February 2008 Archives
It goes without saying that the Internet is a busy marketplace buzzing with dubious claims and get-rich-quick schemes. One of the most powerful ways to draw traffic that web-savvy readers will inherently gravitate towards is the "how-to" site: how-to get thinner, how-to become organized, how-to become pregnant -- the list goes on and on. There is no shortage of cheerfully opportunistic sites willing to over-promise and under-deliver on their claims of self-improvement.Add to this list: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. What began as Stamford grad Ramit Sethi's blog dedicated to advice on photo processing has transformed itself into a site with ostensibly helpful advice on personal finance geared towards a younger, college bound audience. However, there are a couple things we find alarming about the site:
1. Being rich isn't something you can be taught. Face it, you're either rich or you're not, but "becoming rich" is a fairy tale best left to old-fashioned Horatio Alger stories. The 2007 Geldner Report backs these findings up with raw data (PDF) -- a full 97% of the upper-class wealthy are wealthy due to inheritance, not quote-unquote "hard work." Sethi should do his research before he starts inflating the hopes of Americans that don't know any better.
2. Ramit Sethi isn't rich himself. Last time I checked, you had to be something to be qualified to teach someone else how to be it as well. If I started a website entitled "I Will Teach You How To Be A Championship Archer" but I couldn't hit the bullseye myself, how seriously could I expect to be taken? Sethi should wait a few years before handing out such lofty promises of wealth and success. Also, I think we'd all be more comfortable hearing those kind of claims from someone out of Harvard Business School -- or at the very least, Yale.
3. Not everyone can be rich, and some people are simply better off being poor. I was reminded of this last time I was at the country club: as he was bringing me my scotch, the clubhouse boy Stanley asked me, "Mr. Wentworth, how can I travel down the road of success like you have?" Normally, I don't respond to such inquiries from the help, but this query was so naive that I had to laugh. "Stanley," I said, "you have as much a chance of attaining the wealth and success I enjoy as a caterpillar has of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro." With this, I slipped a $20 bill into his hand, and he was glad to have it. Doubtless that money ended up in some reefer-dealers' pocket later that evening, but for one brief, shining moment, Stanley honestly believed my success could be his.
So get real, Sethi: show some dignity and close down your blog before someone gets their head filled with false hope.
Walmart takes a lot of grief in the American press and modern pop culture, and why? Because it's popular, and because it's big – and Americans have traditionally had a hard time rooting for the big guy. Certainly there's never been a summer blockbuster where at the end, a Walmart was constructed over the "beloved old schoolhouse" much to the cheers and delight of the townspeople. But you know what? There should be. Walmart has plenty of unique and woefully under-reported positive qualities that serve to benefit the communities lucky enough to host them, and in that spirit, we present a list of five things Walmart can start or continue doing in order to keep having such great success in the local marketplace:
- Stay open later than the competition. Too many mom-and-pop stores close up shop at 5 PM. This is like telling your customers with 9 to 5 jobs "Thanks, but we'd rather not have your business." Walmart stays open later, and as such, is better positioned to capture the hard-earned dollar of the American worker. However, there's always room for improvement: did someone say 24/7?
- Offer the low-priced merchandise that people want. The dirty secret of the modern manufacturer is that their products are not designed to last. But who would want that, anyway? The purchase of utterly disposable, low-quality consumer goods frees the consumer from having to lug around old items from house to house in order to will the goods to grandchildren who honestly, wouldn't be wanting such shoddy items in the first place. The myth of so-called "heirloom quality" goods is just that, a myth; and with products becoming cheaper thanks to our miraculous global market, who honestly doesn't delight in simply throwing old items away and buying them brand new again?
- Keep your workers hungry – obviously, not literally hungry, as many Walmarts offer in-house a wide variety of snack food and value-priced meals suitable for lunch (or dinner, or if on a budget, both!). Instead, keep workers metaphorically hungry; avoid costly health plans and retirement benefits that only create a "hand out" scenario that drive up prices for the very person paying the bills: Mr. and Mrs. Consumer. Your customers don't leave their house, drive several miles and come through the front shop doors in order to pay for employees doctor visits, so don't make them carry that burden.
- Lock 'em up. A secure store is a profitable store. Many Walmarts have been known to lock their employees inside the store, unable to leave, during the third shift when the serious shrink occurs. While some self-proclaimed "worker's rights advocates" may claim that this is a violation of these worker's human rights, it doesn't take long to understand that third-shift night workers are the very same alcoholics and secret drug-abusers that are the primary causes of shrink in the first place. Good solid fences make good neighbors, and good solid locks on the outside make even better employees.
- Continue supporting impoverished countries. Walmart purchases a majority amount of their products from overseas vendors, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Too many needlessly expensive products come from inside our borders when that money could be going to purchase less expensive, foreign-made products at a greatly reduced price. This serves to keep American companies "price competitive" in the global market – a skill many companies have avoided – while still providing the customer with the rock-bottom prices they have come to expect.
These ideas should serve as just a starting point – if you've got a suggestion for the friendly folks at your neighborhood Walmart, feel free to share it in our comments and we'll pass it along.
Let's not pussyfoot around this thing any longer.Recession.
There's a lot of bullshit debate in the media right now about whether we're in a recession or not, or when this "slowdown" officially becomes a recession. It's all bullshit. It's like looking up at a cloudy sky and having "serious debate" on whether it's going to rain or not. Recession has a precise technical definition and it either "is" or "isn't". And for the time being, we can't know.
The only real question is what to do about the situation we're in now. How can we make this situation as painless as possible, for all involved? As patriotic consumers, it is our responsibility to soften this economy's fall however we can.
Here are some basic steps we can all take to improve our financial futures:
- Buy a TV. With consumer confidence falling, consumer electronics stores are falling on some hard times. Buy now to take advantage of discounts and rebates. You get a TV, they sell a TV: everybody's happy.
- Buy a car. The car companies are feeling the squeeze too. And again, with special deals out there, buying a new car is win-win.
- Buy a house. Housing prices always go up. There is absolutely no exception to this rule.
