PSoTD

We all need to start realizing where we are as a society, and how every one of us has responsibility in the mess we've made. I think that's probably started, but we're early on in the stages of grief relating to our energy abuse. It's mostly the blame of others state - politicians, oil companies, oil countries, the news media - and not of ourselves, not of our lack of thought and vision into how the world was and is expanding, how wasteful we have been of relatively cheap energy. ALL OF US. I'm a sinner as well as you, perhaps more than you, in the scope of this point. But it is not too late for us, and particularly, it is not too late for the next generation.

We have to get past the grief of the passing of cheap energy for an unprioritized lifestyle. This will take some leadership. The institutions that provide that leadership - that reteach Americans how to create a life they consider wealthy regardless of the cost of gasoline - will be the institutions of tomorrow. There are opportunities for the institutions of today for that leadership. Clearly, science and educational institutions are part of that. But there are opportunities for local government, for community organizations, for churches, for neighborhoods, in the retrenchment of our values.

But we must get past the grief.

Interesting post about the whims of the Google AdWords marketplace...

Preferential Pricing

Getting your account Google slapped is a well known phrase amongst many affiliate marketers. One day your ads are going great, and then the next day every keyword has a minimum bid of $5 or $10 per click.

I guess I really don't understand what is going on with Google's pricing. I have a regional purchase for the term "Camp Hill", it's not that effective but it's worth a shot. It keeps going up in price per clickthru - today my ad is inactive for search because I'm refusing to pay the new price of $1.00 per clickthru.

What I don't understand is why that is the price. There's ONE ADVERTISEMENT currently on that keyword. What is the deal? Market demand couldn't be responsible for the increase from twenty cents to 1 dollar per clickthru. What up with that, Google?

Maglev is fast.

APTA has an online calculator that will help you compare the price of using public transportation with the price of paying at the pump and then parking your car in town, set with default values based on national averages for June, 2008.

These emails I get from Countrywide, they would be funny if they weren't so pathetic...

XXXXX, exciting news — we're offering a Special Online Discount1 only to select customers.

We've reviewed your account. Because you have kept your account current, made consistent payments during the past year, maintained a good loan-to-value ratio, and because your loan and property type meet our lending profile, we invite you to call 1-800-XXX-XXXX to see if you qualify to refinance.

Don't wait. Learn more about our wide variety of refinance programs — if you qualify, you may discover how a new refinance loan could:

* Allow you to save now with this Special Online Discount. * Reduce your monthly payments and interest rate for the life of the loan. * Give you access to extra cash from your available home equity to use however you wish. * Have a shorter term, saving up to thousands of dollars in interest payments over the life of the loan.

In theory, we could reduce the interest rate on the mortgage a bit, but perhaps a quarter percent at best. It's not worth it at this point to do this, and they know that. This is completely driven by their needs, not my mine.

Okay, I promise I'm going to drop the ice cream truck blogging. I know, I seem obsessed, I'm really not but I do find the whole little niche industry somewhat interesting. I actually had my first job - if you want to call it that - on an ice cream truck. I worked three days before I realized how bad the deal was going to be for me as an "employee" (how profit and cost were split) and quit.

Anyway, I ran into this website that sells ice cream trucks. It's not the fanciest web site in the world, but I guess I didn't realize there was such a business and trade.

Is the music REALLY that annoying? Doesn't bother me...

But in Dearborn Heights, after complaints from anonymous residents, city leaders are looking to silence the ice cream man, saying the nursery rhymes from trucks are too noisy.

On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to adopt an ordinance that will allow ice cream vendors to ring bells only while they are selling their goods.

Using loud music on the trucks to attract ice cream lovers has been a point of contention in many communities in Metro Detroit.

And it's not isolated in Michigan...

Wilmington City Councilman Samuel Prado is getting an ice cream headache from those mobile vendors who blare tunes from their trucks.

He says some ice cream trucks are roaming neighborhoods and blaring their jingles at 11 p.m., while people are trying to sleep.

Prado say it happens every summer and he intends to keep making his own noise about the situation at council meetings until something gets down.

The city has a law that requires ice cream truck drivers to stop the music when they pull over to make a sale, and to refrain from using music after 9 p.m. Prado says he wants to know how the city will enforce the law.

Grumpy.

Are they on the increase?

Kansas: Ice-cream truck driver thwarts armed robbery

Delaware: Ice cream truck driver robbed on street

You have to feel sorry for the ice cream truck drivers. They're losing their wallet at the gas pump, too.

For the ice-cream man, it might be time to dump his traditional Pop Goes the Weasel ditty with something more fitting, such as Stormy Weather. The mobile vendors are among the many gasoline-dependent service companies that are watching profits melt away.

Whether the business is Bomb Pops, pizza delivery or lawn care, managers face the same question: How much of the fuel bill should be passed along to customers?

"We're still able to operate, but it definitely eats into profits," said Dale Lack, owner of Polar Bear Ice Cream in Columbus.

His company operates 17 ice-cream trucks, with the drivers sharing in the costs and the profits.

Speeding up. They're even being stolen now.

It costs Cheryl Norris just $6 to $8 a month to fill up the vehicle she uses to get to work, run small errands, go to church and even to visit her mother across town.

"I fill up about once every three weeks," she said. "That's it."

For about two years, weather permitting, the Lafayette woman has favored riding a Tomos mo-ped, or motorized bicycle, not her car with a 15-gallon tank.

Norris said the scooter gets between 80 and 100 miles a gallon, saving her about $120 a month in fuel costs.

As the price of gasoline -- a gallon of regular unleaded hit a national high of $4 this past weekend -- continues to climb, so does the demand for the fuel-efficient scooters, some Lafayette-area retailers say.

Action Motor Sports typically has between 30 and 40 motorized bikes available for purchase.

On Tuesday, that number was 10, general manager J.D. Corey said.

"We've seen a big increase in scooter sales over the last 90 days," he said. "Motorcycles also. But it's the scooters that are becoming a rare item."

Especially foreclosures.

Animals don’t sign contracts to be hired as family pets, but they probably wouldn’t mind the extra security. Pets increasingly are becoming victims of increasing home foreclosures and a tight economy.

“Our most common reason why people turn in animals is because they are moving, but it’s safe to say that they might be moving because of big housing problems,” St. Cloud Tri-County Humane Society director Vicki Davis said. “I had three in a row in a matter of three or four days of people who lost their home and were evicted and couldn’t afford their pets anymore.”

Tri-County Humane Society has seen a 6 percent increase in the number of animals it received as of Monday compared with the same time period last year, and it’s not even the busy season, Davis said.

Davis isn’t the only shelter director experiencing an upswing in surrendered pets.

Petfinder.com recently conducted a survey of its adoptable pet database that has more than 11,000 member animal rescue groups nationwide.

About half of the 1,055 animal shelters and rescue groups that replied had pets surrendered to them in the past six months because of a home foreclosure.

So how much do you know about hypermiling, and how it can save you gas dollars?

Less trucks means less delivered stuff...

High fuel prices are taking semis off the road.

With diesel surpassing $4 a gallon, trucking operations as small as one person and as large as 1,000 drivers are closing down and parking their semis.

"In the first quarter of 2008, more than 1,000 companies declared bankruptcy," said Steve Schuster, the president of trucking company Schuster Co. in Le Mars.

Last week, the national average for a gallon of diesel was $4.70. The 2007 yearly average was $2.77. A nearly 100 percent increase is a tough bullet to bite, especially with rigs that get six miles to the gallon.

"When it costs 75-80 cents per mile just in fuel, that adds up very fast," said Schuster, whose fleet includes 300 semi-tractors.

If you don't get rid of it now, you're probably not going to be able to sell it...

Pickup trucks and SUVs are hurting. In May sales numbers, the Ford F-150 was knocked from its perch as the best-selling vehicle in the U.S., and sent reeling all the way to the fifth spot. A glut of SUVs sits on used car lots, almost unsellable in today's market.

The New York Times reports that large trucks and SUVS that were "the first generation of mass-market …to approach the six-figure mark" in price are now selling for "much closer to $50,000."

Brent Robinson, sales manager of a GM dealership in Minnesota, told the Toronto Star "We haven't had anyone crack the door on a Yukon or a Denali in 30 days."

Is the death knell of the gas guzzler here?

Stupid and painful ways to run (and close) a business:

Two Hardee’s restaurants — one in west Davenport and one in Aledo, Ill. — were closed abruptly Monday, apparently as part of a corporate refranchising effort.

According to employees at the Davenport location, 2202 Rockingham Road, there was little to no notice.

“I spoke to my manager and she said she was in there working around 10:30 when (managers from other area stores) came in and told her it was being closed,” said Steve Schutters, a cook and cashier. “They started throwing all the food away and were pulling things down and packing them up.”

...

Schutters, a junior at Davenport West High School, said he is scrambling to find a new summer job now that Hardee’s has closed.

“I just got a new car and I have a $3,000 loan and I don’t know how I’m going to pay that off,” he said.

Among other employees suddenly severed was a senior citizen who lives near the store who came in each morning to make fresh biscuits, Schutters said.

“We were busy, I don’t see why they’d come in and say ‘you’re done. Clock out and leave,’” he said. “We had just hired people a week before that were supposed to start on Tuesday and they just came in and closed everything down.”

Employees deserve better than this, period.

No kidding.

Manufacturers are scaling back the sizes of products ranging from dog food to chewing gum.

And although prices are staying about the same, if you use a product regularly, "package shrink" could hurt your wallet.

"Downsizing is decades old, but because of the economy, we are seeing more of it," said Edgar Dworsky, a former Massachusetts assistant attorney general for consumer affairs who now edits two consumer Web sites, Consumerworld.com and Mouseprint.org.

I wish there was a web site that tracked consumer product sizes over time, something like an inflation index on price but a deflation index on quantity.

Reuse, reuse, reuse...

In a tough economic environment, thrift stores are seeing people they've never seen before all over the country, said Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops.

"There's just an influx of customers coming into retail thrift stores for the first time, who are becoming more cautious in their spending," she said.

Resale stores, which include more than 25,000 thrift and consignment businesses, have increased in number of stores by 5 percent annually in recent years, and will continue to grow, according to the association. That's a sharp contrast to other national retailers that are laying off employees and closing stores because people are shopping less.

"This is a recession-proof industry. ... It's natural to turn to consignment and thrift stores where they can get quality goods for their dollars," Meyer said.

Another change in the $200-billion-a-year industry, she said, is that new donors are showing up who need the tax write-off to make ends meet. "They may donate things they would have just given away."