words and our power to distort them.  We lost someone yesterday.

I recently read “The US is becoming a third world country.” To state this is to state one’s own ignorance. Having spent lots of time in those third world countries, this is patently false.  We insult their poverty to compare the U.S’s problems to theirs.

The primary poverty problem in the US is obesity. The primary poverty problem in Ghana is malnutrition, lack of education, poor health, and infant mortality (to name a few.  I guess that’s more than “primary”). To make this comparison accurate, we have to first burn every US community hospital, churn American roads back to dirt, and rip out our indoor plumbing. And then we are maybe 10% of the way towards a third world country.

Similarly, it’s become de rigeur to compare someone to Hitler. Sure, we have height challenged narcissists in our society. But to compare a current American political figure to Hitler is to insult an entire generation that died in the holocaust. Please, go visit the Holocaust museum, and then try to compare a tax increase to genocide.  I dare you.

I’m reminded of these word abuses when my acquaintance Rep. Gabby Giffords speaks for the first time for the cameras. Was it abused words in the mind of a crazy person that led to Gabby losing half her brain to a bullet? Maybe, or maybe that person was beyond help, regardless.

Beyond help. Beyond help. Today I teach a class on “measuring the results of microfinance”, via simulcast, to 40 business school campuses.  The challenge of measuring results is that the answer invariably says that someone was beyond help. Someone was even harmed, perhaps.  But does that mean we shouldn’t try?  Is only 100% success the ruler we can accept?

I’ll be teaching from the building where, yesterday, a student entered with a gun and, in a confrontation with police, was killed.  That student was beyond help.  As a society, we failed this student.

At moments like this, we are reminded of the rarity of our spectacular circumstances, the blessing of our sanity, and the foundation of our health.  We are reminded of mortality, in the face of a world of activities that seem designed to distract us from that.  For it’s not whether we have fun on life’s path, but whether we make the path better for those that follow.

 

US Navy “Gator” Bonhomme Richard

When the President says we are sending humanitarian support to a country ravaged by a natural disaster — say Pakistan — what does that really mean?  I always picture palettes of food being dropped by parachute to starving villagers, or crowds of well meaning, shovel wielding, Birkenstocked Americans digging new water wells for displaced folks.

I never really thought about the US Navy sending an amphibious assault ship to the region.  But that’s exactly what happens.  An amphibious carrier is the sharp end of the humanitarian spear.  Or maybe the inner sterile gauze of the humanitarian band-aid.

An amphibious assault ship, like the USS Bonhomme Richard LHD 6 that I toured a few weeks ago, is a multi-role, nearly 900 foot ship.  In addition to it’s 1,000 crew, it can carry 2,000 marines, plus helicopters, jets, and other amphibious ships.  Sure, the ship has the potential for firepower.  But aside from during drills, that firepower is seldom used.

USS Bonhomme Richard, taken from the helicopter

Our host, Captain Harnden, describing the history of the name Bonhomme Richard (Revolutionary war hero John Paul Jones beat the crap out of the British ship Serapis with the second hand, former French cargo carrier) It's namesake has come a long way.

The role that is more often performed by amphibious carriers is that humanitarian support role.  The amphibious carriers (or “Gators”), of which there are 8 in the US fleet, include a 600 bed hospital with 6 operating rooms and a 15 bed ICU.  Given the U.S. average of 2.6 beds per thousand population, that works out to enough hospital support for Topeka, KS, Macon, GA, Chico, CA, or Champaign-Urbana, IL.  It’s certainly bigger than the hospital in my tiny hometown of Harrisonville, MO.  No doubt Brazil will want at least one for their under-infrastructured hosting of the World Cup and Summer Olympics.

The 15-bed ICU

That’s just one of the multiple interesting things I learned during a special program called “Leaders to Sea” conducted by the Commander, Naval Surface Force, Pacific Fleet.  I was nominated for the Leaders to Sea Program by Dennis Hall, founder of Avere Group, who is civilian and makes nominations as part of his global community outreach.  Thanks to Dennis, Commander Jason Salata – Public Affairs Officer, Senior Chief Petty Officer Winkler, Ensigns Smith and Carterberry, and others — more than I can possibly include.  Really, thank you.

For example, I learned that the bridge of an 850 foot long, 100 foot wide ship is way smaller than in movies or on Star Trek.  It’s 18 people in a space the size of a conference room with no chit chat.  No chit chat because it’s a darn serious place.  Running your ship aground, or hitting a navigational buoy, will be the end of your sterling 20 year career.  So cut the small talk and get to the freakin’ point.  (Next time you’re sitting in a conference room listening to someone talk about “establishing our value proposition priority system”, remember that.)

Serious and small. Dawn light on the bridge crew

By the way, that’s not camouflage in the photo, it’s “aquaflage”.  I’m not entirely clear why we want our crews to be invisible when they fall into the water, but it’s scientifically designed to blend in.

Being in the military means a serious commitment to health — you’ll have a hard time finding a Twinkie onboard.  There’s more than one reason why physical fitness is an important part of the military.  The spaces are small, the “stairs” are really treaded ladders, and the ship has 14 floors.  No escalators, no moving walkways.  In fact the only movement is the swaying of the ship while underway.  Urp.

Another reason why Michael Moore may not like the US Navy - a waterproof stairwell -- not ADA approved

A ship this size is a floating city, with it’s own chapel, internet cafe, store, yummy food, dentist, and not one but two barber shops.

One of two barber shops onboard

Did I mention the ship is really big?  It’s big enough to have 2 giant aircraft hangars and one gigantic, floodable internal dock for other ships.  All of you 60′ yacht owners with a Zodiac and a Sea Doo on the back, eat your heart out.  We can fit about 10 of you in the back half of our ship.

What this place needs is a little more space for toys

As I thought about writing this post, I thought about who reads me.  I have many readers on both ends of the political spectrum.  I like that.  But one thing on which both sides can agree is the dedication and professionalism of the US Navy.  If you ever have the chance to witness it first hand, it will fundamentally alter your understanding of the word “military”.

Purple means fuel handler. Fuel means the potential for explosion. That's one of the reasons for this look of determination

At the end of our stay, I was wishing for more time aboard.  But our ride had arrived.

Free Bird = Sikorsky SH-60

Preflight suit-up. It's obvious why the Navy was not excited to have me stay. Civilians in flight suits are ridiculous.

Herman Cain’s 9 9 9 tax plan

Herman Cain is espousing a simplified tax plan. I have just one concern.

The plan does hope to simplify the byzantine tax structure. The first two 9’s are 9% income tax rate on individuals and 9% on corporations with no loopholes and no deductions. That part is easy — your tax return now looks like this:

1) Enter your income from all sources _________
2) Multiply by 0.09
3) Send that number in.

So far so good. No favors and discounts.

Now some bad news.  Lots of unemployment among tax accountants. That’s not so good, but let’s assume they move into lobbying or ambulance chasing or other equally worthwhile endeavors.

The third 9 is a flat 9% national sales tax, similar to the VAT tax in Europe. Economists love the VAT tax, sociologists hate it (because lower income earners still have to pay it).  Many people are worried whether such a massive change will generate too little — or too much — federal tax.

Others worry that the tax is “regressive”, meaning it hits the poor as much as the rich.  I’m less concerned about this.  Our current system gives money to various groups through tax breaks, which are really expenses.  A flat tax moves all that largesse to expense instead of this bizarre anti-income.  So you may pay 9%, but the government will give it back to you.  Based on the current handout system, 50% of you will pay 9% of your income, but will get checks from the government for that 9% or more.  Congratulations!

No, my concern is different. My concern is that it’s a new lever for government. Giving the federal government a new lever, like a national sales tax or a carbon tax, means that eventually the federal government will do what they typically do with a new lever, which is pull it.

In 1913, when the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution made income taxes legal, the income tax rate ranged from 1% to 7%. Clearly, we’ve come a long way from there, and the average net tax rate in the US is 20%.  We pulled that lever.

So while I’m a fan of the simplification of a flat tax system, I think there needs to be ongoing discussion of additional methods to encourage us to live within our means.  Our Federal debt, after all , is already 100% of our gross national product, about what Greece’s debt burden was at the beginning of it’s mess.

Dear Occupy Wall Street – Tips on Protesting

I had a meeting today near the Occupy Oakland protest march, one of the many spinoffs of Occupy Wall Street. There were thousands of people. It looked a lot like a party. There were musicians playing, people laughing, and pot smoking.

Oh, and lots of signs. Lots of contradictory signs, in fact. Everything from “Death to Capitalism” (the largest I saw) to “End the Prison System” and “If Librarians are Marching, It Must be Serious”.

Protests can be incredibly powerful, and as I mentioned here, I expect there to be a lot more of them. Out of work folks with time on their hands and a feeling that the government is not responsive is a quick and easy recipe for protests.

But the thing that this protest needs — and even as a capitalist I hope they get — is a set of coherent demands.

The anti-apartheid movement had Divestment as their cause. Egyptian protests had Mubarek’s removal as their cause. Even the Tea Party eventually coalesced their (much smaller) protests around small government and limited taxation.

There is clearly emotion being unbottled by the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Your Town USA protests. But until they ask for a specific, actionable outcome, it still looks a lot like Woodstock.