Milestones

Today on the way home from work my car hit 250,000 miles. I tried to get a picture of the odometer, but doing that while driving proved problematic. I couldn't get a clear shot for some reason. Quite a milestone I figure. Of course there are other cars out there with more miles. But for me, this is a record. The car itself is 20 years old, I've had it for 8 years and have put about half of those miles on myself. And I don't have any plans to retire The Bimmer.

She still runs great and doesn't rattle or smoke. There are a few problems, but what do you expect after 20 years and a quarter of a million miles? The drivers window tracks needs a little repair, and a few interior pieces are a little loose. But hey, I can fix those issues, given a weekend and a few bucks.

The Bimmer, which is officially a 1992 BMW 325i, joined the family when my neighbor leaned over the fence one evening and asked if I wanted to buy her car for $1,500. It needed a wheel bearing and a clutch, and she wasn't ready to spend the $2,000 her mechanic wanted for repairs. Parts ran me about $250, and the labor was free. Even after 8 years I still don't have as much actual cash in the car as it would be worth if I sold it. I figure I came out ahead.

This was the second foreign car I ever owned. I had my Jag in England, so it wasn't really foreign, and the Beetle, well Beetles aren't foreign anywhere. The Cortina; now that was foreign. Other wise I was all American, Usually GM, and Oldsmobile whenever I could.

I wasn't sure I would like driving a BMW. The car was actually going to be my eldest son's car. I paid the cash and he was making payments. while he was making payments I drove it all week, and he had the weekends. That way I could keep an eye on my investment, and he would have an incentive to make the payments in a timely manner.Then he ran into financial issues, and I was stuck with it, after a fashion.

My daily driver prior to The Bimmer was a Chevy Caprice Classic Station Wagon. It ran good and got decent gas mileage, for a land yacht. I was working in Downtown Cincinnati at the time, as was used to swinging the land yacht into and out of the small downtown lots. The first day in The Bimmer I was amazed at how small it was comparatively, and yet was large on the inside. The only other small cars I had ever ridden in were Japanese, and I was never comfortable. They seemed narrow and completely lacked legroom for the 6 foot-four inch me.

The Bimmer wasn't like that. With the driver's seat back I have plenty of room. The seat-back is touching the front of the backseat, so rear seat legroom is non-existent, but what do I care? I'm sitting in front.

Anyway, after 8 years and 100,000 miles I'm still happy and comfortable. I'm hoping for at least another 250,000 out of her. By then it might need another clutch.

Oh, and the picture isn't my car. Mine is the same color and style, but lacks the spoiler. I couldn't find a picture of mine that wasn't covered with kids.

I Have a New Hero

102 years old, and still drives.....

Her 1930 Packard. 3 speed unsynchronized transmission, no power steering, no power windows.

My new hero.

I wonder if she has a Great-Granddaughter my age?

Business Math 101

How about a quick lesson in business economics?


First; you have a business, selling the always popular widgets.

In order to make your widget you need 3 things: A place, materials and labor.

The place is first a capital cost, like your house. You have to either pay cash and tie up a lot of capital (Money); purchase with a loan and make a monthly payment, or rent. A mortgage or rent is a monthly cost that needs to be factored into the cost of your widget. If you tie up cash in the place then you are costing yourself the interest that money could make somewhere else, like the stock market. This is, for our example, COST A. We’ll say its $.25 a widget.

Then you need materials. Unless you are making your widget out of thin air, or a commodity that someone else is ready to give away to get rid of, materials will cost. And those costs will vary depending on a multitude of things, including the cost of the fuel to ship the materials to you. With a contract for delivery you can sometimes regulate the cost so it will be consistent over a year, but that is usually the best you can do. If fuel costs double in the course of 4 years, then your raw material cost may go up 5%-25%, depending on how fuel dependant the process is. And fuel is just one factor.

You also need to figure in equipment as a capital cost, unless your workers can walk in with bare hands and produce quality widgets. As well as other overhead costs like accountants, advertising, attorneys, support staff in the office that does not make widgets, but designs widgets, purchases materials for widgets and maintains the equipment that makes widgets.

This is COST B. We’ll say its $.25 a widget as well.

Then you need folks to make your raw materials into your widgets. Each employee will have a compensation package, consisting of hourly wage and benefits; plus the cost of taxation. For our argument our employee will make $1.00 an hour. So his hour of labor will cost you a buck, right?

Wrong. Social Security makes his hour cost you $1.07. And then you have the benefits. Two weeks vacation? $85.60, plus you need someone to replace the work while he is out. Call it another 5 cents an hour, spread out over the rest of the year.

Health insurance? And here we enter a whole new world of costs well beyond your control. This year the coverage per individual is $208 a year; about $.10 an hour (I love doing math when I can make up my own numbers), but what new regulation will the state or federal governments add that will raise costs? Assuming a 10% increase means the per hour cost of the policy goes to $.10 an hour. It doesn’t sound like much, but multiply that by 2080 hours a year (a 52 week, 40 hour work week) and then multiply by 100 employees. That penny an hour is now $2080.00 extra cost a year.

Let’s assume it takes a man an hour to make a widget. Labor is now $1.22 a widget. This is COST C.

So far we have $.25 plus $.25 plus $1.23; a total of $1.72 per widget.

Now we get to sell our widget.

We can sell our widget for $1.72, but that does not earn a profit. After all, as owner of the company you have capital tied up in the building and the equipment, plus you have to pay taxes. $1.75 is the least we can charge for a widget and make a profit.

Now we go see Martwall to sell them widgets. Our evil competitor is in another country, and even including the shipping costs from the other country, they can price their widgets at $1.77. We sell them at $1.76, undercut the competition and make a $.04 profit on each widget.

Until another new regulation hits, like say, OBAMACARE. Instead of insurance costing $.10 a widget, it now costs $.14 a widget. Not a problem; raise the cost of a widget by $.04. Except now we are more expensive than that foreign widget. If we do that, we can no longer sell widgets to Martwall. We have to hold the line at $1.76. We need to cut costs in order to still make a profit.

We can’t change buildings because of the capital tied up in the building and the cost of a move. We can’t cut material costs, in fact our suppliers are faced with a cost increase as well- same Obamacare- and are talking about raising prices to cover the hit to them.

Looks like labor will take the hit. But we won’t cut wages; we will just increase the cost of the insurance to the employee. Our costs will stay at $.10 for insurance an employee, but the employee, instead of taking home $1.00 for an hour’s work, now takes home $.96. And resents it.

He finds another widget maker, or a maker of getwids that will still pay the $1.00 and changes jobs.

This example is so simplistic I am almost ashamed of myself. But it does illustrate the vise employers are in. The value of what they sell, based on what the market will pay, pushes from one side, and the costs associated with making the product are pushing from the other side. And what’s left is what you, as the owner get to take home.

At what point do you take your capital, invest it in something else that will make easier money, with less work, and stop making widgets?

Once Again, Ahead of the Curve

I ran into this article on my BING home page this morning. I normally don't read the bottom feeding Huffington Post, but I did find this article timely and interesting.

Basically because I said the same thing a couple of days ago.

The money quote, in my opinion:

A significant majority of the nones also believe that religious institutions are too focused on money, power, rules and politics.


Ain't that what I said?

See No Evil; Hear No Evil; Speak No Evil

 

There seem to be a lot of Obama chickens coming home to roost.

Most of them seem to be scandals of some type or kind; the most recent seems to be a replay of the campaign donation scheme from 2008. Apparently Obama's campaign makes itself available for illegal international donations by turning off a verification code requirements for its credit card on-line donations.

The Lame Stream Media haven't picked up on it yet (what a shocker!), but Fox and the talkers are full of it.

Here's that part that will sound funny; The Obama Campaign did the same thing in 2008. Ain't that a laugh?

So whats the downside? Obama had it all figured out. If he won, his Justice department wouldn't investigate him, now would it?

If he lost, McCain's Justice department wouldn't investigate; professional courtesy and/or you don't make the loser look worse by claiming he cheated, and cheated so poorly he still lost.

2012, and here we are again. Same campaign cheating. Same low risk of getting caught. If he wins, his Justice department won't investigate. If he loses, Romney will let the cheating slide, just like McCain would have.

And the value of a vote and an election just keeps getting cheaper. McCain, Romney, Obama, Boehner, Pelosi, McConnell: what do they care? They have their power, their wealth, their position. So what if a candidate cheats a little bit? Who does it hurt?

I'll tell you who it hurts. It hurts me and my children, and my grandchildren. The only power we have in this country comes to us through the ballot box. I don't like having that little bit of authority diluted even further by shenanigans, like illegal contributions, people voting more than once, or having a vote cast for them.

And when the people we have elected fail to take the value of that vote seriously, its just another mark against that value.

Where is the Federal Election Commission? Has there been a charge of illegality brought against the Obama campaign? If their is evidence, then why no charges? and if there have been charges, why is there no public outcry.

Allegedly Obama will raise and spend a billion dollars this election cycle.

A BILLION DOLLARS. $1,000,000,000.00. All of it spent legally, on ads and staff and offices?

Yeah; I bet.

And the value of my vote drops again.

Yeah; It's Been That Kind of a Day

Yesterday was a day of complete rest. I guess I still hadn't recovered from the long weekend I had last weekend.

Or maybe I'm coming down with something. Half the people in this house are sneezing and the other half have a hacking cough. I don't have either.

Yet.

I did mange to get a bit of writing done, so that's something. Not that I was really happy with it. What I wrote is very workman like; it gets the story across, but not the emotion I want. It is good enough for a first draft, but now I need to go back and make the words dance. I can do it; I have faith in myself.

Speaking of faith, I saw a sign tonight on the way home advertising a Tent Revival. I just wonder how many folks will show up, and what the age range will be. I would guess the audience (congregation?) will be 90% women; 75% over the age of 60 and 100% devout, or at least intending to look that way. A church I pass on the way home had a sign up at one point that said "Church isn't a museum for saints; its a hospital for sinners". I have to agree.

The problem any more is too many people don't recognize they are sick I guess. I suppose I could be defined as one of them. I have never lost my faith in God, but I sure have lost my faith in Religion. I don't believe the selling of indulgences has ended; just taken a different form; almost like your faith in God has something to do with your dedication to the Religion.

That might be the other part of it. Religion is a Community, and a Community is made up of people. You can't just pray on your own; you have to become a part of the Community. Sorry; not a big fan.

Kind of like working from home; you are just as productive, or more so, but nobody can verify that you actually worked as hard and long as they did, so it doesn't count. To them anyway.

And the same folks that will smile, nod and shake you hand in the Pews, will run you over in the parking lot.

But such has it always been so, right?

But then an organized religion does have benefits. Time honored rituals and practices; ancient prayers murmured countless times by countless generations; the same procedure as old as time itself, provided you are using the Roman calendar, and the idea of Anno Domini.

I forget what book I was reading, but a couple of characters were talking about the concept of magic, and the idea that previous generations may have been able to perform spells; something the current folks can only dream about. The second character responded that each age gains a little knowledge, and loses a little knowledge; who can say what we have gained can equal what we have lost.

I say that knowing I am not the only one of my generation to have lost a faith in religion. The problem is now how to pass on the faith in God, without the rituals.

Conversations

I had several conversations with different folks about the Wednesday Night debate. All of them were interesting, but one point came up that I think needs more thought and exposition.

Romney's 47% comment.

The remark did not come up at the debate in actuality, but it was the reason, I think, behind Romney's comments on the poor. And that is what started me to thinking.

Who, or what, ARE The Poor?

We each will probably have a different definition and a different set of criteria to determine who is Poor, and even those definitions have change over the years.

Take for instance this woman. At what point was she poor? The article mentions no children, and she apparently was well off enough, prior to her lottery win, to enjoy both a drug habit and purchasing lottery tickets.

And yet the state of Michigan was paying her food and medical benefits; both prior to and after her win, approximately $550 dollars a month or so.

This is not to say that every person collecting government benefits is doing so fraudulently, but stories like this are not uncommon enough.

So; what is poor and at what level of poverty should you be entitled to some of my tax money?

The proverbial Welfare Queen; multiple children from multiple partners, second or third generation on the government dole? That's and easy one.

What about the young mother of 4 whose husband was recently killed in a car accident? That too is an easy one.

But from a statutory viewpoint, these two women are identical; single mother of preschool children. And that is where the problem starts. We can't ask how they became single mothers with children; that would involve 'value judgments'. We are not allowed to pass judgment on someone else's life style.

Yet poor is a lifestyle. Anyone who is collecting a government check is a non-producer, and it is that non-production that has created their poverty status. Although there are obvious exceptions, the people collecting those checks prefer that non-production status. The exceptions are those folks forced into non-production by age, medical reasons, or other circumstances beyond their control. They are also the ones working toward leaving that non-productive status; not creating another dependent generation.

So; what determines being poor? Is it lack of money? There are plenty of folks who lack money, but still work for a living. Maybe its a lack of assets? Lots of folks who are collecting government money own cars, game systems and flat screen TVs.

I have known folks who were collecting a small amount of money from a government check, but that amount was enough to support the lifestyle they wanted; a room with a TV, snacks and enough left over for illegal intoxicants. Working was not an option, as it would not have provided anything additional to their lifestyle, and actually would have cut into the amount of time they had to enjoy their TV and snacks.

That's not to say they wouldn't have enjoyed a bigger TV or better snacks; they just weren't willing to work for them.

The problem becomes how do we end Welfare for the never married mother of four, without ending it for the young widow with four children?  How do we make someone who has never sought to be a producer want to become a producer?

I don't think we have anyone in this country who doesn't want to do their part to support folks who need it. But how many of us are willing to support people who are just unwilling to become producers on their own?

Those people who want to be a part of the 47%, and not the 53%.

Convenieeeent; Ain't It?

Am I the only one to notice the how convenient the new Unemployment numbers were?

I didn't think so. I don't think Obama is even fooling his choir in the Lame Stream Media this time.

Just how much more can we accept? These numbers are supposed to be facts; not partisan playthings that the President can shuffle around as he pleases.

How far are we from a puppet regime when the facts and figures we trust to be honest, and are drivers of the economy, are used as political toys?

This will come back to bite Obama in the ass. People, even the sycophantic lefties in the Lame Stream Media don't like being used.

The real numbers will come out. We will have our 44th month of over 8% unemployment.

And Obama will be left mumbling, with egg on his face.

Hopefully all this will happen before November 6th, but if we depend on the LSM to make it happen, I have my doubts.

The Debates

What is there to say?

Romney looked like he was enjoying himself, and Obama looked like he was undergoing a root canal.

There were a couple of times I saw this:



And thought this:



Hopefully I wasn't the only one.

Romney was short on specifics; Obama was long on ........ 'Inaccuracies'; inaccuracies that Romney was calling him on. McCain never challenged Obama. Romney did, and it threw Obama off his game.

Early polls show Romney as the winner; I find that easy to believe.

If Obama does just as well in the second debate in two weeks, don't look for a third debate; instead look for a 'CRISIS' to develop, meaning the debate will be 'postponed'.

I watched last night hoping Romney could sell me.

So far I'm not sold. But I'm not leaving the store either.

Tonight Things Start in Earnest

 

The Debates; Chapter One.

I said awhile back I would need to watch the debates, not to make up my mind, but to see if Romney can sell me on him.

And to watch the Train Wreck that I hope Obama becomes.

Or would; if we had a fair and balanced press.

As is, I expect the questions to be more like this:

Gov. Romney; please explain in detail in 2 minutes how you intend to fix the economy.

President Obama; please describe the best breakfast you have had in the White House.

Gov. Romney; please explain in detail how you intend to repair the healthcare crisis.

President Obama; have you ever shot a hole in one?

Gov. Romney; how does it feel to be such an incredibly successful Presiden... Sorry; wrong question. Gov. Romney; who do you intend to bring unemployment down to less than 4%?

I guess you see where I'm going with this?

The Presidential debates will be a chore for me to watch, but I'll do it.

The Vice Presidential debate should be interesting. Especially if Biden gets asked who exactly has been murdering the middle class for the last 4 years.

Sorry 'bout Yesterday

Well; the weekend kicked my butt. I am still sore and tired. Hopefully I will recover in time for round two this weekend.

This past weekend was spent in my son's bathroom. It was drastically in need of a redo. He and his wife bought the house 4 years ago, and at the time we did a clean and paint with a new tub and flooring. the room was serviceable.

But it was due a refit. It had a closet in one corner that took up too much room and provided too little storage, and the sink and cabinet that were serviceable 4 years ago were now past prime. They had to go.

Last Friday afternoon, they went. Along with the wall behind the sink and the floor, down to the subfloor. That was the easy part.

Saturday we hung drywall on the sink wall and filled in hole in the walls and ceiling the closet removal left. and fixed a few things elsewhere in the room, and then started slinging drywall mud.

Sunday morning it was 2nd coat of mud; wait for it to dry, and then 3rd coat of mud. In between we ate dinner, as pictured above. About 12 pounds of ribs. We put about 6 ounces in the fridge.

Monday was touch up on the drywall, and starting on the floor. We had to lay cement backer board, and then layout the tile. The tile had been chosen by the daughter in law, so we had to make it fit in the room.

It came out stunning, if I do say so myself. Pictures later, as soon as I can figure out how to get them from a text on my phone.

We had the original layout, the layout we first decided to use, the revised layout, and the layout that developed as we were laying tile out on the floor. The actual laying of tile is easy. The prep work will kill you.

But I suppose it is like everything else in this world; the job itself is easy; its the prep work for the job that is hard.

Once we had the layout, then we had to center it on the room- left and right, and front to back, then determine our layout lines. The other hard part is the first thing anybody will see is just inside the door. And that is where you stop laying tile; not start. You start back in the hidden corner, and if the hidden corner isn't absolutely perfect, then when you get to the door the tile look like somebody backed a truck up and swept them out of the tailgate.

I had to leave about 9:00 Monday night; I was spent and had to work the next morning. The Boy finished up by himself, until he ran out of tile about 11:00.

This weekend it is finish sanding and paint on the walls and ceiling; install the new sink and sit back to hear the compliments.

And drink beer. Laying tile is not a job you do under the influence.

Day 3 of The Remodel

Today we finish the drywall finishing and start laying the tile floor; should be another busy day.

With luck, I will have enough time and energy to do a real post tomorrow.

And no, that's not our remodel; neither was yesterday's picture.

I ain't got time to take no pictures!