There has been a lot said lately about the losses piling up at the Post Office. Charges and counter-charges are flying back and forth from the varying factions with the Postmaster requesting a waiver on the $5 Billion due for employee retirements to the postal worker’s union blaming congress for the huge losses.  I have often said that I can prove both sides of an argument using the same numbers and the ongoing divergent arguments on this issue prove the point.  The key is that you do not use all of the numbers in the opposing arguments.

We could spend an enormous amount of time arguing which set of numbers is right but there is no doubt that mail volume has declined and that the Post Office is losing money. Having said that, there is one move that could have a substantial impact on economics at the Post Office – the elimination of daily residential mail delivery.  Why do we need six-day a week residential delivery? Why would residential mail being delivered two or three times a week not be sufficient?  I have four years experience with once a week delivery of our mail for five months each year.  During our summer stay in Minnesota we utilize Premium Forwarding Service from the U S Post Office.  This is a fee based service where our mail is accumulated in Arizona from Thursday through the following Wednesday and sent on to Minnesota in a Priority Mail Package.  That’s right – we exist very well with once a week delivery of our mail.  The only downside to this as opposed to regular forwarding is that we still get all of the junk mail.  The positive is that our periodicals are forwarded for more than 60 days.

I do not know the exact level of the impact of moving from six-day residential delivery to two or three-day delivery would have but it is hard to argue that it would not be substantial. Mail delivery is a labor intensive operation – every time you perform the service it requires the same level of labor input – so reducing the frequency from six times per week to two or three times per week should, and hopefully would, have a commensurate reduction in the overall cost of delivering residential mail.

Would there be any negative impacts?  Probably, with the reduction in the number of people required to provide the service there would be an impact on those no longer required but that has played out in other industries over the years as productivity has improved.  Given history it is hard to argue that we will not see a continuing decline in the volume of First Class Mail, so the longer we delay dealing with the issue the greater the losses.  Obviously this is not the only solution but it is one that would have little or no impact on the general public.

The proliforation of tablet offerings begs the question; What would it take for one of us to choose one of these alternatives over the iPad?  For me to choose anything other than the iPad there would have to be a demonstrable improvement on the iPad interface and availability of useful apps. A difference of $100 or even $200 will not do it.  Amazon’s entry into the market will undoubtedly expand the market as it will have the availability of apps and brings the tablet to the market that is more price sensitive.  As I noted in an earlier post, when I switched from an Android phone the the iPhone I found an order of magnitude difference in the ease of use.  I suspect, but have not tested it, that the competing tablet offerings running Android will face a similar hurdle.

Is a tablet a replacement for a full computer – be it a laptop or desktop?  For someone that does heavy word processing, spreadsheets or presentations the answer is no.  However for the average person that uses a computer to surf the web and handle email the tablet is a replacement for a notebook computer.  It brings all of the functionality they need in a compact, and more importantly, easier to use format.  Think of the difference in purchasing a new computer and it’s setup and purchasing an iPad and doing the same!

So, it should be fun to watch.  Post your thoughts on this topic and lets see if we can get a conversation going.

I don’t know if you have discovered Evernote but if you haven’t you really ought to give it a look. This service allows you to store documents and access them from virtually any device. I access items stored in Evernote from; a Windows PC, a  MacBook, my iPad and my iPhone. Evernote is also available for Android phones. Evernote allows you to set up categories, they called him tags, and store any kind of document online. Evernote places an icon in the Outlook task bar and with one click you can send an e-mail to any of the categories you have in Evernote. There is also a add-on for virtually all of web browsers called Web Clipper which allows you to clip all or part of a webpage and send it directly to your Evernote database.

I basically do not keep paper. Printed items that I receive are scanned and saved on my computers and if the item relates to one of the categories in Evernote they also are stored in Evernote. My primary reason is not necessarily to save paper but so that when I go to meetings I don’t have to carry stacks of files or huge notebooks. I can take my iPad and have access to all of the stored items.  As an aside, there is an app for the iPad called LogMein that allows you to access your computer from any place that has an Internet connection. Another way to avoid carrying lots of files or other junk. Even when carrying all of those items you undoubtedly never seem to have what you need but between Evernote and LogMein you pretty much solve that problem.  By the way, LogMein is also available for the iPhone and Android devices.

The good news is that the a basic Evernote package is free and allows you to store up to 60 MB per month; documents, videos, pictures, music or whatever.. If you would like to store more data each month there is a fee based subscription for $5.00 month or $45.00 for the year which gives you up to 1 GB each month. You can that get more information about Evernote on their website at http://www.evernote.com.

I have been using the latest iteration of Google’s Chrome web browser and it has become my default browser. It is clean and fast and a pleasure to use. This from someone who has been a Firefox fan for quite some time. So if you haven’t given the new Google Chrome a try it’s probably worth your while. By the way Evernote’s web clipper is available for Chrome.

In an earlier post I talked about Dragons Naturally Speaking and am using it today to create this blog post. I continue to be amazed at the accuracy of this version, particularly given my experience with earlier generations of Naturally Speaking. So if you would like to give your carpal tunnel a rest you may want to give this well designed program a try.

The monsoon of 2011 continues.  Lake levels are at historic highs with little short term chance that they will recede.  Terms typically heard around river communities, like sandbagging, are becoming commonplace here in the Alexandria area.  Of the roughly 250 lakes in Douglas County, some 200 drain through the Chain of Lakes and ultimately through Lake Carlos on the way to the Long Prairie River.  Here on the Southeast corner of Lake Carlos, at the Blake complex, we have renamed our tennis court Lake Blake.  As the new header for my blog shows the tennis court and surrounding area are inundated.  Given that the water covering the court is basically at the water table until Lake Carlos goes down we will be “blessed” with an underwater tennis court.  So while the southwest looks at cracks in the ground and prays for rain we look for a couple of weeks of dry weather.

This week I am playing in the 90th Annual Resorters Invitational Golf Tournament here in Alexandria Minnesota and it got me to thinking about how others throughout history have characterized this game that I and many love. Following are a few quotes from notables that I think put a frame around the picture that is golf.

Winston Churchill said about golf; “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly  ill-defined for the purpose”

Arnold Palmer said; “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented .”

Mark Twain said when talking about golf; “A good walk spoiled” (his definition of golf). on another occasion he said “It’s good sportsmanship not to pick up lost balls while they are still rolling.”

Will Rogers must’ve been watching a recent opponent what he said; “Golf is a wonderful exercise.  You can stand on your feet for hours, watching somebody else putt. ”

From  former President Dwight D Eisenhower; “How has retirement if affected my golf game? A lot more people beat me now .”

Some days I think that Winston Churchill’s quote on Russia applies to my game; “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  Or maybe that is my golf swing?

When we think of golf we are generally talking about courses and their length and layout but maybe the best definition comes to us from Bobby Jones; “Competitive golf is played mainly on a 5-and-a-half-inch course … the space between our ears.” By the way, that is also where the wind blows the hardest.

Ben Crenshaw followed up on Bobby Jones, “I am about 5 inches from being an outstanding golfer.  That’s the distance  my left ear is from my right.”

Two more from Mark Twain, they have nothing to do with golf but I like them; “It is best to read a weather forecast before we pray for rain.” and “My body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm … it is I who suffers not the state”

And in closing; “If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.” Horace G Hutchinson

Today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Steve Elkin opined that; Those services where labor productivity is inelastic tend to migrate to the public sector. Also in the article he stated; Earlier this year, a freshman member of the Minnesota Legislature was heard to remark: “When will our transit system ever become profitable?” The answer to this question is, of course, “never” — at least as long as transit vehicles require operators. Why? Because public transportation suffers from “Baumol’s Cost Disease.” You can see more about this “Disease” in the article at http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126430633.html.

Later in the article he said; It took one driver to operate a 40-passenger bus back when public transportation was profitable in, say, 1930, and it still requires one driver
to operate a 40-passenger bus today. From the perspective of labor productivity
alone, bus drivers are no more productive today than they were 80 years ago.

What Mr. Elkin did not say is that when Public Transportation was profitable those
that used the service “Paid What It Cost” to run the system and today those that use Public Transportation do not pay what it costs and depend on those that do not use Public Transportation to subsidize their usage.   So, in my opinion, when Mr. Elkin says that; Those services where labor productivity is inelastic tend to migrate to the public sector, what it really means is that when those that use a service are unwilling or unable to pay the cost of the service it migrates to the public sector.  Another way to define the Public Transportation issue is; the reason that it is less expensive to utilize public transportation than to drive your car is that those that elected to drive their car are subsidizing your public transportation ride.  If you want to see a transportation system that is efficient and paid for by those that use it, go to Disney World.  Some would argue that there is no fee, and per se they are right, however the cost of that transportation is built into the access fees, hotel rates and the like and belive me you pay for it.

I have no problem with those that use a service paying the cost of providing the service.  An example is the National Parks.  There the usage fees should, and may well, cover the cost of providing the access – not the entire cost of maintaining the facility.  Some will defend this subsidization of services as the “Public Good”, whatever that means.  I suspect that the Public in Public Good refers to those that benefit not the Public in general.  To the extent that we can transition to a better balance of those that utilize services paying the cost of the service the more quickly we can get a handle on many of our government’s, federal, state and local, costs and the ultimate tax bill.

The Law of Unintended Consequences and it’s corollary No Good Deed Goes Unpunished continue to prove out.  Remember when meetings and conferences at places like Las Vegas were trashed?  Well, this caused a substantial decline in visitors to Las Vegas and the loss of an not inconsequential number of jobs.  The real tragedy is that Las Vegas is one of the least expensive places to have a conference or meeting!  Similarly, when the use of private jets was trashed more jobs were lost.  I find it bizarre that our President decries the use of private jets but uses Air Force 1 – a 747 – to fly he and his wife to New York for a date.  Quite probably, that 747 burned more fuel on take-off than the combined fuel usage of the three auto executives planes on their total trip to DC.  In scenarios like these, one is reminded of George Orwell’s book Animal Farm.  If you recall, when the animals took over the farm a sign was painted on the side of the barn that said, “All Animals are Created Equal”.  As the pigs rose to power the sign was altered to read “All Animals Are Created Equal But Some Are More So”.  Call it the Political Elite or the Inside The Beltway Mentality we are seeing this demonstrated daily.   President Obama said as much recently with this statement;

“Let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury auction goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worrying about their family, they’re worrying about their jobs. They’re worrying about their neighborhood. They have got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.”

Obviously, we the “unwashed” are not smart enough to handle the real facts?  Those elected to serve us – be they Republican or Democrat – somehow think they know what is better for us than we do. Forget that we elected them and as was the case in 2010 sent a pretty clear message.  Maybe we can get a conversation going with your examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences or No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

What is “Fair Share”?  Over the past few weeks we have heard President Obama and other Democrats repeatedly say that all they want is for the top earners to pay their “Fair Share”.  According to the IRS, based on Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), the top 1% of earners paid 38.02% of total personal federal income tax and the top 10% paid 69.94% of total personal federal income tax.  Now the top 10% AGI threshold was $113,799 hardly the millions and billions of dollars often sited. Even the top 1% threshold was not in the millions or billions with $380,354 earning a spot in the top 1%.  These numbers are for the tax year 2008, the most recent I could find.  Contrast this with the bottom 50% paying only 2.7% of total federal personal income tax and the cutoff for the bottom 50% was $33,048.  Further, 47% of all households pay NO federal personal income tax.  Agreed that there are the payroll taxes, Social Security and Medicare, that are paid by most wage earners but these in essence purchase future benefits. 

What, in my opinion, is the unsaid problem is that with almost 50% of all households paying no federal personal income tax all of their incentives are to vote for those that advocate for higher taxes as they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

So what is “Fair”?  My solution is for the United States to do away with the income tax entirely and move to a consumption tax – stated another way a federal sales tax.  This accomplishes a few objectives.  One, the higher income group spends more so they would pay more.  Think about it, if a millionaire or billionaire buys a new yacht just think of the tax revenue. Further, a consumption tax captures the “Underground Economy” those that deal in cash and do not file income tax returns.  Even though they do not file tax returns, and report their income, they do purchase things and with a consumption tax we would tap this currently untapped source.  There are no statistics on the “Underground Economy” but there is little doubt that it is not inconsequential.  We could deal with the low income group with credits as we do today and those with no income would continue to be supported by the various welfare programs.

Is this solution perfect, probably not, but it is better than what we have today.  The cost of complying with the current tax situation is enormous and rising and nobody, including the IRS, understands the current tax code.  Another thing that most seem not to understand is that corporations do not pay taxes – they collect taxes.  The cost of taxes is included in the price of their product or service and ends up being paid by guess who?  Yes, we do every time we purchase a product or service.  So raising taxes on businesses is a sneaky way of increasing our taxes.  Higher corporate income taxes, already the highest in the developed world, make our businesses noncompetitive in the global economy so let’s not make the problem worse.

Fair is a funny thing.  My definition, which many do not like, is when “Both Sides Are Not Quite Happy”.  I guess that is also the definition of compromise.  By changing to a comprehensible tax code we just might accomplish that.  Think about it – no April 15^th mayhem!

It appears that Dragon Naturally Speaking finally got it right.  The updated version does not require the large amount of training that was required with the prior versions and as a matter of fact I’m writing this post – I guess I should say I am dictating this post – into WordPress having only installed the program yesterday. When I say that there was not a large amount of training involved I spent a half hour maybe a little less during the entire installation process. The set up was straightforward and included a feature where the program searches through your documents and contacts to get a better feel for your writing style and to add the names in your contact list to the programs recognized words. While I have just begun to use the the new version, I can see where working with longer documents, and even editing longer documents, will be substantially easier without compromising the quality.   I find that the accuracy, even though I am still early using this version, to be amazing. The claim is that with increased usage the accuracy will increase but given what I’m seeing now it can’t get much better, it’s that good.

I tried using earlier versions but have always been frustrated by the poor results, even though I sometimes spent as much as an hour or more in the training process and finally just gave up. Now I don’t know if it is or was my poor dictation style but whatever the new version seems to have figured it out.

The version that I am working with is for the PC but Nuance, the developer, has applications for Macs as well. They also have Dragon Dictate for smart phones which I have installed on my iPhone but have not spent any great amount of time with. So if you have been thinking about acquiring voice-recognition software to ease your typing burden you may want to give Dragon Naturally Speaking a try.

Sunset  at the North Pole.  This is one of the  rarest pictures  that you will ever see in your life when  the moon was closest to the earth.  The  date the picture was taken    Thursday,  the 13th. of March  2011.  Enjoy!