Peace Love Profits

Taco Bell just introduced a new item to their breakfast menu. It’s a drink, a mixture of Mountain Dew and orange juice. And from its description, lots of caffeine and sugar, you’re in for quite a breakfast buzz.  Taco Bell calls it “the latest innovation” to their breakfast menu.

Companies are constantly looking for ways to innovate. They have to because without innovation there is no growth.  Innovation is key to keeping consumers happy and profits healthy. It’s what the world needs to makes businesses and economies grow. 

We all know about high-tech innovations - iphones, ipads, and Google are some pretty good examples of that. But there is innovation everywhere. I just googled “business innovation jobs” and was amazed at what I found. Job listings for all kinds of innovators. Kraft was looking for a “gum” innovator, Del Monte was in need of a “pet product” innovator (I would love that job!), and if you have any ideas for hair products or skin care lotions it could be your lucky day too.

Capitalists count on innovative ideas and entrepreneurs wouldn’t exist without them. So maybe a Mountain Dew breakfast buzz drink is not quite your style, you’ve got to admit a world without innovation or imagination wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

Peace Love Profits

Blake

Here’s some innovative ice cream flavors to get you ready for summer:)

I recently found out that I had an ancestor in the American Revolution. His name was Jacob Woolley, he was a drummer and a fifer, and participated in battle in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He did not die in the war, but served until it was over. Then he married and had a family. 

But when he enlisted at fifteen years old, he didn’t know he wasn’t going to die. He put his life on the line for what he believed, and was willing to risk everything for the sake of every other American.

That is why we need to give thanks to all the military men and women today and everyday. They put everything they have on the line for us and our freedom. There is nothing we can truly do to repay any of them, except to live our lives as true Americans and appreciate the freedom that they fight for.

Thank you to every member of the military and to your families.  Because of you, your work, and all the sacrifices you make, we are able to live the American Dream.

Peace Love Profits

Blake

My family loves to barbecue. My dad mans the grill and cooks all the usual fixings for family and friends.  

But guess what? That cookout is going to cost some cash.

Prices for popular BBQ menu items are up 15% this year, that’s on top of a 27% pop last year. For a party of 12, plan to spend about $229, not including drinks or appetizers.

Corn is the main culprit for the rising prices.  Sure, farmers are growing corn, but it’s commercial corn which will end up in ethanol at the gas pump, not on your plate. This means they’re planting less of what consumers want for their cookout: tomatoes, sweet corn and beans. 

Expect to pay $1.33 for an ear of corn, that’s up 166% this year! And that’s not all.  Cheddar cheese for your burger is up 171%, tomatoes up 33%, hot dogs up 19%, and condiments up 34%.  And, thanks to that vanilla bean shortage we discussed, ice cream costs more too. 

But it’s all worth it, right? There’s no way to put a a price on a backyard filled with family and friends. Not mine anyway. 

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

The genie’s already out of the bottle and thanks to a group of MIT researchers, the ketchup is now out too.

They’ve invented a slippery substance that can be used as a coating on the inside of bottles, making it easy for everything that’s in to come out. LiquiGlide is made from FDA approved food materials, it’s flavorless, and it may be heading for the ketchup bottle in your kitchen soon.

Creator Dave Smith estimates that his coating could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year. Also, we could get rid of those extra-big plastic tops on the squeeze bottles which would save 25,000 tons of plastic each year.

Condiment companies better beware. Could a new-coated bottle mean consumers won’t need to buy as many bottles of condiments each year? Ketchup  companies could be in for a real profit squeeze. 

Check out the LiquiGlide video to see how it works.

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

“Looking for a little more bang for your buck? Head to Europe, where the Euro is at its lowest level in about two years.”

I heard this recently, and since I’m heading to Europe this summer, thought it might be a good idea to find out what it all means. 

The Euro is the currency used by all seventeen member countries of the European Union. It was established in the 1990s to make trade easier between European countries. It also makes travelling easier; you don’t have to exchange money every time you cross into a different country.

The Euro is at its lowest level in two years. This means that you get more Euros for every US Dollar, more bang for your buck so to speak, so right now things in Europe are less expensive for Americans than they have been for a while. 

And, we have Greece to thank for that. The country is having a major financial problem. They are in debt, from years of borrowing money and spending money, and the way things stand right now, they have no way to pay it back. 

Other European countries tried to help Greece, but it appears Greece wasn’t willing to help itself. They were supposed to stop spending and increase taxes (austerity, remember that?), but it didn’t happen. 

Now, Greece cannot even decide who should be in charge of this whole mess. The world is worried. What will happen next? Will Greece break away from the European Union and its common currency to go it alone? What impact will this have on other European countries and the Euro down the road?

While we wait, wonder, and maybe make travel plans,  Greece is praying for the power of Zeus to save it from itself.  

Peace Love Profits

Blake

Parents and students at a High School in North Carolina don’t need to ask their classmate, “Your Teacher Said WHAT?!” They can hear it for themselves because it was all recorded by a classmate.

A Social Studies teacher became irate when a student got into a discussion with her about President Obama and Mitt Romney. George Bush was even dragged into it and things really got crazy.

i’m not sure her class learned anything that day, which is a real waste of time. It may be the teacher here who needs to be taught a lesson.  She may have some time to do that now, she’s reportedly been suspended, with pay. 

If you want to have a listen for yourself, here’s the YouTube link.

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

The only thing certain in life is death and taxes. That’s one of Ben Franklin’s famous quotes. He had many, but this is one that a lot of people have heard. And it’s still true today, more than 200 years later. Sure, there are many things in life that are likely to happen, and odds are they will happen, but there is nothing certain. 

This week, one thing I thought had pretty good odds was that Facebook’s stock was going to be a big winner on Wall Street. Sure there were skeptics, but from what I heard and read, it appeared that everybody wanted in on the IPO. The stock was going to take off and never look back. That’s not what happened. In fact, the underwriters had to do a lot of buying just to keep the price propped up. Who knows what happens next, but it sure was a slow start out of the gate. 

Which brings me to the Preakness. Odds placed Bodemeister as the winner. When the race started, it looked like the odds were going to be right this time. I’ll Have Another, started out slower, holding steady in third position, until the backstretch. Then he kicked it into high gear and beat Bodemeister by a nose at the finish. The odds weren’t in I’ll Have Another’s favor but he beat them and won the Preakness, Now he’s heading to the Belmont to go for the Triple Crown, which I’m hoping he wins in spite of the Triple Crown Dow Indicator.

Maybe a slower start out of the gate is good for stocks and horses. As Ben Franklin may have said at times like this, “He that can have patience can have what he will.”  Odds are, he’s right.

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

The Census Bureau has done some number crunching and found that white births are no longer a majority in the United States.

Hispanics, blacks, Asians and other minorities accounted for 50.4% of births in the U.S. in 2011. This group also accounts for 49.7% of children under the age of 5, and more than half of the 4 million kids under 1. 

Exciting news, but not all that surprising if you read my earlier post The Next Generation Name Game.   What will be quite a shocker is the impact this new diverse group will have on education, politics and the economy.

Education is key to the success of this diverse generation and the success of our great country.  One out of every three Latinos does not graduate high-school, an alarming number when you consider the growing number of Hispanics in the U.S. Everybody deserves and needs an education. It’s the best way to grow, prosper, and become productive members of society.   

So, in some ways this makes the minority now the majority and vice versa. A little confusing, huh? Here’s an idea, let’s just call everybody an American.

Peace Love Profits

Blake

Can Silicon Valley save California? It appears to be trying.

Thanks to Internet start-ups, there are hundreds of new millionaires in that part of the state.  And, come Friday, Facebook’s $100 billion debut on Wall Street will make more millionaires and even some billionaires.

These wealthy California residents are now earning more money and spending it. Great news for regional businesses like real estate, restaurants, and car companies, and even better news for the entire state of California.

California will collect about $2 billion from personal taxes related to the Facebook IPO,  according to an article in USA Today.  With an $18 billion budget deficit, California could use the cash, for sure.

Is this new crop of California capitalists really Silicon Valley Superheroes swooping in to save the state? That may be a stretch, but let’s just say it pays to have ‘friends’ in high-tech places. 

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

I’m sending a big thank you out to The Times of India and its Senior Assistant Editor Lata Srinivasan. They contacted me recently for an interview (how cool is that!) and it was just published.  The Times of India has the largest circulation of any English language newspaper in the world.

India is a country known for its culture, and in recent years, its love of capitalism. The country’s free market principles and its hard-working people have made India one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

I hope you enjoy my interview.

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

If you have a mom like my mom, you’re really lucky. Of, if you are a mom like my mom then you’re fabulous. Either way you know what I mean when I say my mom doesn’t want anything for Mother’s Day except for everybody to be happy and healthy. That’s also what she wants for her birthday, Christmas, and basically every day of every year. 

Knowing this still doesn’t stop people from trying to buy something for mom to make her day extra special.  Mother’s Day is the fourth biggest spending day of the year, behind Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day.  

In the U.S., consumers spend about $18 billion dollars for Mother’s Day. Families buy on average three cards, spend $3.4 billion on brunch or dinners, $2.2 billion on flowers, and the rest on gifts, getaways or just plain pampering.  Perfect!

So, in addition in to everything else mom does for us, we also need to thank her for giving our economy a boost. 

Here’s to every mom everywhere, a huge HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

Calling a new class of space cadets. All you need is about a billion dollars and a big appetite for adventure. 

A group of billionaires are all claiming their space among the stars, funding cargo vehicles, rockets and other private space exploration, hoping to get in on what could be the next big financial frontier.

If anybody is going to do it, an entrepreneur might just be the perfect person to get the job done. By nature, entrepreneurs are determined, ambitious, with an incredible desire to succeed.  In today’s USA Today, Roger Lanius of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum notes that many important industries were started because of wealthy visionaries: Howard Hughes with airlines, Henry Rockefeller with the oil industry, and auto pioneer Henry Ford.

Hopefully, these new-age space explorers won’t lose their will or their wallets. Costs  can get out of control, and skeptics caution that the bigger the project, the bigger the cost miscalculation.

But, these entrepreneurs aren’t only on a money mission; they’re on a mission for mankind. “This is smart money investing in one of the largest commercial opportunities ever: going to space to gain resources for the benefit of humanity,” says space “ranger” and X Price Foundation chief Peter Diamandis. 

Entrepreneurs living their dream, and paying their own way.  What in the world, or galaxy, could be better than that?

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

Little Red Riding Hood has nothing on Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook’s CEO is taking his show on the road and he’s doing it in his signature black hoodie and sneakers.

Zuckerberg is on his IPO roadshow. This is what companies do when they are about to go public. CEOs travel around the country telling potential investors why they should invest in their company. 

First stop for Facebook was New York City. There, a five-minute video about Facebook was shown (you can see something similar on the online roadshow), and company execs answered eight questions, leaving some attendees a little disappointed.  Zuckerberg showed up an hour late, he was in the bathroom, and there wasn’t much new information offered about the company.

But, at least they got to see the CEO. Zuckerberg was a no-show today in Boston, where two other Facebook execs handled the comments and questions.

Shares of Facebook are expected to be priced between $28 and $35 when the company goes public later this month.  This will be the biggest high-tech IPO ever, but there’s at least one famous face who won’t be buying into it. Yesterday, Warren Buffett said, “anytime you get a truly extraordinary business, they’re the hardest ones to value.” 

Hopefully, it’s not really the hoodie Mr. Buffett is having a hard time with. 

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

There was a word being tossed around all weekend and I wasn’t sure what it meant: austerity.  So, I looked it up and got a lot of help from my dad.

Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:  In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending. 

Apparently, Europe is having a very hard time with austerity. Twenty-five countries in the Euro Zone  signed-on for an “austerity package” which means they agreed to cut back on their government spending and get less help from the government. The hope was that the European economies would get back their finances back on track. to get their economies and their currency back on the right financial track. But now, some of them don’t think austerity is the way to go and they want to back out of the deal.

This weekend, France elected a new socialist President who promised to increase goverment and increase government spending. He has big plans to hire tens of thousands of new teachers, introduce a new tax on millionaires, increase the minumum wage, and do all this while balancing the budget in five years. Sounds expensive and a bit ambitious. Troubled Greece also wants to bid farewell to austerity and give the current government the boot too.

Germany, the one economy that’s growing in Europe, says no way. The person in charge, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calls the compact  ”not negotiable.” 

A deal is a deal, isn’t it? There are times when everybody feels compelled to want to back out of a deal, especially when the going gets tough. Thankfully, this isn’t the way Americans or America operates. Our country was built on hard work, determination,  and when times call for it, austerity.  And look where it all got us; we’re living in the best time in history, in the best place on the planet.

Let’s try to learn an important lesson from our foreign friends.

Peace Love Profits

Blake

The next generation of consumers needs a name. They’re only in preschool, but already they’ve been subjected to a lot of name calling.

Monikers being tossed around include Generation Wii, iGeneration, and PostGen, this one referencing a generation following many important events like the recession, Obama’s election, and 9/11. It also suggests a generation that posts everything on Facebook.  

Another possibility is The Pluralistic Generation or The Plurals. This will be America’s last generation with a Caucasian majority notes consultant Jack MacKenzie in this weekend’s USA Today. He says Plurals “will be the most positive about America becoming ethnically diverse but are the least likely to believe in the American dream.” 

Labeling a generation can be tricky. The name should describe what the generation may be best known for and what people hope the generation will turn out to be.

There’s no formula for finding the next name, and whoever is lucky enough to do so could find fame and fortune.

Here’s a few ideas of my own: The Capitalists, Free Market Thinkers, or even The GENtrepreneurs. OK, maybe these sound like bad boy-band names, but I think you know where I’m going with this.

Maybe my best idea: PeaceLoveProfiteers. What’s yours?

Blake 

Here’s a quiz to find out which generation you belong to. It’s fun and the results just might surprise you.

Sotheby’s is screaming Sold! Edvard Munch’s 1895 masterpiece, The Scream, sold last night for a record setting $119.9 million dollars.  While the buyer remains a mystery, the seller says he plans to use the money to fund a museum dedicated to the life and works of Mr. Munch in Norway.  This is one of four Scream paintings, but thought to be the best one because of its vibrant colors and a poem written on its frame. The buyer sure hopes so.

Another familiar face, SpongeBob SquarePants is screaming “Don’t Change the Channel!”  Ratings are down and it’s bumming out Bikini Bottom and the executives at Nickelodeon, where SpongeBob made up about 40% of last year’s programming. Ad revenue at parent company Viacom is also getting pinched due to the ratings decline. Ratings started slipping in September, a month after Netflix set up a “just for kids” section complete with SpongeBob’s picture. Call it a coincidence or overexposure? Either way, it’s making everybody feel a little Krusty Krabby.

Brewer beware!  Green Mountain Coffee isn’t too popular today either. The coffee company reported lower than expected second quarter earnings and gave a not-so-hot sales forecast for the rest of the year. Trouble started brewing back in October when an analyst questioned the company’s accounting practices and warned that patents on K-cups, used in its Keurig single serving coffee machines, will expire at the end of the year.  The power of the patent!

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

P.S. Here’s to what you can do when you’re sick and stay home from school:)

I love horses and I can’t wait to watch the Kentucky Derby this weekend. And now, I have one more reason to watch thanks to something called the Triple Crown Indicator.

According to this, if a horse wins the Triple Crown, the Dow Industrial Average will go down. The Kentucky Derby is the first step towards the coveted crown. 

There have only been 11 Triple Crown winners in the past 125 years.  And, 8 out of the 11 times, the Dow finished down for the year. Obviously, there have been other years that the Dow has finished down, and there was not a Triple Crown winner. In 2008, the Dow was off 33%; there was not a Triple Crown winner, although Big Brown came close,  winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, before hurting his hoof at the Belmont. 

There are quite a few stock market indicators out there. There’s the Hemline Indicator that says mini-skirts mean a stronger stock market. The Lipstick Indicator says that when there’s a lot of lipstick being sold, people are worried about a recession. There’s also the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Cover Indicator; if an American model is on the cover, the Dow will go up. And, there’s the Bangladesh Butter Indicator; multiply the change in Bangladesh’s butter production by two and you get the exact percentage change for the S&P 500.

Should you pony up and place a bet on the Triple Crown Indicator? Since it’s an election year, why not look at the Presidential Approval Ratings Indicator. This one says if a majority of the country disapproves of the President, stocks will rise.

I’ll bet the next few months leading up to Election Day will be a wild horse race to watch. 

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

What do you think they order at Starbucks in China? I’m not sure, but something is being ordered. 

I don’t know much about China; I wish knew more.  What I do know is what I’ve read in the paper and what I’ve heard many times: China’s economy is growing really fast.

So, when I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about China’s economy, I decided to read it and really try to understand it.

Here’s my take away. China’s economy isn’t growing as fast as it used to. It grew at a double-digit percentage pace for the past thirty years. In the first quarter of 2012, it grew 8.1%, that’s the slowest rate since the 1^st quarter of 2009.  (A lot faster than ours. For more info on our growth rate, please read my earlier post Heigh-Ho, Heigh-ho).

What’s happening is a shift in the areas of China’s economic growth. Real estate and exports are slowing, while consumer spending is increasing. This means companies that sell construction and engineering machinery to China are having a tougher time, while consumer based companies are still growing. 

Economists say it’s important for China to move to a consumer driven economy. It’s easier to keep a steady growth rate if consumer spending is the driving force rather than relying on real estate or exports.

Two shining examples of U.S. consumer-based companies in China, named in the WSJ article, are Apple Computer and Starbucks. Apple reported that sales in greater China tripled in the 1^st quarter to $7.9 billion. Starbucks says it “continues to see strong traffic growth in China.”

Why is this important for me, living 7,000 miles from China?  For a few huge reasons. We are a global economy, thankfully. What happens in China has a major impact on the economy in the United States. We import a massive amount of cheap goods from China, which helps keep our inflation down. We also export products to China (who can forget the green tea Oreos?), so if the needs and wants of 1.4 billion people living there are changing, it’s going to have an impact on our multi-national companies doing business overseas. 

In some ways, it really may be a small world after all, but it has enormous opportunities.

Peace Love Profits,

Blake

P.S. Big sellers at Starbucks in China are cappuccinos and mocha coffees. Yum:)