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• The good, the bad, the ugly concerning snail mail’s demise: Each day as I work from my home office, it has always been a nice break to get outside and check to see what’s in the daily “snail mail,” usually [...]
• Changes in newspapers, gadgets reflect radical changes in today’s careers: When we see the way newspapers and other print media are changing radically, we see a reflection of the radical changes in all jobs and careers in our times. What [...]
• Even packaging must be ‘eco-friendly’ or some won’t buy: I’m sure every little bit of “eco-friendly” products and packaging we can create in this crowded world is a good thing. But I was very surprised to read an article [...]
• My respect for these chain store customer service guys grew: I have to admit that I’ve never been a fan of a certain Big Box national franchise that sells electronics and entertainment products. (I won’t name them, but their store [...]
• Consumer spending lags, but what about job creation?: Shopping, retail sales, consumer spending — all these things drive economic recovery. But the most significant crisis all of us get hit by during a recession is the loss of [...]
• Did shoppers do their job over holiday shopping season?: Did all you shoppers out there do what you needed to do during the just-ended holiday shopping season to get us out of this recession? Well, did you? No? Why [...]
• Keeping busy for the holidays? You bet!: I don’t know about you, but these holidays (holi-daze??) times are keeping me as busy as a guy looking for vitamins for hair growth. Okay, I know that’s probably a [...]
• Newspapers rapidly losing battle to online world: It’s no wonder newspapers are rapidly losing the battle to continue publication, when you consider how limited print media is and ask yourself why advertisers would want to pay for [...]
• Health care battles remind me of my brief insurance ‘career’: All the sound and fury about health care insurance and health care reform takes me back to a younger, more innocent time when I thought it would be good to [...]
• Have you done that ‘early’ Christmas shopping yet?: I have one or two friends who are among those annoying people who buy Christmas presents as early as July or August. They keep sort of a running mental list [...]
• Looking for weight loss miracles — still looking …: I have to confess that I’ve spent much of my life looking for two types of miracles, 1) quick and easy ways to make money, and, 2) quick and easy [...]
• Parents: Beware of school related scams: I saw a television newscast last evening about a phone scam that played upon some parents’ desires to help their students score high on college entrance exams. In this case, [...]
• Shades of Love Canal — upstate New York residents sue IBM over dumping: You may or may not remember the horror felt nationwide back in the late 1970s over the decades some chemical companies spent creating a toxic mattress of waste blanketing the [...]
• Cautious signs recession may be ending, but jobs still lagging: I’ve read a number of stories and reports online and off-line (yes, in the “real” daily newspaper I still read most days) in which economists are saying there are cautious [...]
• Tiny bit of good news about U.S. housing market in June stats: There seems to be at least a tiny bit of good news about the U.S. housing market showing up in government stats for June. The devastated housing markets of the [...]
• Obama blasts Chrysler investors, stands behind company’s workers: I was fascinated at the little I caught of the President’s news conference today in which he blasted some of the Chrysler debt-holders and openly stated he was standing behind [...]
• More from the recession front lines: Even luxury car sales are declining: Alas, economic hard times are even hitting luxury car manufacturers and sales, according to an online article I read recently at a Tampa Bay area newspaper website. (You remember newspapers, [...]
• Are you a key loser? Try ‘The Ultimate Key Finder’ for your problem: Are you the sort of person who constantly loses your keys, or the TV remote? Try “The Ultimate Key Finder” as a solution for your problem. The Ultimate Key Finder [...]
• Technology may eliminate most of the newspapers for this guy to read: I suppose in a world where high-tech UGG boots have pretty much replaced the craftsmanship of hand-made footwear, and now various hand-held electronic gadgets are threatening to replace (HA!) real [...]
• Economic crunch hurting, or are you flying under the radar so far?: So, is the economic crunch hurting you and/or your family, or are you flying under the radar so far? Certainly the state of the economy here in the U.S. and [...]
• Helpful information about why, how The Fed is handling economic crises: The CBS show “60 minutes” has a great interview and feature going on as I write this with Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. Very revealing, and it helps understand why the [...]
• Sad news when a major local bakery closes down: I’m sure, unless you live in or near Springfield, Missouri, the news that a major local bakery here is closing means little to you. But for the last 30 years, [...]
• Don’t you just love when companies send you unwanted memberships?: Don’t you just love it when some company sends you an unwanted membership — usually a free membership to something only marginally useful and with some “catches” that require you [...]
• Hard times hitting Big Apple tourism, hotel industry: Hard times are hitting the Big Apple tourism and hotel industry for 2009, reflecting in one more way the impact of the current worldwide Recession we are living through. This [...]
• Webmasters out there: What do you know about conversion rates?: I just finished a post vowing to get off the religion thing, so when you see a phrase like “conversion rate optimization” here, don’t panic. I’m NOT talking about religious [...]
• My best lame advice for investing in the stock market — or not: I’m not much of a financial guy. I HATED the mandatory “economics” class I was required to take those many years ago in high school. (Oddly, I loved history and [...]
• Seems to me that Bush, Obama would both prefer moving now: I’ve forgotten now which public official — maybe a Senator? Congressman? — I saw in a news clip on CNN yesterday, but he was actually suggesting we might want to [...]
• Good news for coffee lovers: Brazilian crop looking pretty good: I’m sitting here looking out at a drizzle on a chilly day in the Ozarks. We’re being told we might see our first mixed rain/snow of the season overnight tonight. [...]
• Instead of products — how do you shop for SERVICES?: Continuing with the consumerism theme — do you value or price services in the same way you consider products? Or do you look differently at buying a service? If you [...]
• Price or quality? Which is more important to you as a consumer?: Just how do you and I, as consumers, put “value” on items we purchase? From automobiles to faucets, why are we willing to pay considerably more money for one item [...]
• Who’s going to bail out U.S. automakers now?: If it’s true that tough times call for tough people, then I hope those who work in the U.S. automobile industry are high on the toughness scale. Amazingly, the government [...]
• Do you trust the stock market? How about with your vacation?: No, I don’t mean you should put your vacation plans and vacation money into the stock market. Although, with stock prices so low, if you have some extra bucks this [...]
• May we all be blessed these days with good jobs, economic stability: Something I saw on television yesterday started me thinking about various odd jobs, even “dirty,” i.e., sloppy or nasty or messy jobs, which I’ve had over the years. I haven’t [...]
• Lipstick lady did all right in VP debate, I thought: Despite all the silliness since Gov. Palin was named Sen. McCain’s running mate, she and Sen. Biden were able to put much of it behind them and give us a [...]
• What, really, is the best treatment for our economic crises?: With all the talk of the failed bailout, someone needs to ask the question — What, really, is the best treatment for our economic crises? In my family, someone very [...]
• Certainly interesting to hear responses to failure of ‘bailout’ bill: I must say, watching a lot of CNN reports yesterday and today, that it’s certainly interesting to hear the many responses to the failure of that economic “bailout” bill. Many [...]
• We really must come to our senses regarding oil drilling: We really must come to our senses regarding oil drilling. Am I the only person in the world who understands that opening restricted U.S. areas to oil exploration and drilling [...]
• Gotta love those insurance companies, don’t you? Maybe not so much: The world is full of sad stories about insurance and the way it often fails people when they need it most. I worked for a few years typing denial letters [...]
• Credit cards boost economy while hurting some people economically: Credit cards, what you gonna do with ‘em?? Nothing like the current economic “hard times” to make us feel both the blessings and the bane of using credit cards. Personally, [...]
• Does it REALLY make sense to use food products for alternative fuels?: A year or two ago, everyone where I live was excited about the prospects of a plant opening nearby to produce ethanol fuel from corn. Ethanol, as I’m sure you [...]
• Most of America’s homeowners hope for ‘Fannie’ and ‘Freddie’ to stay well: I know very little about mortgages, mortgage lenders, and the whole mortgage industry. We’ve lived in the same old house (built in 1911, I think?) since 1980. Although we’ve refinanced [...]
• Online shopping has changed the way we shop for many things, hasn’t it?: I’ve made two or three recent purchases online in recent weeks — in both cases, I bought books. In one instance, I found a great price on a used copy [...]
• World’s nations simply won’t get serious about tackling world climate problems: I remember how amazed I was as a kid to see one of the NASA launches canceled because there were storm clouds within X number of miles of the Florida [...]
• How about a nice inflatable boat? There’s an idea that might float: Everything I know about inflatable boats I pretty much learned from various comedy skits where people bumble around and accidentally inflate one in a small closet, or small bedroom, or [...]
• Wheat prices, oil prices near all-time highes — no wonder it costs so much to live: Waaaayyy back in the Dark Ages — okay, it was actually 1991 — I had a small amount of money to invest in an obsession I had developed. Wheat futures [...]
• Would you believe — 63,000 lost their jobs during February??: So, really — do they make up these unemployment numbers as they go along and try to change them to look better? Or is there an honest system of statistics [...]
• How to reward utilities customers who conserve — raise their rates, of course: I live in the third largest city in Missouri, or as we like to call it, the “big city with a small town heart” — or, as I like to [...]
• Somebody out there enlighten me on ‘Net Neutrality’ and ‘Common Cause’: I confess my ignorance. It’s not easy for someone like me, who considers himself to be an informed, liberal Democraty, to admit ignorance on important public and cultural issues, but [...]
• Recession? What recession? More bad news, though, for automakers: I remember the days when manufacturing and heavy industry were what drove America — and the auto industry did a lot of that driving. Today I just read that General [...]
• Microsoft makes huge bid to buyout Yahoo! But is that good or bad?: What do you use to search the Internet? If you said a search engine — you missed my point. I guess a better question would be — what search engine [...]
• New economic aid package on the move, or ‘Once upon a time…’: Am I the only one who’s not jumping happily up and down clapping my hands with glee at the “stipends” or tax rebates reported as part of the plan Bush [...]
• Oh joy — get ready for some free money out of Washington: I just read a story about President Bush’s call for a $140 billion bail out for the economy. I’m sorry, I meant $140 billion “economic aid package.” Forgive my hysteria. [...]
• Tribute to a toy marketing genius — ‘Wham-O’ cofounder Kerr dies at 82: When I was a kid, there were two or three toys I absolutely loved. One was the slingshot — my homemade version, of course; we were too poor to buy [...]
• When I was a kid, we didn’t need no stinking rechargeable batteries: Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, many years before Al Gore invented the Internet, we never needed no stinking rechargeable batteries — which would be a [...]
• Look who may be No. 1 in world automakers — hint: Japan makes the best cars: Let’s step back from the world of politics to an interesting business story, shall we? According to a report just released online by the International Herald Tribune, Toyota appears likely [...]
• Congratulations and thanks for nothing — oil hits $100 a barrel mark: Apparently, we are living in truly historic times — for the first time ever, light, sweet crude oil hit the $100 a barrel mark in trading today. What a way [...]
• Can we really protect the ‘integrity’ of Major League Baseball — or any pro sport?: Big surprises in the report on steroid use and the use of “performance enhancing drugs” in Major League Baseball, eh? — NOT! I wonder how many years we want to [...]
• Wow, there goes another American computer industry ‘icon’ — CompUSA to shut doors: I can remember not many years ago — okay, it doesn’t seem that many to ME! — when CompUSA stores were the place to go for cutting edge computer stuff. [...]
• Shame on all of us for being so gullible online: According to a Washington Post story, everyone from local business to large corporations are feeling the heat from disgruntled customers who spread the word about they’re dissatisfaction through the Internet. [...]