Only Bob Wiltrout will find this week's blog interesting. We'll see the rest of you next week - have a great weekend!
Finger printing: Can anyone explain to me how a process that fails more than 50% of the time helps the security of this country? We had issues obtaining an acceptable set of finger prints for Donna when she moved her nursing license to South Dakota. I'm now experiencing that same issue as we try to complete a background check to allow us to volunteer at Voyageurs National Park. Unless you're interested in starting up a massage parlor in Spotsylvania County in Virginia, very few places can provide finger printing services. And of those, it appears most can't provide an acceptable print. So smeared finger prints are acceptable for massage parlors? (This is a family oriented blog - I'll stop there!)
Facebook Timeline: I'll start this particular rant with a great verbal exchange I once had with a dear departed friend - Tom Bryant: Tom (to me): "I'm not here to make you happy." My response: "Doesn't matter. I'm here to tell you what you need to hear." (Not all great friendships are based on friendliness.) So goes my response to the thousands of you unhappy with Facebook Timeline. To those of you who can't stand Timeline, how many of your friends' Timelines have you looked at? None? Guess what? They're not looking at your timeline, either. Quit sweatin' it! No one's lookin'! During our 2011 Friends and Family tour, we found that the only time people looked at my or Donna's Facebook Wall was usually about a week before we arrived. Guess they figured that if they didn't look at it, there'd be nothing to talk about. Folks, I'm retired and even I don't have time to look at people's timelines!
Federal Budget: Unhappy with GSA's $850,000 spending spree? If so, then don't look at the federal budget! So far we've gotten two proposals to our federal budget shortfall. Let me explain them in "regular family" language & use an over simplified example. Let's set the stage: You and your family can no longer afford to go out to eat. There are two proposals on the table to solve this issue so you can go and visit Famous Dave's BBQ. First, we just won't pay for our health care when we get old. Dying before you run out of money is a great idea! But, how does one do that? Oh, wait, I've got that wrong. We just won't go for any medical services at all. OK, that's one solution. But, hey, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it!
The second solution is to hit up a guy at Famous Dave's who can afford to eat out and force him to pay for our iced teas. You still can't afford to go out to eat, but I guess that really doesn't matter. Hey, I got a great idea! Let's force the guy to pay for all our meals. Guess what? Now he can't afford to go out to eat and he doesn't show up. Folks, I've been involved in church finances, and it's hard to get money out of people's pockets who don't show up. But that's OK! We can always hit the print button on the dot-matrix printer and get more money.
Now let's get a little more serious about this "printing money" solution. In 1973, I got to go to Japan. At that time $1 bought 277 yen. Today, as I type this, that $1 buys about 81 yen. That's about a 70% drop in value of the dollar. If exchange rates and the drop in the value of the dollar compared to the yen were that simple, that $30,000 Camry you'll look at this weekend would really cost you about $9,000 if the dollar hadn't lost so much in value. Now, you go get a calculator and see what that does to the price of that $4/gal of gasoline you just bought. Yep, it's a solution, but not the best. Apparently, it's the only one we've got, though.
Lastly, we have 2% of the world's oil. Really? REALLY?? We had 2% of the world's oil in the fall of 1975! In an advanced business analysis class at Vanderbilt, we broke up into teams and studied various businesses or industries. The team I was on looked at air cargo delivery (think FedEx - I was an aspiring pilot ya know!) Another team looked at the oil industry. Guess how much oil they said we had? 2%. Folks, that's in the fall of 1975. So it's still 2%? Yep. And guess what? There's a legitimate reason why that is. To make it simple, how much oil you have depends on how much crude oil costs to recover (pump?). It's a meaningless metric that says how much you have depends on how much you can sell it for. (Actually, it's not that stupid of a metric, but if the shoe fits...) Don't like fossil fuels and want a real metric? The U.S. has 4% to 5% of the world's populations and uses 20+% of the world's oil that's being pumped. That's your metric.
It was great talking to you, Bob! Later, David
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