Pets are NOT Disposable

I'm sorry for the lecture folks..  OK, not really.  I belong to an organization called Pilots N Paws.  We volunteer to fly displaced or unwanted pets to new homes.  I got started on this because someone turned in a gorgeous 11 year old German Shepard into a kill shelter in LA a couple years ago.  Thanks to a quick thinking German Shepard rescue she was saved and I was able to help relocate her to fantastic home where she could live out her years. 

I know that there can be unforeseen circumstances that force pets to be given up but this weekend we are flying 70 dogs out of LA kill shelters.  These dogs were at one time loving companions to someone that turned their back on them.  I have been told to expect that many will be small "purse" dogs that Paris Hilton made popular several years ago.  No longer fashionable and too much trouble they were conveniently disposed of and many have been destroyed.

I have been a dog owner most of my life.  I have lived through the trying puppy years where you swear the only reason that you let them live is because they are so cute.  Through the energetic adult years where they were my constant companions and finally, through there slower years.  I have come to understand that dogs can teach us much about appreciating and embracing each phase of our lives.  Each of those stages comes with its own rewards and sometimes its own sorrow.

I ask that anyone contemplating a dog, especially the latest trendy breed, remember that you chose the dog, it didn't choose you.  When you make that choice it comes with an implied contract that the dog will provide unconditional love in return for love, company, food and good, safe home.  This contract is for the life of the dog and not just until you move on to something else.  Please think carefully before you make that commitment.  Finally, for those of you buying cars, and are socially conscious, Subaru does a great job supporting Pilots n Paws and other worthy causes.  I would like to thank Subaru, Signature Flight Support, Redding Jet Center for providing phenomenal support to help these animals. 

Gemin, Sirius, Orion and Ursa thank you for your support!

Sequester = Malicious Compliance

Malicious Compliance that has been the government response to the sequester.  What is malicious compliance?  That is the act of carrying out an instruction to it's illogical extreme to prove a point. That is exactly what is going on right now.   The most visible government agencies are implementing across the board furloughs which by definition have an impact on the level of service.

The sequester is not something new.  The government has had months to deal with it.  They chose to assume it would never happen.  I'm not talking about our elected representatives.   That's a whole different story.  I am talking about the various entities that are the recipients of our tax dollars. 

These folks have know for many months this was coming and had time to develop contingency plans to ensure that impacts would be minimized.  Instead, they have chosen to do the simplest of all..  Just put an across the board cut ensuring the pain would be spread equally.  Sounds reasonable and fair right?  Wrong. 

In the private sector we deal with budget cuts of this magnitude and more all the time.  Are the leaders allowed to get away with missing objectives?  No, we are not.  Why do we allow our government services to get away this childish behavior?  In budgets of this magnitude, there are always choices that can be made to maintain a level of service.  Administrative costs can be reduced, discretionary spending can be cut, R&D can be cut, CapEx spending can be reduce and last but not least, looking for ways to become more efficient.

They are throwing a temper tantrum because they are used to unending increases in revenue.  Rather than looking for ways to become more efficient, something the private sector has dealt with forever, they have chosen to assume an constant growth in funding to cover increases in employee expenses.  Notice, they have used furloughs as opposed to reducing staff.  That speaks volumes to the brinkmanship game being played.  They are assuming this will be a temporary thing because they have no intention of reducing spending. This is childish and irresponsible.  We need to demand better and we deserve it after all we are paying for it.

Health Care Accountability

Much has been said about Health Care in the last 4 years.  Most of this discussion has centered on the exorbitant cost of medical care.  There is no debating that the cost of medical care is very high and out of reach of a lot of the population.  What has not been addressed is how much of this cost is due to ailments that are the result of poor choices in lifestyle.

To be sure we have made great strides in cutting down the cancer rates by aggressively going after smoking and it has paid off.  Lung cancer rates and deaths have dropped significant since we aggressively started to increase the awareness of the link between cancer and smoking.  Cigarette consumption has dropped by 75% since its peak in 1963 and we have seen a steady drop in lung cancer as a result.  Today smokers pay a premium for life insurance and some health insurance companies offer reduced premiums to non-smokers.

The biggest component increased health costs are heart disease and diabetes which are directly related to the increase in obesity.  This will be the next challenge for the country.  Unfortunately, this is a a little trickier because the causes of obesity while usually lifestyle related are a little more diverse than smoking.

First, we have much more sedentary lifestyle than prior generations and it's getting worse.  The advent of the Internet, social media, gaming and other sedentary hobbies have replaced activity based leisure.  There has also been a shift where physical activity has been de-emphasized in schools.  This has led to a general intolerance towards any level of exercise.  We unfortunately have trained people to avoid the discomfort associated with healthy exercise.

Second, is the food component.  We have moved towards increased consumption of heavily processed foods high in fats, sugars and carbohydrates.  It's so much easier to throw a pizza in the microwave vs. preparing healthy fresh foods and let's be honest some of that stuff tastes so much better!

Third, there is a dangerous but subtle trend to classify obesity as a disease.  I won't argue the medical merits of this but the instant something is classified as a disease, it has the affect of letting people off the hook for what are mostly poor choices in diet and exercise.  There is a tendency for condition to be used as an entitlement to continue making poor choices. 

The fact is that there is no magic.  If calories in exceed calories out then you are going to gain weight.  If you take in just 100 Calories more than you burn in a day (one extra cookie) in just over a month you pick up a pound or an a year 10 pounds.  It doesn't take long to add up but the good news is that you can reverse this just as easily.  Add 30 mins of walking in every day and hold your intake constant and in a year off come those 10 pounds.  There are 2 knobs to turn and both work equally well.  You get to make the choice which to turn and how much to turn it.  You also need to commit to a lifestyle change not just a seasonal change.

We need to address this head on because of the increase in obesity continues health care will continue to be unaffordable.  Fact is that we all pay for each others bad habits in our health insurance and health care (people that can pay get factored into the hospitals rates to cover the bad debt).  There needs to be treatments that address the causes and incentives for making healthy lifestyle changes.   Unfortunately, there also need to be disincentives for not making good choices and this should include bearing a greater cost for heath care associated to lifestyle choices.  I know this isn't fashionable but people need to start taking responsibility for their own health.

Media Accountability?

I read a post on Yahoo written by an "alternative media" outlet that was "hoping that the Boston Marathon Bomber" was a "white male" and a not a Muslim.  The article lacked any basis in fact as it went on to assert that we do not prosecute domestic terrorists.  He must not have heard of Timothey McVey, Ted Kosinski, or the Branch Dividians.  I got to thinking, how is that than article so clearly lacking basis of fact could have been picked up by Yahoo?  Sure I understand the whole Advocacy Based Journalism thing and the need for some journalists to take contrary points of view but where have the facts gone?

Sadly, not more than a few minutes later I read this post http://finance.yahoo.com/news/teenager-pictured-york-post-front-182137207.html where the New York Post was (sort of) back peddling from a story they published yesterday that was clearly intended to implicate a young man.  Turns out their "facts" came from stories posted on social media.  What happened to reporters being required to cross check questionable facts before implicating someone?  Turns out this young man has cleared himself but damage has been done to him by the Post.

Almost every day immediately following the tragic events of both the Sandy Hook and the Boston Marathon tragedies there have been hugely inaccurate stories published by the media.  Remember they were looking for the brother of the Sandy Hook shooter because he drove the shooter to the school?  Yesterday they had arrested a bombing suspect and then they hadn't.  I understand that some of this is our own fault for demanding immediate answers in confusing situations where it takes time for facts to emerge but where is the media's basic journalistic integrity?

The journalistic standard of today appears to be if it might be true, meaning we most likely can't be successfully sued, than print it and we will worry about the truth later (this has the benefit of attracting readers a second time to see the new story).  What happens to people like the young man victimized by the Post?  How do they undue the lasting damage to him?  I believe in these cases where they have done damage by inaccurate reporting their should be consequences.  Victims and consumers should be able to take punitive action against irresponsible journalism. 

If you have better ideas, I am all ears but I think there needs to be a check and balance otherwise the media can report whatever it chooses irrespective of the facts or harm that is done.  You can do your parts by letting the media outlets and more importantly their advertisers know that you demand better integrity.   Just one man's opinion.

Somewhere Between Recklessness and Total Risk Aversion

One of the features of the US is that we seem to vacillate between recklessness and total risk aversion.  We rush into things and then when they don't work out spend an eternity seeking blame and then trying to fix the problem to death.

In 1986 I happened to be working in a spacecraft operations center and heard the Challenger's commander speak his last words first hand.  To be sure it was a sobering moment for all of us working in the aerospace industry.  A string of unmanned launch failures for different reasons followed and what resulted was over 2 years of paralysis while we "fixed" the problems (to death).  There were problems to be sure but the resulting grid lock grounded programs for years.  The program I was working on stood down for nearly a year while the satellite was taken off the booster and subjected to a complete inspection.  Ironically that same booster did not fly for some time and launched into a lightening storm and failed after being struck by lightening. 

The above examples point to wild fluctuations where we proceed head long into high risk ventures and then fail to understand that things are going to go wrong.  Anyone who has seen a large rocket operate knows this.  You are pushing large amounts of very volatile and sometimes very cold (-452 deg F) fluids and trying to control the combustion.  To be sure a very difficult endeavour and things will go wrong.  The fact that they go right most of the time is a testament to our skills and diligence.

There are many other examples around us.  We rushed into pouring billions into the solar industry and investing into high risk technologies and companies.  Foolish investments were made and fortunes were lost.  Rather than taking a rational approach and scaling back investments to a prudent level solar has become a four letter word and even good projects/companies are having a hard time getting funded.

My point is this.  We always need to strive to do better and minimize the consequences of risk but we also need to understand that without taking risks there will be no advancement and no rewards.  For the US to maintain its competitive edge we need to take a more balanced view of this risk/reward equation.  We need to continue taking bold risks and pushing the envelope to build new economies.  We also can't become paralyzed when things go wrong.  We need to understand what needs to be learned and move on with that hard earned knowledge.

Solar Policy?

The US solar policy is not working.  Don't believe me look at the number of failed solar companies.  A friend forwarded me this article today along with an old quote "Money is like manure, it doesn't work unless you spread it around"  (thanks Joe Brown for that).  We have made a lot of bad investments to be sure.  There were plenty of technologies that we over invested in but the real issue is that we as a country lack any coherent energy policy.

There have been some misrepresentations of the capability of solar as a technology.  Solar is great for satisfying the peak energy demand during the day and that is where it should be used.  Most solar systems put out their peak energy between 10 am and 2pm and it rolls off pretty fast from there.  People quote that we receive 1100 W/Sq M of insolation.  That's on a nice clear day, at the right latitude, and the energy drops off pretty fast on either side of the peak.  You get the picture that under ideal conditions 1100 W reach the Earth's surface.  Now most photovoltaic systems have and efficiency of between 12% and 33% (for CPV).  There are also a fair number of days where the bright shiny thing in the sky never shows it's face.

Here's the nice thing about solar.  When it's at it's best, energy demand is typically at it's highest.  Right smack during the middle of the business day.  We should be focusing on a policy that encourages homes and businesses to install solar on roof tops and carports.  This eliminates the transport losses because the energy is consumed right where it's generated.  It also distributes the energy generation so that the local effects of clouds, fog, etc are minimized.

Here's the other little secret about solar.  There is no technology in it.  Most of the yield improvements are well understood production improvements.  We are not losing large amounts of technical know how.  Also, while the manufacture of the cells is CapEx intensive again, it is a well understood process.  Same for panel assembly.  It's soldering and mechanical assembly.  There is no technology and the product cost is dominated by cost of touch labor.  Therefore these jobs are not the high value jobs that we need to generate a strong economy.  No matter what you do in the short run these jobs will eventually migrate to low labor cost areas.  The economics and market forces will dictate this.

So where am I going with all of this?  If the administration wishes to increase high value green jobs and reduce carbon emissions which are both good things to do it needs to reverse course.  Stop the solar panel tariff policy.  It didn't save the DRAM industry in the 1980's and it won't save the solar industry today.  Instead put sensible incentives in place for businesses to install solar.  The installer jobs are high skill and better pay than the assembly jobs and you will get the benefits of maximizing clean energy generation.


http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Rest-in-Peace-The-List-of-Deceased-Solar-Companies

The Other Side of the MBA Coin

OK, let me start by saying some of my best friends have MBA's and some of them are truly gifted executives.  Having said that an MBA is not an automatic ticket to the corner office or success.  An MBA is a perfectly fine degree and if you come out of one of the top schools you probably walked away with a first rate network.  The learning, the network those are all key ingredients to success.  As we say in mathematics necessary but not sufficient conditions.

What are some of the key ingredients?  Well first there is good old fashioned hard work.  The ability to think, synthesize and analyze when combined with good old fashioned elbow grease is a powerful formula for success.  I have seen too many MBA's that have abandoned good work habits because they felt that was behind them.  Sorry, not so fast.  The need to do the blocking and tackling is still there.

There is also the skill of listening.  I have worked with plenty of very bright, young MBA's that have lost the skill.  They believe by applying theory and analyzing data they don't need to talk to customers and users or they don't need to talk to the technicians on the factory floor.  The real world doesn't read textbooks or the Harvard Business Review.  It is a cold, messy place where theories are often shredded.  Closing the feedback loop by talking the folks at the end of the line is an essential skill.

Finally and most importantly there is real world experience.  I worked with a brilliant and talented executive that was trying to do very unnatural things with an operation.  He refused to listen to the operational leadership that we were on the road to hell and ultimately ran up some staggering bills.  He lacked any operations experience and that combined with his poor listening skills was a bad combination because he had no real world experience to draw on to lead the company and couldn't utilize those around him that did.

I have been asked many times by folks about pursuing advanced degrees and the MBA is often at the top of that list.  When I get that question I always ask about their end goals.  In a technology company often an advanced technical degree is a better first choice.  If you are interested in transitioning to running a business or business development or finance than an MBA is a good choice.  No matter which paths you choose remember the skills of hard work, listening and experience.  Good luck in your wherever your journey takes you.

Some Degrees Are Created More Equal than Others

At the peak of the economic melt down I read a story that took me from 0 to 60 in about 10 seconds.  It was a story of a young woman that graduated from Brown University with $163K of debt and was unemployed.  The story went on to suggest that her life had been ruined because of her decision to go to college and she would have been better off had she not gone to school.  What?????  It took me 20 minutes of searching before I got the rest of the story.  She had graduated with a degree in sociology and it was apparent she had really no plan what she was going to do with it.

I remember having a talk with my always very open minded father, Col. Russell (ret), about going to college.  First, there was no choice about my going and second, I could choice any field of academic study... as long as it was a hard science, math, or engineering.  There you have it freedom of expression at it's best.  Turns out, I owe him another big fat thank you because all degrees are not created equal. 

Sorry, that is just hard cold economics.  Degrees that are tied to some form of science have higher employment rates and better salaries.  Fact is that the cost of education has risen by a factor of 4 or 5 faster than the next highest index of consumer cost (health care).  The cost of a degree from the college I graduated from has gone up 400% since the time I graduated.

Students and parents need to think very hard about their choices of a college degree. It used to be that a degree, any degree, would open the door to a career and a high(er) paying job.  Those days are gone.  I'm not saying that liberal arts is a waste of time.  In fact, there are some schools that don't pay enough attention to liberal arts content and you wind up with folks that are missing critical communications and critical thinking skills necessary to function as part of a team.

A college degree is still important but chose wisely because the cost of getting wrong can be very painful.  Do the research and more importantly do the math on return on investment before committing to an academic path.  If you choose to follow your heart and get that degree in French Art History (on offense intended to any French Art Historians), then make sure you have a plan with what you are going to do with it and more importantly how you are going to pay off all that debt.  The days of getting any old degree and then being able to figure it out after you graduate are over.