My wife and I along with several other couples went to see the new Julia Roberts movie Eat, Pray, Love The women thought it was a great movie and the men thought that at best it was ok.
You see a movie, you take your chances, but for $11.50 a ticket? No wonder the film industry is concerned about attendance.
Yes, we could have gone in the middle of the afternoon, or gone when there was a senior rate or something, but this was “prime time” in theaters, so like hotels and airlines etc, theatears now seem to be using demand pricing.
Regardless, the big bugaboo, (forget about the inflated popcorn/food/drink prices) was the advertising.
We got there early as our friends were concerned that we wouldn’t get tickets, or worse, bad seats.
About 10-15 minutes before the movie started, they showed coming attractions which is fine.
However, for the previous 30 minutes or so, we sat in our good seats and watched commercial after commercial. As one friend said, I could sit home and watch commercials for free, not for $11.50/ticket.
Not all theaters do this, and not all do this to the extent this one did. From a commercial aspect, I can’t blame them, but as a consumer, I'll think about going to a movie again.
With all of the free content available on TV, including on Demand (where maybe you have to pay $3.00-$5.00 or so), and usually outstanding free programming on PBS, why go out to see a movie?
Some say they like to get out of the house, go someplace, do something. Ok, I can understand that, but I think there have to be better options, at least for me.
Doggedness, or persevere, or keep trying, or stick with it,
etc seems to have lost some of its righteousness in the times in which we live.
This came to my attention recently when in a conversation
with a former teacher, along with something I had previously read; we discussed
the drop out rate of high school students. Nationwide,
I think it’s about 8%.
I had
another conversation this week with a woman whose husband has owned and
currently owns Taekwondo or Karate studios. Most of the students are grade
school with some junior high school and older.
The drop
out rate in these classes is very high as the kids become bored and the parents
say ok, well let’s try something else.
Ever give
your kids music lessons? Most of them are encouraged to select an instrument
around 6-7th grade by their school, the parents run and rent the
clarinet, or guitar or violin and encourage their child as much as possible.
Others may go out and rent a piano.
In most
cases, the child’s enthusiasm wanes’ quickly, the parents push the student to
practice and an on going battle between parent and child evolves and the kid
says I don’t want to do this anymore.
The
frustrated parents give in and the instruments are returned.
How about
the adult who tries a new business venture, or a new job?
Their
enthusiasm can even be contagious when they start this new occupation or hobby,
or even book to read, but if they start to lose interest, or the job is too
hard, they look for ways to get out of it, or quit, or drop out.
One of the
most startling things I heard this past week about “dropping out” was of home
owners buying a new bigger and better house than they currently had, and then
giving their original house back to their lender.
Their
present home is worth considerably less than the amount they owe on it.
Huh? I
asked. How can they do that?
More than
one person I queried told me that if you have good credit, you select your new house
that in today’s market is typically bigger, cheaper and better than where you
now live. It could very well
be a foreclosure or short sale.
However,
at today’s interest rates, compared to what your present mortgage is, the
monthly cost of the new house will be considerably less than what you now have.
So what do
you do with two houses?
I was told
that you simply give your current house, the one that’s worth much less than
the amount of your comparatively high rate mortgage, back to your lender and
walk away.
What about
your subsequent credit rating I asked? Oh they said, no problem. You’ve got
your new mortgage on the new home and you won’t need to borrow again.
So is this
right?
To be
pragmatic, no question. If the child loses interest in the Taekwondo or flute
why would a parent want to continue a losing battle every day?
If the hobby
or book is not interesting after a while, why continue to spend your time on
it? If the job is too hard, find a
new one as soon as you can. The same goes for a new skill you may want to try
to learn like fishing, or learning a new card game, etc.
However, I
and most of my generation was taught that “if you don’t succeed at first try
and try again.”
The
example comes to mind of Thomas Edison who had thousands of attempts to develop
the light bulb before he succeeded. So did Ben Franklyn on many of his
inventions or Marconi etc.
Another
lesson I often heard growing up was “necessity is the mother of invention.” In
other words, when you really have to find a way to do something, more often
than not you can figure it out.
In other
words, “persistence pays.”
How about
the male, of all species, who chases after the female he’s attracted to.
How about
the goals and dreams and ambitions we all have that we aspire to.
Maybe it’s
clever to walk away from a bad loan in this day and age, and I’m probably just
old fashioned, or in any case, old, but it just seems morally wrong to me.
How many of us over our lives were excited to have a new
car, if for nothing else, the smell of it. With leather, it’s even better.
As a matter of fact, automotive leather tanners incorporate
the leather with an odor to help sell the car and leather upholstery along with
it.
We all like the latest features, some that we never figure
out how to use, and tell ourselves how much safer we are with all of the new
additions manufacturers have added.
Then there’s the prestige factor to show our friends and relatives
that we could afford to buy a new car.
S what’s all this worth?
To me not much.
The last new car I bought was five years ago. I liked the
one I had before it so much that I bought the newer model and liked it even
more.
I loved the new car/leather smell, the shiny bright finish
and the additional gadgets that made “my driving experience” as the ads say
even more enjoyable.
But what did I pay for all of this?
In my case, about $55,000 not to mention license fee’s of
around $1500 based on the cars value, insurance etc. The “enjoyment” was
“worth” the money for the first few months and then..
It became like every other car. It’s a convertible so the
wonderful new car smell evaporated pretty soon; it got a few dings, and
eventually just nice transportation.
My warranty was up after 3 years, so I quit going back to
the dealer and now go instead a group of mechanics that only deal in this
brand.
I always keep it up to date for all the suggested
maintenance and repairs and even have it detailed once a year and washed often.
The mechanic told me that the car would good for at least
another 60,000 miles (it has about 65,000 now). He advised that whatever money
I put in it to keep it up will be minimal compared to the cost of buying
another new one.
He even told me I was crazy to buy premium gas as the manual
states. The car will run fine without it. He’s right.
My insurance costs are now much lower, and the license fee
that was once around $1500 is down to about $350 plus $50 to have it inspected.
If I want to take a long trip, say a few thousand miles or
so, I can rent a car for maybe $30.00/day and have a new car with no
maintenance. However, I don’t take car trips like that anymore. I’d rather fly.
To be objective, I think a new car is very important to many
people for a variety of reasons and good for them.
It’s just a matter of how you want to spend your income. For
some companies, it’s a nice deduction. For others, it’s important that they
make a good impression with a nice new car for their customers. For others,
it’s an ego massage.
As the saying goes, different strokes for different folks.
For me, as long as the car provides comfortable and reliable transportation
with a minimum of hassle, why not keep it as long as it fulfills your
functional needs – or is ego one of those needs?
Without one scintilla of scientific research and nothing more
than just life experience, I have noted that men especially, but in many cases
women as well, make major changes in their lives between the ages of 38 and 42.
Don’t ask me why, but think about your own life and those
you know.
Some men I’ve known, for various reasons, initiated
divorces. Others changed their careers. I’ve known some who started to cheat on
their wives and others who for the first time bought themselves that neat
little sports car they always wanted.
Come to think of it, my Dad married my mother when he was 42. Lucky for me he did. He never had a sports car though
Some start to work out more than ever, jog or grow a beard,
or begin new major hobbies. Others move and many at this stage of their lives
advance in their occupations.
In my case, I started a new Company at 39 and built the
foundations for a new career.
I think in this age range most of us are pretty healthy and
still young enough to be creative, enthusiastic and energetic, but why do we
tend to make major changes in our lives?
I must admit, I don’t know. I can only guess that for the
first time, we have a better guesstimate of what our future is going to look
like.
Between 38 and 42, we tend to stop and take a look at where
we’ve been so far and decide if we want to continue our lives as they’ve been
or make changes to what they want to be. I think that’s what happened in my
case.
Five years
The other observation I made some years ago is that no
matter how we plan, or calculate, at times, beyond our control, situations occur
that considerably change our lives within five years (or less) in the future.
Think back to where our lives were five years ago. In my
life the changes were monumental and I had no idea five years ago what it would
be like today.
By the same token, it can be a little scary. How different
will our lives be five years from now?
Think back over previous five-year periods in your life and
look at the changes.
Life is a never-ending “challenge” and if you really want to
live it to the fullest, it’s never boring.
Title: A small business tells why it can't afford to hire more workers
Michael Fleisher, president of Bogen Communications in New
Jersey wrote a column in today’s Wall Street Journal.
I don’t know if I’ve ever copied a story in its entirety
from the paper before, but I thought this was so illuminating about the current
malaise of the job market, that anyone in business could identify with it.
I recommend you read it to find out why one company finds it
hard to not only afford its current employee’s but why it hesitates to add
more.
You likely have the same situation in your company.
With
unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would
think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it's going to be
later—much later. Here's why.
“Meet
Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a
terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay
among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio
systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings.
She's
been with us for over 15 years. She's a high school graduate with some
specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes
only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various
deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and
net pay.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company
has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in
base pay.
Health
insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage; my
company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also
provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153.
Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then
the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56
for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for
workers' comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make
me pay $856 for Sally's Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When
you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to
give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose 33% surtax on
Sally's job each year.
Because my company has been conscripted by
the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of
a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in
unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form
can dramatically alter our financial situation.
With
government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know
that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.
Companies
have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a
saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves
and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the
insanity, there is ObamaCare.
Every
year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider
demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax
increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to
collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of
the last two years, the increase was under 10%.
To
offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my
company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this
"summer of recovery." We can't pass the additional costs onto our
customers, because the market is too tight and we'd lose sales. Only governments
can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.
And
even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is
always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new
salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be
increasing my company's vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes,
to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties
of this economic environment.
A life
in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every
time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit,
the government's message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a
punishing price.”
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