by: Tom Libertiny
A 2009 September 22 article in Business Week by Jack Ewing goes on to explain that “Advances in fuel-cell technology and a commitment from the German government to build a fueling network mean automakers haven’t given up on hydrogen.” That may be true, but toward the end of his article, the question of operating costs for the user (at least the cost for fuel) finally comes up.
According to Business Week: “And the cost of generating an hour of electricity with a hydrogen fuel cell has recently dropped more than 20%, to $78. A drop to $30 is possible by 2015, which would make hydrogen competitive with gasoline.”
Competitive with gasoline on a cost basis? Not according to their own figures. Here’s why:
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Posted in category: Family Budget
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by: Tom Libertiny
I remember reading the original Wall Street Journal article on 2009 August 11 by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods entitled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.” A link to the article is at the bottom of this article.
I agree with some of Mackey’s “eight reforms” and some I don’t agree with. But the clear takeaway I had from his article and the plans being prepared by our government is simple: No one either understands or admits to understanding the root cause of high health care cost and insurance. And without a clear understanding, how can anyone create what is essentially a new business–call it the American Healthcare for Everyone Company (or not-for-profit or government agency).
What investor would invest in a company or become a customer of it when the various folks and organizations suggesting ideas for solving the problem don’t understand the actual problem?
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Posted in category: Government
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by: Tom Libertiny
On the one hand, I feel horrible writing this because I understand first-hand how much time and effort it takes to write anything from a blog, to a magazine article to a book. On the other hand I’m never going to get the time back that I spent reading this book. Being a fan of Wired magazine I set the bar high and waited with anticipation until Chris Anderson (Wired’s editor) released his new book “Free, the Future of a Radical Price.”
The bar I set was far too high.
Chris Anderson is a gifted writer in the new-web-economy sense of confusing the generation of lists with actual analysis. The content of the first 240 pages (hardback book edition) are familiar to anyone who has followed the history of both technology, economics and business for the last few decades. Good summaries are freely available with much more detail and some actual analysis at the free www.wikipedia.org website. For those who haven’t followed the history or prefer a briefing, consider purchasing his book when it comes out in paperback or via Amazon’s Kindle. Perhaps this is the intended audience for the majority of Chris book.
Where is the value in this book?
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Posted in category: Business
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by: Tom Libertiny
“…The U.S. space program turned out to be one of the great economic and innovative failures of our time. For a decade it absorbed a big chunk of the country’s scientific and technical resources, while producing very few economically useful spinoffs.”
–Michael Mandel, Business Week’s chief economist
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/07/the_economic_fa.html
Michael Mandel completely misses the point of scientific endeavor. If we assume the extreme: Space exploration is simply a financial black hole, what we gain is the knowledge about where and how to take the next step toward eventual success. Humans are neophytes in space.
Instead, he’s thinking like a Wall Street banker and expecting perfect predictability of economic success or failure. These are the Wall Street bankers who couldn’t even predict something as simple as the downside of leveraging their money. But he expects much better performance from scientists and engineers in something that is orders of magnitude more complicated than a relatively simple financial transaction scheme.
Hopefully the majority of folks recognize that “navel gazing” is not productive and not even a sport. We need to continue taking steps to exploration and learning. After all, we don’t know what we don’t know and our children’s children will thank us for taking the next steps.
Posted in category: Government
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by: Tom Libertiny
Who cares about perks during a recession? The recession is not going to last for ever. By implementing a retirement plan today, you’re establishing a strategy to retain your best employees when the going gets good again.
While an entire article can be written on the direct financial benefits of having a retirement plan in place for the business owner, this article addresses an equally important issue known as “R2″: Recruiting and Retention of key employees. Key employees are the very few people who are critical to the growth and success of your business–your associate rainmaker, the 20% who are doing 80% of the work, and your customer service representative who is the voice, smile, and face of your business.
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Posted in category: Business
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