cranky investor's rants and raves

The Death of the Aspirational Buyer

2010-01-08T04:25:00.001-08:00

The Death (or Disappearance)
of the

Aspirational Buyer

Our friend just found out that when her Lexus 350 lease is over next month, the best she can afford to replace it with is a Toyota Corolla, given her deteriorating credit score. Her administrative job is still there at the office park, but she knows that they've stopped hiring and some departments are cutting staff. She's just had "the talk" with her daughter about the difference in costs between SUNY Albany (or Penn State) and Boston U. and made it clear that she can't sign for an additional $200k for private college over a state school. Her 401(k) is in shreds, as most of it was in her own employer's stock. Her husband's commissions are down 35 percent from two years ago when they refinanced the house to add the granite-clad kitchen with the "professional" six-burner oven (very useful for reheating Chinese take-out). The easy-to-afford mortgage on their house is being reset next month, and while her payments aren't going up much, she knows quite well that it's now greater than her neighbor got for the same house next door. And, to top it off, her parents stopped those annual gifts of 10 or 20 thousand dollars because the only estate problems they're left with is staying in their home.

So don't expect to see her at Saks for a while, or at Nieman, or at the shoe dep't of Nordstroms. She's either "shopping in her closet" or running into Kohl's in the next town (so no one will see her). And, to her great surprise, her 12 year old son doesn't mind getting his school clothes at Target.

limitations of electric-only autos.doc

2010-01-06T02:41:00.001-08:00

Limitations of the Electric-only personal or family car

The idea that an all-electric car, dependent solely on recharging its batteries and unable to rely on the infrastructure of filling stations to provide power on longer trips, will be more than a sideshow may well be the business folly of this century.

Worldwide, the driving public has come to rely on the auto as a versatile tool of mobility - fulfilling the daily commuting and errand-running tasks while at the same time available for overnight or long-distance trips. While many drivers have the luxury of secured parking adjacent to their own electric supply, many others don't. Urban drivers who park on the streets, suburban occupants of garden apartment complexes, people who park in attended or unattended garages, students on campuses, etc. all leave their cars overnight at a distance from their own homes. Others, traveling salesmen, routemen, etc. spend nights in different motels, with or without secure parking. Still others, mainly recreational users, take their cars to locations which are intrinsically lacking in recharging facilities - a mountain stream, the beach, remote desert locations, etc.

Many drivers routinely use their cars for long drives where they only want to stop for the 5 minutes it takes to refuel, their auto, drain their kidneys, and get a fresh coffee (with or without the greaseburger). Whatever car they use for the daily commute, they expect it to be versatile enough to accommodate them on these longer trips - for business, family, recreation, or sheer wanderlust. Many of these trips are not optional from a personal or family standpoint - the weekly trip to help a sick relative, the out-of-town temporary job assignment coupled with maintaining family integrity, moving-in-or-out kids' at college dorms, etc. which can only be accomplished with a private auto within the allocated time.

None of these people can expect to be accommodated by an electric-only vehicle; they need the flexibility to make their own schedules, to come and go when necessary, and to "drive through the night" and return to work the next day. To assume that buyers will look to preclude use of a vehicle for any of the above situations (or the myriad of similar ones that haven't been mentioned) and to assume that they will continue to use the vehicle for its entire service life without need to rely on gas stations leaves a pretty narrow audience.

The intrinsic value of the general purpose auto has always been its versatility. The horror of the electric-only car is its complete and total abdication of status as a multipurpose tool for living, and the loss of personal freedom that has been the linchpin of the mass appeal of private autos since the 1927 introduction of the Ford Model A.

the shopper who lost her way

2009-08-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Once again she didn't show up at Nieman, Saks, or Nordstroms; you remember her quite fondly, but you won't be seeing much of her for a while, maybe for much of the next decade.
She was a middle-class woman with the need to convince herself that she was entitled to some luxury in her life. She'd take care of the family at the mid-priced stores like Macy's or even Penneys; then she'd go to the "ritzier" end of the mall, have a latte, and shop for herself at the shoe dep't of Nordstroms (oh, do they sell shoes!) or wander through Saks looking for the one item that would make her day, make her feel special.

She just found out that when her Lexus 350 lease is over in July, the best she can afford to replace it with is a Toyota Corolla, given her deteriorating credit score. Her job is still there at the office park, but she's heard that they've stopped hiring and some departments are cutting staff. She's just had the "talk" with her daughter about the difference in costs between SUNY Albany (or Penn State) and Boston U. and made it clear that she can't sign for an additional $150k for private college over a state school. Her 401(k) is in shreds, as most of it was in her own employer's stock. The mortgage on their house is being reset next month, and while her payments aren't going up much, she knows quite well that it's now greater than her neighbor got for the same house next door. And, to top it off, her parents stopped those annual gifts of 10 or 20 thousand dollars because the only estate problems they're left with is staying in their home.

So don't expect to see her at Saks for a while, or at Nieman, or at the shoe dep't of Nordstroms. She's either "shopping in her closet" or running into Kohl's in the next town (so no one will see her). And, to her great surprise, her 12 year old son doesn't mind getting his school clothes at Target.

She won't be back for a while.

this is mine

2008-09-10T12:03:00.001-07:00

McCain for Rich, White, Offiecer-material Underdog

2008-06-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

Once again, the embedded GOP operative has vented against democrats for the sins of her own hero. If there was ever an abandonment of centrism, it's the transformation of McCain - from hero to zero:

Not all of us believe that McCain is the "great American hero"; but most will agree that he manages to speak in a decidedly non-politician (not non-political) manner. Sometimes this translates into appearing like a genuine, independent-minded political maverick; other times he just looks like a buffoon - "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" comes to mind all too often.

Yet, there is about him which resonates with voters who are tired of the starched, messaged and massaged suits which seem cut from the same country-club, pricey-lunch GOP lobbyist crowd. He comes across as authentic, even when his demeanor is like someone's old uncle who had to put on a suit for a niece's wedding, but otherwise spends his time fixing his boat engine in the backyard. It's that look, feel, taste and smell which has made him far less offensive to the general populace, even when his positions are as reactionary as Trent Lott or the late Strom Thurmond, or as warlike as Gammal Abdul Nasser.

Yet, he is now being called upon to pronounce his fealty to the supposed ghosts of Reagan, and proclaim allegiance to the orthodoxy of the "conservative" or radical-right agenda on issues from guns to RU-486, from Iran to Alito, and from Roe v. Wade to the beauty and righteousness of waterboarding.

All would be understandable if McCain were standing at the gates of heaven and confessing his sins in anticipation of some post-death redemption. He could then renounce the Satans of bipartisanship and independence of thought and be accepted to the Pantheons of the righteously anointed. But he is doing this at a time when he is being sent out to battle in a fight for the minds and souls of sinners and non-believers. Do these lunatics of the right expect him to carry on this war of thought while standing naked on the battlefield, stripped forever of the one quality - independence - that has kept him in the fight.

Harry and Nancy, Barak, and the Lord Howard of Dean will be watching every gesture, memorizing every word, and dissecting every phrase that is delivered for CPAC. And then they'll put together the TV ads. The flip-flop on immigration; the inconsistent positions on stem-cells; the backsliding on the environment; tax cuts; waterboarding; etc., etc, ad nauseum.

They won't need talking points; they won't need slick campaign demographics; all they need is one debate, one Dukakis moment:
"Senator McCain, if your granddaughter were raped by a gang of escaped convicts and became pregnant, would you criminalize and incarcerate the medical professionals who terminated her pregnancy"?

And then he'll be just another Bob Dole. Truly, this is no country for old men.
_________________

Borscht (or Schav) for Believers

2008-06-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

Borscht (or Schav) for Believers

This is the way to enable the Colombian coffee and the Indonesian tea drinkers to evolve into borscht and schav* mavens. The first is to introduce the art of slicing in vegetables, mostly cucumbers but also some diced red radishes and chives or scallion shoots. Then, there is the issue of a hard-boiled egg. Some say it should be sliced with a hard-boiled-egg slicer, the kind that mom had in a kitchen drawer with the rubber band collection and the old manual can & bottle opener. Others, mainly from the “Catskill-Rockaway Vacation School” propound a theory that the egg should be fork-mashed right into the bowl of cold soup, or on a side dish and then pushed into the mixture.

But, the most significant stumbling block for the modern borscht-schav enthusiast revolves around the issue of a dairy garnish. Traditional households would add a dollop of pure sour cream – highest fat content this side of pork belly – to the bowl; suddenly, what might have been a healthy lunch is now a ticket to a meeting with Dr. Cardio-Bypass. Evolved man, with his wife controlling the shopping list, is now consigned to fat-free yogurt as a substitute; it’s not as good, but at least the better yogurts get the overall color right.

The remaining issue to be resolved is the boiled potato accompaniment. Our position is that it should be presented on the side in small, uneven chunks of potato boiled until almost a paste; when added to the cold soup it should act in part as garnish and filler and, in part, as thickener. The bowl, filled with the cold soup, egg, vegetable, and potato, is a meal, particularly if served with a thick slice or two of black bread or seeded rye; follow it with a cup of coffee or a glass of ice coffee, and you’ve created a bit of Jewish heaven on a Tuesday afternoon.

________________

*Schav is a cold soup made of sorrel leaves; a Polish-Jewish vichyssoise. While the jar variety leaves a bit to be desired, it is a useable reference point to determine whether your homemade variety is even close.

"beer baroness druggie gets favorable treatment for drug thefts";

2008-06-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

"beer baroness druggie gets favorable treatment for drug thefts";

Cindy McCain keeps to the background because she has yet to answer for the favorable treatment she received, skipping any real prosecution and avoiding all but a minor slap on the wrist. Her direct involvement in the Keating 5 also led to John McCain getting off a lot easier than his colleagues. When she does open her mouth she'll sound just like another candidates' wife who's financed her war-hero husband's political career with her family fortune and will wind up an embarrassment to his candidacy - it's just a question of beer v. ketchup.

Old Man McCain

2008-06-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

The only people who would actually love to see McCain elected president are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi; since they are already assured stronger majorities next term, they would become the masters of all things Washington.

All things being equal, the Republicans have already managed to create enough talking points on major policy issues that they will have handed the nomination to another Bob Dole -- a "straight-talking", cantankerous-but-cute relic with as much connection to the voter as Mitt Romney had to the civil rights movement.

As Saint Bill of Hope & Monica said: "It's the economy, stupid", and McCain has admitted that it's his weak point.
National Security: Either Mrs. Bill or O'bama can defuse his national security aura by wrapping themselves with a solid military man like Jim Webb who can articulate the the theories of civilian control over the military and the role of commander-in-chief far better than a man who spent the bulk of his military service in a pow camp. He could also point out most impressively that McCain's extended stay in the Hanoi Hilton was only because the civilians making policy - Nixon & Kissenger - dragged out ending the conflict to protect their own political reps - reminiscent of our current plight. Even if Webb is "pro-life", Dem support can be assured since both Obama and Clinton would be the ones making Supreme Court appointments which is the only real battleground of the abortion issue.
Funding: McCain will be running in states where the other statewide office is being financed by Chuck Schumer's Democratic Senate Campaign Committee - for which either Hillary or Barak are well suited to engage in true mutual support; contrast McCain's already poor-boy campaign financial straights and his need to compete for funds. For the first time,
See 1. Health Care is an economic issue, not a social one. The issues have already been framed by the Dems and while there may be differences between H & B's positions, the untrained eye can't really tell. Running with the need for continued right-wing support, McCain will be forced to adhere to the republican private-sector orthodoxy which will sound pretty lame; most Americans who have health care still hate their HMOs.
He's old; not distinguished, just old. And that wears thin after a while. If he sounds out of touch to a 61 year old accountant, imagine his ability to connect with a 25 year old single mother who's sick of having to negotiate the ins-and-outs of getting day care for her baby so she can work to pay rent. All the time while he's lauding the sacrifices of her brother or boyfriend who may have signed up for the army because it sounded "cool" or because he was promised help with college, but is now on his 2nd or 3rd tour in Iraq, coming home crazier-and-crazier each time she sees him.

McCain's Gas Holiday

2008-05-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

appropriate democratic response:

when you see McCain in Minneapolis at the Republican convention, ask him how many more bridges have to crumble for lack of funding for repairs. then ask if he even knows that the highway gas tax pays for the repairs. then ask why he's running for president instead of "Panderer-in- Chief".

any other response is equally pandering

A cranky manifesto

2007-01-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

who in their right mind would be interested in the ravings of a madman