Installing Solar Panels…

So, we (well, I ) went ahead with the installation of solar panels on the roof. It took about 3 days when all was said and done.

If you are interested, here's the link to get an estimate.
(full disclosure...if you do sign up via this link, we both get some $).

Some FAQ’s:

1. I went with "lease" instead of "buy" option.
2. Put $1k down and have committed to $68/month. At current electricity consumption rates, this covers about 25% of our monthly usage at a FIXED rate.
3. Payback period…approximately 7 years.
4. Green value is something I am factoring in.
5. Best argument, in my mind, came from Gary of Clean Currents who positioned it as a “hedge against future energy price increases.” (If there’s one thing I have a high degree of confidence in-sure, I could be wrong—it’s that energy prices will go up)
6. It helps to have a new or mostly new roof
7. The company guarantees 95% of their estimates.
8. I’ll be sharing the results of this experiment in the months to come…

To be CLEAR...I'm not advocating just yet since I don't know how it will go, but figured I'd share it for now.

To understand some of the technical components, check out this interview with one of the installers.

Understanding the Food Supply Chain…

Food, Inc. (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

We’re coming out of Thanksgiving. Appreciating all of the bountiful harvest, right?

However, it seems like those quaint images of Pilgrims that gave way to hearty farmers is nothing but an idyllic image of the past.

You know about big Agri-business and Factory Farms (“CAFOs”) and more.

Fast Food Nation took us into that world.

Now, comes Food, Inc., which was a riveting documentary further peeling the layers back. I watched it on Amazon, but I’m sure it’s on Netflix.

Now, I knew a lot of this stuff happened, but there was an awareness that dawned on me from a society security perspective about what happens when only a few companies control the global food chain…and the danger of the potentially huge external shocks to the system.

Whether you think they have an agenda (they do, of course) and disagree or not, I think you’ll agree that food is pretty important. This is 90 minutes worth the time.

Although, I should add, prepare to get depressed.

The Ascent of Money…

The book I successfully borrowed from the library on my Kindle was Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

I’m about 50% of the way through it and am really enjoying it.

I like to think (don’t we all), that I have an above average understanding of finance, but this book has been eye-opening for me as it has helped provide a framework for how money works (on faith…it’s like belief in God) and the role of finance.

As a history buff, I also enjoy how the story unfolds beginning in Cuzco, Peru (since I’ve been there) and then taking us to other key places in the development of financial tools.

Since we’re all so greatly affected by finance (even more than I think we all realize), I’ve found it helpful to take this step back and think about the macro-forces that toss us around so often.

At least next time it happens, even though you can’t control it, you may be better positioned to weather the storm.

Alaska and the Flat World…

When you arrive in Alaska, you can’t help but think about how big the world is, how magnificent nature is, and how you fit into it.

Tyler Arnold grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and at age 16, a teacher gave him a copy of Tom Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat .

So, Tyler did what comes naturally to people with an “Alaska Perspective,” I suppose…

He started a company…at age 16.

But, this company sells services to agencies in New York and San Francisco and manages computer programmers in Pakistan and Romania.

His business took off as he was “managing it from a Blackberry” during 10th grade and, now, at age 19, he spends 8 months a year outside of Alaska (not because of the weather), because he’s either seeing clients or managing his teams around the world.

His monthly revenues would make most of you pretty happy.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about creating jobs and innovation. IF we had more people like Tyler, who understood how to create value in a new, globalized world, we wouldn’t be having that discussion.

Just an inspiring guy. Meet Tyler in this video or check out his website: www.tylersystems.com

How to Raise Money For Your Big Idea…

One of the things I know is that no industry will be left untouched by the forces of the network that the Internet enables.

So, I was particularly interested after I watched a TED talk by the founder of Kiva when she introduced a new concept called “Profounder.”

Essentially, what it does is allow anyone starting a business to go out and raise money from their friends and family, BUT to do it in a way that makes them investors in an easy to manage manner.

If you wanted to raise money before, you either had to go to VC’s (or Angels…people with a lot of money), now, you can distribute that to many smaller investors and manage it using a scalable technology.

Kind of like Prosper and Lending Club, but very business focused.

It’ll be fascinating to see how this model plays out.

How are jobs created?

Image via Wikipedia

In the debates I have been having recently, this seems to be the core area of disagreement.

There are some who believe that the government can create jobs.

Others believe that the government can create jobs, but that they are jobs for the sake of being jobs…not that fundamentally help the economy.

• Jeff Jarvis talks about the “jobless future” and offers some thoughts on where/how the government should spend its money.
• Mark Cuban says “If you want to see more jobs created – change patent laws” and then offers up some ideas on how to do it.
• If you really want to get crazy, you can check out this thread from YCombinator.

It’s all well and good to talk about jobs, but frankly, I think our paradigm is outdated.

The Internet and social tools are creating an upheaval in the definition of work in the same way that James Watt’s steam engine brought people from rural to urban areas.

It’s that big…only bigger.

Along those lines, I think Rob Patterson has the best summary of it all.

What we can do is to stop worrying about the next Job.

It wont come anyway.

Start working instead on recreating an economy that is based on mobilizing all of us in networks to do the things that are useful.

Yes, there may be some “jobs,” but the idea of a 9-5 “show up and get paid” type job is going to be increasingly anachronistic and limited.

Mobile and internet technologies, social networks, globalization, digital measurement and automation…all of these will require us to focus on value creation…in one form or another.

The government can’t create these types of jobs..it can do things to help, but it can’t make the jobs happen.

Only people with the right skillsets and ability to identify the opportunities can.

I don’t have the answers, but I do believe that’s where we need to focus our energies, not on creating “jobs” just for jobs sake.

Related articles

• Want To See More Jobs Created? Change Patent Laws (paidcontent.org)
• Jeff Jarvis: A jobless future -- where technology leads to efficiency over growth (huffingtonpost.com)

It’s not about whether the rich can afford a tax hike…

It’s about what’s the best way to have money optimally distributed throughout the economy.

Lonnie started this debate on FB. Feel free to chime in on the comments below. This should be fun.

What if China sells?

Read a few fascinating articles recently speculating on what would happen to the US economy if China either stopped buying or started significantly selling US Treasury Bonds?

Here are the questions of the day:

1. what would happen?
2. how do you protect yourself against that possibility from an investment perspective?

Background Will China Dump US Debt?

Tuition and Assistance

Image via Wikipedia

There’s a growing sense of anxiety within my community about the rising costs associated with parochial school education.

Let’s assume, for a moment, that alternatives don’t exist and that it’s desirable for everyone who wants to have their child attend the school to be able to do so.

Tuition costs have risen pretty consistently over the past few years and with each raise, it becomes an additional financial stretch for an incremental number of families.

Obviously, there are families that have enough means to be able to absorb the impact.

Once you focus on the key issues like driving out inefficiencies, etc., you are left with the question of: how much should those who can afford tuition subsidize those who cannot?

That’s at the heart of our tax code and healthcare (regardless of whether it is gov’t or insurance companies who ‘pay’).

In discussing this recently, one friend of mine was shocked that someone she knew had said, “you should pay your own way and not for anyone else. If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it and you have to accept that as a fact of life.”

In my friend’s mind, the community has an obligation to help each other out.

I agreed with her, but still challenged her initial reaction.

“Until what point?” I asked.

“All your friend is saying is that she’s at the line where it doesn’t make sense for her and her family to support others in this respect. You have a line as well. Everyone does. It’s just REALLY uncomfortable to figure out what it is and put a price tag on it.

“If I asked you to pay $500 to help another family, you would do it.

“$5,000? Well, then you might have to think about it.

“$50,000? Then, you’d say no.”

Economics is about the study of choices. It’s not about money. It’s about deciding…would I rather send someone else’s kid to school or take a vacation? (or whatever the alternative is).

And it’s really, really tough to measure those.

But, there’s another side to this equation which came up as the NFO and I were discussing the whole issue of tuition and explaining it to Tonka and Paco.

The question is, for all of us, “once we accept money from the government or our friends, does that mean they get to question us about all of our other decisions?”

My friend, Jose, often complains that he can’t stand when “families who plead poverty and take tuition assistance then turn around and ….(go on vacation, get a new card, re-do their kitchen…whatever)”

Obviously, you can say “don’t judge a man/woman until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes,” but if your charity (and I guess this is the whole ‘welfare queen’ notion of a few years ago) is going to me so that my family has a  a place to sleep or food to eat, that’s one thing.

If it’s so that I can take my kids to the beach for a week, is that another?

I definitely don’t have the answer.

Related articles

• Mechanics of Coverdells Savings Accounts: Getting A Handle On What You Want (education.com)
• Paying For College: Seeking Out Student Sources (education.com)
• Basics of Section 529 Plans: Picking Your Plan (education.com)
• Developmental Inflection Point... (jer979.blogspot.com)

Economics…in a Rap

This is great. Here’s round 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc&feature=player_embedded

In case you missed round 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=player_embedded

Public Unions and Undercover Boss…

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sure this will create some controversy, but hey….look at the tagline for this blog.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is fascinating to me. In some respects, I think the future of America hangs in the balance.

It’s no secret where I stand on unions and even though that can sometimes lead to anti-Semitic diatribes by NEA board members, I’m ok with it.

When I look at this debate, I tend to (no surprise) look at with my marketing hat.

Where I think the unions and public sector employees are hurt is in the perception of their attitudes about work and responsibility.

The public discourse seems to be most often about “benefits” and “entitlements.” You’ll frequently hear stories about people who leave their jobs at the pre-appointed time whether the work is done or not.

Living in the DC area, you hear this a lot.

You hear people talk about vacation days they’ve accrued, etc.

It’s like (and again, this is just perception), the concern by public employees is about these benefits and the need to protect them.

I think very few people these days say “we need unions so that bosses don’t abuse people on the job.” There are enough safeguards around that the Triangle Shirt Factory Fire (or its public sector equivalent) is a widespread problem.

Now, I’m not saying that the perceptions are right. I’m just arguing that this is what the perception is.

Changing that perception is part of the battle.

Watching Undercover Boss the other day (perhaps the best reality show on TV), I saw an episode where the mayor of Cincinnati, Mark Mallory, went on the front lines with sanitation workers, parking attendants, etc.

What that show did for me (and judging from the comments, millions of others) was help to change that perception.

That’s a good thing.

If the public unions can do more of that and less of the stories about benefit and salary abuse, they will help their cause.

I still think that public sector unions are a bad thing and a huge drain on the resources of the economy (see this story from California), but just because I think it doesn’t mean that’s what will happen (though it should).

Related articles

• Everything that Is Wrong with Public Sector Unions in Thirty Seconds (biggovernment.com)
• Collective bargaining is not a right, it's a privilege (apostleislands.wordpress.com)
• Walkom: A lesson for Ontario in sneaky union-busting (thestar.com)
• Wisconsin Budget Problems (kevinhannigan.com)
• Behind public standoff, Wisconsin lawmakers talked - Reuters (news.google.com)

Better Place and Israeli Clean Tech…

On the day I was leaving, I saw this article from AP about the Israeli Clean Tech economy.

Combine that with what I saw at Better Place and I came away super-excited about the potential for innovation and growth in the Green economy in Israel.

It already is one of the world’s hotbeds.

I am going to have to come back just to investigate this angle.

Here’s my 7 minute video of a test drive of the car.

Here’s a bit on how the battery switching process (when needed) works.

Here’s the video explaining the charging process.

Israel and Sustainability…

After seeing India, the enormity of the environmental challenge in front of us was driven home for me.

After visiting Israel, I see a possibility for HUGE amounts of innovation to happen here that ultimately impact the entire world.

Already limited in natural resources and exacerbated by the Arab embargo, what you are seeing in Israel in terms of innovation in desalination, electric cars, renewables, solar….it’s really remarkable.

This place will be (if it isn’t already) recognized as a leading R&D lab for the ecological future of the planet.

Seinfeldian Economics….

Like chocolate and peanut butter, we now bring together two perfect complements.

Seinfeld and Economics.

see http://yadayadayadaecon.com/

America’s Economic Forecast

The NFO sometimes accuses me of walking around with a “doom and gloom” view of America’s economic prospects.

In this video, casino mogul, Steve Wynn, shares why.

Stock Market: “A Hoax”

If you’ve read The Black Swanor Fooled by Randomness, you are familiar with the work of Nassim Taleb.

Here’s a powerful video on the state of the economy. Be prepared to have your assumptions challenged.

More on these issues in the coming days.

HT to Mike Eisenberg.

Care about America’s Financial Future? Watch this.

I don’t usually watch CNBC.

Most of the time, the talking heads there don’t make a lot of sense to me.

For whatever reason, I caught it yesterday morning just as the interview with Kyle Bass (whom I had never heard of before) was starting.

It was perhaps the most salient finance interview I’ve EVER heard.

His analysis, the data. I couldn’t help but think, “wow, this guys knows his sh*t!” (sorry, mom, that IS what I thought!)

What troubles me about this interview, however, is that Kyle lays out the case pretty clearly that we are driving in the direction that will take us off the financial cliff. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the President and the Congress will just not have the political will (or the American people, for that matter) to go through with it.

The fact that he points to Japan as the example of how things go horrifically wrong (a case with which I have some familiar) made it resonate even more.

Still, you could see when they went back to the anchor that even he was blown away by the information.

I highly recommend you watch this video…and share it.

Note: I was so impressed, I called Kyle Bass’ office today in Dallas to ask if had a blog, twitter account or whatever…I need to stay on top of what this guy says.

Here’s the video, if you can’t see it below.

At what price are you trading?

I promise you, I had this idea 11 years ago. I remember where I was on the streets of Tokyo, Japan when I came up with it.

Maybe I wasn’t the first, but it was there.

Now, however, I will share with you a very well-written description of it….what if you could invest not only in companies or products, but in people and their future potential?

Privatize the market for education and development.

The premise is intriguing.

Rafe Furst kicks it off as follows:

Imagine you are in your early twenties, out of college several years and your best friend, who recently came into an inheritance of $300K cash told you they could think of no better way to invest the money than to invest it in you.  Not the company you started, not as a loan, but invest it in YOU, as if you were a startup.  In return your friend said all they wanted was 3% of your gross income for the rest of your life.  Do you think you would take it?

So, would you?

Send Flowers to Damascus…

Image via Wikipedia

I had a geo-political revelation while reading Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle(which I reviewed from a business/innovation perspective on my other blog).

Were it not for the pressure cooker situation that Israel finds itself in because of the Arab world’s intransigence and desire to destroy the country, that Israel would not have the highest rate of innovation per capita in the world.

If “necessity is the mother of invention,” then “innovate or be exterminated,” certainly raises the stakes.

So, in a great ironic twist, the constant effort to destroy and isolate Israel has actually led to Israel’s increasing wealth and sought-after knowledge/innovation.

At the end of “The Believer,” a move in which an Orthodox kid becomes a neo-Nazi, the main character says that the way to get rid of the Jews is to “love them.”

Then, they will assimilate and be no more.

So, too, the Middle East, in some way.

Israelis will tell you this, “if the Arabs made peace with us and left us alone, we’d probably kill each other in a civil war.”

So, the 50-fold increase in living standards and having more companies on the Nasdaq than all of western Europe combined…well, that’s something the Israelis owe to the Syrians, Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world that want them gone.

Taxes and Economic Recovery….

So, I get a note from the Maryland Unemployment Insurance fund that because they are running low on funds (due to high claims), they are raising taxes on employers.

As a business owner, here’s how I think about it.

“Ok, it just got more expensive for me to hire someone, so I will hold back.”

Now, personally, I don’t want any employees, I prefer the Free Agent Nation (disclosure: client) model of working with sub-contractors, but when I think about margins and profitability, I see this angle and it gives me pause.

When you raise taxes on employers, you are slowing down the very process you need to speed up to get more people off unemployment.