Business Fail Because of Banks and Credit Card Companies? C’mon.

I normally wouldn’t comment on a situation like Cindy Fairless Lay’s.  She is closing her privately owned business here locally, and that’s none of my business.  However, Ms. Lay wrote a guest column for the KNS (related article) today in which she explains why her business is closing.  In doing so, she’s put herself out there, presumably to solicit opinion and reaction.  I happen to have some.

Because the closing of my business is due to (lending) practices of my bank, legal loan-sharking of credit card companies, price gouging by oil companies, two governmental agencies arguing as to whether my cakes with cream cheese frosting can be sold, and a president that suddenly, as if he were innocently surprised, announces our country is headed for the worst economic shakedown since the Great Depression, I cannot remain silent.

Let’s break this down.  Her business is closing for the following reasons:

  • Bank lending practices
  • Loan sharking by credit cards companies
  • Price gouging by oil companies
  • Two government agencies
  • President Bush

What?  The first two reasons lead me to believe this business was highly reliant on debt for operation.  And that leads me to believe this business would have never even gotten off the ground without debt from banks and credit cards.  Did Ms. Lay write an article crediting them for her success when the business was thriving?  Seems fair to me.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe this business was started from a pure cash position.  Maybe.

And I wonder if her business accepted credit cards from customers.  If so, does that make her complicit in their “loan sharking” practices?  Or is it only loan sharking when they charge you high interest rates and punitive fees?  I’m no fan of credit cards–don’t have one.  But to lay the blame for the failure of your business at their feet while failing to recognize that it was you who agreed to the terms they presented is ridiculous.

Could it be that failure to effectively control debt leverage contributed to the closing of this business?  That seems like a management issue to me.

And price gouging by the oil companies?  If oil companies were gouging and getting away with it, why have gas prices dropped so much recently.  They’d have to be fools to drop prices if they were getting away with unfair gouging practices.

No one is more irritated by the idiocy of government agencies than me, so I sympathise with Ms. Lay there, but their decision over whether or not a cream cheese frosting can be sold is a major factor in the business failure?  Really?  This would make sense if the business were “The Cream Cheese Frosting Company”, but this was a restaurant.  Was the whole thing riding on the ability to sell cream cheese frosting?

Lastly, this is (obviously) President Bush’s fault.  I guess that is a given, because everything else seems to be his fault too.  Look, I’m no fan of Dubya, but I’ll give him this–he has to be the hardest working President in history based on what I’ve heard and read.  I mean, to be personally responsible for every single problem of every single person in this country is quite a feat.  Hell, I don’t even have the time to wreak that kind of havok in my own life.

Ms. Lay seems like a nice enough lady.  She enumerates her virtues as a humanitarian in her article, and she sounds like a nice person to work for and with.  Apparently her food is really good too.  But at the end of the day, she has to realize that she took risks and lost.  She was not forced to take these risks.  In fact, she’s quite fortunate to live in a place where the opportunity to take these risks is available to her.  I’m not sure what her purpose was in writing this article.  Maybe she’s looking for a bailout?

Is Fulmer Gone For Real Now?

Tony Basilio is reporting on the air that University of Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton has requested a meeting with Jimmy Sexton, who is Phil Fulmer’s agent. This apparently signals an official move to end the Phil Fulmer error era at UT. According to Basilio, neither camp is going to confirm this, at least not right now.

There are some who aren’t going to believe it’s true until it is admitted on the UTAD’s state-sponsored radio station, but you have to give it Basilio–he’s called quite a few of these events early in the past.

So now we can (almost) officially ask the question–who are they going to get?

**UPDATE**
I just realized that it is completely possible that they are meeting to discuss a raise and contract extension.

INTJ — Myers Briggs For Idiots, Or at Least Me

 

Who I is?
Who I is?

I took the Myers-Briggs personality test my freshman year of college, but I don’t remember what I was. I’m pretty sure that my personality has evolved in some areas since then. The other day on Twitter @eeUS was asking for people’s types, and I took this quick test to find out what I am. I usually don’t buy into this type of thing to heavily, but I have to say this pretty much pegged me.

 

I came out as an INTJ (11% Introverted, 88% iNtuitive, 62%Thinking, 22% Judging). There are a couple of articles describing this type along with some examples of famous people who possess these personality traits. Imagine the horror I felt being grouped with Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan! Of course, that was offset by the fact that I also get Ayn Rand, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking in my stable.

Then The Missus took the test and (surprise surprise) came out INFJ, which is listed as the ideal companion for the INTJ. Pretty cool!

So take the test and let me know in the comments who/what you are!

Tennessee Football–What I’d Do

Actually, it’s what I’d do in just about any situation. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about football at all. I mean, I played for 10 years, but most of the teams I played on weren’t very good, so it’s safe to assume that most of what I learned was wrong anyway. On top of that, I don’t really care if Tennessee decides to fire Phil Fulmer. I love hearing the drama on local talk radio, so if he stays that’s fine with me.

But if I were tasked with the difficult job of recruiting and coaching in a state that’s not really known to produce a huge amount of talent out of high school, I would adjust my strategy and get the top talent in the region by doing something no one else in the league is doing.

I’d do what no one else in the league is doing.

I’d take the same contrarian approach to football that people take to investing–do what no one else is doing while it’s cheap and easy to get in. Wait until that’s the fad, then get out and do something else.

No one in the league is running the option? Sweet–that means I should have no problem recruiting the best option quarterback in the region. Yeah, some of those guys would choose to go to another school to play a different position, but in most cases quarterbacks want to play quarterback. Why not give them the opportunity?

It could be–and this is just speculation–that the coaching staff can’t do anything else, so they are forced to compete for the top talent to fit them in to the only system they know.

Do You Have REAL Game?

There’s really only one way to tell. Gain a bunch of weight, sit on a stool, sing a song that expresses your desire to take an old gray haired woman in curlers and “lay her down.”

If you do these things and have chicks screaming, you have Conway Twitty level game.

If you don’t want to gain the weight or sit on a stool, take it to the karaoke stage on a Tuesday night. If a woman buys you a beer within the next few minutes, you may have Conway Twitty level game. We can’t be sure though…not without the weight and the stool.

Our Own Hot Coffee Lawsuit

Looks innocent enough  

Looks innocent enough

It looks like the little town of Knoxville has finally arrived.  We’ve got a hot coffee lawsuit on our hands.  That’s not a hot lawsuit about coffee, it’s a lawsuit over hot coffee.

The lawsuit alleges that the 23-year-old Triplett drove to a Starbucks on Kingston Pike on July 13 and bought coffee via the store’s drive-through window. The lawsuit is silent on what Triplett ordered.

Seems like mos of the commenters over at KNS are in agreement–too bad, so sad.  I have to agree.  “The lid wasn’t put on properly” doesn’t seem like a $250k mistake to me.  Doesn’t this happen all the time?  It seems like every time I try to put a lid on one of those cups I can’t get it, and I’m an engineer.  (Insert joke about my inability to build a Jenga tower here.) I don’t expect a high school kid who hasn’t even taken trigonometry yet to be able to affix these lids perfectly every time.

I could probably find five or six better reasons to sue someone every day, and I go 3-4 day stretches where I don’t even walk out of my house.  Who is her attorney–Jackie Chiles?

New Digs

 

Change
Change

 

Big changes here, obviously.  I have a lot of other changes planned as well, but will phase them in gradually.  Some things remain the same though–bad writing, lame attempts at humor, and uninformed opinions remain.

Basically I’d hacked the other theme up to the point that something had to be done.  I’m not very good at designing anything to look nice, so I went out and found a theme that was 99.9% what I wanted.  Again, still some changes coming, but I think I may stick with this for a while.

Just like last time, please let me know if you catch anything here that’s broken and I’ll get around to fixing that at some point.  Ah, who am I kidding?  I’m never gonna fix it unless it’s costing me money.

Here’s What I’m Trying to Say

Here are ten phrases and terms I’d like to work into my daily conversation arsenal:

  1. My sources are telling me
  2. The biggest no-brainer in the history of earth
  3. Working like heck
  4. Boondoggle
  5. Let’s break this down
  6. Change
  7. That’s a good point
  8. My old lady
  9. I don’t think you understand your question
  10. Not guilty

There are plenty of others, but this is a good list to start with.  If I can work one or two in on a regular basis I’m sure to annoy friends and law enforcement regularly.

***UPDATE***

SVD takes it to the next level.  He works the whole list into one diatribe.

Stock Market Realization

I just realized last night why the ol’ gov’ment is so concerned about the stock market’s behavior over the last couple of weeks–they are afraid of competition.  I’m not talking about competition among business operating in an free market.  I’m talking about the free market’s competition with the gov’ment.

Up until now, the only way to achieve the negative returns people have seen in their 401ks was Social Security.Â