Monday 10 December 2012

That Brew Problem

Some smart finance folks went out and analyzed the beer market....discovering that there are roughly nine brands of beer in serious trouble from declining sales.

At the very bottom?  Michelob.  Even Old Milwaukee fell into the bottom five (in serious trouble).

The issue is that folks got around in the last decade...to drinking small brewery products, and finding a better taste.  They lost interest in lousy beer.

What's Michelob to do?  It's hard to say.  You can't just hustle up and change your product overnight.  And if you did change it....who is to say that you might upset the several hundred thousand folks who still consume it on occasion?  You might lose more than gain on the deal.

The other curious thing that could be affecting sales is that import beers are catching on.  A guy will sit at some pub, and accidentally try some Dutch beer, and suddenly find himself enjoying a better taste.  Course, he's paying fifty percent more for the beer than he'd usually spend.

If I were going to take an educated guess on business operations here...I'd say that Michelob is likely to be bought out by someone in the next three years....at a low-end price.  They will shut down operations for a month, and do up a new formula for the brew, and try to stage a come-back.  A Chinese company?  Yeah, I'd start betting on someone with cash and taking a risk like that.

Sunday 9 December 2012

Just Questions to Contemplate

How many Americans know someone who makes more than $250k a year?  And I'm talking about watching Huckabee on Fox, some Mets baseball player on TV, or going down to New Orleans to watch a live WWE wrestling match.  How many Americans actually know some guy who makes over $250k a year?

So in the midst of the biggest event since 9-11, with the country on the fiscal cliff....why does the President go to Hawaii for a vacation?  This would be like a couple about to engage in a bankruptcy proceeding but going off the week prior to gamble in Las Vegas.

If you had a hurricane coming down the way toward your home....are you actually counting on FEMA to come and help you?  Really....just raise your hand if you think that FEMA is going to save you in some fashion.

With all the talk on Syria....can you even identify the country on a map?

If you work around heavy machinery in Colorado....with the new marijuana laws going into effect....are you just a bit worried about your co-workers coming into work doped up?

If you had a kid in the Washington state school system, and the new open sales of marijuana going into effect....would you be kinda worried about teachers coming into school stoned?

In twenty years....will Fox's GLEE be remembered by anyone?

Why would twenty-odd CIA guys all be sitting in a compound in Benghazi....on 9-11?

Do you really care what a bunch of West Virginia teenagers do on camera....for a new MTV series?  Would it be any different than a bunch of punk kids from Texas?

When was the last time that you actually bought a music CD?

If the airport TSA dimwits that you all upset as you enter the airport.....were all women....would it change your perception of TSA?

If this teen singer....the Justine Bieber kid....actually sat down next to you at Dairy Queen....would you even recognize him?

Could you actually tell the difference between the $1 a cup of coffee at McDonalds and the $3.25 cup of coffee at Starbucks?

If you had the choice of being dropped off in a rattlesnake infested canyon in Arizona or the middle of Detroit....which would you pick?

If you ran a college and figured out that twenty-five percent of all kids who enter as freshmen will never get beyond the first year.....why wouldn't you try harder to stop them at the front door?  If you knew that forty percent of the freshmen will never graduate from your college or any college....would it start to bother you about accepting them?

To be honest, when in the last five years have you had a Twinkie?  Or a Ho-Ho?

If your state police announced that they'd just spent $2.5 million on a overhead drone....would you question the wisdom of such a purchase, and would you ask about the maintenance contract attached to this (likely $1.5 a year)?

Would it bother you if you learned that twenty percent of all Republicans....were really Democrats, and that the same number of Democrats....were really Republicans?

Have you kinda noticed your neighbors buying in bulk and putting two or three extra refrigerators or freezers into their garage?  Have you ever asked them about the continual review of expiration dates?  Yeah, they probably do throw at least a quarter of the bulk purchase food away eventually.

How many folks could actually sit through an entire opera....without falling asleep?

If your new car had an engine seizure, and the Ford mechanic eventually came to you and said it was the 15-percent ethanol mix you used....thus invalidating the warranty action....who would you be most upset with?

When auto blackboxes get finally implemented and mandated in the fall of 2014....how many people will quickly ask how to disconnect it?  Thirty percent?  Fifty percent?  How many computer geeks will be hired to reprogram or disconnect these?  Fifty thousand?

If there is no real difference between Microsoft Office 1997 and Office 2010....why would you buy the 2010 version?

If you could buy a $49 round-trip ticket from Nashville to Chicago....for standing only during the flight and leaning against some fixture for sixty minutes....would you buy the ticket?

Saturday 8 December 2012

Just Tired of Fairness

I sat and watch some political dimwits chat for ten minutes this morning....and the term "fairness" got thrown around six to eight times.  So I finally got tired of hearing it.

“Fairness” doesn’t get a guy to pull a 10PM to 7AM shift at a local factory for $12 an hour.

“Fairness” doesn’t ensure a decent meal at the Catfish Cabin for $9.99.

“Fairness” doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed Ford-certified transmission mechanic when you demand an overnight repair.

“Fairness” doesn’t drive a truckload of tomatoes from Texas to Michigan in the middle of a December snowstorm.

“Fairness” doesn’t clean the restaurant kitchen enough to pass the city health inspector inspection. 

“Fairness” doesn’t get you a $20k loan from the local bank when your business heating system failed in the midst of February.

“Fairness” doesn’t guarantee your kid is getting a top-notch math teacher in the sixth grade.

“Fairness” isn’t going to help you when the city has determined a year-long construction project will go by the front of your store and halt half of the profits you enjoyed for a decade.

“Fairness” isn’t helping when a city council member won’t approve your booze license unless there’s some donation to their campaign fund.

“Fairness” doesn’t help when the cops won’t come out to your area of town after dark because there’s too much crime there.

“Fairness” doesn’t sweep up a mess made by a bunch of drunks around the back of your building the night before.

I would even add this....”Fairness” didn’t exist on the 6th of June 1944 on the beaches of Normandy. For anyone who is really obsessed with “Fairness”, maybe it’s time you asked what exactly is meant by the term.