Friday, January 12, 2007

Shifting Costs as a Business Strategy

There were a flurry of news  stories talking about how Wal-Mart shifts costs from its business to government, and other businesses, as a strategy of lowering its costs so that the stockholders can make more money.
For benefits, the basic idea is that instead of paying benefits to employees, you shift their health costs to the city / state / federal by hiring as many part time workers (less than 32 hours a week, thus since they are not "full time" they are not required to offer these work "benefits" to them so the Government picks up the cost of providing it) yet they get the full work as if these people worked full time. You just hire two to four part-time people to cover the house and thus you save the 25% cost of "benefit" package that would go to a single full time person.
Sometimes these shifting of costs occurs under the guise of customer ease and at first it seems to be true. Many firms now offer support contracts for software.  However, instead of them sending you the updates, you now have to go to them - spending your time - to check to see if there are any (Microsoft tries to limit that by requiring users to go to a universal update site - but you are REQUIED to be part of this service so it tracks you and sort of helps at same time).
Now one thing that changed was that on big MSDN subs you no longer get any physical CD / DVDs - you get to download the image. This DOES cut down the time before you get an update - but now if you want (and you always need to have it) a physical image on CD / DVD you now have to download, have a burner, buy the media, burn the media, write down what is on the media and then create your own storage system - they just shifted a LOT of costs onto you while saving them shipping costs, and media production costs - in the guise of making it easier and faster for a person to get the software.
Add in now that you MUST have a high speed line to download a 4 GIG ISO image (and a few hours when you are not going to use the line) they shifted more costs onto you too.
I expect many more businesses will use these methods to shift costs from them to end users and all versions of government in order to make more money for the few people who own the their business (most of these are often owned by less than 10 big firms, and all the people who own 1 to a few thousand shares are effectively ignored in how they run the business anyway.)
Note: This is different than openly shifting costs to people. If someone wants their product in three days instead of six and they pay extra that is not the same situation.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Eating Dog food - Iraq Study Group - Apply recommendations to the USA also

On page 79 of the Iraq Study Group (TISG) book they have recommendation 51 stating that the whole border police should be moved into the Defense Ministry where it is most logical.
Taking that line, since it is the best place for them to DEFEND the borders using the military, this means that if TISG studied the US then the whole Border Patrol should be moved under our Department of Defense since IT is tasked with DEFENDING our borders and the BP are the people on the ground while the MILITARY is using ships, planes, to patrol the waters and airspace so they TOO should be consolidated.
This is really indicative of TISG - would they have the same recommendations if it had to be implemented in the US and if NOT, then it should not be used in Iraq.

Ethanol - bad for the OVERALL Environment

"Several factors are in play including the amount of energy required for fertilizers, equipment and the amount of fuel required to drive a car (a tank of ethanol has less energy content than gas, MIT confirmed.) " From a news article.
During the winter months in Portland you get to have 10% (by volume) of your fuel ethanol - and if you see your gas mileage go down during this time this is why - usually 2 to 3 MPG lower than regular full strength 87 octane gasoline (petrol for you British folks).
Doing a quick calculation, what this means that out of 11 gallons of fuel during the winter the distance you drive is equal to 10 gallons used during the summer when NO ethanol is used. Thus you waste a gallon of fuel - 30 miles - and cause MORE pollution than without the ethanol mixed in.
Add in the amount of energy required to CREATE the ethanol that means overall it is causing MORE pollution than it is clearing up - just that the pollution is caused ELSEWHERE so the cities, like socialist leaning Portland, just shifted the problem to someone else's back yard.
Doing another quick calculation that means 24 gallons of fuel is "wasted" per car during the winter (8 refills), with 2 million cars in the Portland area that means 48 MILLION gallons of fuel, 120+ MILLION dollars spent by people filling up their tanks ($2.70 or so a gallon) - with NO benefit at all. Add in all the trucks used to transport that fuel around Portland itself (there is only 1 fuel delivery line serving Portland) and the waste goes on and on really costing around $200 million in "wasted" money due to their "Green" push to have ethanol in the fuel.
And the EPA and Portland (plus METRO) think they are HELPING us.
Well, they do, this brings to them around $28 MILLION dollars in gas taxes to them (state and local) in four months - which they spend on ????? 
Definitely NOT roads!

 

Monday, January 08, 2007

Free Wi-Fi (Wireless) for the Masses in SFO - FALSE

"This agreement catapults San Francisco into a leadership position in wireless technology: the network ensures universal, affordable wireless broadband access for all San Franciscans, especially low-income and disadvantaged residents; and through the Mayor's digital divide program, children and students will have the digital tools to ensure that they have access to everything that the Internet has to offer the growing minds of the City's promising future."  - Donald Berryman of EarthLink.
 
I am sure the low-income and disadvantaged people will be walking around with $2000 laptops so they can get onto the Internet!
 
Such garbage. Using low-income people as a way to sell Wi-FI to the city when people with no money will NEVER use it.  How often do you see businesses sell items to people WITH NO MONEY? NEVER.
 
Plus, they are NOT the first - Portland Oregon already has it in operation - FREE - (you do get ads along the top - which is how the company putting in the Wi-Fi Network will make money) as of December 2006. If you pay $$ you can access it without the ads on the browser.