Give way to transit buses - they make driving easier.

Copyright 2010 Conan L. Hom

I drive a car and take the bus.  As a driver, I make a special effort to give transit buses the right of way but there are many other drivers who cut them off and don't allow them to merge into traffic.  It's a rare instance when I say that people should follow my example and in this instance there are a few compelling reasons.  

If you are socially conscious:  When you cut off the bus, you save yourself 2-3 seconds but you delay every single passenger on board by 2-3 seconds. If there are 20 people on board, you've saved yourself 2 to 3 seconds but have caused a combined  total of 80 to 120 seconds of delay to the passengers.

If you aren't socially conscious:   By giving way to a bus, you make its trip quicker, smoother and more reliable.  That makes it more attractive to potential users.  Each person choosing to take the bus instead of driving (I acknowledge that some could bike or walk instead) means one less car on the road.  For you as a driver that means less congestion.  This is especially important during peak travel times when the number of cars on the road is above the "free flow" capacity of the road, and each additional car adds increasingly more and more delay to the system (until gridlock occurs).

Price variations on the internet - bigger than you think.

Copyright 2010 Conan L. Hom

The waning hours of 2009, found me searching for a new electric tooth brush.  Having settled on the Oral-B 4000 (because it has a charger that can be used anywhere in the world - in case you are curious), I did a quick online search.  I was quite surprised by the spread of the prices (all offered free shipping):

• CVS: $139.99 (both online at http://www.cvs.com and at the store)

• Walgreens: $129.99 (http://www.wallgreens.com )

• Drugstore.com: $99.99

CVS was a whopping 40% higher than Drugstore.com for this item.  It's interesting to note that CVS used to stand for Consumer Value Stores, though as of 2006 the CEO says it stands for Customer, Value and Service. [1]  I'll leave it to you to interpret what "Value" means in the case of the Oral-B 4000.

Even when you find the lowest price, you should investigate the retailer, especially if it prices the item significantly lower than the competition.  Rock bottom prices could signal an unscrupulous retailer.  The horror stories abound.  Here's a sampling: what is advertised isn't what you get, you get an order confirmation call where if you don't load up on accessories your item is suddenly out of stock, you get charged for things you didn't order, and you have trouble getting refunds [2].  Not all low price retailers are bad but there's enough of them out there to warrant research. 

The takeaway is that the internet hasn't been the great equalizer.  A single price posted on-line isn't necessarily going to be close to the lowest you can get.  Don't depend on retailers searching on-line to find out if their price is competitive to others. 


Sources:
All website prices were accessed on December 31, 2009 and again on January 1, 2010.

[1] Berlinski, Peter. "Ryan Preaches PL to CVS Team," Private Label Magazine, January 2006 (accessed January 1, 2010) http://privatelabelmag.com/pdf/jan_2006/Ryan-Preaches-PL-to-CVS-Team.cfm .

[2] Tynan, Daniel and Tom Spring. "Camera Confidential."  PCWorld, January 8, 2003 (accessed January 1, 2010)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/107855/camera_confidential.html  .

Healthy Budget Eating at the Eat Street Cafe (Boston, Massachusetts)

Eat Street Cafe
Massachusetts General Hospital - Ellison Building, lower level
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02228
Nearest Public Transportation: MBTA Red Line: Charles/MGH.
Accepts Credit Cards.

Hrs: M-F: 6:30 am to 8:00 pm, Sat-Sun and Holidays: 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Wheelchair accessible.
http://www.massgeneral.org/services/cafeterias.aspx#

If you are hungry, on a budget, and around Boston's West End, check out the Eat Street Cafe at Massachusetts General Hospital.  Tucked away in the basement just beyond the MGH main entrance, the cafe offers a wide variety of choices from muffins to deli sandwiches to main dishes and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Most dishes have calorie counts posted to help you regulate your intake.  There's even a nutrition guide booklet of all of the menu items.  For $2.75 you can get a bagel, a hearty serving of scrambled eggs and 6 oz. Tropicana orange juice.  Salads are 35 cents per ounce and deli sandwiches are three to four dollars.  

Now lets get something straight - it's a cafeteria.  If you are looking for a fancy sit down restaurant, this isn't for you but if you are looking for healthy options that taste good for their price in a clean setting (it is in a hospital after all) then try the Eat Street Cafe.    If you are laying down mucho dinero at the swank Liberty Hotel, the Eat Street Cafe right next door is an easy way to save money.

For more information visit the MGH Cafe and Cafeterias website.

Copyright 2009 Conan L. Hom

Foreclosures

Supposedly, with the advent of mortgage backed securities, and all the other mortgage instruments, there are many parties owning various pieces of the mortgage. When the mortgage enters default, the explanation is that it is so hard to find/determine who all the owners are, that it is impossible to gather their input to help restructure a mortgage to stave off foreclosure.

So in the event of foreclosure, if it is so hard to determine who the creditors are, how can they get paid in the event of the foreclosure and subsequent sale? In fact, it would be an interesting scenario if there was a legal requirement that each owner of the mortgage had to personally approve a foreclosure and that the administrator of the mortgage could not enforce it by itself.

CEO Compensation Part I

CEO compensation does represent only a small fraction of the bailout money given. Nevertheless, some of is more than many people will earn in a lifetime.

I worked at a job where I was paid a salary and got a small bonus IF the company was profitable - not if my division was profitable. I was expected to work hard, do a good job and be a team player. That means - suck up the losses if the company doesn't do well.

So what is it about the Wall Street culture that there has to be such an incentive for upper management to do a good job. In some ways the bonus structure as it is implies several things:
1. That upper management are inherently slackers (worse so than the people below).
2. That upper management has trouble being the team players they preach that everyone below them should be. Otherwise how can you get a bonus when the company loses money. Shouldn't everyone else be getting a bonus because they are doing a great job too (but for external reasons e.g. like the economy, the company loses money).

But there is also another thing: the closer you are to the "bottom line" then, chances are the more you only care about in your compensation is the bottom line - unlike lets say a teacher who might derive satisfaction from seeing his/her kids learn. It would be a more interesting world if the only thing anyone cared about in the ranks below was how much money they got. I suspect it would have those at the top crying foul.

Next: my hypothesis that the labor competition for CEO/uppermanagement is far from perfrect.

Oops I've dropped the ball

Happy New Year, I guess I've been AWOL for a bit. Australia was fantastic! Recently I learned that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a bicycler's bill of rights. It's a bit biased in my opinion, as if bicyclers have been victimized by automobiles. And perhaps they have. However I think it should have better addressed the whole bicyclers zooming through crosswalks during walk signals, and almost hitting pedestrians. I have no doubt that there are bicyclers who are competent and behave correctly but there are also many others (perhaps not a majority) who really need to have some kind of formal training on safe bicycling practices.

I hope people are doing well!

I'm in Australia

I'm here down under for several weeks - they are flying by...Melbourne, Australia is a really nice place! More details soon.