What About the Leftovers

For some reason lately I have been thinking a lot about leftover embryos that are stored in fertility clinics from invitro fertilization procedures (IVF). Today USAToday.com has a story about it that helped to answer some of my questions, like what happens to the leftover embryos.

But it still doesn't answer my major question which is where do the pro life groups who are opposed to abortion stand on IVF. I did find this helpful site, but what I can't tell is if this is the norm of opinion of Pro Lifers or only the extreme. Where does the Bush administration for example stand on IVF. He did veto a bill that would have funded stem cell research from stem cells that came from IVF embryos that were going to be discarded, but he has never talked about legislation to regulate or stop the use of IVF.

It seems that if you oppose abortion you must also oppose IVF. Are fertility clinics being protested and burned? Are the doctors of these clinics being threatened? These are the questions I want answered.

A New Bike for Margaret

It's exciting times in the house. We got our home office all setup, which I still need to post about, and now we have a new bike for Margaret. For the past so many years, she has been riding an old Nashiki (with a Biopace crank set) that we bought from Play it Again Sports for $35 or so. It's been a great bike for her but with her getting more serious about doing triathlons, etc. it was time for something better. The Nashiki was heavy and had poor derailleurs that needed constant tweaking to keep aligned.

In all the times I've ever ridden with Margaret I have never see her put her hands in the drops. Not once. She doesn't even like to ride with her hands on the hoods that much, so I felt as though it would do well for her to get a flat bar road bike. It would be lighter than her old bike, with thinner tires and geared like a road bike. The twist shifters are something she's use to using on her mountain bike and likes a lot. Also you can put bar ends on a flat bar, something else she likes a lot.

After convincing Margaret of my plan the next step was to find a suitable bike. There are plenty of flat bar road bikes to choose from, but I kept coming back to one over and over, the Bianchi Strada. I had first looked at this bike in 2005 when I was looking for a new bike for myself. It was geared up similar to a road bike 11-32 in the back 30-52 in the front. The key here being the 52/11 that you can achieve similar to a road bike. Many of the flat bar bikes were setup closer to a touring bike. In fact in 2006 Bianchi switched to a different setup 11-32 in the back and 28-48 in the front. It also came on 700x23C tires something most flat bars don't. I felt as though this were a true road bike with some features of a touring bike like the 32 on the front. I also liked the fact that Bianchi called it a road bike, treated it as a road bike and not as a hybrid or comfort bike.

The problem was that the newer Strada didn't fit the bill and we have no Bianchi dealer that close to us. I looked at a lot of other bikes and wasn't that impressed and began to think of getting a regular road bike then changing the shifters and handlebar, or just building one from scratch. In fact I fully priced out building one from scratch using either a cheap Nashbar frame or a Surly Pacer frame. It seemed doable, but then one day recently I hit on something. A web site that changed everything for me. bikesarecool.com had a 2005 Bianchi Strada that was $160 off retail with free shipping. I jumped on it, especially since building it myself or converting another bike was going to cost at least as much or more. This was the bike I had always been interested in and now was my chance to get it.

It arrived yesterday and I put it together last night. It looks great and I can't wait to do a fitting for Margaret and then take it out for a spin. I'm more excited than she is I believe. We are now the Bianchi 2005 couple with her having the Strada and me the Brava from the same year.

2006 NCAA Division I Football Tournament

I know the image is hard to see, but this is how the football bracket would have been setup for a 24 team tournament. More than anything I wanted to plug the free software I used to create this bracket, it's called Tournament Maker 2.1. You can download it from ZDNet. If you want some simpler software take a look at another freebee called Tournament Bracket Builder from ZDNet. It will create an html bracket that you can print out. With Tournament Maker you can actually keep track of the games, costs to enter the tournament, etc.

Gnarls Barkley and the Femmes

I was listening to Gnarls Barkley yesterday and hearing his cover of the Femmes, "Gone Daddy Gone," got me to thinking about them. It's odd in some ways that I've not heard more of their songs off of that first album covered.

By the way love the song "The Last Time" by Gnarls Barkley.

Is Wal-Mart Good for the United States (What Can Be Done)

If we look at the results of the case study about Shovel Inc. what do the people of the United States get out of this market model. US Steel loses a customer and may have to lay workers off, American workers lose their jobs at Shovel Inc., the rest of us get to save around $3 on a snow shovel that now has a plastic handle instead of wood and the blade is possibly made of a lower quality steel. In my book this isn't that good of a result for the citizens of the United States. The question is what can be done to change it, and should something be done to change it.

I would say that definitely something needs to be done about it. The blue collar middle class is very quickly disappearing from our country and they have always been the rock bed on which the rest of the economy is built. Of course IT people are really just fancied up blue collar types and so we still have them, but I know so many IT people that have been laid off as jobs are outsourced to India, etc. it's a bit frightening. The outsourcing would be another issue and go back to the discussion about what was not covered by Frontline so we won't get into that right now.

So now that we know we need to do something what can we do. The most obvious would be to put restrictions on imported goods, making the appeal of moving manufacturing outside of the US not as appealing. These could be simple tariffs or more complex tariffs that are geared at forcing other nations to insure their people are payed a higher wage. The appeal of cutting labor costs by 98% is one of the main appeals to moving jobs out of the United States. If we limit or don't allow imports from nations that don't pay a decent wage then we would limit the number of companies willing to move their jobs out of the United States.

We could also look at the big box stores as the new manufacturers of our age, since it is mostly service industry jobs that are replacing the manufacturing jobs. We could insure that they pay their employees a decent wage, provide them insurance, and retirement benefits. This would be similar to the support that employees got during the labor movements reforming industry.

We could also work harder at encouraging our citizens to save more and spend less. Our voracious appetite for consumer products is one factor that has led to this new market model. With so little savings in this country and such a large trade deficit we are sitting in a position where the survival of our economy is completely dependent on other nations. This is a risky position in which to find ourselves.

We could also increase the taxes on the wealthiest individuals in our country. In our country today the wealthiest individuals can easily get out of paying a dime in taxes every year. With the jobs moving out of the country and the wealthiest individuals reaping the rewards of the increased profits, none of that increased income is finding its way back into helping the government function or keep the deficits at a reasonable level.

We could subsidize certain industries that we feel must be protected, like steel and other heavy key industries that are seen as necessary for a country to survive on its own. During World War II we rose to power in large part because we could survive without being dependent on the rest of the world. It is important to insure that we can always feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, and supply key products like steel.

We could take a much stronger stance against other countries who refuse to open up their borders to imported US goods, and work hard to encourage self sustaining economies in third world countries. Instead of El Salvador using every inch of its farm land to produce coffee to be sold in the US market we should encourage them to create a self sustaining economy that creates a more balanced market system, rather than one which only generates revenues for the large coffee farm owners. Helping to develop a more independent market and middle class in these countries helps to protect US jobs because it raises the salaries being paid in such nations.

As you can see there is a lot that we can do to change things. But what specifically should we do? That will be the next series as we begin to actually look at the numbers and figure out what we need to do to help insure a stable economy in the US.

Tracey Thorn

Happily she'll be back soon with a new album. You can check some of her stuff on her MySpace.com page. Meanwhile Ben is busy running his record label and you can check out his MySpace.com page as well.

Is Wal-Mart Good for the United States (What is Missing)

One of the critical components that was left out of the discussion on Frontline was the pressure to produce results for stockholders. In the case study we looked at Shovel Inc. was caught in a tight squeeze. They simply couldn't have made the shovels as cheap as Home Depot wanted. But let's say that it was only costing them $10.00 per and they were able to sell them to Home Depot for $13.00, what other factor might push them to move their facilities to China? The obvious pressure would come from stockholders and upper management who would reap the rewards of greater profits. By moving their operations to China and reducing their labor costs by 98% they could potentially build the shovels for say $6.00 per including shipping to the United States. That's a 133% increase in profit from $3.00 per shovel to $7.00 per shovel.

The question I would ask is how much of what is driving these companies to move jobs out of the United States is by the big box retailers and how much of it is the desire of the stock holders and upper management to increase their wallets. In essence how much of it is just the market system at work. Anyone that takes a basic economics course learns that controlling the cost of manufacturing is the key to making bigger profits. If you can move your manufacturing facilities to somewhere outside the United States and import them in at no cost other than shipping why not do it. The labor costs are so much less it pays to make the move.

By moving these jobs to countries like China it also helps to get around their tight importing restrictions and helps these companies to market better to the Chinese. They are able to still sell and make profits in the United States and now also sell and make profits in China.

This has lead us to the final installment, is the Wal-Mart model good for the United States and if not what can be done to change the effects it is having on our economy.

Kwanzaa

Leave it to The Comics Curmudgeon to help me learn about Kwanzaa. In case you were like me and know nothing about Kwanzaa, take a quick look at the Official Kwanzaa web site to learn about its history and what it represents.

Is Wal-Mart Good for the United States (A Case Study)

So let's walk through an example of how this system works according to the manufacturers and the Frontline episode that spurred this whole discussion.

Shovel Inc. sales rep goes in to meet with Home Depot buyer. The buyer tells the sales rep that they would like to buy 100,000 snow shovels at $13.55 per shovel. This would allow Home Depot to put a 40% markup on these shovels and they have found that $18.97 is the best price to mark their snow shovels for selling. The Shovel Inc. sales rep tells the Home Depot buyer that it is costing them $14.00 per shovel to produce the shovel now and there is no way they can sell it to Home Depot for $13.55. The Home Depot buyer says, OK, we won't buy any shovels from you this year, we'll go with another brand instead. The Shovel Inc. sales rep says no we need the business so we'll do it for $13.55.

Now Shovel Inc. is in a tight situation. They have this order to produce 100,000 shovels to be sold at $13.55 per shovel. Now obviously Shovel Inc. needs to make money on this so if they are going to be selling the shovels for $13.55 per shovel they would like to make 20% per shovel or produce the shovels at $11.29 per shovel. Currently it is costing them $14.00 per shovel so they have to shave off $.45 per shovel just to break even. The first step to cutting costs is to look at alternatives to the raw goods they are using. It just so happens that China is dumping steel on the US market that year and so they decide to buy this cheap Chinese steel instead of the US Steel they've always bought before. This will save them about $.50 per shovel, so enough to break even. They also decide to go with plastic handles instead of wooden handles to save another $.50 per shovel. Of course the first year they make this change there are development costs and so in the end they break even on the shovels.

The next year tariffs are placed on Chinese steel and so Shovel Inc. goes back to Home Depot and says OK we are ready to get you your 100,000 shovels, but with steel prices going up we have to do it this year for $15.00 per shovel. Home Depot says no we would like two things from you this year. We would like 50,000 all plastic shovels at $10.00 per shovel and 100,000 of the plastic and steel shovels at $13.00 per shovel. We hope to sell the $10.00 shovels for only a 10% markup but use that low price to pull in customers. We will keep our other shovels marked at $18.97 and make more profits to makeup the difference. If you can't meet these demands we will look elsewhere. The Shovel Inc. seller again agrees and goes back to his company.

Now they have to invest money to develop an all plastic shovel, and still provide a steel shovel with a plastic handle at a lower cost than they were able to do the year before. They are not going to be able to get their raw materials down enough to make these prices work and actually make profits for the year so they start to look at other ways they can cut costs. There are restrictions on steel imports, but not on importing shovels, so Shovel Inc. decides to bight the bullet and move one of their plants to China. They will lose money this year, but by moving their plant to China they will cut labor costs by 98%. They are currently paying union employees $15.00 per hour, in China they will be paying $.25 per hour. They also will not have to pay insurance, social security, pension, etc. It will also make the cheaper Chinese steel available to them and so even though they will have to ship their shovels into the United States market they will easily make their money back and increase their profits down the road.

Now of course the US plant is shut down and those employees laid off. It also means that US Steel loses the customer for raw goods even though there was protection against steel dumping on the US market. Home Depot gets to increase their profits and Shovel Inc. is now positioned to do the same.

In the next installment we will look at what other factors are involved this process that are missing from the model as presented by Frontline.