I tell the lady that I don’t have my ID but my Corporate Badge is hanging from my belt (with my name AND picture on it) but says the store policy is to see drivers license.   I say, “Oh well, it’s not my loss it’s yours” and I walk out.

Frustrated, I head over to Costco to buy a compact flash card for my digital camera for my upcoming vacation trip.  I pickup the placard for the item I want and head over the checkout.  It dawns on me that I still don’t have my drivers license but I can’t remember if Costco checks or not so I proceed.   She scans my credit card, charges the items then asks for my ID!   I tell her that I don’t have it with me and she says, “do you have anything with your picture on it?”

I show her my corporate badge with my name, employer, and picture on it and she says, “that’s good enough.”

Now I understand fraud at retail outlets is pretty bad but to apply blanket policies without thinking the process through is pretty stupid.   I guess it is possible that a ring of fraudsters are dressing up like executives and heading over to retail outlets like Lowes and loading up on $60 in garden tools with stolen credit cards to make out like bandits but the premise of the story is fairly implausible.    The difference between the brain dead Lowe’s employees with poor training and the Genius Costco employees is fairly obvious in this example.   Perhaps the Costco employee violated a policy but I am more inclined to believe that she is allowed to make a judgment call and made the determination that someone dressing up in a business attire, heading to the shop during lunch hours for a single item wasn’t out to rip the company off.

I also know how these policies get implemented because I’ve sat in board rooms with idiot Vice Presidents of Risk Management and their like where they come up with these inane blanket policies that irritate and drive customers away.    This is how it goes:

CEO: “We’re losing revenue to fraud, we need to do something about it!”

VP Risk: “I got a brilliant idea, we’ll make mandatory ID checks on all credit card purchases, that should do the trick!”

CEO: “Ok, it’s your call if you think that will help!”

And here’s the reality:

CEO: “We’re losing revenue to upset customers walking away from our stupid and inane policies!”

VP Risk: “Yeah but fraud is down….”

The absolute biggest irony here is that the Lowe’s clerk asked if I had a DEBIT card to pay for the purchases!   I can only surmise that if I were a thief and using a stolen debit card (along with the pin) that the loss would be on the customer not on Lowe’s because that’s the only way I can imagine this policy allows for presumably stolen debit card customers walk away with merchandise while the opposite is true for credit cards.

So the moral of the story is Lowe’s is now on my shitlist/blacklist of company’s I won’t do business with for a while and I only went there because it was nearby the office.   I’ll stop at Home Depot this evening and pick up the items there.    By the way, Home Depot always asks for ID too but I’ve been there so often the workers actually recognize me when I walk in and they don’t ask anymore.    The Home Depot I visit clearly doesn’t have brain dead employees either.

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This past weekend, I started a project to implement a 56 square foot garden box to grow veggies this season, I purchased some items at Home Depot and overheard the manager tell an associate that they were beating all of their sales targets.   I have to give it to Home Depot, the service there has DRAMATICALLY improved and I’ve been going back more often since the people are so helpful.  Almost all the items I purchased this past visit were loaded onto a trolley by helpful sales associates and they even loaded the heavy cinder blocks, soil and other items into my truck for me.

I’ve been heading out to lunch with co-workers a few days out of the week and I’ve been shocked at how packed some of the restaurants are during lunch.  It would seem that the “fear factor” is diminishing a bit and while there are still plenty of problems and potential pitfalls with the economy, there is anecdotal evidence that things are getting a wee bit better.   Where we go from here is anyone’s guess….

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1. We have seen maybe 10% of the movies that are up for Oscars and there was a time when I watched almost every movie that came out of Hollywood.   Of course, we were much younger back then with little or no time commitments or obligations so watching a movie was fairly easy to do.   Unfortunately between work and kid demands we simply can’t make it to the movie theater too often and the experience pretty much sucks now anyway.

2. The movie stars all seem to be getting older and uglier or perhaps the fact that I’m watching in HDTV and the stars aren’t as heavily makeup’d with the perfect lighting that’s making me wonder.  Oh yeah and there were so many bad make up jobs too!

3. While we were watching the Oscars we really weren’t watching it.   We were all on our laptops doing different things while watching the Oscars as a “secondary” venue.   I was blogging, wife on Facebook, son watching movie trailes on iTunes…..we watch a clip of the Oscars and tune out for the commercials, TV advertising is so dead.

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Today my kids have 500+ channels of TV, video on demand, music on demand on streaming on high speed network connection displayed on HDTV.   My kids have iPods that house movies, music, and a variety of games.     My kids have high speed internet and access to multiple computers in the house which include 5 laptops and two desktops. My kids have portable Nintendo DS as well as a Nintendo Wii.   My kids have a half dozen board games including at least four variations of Monopoly, Operation, various card games, and a garage full of gear: bikes, razors, basketball, soccer ball, badminton, swimming gear and camping gear.   Where I went on two vacations in 18 years, my kids have visited at least 40 locations worldwide and they’re still not teenagers yet.

My kids generally receive between $200 to $400 cash on birthdays and other holidays not to mention a ton of toys and other goods and gift cards.  I often compare and contrast the life I had and the life they have and stand in sheer amusement that no matter how much or how little you have, sometimes life can seem boring.

Whenever the kids ask for something I tell them the same thing, “You’ll play with it for a few days then it’ll sit on a shelf until we give it away to some charity.”  My son recently asked for an ipod touch and asked him why he didn’t buy one with his own money.  He really didn’t have an answer other than he wanted me to spend the money instead of him.  I asked him if he knew what would happen if I bought the thing for him and he said, “I’ll play with it for 5 minutes then get bored with it.”   I smiled at him and nodded.

We’ll be headed off on a skiing vacation trip soon and I know the kids won’t be bored.  At the end of the day, all that really matters is that they get to spend time with mom and dad.   All the toys and other garbage really don’t mean much to them and they are finally learning that lesson on their own.    The consumer economy and demographic is quickly changing and I hope it is for the better.

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Even today, the Nasdaq is below 50% of the peak value and there are no signs of the Nasdaq climbing back to its former glory.   The next anniversary to look forward to is October 9, 2017 which will herald the 10th anniversary of the Dow which peaked on October 9, 2007 at 14,168.  Yeah, I have a feeling that in 2017 it’ll be at or below 50% of the value so perhaps it’ll be floating around 7k to 8k.   I can’t wait to see if I’m right!

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I actually have the cash to pay off the balance but why do that when it’s at a very low interest rate and there’s no rush?     Next move up trading student loans for mortgage debt

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This poor woman has contributed $100,000 under the false assumption that her grand kids college education would be taken care of but now the state is struggling to keep up and finding all sorts of loop holes to not fulfill their obligations.  Hmmm…..sound familiar?

Patti Lambert wanted to pay the college tuition for her eight grandchildren. So for the past 16 years, the real-estate agent signed onto the state of Alabama’s prepaid tuition program. She invested more than $100,000—a daunting amount but a good deal because the prepaid plan promises to cover tuition no matter how much it increases.

Or so she thought. Facing a severe funding shortfall, Alabama is trying to renege on its promise to foot the whole bill. Instead, the state wants to pay the average tuition rate, potentially forcing schools and families to make up any difference.

When my wife and I first got married, we went through our finances and my wife showed me some contributions she was making to a similar program for her younger sister.  I immediately told her to quit paying it and request a refund.  She got all of her money back and we put it in savings.   I told my wife that when the time came, we would help her out as much as we could but that ultimately the plan wasn’t going to work.   A few years after the state froze the program and significantly modified the plan, making many people unhappy.    My sister in law graduates this May and my wife’s been helping her along the way with tuition and other items.

I’m still waiting for the day when the exact same thing happens to social security and at the current rate of disintegration that should only be a few years away.

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Actually this is the first year I didn’t exercise options, cash out stock, or rake in huge bonuses during the past year.   The only “earned income” I had was unemployment insurance from the state.    What really helped were all the freaking tax deductions:  my entire MBA tuition saved me a cool $2200,  student loan interest saved me some money, etc.   The only regret is that I didn’t wait a little longer to buy a car.  I purchased a new car in 2008 and if I had waited another year, I could have saved another a few k in taxes.  Wow, what a great tax return that would have been!   If I had bought a new house that might have been another 8k.  Sometimes, timing is everything!

Oh well, I’m expecting to be back in the higher tax bracket this year so I’m sure I’ll owe Uncle Sam a few thousand this time next year but at least I can buy a new LCD TV finally

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Let me be clear about a few things:

1. There are some huge fundamental structural problems with the US economy which still need to be solved.

2. There are huge liabilities that need to be dealt with such as pensions, social security, medicaid/medicare, et al.

As bad as things are, they are going to be obviously worse in Europe, Asia, South America and anywhere in Africa.   Let’s take a look at just a few articles that have come out this week.

First up, this article in the Chicago Sun Times with the headline,

‘Doomsday is here for the state of Illinois’

How does that headline grab you?  Oh no!  Doom and Gloom!  The article reads,

To become solvent, the state must enact the largest tax-increase package in Illinois history, whack another $2 billion from already starved government programs and wrest major financial concessions from the state’s unionized work force, a nonpartisan government watchdog contends.

Next up, we have this article from the UK’s Observer, it starts with this headline,

“Americans stock up to be ready for end of the world”

The article reads,

Tess Pennington, 33, is a mother of three children, and lives in the sprawling outskirts of Houston, Texas. But she is not taking the happy safety of her suburban existence lightly.

Like a growing army of fellow Americans, Pennington is learning how to grow her own food, has stored emergency rations in her home and is taking courses on treating sickness with medicinal herbs.

There are tons of articles pointing out bankruptcies, commercial real estate problems, sovereign defaults and other rigmarole.   Check out this article on the “gloom and doom” in breakfast sales:

Fast-food breakfast sales decline as fewer head to work

The nation’s high unemployment rate has thrown millions of people out of work, scared shoppers away from stores and threatened the economic recovery. Now it’s taking a bite out of breakfast.

Breakfast sales had grown at a ravenous pace during the boom years as busy workers scarfed down sausage biscuits on the way to the office, fueling a $57 billion business and accounting for as much as a quarter of sales at some fast-food chains. Chains opened earlier and expanded their morning menus to accommodate the traffic as lunch and dinner sales flatlined.

Do you remember this classic bubble top?

2005

Life, like bubbles, is a pendulum that swings BOTH ways.   I’ve been looking for this moment since this post in October 2008 and it’s almost here.   The more the media pumps gloom and doom articles the more I know we’re close to the absolute bottom.   Given the 20% inflation pricing in the energy markets, I’d say we’re gearing up for the roaring teen’s  and roaring twenties (2013 – 2025) and this teenage economy has raging hormones!    Don’t be a fool and jump the gun, cautious optimism is now warranted!

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If you’re not familiar with careening, here’s a quick primer:

As is well known, as ships cruise the ocean, their bottoms quickly become covered with barnacles. These barnacles affected the ships speed and mobility. These two characteristics were highly respected among pirate captains, for they knew above everything else that if they were to be pursued in would be speed and mobility that would save them above any amount of firepower they might possess.

Barnacles posed another problem. If they were not removed, periodically, they would also cause irreparable damage to the hull by eating away the wood or weakening the seems between planks. This meant that if the ship were at sea, far from land, it could go down. The threat of barnacles was taken very seriously.

Often ships are dry docked after a long ocean voyage, in order that the hull can be scraped free of barnacles and repaired.

Pirate rarely had the opportunity to dry dock. When a ship could not be dry docked, sailors had to devise other ways to clean the bottom. It was practically impossible to clean the bottom of a ship while in the water. The best alternative was careening.

Careening involved finding a suitable shallow bay where the ship could safely be run aground, thus exposing as much of the hull above the water line as possible. Then the ship would be unloaded as much as possible. The crew would then need to careen or turn the ship over on one side using block and tackle, and manpower.

The crew would try to pull the ship over enough to expose the keel or bottom of the ship. Then they would commence scraping that side of the ship, free of any barnacles. Then any damaged planks would be replaced or repaired. Following this step, if possible the bottom of the ship would be covered with paint, pitch or some kind of proctectant.

Once the one side was done, the crew would careen the ship to the other side and repeat the process.

The task was labor intensive and time consuming. Pirates were sitting ducks while careening their ship. They were often not armed well enough to stand a major ground assault and with their ship run aground they could not take on another ship.

So Barnacle Ben is careening the Federal Reserve (a.k.a Titanic) and this pirate is going to make himself vulnerable on multiple fronts:  the economy, banks, Goldman Sachs traders, grand standing politicians, and perhaps the world.    In the meantime, I’m hoping to cash in on my UUP call options

Aarrrrrr matees!

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