Funny how a simple wishing of a happy day can become so politcal. Screw it. Happy Christmas, Merry New Year.

At least I am not troubled by family members I have never met - unlike Wafah Dufour. Her uncle is the notorious Osama Bin Laden. Yikes!

It is a sad thing when a flu virus spreads through a household, infecting everyone and making them sick and miserable. It is also a sad thing when a virus is in a loved ones computer and it is spread to everyone in their address book. So it is with a tinge of sadness when I say “If you know me, for God’s sake use an ANTI-VIRUS program!” That means you too, Mom.

Try something from www.grisoft.com, Norton - anything!

Yesterday I had a tenant tell me that she was leaving. Now the struggle begins over the damage deposit. What did she damage, what was there when she moved in? Never mind the psychological damage she has caused me by chasing other tenants away, or by causing drama all the time. But I will cave in and refund it all. It is not worth MORE drama to me to fight for every last penny.

So now I will have two units for rent out of a four-plex. Very hard on the wallet. Any takers out there? The units are located near the University of Arizona, and include all utilities as well as high speed internet. Post a comment if you are interested.

When I first saw this heading I thought he was talking about the housing bubble… but he was not. To quote Bush about his solitary life “Bush: “No, I don’t feel in a bubble. I mean, you feel in a bubble in the sense that I can’t go walking out the front gate and go shopping, like I’d love to do for my wife — although I’m a man, I’m not going to tell you what I’m gonna buy her.”

Uh.. so lingerie?

Whatever. Just make sure you buy the stuff that looks good on the floor, George. The Post

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The calculations are based on how many links and trackbacks there are to your blog, so with the relatively new age of mine the value is non existent. Try using the tool to check popular blogs like Instapundit.com or the like.

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House Passes 3 Tax Cuts, Plans a 4th. A little disclaimer - I am a capitalist, and my wife is a devoted liberal. I have previously identified with the Republican party, but I can’t any more.

How do they think this will work? Spending money on bridges to nowhere in Alaska, and then tax cuts to not pay for it? Do they not get the concept of basic mathematics? Decisons like these terrify me. Bush and his team are elected based on moral values (gay marriage) and then all the voters ignore the fact that they can’t add. The tremendous irony is that this sort of reckless spending would lead to bankruptcy in an average person, the same people that are now affected by the recent changes in bankruptcy law.

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford will cut 30,000 jobs and shut down 10 factories. This is a huge move, since Ford has roughly 90,000 employees in North America.

The plan will be officially released January 23, and until then the board of directors is not saying much - except that it is a “way forward plan”. Whatever that means.

See also Ford Job Cuts and GM Bailout

Yesterday as our little family was leaving the zoo, my wife signed a petition to increase the minimum wage. The goal of the petition was to increase the minimum wage in Arizona to $6.50 or something - I wasnt really listening.

The point of it is this - I have not ever paid minimum wage to an employee. I haven’t ever considered it a good deal for ME, as an employer. Here is my explanation. A person being paid minimum has no incentive to keep working for you. They can get a crappy minimum wage job anywhere. Since the biggest problem that I have as an employer is getting people to show up, and the second biggest problem is getting them to try - why would I want them to have less incentive to do these things?

Shawn Ritenour wrote a long acedemic blog about the effect of a wage increase on employment, and while most of it appears to be acedemically true, I think it fails to address the true needs of an employer. Yes, I pay more than the stated wage for an employee - besides the extra taxes of the governement there is uniforms, training, and benefits. The biggest expense has to be training. It costs so much time and energy to get an employee up to speed, why would I want to risk it by not offering them an incentive to stay?

I need employees to be less mobile, and less incentivised to leave for the next crappy job down the street. I need them to stay at my crappy job . So I am opposed to the increase on the grounds that I want to be differentiated from the fast food place. If minimum is $5.15 and I am paying $9, then there is a significant spread in wage potential. Confused yet? I always pay more, and I am opposed to an increase in the minimum.

The simple economic truth of any job is this - you have to be more valuable to the company than they are paying for you. If this is not so, you will be unemployed sooner or later. Or as I like to say “everybody is on commission - some just don’t realize it”.

As previously noted Ford has been talking about job cuts. Now there is more news, that a rumored 7500 workers in 5 plants will be facing a bleak 2006.

The company is likely to shut assembly plants in St Louis, Atlanta and St Paul, Minnesota, as well as an engine-parts plant in Windsor, Ontario, and a truck-assembly plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, the newspaper said.(WSJ)

So this means that there is some bitter sweet irony for the American workers who lost their jobs to Mexico, watching the Mexican workers lose their jobs to Chinese suppliers. Where are you now, UAW? The real problem in all of this is not the appetite for new vehicles - that has not slowed down. The issue is the continous erosion of market share that GM and Ford have suffered because they continue to make cars that are less desirable than that of their competition.

It is really that simple. A little history of the Ford Motor Company will tell you that Henry Ford got it really right once, and had a 66% market share of the WORLD automotive market at one point. He sold what the people wanted, and it was notably different from the industry norms of the time.

But what will happen in the near term? Bailout? While some will view this as a dirty word, remember that Chrysler was able to repay their bailout loans 7 years early. Maybe the bailout can be directed to the design department, or engineering. Just keep it away from the marketing guys and their rebates programs.