The BM Rant

A Chef at McDonalds? Part 1

Mr. Rant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:44:15 +0000

Cited: Time

Nobody would believe that McDonald’s has a chef on their payroll because it sounds so ridiculous. How could the big Mac, french fries and the McRib be the work of a chef? The countless foods are definitely salty, but they have a nostalgic flavor to them as well. They could be partly because of the marketing campaigns they put out.

And yet — have you eaten at a McDonald’s lately? In the past five years, the company has started to serve genuinely edible salads, unlike those dry iceberg-and-carrot things it used to offer. The Southwest Salad, which appeared in 2007, comes with a lime wedge and a credible corn salsa. Similarly, the new Angus Third Pounders — a line of relatively expensive and meaty hamburgers that have 66% more beef than a Big Mac and less bread — are just as tasty as the triple-the-price burgers at T.G.I. Friday’s.

I’m not the only one who thinks so. After all the bad press in the early ’00s — the company has been blamed, with some justification, for the global rise in obesity — McDonald’s is enjoying a heady resurgence. Each day, it feeds some 26 million Americans, 2 million more than it did in 2006. In the past five years, the McDonald’s Corp. share price has jumped from below $30 to above $60.

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McDonald’s has doubtless benefited from the weak economy — its low-cost, seemingly healthy Snack Wraps (soft tortillas filled with chicken, lettuce and cheese) are perfectly positioned to feed a nation simultaneously worried about money and fat — but the company’s boom actually began in 2006, before the recession hit. A major reason was the improvement in its menu. A glowing Feb. 2 Goldman Sachs analyst’s report on McDonald’s is typical of Wall Street sentiments. The report says McDonald’s is “stepping up investment when peers cannot” and cites the “strong new product pipeline” as a key factor.

It turns out there’s a chef at the beginning of that pipeline — a cook who trained at the Culinary Institute of America and who once ran the gracious kitchens at the Four Seasons Resort and Club outside Dallas. The Southwest Salad, the Angus burgers, the Snack Wrap — they all emerged from the food laboratory of Daniel Coudreaut, 44, whose business card reads DIRECTOR OF CULINARY INNOVATION, MENU MANAGEMENT but who likes to go by Chef Dan.

In a move that could be the New Coke of Coudreaut’s career, his kitchen has created the Mac Snack Wrap, or Mac Wrap for short. The Mac Wrap is the first new version of the Big Mac the company has introduced since the iconic burger was launched in the 1960s. The Big Mac remains on the menu — the company isn’t stupid — but executives were so fearful of spinning off a variant that internal negotiations and testing took a year. “Don’t touch” was the attitude toward the Big Mac when he arrived, says Coudreaut. The fact that the top brass allowed him to remix it is both an expression of the company’s faith in him and a signal that McDonald’s once again feels strong enough to take risks. (See pictures of what makes you eat more food.)

The rollout for the Mac Wrap began quietly in December, but by last month, when it became the subject of a major ad campaign, the Mac Wrap was in all 14,000 U.S. McDonald’s. For all that, it is a strange, simple little invention. To make a Mac Wrap, you take about half the interior of a Big Mac — a single beef patty, three quick squeezes of special sauce, less lettuce, less cheese, fewer pickles, fewer onions — and wrap the software in a tortilla instead of stacking it on a sesame-seed bun. McDonald’s serves the Mac Wrap for only $1.50; it has just 330 calories, 210 fewer than the Big Mac. The wrap offers a familiar taste without the guilt, but that’s not to say it’s good for you. More than half its calories come from fat, and a single Mac Wrap has 690 mg of sodium — almost as much as in an entire Quarter Pounder (730 mg). One Mac Wrap contains 46% of your recommended daily allowance of salt.

Public-health advocates will surely assail the company for creating the wrap, partly because you have to eat two to feel full (at which point you would have been better off ordering one Big Mac). But I wanted to know about the man behind it, this guy who thinks he can tinker with a paragon of Americana as durable as the Big Mac. Coudreaut might call himself Chef Dan, but isn’t he just a p.r. stunt, a suit masquerading in chef’s whites?

The Secrets of Celery Root

The youngest of five, Coudreaut grew up in Ossining, N.Y., not far from New York City. From around age 7, he was his mom’s helper at mealtimes and kept a written inventory of ingredients in the pantry. At 14, he got a job washing dishes at a diner where the chef-owner let him look over his shoulder at the stoves. For a while, Coudreaut thought he might want to be in show business, and as a kid he got small roles in TV commercials and an off-Broadway play. He also went to business school, but all the while he kept cooking, and at 28, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute.

McDonald’s headquarters saw Coudreaut’s arrival in 2004 at the sprawling campus in Oak Brook Illinois outside of Chicago. You will find his kitchen on the third floor of the main building and it is this sort you expect to see in an expense account restaurant. He even requested that you have granite countertops. Some of the equipment like the giant wolf range cost more than most Donald’s employees make in six months. He also has a salamander that every professional kitchen uses brown food before it is served

Continued in “A Chef at McDonalds? Part 2″

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My Take: It takes a chef to build a menu. Even one that is as simple as McDonald’s. Most people do not consider who developed McDonald’s menu, just that it tastes good. You see people of all kinds going into a McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and even dinner.

You see college students wearing Greek clothing and cool T shirts enjoying their Big Macs. You see young teenage girls wearing their sexy low rise jeans and flirting with boys over there chocolate shakes and fries. I guess what I’m trying to say is both young and old alike, like McDonald’s to matter who developed the menu.

People of all types wearing sexy low rise stretch jeans for women and screen printed Greek shirts or a T-shirt with the latest graphic tees go to McDonald’s for any number of reasons. Maybe it is the dollar menu that brings them in our maybe its Ronald McDonald. Whatever it is, a chef or dollar menu, they definitely have built a better mousetrap.

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Did Interrogation Lawyers Used Bad Judgment?

Mr. Rant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:33:55 +0000

Cited: Reuters February 19

The harsh interrogation techniques that were reportedly used on terrorism suspects were authorized by Bush administration attorneys who, according to the Department of Justice investigation into the allegations of misconduct, used “poor judgment”. That was the determination of the DOJ on February 19 when they summarize the lengthy ethics report

The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility had originally found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had engaged in professional misconduct, according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee leaders.

The harsh techniques they authorized included waterboarding of terrorism suspects as the Bush administration tried to elicit intelligence after the September 11, 2001, attacks for capturing or killing anti-American al Qaeda militants.

However, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis reviewed the ethics report as well as responses by Yoo and Bybee and decided not to adopt that finding, according to the letter by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich.

Instead, Margolis found that they “exercised poor judgment in connection with the drafting of the pertinent memoranda,” the letter said.

Because the two lawyers are no longer employed by the agency, no government disciplinary action would be pursued, Weich said. The Justice Department declined to comment on the report, which was sent to Congress on Friday.

Poor judgment “differs from professional misconduct in that an attorney may act inappropriately and thus exhibit poor judgment even though he or she may not have violated or acted in reckless disregard of a clear obligation or standard,” the letter said.

During the Bush administration, Yoo and Bybee were high-ranking officials in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Yoo is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Bybee is a federal appeals court judge.

The report likely will anger human rights groups who have pushed the Obama administration to pursue criminal charges, arguing that the harsh interrogations, which included a technique known as waterboarding, were forms of torture.

But the decision not to prosecute Yoo and Bybee won praise from Representative Lamar Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

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“It is important that future government lawyers know that their efforts to protect Americans will not be criminalized by future administrations,” Smith said. “They did their best to follow the law and provide intelligence officials with legal guidelines for the use of strong tactics to obtain actionable intelligence from terrorist suspects.”

Waterboarding, which induces the sensation of drowning, was used on three terrorism suspects including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has said he was the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah.

President Barack Obama has said he preferred to look forward beyond the Bush administration but that has been complicated by the ethics report and a decision by his attorney general, Eric Holder, who asked a prosecutor to look into allegations of abuse on prisoners by CIA interrogators.

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My Take: I am one of those people who believes that when we caught those SOBs that we should of shot them. Al Qaeda would have been the same to American who had attacked their country, without asking any questions. But, because the way our laws are written we provide a Monmouth County drug crimes lawyer to anyone who cannot afford one.

We even provide the worst kind of criminal, sex offenders, with a Manasquan NJ criminal defense lawyer. On one hand, I can understand that it is only fair that they get a proper defense. But on the other hand, I think they should be skinned alive. I am sorry, but Al Qaeda is right up there next to sex offenders on my list of those who should get the worst punishment.

Because of the way our laws are, I wouldn’t put it past an Al Qaeda member to hire a Brockville criminal attorney in advance of committing a crime. That way when they get their phone call they know who to call. I wonder if his followers could sue him for fraud for falsely calling himself a prophet. Then they would be the ones needing an Ottawa fraud attorney.

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Is America’s Falling Crime Rate Real? Part 1

Mr. Rant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:20:40 +0000

Cited: Time

People are now wondering if it is possible to solve big problems like health care, climate change and terrorism. It does not help the mood of Washington is a bit low. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel of one of the biggest problems this country faces. That light is focusing on violent crime. The US has been facing this problem for years and it seems to have been worse over the last 20 years. Most Americans have ranked violent crime at the top or near the top of urgent issues of government needed to handle. Americans have expected politicians from the lowliest Aldermen to the highest, the president, to come up with a way to solve violent crime issues. In fact, the murder rate in the US reached a near record 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991. Criminologist predicted a generation of super predators was going to make things even worse.

Then, a breakthrough, crime rates started falling. Apart from a few bumps and plateaus, they continued to drop through boom times and recessions, through peace and war, under Democrats and Republicans. Last year’s murder rate may be the lowest since the mid-1960s, according to preliminary statistics released by the Department of Justice. The human dimension of this turnaround is extraordinary. Had the rate remained unchanged, an additional 170,000 Americans would have been murdered in the years since 1992. That’s more U.S. lives than were lost in combat in World War I, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq–combined. In a single year, 2008, lower crime rates meant 40,000 fewer rapes, 380,000 fewer robberies, half a million fewer aggravated assaults and 1.6 million fewer burglaries than we would have seen if rates had remained at peak levels.

There’s a catch, though. No one can convincingly explain exactly how the crime problem was solved. Police chiefs around the country credit improved police work. Demographers cite changing demographics of an aging population. Some theorists point to the evolution of the drug trade at the wholesale and retail levels, while for veterans of the Clinton Administration, the preferred explanation is their initiative to hire more cops. Renegade economist Steven Levitt has speculated that legalized abortion caused the drop in crime. (Fewer unwanted babies in the 1970s and ’80s grew up to be thugs in the 1990s and beyond.)

The truth probably lies in a mix of these factors, plus one more: the steep rise in the number of Americans in prison. As local, state and federal governments face an era of diminished resources, they will need a better understanding of how and why crime rates tumbled. A sour economy need not mean a return to lawless streets, but continued success in fighting crime will require more brains, especially in those neighborhoods where violence is still rampant and public safety is a tattered dream.

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The Lockup Factor

In his book why crime rates fell, Tufts University sociologist John Conklin concluded that up to half of the improvement was due to a single factor: more people in prison. The U.S. prison population grew by more than half a million during the 1990s and continued to grow, although more slowly, in the next decade. Go back half a century: as sentencing became more lenient in the 1960s and ’70s, the crime rate started to rise. When lawmakers responded to the crime wave by building prisons and mandating tough sentences, the number of prisoners increased and the number of crimes fell.

Why Crime Went Away

Common sense, you might think. But this is not a popular conclusion among criminologists, according to Conklin. “There is a tendency, perhaps for ideological reasons, not to want to see the connection,” he says. Incarceration is to crime what amputation is to gangrene–it can work, but a humane physician would rather find a way to prevent wounds and cure infections before the saw is necessary. Prison is expensive, demoralizing and deadening. “Increased sentencing in some communities has removed entire generations of young men” from some minority communities, says San Francisco police chief George Gascón. “Has that been a factor in lowering crime? I think it probably has. I think it also probably has had a detrimental effect on those communities.”

Prisoners leave saddened parents, abandoned mates, fatherless children. Of course, in many cases, those families are better off with their violent relatives behind bars. But a court system that clobbers first-time offenders with mandatory sentences–sometimes for nonviolent crimes–will inevitably lock up thousands of not-so-bad guys alongside the hardened criminals. Not everyone agrees on the definition of a nonviolent criminal, but studies have estimated that as many as one-third of all U.S. prison inmates are in that category, most of them locked up on drug charges.

R. Dwayne Betts may be one of those not-so-bad guys, sentenced to nine years in an adult prison on a first offense at age 16. It’s hard to know if a less severe punishment would have worked. Betts hijacked a stranger’s car at gunpoint, which is a dangerous and depraved thing to do. But he also showed signs of promise, having earned his high school diploma a year ahead of schedule. Betts gradually learned to navigate the violence and boredom of prison and emerged in 2006 ready to launch a respectable life, enrolling in college, getting married and writing a book called A Question of Freedom. He looks on those prison years as a costly void, “a waste of society’s time and money in the sense that I didn’t get any rehabilitation or any educational opportunities.” Most inmates, Betts continues, can’t do what he has done; they don’t have the tools. “I was fortunate in that I knew how to read, I liked books, was pretty intelligent, and I knew I had no intention of being locked up for the rest of my life.”

With government budgets hammered red by the Great Recession, the high cost and human toll of the lock-’em-up strategy has made it hard to sustain. California lawmakers decided last month to cut the number of state prisoners by 6,500 in the coming year. Other states are already at work, on a smaller scale. In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, 20 states reduced their prisoner counts by a total of nearly 10,000 inmates. As a result, according to the Justice Department, the number of state and federal prisoners grew by less than 1% nationwide–the smallest increase in nearly a decade. (The number of blacks behind bars is, in fact, falling as the rate of incarceration among

In interviews with police chiefs across the country, TIME heard the same story again and again. It is the saga of a revolution in law enforcement, a new way of battling the bad guys, and it begins, at least in some tellings, with a colorful New York City transit cop named Jack Maple. He worked the subways back when the city was averaging four, five, almost six murders a day, and even though the experts informed him that crime was inseparable from such “root causes” as poverty and despair, Maple developed a theory that the key cause was criminals. If police collected and analyzed enough data, they could figure out where the criminals liked to operate and when they tended to be there. Voilà: go there and arrest them, and crime would go down.

Continued in “Is America’s Falling Crime Rate Real? Part 2″

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My Take: Why are people asking what is behind America’s falling crime rate? If it is real, just let them keep doing what they are doing! We shouldn’t be looking the gift horse in the mouth that will get us in trouble. If this is true, maybe the number of lawyers in the world will diminish.

It means that less people are going to need a criminal attorney or a Brooklyn slip and fall lawyer. Of course, people will still need Denver civil law attorneys for other things like they might need a Brooklyn nursing home abuse lawyer because somebody abused an elderly relative or even a personal injury attorney Vail CO for an accident they had.

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Flexible Work Environments Equals Happier Employees

Mr. Rant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:08:08 +0000

Cited: Time/Top News

The mental health benefits of flexible work environments has had a lot of researchers scratching their heads trying to find out if they believe we work early or arrived late for personal reasons actually have a broader physical health benefit besides being less frazzled. According to the Cochrane Library’s Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the new research seems to prove it is helpful.

In a review of 10 previous studies examining the health implications of flexible work conditions for more than 16,000 people, researchers from the U.K.’s Durham University and University of Newcastle, as well as the University of Montreal, found that flexible work schedules, when employees can shift their starting times for example, were associated with improvements in blood pressure, sleep and overall mental health. Specifically, the review showed that more flexibility in work schedules was associated with improvements in alertness, sleep quality, tiredness, heart rate and other primary health outcomes, as well as benefits to secondary health outcomes, such as perceived social support in the workplace and sense of community. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, in all of the studies included in the review, researchers found no evidence for negative effects of more flexible work schedules.

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This preliminary analysis was intended to shed light on the potential health benefits of flexible work options, which are increasingly popular throughout Scandinavia, and have recently gained some ground in the U.K. Last April, the British government extended a policy that allowed parents of children ages six and under to request flexible work arrangements to include parents of children ages 16 and younger, for example. In the U.S., the phenomenon is a bit slower to catch on and fewer than a third of U.S. employees have flexible work options, according to 2009 estimates from the AARP. Yet, the economic atrophy of recent years may have contributed to growth in workplace flexibility—as companies unable to reward employees with bonuses or raises may turn to other forms of compensation, Reuters reported early last year.

Previous research too, of course, has indicated the benefits of flexible work environments toward positive mental health outcomes. And while these latest findings are promising, the researchers stress that more study is vital to understanding the more nuanced dynamics of the relationship between flexible work and improved health outcomes. For example, employees who are most frequently granted workplace leeway are generally higher-ranking, and as such are likely of higher socioeconomic status, which could impact their overall health apart from work scheduling. To truly grasp the benefits of flexible working conditions, the researchers say, additional study analyzing health outcomes among a wide range of workers—from high-ranking executives to hourly employees—is critical to gaining a deeper understanding of the issue, and helping to shape future workplace policy.

Another study done by the Durham University has found that working flexible hours has a positive effect on workers’ health and enables them to get more rest in bed each night.

According to the researchers at Wolfson Research Institute based at Durham University, “In our study, we found numerous benefits if individuals are allowed to have an input into their own working patterns”.

The results also showed that in the 16,000 people reviewed as part of the survey, no adverse effects were experienced.

Commenting on the results, a spokesman from the Trades Union Congress said, “Both personnel and management can experience the advantages of workforce mobility”.

“[Overworking] leads to stress, which can ruin the little time that overworked staffs do get to spend with their family,” he remarked.

“These findings certainly give employers and employees something to think about. Being in control of how and when we work is good for us and has clear health benefits”, said Dr. Clare Bambra, of the Wolfson Research Institute at Durham University, “Flexible working has a positive impact on health issues such as blood pressure, mental health and sleep”.

So to some researchers employees who have flexible work schedules to fit in with their busy lives do feel better.

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My Take: They have to spend money on research to figure this out? Anybody who works 40+ hours could’ve told them that flexible hours are better. I bet their answering service was all of messages with the same information. That’s like asking the question of whether a tablecloth will keep a table clean. Do they really want a stupid answer for stupid question?

Maybe they do! I know for sure that a quality table cloth kept the weight keeps a table clean as well as looking good. Everybody knows that. Just as everybody knows that flexible work hours make everybody happier.

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DC Flexing Superhero Muscles

Mr. Rant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:45:37 +0000

Cited: Variety

The creative juices are flowing at Warner Bros. as it works its creative muscles to get the army of caped crusaders of the DC world on to the big screen while Marvel continues with its superhero movies. With the success of the last two Batman features, Warner Bros. is boosting its divisions across the board. They are keeping “Catwoman” on their mind as they know like it can mail at the box office.

It’s been nearly six months since Warners took over DC Comics, rebranded it DC Entertainment and pulled back development of its superhero projects from producers. A big reveal of which heroes will swoop, fly, or race into theaters is expected in the coming months, but for now, Warner Pictures Group prexy Jeff Robinov is moving cautiously closer to putting the pieces together to make sure characters like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern use their powers to mint money.

The amount of time Robinov is taking to lock in that vision may frustrate fanboys, but the exec showed just how serious he is about the potential for the characters by hiring a “Dream Team” of A-listers in the comic book biz, announced last week, who will now run DC and shape how the superheroes are portrayed creatively through movies, TV shows, online properties, videogames, theme-park attractions, merchandise, and, of course, comic books.

“DC Entertainment’s new executive team is a creative ‘dream team,’ with accomplishments and talent unrivaled in the business,” said Nelson. “This announcement continues and underscores DC’s legacy as the ultimate destination for creators. We’ll benefit enormously from the deep experience this team represents, while re-energizing the direction and focus of the company. I’m excited and honored to have each of them with me at the helm of DC Entertainment.”

With Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as co-publishers, DC now has one of the more high-profile illustrators and comic book creators, as well as editorial directors, at the helm of the publisher.

Before opening the doors to WildStorm Productions and co-founding Image Comics, where he launched the popular “Wild C.A.T.S.” franchise, Lee created such characters as Gambit at rival Marvel. He’s now also overseeing “DC Universe Online,” a massively multiplayer game that Sony Online Entertainment will launch this year. DiDio has been the chief editor at publishing imprint DC Universe, home to Superman and Batman.

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Meanwhile, Geoff Johns, a comic book scribe who has already breathed new life into Superman, the Flash and Green Lantern on the printed page and penned TV scripts for “Smallville” and Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken,” will serve as DC’s chief creative officer. He also wrote the story for “DC Universe Online,” working closely with Lee.

While the new recruits will oversee the 90 comic books that DC Comics publishes each month through various imprints, they’re expected to be especially key in speeding up how quickly Warners develops its superhero pics. And Warners has not been sitting idle with its superheroes.

“Green Lantern”, starring Ryan Reynolds, was set to release this summer before the trio moved up in a world. “The Losers” adaption will hit theaters in April and “Jonah Hex” is slated to arrive in June. Plans are being prepared by Chris Nolan for another “Batman” adventure and may even bring another “Superman” saga to theaters soon.

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My Take: I love comics. In fact, I have over 10,000 comics. Of course, I cannot afford them anymore. The price of comics used to be only $.12 and it was way before I started buying comics. When I started they were between $.50 and $1.50. That can be expensive when you’re buying 10-20 a month. I was very happy when they started making me Marvel and DC movies. Can you imagine the type of insurance they have to pay for in making those movies? I thought car insurance was outrageous. At least with car insurance you can get an instant quote without costing you a cent. I mean, auto insurance quotes are easy to come by but insurance quotes for making a movie must be outrageous. You can even compare car insurance rates easily but can you compare movie insurance rates? Just think of what kind of injuries can result if they don’t do a particular scene correctly.

With security at airports being so tight nowadays, I wonder what kind of delays they have when they need to go overseas to do a scene. They probably do not have to worry about secure handling airline cargo because they purchase everything on-site, which means that air cargo security wouldn’t be too hard on them. But they must have to make special arrangements if they’re shooting the scene in an airport with one of those walk through metal detectors. Of course, the only superhero I can think of that might set off the metal detection technology would be Batman with all of his little throwing items.

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Travel Companies Not Listening to Consumers

Mr. Rant — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:54:39 +0000

Cited: MSNBC

The travel columnist at MSNBC had some excellent information for travelers if you are into social media networking. Apparently, you can boost your online power by utilizing seven simple secrets. So if you happen to have a problem getting good hotels, rental cars or other accommodations and traveling, this information would be an excellent read. It seems that many people think that all I have to do is get on Tweeter and tell the travel companies were problems are. However it seems the travel companies don’t listen to you unless you have some kind of power behind you like having thousands of Twitter followers.

“Travel companies pick and choose who to respond to in social media,” says social media expert Ryan Goff of the advertising firm MGH, Inc. “You better believe that a Web celebrity with 100,000 Twitter followers is going to catch a company’s attention over the casual Tweeter with only 10 friends.”

Even online, some travelers are more equal than others. Question is, how to become a somebody?

You should care, because even today, as social networking applications like Twitter and Facebook have come of age, being online can be the most effective shortcut to getting great customer service.

I see it every day on Twitter, as customers with questions are sent to the front of the line (sometimes literally) because they had a respectable social-media profile. Online travel agencies such as Orbitz have an entire team of employees dedicated to monitoring online chatter and helping customers.

I asked several social media experts about how to boost your online profile. Here’s what they told me:

1. Be interesting

Boring people don’t get a lot of followers. “Be engaging,” says Lyn Mettler, the founder of Step Ahead, Inc., which manages social media campaigns. “Don’t just talk, talk, talk about yourself all day long. Read what other people are posting and respond to them. Ask questions, answer questions. Truly interacting with people will help build your followers.”

2. Get a blog

One of the fastest ways to raise your online profile is to start blogging. “If you blog, that helps tremendously,” says Tim Massie, an adjunct professor of communication at Marist College. It helps if the subject matter is travel-related, but anyone with access to a credible blog is likely to come to the attention of a travel company faster than someone who doesn’t have one. Massie says being an active participant in online forums can help, too. “If you go the extra mile, posting photos, helping others understand the amenities of hotels, and providing insider information that a typical tourist would overlook, you will earn your reputation and be an influencer in the travel industry,” he says.

3. Join the conversation

“Post and tweet frequently about your experiences,” says Rick Gardinier, the chief digital officer for the advertising agency Brunner. “This will increase your relevancy and authoritativeness which in turn will boost your following.” How often? I try to tweet and post a few times a day, but you should be able to keep a respectable profile by publishing something a few times a week.

4. Offer good information

Building trust — and followers — takes time and work, according to experts. “Travelers can increase their social media influence by creating good content, consistently, for an extended amount of time,” says Chris Harrington, the technology director for the communications firm Luquire George Andrews. He says he’s likely to follow users who have positive things to say about the subject matter. “Negative comments can hurt the traveler’s social capital as much or more than the company in question,” he adds. That way, when you go negative — when something happens to you while you’re traveling that you need resolved — your followers will pay attention.

5. Check your motives

It matters where you’re coming from, say the pros. “Motivation behind using social media extensively will drive the behavior of travelers,” says Philippe Duverger, an assistant professor of marketing at Towson University. For example, if people think you’re trying to sell something, they may be less likely to include you in the network. Also, if you’re branded a “complainer” then that can be a turn-off. Being in it for all the right reasons is one way of attracting lots of followers and building your online credibility.on

6. Speak up

The best way to get noticed by any company is to openly discuss your experiences. “If the company has an interest in social media as a marketing outlet, then they will be monitoring all conversation about them, both positive and negative,” says social media guru Dan Healy of Mason, Inc., in New Haven, Conn. Acknowledging an experience that you had on an airline, for example, on a public forum is important to the airline because it gives them insight about their customers, and the public’s opinion. Be sure to use proper shout-out etiquette by linking to the travel company’s blog (which is monitored by the company) or using their Twitter handle — @Jetblue or @Marriottintl — when you tweet about them.

7. Make a personal connection

Travelers tend to follow people they can relate to. “People trust contents from somebody they can identify with personally,” says Iis Tussyadiah, an assistant professor at Temple University’s school of tourism and hospitality management. Often, it’s as simple as posting a picture and a brief biography on your blog or Facebook profile. People are likely to read your tweets and posts when they feel they know you than when you’re a faceless, anonymous voice on the Internet.

Even if you only have a small number of followers, you can still make a difference. “The squeaky Twitterer still gets the grease,” says Dallas Lawrence, the chair of the digital and social media practice group at Levick Strategic Communications. “Like most travel related stories in the online space, companies have focused their efforts towards addressing critical commentary posted by dissatisfied customers who have posted damaging comment to the online space about a particular airline, hotel or travel provider.”

The question is, will the strategies really work? Well, according to this travel columnist they do because he has used them. You can follow him on Twitter at @elliottdotorg, Facebook or on his blog. The columnist did say that he met a lot of terrific friends that he has actually not met but his hat lots of interesting conversations. So if you have a travel problem by using Twitter, you might be glad you did.

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My Take: I do not use Twitter. So I will have to take the columnist’s word for it. I would imagine that the travel industry gets a lot of snail mail and e-mail about problems that customers have. I am sure that with the economy the way that it is, that people are avidly searching for discount airfare and the travel industry knows it. In the meantime, others are looking for a yacht charter because they can afford it.

When there is a cheap airfare war going on between airlines, it’s on the news. Maybe it’s a part of advertising that the industry needs to look at. Travelers all over the world are always looking for cheap flights or group hotel rates to cut traveling costs, especially those who volunteer abroad.

Take for example the people who volunteer overseas England, they are working for nothing so where ever they are staying they need to pay for it. In fact, I believe there is a volunteer service organization with work available in other countries. It means that people who volunteer abroad need to stick to a budget for their travel needs. It is not like they are going to be able for designer perfume or even discount designer fragrances. One thing is for sure, they are not looking for Greece yacht charters, unless they can afford it.

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Expensive New Credit Card Law

Mr. Rant — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:48:54 +0000

Cited: Associated Press

The US now has a new credit card law that does nothing for many of the old problems. However, you can still get a credit card even if your finances are a mess. It is just going to cost you more than it did before. This new law took effect on February 22 and was supposed to prevent banks from using tactics that pulled credit card holders deeper into debt. On the other hand, there are still many cards and loans that have devastating terms that still attract people from every corner

Consider a subprime credit card that now comes with a 59.9% interest rate. There are also payday loans and prepaid cards, both of which can come at steep costs.

The lenders serving risky borrowers say high fees and interest rates are necessary because their customers are more likely to default on loans. Restrictions on what they charge could put them out of business, and leave the neediest with no options at all, they say.

President Barack Obama is nevertheless pushing for the creation of a consumer protection agency that would consolidate oversight of such products, but its fate is uncertain amid negotiations for broader financial reforms.

Meanwhile, advocacy groups say the crescendo of public anger toward the credit card industry, and the resulting reforms, show the need for greater consumer protections.

Already, about a quarter of U.S. households either do not have a relationship with a bank or nevertheless rely on alternative financial services such as payday loans, according to a first-of-its kind FDIC study.

“It’s in nobody’s interest to lend people money they can’t afford to repay,” says Kathleen Day of the Center for Responsible Lending. “If the economic crisis we’re in now doesn’t underscore that for lawmakers, what will?”

In the absence of closer oversight, here’s a look at three common resources for strapped borrowers: payday loans, prepaid cards and subprime credit cards.

Payday loans

There are about 22,000 payday lending branches around the country, compared with 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants. Their widespread presence makes payday lenders easy to turn to in a pinch; about 19 million people did so last year, according to industry figures.

To obtain a payday loan, consumers give the lender a postdated check for the amount of the loan plus a fee, usually $15 or so for every $100 borrowed. The lender holds the check for about two weeks, at which point the money is repaid or the check is cashed. In some states the loan can be rolled over for another fee.

Sylvia Brown, a 42-year-old office manager, pays $76 nearly every other Friday for a $600 advance on her paycheck because she can’t make ends meet week to week. She’s been getting loans regularly for about five years now. In just one year, that would add up to about $1,800 in fees.

“I’ve thought about what I’d do with that money. For one thing, I could put it toward paying off my medical expenses,” says Brown, who lives with her mother in Grass Lake, Mich.

The fee is easy to understand, at least on the surface. But translate that average fee on a $100 loan into an annualized rate, as on a credit card, and you’re looking at interest of 391 percent.

This passes muster even under the new credit card law, however, since there’s still no cap on rates.

The industry group for payday lenders notes that its fees are cheaper than the alternatives for desperate borrowers. A late credit card payment could trigger a $37 fee, for example. Overdraft fees for checking accounts can be $29 or more.

Still, a dozen or so states have effectively banned payday lending. Lawmakers elsewhere worry about choking off a key source of cash for low-income borrowers.

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Prepaid cards

Rows of prepaid cards dangle from the racks of just about any Wal-Mart or convenience store. Consumers are pitched their benefits online and through the mail.

The cards offer a vital convenience for those who don’t have credit or debit cards. They can be used to pay bills online, book airplane tickets, and generally provide a sense of security that cash may not. Users load them with cash and replenish as needed. The cards carry a Discover, MasterCard or Visa logo and can come with a tangle of fees. It costs as much as $29.95 just to buy one. The fees vary wildly too, so navigating them can be dizzying. There are monthly maintenance fees, ATM withdrawal fees, balance inquiry fees, bill pay fees and inactivity fees.

“Pretty much every time you use it there’s a fee,” says Manny Villalobos, a 36-year-old sales rep in Pacoima, Calif.

He wrecked his credit in the aftermath of a layoff, divorce and a string of panic attacks that landed him in the emergency room. Now he can’t get a credit card from a major bank.

Not all cards are so fee-heavy, and some may be a bargain for those with no other options. But even one of the more affordable cards costs $4.95 to buy, and charges a $5.95 monthly maintenance fee unless certain usage requirements are met. Despite the costs, an estimated $36.6 billion will be loaded onto prepaid cards this year, double the $18.3 billion last year, and more than four times the $8.7 billion total of 2008.

“More people are starting to look to these as it becomes more challenging to get credit cards or even checking accounts,” says Kirsten Trusko, president of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association.

Considering there’s no risk for issuers, however, the costs can be steep.

Take the Millennium Advantage card, which charges a $29.95 activation fee and $5.95 monthly maintenance. Any use of the card seems to come with a fee. It’s $1.95 per ATM withdrawal, for example, and $1 per minute to call a customer representative.

Yet for all the fees, issuers of prepaid cards aren’t required to provide the same legal protections as for credit or debit cards, such as limited liability if they’re stolen. The Federal Reserve is studying whether to change that, but hasn’t set a deadline on a decision.

Subprime credit cards

Subprime cards, marketed to those with poor credit scores, typically come larded with fees despite credit lines that are often only a couple hundred dollars. Just about anybody can get one.

Starting February 22, fees in the first year will be capped at 25% of a card’s credit limit. But the issuers of subprime cards have already adapted. Because there’s no cap on interest rates — an area that’s historically been left to state regulators — the APRs on subprime cards have reached as high as 79.9%. And as long as cardholders are given 45 days notice, they could climb higher still.

First Premier, one of the biggest players in the subprime credit card arena, even found a way around the cap on fees. It now charges a $45 processing fee before a card is issued. If approved, cardholders are charged a separate $75 annual fee, which is exactly 25% of the $300 credit line. That fee is deducted from the credit line, so the card arrives with a $75 balance before it’s even used. Fail to pay and a 59.9% annual percentage rate starts taking its toll.

“Risky borrowers understand they’ve made mistakes,” he says. “And they’re willing to pay the costs.”

According to Myles Beacom, president and CEO of the Premier Bankcard, such terms are required to cover the 25% default rate for customers, but it does not sound like reform.

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My Take: I hate credit cards! But, like many people I have one because there are times when I don’t have the money and need to use one. Luckily, mine are not maxed out and I am slowly bringing their balance down. The thing I wish that would happen is that businesses would start using the same equipment for debit and credit card processing.

I know that businesses all need to have retail merchant accounts to accept credit cards and restaurants need a restaurant merchant account, why can’t they all use the same equipment. Is there some kind of rule that small business credit card machines have to be different?

I just wish that businesses would get a merchant cash advance to get the same equipment that ever ready else has. Maybe they could talk to a small business lender who could advise them on the matter. Businesses should at least consider getting uniformity in equipment that is used for credit card processing for the convenience for customers.

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Is Free TV on a Comeback Road?

Mr. Rant — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:40:44 +0000

Cited: Variety

Broadcasters and cable biz industry keeps arguing over retransmission consent fees. However, they are overlooking one factor and it is the easy availability of free over the air TV via rooftop or indoor antennas, which could mean free TV is making a comeback.

When Time Warner Cable and Fox engaged in their public ad blitz and Brinksmanship in December, with the cable guys threatening to throw the broadcast bums off the air if they didn’t stop demanding excessive fees for the right to retransmit the Fox package of services, no one bothered to inform consumers that much of the Fox programming — including the ever-popular “American Idol” — is available for free to almost anyone who purchases a cheap indoor antenna (prices range from $4.99 and up at Radio Shack).

TV is the only way nearly 10% of U.S. households receives “Idol” and countless other broadcast shows, according to Nielsen. The other 90% get them via cable or satellite. But two things are happening that could help “free” over-the-air TV stage a comeback.

First, the cost of cable continues to rise, spurred in part — say cable operators — by the very retransmission fees that broadcasters are now charging cable systems to carry their signals.

“Every time our contracts with TV program providers come up for renewal… we face price increases,” Time Warner Cable declared on its RollOverOrGetTough.com website mounted to spin its side of the story during the year-end skirmish with Fox. “Sometimes we can avoid passing them on to you. Sometimes we can’t.”

The second factor working in favor of over-the-air TV is the government-mandated transition to digital broadcasting last June. The technology has allowed local broadcasters to offer viewers stronger, clearer signals and multiple new services that could eventually challenge cable’s channel cornucopia.

“The phenomenon of cutting the cable cord will only grow,” says National Assn. of Broadcasters exec veep Dennis Wharton. “Add to that the lingering recession and there’s opportunity for a renaissance in over-the-air broadcasting.”

Seven months after the digital switchover, many large-to-mid-market broadcasters have adopted the strategy of using a large portion of their spectrum to beam their main channel in high definition and the balance to carry two or three standard-definition “multicast” subchannels offering such fare as 24-hour weather, lifestyle or syndicated programming.

Other broadcasters have opted to slice their digital spectrum into eight — or sometimes even more — standard-def subchannels. For example, Los Angeles station KSCI, which brands itself as LA 18, broadcasts programming to the area’s burgeoning Asian population on subchannels 18.1 through 18.8.

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“We decided the best use of the spectrum was to not broadcast in HD but to provide a suite of Asian-language channels,” says Peter Mathes, a former Chris-Craft Television exec who is now CEO of privately held parent company Asian Media Group. LA 18 programs and sells time on two of the channels and leases out the other six for a flat fee while keeping some of their advertising inventory.

“The digital spectrum is what allowed us to offer all the channels,” says Mathes. “Anecdotally we hear stories that at least within the Asian communities many people have left cable and satellite because they’ve got such an abundance of over-the-air channels right now.”

“There’s a lot of stuff available over the air,” concurs Paul Karpowicz, prexy of Meredith Local Media Group, which owns 12 stations in mid-sized markets including Atlanta, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas. “As more viewers look at their cable bills they’ll say, ‘You know, what if I get a good antenna and try that for a while?’ “

But others question whether the abandonment of cable for over-the-air reception will ever amount to more than a trickle — even with cable fees continuing to rise.

“I don’t ever see that becoming so widespread that there’s a dramatic change in the economics of the industry,” says one exec from a Big Four network. “Just because it’s available to consumers, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it. They watch broadcast more than any of the cable channels, but they still want to be able to get ESPN, the Fox regional sports networks, and the general-entertainment (cable) channels that are doing original programming.”

“Most people are willing to pay for a subscription-based service, in part because they like choice beyond local broadcast stations,” says Barry Faber, exec veep and general counsel at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns nearly 60 TV stations and is known for its aggressive stance in retrans negotiations with cablers. “But if it doesn’t include the broadcast stations, it’s not a service they want to buy.”

While large-scale abandonment of wired TV for over-the-air reception may be cable’s worst-case scenario, it would be no picnic for broadcasters, either. After all, they’re only starting to get used to the dual revenue stream of advertisers buying time and cablers paying retrans coin. Market research firm SNL Kagan predicts that such fees will grow substantially in the next few years to approach $2 billion by 2013.

Maybe that’s why no one ever seems to bring up the over-the-air option whenever there’s a public debate over the high cost of cable.

“When you look at the percentage of people who get their TV service from cable, clearly that’s where we have to be,” says Meredith’s Karpowicz. “We absolutely want to be carried on cable. All we’re asking for in our retrans discussions is a fair exchange for the value we bring to the cable system.”

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My Take: I think it would be great to have over-the-air TV again. I’m old enough that I can remember when HBO first came out. We didn’t have cable TV, just an antenna. HBO was a box that we hooked up to the antenna and the TV with a button and a knob on a small box that was placed on top of the TV. You had to push the button and then “dial in” HBO, but we thought it was great.

Today, it seems that no matter where you live, the only way to get TV is through some cable company. I do understand that in some of the big cities like New York and Los Angeles that cable companies don’t charge for basic TV or local channels, which I think is right. It’s very much like many grocery stores who do not charge for the plastic bags that people need for their groceries. However, if the government has its way, people will be charged for those imprinted bags in the future to help get the government out of debt.

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Google Hackers Traced to Chinese Schools

Mr. Rant — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:32:34 +0000

Cited: New York Times

According to the people involved in the investigation of the hacker attacks on Google and dozens of medical rations, the hackers been traced to two educational institutions in China. One of these schools supposedly has ties to the Chinese military.

They also said the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed. Google announced on Jan. 12 that it and other companies had been subjected to sophisticated attacks that probably came from China.

Computer security experts, including investigators from the National Security Agency, have been working since then to pinpoint the source of the attacks. Until recently, the trail had led only to servers in Taiwan.

If supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.

Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.

The revelations were shared by the contractor at a meeting of computer security specialists.

The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, according to several people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry.

Jiaotong has one of China’s top computer science programs. Just a few weeks ago its students won an international computer programming competition organized by I.B.M. — the “Battle of the Brains” — beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities.

Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google.

Within the computer security industry and the Obama administration, analysts differ over how to interpret the finding that the intrusions appear to come from schools instead of Chinese military installations or government agencies. Some analysts have privately circulated a document asserting that the vocational school is being used as camouflage for government operations. But other computer industry executives and former government officials said it was possible that the schools were cover for a “false flag” intelligence operation being run by a third country. Some have also speculated that the hacking could be a giant example of criminal industrial espionage, aimed at stealing intellectual property from American technology firms.

Independent researchers who monitor Chinese information warfare caution that the Chinese have adopted a highly distributed approach to online espionage, making it almost impossible to prove where an attack originated.

“We have to understand that they have a different model for computer network exploit operations,” said James C. Mulvenon, a Chinese military specialist and a director at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington. Rather than tightly compartmentalizing online espionage within agencies as the United States does, he said, the Chinese government often involves volunteer “patriotic hackers” to support its policies.

Spokesmen for the Chinese schools said they had not heard that American investigators had traced the Google attacks to their campuses.

If it is true, “We’ll alert relative departments and start our own investigation,” said Liu Yuxiang, head of the propaganda department of the party committee at Jiaotong University in Shanghai.

But when asked about the possibility, a leading professor in Jiaotong’s School of Information Security Engineering said in a telephone interview: “I’m not surprised. Actually, students’ hacking into foreign Web sites is quite normal.” The professor, who teaches Web security, asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.

“I believe there are two kinds of situations,” the professor continued. “One is it’s a completely individual act of wrongdoing, done by one or two geek students in the school who are just keen on experimenting with their hacking skills learned from the school, since the sources in the school and network are so limited. Or it could be that one of the university’s I.P. addresses was hijacked by others, which frequently happens.”

At Lanxiang Vocational, officials said they had not heard about any possible link to the school and declined to say if a Ukrainian professor taught computer science there.

‘I think it’s impossible for our students’

A man named Mr. Shao, who said he was dean of the computer science department at Lanxiang but refused to give his first name, said, “I think it’s impossible for our students to hack Google or other U.S. companies because they are just high school graduates and not at an advanced level. Also, because our school adopts close management, outsiders cannot easily come into our school.”

Mr. Shao acknowledged that every year four or five students from his computer science department were recruited into the military.

Google’s decision to step forward and challenge China over the intrusions has created a highly sensitive issue for the United States government. Shortly after the company went public with its accusations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged the Chinese in a speech on Internet censors, suggesting that the country’s efforts to control open access to the Internet were in effect an information-age Berlin Wall.

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A report on Chinese online warfare prepared for the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission in October 2009 by Northrup Grumman identified six regions in China with military efforts to engage in such attacks. Jinan, site of the vocational school, was one of the regions.

Executives at Google have said little about the intrusions and would not comment for this article. But the company has contacted computer security specialists to confirm what has been reported by other targeted companies: access to the companies’ servers was gained by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser.

Forensic analysis is yielding new details of how the intruders took advantage of the flaw to gain access to internal corporate servers. They did this by using a clever technique — called man-in-the-mailbox — to exploit the natural trust shared by people who work together in organizations.

After taking over one computer, intruders insert into an e-mail conversation a message containing a digital attachment carrying malware that is highly likely to be opened by the second victim. The attached malware makes it possible for the intruders to take over the target computer.

The recent invasions of the computer systems of Google and several dozen other American companies have placed a spotlight on the dismal state of American computer security. Many American corporations take a reactive approach to attacks and are dependent on off-the-shelf antivirus products.

It is believed that a Chinese man with government links wrote a key part of a spyware program that was used by hackers on Google and other corporations last year according to US government analysts in the Financial Times on February 22. The report did not say how analysts knew about the man’s government ties.

The allegations over the spyware are the latest episode in a dispute that has pitted Google and the United States against China, with its wall of Internet controls and legions of hackers.

Google has threatened to pull back from China and shut its Google.cn Chinese-language portal over complaints of censorship and sophisticated hacking from within China. Washington has backed those criticisms and urged Beijing to investigate hacking complaints thoroughly and transparently. Beijing has said it opposes hacking.

The Financial Times report also quoted unnamed sources backing a New York Times report that analysts had traced the online attacks to two Chinese educational institutions, the prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang vocational school.

The two establishments have denied the reports. And the allegation that the latter, a high-school level institute that also trains hairdressers, chefs and car mechanics, could take on one of the world’s most powerful Internet firms, have been widely mocked in Chinese cyberspace.

“How can these future cooks be such powerful hackers?” a web user from Zhejiang province said on the portal www.163.com. The use of the school’s IP address could simply mean that hackers had taken over its computers to hide their tracks.

But Lanxiang’s website also claims to have the “biggest” computer laboratory in the world, a boast it says is confirmed by Guinness World Records.

The prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong University and the previously little-known Lanxiang vocational college, a high-school level institution, have both denied any role.

The hacking dispute has added to tensions with Washington over quarrels ranging from trade and the Chinese currency to a meeting last week between U.S. President Barack Obama and exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, who China reviles as a “separatist” for demanding self-rule for his homeland.

China’s military warned the United States on February 25 to “speak and act cautiously” to avoid reigniting tensions between the two powers, denying the People’s Liberation Army played a part in Internet hacking.

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My Take: Well, as temperamental as China seems to be, I think we should be preparing for World War III! If anybody is going to push the button it is China. If the tables were turned, I have a feeling that the call center at Google would be overloaded with phone calls from the Chinese. Their call center software would not be able to handle the millions of calls that they would get. However, I’m sure that they’re predictive dialer would call all the people they missed back.

From everything I’ve read, it seems that China has a lot of data centers around their country, each with its own Atlanta server colocation. I wouldn’t even doubt that they use an Atlanta data center for some of their businesses and even government work. I would not put it past them. In fact, they probably utilize a RAID system on their computers. RAID systems achieve high capacity simply by using multiple disks.

It would be a feather in a hackers cap if they could cause China’s RAID system problems. Then they would need RAID recovery services and it would serve them right. The companies that were hacked are probably in great need of disk recovery as it is. Unfortunately, because of hackers and viruses a lot of people need data recovery services.

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Consumer Inflation Drops, First Time in 28 Years

Mr. Rant — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:23:18 +0000

Cited: Reuters

If you take food and energy out of the equation, consumer inflation actually fell for first time in 28 years in January. In fact, that is the first time since 1982. This actually calms the rate hike worries that many people have been having lately.

The February 19 benign report on consumer inflation sent a positive signal to investors. It suggested the Fed will be able to keep short-term interest rates at record lows to strengthen the economic recovery without triggering inflation.

Some have worried that a Fed rate increase affecting consumers and businesses might be imminent, especially after it just raised the rate banks pay for emergency loans.

But the news of low inflation eased some concerns and helped lift stock prices. In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose about 29 points, or 0.3%. Broader stock averages also gained. Bond prices were little changed, but the dollar rose against other major currencies.

Overall consumer prices edged up 0.2% in January, the Labor Department said. But excluding volatile food and energy, prices fell 0.1%. That drop, the first monthly decline since December 1982, reflected falling prices for housing, new cars and airline fares.

The news was better than expected, especially after the government said February 18 that inflation at the wholesale level, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3% in January. That was faster than the 0.1% increase economists had predicted.

“After a few reports showing higher inflation trends, we saw proof today that they have yet to trickle down to the consumer level,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “What price pressures did exist all came from the volatile food and energy categories.”

Now that prices are holding steady or even getting lower . . . you might consider redoing the floor of your garage. You can get yourself some top-of-the-line garage floor paint or even garage tiles at fantastic rates online. Maybe you want to consider epoxy flooring instead of garage floor paint, it is up to you.

The 0.2% rise in overall prices reflected a 2.8% jump in energy costs. That’s the biggest one-month gain since August. Energy prices were driven by a 4.4% rise in gasoline pump prices and a 3.5% increase in the cost of natural gas. Food prices rose a moderate 0.2%, even though fruit and vegetable costs jumped 1.3%.

In raising the rate banks pay for emergency loans, the Fed said February 18 its action should not be seen as a sign that it would soon begin raising a key target for consumer and business loans. Still, global financial markets were roiled by the February 18 announcement.

Private economists said they believe that the Fed’s first increase in the more important federal funds rate will not occur until this fall at the earliest. That’s because they expect inflation to remain tame as the economy struggles to sustain the rebound from a deep recession.

High unemployment is keeping a lid on wage gains. And consumer spending is being constrained by the weak income growth. Businesses don’t have the ability to raise prices.

The Consumer Price Index report for January did show some price increases in scattered areas. The price of medical care rose by 0.5%. It was the biggest one-month gain in two years. And the cost of tobacco products increased 0.4%, the biggest increase since November.

However, some prices did drop, airline tickets down by 2.5%, new car prices down 0.5% and clothing costs dropped 0.1%.

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My Take: Wow, some prices did go down. Airline tickets and new cars went down in cost and those are two that I have nothing to do with. Closing it down, that is great for people with kids. What I would like to know is what other items went down in price. The lightbulbs go down in price?

Food always goes up in price, that’s a given! Now lightbulbs, like the grow lights, that most people use nowadays, is something for an indoor garden and should go down in price. The manufacturer would make their money in turnover. That’s the same with any business! If they lower their prices, they would make more in the turnover.

I’m not saying that prices for things like toy train sets should go down. Of course, parents would like that. There are many hobbyists that have whole areas set up around a model train, which means they would really like to prices to go down. They would also like to see their hobby tools go down in price, but that is a more specific item. We all have to just face the fact some prices will just not get any lower than they are.

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Other Resources

Personal Stationery

One online vendor has stationery products as well as kids stationery that are perfect for all the many occasions in your life. You can choose from a wide selection of personalized stationery, notepads, address labels, gift tags, custom cutting boards and plates, holiday cards, and more. In addition to their selection of personalized paper products, they also offer a variety of personalized lunchboxes, such as children’s lunch boxes that any kid would love to take to school. Personalized stationery is affordable with wonderfully unique hand-drawn artwork by Amy Hutcheson. You can get what you need for any special event: birthday parties, birth announcements, corporate events, and weddings and wedding receptions.

Gymnasium Equipment

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