Month: August 2019

When I first started in business I had most of the important information committed to memory.  When the first landline phones offered to store frequently called numbers I no longer needed to memorize those phone numbers. When the first cellphones let you store not only numbers, but account numbers and addresses I no longer had to memorize that information.  Now my smartphone lets me talk to anyone anywhere by touching their picture or name.  Convenience comes at a price. The convenience of a smartphone makes you dumb.

I watched an interesting show last night on the Science Channel.  Various places around the world are being invaded by jellyfish of all shapes and sizes.  The jellyfish are either eating the native fish or the fish are leaving the area.  The scientists working on this problem discovered that jellyfish numbers increase with the warming of the oceans.  If this is the new normal the jellyfish will put both commercial fishermen and local fishermen out of business.  This will also impact communities around the world that rely on fish as their main source of protein.

If the invasion of jellyfish cannot be stopped, we will be eating jellyfish proteins instead of the fish we eat now.  Everything we have done to the planet over the last 150 years has consequences.  The jellyfish invasion is one of those consequences.

The answer, of course,  is 42.  Why 42? Where does 42 come from? We do not know. We have the answer but we do not know the question.  If you really want to know read “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.

I was chatting with a customer last week about her business.  I asked her if she ever thought she would be drooling over boxes. We had a good laugh about it.  Like any business you are working at it can take up the majority of your time.  Before I became Director of New Business Development I owned small business.  I did dream about that business from time to time.

A recession is when your neighbor loses his/her job.  A depression is when you lose your job.

About 33% of economist polled believe that a recession will happen at the end of this year or the beginning of 2020.  Will this happen? The answer is always “maybe.”  The trade war with China, the economic slowdown in Europes biggest economy, Germany and the loss of small farms in the midwest are all factors economist are following.  What can you do to minimize the effects of a potential recession on your personal economy?  The first thing you should do is pay off as much of your consumer debt as you can now.  This means pay off credit cards, home equity and car loans.  Do not take on new debt. Reduce eating out, going to the movies, taking vacations and other discretionary spending.   The less you spend now let you have the money in the bank to survive any economic problems that may happen.

All towns and cities run some sort of recycling program.  For the last decade recycling programs survived because China was buying and recycling our waste products.  From plastics and metals to paper and cardboard towns and cities broke even or even turned a profit by selling to China.  The party is over as China has stopped buying all but the cleanest waste products at greatly reduced prices.  Prices China paid for used cardboard dropped 85% since January 2019.  The new reality that China is no longer paying high prices for recyclables has lead to many small towns eliminating their recycling programs.  Will recycling survive in its present form? What will towns, cities and states do to reduce plastic and paper wastes?  I will share my ideas in future posts.