2011 has begun and so far, it's kicked off exactly as I had hoped. We're swamped with work at the biz. It's mostly general contracting stuff that's keeping us busy. That's not ideal, but we can make money doing the GC stuff. Much better than the days when we weren't turning a profit. Not sure how long this will last, but this is a business where you are at the mercy of the weather.
There's no reason to believe that we aren't profitable again, though.
Not too long and I will be taking the LSAT. Yeah, after all these years, and at my age, I'm contemplating returning to school. Part of it was taking Arabic last fall. It was a real motivator. I won't say that it reminded me that school is fun, because I don't think it is. However, it reminded me that if you stay on top of your studies, you're going to do just fine.
Even if my business does well, I want to diversify my income streams and this is a good way to do it. Law is a profession people can practice well into old age.
Of course, this presumes I'm accepted into a law school, which is pretty far from a foregone conclusion. All I can do is submit my application and take it as it goes.
I had a bit of a crisis of motivation regarding my Navy service for the past few weeks. The travel was wearing me out. Also, the cost of the travel, since it comes out of my own pocket, is a bummer. Granted, I knew that coming in, but the reality of it was heavier than I might have anticipated.
Plus, well... it's starting to feel a lot more like work and a lot less like fun.
I was turning in my paperwork to get my $2,000 bonus for taking Arabic, and had to make a choice. If I submitted the paperwork, I also needed to commit to another 2 years in the reserves.
I'm also disgusted by the state of things in the country right now. Maybe it's always been this corrupt, but as folks know, I feel that the Wall Street bailouts really laid bare just how fairness and equality are only buzzwords we throw around when the monied interests aren't busy robbing us blind.
Am I really willing to die for a country whose number one priority is to make sure that rich people get richer? Seriously, what sort of simpleton sacrifices his life for a country that exists only for the benefit of the wealthy, and where the wealthy are not even willing to sacrifice their quarterly bonuses?
I think this is a crisis of faith. Military service, I have always felt, is a calling much like the clergy. I agree with Dubya when he says that if a person has never had a crisis of faith, that that means the person simply hasn't thought about their faith very much.
Sometimes faith means being unable to reconcile certain things, and simply believing that, on the whole, the good done outweighs any bad. Maybe that's where I am with serving the United States.
I am okay with hitching up for another two years. That's not that long of a time. I've completed 3 years already and it went by in the blink of an eye. I only have 2 more trips to Texas this fiscal year. Once those are done, I will be halfway through my tour with the contracting unit in Fort Worth.
I still stand a chance at mobilization, though clearly the mobilizations are becoming less and less frequent. Once I get my contracting certification, I will be fair game, but a lot can happen. I won't have my certification until next fiscal year. By then, Obama has promised we'll be out of Iraq. All I can do is wait and see.
The future prospects for my reserve career don't look good, though. It's a lot of guys competing for very few billets. For promotion, if I don't mobilize, I'll be behind everybody who did. The odds of me having to fly around at my own expense if I stay in the reserves is pretty good once I get to O-5, and even O-4. (I will be an O-3 in less than a year.)
Still, that's a ways off. I am thinking I'll do a couple more years. I'd like to leave the service as at least an O-3, if I leave. By then, with any luck, the wars will be pretty much completely wound down. They just won't need as many of us.
I joined the military because there were two wars going on and the manpower demands were really hurting the folks who were serving.
Once the wars are over, I will probably beat my sword back into a plowshare and focus on trying to make enough money to put my son through college and put myself through retirement.
In the mean time, life is good. Need more of the same for a while. 2010 was a brutal year in a lot of ways. I hope to be able to return to what life was like in 2008 and 2009. Things were pretty darned perfect back then.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
End of Year Blogpost
The business year is ending on a high note. Got in a bunch of money, most of which was long overdue. All in all, the year was a disaster, but mostly because it was a nasty ride down. Our gross volume literally fell by 50%.
Next year, we're in good shape. Paid off a few notes. So, our monthly cash flow should be a lot better. We also downsized to the bone. We don't even have an office administrator right now. I'm filling that role. Though, if things get better, like I think they should, we'll be hiring one first part of next year.
We've got work on the board, too. Some pretty good stuff. All in all, we may have turned the corner. Even though volume was bitterly disappointing (far worse than anything I could have imagined at this time last year), if we did the same volume next year, the company would be very profitable again. The weather seems to be getting a little more harsh.
It's amazing that I surivived this past year. It was the first real hard bump in the road since I opened my doors. The lesson to take away from all this is that you can't count on a straight 40% growth trajectory, or even for volume to remain consistent from year to year.
I'm looking to make some changes next year. I want to diversify my revenue streams so that a down year in one particular business unit won't necessarily mean pain. Will have to see how it goes.
I am living in the cabin pretty much all the time these days. I call it the cabin because the back yard overlooks a nice wooded ravine. Also, because it's pretty much only 35% or so remodelled at this point. It's like living in a house that's being remodelled.
Half the house looks trashed. One of the bedrooms is 100% done. It's the first room in the house I can say that about, other than the downstairs half-bath. Another two are about 90% there. So far, so good.
Structurally, I feel good about the house, though. We had to fix a problem with some sagging load-bearing beams and everything is 100% right now. It's finally got good bones, though it took a lot of work. My goal is to have this house ready to sell by the time Logan graduates from High School. I figure I'm in Sylvania until then. After that? Who the heck knows.
Logan continues to be an absolute joy. We went skiing twice during his Christmas break and he loves it. Granted, it's not that odd to love skiing. It's about like saying you like amusement parks. It's just something that's generally enjoyable for most folks.
We drove a couple of hours away to a ski slope that's supposed to be a lot nicer than the one we went to last year. It really was better. However, it's all of a 2 hour drive. The other place is less than an hour. So, for day-trips, it makes sense to go to the closer place.
If possible, I may see if I can get Logan for a few days and use the time to visit his grandma in Akron, and then drive up to Peek n Peak in upstate New York. That's a pretty big logistical committment. Peek 'n Peak is almost 3 hours away. However, the skiing there is worlds better than what we've got within driving distance, here.
I wish there were a way to fly out for a skiing vacation. I really wish Logan had year-round school with the breaks interspersed throughout the year. I don't know what the resistance to that is, but it would make things so much nicer for us as far as any activities that involve travel, like visiting the relatives in Arizona.
As for the coming of the new year, here are my resolutions:
1. Guide my business back to high profitability.
2. Embark on a new skill set / career.
3. Make strong progress on all my financial goals, especially debt reduction.
4. Continue to spend quality time with my son. Make the most of these next 9 years with him.
5. Get the house closer and closer to being in a "finished" state. Pretty much anybody who has ever done a major restoration/remodel can tell you that things take a lot more time and money than folks thought they would. So, "progress" is as much as I'll commit to on this goal.
Next year, we're in good shape. Paid off a few notes. So, our monthly cash flow should be a lot better. We also downsized to the bone. We don't even have an office administrator right now. I'm filling that role. Though, if things get better, like I think they should, we'll be hiring one first part of next year.
We've got work on the board, too. Some pretty good stuff. All in all, we may have turned the corner. Even though volume was bitterly disappointing (far worse than anything I could have imagined at this time last year), if we did the same volume next year, the company would be very profitable again. The weather seems to be getting a little more harsh.
It's amazing that I surivived this past year. It was the first real hard bump in the road since I opened my doors. The lesson to take away from all this is that you can't count on a straight 40% growth trajectory, or even for volume to remain consistent from year to year.
I'm looking to make some changes next year. I want to diversify my revenue streams so that a down year in one particular business unit won't necessarily mean pain. Will have to see how it goes.
I am living in the cabin pretty much all the time these days. I call it the cabin because the back yard overlooks a nice wooded ravine. Also, because it's pretty much only 35% or so remodelled at this point. It's like living in a house that's being remodelled.
Half the house looks trashed. One of the bedrooms is 100% done. It's the first room in the house I can say that about, other than the downstairs half-bath. Another two are about 90% there. So far, so good.
Structurally, I feel good about the house, though. We had to fix a problem with some sagging load-bearing beams and everything is 100% right now. It's finally got good bones, though it took a lot of work. My goal is to have this house ready to sell by the time Logan graduates from High School. I figure I'm in Sylvania until then. After that? Who the heck knows.
Logan continues to be an absolute joy. We went skiing twice during his Christmas break and he loves it. Granted, it's not that odd to love skiing. It's about like saying you like amusement parks. It's just something that's generally enjoyable for most folks.
We drove a couple of hours away to a ski slope that's supposed to be a lot nicer than the one we went to last year. It really was better. However, it's all of a 2 hour drive. The other place is less than an hour. So, for day-trips, it makes sense to go to the closer place.
If possible, I may see if I can get Logan for a few days and use the time to visit his grandma in Akron, and then drive up to Peek n Peak in upstate New York. That's a pretty big logistical committment. Peek 'n Peak is almost 3 hours away. However, the skiing there is worlds better than what we've got within driving distance, here.
I wish there were a way to fly out for a skiing vacation. I really wish Logan had year-round school with the breaks interspersed throughout the year. I don't know what the resistance to that is, but it would make things so much nicer for us as far as any activities that involve travel, like visiting the relatives in Arizona.
As for the coming of the new year, here are my resolutions:
1. Guide my business back to high profitability.
2. Embark on a new skill set / career.
3. Make strong progress on all my financial goals, especially debt reduction.
4. Continue to spend quality time with my son. Make the most of these next 9 years with him.
5. Get the house closer and closer to being in a "finished" state. Pretty much anybody who has ever done a major restoration/remodel can tell you that things take a lot more time and money than folks thought they would. So, "progress" is as much as I'll commit to on this goal.
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Great Moment in TARP
There were lots of horrendous moments in TARP and the crafting of the bills that bailed out Wall Street for their criminal incompetence.
One example is when Chris Dodd's staff (at the behest of an un-named official, probably Tim Geithner) stripped out compensation limits from the legislation.
There was one great moment, though. It was the type of victory for the little guy that almost never happens.
To understand this moment, it is illustrative to look at the two TARP bill votes.
The first vote was to have the government buy up all the toxic assets the banks had acquired. Basically, give us the toxic stuff, and leave the banks to continue raking it in. This vote actually failed due to popular outrage at the possibility that the American people would be stuck with the bad stuff in the banks' portfolios.
The second vote was for the taxpayer to basically give the banks billions of dollars. Now, whether we wanted it to happen or not, it was going to happen and it is happening today. That's why, for instance, the government continues to lend money to the banks at 0% interest, and then sell them T-bills that allow the banks to make 3% interest.
The government wants to use their power to make banks rich.
In the code that was written in the bill, some sneaky congressional staffer added these lines:
(c) Direct purchases
"If the Secretary determines that use of a market mechanism under subsection (b) is not feasible or appropriate, and the purposes of the chapter are best met through direct purchases from an individual financial institution, the Secretary shall pursue additional measures to ensure that prices paid for assets are reasonable and reflect the underlying value of the asset."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/12/usc_sec_12_00005223----000-.html
What does this mean? Well, the bill, without these lines, would have meant that the government would have given the banks loans, or would have simply given them money.
However, they would not have been able to buy the stock of the companies.
It is because we bought stock that people are now saying that TARP may turn a profit. (It probably won't, but it won't cost as much as we thought at first.)
If not for that sneaky staffer, taxpayer losses from TARP would have been much, much greater.
It is ONLY because of that sneaky staffer that the American people had a chance to benefit from the banks (and auto-makers) recovering.
TARP was, in my opinion (as I've mentioned at length) a disgusting series of anti-capitalist measures, taken with no regard for the taxpayer, and which handsomely rewarded Wall Street banks for reckless and criminal behavior.
These lines of code, inserted in the bill, are the only bright spot of the entire debacle. If we had enacted compensation limits, haircuts for counterparties, and wiping out of shareholder equity, along with a nationalization and the US as the sole shareholder to be reimbursed at an IPO sometime down the road when the banks were healthy, I doubt there'd be the outrage about TARP that there is.
Instead, TARP was written in such a way as to maximize the benefit Wall Street received. That's why we're mad.
Thanks to one ballsy congressional staffer, though, we actually derived some benefit from TARP. It's these lines of the bill that are the only part that didn't completely screw over America.
One example is when Chris Dodd's staff (at the behest of an un-named official, probably Tim Geithner) stripped out compensation limits from the legislation.
There was one great moment, though. It was the type of victory for the little guy that almost never happens.
To understand this moment, it is illustrative to look at the two TARP bill votes.
The first vote was to have the government buy up all the toxic assets the banks had acquired. Basically, give us the toxic stuff, and leave the banks to continue raking it in. This vote actually failed due to popular outrage at the possibility that the American people would be stuck with the bad stuff in the banks' portfolios.
The second vote was for the taxpayer to basically give the banks billions of dollars. Now, whether we wanted it to happen or not, it was going to happen and it is happening today. That's why, for instance, the government continues to lend money to the banks at 0% interest, and then sell them T-bills that allow the banks to make 3% interest.
The government wants to use their power to make banks rich.
In the code that was written in the bill, some sneaky congressional staffer added these lines:
(c) Direct purchases
"If the Secretary determines that use of a market mechanism under subsection (b) is not feasible or appropriate, and the purposes of the chapter are best met through direct purchases from an individual financial institution, the Secretary shall pursue additional measures to ensure that prices paid for assets are reasonable and reflect the underlying value of the asset."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/12/usc_sec_12_00005223----000-.html
What does this mean? Well, the bill, without these lines, would have meant that the government would have given the banks loans, or would have simply given them money.
However, they would not have been able to buy the stock of the companies.
It is because we bought stock that people are now saying that TARP may turn a profit. (It probably won't, but it won't cost as much as we thought at first.)
If not for that sneaky staffer, taxpayer losses from TARP would have been much, much greater.
It is ONLY because of that sneaky staffer that the American people had a chance to benefit from the banks (and auto-makers) recovering.
TARP was, in my opinion (as I've mentioned at length) a disgusting series of anti-capitalist measures, taken with no regard for the taxpayer, and which handsomely rewarded Wall Street banks for reckless and criminal behavior.
These lines of code, inserted in the bill, are the only bright spot of the entire debacle. If we had enacted compensation limits, haircuts for counterparties, and wiping out of shareholder equity, along with a nationalization and the US as the sole shareholder to be reimbursed at an IPO sometime down the road when the banks were healthy, I doubt there'd be the outrage about TARP that there is.
Instead, TARP was written in such a way as to maximize the benefit Wall Street received. That's why we're mad.
Thanks to one ballsy congressional staffer, though, we actually derived some benefit from TARP. It's these lines of the bill that are the only part that didn't completely screw over America.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
It wasn't Obama's fault... It really was Bush's fault... But can Obama recover?
As I watch the slow motion train-wreck that the Obama presidency is turning out to be, I can't help but feel sorry for the guy.
He got beaten up a bit for going to the "it's Bush's fault" well one too many times. I think people knew he was right... they just didn't want a president who was going to whine about the past. They wanted one who would lead us into a brighter future.
The economic crisis? I think that was largely Clinton's fault, actually. He's the one who led the repeal of Glass-Steagall. In fact, the biggest villains in all that are probably the Republican congress. They're the one constant when we talk about a continuum of legislative actions that were way too friendly to banking interests, and way too neglectful, or downright hostile, to average citizens.
I want to be frank when I say: if we had not repealed Glass Steagall, we wouldn't have had to respond to the economic crisis the way we did.
Obama bears a lot of the blame too, but mostly, he bears it for badly misplaying a bad hand that he was dealt by Bush.
The Wall Street bailouts? They're huge. Maybe not as huge with most people as they are with me, but they're enough to get vast swaths of the population furious.
Obama, Geithner, Paulson and an army of economists have said, rightly so, that the bailouts were necessary.
Well... I think some form of bailout was necessary. However, there are two things the American people simply cannot forgive, even though years have now passed.
The first is that they told their legislators, flat-out, do not bail out the banks. Make them suffer the consequences of their recklessness. If people on Main Street need to feel the pain that capitalism frequently brings, then the folks on Wall Street should be no different.
We all know the history, there. The congress voted down the TARP, but the Wall Street lobbying machine went into high gear, bought more politicians, Pelosi and Bush twisted more arms, and TARP passed on the second vote.
The voters have absolutely taken it out on the hide of people who voted for TARP. That was a toxic vote. It cost congresspeople their careers, and it should have.
You simply can't tell the population of a democracy that you don't care what they want and expect to get away with it every time.
Eventually, you're really going to piss them off.
The second problem? The second problem is that no effort was made to curb executive compensation during the birth of TARP.
It wasn't that the idea wasn't brought up. Nancy Pelosi mentioned it. Harry Reid was in the room when she did.
Hank Paulson said, basically, no, no, no. If we put any strings on this, the bankers won't go along with it. And if they won't go along with it, we'll be burning library books to keep warm and eating squirrels because we will be cast back into the stone age if we don't do something about the impending financial crisis. (Not a direct quote, but you get the idea.)
So, they didn't. The problems that resulted were predictable and people were furious. In some instances, in some cities, people literally took to the streets.
Obama did what he could to impose compensation limits after the fact, but he really couldn't do much. It was too little, too late.
Those Wall Street banker bonuses were a hidden time bomb that the Bush administration left for Obama.
I honestly feel that once the news of banker bonuses hit the press, Obama was doomed. The public simply didn't trust the government to do anything, for any reason, at any time. The government completely lost any moral authority they may have had when it was laid naked that Wall Street was going to profit immensely for destroying the economy.
Now, Obama also badly misplayed his hand, too. It was a bad one, but he made a critical error of focusing on health care for a year, rather than focusing on Wall Street reform.
The people? Were rightly angry and wanted to see the modern equivalent of Pecora hearings. Pecora was the guy who hauled all the idiots who caused the great depression in front of congress and grilled them.
Instead, Obama was very conciliatory. He was almost Lincolnesque in his handling of Wall Street after the crisis. It was as if his motto for handling Wall Street was "with malice towards none, with charity for all".
The problem is that Lincoln held that attitude about the reconstruction confederacy. They were already decimated. Trying to exact punishment on them would have been pointless.
Obama held that attitude towards the very bankers who caused our problems, and who were cashing multimillion (and in some cases multibillion) dollar checks while the nation got to experience 10% unemployment.
It made things doubly worse that the health-care reform bill he created was nothing short of astoundingly assinine.
His claims that he had implemented new, tough Wall Street reforms were ridiculous to the point of being difficult to claim with a straight face.
Right now, nobody is listening to Obama anymore. He booted Wall Street reform. He went easy on Wall Street in every imagineable way. He booted health care reform.
The public's mistrust of government is higher than at any time since Vietnam. They simply don't trust congress to get anything right, right now.
So, what's Obama to do? I'm not sure there's anything he can do. He is our nation's Jimmy Carter. A guy too nice for the job. Weak and ineffectual at a time when we needed a tough crisis leader.
A person can claim (with valid arguments to support the position) that Bush led the country in the wrong direction in the days after 9/11. However, at the time, he inspired confidence. He gave folks the impression he was in charge.
But the Taliban no longer controls Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein is dead. He did some good things... just probably not the good things that he should have been doing.
Obama? It's hard to name a single thing he's done that's good. Really.
I had a lot of misgivings about Obama the candidate. Some of them were profoundly wrong, such as my fear that he was actually a far-left radical.
However, one of my misgivings was right on the money: this guy has never been a success at any job he's ever held. Not ever. His entire resume consists of getting his ticket punched at various junctures, but he hasn't really had a single notable accomplishment, and the few minor accomplishments he's racked up smack of a thumb being put on the scale to help him gain gravitas that he hasn't quite earned.
He's out of his league. This is his first real job and he's blowing it, badly.
Bill Clinton lost his friends on the left when he moved away from them and started co-opting agenda items from the right like welfare reform.
Obama has lost his friends on the left because they're moving away from him because he's so badly botched his attempts at agenda items from the left.
Right now, we don't need a conciliator in chief. Right now, we need freakin' Harry Truman. We need somebody to rip the throats out of Wall Street Executives and make sure that as many of them as possible finish their lives unemployed and penniless.
(Sound harsh? That's the fate of a whole lot of honest, hard-working people who DIDN'T create this crisis. I feel no need to go softer on the very folks who caused it.)
He needs to take on congress. Reagan didn't work WITH congress. He made congress his enemy. Then he rolled up a newspaper and smacked the crap out of it until it sat up and begged and did what he wanted it to do.
Just as Obama was the right man, in the right place, at the right time, during his campaign. He's the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time as president.
I just don't see how he can turn this around. However, the first thing I'd do is fire Giethner and replace him with Elizabeth Warren or Brooksley Born.
Then, I'd declare war on Wall Street. I'd declare war on the Fed and get the banks off of welfare. I'd force them to mark their assets to market and they'd be insolvent overnight.
I'd let another couple of Wall Street firms fail and when the rest came crying for another bailout, I'd tell them the terms the bailout would come with.
#1, the shareholders will be wiped out.
#2, the board of directors will be fired.
#3, the executives would be fired.
Any director or executive would be barred from ever working for an FDIC insured institution ever again.
Then, I'd re-institute Glass Steagall.
Harsh? Crazy? Maybe. But nothing short of this will rebuild Obama's moral authority. Right now, he has none.
He got beaten up a bit for going to the "it's Bush's fault" well one too many times. I think people knew he was right... they just didn't want a president who was going to whine about the past. They wanted one who would lead us into a brighter future.
The economic crisis? I think that was largely Clinton's fault, actually. He's the one who led the repeal of Glass-Steagall. In fact, the biggest villains in all that are probably the Republican congress. They're the one constant when we talk about a continuum of legislative actions that were way too friendly to banking interests, and way too neglectful, or downright hostile, to average citizens.
I want to be frank when I say: if we had not repealed Glass Steagall, we wouldn't have had to respond to the economic crisis the way we did.
Obama bears a lot of the blame too, but mostly, he bears it for badly misplaying a bad hand that he was dealt by Bush.
The Wall Street bailouts? They're huge. Maybe not as huge with most people as they are with me, but they're enough to get vast swaths of the population furious.
Obama, Geithner, Paulson and an army of economists have said, rightly so, that the bailouts were necessary.
Well... I think some form of bailout was necessary. However, there are two things the American people simply cannot forgive, even though years have now passed.
The first is that they told their legislators, flat-out, do not bail out the banks. Make them suffer the consequences of their recklessness. If people on Main Street need to feel the pain that capitalism frequently brings, then the folks on Wall Street should be no different.
We all know the history, there. The congress voted down the TARP, but the Wall Street lobbying machine went into high gear, bought more politicians, Pelosi and Bush twisted more arms, and TARP passed on the second vote.
The voters have absolutely taken it out on the hide of people who voted for TARP. That was a toxic vote. It cost congresspeople their careers, and it should have.
You simply can't tell the population of a democracy that you don't care what they want and expect to get away with it every time.
Eventually, you're really going to piss them off.
The second problem? The second problem is that no effort was made to curb executive compensation during the birth of TARP.
It wasn't that the idea wasn't brought up. Nancy Pelosi mentioned it. Harry Reid was in the room when she did.
Hank Paulson said, basically, no, no, no. If we put any strings on this, the bankers won't go along with it. And if they won't go along with it, we'll be burning library books to keep warm and eating squirrels because we will be cast back into the stone age if we don't do something about the impending financial crisis. (Not a direct quote, but you get the idea.)
So, they didn't. The problems that resulted were predictable and people were furious. In some instances, in some cities, people literally took to the streets.
Obama did what he could to impose compensation limits after the fact, but he really couldn't do much. It was too little, too late.
Those Wall Street banker bonuses were a hidden time bomb that the Bush administration left for Obama.
I honestly feel that once the news of banker bonuses hit the press, Obama was doomed. The public simply didn't trust the government to do anything, for any reason, at any time. The government completely lost any moral authority they may have had when it was laid naked that Wall Street was going to profit immensely for destroying the economy.
Now, Obama also badly misplayed his hand, too. It was a bad one, but he made a critical error of focusing on health care for a year, rather than focusing on Wall Street reform.
The people? Were rightly angry and wanted to see the modern equivalent of Pecora hearings. Pecora was the guy who hauled all the idiots who caused the great depression in front of congress and grilled them.
Instead, Obama was very conciliatory. He was almost Lincolnesque in his handling of Wall Street after the crisis. It was as if his motto for handling Wall Street was "with malice towards none, with charity for all".
The problem is that Lincoln held that attitude about the reconstruction confederacy. They were already decimated. Trying to exact punishment on them would have been pointless.
Obama held that attitude towards the very bankers who caused our problems, and who were cashing multimillion (and in some cases multibillion) dollar checks while the nation got to experience 10% unemployment.
It made things doubly worse that the health-care reform bill he created was nothing short of astoundingly assinine.
His claims that he had implemented new, tough Wall Street reforms were ridiculous to the point of being difficult to claim with a straight face.
Right now, nobody is listening to Obama anymore. He booted Wall Street reform. He went easy on Wall Street in every imagineable way. He booted health care reform.
The public's mistrust of government is higher than at any time since Vietnam. They simply don't trust congress to get anything right, right now.
So, what's Obama to do? I'm not sure there's anything he can do. He is our nation's Jimmy Carter. A guy too nice for the job. Weak and ineffectual at a time when we needed a tough crisis leader.
A person can claim (with valid arguments to support the position) that Bush led the country in the wrong direction in the days after 9/11. However, at the time, he inspired confidence. He gave folks the impression he was in charge.
But the Taliban no longer controls Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein is dead. He did some good things... just probably not the good things that he should have been doing.
Obama? It's hard to name a single thing he's done that's good. Really.
I had a lot of misgivings about Obama the candidate. Some of them were profoundly wrong, such as my fear that he was actually a far-left radical.
However, one of my misgivings was right on the money: this guy has never been a success at any job he's ever held. Not ever. His entire resume consists of getting his ticket punched at various junctures, but he hasn't really had a single notable accomplishment, and the few minor accomplishments he's racked up smack of a thumb being put on the scale to help him gain gravitas that he hasn't quite earned.
He's out of his league. This is his first real job and he's blowing it, badly.
Bill Clinton lost his friends on the left when he moved away from them and started co-opting agenda items from the right like welfare reform.
Obama has lost his friends on the left because they're moving away from him because he's so badly botched his attempts at agenda items from the left.
Right now, we don't need a conciliator in chief. Right now, we need freakin' Harry Truman. We need somebody to rip the throats out of Wall Street Executives and make sure that as many of them as possible finish their lives unemployed and penniless.
(Sound harsh? That's the fate of a whole lot of honest, hard-working people who DIDN'T create this crisis. I feel no need to go softer on the very folks who caused it.)
He needs to take on congress. Reagan didn't work WITH congress. He made congress his enemy. Then he rolled up a newspaper and smacked the crap out of it until it sat up and begged and did what he wanted it to do.
Just as Obama was the right man, in the right place, at the right time, during his campaign. He's the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time as president.
I just don't see how he can turn this around. However, the first thing I'd do is fire Giethner and replace him with Elizabeth Warren or Brooksley Born.
Then, I'd declare war on Wall Street. I'd declare war on the Fed and get the banks off of welfare. I'd force them to mark their assets to market and they'd be insolvent overnight.
I'd let another couple of Wall Street firms fail and when the rest came crying for another bailout, I'd tell them the terms the bailout would come with.
#1, the shareholders will be wiped out.
#2, the board of directors will be fired.
#3, the executives would be fired.
Any director or executive would be barred from ever working for an FDIC insured institution ever again.
Then, I'd re-institute Glass Steagall.
Harsh? Crazy? Maybe. But nothing short of this will rebuild Obama's moral authority. Right now, he has none.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
2010: it was the best of times, it was... you know the rest...
It's December already. Middle of December is looming large. I've gotten pretty used to sweating bullets at payroll time, but the first part of the month is when royalties, notes and rent all hit, too.
We showed a few signs of life on Monday, picking up a couple of smallish jobs and a request to bid on a 3rd. With any luck, that's a sign of the busy season starting. Usually, it starts in mid-December.
In an economy like this, with so many people going under, it's hard to feel sorry for yourself. I think I'd be genuinely bummed if not for the knowledge that so many other people have it much worse.
Every day, I seem to hear a new account of somebody in their late 50s who lost a job after a lifetime of work. Say what you want about baby boomers, but it was a workaholic generation. No 9 to 5 for most of them. I can't even imagine what it might be like to be 58 years old, exhausted unemployment benefits, and eating through what you thought was going to be your retirement savings.
So, yeah, things could be worse. A lot of folks are struggling in this economy.
It shows every indication of being a cold Winter, and that's generally good for business. Last year's Winter was mild, and it really hurt. Frozen pipes and thunderstorms are the two main events that can bump up our volume. Without those, things can get really slow.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I need to update my skill set and prepare myself for Jimmy 4.0.
I consider Jimmy 1.0 to be the time from High School graduation until I finished my BBA and got my first long-term, real job with Parker back in 1993. It was a great time, and I experimented a lot. Tried a lot of things that didn't really work. Stuck with a few things that did. Eventually, I got myself graduated from college and employable.
Jimmy 2.0 would be all those years at Parker: 1993 to 2004. Those were good years, too. I always thought that Parker was exceptionally good to me. They paid for a pretty expensive MBA, and I had a great career with them all the way until I decided to hang out my shingle.
Jimmy 3.0 is my time with Servpro. Basically 2005 to present. Even with the recent year o' crappiness, my time as an entrepreneur has been the most professionally satisfying and happiest time of my life.
The plans I'm looking at will probably involve another few years of school. So, 3.0 will be about a decade-long chunk just like the previous versions.
I think it really is true what they say: you need to constantly adapt and update yourself to the environment. My generation knows that we can't be like the ones before: where you might land a job with one employer and work there until you die.
You can try to homestead yourself in one position with one employer, but wow, that makes you vulnerable. That's probably what all those 58 year olds who are dreading their lives were trying to do.
Sometimes I wish I had stuck with Parker. I loved the company, but really, really hated my job.
With Servpro, I've been doing this about 6 years, now.
Year one sucked.
Year two rocked.
Year three, four and five rocked harder.
Year six has been even worse than year one.
I figure that's probably how this will go. You get a few good years, and a few bad years. You have to react quickly when the tide turns out. It's not just a question of making lots of money when there's money to be made. You also have to try not to lose money when there's no money to be made
I've been really good at the former, not so hot at the latter.
In the long run, I will need to make a change. I think Servpro will be viable for another 5 or 10 years. After that, nobody can predict the business environment, but I see a few things coming along that are very positive, but a few that are very negative. It could break either way.
I do wonder what's going to be next. In a lot of ways, I sort of appreciate the way my life has unfolded. I've gotten to experience a lot of things and see a lot of sides of a lot of different ways to make a living.
I've been a paratrooper on an Army Special Operations Team with a Top Secret Clearance.
I've been a bouncer in a country and western bar. (The world's smallest and least effective bouncer, but that's another topic for another day.)
I've been a guitar teacher.
I've been a technical writer. A computer programmer. An I.T. Manager.
I've been an entrepreneur, both now and when I was in college and ran a small sound-reinforcement business that ended up doing almost weekly gigs with a local Ethiopian party band. (The Mekonnens. They were some of the most awesome people I've ever had the pleasure to meet.)
Then, there's the part-time stuff, like pumping gas, working in a halfway house for mentally retarded criminals and being an officer in the Navy Reserve.
Next? I am considering options from enrolling in a Ph.D. program to getting a JD to whatever.
So, yeah, I do truly, truly curse the fact that our government broke some pretty fundamental tenants of capitalism and human decency by bailing out Wall Street and leaving the rest of us to rot.
My personal situation isn't exactly in great shape. We're trying to sell off equipment and business still hasn't really recovered.
However, even at my age, I have a world of opportunity available to me. America is so awesome, even the politicians can't TOTALLY screw it up.
Even in your mid 40s, you can be anything you want to be in this great land.
So, I'm feeling a bit battered and bruised, but in the end, there's no place that I'd rather be. I also know that there are folks much less fortunate than I am who are sufferring far more than I am right now.
In the long run, everything will be okay. The short run? It's a little hairy. That's life, though, isn't it? It's meant to be a struggle. All our attempts to make it entirely painless almost always fail in the end.
I once heard somebody say that if you knew that, for instance, you would face 5 major challenges and 14 minor challenges in your life, but that in the end, you would be just fine, you would look at life differently.
You'd face each challenge and almost welcome it because you already know the outcome: in the end, you do just fine. Every challenge you face would be one less on the list that you have to endure.
Really? That's how most of our lives will go. We just don't know the exact number of challenges we'll face. In the end, though, the vast, vast, vast majority of us are going to do just fine. We'll retire comfortably. We'll have family to love. If we're lucky we will look back on all the challenges of our lives with a sense of pride in what we've overcome.
I remember once when I was in college in Texas. I was broke, my grades sucked, and I was nowhere near graduation. However, I used to remind myself that in America, every day, an immigrant lands on our shores. Probably once every day we get an immigrant who is brilliant and resourceful and who will be a millionaire within a couple of years.
That's the type of opportunity we have, here. That thought used to keep me going: the knowledge that it's out there, and even folks with less than I have will be able to get it through hard work and perseverance.
So, all the pieces are there for a hugely prosperous 2011. I'm better poised than most. I just need to hang on and watch it play itself out. You buy your ticket, you wait in line, and when it's time to ride, you ride. You won't know until you try it
We showed a few signs of life on Monday, picking up a couple of smallish jobs and a request to bid on a 3rd. With any luck, that's a sign of the busy season starting. Usually, it starts in mid-December.
In an economy like this, with so many people going under, it's hard to feel sorry for yourself. I think I'd be genuinely bummed if not for the knowledge that so many other people have it much worse.
Every day, I seem to hear a new account of somebody in their late 50s who lost a job after a lifetime of work. Say what you want about baby boomers, but it was a workaholic generation. No 9 to 5 for most of them. I can't even imagine what it might be like to be 58 years old, exhausted unemployment benefits, and eating through what you thought was going to be your retirement savings.
So, yeah, things could be worse. A lot of folks are struggling in this economy.
It shows every indication of being a cold Winter, and that's generally good for business. Last year's Winter was mild, and it really hurt. Frozen pipes and thunderstorms are the two main events that can bump up our volume. Without those, things can get really slow.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I need to update my skill set and prepare myself for Jimmy 4.0.
I consider Jimmy 1.0 to be the time from High School graduation until I finished my BBA and got my first long-term, real job with Parker back in 1993. It was a great time, and I experimented a lot. Tried a lot of things that didn't really work. Stuck with a few things that did. Eventually, I got myself graduated from college and employable.
Jimmy 2.0 would be all those years at Parker: 1993 to 2004. Those were good years, too. I always thought that Parker was exceptionally good to me. They paid for a pretty expensive MBA, and I had a great career with them all the way until I decided to hang out my shingle.
Jimmy 3.0 is my time with Servpro. Basically 2005 to present. Even with the recent year o' crappiness, my time as an entrepreneur has been the most professionally satisfying and happiest time of my life.
The plans I'm looking at will probably involve another few years of school. So, 3.0 will be about a decade-long chunk just like the previous versions.
I think it really is true what they say: you need to constantly adapt and update yourself to the environment. My generation knows that we can't be like the ones before: where you might land a job with one employer and work there until you die.
You can try to homestead yourself in one position with one employer, but wow, that makes you vulnerable. That's probably what all those 58 year olds who are dreading their lives were trying to do.
Sometimes I wish I had stuck with Parker. I loved the company, but really, really hated my job.
With Servpro, I've been doing this about 6 years, now.
Year one sucked.
Year two rocked.
Year three, four and five rocked harder.
Year six has been even worse than year one.
I figure that's probably how this will go. You get a few good years, and a few bad years. You have to react quickly when the tide turns out. It's not just a question of making lots of money when there's money to be made. You also have to try not to lose money when there's no money to be made
I've been really good at the former, not so hot at the latter.
In the long run, I will need to make a change. I think Servpro will be viable for another 5 or 10 years. After that, nobody can predict the business environment, but I see a few things coming along that are very positive, but a few that are very negative. It could break either way.
I do wonder what's going to be next. In a lot of ways, I sort of appreciate the way my life has unfolded. I've gotten to experience a lot of things and see a lot of sides of a lot of different ways to make a living.
I've been a paratrooper on an Army Special Operations Team with a Top Secret Clearance.
I've been a bouncer in a country and western bar. (The world's smallest and least effective bouncer, but that's another topic for another day.)
I've been a guitar teacher.
I've been a technical writer. A computer programmer. An I.T. Manager.
I've been an entrepreneur, both now and when I was in college and ran a small sound-reinforcement business that ended up doing almost weekly gigs with a local Ethiopian party band. (The Mekonnens. They were some of the most awesome people I've ever had the pleasure to meet.)
Then, there's the part-time stuff, like pumping gas, working in a halfway house for mentally retarded criminals and being an officer in the Navy Reserve.
Next? I am considering options from enrolling in a Ph.D. program to getting a JD to whatever.
So, yeah, I do truly, truly curse the fact that our government broke some pretty fundamental tenants of capitalism and human decency by bailing out Wall Street and leaving the rest of us to rot.
My personal situation isn't exactly in great shape. We're trying to sell off equipment and business still hasn't really recovered.
However, even at my age, I have a world of opportunity available to me. America is so awesome, even the politicians can't TOTALLY screw it up.
Even in your mid 40s, you can be anything you want to be in this great land.
So, I'm feeling a bit battered and bruised, but in the end, there's no place that I'd rather be. I also know that there are folks much less fortunate than I am who are sufferring far more than I am right now.
In the long run, everything will be okay. The short run? It's a little hairy. That's life, though, isn't it? It's meant to be a struggle. All our attempts to make it entirely painless almost always fail in the end.
I once heard somebody say that if you knew that, for instance, you would face 5 major challenges and 14 minor challenges in your life, but that in the end, you would be just fine, you would look at life differently.
You'd face each challenge and almost welcome it because you already know the outcome: in the end, you do just fine. Every challenge you face would be one less on the list that you have to endure.
Really? That's how most of our lives will go. We just don't know the exact number of challenges we'll face. In the end, though, the vast, vast, vast majority of us are going to do just fine. We'll retire comfortably. We'll have family to love. If we're lucky we will look back on all the challenges of our lives with a sense of pride in what we've overcome.
I remember once when I was in college in Texas. I was broke, my grades sucked, and I was nowhere near graduation. However, I used to remind myself that in America, every day, an immigrant lands on our shores. Probably once every day we get an immigrant who is brilliant and resourceful and who will be a millionaire within a couple of years.
That's the type of opportunity we have, here. That thought used to keep me going: the knowledge that it's out there, and even folks with less than I have will be able to get it through hard work and perseverance.
So, all the pieces are there for a hugely prosperous 2011. I'm better poised than most. I just need to hang on and watch it play itself out. You buy your ticket, you wait in line, and when it's time to ride, you ride. You won't know until you try it
Sunday, November 21, 2010
A Season of Thanks
There are some universal concepts that all the world's great religions hold in common. Personally, I don't believe their origin is divine, but instead, is the result of centuries of human experience. They are a sort of "best practices" of humanity.
One such example is of the healing power of forgiveness. Counterintuitively, the greatest boon of forgiveness is not to the transgressor, but to the transgressed. Anger, resentment and hostility are cancerous to the human spirit. Forgiveness allows a person to rid themselves of these destructive emotions.
The very fact that the benefits are counterintuitive is the reason why these messages need to be carried by religion. Most people gravitate towards the obvious and the self-serving. However, religion can serve a function of reminding us that not everything in life is based on the feelings and perceptions that are most readily at hand.
Another example, appropriate to the season, is that most great world religions embrace the idea that we should be thankful for our blessings. The human condition is one where we disdain our discomforts and difficulties, and embrace our progress and blessings. However, the human condition is also one where our discomforts and difficulties are always manifest. Our progress and blessings? They are easy to take for granted and to overlook.
This is true to a far greater degree in the United States than in many other cultures. Vast swaths of the world have societies where their trials and tribulations are accepted as normal and inevitable facets of life. The US has never been such a society. If we don't like it, we change it. If we like it, we do what it takes to get more of it.
We are not a people who accept our difficulties with resignation. We fight. It is this desire to constantly make our world a better place that defines our greatness as a nation and as a people.
It also, to a great degree, makes us a people who are puzzlingly unhappy. Our natural state of being is one of dissatisfaction.
I am certainly no exception. As I go into this Thanksgiving season, I look back on a very, very difficult year. It had bright spots to be certain. My son is always a source of joy and pride. However, it was a very hard year for me in virtually every other regard.
One need only open a newspaper or turn on the TV news to know that this is a difficult time for many.
The reasons to be unhappy are many. We have a corrupt government that exists only to serve the interests of the monied. The little guy has been taking it on the chin harder than at any other time in my lifetime. The rising tide that was supposed to raise all ships is raising only the biggest and most expensive. Those of us in more modest craft are being swamped and are lucky to stay afloat.
Worst of all, the trend is towards more of the same, with virtually no chance that the tide will turn the other way any time soon. Millions of hopeful voters brought in the Obama administration in '08, only to see the Obama administration is absolutely corrupt, in equal measure to the Bush administration that preceeded it. There was zero change. There isn't any realistic cause for hope.
Like many small business owners, I am in the fight of my life. This time last year, I had 14 full-time employees. I am now down to 5. 9 good people who worked hard every day and wanted nothing more than a day's work for a day's pay are now unemployed. I bear that guilt every day because I just wasn't smart enough to find a way to keep it from happening.
In hindsight, I should have let them go sooner. Trouble is, I didn't have the benefit of hindsight as I made the decisions I made. I don't mind so much for me. My finances are a total wreck, but I can always find a way to get by.
However, I'm grappling with the reality that when everything is said and done, I may not have anything to pass to my son. I still have time to try and rebuild, and with any luck, I will get on my feet again, enough to afford to send him to the school of his choice when the time comes. In the mean time, though, I'm not in a very good place, and there's no guarantee things will improve next year.
So, there's a lot I'm unhappy with right now. However, it doesn't benefit a person to concentrate only on lifes difficulties. I'm also very blessed. I have much to be Thankful for.
I believe an optimistic outlook serves a person well. That a person is more prosperous, happy and healthy when they can go through life looking on the bright side of things.
The reality is that many things in life can be viewed either positively or negatively. It just depends on what you want to do.
For instance, Wall Street's relentless drive to crush the little guy and stack the deck ever further in Wall Street's favor is driven by it's belief that their glass is 3% empty, not 97% full.
In my life, so many of the things I saw as burdens were, if looked at from a different perspective, actually positives in their own way.
So, during this season of thanks, I'll go ahead and spell out the things I'm thankful for. I can count my blessings by the fact that the things I am thankful for encompass almost the entirety of my life.
First and foremost, I'm thankful for my son. I think most parents want to raise kids to be better people than they are. In this case, I have no doubt that this is true. My son is a wonderful, compassionate, athletic, bright, honest and principled young man. I can't think of a single aspect of my boy that I'm not proud of. He has been a blessing from the day he was born to today. I look forward to watching him grow and prosper.
That part is easy. There's no downside, there. There's no need for perspective to be thankful for Logan. He is, without a doubt, my life's greatest joy.
Next, I'm thankful for my business. My business has been the source of most of my difficulties these past 12 months. However, I have a lot of cause for optimism going forward. True, the business is smaller than I'd like, but we have retained almost all the capital equipment that was a constraint on our growth in the early years. We're well-poised to be highly profitable in 2011, even if 2011 is as disastrous as 2010 was. The employees who remain are amazing. I thank my lucky stars every day that they're willing to work for me.
Yeah, this past year has been brutal, but I own a business that did half a million dollars last year. How many people do you know who wish they had that? During a time when small and large businesses are going out right and left, I'm still left standing. So long as the doors are open, I have a shot.
Compared to most Americans, I have great prospects because I own this business. Contrast to most people in the world, and I'm insanely wealthy. So, yeah, my business has been a source of vexation of late. However, it's got every chance to do well in the coming years. There's a lot more upside potential than downside at this point.
I'm thankful for my house. I bought a fixer upper, and it pretty much has played out as a worst-case scenario in terms of its condition. The thing just wasn't in very good shape. I bought it because the view out the back is absolutely heavenly. I also bought it because of proximity to Tessa's house. Logan can walk back and forth between the two houses, easily.
Anybody who ever bought a fixer upper can tell you that doing so is a soul-robbing experience. It's never the best-case scenario. You never really know how good or bad your house is until you start tearing the walls open. Most people get to live in blissful ignorance. If you renovate, though, the realties are laid bare.
At this point, my house still looks like a construction zone, but the walls and ceilings almost all have been repaired, now. They've been modernized with knock-down texture and painted neutral colors. I have all new windows on the second floor. New exterior doors throughout. I had some structural problems that caused one room to slope and the roofline to tilt, but that's all been fixed, now.
If I get to where I have a little money, I'll build a bonus room over the garage. It has a flat-roof and is the source of all the problems that developed over the years. However, that project can wait a year or two.
Once the shell is all taken care of, I can devote attention to the inside. There are a lot of projects there, too. I want hardwood throughout. The bathrooms and kitchen need to be remodelled. It will take years. When it's done, though, this will be a beautiful house. That, by the way, is the battle-cry of all poor souls who own a fixer upper: one day, this house will be beautiful.
Thing is, it's easy to see how it will happen and every passing day, my house gets nicer. It's still a wreck, but it's taking shape. I actually enjoy being in it, now. If I can make this sort of progress every year on the place, it shouldn't be that long until it's actually a home I can be proud of.
I'm thankful that I live in this country. Yes, I think our politicians are corrupt at worst, and inept at best. Yes, I think our society increasingly exists to put the little guy under Wall Street's boot heel.
Yes, I think our various levels of government kick small business owners in the teeth every chance they get. Yes, I think that the business environment is so anti-small business and so pro-Wall Street that it's entirely feasible that my business, like so many others, may go bankrupt in the not too distant future.
Despite all that, I can rebuild my life and my fortunes. I can do that because of the opportunities that are only really present here, in the United States. If I have to, I can build myself back up from nothing as a 50 year old failure. The politicans and Wall Street have destroyed a lot of America, but enough of America still exists that I can't imagine another place where I'd be as likely to succeed.
I'm thankful for Logan's mom, Tessa. We married a decade ago. Things haven't worked out so well between us. A lot is just basic incompatibility. I bear my share, or more, of the blame for the way things have gone.
When you marry somebody, you chose a partner for the duration of the marriage. However, once you have a child with a person, no matter what, your lives are intertwined forever.
In this way, the very things that made her an attractive spouse make her a phenomenal mother to my boy. She is beautiful, hard-working and intelligent. We share all the same values. Half of what Logan is is because of his mother. It is impossible to be grateful for how fantastic he is, without also being grateful for how fantastic she is.
All in all, it could have turned out better. Yet, despite everything, it could have turned out much, much worse and the reality is that things have turned out really well. Despite the fact that we are going our separate ways, we will continue to raise Logan together for the next decade or so. She's as good a partner in this endeavor as I could have hoped for.
I'm thankful for my father. For the first 3 decades of my life, that's something I doubt I would have said. We have a relationship that would have been described, at best, as being strained. He is a person who has made himself into a better person over time. These days, my relationship to him is something very valuable and important to me. He has been there for me in ways I never would have dreamed of in times past.
My relationship with him is one that best illustrates that people can change for the better and that it does not profit a person to harbor a grudge.
As a final note, I'm thankful for all my friends. I haven't always been as good a friend in return as I should have, but as time goes by, I place greater and greater value on the relationships in my life.
All in all, I wish 2010 had gone better. I hope 2011 goes much better. In the end, though, I'm thankful for my life and have every belief that things are good and on an upward arc. Hope the same is true for all of you.
One such example is of the healing power of forgiveness. Counterintuitively, the greatest boon of forgiveness is not to the transgressor, but to the transgressed. Anger, resentment and hostility are cancerous to the human spirit. Forgiveness allows a person to rid themselves of these destructive emotions.
The very fact that the benefits are counterintuitive is the reason why these messages need to be carried by religion. Most people gravitate towards the obvious and the self-serving. However, religion can serve a function of reminding us that not everything in life is based on the feelings and perceptions that are most readily at hand.
Another example, appropriate to the season, is that most great world religions embrace the idea that we should be thankful for our blessings. The human condition is one where we disdain our discomforts and difficulties, and embrace our progress and blessings. However, the human condition is also one where our discomforts and difficulties are always manifest. Our progress and blessings? They are easy to take for granted and to overlook.
This is true to a far greater degree in the United States than in many other cultures. Vast swaths of the world have societies where their trials and tribulations are accepted as normal and inevitable facets of life. The US has never been such a society. If we don't like it, we change it. If we like it, we do what it takes to get more of it.
We are not a people who accept our difficulties with resignation. We fight. It is this desire to constantly make our world a better place that defines our greatness as a nation and as a people.
It also, to a great degree, makes us a people who are puzzlingly unhappy. Our natural state of being is one of dissatisfaction.
I am certainly no exception. As I go into this Thanksgiving season, I look back on a very, very difficult year. It had bright spots to be certain. My son is always a source of joy and pride. However, it was a very hard year for me in virtually every other regard.
One need only open a newspaper or turn on the TV news to know that this is a difficult time for many.
The reasons to be unhappy are many. We have a corrupt government that exists only to serve the interests of the monied. The little guy has been taking it on the chin harder than at any other time in my lifetime. The rising tide that was supposed to raise all ships is raising only the biggest and most expensive. Those of us in more modest craft are being swamped and are lucky to stay afloat.
Worst of all, the trend is towards more of the same, with virtually no chance that the tide will turn the other way any time soon. Millions of hopeful voters brought in the Obama administration in '08, only to see the Obama administration is absolutely corrupt, in equal measure to the Bush administration that preceeded it. There was zero change. There isn't any realistic cause for hope.
Like many small business owners, I am in the fight of my life. This time last year, I had 14 full-time employees. I am now down to 5. 9 good people who worked hard every day and wanted nothing more than a day's work for a day's pay are now unemployed. I bear that guilt every day because I just wasn't smart enough to find a way to keep it from happening.
In hindsight, I should have let them go sooner. Trouble is, I didn't have the benefit of hindsight as I made the decisions I made. I don't mind so much for me. My finances are a total wreck, but I can always find a way to get by.
However, I'm grappling with the reality that when everything is said and done, I may not have anything to pass to my son. I still have time to try and rebuild, and with any luck, I will get on my feet again, enough to afford to send him to the school of his choice when the time comes. In the mean time, though, I'm not in a very good place, and there's no guarantee things will improve next year.
So, there's a lot I'm unhappy with right now. However, it doesn't benefit a person to concentrate only on lifes difficulties. I'm also very blessed. I have much to be Thankful for.
I believe an optimistic outlook serves a person well. That a person is more prosperous, happy and healthy when they can go through life looking on the bright side of things.
The reality is that many things in life can be viewed either positively or negatively. It just depends on what you want to do.
For instance, Wall Street's relentless drive to crush the little guy and stack the deck ever further in Wall Street's favor is driven by it's belief that their glass is 3% empty, not 97% full.
In my life, so many of the things I saw as burdens were, if looked at from a different perspective, actually positives in their own way.
So, during this season of thanks, I'll go ahead and spell out the things I'm thankful for. I can count my blessings by the fact that the things I am thankful for encompass almost the entirety of my life.
First and foremost, I'm thankful for my son. I think most parents want to raise kids to be better people than they are. In this case, I have no doubt that this is true. My son is a wonderful, compassionate, athletic, bright, honest and principled young man. I can't think of a single aspect of my boy that I'm not proud of. He has been a blessing from the day he was born to today. I look forward to watching him grow and prosper.
That part is easy. There's no downside, there. There's no need for perspective to be thankful for Logan. He is, without a doubt, my life's greatest joy.
Next, I'm thankful for my business. My business has been the source of most of my difficulties these past 12 months. However, I have a lot of cause for optimism going forward. True, the business is smaller than I'd like, but we have retained almost all the capital equipment that was a constraint on our growth in the early years. We're well-poised to be highly profitable in 2011, even if 2011 is as disastrous as 2010 was. The employees who remain are amazing. I thank my lucky stars every day that they're willing to work for me.
Yeah, this past year has been brutal, but I own a business that did half a million dollars last year. How many people do you know who wish they had that? During a time when small and large businesses are going out right and left, I'm still left standing. So long as the doors are open, I have a shot.
Compared to most Americans, I have great prospects because I own this business. Contrast to most people in the world, and I'm insanely wealthy. So, yeah, my business has been a source of vexation of late. However, it's got every chance to do well in the coming years. There's a lot more upside potential than downside at this point.
I'm thankful for my house. I bought a fixer upper, and it pretty much has played out as a worst-case scenario in terms of its condition. The thing just wasn't in very good shape. I bought it because the view out the back is absolutely heavenly. I also bought it because of proximity to Tessa's house. Logan can walk back and forth between the two houses, easily.
Anybody who ever bought a fixer upper can tell you that doing so is a soul-robbing experience. It's never the best-case scenario. You never really know how good or bad your house is until you start tearing the walls open. Most people get to live in blissful ignorance. If you renovate, though, the realties are laid bare.
At this point, my house still looks like a construction zone, but the walls and ceilings almost all have been repaired, now. They've been modernized with knock-down texture and painted neutral colors. I have all new windows on the second floor. New exterior doors throughout. I had some structural problems that caused one room to slope and the roofline to tilt, but that's all been fixed, now.
If I get to where I have a little money, I'll build a bonus room over the garage. It has a flat-roof and is the source of all the problems that developed over the years. However, that project can wait a year or two.
Once the shell is all taken care of, I can devote attention to the inside. There are a lot of projects there, too. I want hardwood throughout. The bathrooms and kitchen need to be remodelled. It will take years. When it's done, though, this will be a beautiful house. That, by the way, is the battle-cry of all poor souls who own a fixer upper: one day, this house will be beautiful.
Thing is, it's easy to see how it will happen and every passing day, my house gets nicer. It's still a wreck, but it's taking shape. I actually enjoy being in it, now. If I can make this sort of progress every year on the place, it shouldn't be that long until it's actually a home I can be proud of.
I'm thankful that I live in this country. Yes, I think our politicians are corrupt at worst, and inept at best. Yes, I think our society increasingly exists to put the little guy under Wall Street's boot heel.
Yes, I think our various levels of government kick small business owners in the teeth every chance they get. Yes, I think that the business environment is so anti-small business and so pro-Wall Street that it's entirely feasible that my business, like so many others, may go bankrupt in the not too distant future.
Despite all that, I can rebuild my life and my fortunes. I can do that because of the opportunities that are only really present here, in the United States. If I have to, I can build myself back up from nothing as a 50 year old failure. The politicans and Wall Street have destroyed a lot of America, but enough of America still exists that I can't imagine another place where I'd be as likely to succeed.
I'm thankful for Logan's mom, Tessa. We married a decade ago. Things haven't worked out so well between us. A lot is just basic incompatibility. I bear my share, or more, of the blame for the way things have gone.
When you marry somebody, you chose a partner for the duration of the marriage. However, once you have a child with a person, no matter what, your lives are intertwined forever.
In this way, the very things that made her an attractive spouse make her a phenomenal mother to my boy. She is beautiful, hard-working and intelligent. We share all the same values. Half of what Logan is is because of his mother. It is impossible to be grateful for how fantastic he is, without also being grateful for how fantastic she is.
All in all, it could have turned out better. Yet, despite everything, it could have turned out much, much worse and the reality is that things have turned out really well. Despite the fact that we are going our separate ways, we will continue to raise Logan together for the next decade or so. She's as good a partner in this endeavor as I could have hoped for.
I'm thankful for my father. For the first 3 decades of my life, that's something I doubt I would have said. We have a relationship that would have been described, at best, as being strained. He is a person who has made himself into a better person over time. These days, my relationship to him is something very valuable and important to me. He has been there for me in ways I never would have dreamed of in times past.
My relationship with him is one that best illustrates that people can change for the better and that it does not profit a person to harbor a grudge.
As a final note, I'm thankful for all my friends. I haven't always been as good a friend in return as I should have, but as time goes by, I place greater and greater value on the relationships in my life.
All in all, I wish 2010 had gone better. I hope 2011 goes much better. In the end, though, I'm thankful for my life and have every belief that things are good and on an upward arc. Hope the same is true for all of you.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Captain of my Own Ship
Of many expressions that are used to describe business ownership, the one I like best is "Captain of my Own Ship". Not so much because of the naval references, but because to me, it sums up best what it's like.
Captains not only have to take into account the internal workings of the ship, but the overall environment and seas the ship sails. In business, we run into "perfect storms" just like ships at sea can. Now, granted, owning your own small business is not nearly as dramatic as being captain of a ship at sea. At sea, decisions can involve literal life and death implications.
There really aren't that many opportunities in business for a person to die or even to get injured. Compliance with OSHA requirements and common sense keep our injuries pretty small. The last injury I can remember happening is when a worker dropped something on his foot. His foot swelled up and because the worker was diabetic, he was concerned. I told him to file a worker's comp claim and go see a doctor. I'm not a physician, and if the guy ended up developing complications and having his foot amputated, I wanted to make sure he was as protected as possible by the worker's comp system.
Of course, it was no such thing. His foot simply had swelled up a little bit and he was fine. That is what qualifies as a big injury in my business. So, yeah, being a Captain at sea? Perfect storms kill people out there. We don't worry about that so much in here.
We are in the midst of a perfect storm here, though. A lot of businesses are not surviving and there's no guarantee that we won't be joining the ranks of companies that didn't make it.
We're selling off assets, now. So far, we're trimming fat, but it won't be too long until the stuff we're selling is hacking into sinew and muscle. We're selling off a thermal imaging camera and a floor sander that we almost never used. However, we're also putting a truck and truckmount up for auction, and those are things we could potentially use.
Right now, though, we have 4 production trucks and 2 minivans for a company that has been downsized to just 5 employees. We literally have more vehicles than people right now, a remnant of our days as a million dollar company.
Both the business cycle and the economic cycle have been exceptionally cruel to us for the past year and a half. We're basically at half our former volume. What was once an exceedingly profitable company with 14 employees is now down to just those who are absolutely necessary to build us up for the future.
I've always tried to be good to my employees. I couldn't afford to offer health care, but instead, tried to offer excpetionally generous 401(k) matching and put a few more dollars in the employee's paychecks. My workers make more than what most newer UAW workers make around here.
A lot of folks look for ways to gain the upper hand against labor, and to pay them as little as possible. I've always felt extremely fortunate to have the great workers I do, and am just sad I can't do more for them.
One of my employees came to me the other day and said that he realized how slow business was. He told me he would be okay with me letting him go if I had to. I told him I had no intention of doing that.
He said, "Jim, you've been good to me. I don't want to see this company go out of business."
It's things like that where I'm simply left speechless. I don't pay great wages. My employees have to work their butts off. I'm not an easy person to work for, and frankly, I'm not always an easy person to be around. Yet, I have these awesome employees who have stuck by me for years.
When I think of the people I've had to lay off, it pains me horribly. These were not people who did anything wrong. They were let go due to lack of business, nothing more. They were let go because I wasn't smart enough to find a way to keep them on the payroll.
Do I feel guilty about that? You bet. Every day.
It's not that I didn't try. My personal finances took a six figure hit to try and keep everybody employed before I simply ran out of money. After that I kept as many people employed as I could until I ran out of credit.
Through it all, though, I feel really bad. I was the captain of this ship and it's run aground. Doesn't matter the whys and wherefores. I was in charge.
I do get into self-pitying moods now and then. When times were good, they were really good. I also think times will get back to that point in the future, which is why I'm hanging on.
In the mean time, this is a ship with problems and I'm doing what I can to try and keep it afloat. This business will see profitable years in the near future. Might not be next year or the year after, but it will happen.
We're really lean right now. Maybe a bit too lean. So, we are in a position to be very, very profitable if business picks up. I've done my best to get the company to the right size for our current level of sales. So, even if we have another year next year at these reduced sales levels, I should be able to make money.
The weather is beautiful right now. This should be our last bad 4 weeks of business. Mid December is the historical start of our busy-season. Last year, though, things never picked up. If we can at least keep things constant, I should be in great shape for next year.
In the mean time, this has been a trauma, both financially and emotionally. I am not sure how much longer I'll do this particular type of business. I'm considering other options and other potential careers for the last two decades of my working life.
So many things I would have done differently, but that's not life, is it? You only get to move forward. You can only try to shape your future. You can't change the past.
I just made travel plans for December drill. I can't tell you how tickled I am that my commander is letting me double up on drills. I'll have half my year's drills done in December. I may also try to get into my certification class a bit earlier, like in March. I had planned on doing it in August, but now, I don't want to wait that long.
I'm also booking my flights with American Airlines instead of Southwest. Too many plane changes and stops with southwest. American has evening nonstops to Detroit, which means I can leave right after my Sunday drill. Fewer nights away from home. Southwest is awesome about everything, but if you fly with them, it can take a long time to get where you're going. I am sort of regretting booking with them to get me to/from Disney next week. The flight back will be a long one, and it will try my patience a little bit, but will probably be really tough for my little guy.
It's a bumpy ride these days, all things considered. Everything feels challenging, but again, that's life, isn't it? I couldn't tell you what my life will look like 12 months from now. If my biz finds a buyer, I may be just a full-time student. There's just no way to know.
Captains not only have to take into account the internal workings of the ship, but the overall environment and seas the ship sails. In business, we run into "perfect storms" just like ships at sea can. Now, granted, owning your own small business is not nearly as dramatic as being captain of a ship at sea. At sea, decisions can involve literal life and death implications.
There really aren't that many opportunities in business for a person to die or even to get injured. Compliance with OSHA requirements and common sense keep our injuries pretty small. The last injury I can remember happening is when a worker dropped something on his foot. His foot swelled up and because the worker was diabetic, he was concerned. I told him to file a worker's comp claim and go see a doctor. I'm not a physician, and if the guy ended up developing complications and having his foot amputated, I wanted to make sure he was as protected as possible by the worker's comp system.
Of course, it was no such thing. His foot simply had swelled up a little bit and he was fine. That is what qualifies as a big injury in my business. So, yeah, being a Captain at sea? Perfect storms kill people out there. We don't worry about that so much in here.
We are in the midst of a perfect storm here, though. A lot of businesses are not surviving and there's no guarantee that we won't be joining the ranks of companies that didn't make it.
We're selling off assets, now. So far, we're trimming fat, but it won't be too long until the stuff we're selling is hacking into sinew and muscle. We're selling off a thermal imaging camera and a floor sander that we almost never used. However, we're also putting a truck and truckmount up for auction, and those are things we could potentially use.
Right now, though, we have 4 production trucks and 2 minivans for a company that has been downsized to just 5 employees. We literally have more vehicles than people right now, a remnant of our days as a million dollar company.
Both the business cycle and the economic cycle have been exceptionally cruel to us for the past year and a half. We're basically at half our former volume. What was once an exceedingly profitable company with 14 employees is now down to just those who are absolutely necessary to build us up for the future.
I've always tried to be good to my employees. I couldn't afford to offer health care, but instead, tried to offer excpetionally generous 401(k) matching and put a few more dollars in the employee's paychecks. My workers make more than what most newer UAW workers make around here.
A lot of folks look for ways to gain the upper hand against labor, and to pay them as little as possible. I've always felt extremely fortunate to have the great workers I do, and am just sad I can't do more for them.
One of my employees came to me the other day and said that he realized how slow business was. He told me he would be okay with me letting him go if I had to. I told him I had no intention of doing that.
He said, "Jim, you've been good to me. I don't want to see this company go out of business."
It's things like that where I'm simply left speechless. I don't pay great wages. My employees have to work their butts off. I'm not an easy person to work for, and frankly, I'm not always an easy person to be around. Yet, I have these awesome employees who have stuck by me for years.
When I think of the people I've had to lay off, it pains me horribly. These were not people who did anything wrong. They were let go due to lack of business, nothing more. They were let go because I wasn't smart enough to find a way to keep them on the payroll.
Do I feel guilty about that? You bet. Every day.
It's not that I didn't try. My personal finances took a six figure hit to try and keep everybody employed before I simply ran out of money. After that I kept as many people employed as I could until I ran out of credit.
Through it all, though, I feel really bad. I was the captain of this ship and it's run aground. Doesn't matter the whys and wherefores. I was in charge.
I do get into self-pitying moods now and then. When times were good, they were really good. I also think times will get back to that point in the future, which is why I'm hanging on.
In the mean time, this is a ship with problems and I'm doing what I can to try and keep it afloat. This business will see profitable years in the near future. Might not be next year or the year after, but it will happen.
We're really lean right now. Maybe a bit too lean. So, we are in a position to be very, very profitable if business picks up. I've done my best to get the company to the right size for our current level of sales. So, even if we have another year next year at these reduced sales levels, I should be able to make money.
The weather is beautiful right now. This should be our last bad 4 weeks of business. Mid December is the historical start of our busy-season. Last year, though, things never picked up. If we can at least keep things constant, I should be in great shape for next year.
In the mean time, this has been a trauma, both financially and emotionally. I am not sure how much longer I'll do this particular type of business. I'm considering other options and other potential careers for the last two decades of my working life.
So many things I would have done differently, but that's not life, is it? You only get to move forward. You can only try to shape your future. You can't change the past.
I just made travel plans for December drill. I can't tell you how tickled I am that my commander is letting me double up on drills. I'll have half my year's drills done in December. I may also try to get into my certification class a bit earlier, like in March. I had planned on doing it in August, but now, I don't want to wait that long.
I'm also booking my flights with American Airlines instead of Southwest. Too many plane changes and stops with southwest. American has evening nonstops to Detroit, which means I can leave right after my Sunday drill. Fewer nights away from home. Southwest is awesome about everything, but if you fly with them, it can take a long time to get where you're going. I am sort of regretting booking with them to get me to/from Disney next week. The flight back will be a long one, and it will try my patience a little bit, but will probably be really tough for my little guy.
It's a bumpy ride these days, all things considered. Everything feels challenging, but again, that's life, isn't it? I couldn't tell you what my life will look like 12 months from now. If my biz finds a buyer, I may be just a full-time student. There's just no way to know.
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