Author Archives: William Busch
Friday Rant: Nurturing Academic and Life Success With Games, Not Just Dollars
As the un-official end of summer approaches and another academic year ramps up, it’s quite possible that all of us who wish to give the young people in our lives the very best leg up on future academic and career success should re-examine our tendency to invest in canned solitary developmental exercises like early reading and virtual or physical rote exercises like flash cards and language tapes. A recent New York Times Magazine article claims that “…playing certain kinds of childhood games may be the best way to increase a child’s ability to do well in school. Variations on Freeze [...]
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Friday Rant: U.S. Medical Care Rationing & Personal Cost – A Tale From The Trenches
My wife and I have good employer-provided and sub-vented medical insurance coverage that will protect us from financial collapse should either or both of us ever need treatment for a catastrophic illness. It also comes with a high annual personal deductable, an essential component to affording coverage that also makes it possible for employers to offer and provide the benefit. We’re fortunate to be in extremely good health as we enter our sixth decade on Planet Earth. We’re also interesting subjects in that we’ve contributed at least $600,000 in medical insurance premiums over the past 40 years, take no routine [...]
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Friday Rant: One More Time – Periodic Economic Statistics Have Dismal Predictive Validity
Our revered and precious freedoms of speech and press — in fact all of our sovereignties — carry with them tremendous individual responsibility to question, validate and determine the relevance and accuracy of the informational deluge they enable. The challenge, of course, is how to fulfill this responsibility amidst continuously expanding communication and information technology. Ironically, and fortunately, those very same technologies make it easier than ever to separate the wheat from the chaff, but we must be willing put forth the effort to do so. This past week’s release of quarterly economic statistics presents a prime opportunity to remind [...]
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Friday Rant: The Blaring Hidden Cost of Clubbing
The vast majority of people who read Spend Matters are also likely to be very hard workers. And while working hard doesn’t demand that we play hard when we have precious down time, kicking back by going out with friends to venues that have live music, DJ entertainment or simply mind numbing, bone throbbing dance music can provide sorely needed therapeutic escape from the daily rigors of the work week. We also know that such venues can be rather costly. But I’m not referring to cover, ticket or exorbitant fees for drinks. I know that what I’m about to discuss [...]
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Friday Rant: When Arbitrage Is Usury
There’s something so innately satisfying in buying low and selling high that it was only my adversity to financial risk that stopped me from becoming a stockbroker decades ago. Now, one of my many satisfying hobbies involves buying and selling vintage electronics, musical instruments and Persian rugs — strange mix, I know — on Craig’s List, eBay and at garage and estate sales. I love that they are all among the purest markets in contemporary times. Conversely, why would anyone pay a 3x mark-up and higher for an item that can be bought for 1x a block or so away? [...]
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Friday Rant: Genetically Enhanced Appearances — Why Most Tomatoes Are Mostly Tasteless
Clichés, while largely true, fail to penetrate our consciousness. Take for example “You can’t judge a book by its cover” and “First impressions may not be as they appear”. We know these are valid platitudes but in our quest for exquisite fruit, these expressions are now more spot on than ever when it comes to finding the perfect tomato. I have long been skeptical when I hear friends and consumers get on a soap box to decry that genetically engineered foods, fruits and vegetables are unhealthy and should be avoided. Unless one grows their own fruits and veggies from heirloom [...]
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Friday Rant: EU Workers Gain Odd New Benefit During Euro Crisis as the AFSCME Looks Like it Behaves
It’s hard to argue with the premise that good physical and mental health enables creativity and higher production on the job. But the cost and value of the benefits that promote good health will likely remain contentious for many generations to come on both sides of the pond. In the most startling labor headline of the week , The New York Times reported today that “… Europe’s highest court ruled that workers who happened to get sick on [their paid four to six week guaranteed] vacation were legally entitled to take another vacation.” The Court of Justice ruling which “… [...]
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Friday Rant: Can “The Dream” Sustain Without Investment, Or is it Already Too Late?
The public education crisis in the U.S. is old news and steadily grows worse. In my home town this week, The Philadelphia Board of Education — an oxymoron if there ever was one — announced a new round of spending cuts for a system that long ago ceased to provide organized after school extracurricular essentials like music and sports in a “system” that can barely manage to graduate half of its high school pupils. On a broader national level, the problem is also accelerating. This week’s New York Times reports from “… the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development [...]
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Friday Rant: Canadian Consumers May Lose Their Beloved Alternative Currency
It’s endlessly interesting that so many countries and cultures, that we believe we know well, have spend mechanisms that are held dear, yet are virtually unknown outside their borders. To wit, according to today’s WSJ, our Northern neighbor’s consumers have revered Canadian Tire money as an alternative currency for over a half century. But alas, the spend visibility and behavioral insight offered by plastic loyalty cards portends the end of tire dollar spend. I know I’m more than a little anachronistic at heart when old conventions are supplanted by new technology — I’ve not yet succumbed to EZ Pass for [...]
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Friday Rant: Be Certain to Vet 1099 Status as a Payer and Recipient
I had the huge pleasure of attending Procurestaff Technologies’ Consol Thought Leadership Forum in Manhattan this week. As we all know, a single day 13-hour event must be exceptional or it quickly becomes a tedious distraction from our many other obligations. Hats off to Consol for very carefully sequencing one of the most stimulating forums I’ve attended. But that’s just some background as to how I acquired the following, rather scary information regarding the risks of issuing and receiving the ubiquitous Miscellaneous Income IRS Form 1099 To the uninitiated — of which I was one before the forum — the [...]
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Friday Rant: Think Twice About The Cost To Your Heirs of Navigating Complex Inheritances
Some of us are so fortunate that we have vacation homes that have been in our families for years. But ah, even with that apparent good fortune, there can often be more than one bruising rub. Legacy homes invariably fall into the hands of many more offspring than the building forefathers and mothers ever thought about. And to make matters even worse, dying family patriarchs and matriarchs sometimes attempt to control the future of their heirs utility from the grave. I happen to very close to a situation at the moment where family elders decided in their final days to [...]
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Friday Rant: Customer Ratings — Necessary? Valuable? and Likely Fraudulent
Don’t you just love it when you need to overnight in a town that you’ve not yet visited and someone you know and trust can tell you where to stay? Sure, that’s the perfect referral. But more often than not, we tend to rely on the judgment of complete strangers by way of on-line reviews and travel sellers. And if that’s not sufficiently risky, there’s evidence that hotels are stacking the review forum decks. Try comparing a hotel’s ranking across the major online travel sellers before you book your next lodging and you’ll likely discover a huge variance. Thursday’s WSJ [...]
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Friday Rant: Health Insurance Risk / Premiums — Level Playing Field or Grand Canyon? PART 2
The on- and off-line commentary generated by my column last Friday seems to warrant further coverage. National attention this week is almost entirely focused upon the constitutionality of mandating that all U.S. citizens have health insurance. Which — no matter how you slice it from a cost and spend perspective — is also a question of allocating risk premiums in a fair and equitable manner. Just in case there’s anyone out there who believes that our countrymen without health coverage doesn’t cost us all a fortune, that current percentage of our population over consumes ER services and has zero access [...]
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Friday Rant: Health Insurance Risk / Premiums – Level Playing Field or Grand Canyon?
This week’s New York Times reported that “Women still pay more than men for the same health insurance coverage….” In many cases a lot more, but the disparity doesn’t involve maternity coverage — though that remains an extremely expensive option. If the new health care law (popularly known as the Affordable Healthcare Act and Obamacare) — likely contingent upon legal challenges and the future political landscape — takes effect in 2014 as scheduled, “any health program or activity” will be broadly prohibited from discrimination by gender. “But for now the price disparities continue,” the story continues. “Indeed, nonsmoking women often [...]
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Friday Rant: Incentive vs. Disincentive Compensation for Government Execs
That we all pay the salaries of our elected and appointed representatives in these days of dysfunctional economy and legislatures, is beyond galling. Mention firing legislators for failure to reach compromises and pass legislation, or tying Federal Reserve board member’s salaries to economic performance at your next barbeque, and you will surely liven up the party. We absolutely want parity in the work place when it comes to performance and consequences — fair and equal treatment across the board. Ahh, if it were only that simple? The attraction of rewarding public officials for a job well done beyond re-election doesn’t [...]
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Friday Rant: First U.S. Increase in Consumer Debt Since 2008 – Good or Bad?
According to CreditCards.com, a publisher of credit card statistics, “approximately 51 percent of the U.S. population has at least two credit cards … [and] on average, today’s consumer has a total of 13 credit obligations on record at a credit bureau … [with] the average consumer’s oldest obligation [at] 14 years…” So it’s reasonable to assume that credit debt payments have a significant impact on most family’s monthly spend. One positive consequence of our years of economic recession has been that consumers, in the aggregate, finally realized that reducing their personal debt is a wise practice and have generally done [...]
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- Supercharging Procurement’s Buying Leverage : Navdeep Sidhu said: Silos will be the death of us all! One hand has to know what the other is doing, especiall... more
- US and Chinese Comparative PVC Price : Jake said: I can also see this trend continuing, and i also think the west as a whole will struggle t... more
- SAP Sapphire: Moving to Frictionless AND Sticky Commerce : Jason Busch said: Pierre, Great stuff ... I personally think the proprietary network / apps approach t... more
- Three Lessons from LeBron James for Procurement Organizations : bitter and twisted said: I despise these sporting analogies.... more
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