ARE YOU GOING GREEN?
July 28, 2009
Our August newsletter is about to “hit your mailbox”, in it we asked our members to identify what some of their most creative cost efficiencies have been and to identify your green inititaives. Here is your chance to share with your fellow Chamber members some of your best thinking!
Please share your most creative cost efficiency measure and your businesses green initiatives. Have they been effective? Have they worked? What would you have done differently?
GOT GAS? NEED RELIEF?
July 21, 2009
THE BRANFORD CHAMBER ENCOURAGES ITS MEMBERS TO START A NEW CONVERSATION THREAD. SIMPLY E-MAIL IT to INFO@BRANFORDCT.COM SO THAT WE MAY POST IT ON OUR BLOG!
GOT GAS? NEED RELIEF?
I was driving home and I noticed a gas station that had been closed for a full year had suddenly re-opened. It was forced to close after their in ground tank ruptured spilling gasoline into the ground of a residential area. While surprised to see it re-opened I was particularly stuck by one of the “old pumping stations”, now sitting on the side of the road. It l listed last year’s $4.89 price for a gallon of regular gas! My, how long ago that seems which strikes me as a problem.
While staring at last year’s cost, two thoughts occurred to me immediately. First I flashed back in time to 1973 when Middle Eastern nations belonging to OPEC, (the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries) had engaged in an oil embargo against the United States. It was shocking, we no longer could “mainline” oil. I vividly remember waking up at 4 am back in my junior year of college. I needed gas relief. No, not the acid reflux that I now occasionally experience at night, but it was my day to get on the gas line to try and fill my car up before the station ran out. In 1973 if you told me that in 2009 we would still be dependent on oil from OPEC I would tell say you were crazy. Heck, we just landed a man on the moon in 1969! Clearly we would figure out an energy alternative.
Second I thought about last summer. The oil industry “identified’ reasons that led to the cost of a gallon of gasoline rising to close to $5.00 a gallon. The causes included; the price of a barrel of oil skyrocketing to $153 a barrel, hurricanes damaging off shore refining plants, and of course instability in the middle east. Does anyone still remember what it cost to fill up your tank? Did anyone really fill their tank completely!
Well, over the last year the price of oil has dropped to $33 a barrel and indeed we began to see the price of gas slowly going down. Good! Then surprisingly it began to rise again until it hit about $2.79 a gallon until quite recently falling off a bit (I just paid $2.59 a gallon).
So, help me understand how this works. No storms that I know of, ample supply of oil being sold at a very cheap price and yet we are still paying prices that were unthinkable even a few years ago. Is it simply supply and demand or are there other forces at work?
So I ask you to share with me your thoughts:
- For those of you that are old enough to have sat on those gas lines, do you remember the experience? Please share your “fondest” recollection.
- Can, someone explain to me how the price of a gallon of gasoline is determined and by whom.
- Why we are still dependent on oil?
As always your comments are welcomed and encouraged.
Edward Lazarus
You Can Always Make the Connection with the Branford Chamber at www.BRANFORDCT.COM
TO BAIL OR NOT TO BAIL: That is the Question!
May 26, 2009
“What is Good For General Motors is Good for the United States” Charles Erwin Wilson 1953
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Charles Erwin Wilson, after a rapidly rising career at General Motors became its CEO in 1941. During World War Two General Motors, large manufacturing businesses became part of the war effort as a major defense contractor. While still CEO of General Motors, President Eisenhower nominated him to be Secretary of Defense in 1953. While pressed about divesting himself of GM stock as a potential conflict of interest, he stated:
“For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.” The quote was subsequently been reported as: “What is good for General Motors is good for the US”.
In 1944, while serving as director of the War Production Board he spoke before the Army Ordnance Board he noted to prevent a return to the Great Depression, the United States needed “a permanent war economy.” This permanent war economy is and was explained by Wilson as the modern military-industrial complex.
In 2009, some 60 years after his quote is William correct, is GM too big to fail? Is it inexorably linked to a healthy US Economy? Or in a free market, you succeed or fail based on the quality of your product.
Comments ?
Other interesting quotes from Wilson:
“A good boss makes his men realize they have more ability than they think they have so that they consistently do better work than they thought they could.”
“It is futile to talk too much about the past… like trying to make birth control retroactive. “
“The price of progress is trouble, and I must be making a lot of progress.”
First let me say that what I know about economic theory can fit in a thimble. But, to be truthful, that really doesn’t bother me. I remember my grad class, circa 1975, in Economics Quantitative Analysis. The professor began the first class by saying, ”Four percent unemployment equals zero unemployment”. I remember my immediate reaction as if it was yesterday, “tell that to the four percent who are unemployed!” Shortly after trying to process this piece of information, the lights went out, the overhead projector came on and the graphs went up on the screen…… and quite frankly, that is the last thing I remember about the class.
So I am not concerned that what I know about economic theory can fit in a thimble. What troubles me is that I am beginning to think that what anyone knows about the economy can fit in a thimble! Shouldn’t “stimulating the economy” be like..…well a science? If “X” happens… you do “Y” and voila, it’s fixed. I have come to the conclusion that economic theory is not math or a science but an art. That worries me because that might mean that my thimble of ideas is just as valid as anyone else’s and of course we all know that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. For me, this notion does not inspire confidence. Further, to say that I was a little taken aback to hear economic guru Alan Greenspan, essentially tap his chest in front of Congress and say, “Hey, my bad” would be an understatement. That sound you heard was not that of a basketball hitting the back wall after an errant pass but of the economy tanking.
So, what is in your thimble? What do we need to do, share your thoughts and leave your comment below.
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