I have more than a passing interest in Venezuela. In the 1960’s I lived there for three years. In the 1960’s Venezuela was the shining light of South America. It was not only prosperous but it had its first successful democratic elections. There was a growing middle class. A good description of the economy would be the statement made famous by President Kennedy, “A rising tide lifts all boats”. The job opportunities and life style for the average Venezuelan were better than the rest of South America. Since President Chávez assumed power, the country has been in constant decline. You can describe his time in power as a lot of sizzle but no steak. There have been food shortages and power outages that can only be attributed to government mismanagement. Although the Los Angeles Times headline says, “President Hugo Chavez, hero to Venezuela’s poor, is dead”, he has not been very good to the poor if his policies failed to put food on the shelves. Maybe this time they will get a president and government who are more competent.
Author: bill
Savings I Can Actually Use
Last week I took a closer look at T-Mobile’s two cell phone plans. As a long time T-Mobile user with four lines on our family plan, I have very little interest in switching plans. One of the primary reasons people switch carriers is to get a new phone but I just don’t need one right now and my old G2 is doing just fine. However I am very interested in ways to lower my cell bill and that is where T-Mobile’s new plan fits in. It is called the Value plan and it looks like it will save me $30 each month while providing us with slightly more services. I have unlimited texting now! 
Now I can bug my son with texts even more!
For a better explanation of the two plans you should read Jessica Dolcourt’s article on www.cnet.com, T-Mobile’s ‘Value’ plan beats ‘Classic’ any day
Why Is My Electric Bill Not Lower?
When I looked at my most recent electric bill I was dismayed to see expensive it was. Most of the increase can be attributed to higher electrical rates but a significant portion can be attributed to colder weather. With all of this talk about global warming, it is not showing up on my bottom line. That got me to thinking. What is the trend for heating degree days and is there a significant correlation between heating degree days and carbon dioxide?
To partly answer these questions I went back to NOAA’s Climate at a Glance site for heating degree data. I downloaded the heating degree data for December, January, and February and added them together as a numerical value for the heating season. Next I combined it with the CO2 data since 1958, ran it through the R’s Performance Analytics package, and got this chart. Like my previous chart for temperature and CO2 we can see that correlation between CO2 and heating degree days is weak. If we look at the trend line for the heating degree days in the bottom left hand corner and compare it to the chart above it, we can see they are going in different directions. CO2 is definitely going up with time while the trend for heating degree days is flat. Once again the argument that CO2 is causing climate change looks weak.
Why are we not seeing more inflation?
I got my latest Duke Energy bill and added to my spreadsheet to analyze the cost increases. In 2013 we spent an additional $338 compared to last year. Some of the cost increase can be attributed to 18% more heating days than last year but about $200 of this increase is a result of higher electrical distribution costs. So far 2013 I have seen higher home and health insurance costs, higher income taxes, and higher electrical costs. Although my health insurance is more expensive, the costs are still covered by my HRA at work. I have not seen any costs that have come in lower than last year. Hmm…
In Search of Great Coffee, Part I
Every morning I start off with a latte and following with one or two cups of coffee from a French Press. Like most people I guess how many tablespoons of coffee I should be using and then move it up or down based on how it tastes. Although I thought my current coffee was okay, it was not restaurant quality. Since I had a good grinder, fresh beans, and good coffee brewing equipment I was disappointed. Recently I saw an article in Americas Test Kitchen that reviewed coffee makers. When they talked about the optimum ratio of coffee to water, I had an “Aha!” moment. If I wanted a good cup of coffee, I needed to measure my coffee more precisely.
Since I had a scale that could measure low weights accurately, I decided to see how grams of coffee went into my coffee scoop. I was shocked to find out that it held 6 grams of coffee. For some reason I thought it was bigger. For my first coffee experiment I tried making my latte with two scoops. It was tricky to attach my portafilter to the espresso maker without spilling. The espresso was excellent. My days of drinking singles are over.
My next experiment was with some Kroger private branded coffee, Seattle Dark Roast. It was my emergency purchase after the grinder failed and had a medium to medium fine grind. A coarser grind would have been preferable for a French Press but beggars cannot be choosy. For this experiment I used thirty grams since I was working with a medium grind. The coffee had a little more sediment in the bottom of the cup than I am accustomed to but it was a nice strong cup of coffee.
Is Walmart’s quarter atrocious?
From Yahoo Finance we get a story that calls Walmart’s quarter atrocious. When I heard Bloomberg’s discussion on the report this morning, they had a more positive view on the report. Here is what Yahoo Finance says.
Walmart is seeing what’s called a pronounced pay check cycle. That means store traffic spikes twice monthly when most people get paid. That speaks to a strapped consumer that lacks the confidence to spend unless they literally have cash in their pocket. Living paycheck to paycheck isn’t something you typically see in the fourth year of an economic recovery.There’s a limited pool of winners from Walmart’s weakness but they do exist. Sozzi thinks Amazon (AMZN) and Best Buy (BBY) of all companies may have picked up some of the sales Walmart didn’t get, but that’s not a ton of comfort.
"The big theme: they can’t get any margin, they have no pricing power and the consumer is not going to the store as much as they used to," says Sozzi.
Although the small business I work for has not seen the pay check cycle in our orders, we have seen in February that both the number of orders and the average order amount is smaller than last year. After several months of slightly positive year to year comparisons in February we swung to a slightly negative comparison. It is not pretty but it is not the end of world either. Walmart is confirming our somewhat pessimistic view of the retail market for 2013.
The Gift Horse: Obamacare
There is an old saying, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. It is supposed to mean that you should not be ungrateful when you receive gifts. This saying was more relevant when horses were an essential part of our economy. In today’s economy it has a new meaning. As a horse person I can say that horses are easy to get and hard to get rid of. They are very expensive pets so we do not want to go there. Killing horses when they are no longer useful is an unpleasant but necessary business. As a horse person most deals we have been offered involving gift horses were bad deals and if it did not work you got stuck with killing the horse. Since the justification to expand Medicaid rests almost exclusively on the idea of free federal money, I wish Governor Kasich and Scott good luck with their Medicaid expansions. Medicaid expansion looks like a gift horse.
No, Marco Rubio, government did not cause the housing crisis
Mike Konczal presented a nice rebuttal to Marco Rubio’s claim that the government caused the housing crisis in the post, No, Marco Rubio, government did not cause the housing crisis. Unfortunately both men seem to ignore the first conclusion listed in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report. The Commission laid the blame equally at the feet of captains of finance(i.e. business) and public stewards of our financial system(i.e. government). Although I believe the greed of the American people deserve equal billing in this blame game, here is the Commission’s eloquent explanation of the blame.
We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable.The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire. The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand, and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public. Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble. While the business cycle cannot be repealed, a crisis of this magnitude need not have occurred. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not in the stars, but in us.
Irish Stout beer
irish stout beer, originally uploaded by billhuber.
This is a Irish Stout brew from MidWest Supplies. I thought I screwed this brew up and it came out really nice! Everything was going okay until the outside temperature dropped. So I started moving my carboy around looking for a warmer place that was out of the way. Most of the places I tried were probably too cold and I was worried. When I started bottling my specific gravity came in to high but I went ahead anyway. When I tried to siphon the beer out of the carboy I realized that I broke my siphon the last time I cleaned. I ended up siphoning the old fashion way. So seven weeks after brewing I open a bottle. As you can see I got a wonderful head and a really nice, mellow stout. I purchased a Guiness Stout a couple of months ago for some stew I was making and I was not impressed. This was much better to drink and would be a flavorful addition to browning stew meat.
My State Of The Union
Chris LoCurto asked the following questions in his post, State Of The Union.
If you didn’t watch, what do you think anyway. How is your “State of the Union” as you or your business stands right now? I don’t care which side of the aisle you’re on, I would like to hear your thoughts, and your comments.
I have a long tradition of not watching State of the Union addresses. I disregard this event regardless of the party in power. This week was no different. Like most people who responded to this post we have a much greater interest in our own assessments of our “State of the Union.”
This year my wife and I will have been married thirty years. Like most married couples we had our rough times but for the most part we have been happy. Although I am not looking to growing old in this brave new world she makes my day a little brighter. I cannot imagine doing it without her.
My job and by extension the business I work at are in a more precarious situation. Although my skills as a web developer are in demand, my specific skills with ASP and SQL have a more limited appeal. Although I do not expect a pay raise this year our family finances are strong with a good savings record. Since most of our basic necessities have gone up in price, the challenge for us is how to cut costs elsewhere. An expanded and more productive garden is one of the more attractive areas of opportunity. Each year I have expanded the garden and improved my skills. At this stage of our life our financial plan is focused on saving for retirement and a significant part of the plan for saving for retirement is to stay healthy. Hospitalization or extended illness could easily extinguish our savings. With our continued good health and affordable health insurance, we can continue and possibly accelerate our savings for retirement. So far the Affordable Care Act and the Individual Mandate has not caused the dramatic increase in insurance premiums in the individual insurance market that many have predicted.
The bad news is that the business I work at has declined significantly from four years ago. The good news is that the decline stopped last year and we showed a small increase over the previous year. Our sales seem to follow national retail sales figures so our sales forecast for next year is for small gains. In this scenario our business will be playing a zero-sum game with our competitors. The market is not big enough to afford marketing or inventory mistakes. Although we are a small business who competes with Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowes on some products I do not expect much of change. It probably is not profitable segment for them and it will take a lot of work to expand their modest efforts. Price, product selection, and having the “right” inventory in stock always separates the men from the boys. Our strong financial condition combined with better better marketing and inventory management in our market niche should allow us to take market share from our competitors who are not up to the task. You snooze, you lose!