Kitchen Table Math

I read the snarky, glib comments President Obama made to the man at the recent town hall meeting in Pennsylvania who asked about high fuel prices. Gas is approaching $4.00 a gallon here. Our President blithely suggested that the man trade in his old gas-guzzler (because everybody knows that anyone who would even dare to ask about the high price of fuel must be an anti-environment wastrel who surely drives a gas-guzzling urban assault vehicle) for a new hybrid from one of the US car manufacturers so as to save money and, of course, the planet as well.

This set me to wondering about how much money I would save, and whether I should dump my beat-up but noble 12-year-old Suburban (which once hauled my wife and me, and our 3 car-seat-sitting, sports-playing, art project-making, fun-loving kids around town and on trips, but which is now my work car) for one of the vehicles for which the President of the United States is currently a haughty shill.

I am what is now called "underemployed," and my wife and I own a struggling small business, which incidentally employs several working moms. Like many people in our circumstances, we aren’t able to make large capital acquisitions easily, but we're not averse to making them if there's a tangible, near-term benefit. We sat down and did a little kitchen table arithmetic. Although our kids are now in college, we still need a large, commercial-sized vehicle because we frequently have to haul large amounts of gear to shows and demonstrations in our business.

Our big old gas-guzzling 2000 Chevy Suburban, tank after tank, gets an actual 16 miles a gallon. That equals $.25 per mile @$4.00 a gallon and we put about 15,000 miles per year on the 'Burb which all adds up to annual fuel costs of $3,750. We also get the oil changed every 3,000 miles faithfully, and we buy tires, wiper blades and batteries when we need them, but we figure that’s a push because we’ll do that with the new vehicle if we buy one. (It’s interesting to note that at $2.75 a gallon, which is where gas prices were before the current hysteria-speculation-induced price run-up, that’s $3,047 making the annual differential $703). But either way you slice it, that’s real money.

The new apples-to-apples comparison for us is the GMC Yukon Hybrid which is touted to get 22 miles a gallon, or $.18 per mile for a total fuel cost of $2,700 per year. The fuel cost differential is $1,050 per year, or, said another way, $.07 per mile.

That's real money too, but when one acquires a new vehicle, there are other costs to consider.

I checked with my insurance agent and the insurance differential between our old ‘Burb and the new Yukon is $180/month or -$2,160 a year. But wait, there are still other costs. The monthly payment on the old 'Burb is $0.00. The monthly payment on President Obama's new Yukon Hybrid (after an initial down payment of $5,000 which I would be supremely lucky to get for the 'Burb at auction) is $640, or an additional annual differential of -$7,680. This, added to the additional annual insurance cost differential is -$9,840 per year. Still with me, Mr. President?

Oh, but, when it comes to saving the planet, who’s counting, right? When it comes to incurring that kind of cost, for people like us, it is we, ourselves who do the counting. The President’s dismissive generalizations, runaway demagoguery and effete snobbery sadly don't make the cash magically appear in our bank accounts. We, like our customers, associates and colleagues have to earn what we spend. We focus on every cent because that’s what it takes for us to get by month to month. We’re not whining, mind you, because we are thankful for what we have, but I will confess to a certain amount of irritation when the leader of the free world casts people like us as unthinking, uncaring, wasteful foulers of planet Earth. We are not uneducated, unsophisticated, un-environmentally aware cretins. And neither are we ignorant, nor unmindful of the speed with which our work product has become worth less and less over these last three difficult and punitive years, because on all that, we can also do simple kitchen-table math.

Profiteering

Profiteering is back in vogue. There's no other way to look at gasoline prices at the pump than to call them profiteering. There is no worldwide shortage of crude (like there was when the oil fields of Qtar burned after Desert Storm). There is no lack of capacity (like there briefly was after Katrina). There IS a deep recession in the US economy--let's not split hairs about it, shall we? It's still a recession for everybody except "dismal scientists" until unemployment is below 5%. That equates to a national emergency.

Could we just get real about it, the endless dithering inside the DC beltway notwithstanding. There is a national emergency happening now. Yet, the price of the fuel we need to get to work, drop and pickup the kids at school, go to the store for groceries, go to the doctor for the required checkup, haul the goods, pick up the garbage, plow, plant and harvest the fields, run the few factories we have left, has shot up as though oil field armageddon has hit. It hasn't and it isn't likely to. Libya is still producing. The Suez canal is open. The Saudi's have said they will replace any lack of production to prevent any disruption in supply. China's consumption is down. Overall reserves are up. And yet, we are getting punked at the pump, and we do not "drill, baby, drill!" because we can't get permits for that. There was this spill in the Gulf which caused a phantom disaster. I see the commercials--The Gulf Coast is open for business! Just not for deep drilling.

Just as with the speculation in the housing market, the speculation in the oil market has quietly ballooned like an aneurism. And like an aneurism, it is likely to burst, and do horrendous damage when it does. Then, of course, we'll all cry out for triage, and then we'll get, what? Another stimulus? Meanwhile, enormous hidden systemic damage will have been done. More For Sale signs. More Closed signs. More tiny chisel marks on the face of America inflicted by chislers busy profiteering during this crisis.

9 years on

I was in NYC on 9-11. For five days I roamed those wounded streets in the aftermath. I saw the ascendancy of the human spirit in those New Yorkers as they dug out the remains and carted off the bodies of the fallen. I read the most piteous signs people put up, "Has anyone, anyone, seen . . .?" I pray for all those New Yorkers directly and indirectly affected by that unconscionable, despicable, corruption bloated evil. Let New Yorkers have their peace to mourn and to heal! Respect them! Console them! But let them grieve in peace. A pox upon those measly, contemptible men and women who would seek to filch a shred of political or religious gain from those most detestable evil acts. A pox, I say, upon all their houses!

The King is dead, his replacement is in South Beach

Nobody can fault LeBron James for joining up with his pals Bosh and Wade in Miami to try and win an NBA championship. That’s why they play the games. Let’s be fair, he gave seven good years to Cleveland. He paid his hometown dues. He earned, as they say in big-time sports, his payday.
What we can and should fault LeBron for, though, is the manner in which he did it. Let’s put the best face on it and say it was a poorly-conceived marketing event gone badly awry. By endeavoring to make a grand gesture on a grand stage for a grand plan, and thus launch the new era of his career with huge positive fanfare, King James, in a stunning one-hour mock-event, came off looking more like King Henry VIII—mean, small, selfish, defensive and haughty. James dumped Cleveland much as Henry dumped Katherine of Aragon, in a glaring public spectacle, with dubious rationale, utter selfishness and needless over-the-top pageantry.
Not as tone deaf (and we should all hope not as prescient) as “Bad Newz Kennels,” this, “The Decision,” was similar in that its details were delegated to and orchestrated end-to-end by James’ closest lifelong cronies, guys from his childhood who glommed onto James at an early age and never bothered to learn the subtleties of the craft of public relations, so busy have they been at harvesting the superstar’s low-hanging fruit. They learned to throw his weight around, though, and that’s what “The Decision” looked like—James, throwing his weight around for all to see on national TV. “Look at me! I’m BIG; really BIG.” He almost salvaged some measure of grace by contributing all of the proceeds from “The Decision” to the Boys and Girls Clubs, but he blew it in the end when he ad-libbed, “maybe another LeBron James will come outta one of those clubs.” We can only hope . . .
“The Decision” and all the preliminaries leading up to it, in a single stroke, morphed James's image from the noble, dutiful, devoted scion of a struggling hometown, into LeBron James, the crass commercialist who speaks of himself in the third person, whose disdain for his adoring hometown fans is only exceeded by his desire for more loot and more luster. In that regard, even if none of the other aspects of it pan out, his decision to “take my talents to South Beach,” was right on pitch.

Go, went, gone

Every time I read "he had went" or "I had went" in a sports story or a news story I cringe. How hard is it to use the "to go" verb correctly? Consider the following: "Reid was a big reach who wouldn't have stood a chance of being drafted had the Thunder not went out on a limb with him." That is what one unidentified sportswriter wrote--not in a blog post, not in a tweet, but on a respected news outlet (FOXSports) presumably after having passed the piece by an editor or two.

I'll admit that a verb conjugation error (not to mention the "out on a limb with him" metaphor mashup) in a wrapup story assigning grades to all the NBA teams for their performances in the draft isn't going to cause any harm to the language, but it would have been a nice touch if Fox had gone out (or is it "went out"?) and drafted a competent copy reader who knew standard journalistic style and how to employ it.

Reynolds Harbinger of NBA Draft Trend

Item from Miami Herald, "Villanova's Scottie Reynolds has become the first AP All-American since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 not to be taken in the NBA draft."
A 34-year streak is broken. Bear in mind, this is a 4-year player (point guard) who averaged 18.2 points as a senior, has not been seriously injured, and as a point guard had a positive 1.24 assist to turnover ratio in a big-time college program (Villanova). First team AP All-American. Either this is an anomaly, or it is the harbinger of a trend.
The first senior player taken in the draft went at number 23. Two data points do not a trend make, but the phenomenon of college seniors faring poorly in the NBA draft has been inflating for some time. As the one and done draft pick numbers have dramatically increased, the later-year college players entrances into the draft have concurrently fallen.
What does this mean for college basketball players in the US? It means more and more of them will go to Europe, Taiwan, China, Korea, South America, Africa, Australia and elsewhere in the global bball arena. As the global rise of high-level basketball continues its explosive growth, the market for experienced, so-called “high Basketball IQ” players increases with that growth. Tools a successful four-year player in any college basketball program bring with him are a “high basketball IQ” and a high-level skill like scoring, rebounding, shot-blocking, playing defense, running a ballclub on the floor or some combination of all these. Any on of those characteristics makes him a commodity worth having in nascent basketball regions.
On the other hand, there will be some who, like the Boston Celtics great point guard Danny Ainge, drafted in the old third-round (now somewhat optimistically called “free agency”) will rise to elite levels in the NBA. These “diamonds in the rough,” guys like Scottie Reynolds could be, will find a home either somewhere in the NBA, Chinese Basketball Association, Developmental League, or in the other exponentially expanding international leagues. But NBA Gms and Coaches , as coldly analytical as they all are and must be, still look for diamonds in the rough. Ainge now the Celtics GM, for one, knows and understands their value all too well.

The Great LeBrotto

The most interesting take I have seen on "The Great LeBrotto of 2010" is the recent post in Forbes magazine which predicts the Knicks will get the great marketing turbine because, "this January they (the Knicks) became the only franchise that can use their stock as currency. They cannot pay James (directly) with MSG stock because it would violate the league's collective bargaining agreement. But there is nothing to stop James from buying shares of MSG with his money. This would allow James to in essence work for himself and capture the upside in revenue from higher ratings on the MSG RSN, a soon-to-be renovated Madison Square Garden and much higher profits he will bring to these platforms." This is a compelling argument for James, if he wants to be an "owner," and if making money is his core issue.

It's difficut to imagine that building an entire team around him pretty much from scratch, which is what he and the Knicks would have to do, makes any sense to him at his next team since he's been doing that in Cleveland ever since they won the First LeBrotto.

My personal belief, though, and I know this is hopelessly romantic, is that he's most interested in having some fun and winning some championships. His brand equity is already far beyond internationally platinum, and, unless he does something too stupid to even contemplate, it will remain so for many years to come. Plus he already makes, has made, will make colossal lucre.

Who wins The Great LeBrotto of 2010? Who knows? My personal favorite scenario is Dallas with Dirk voluntarily taking a giant salary cut to make it happen, Phil signing a huge contract to coach them and Chris Bosh joining in for good measure. Hey, it's my blog, and I can dream, can't I?

Whoever gets LeBron's imprimatur, it will be almost as much fun watching the contortions the owners and the commentators put themselves through as it will be guessing which team will win The Great Lebrotto.