A Top Ten Guide to Setting New Year's Resolutions

Top Ten: Guide for Making New Year's Resolutions

10.  Reach for the stars, set your goals as high as you can dream.  If you can actually accomplish your resolutions, did you really even try?

9.   Weight loss goals seem SUPER easy.  Pick a number of pounds (pronounced "ell-bees"), sign up for a gym membership, work out for about five and a half weeks, and then stop going to the gym around mid-February.  It's apparently working for everyone else, it HAS to work for you too!

Economy: Change For The Long Term

No President can fix America's economy.

No piece of legislation passing the House or Senate can rescue America's economy.

No amount of fiscal easing or tightening can put this country's economy on solid footing.

We need to stop expecting these people to come up with answers.  None of their actions or opinions can create long term prosperity.

Everyone's Greatest Healthcare Fear

We've all worked some place that had "that" employee.  The guy or gal that you just wanted to ask the Office Space question to: "wh-what would you say... you DO here?"

None of us understand how health insurance works and truthfully we don't want to.  But our biggest fear over Obamacare is that it will soon be our only option and when we need it to come through most we'll call the 800 number and we're going to get "that" employee.  They'll have no idea how to helps us and we'll have no idea where to turn.

16 Too Young to Drive?

Per Rasmussen Reports, 56% think 16 is too young to drive.  I'd be interested to see know what the urban/suburban/rural breakout is on the group, but wow.... Don't get me wrong, idiot kids texting while swerving down I-235 in Des Moines make want to agree with the majority of poll respondents.  But, at the same time I remember driving tractors, cars, and trucks starting around 12 or 13.  A handful of kids in my grade started driving well before I did.

Just my ignorant opinion, but if kids are becoming less responsible with important things, might a solution be to...

A Better Way Than Shutdown

What's the goal of government today?  What are they trying to achieve?  What is #1 on the list?

Washington is in gridlock because the parties are holding Obamacare, short term funding of the government, long-term budget balancing, AND the world economy in gridlock.  Both sides have a hand on every area, it is a bipartisan effort to achieve nothing.

The reason they can't move forward is that without a stated #1 priority goal, NOTHING can proceed in a sustainable way.  You have four major issues that cannot be solved unless one of them is chosen as the first priority.

Why do you have to pick just one?  Because a rope pulled two ways breaks and a bar pushed on each end bends on itself.

The Day My Brain Checked Out

Today is Thursday, September 19, 2013 and I have been seizure free for one month.

Relative to the 28 years that I've been alive, a month is nothing.  Relative to the most unusual moment within those 28 years, a month is a lifetime.

My co-workers and I had just finished our takeout burritos.  It was that time of day when you start comparing all of the ways you could spend an afternoon to the way you're about to.

Fearing the post-lunch food coma, I sauntered back to my desk began clearing unread emails.  After opening a three word email, I realized that I wasn't making sense of the words.  To shake out the cobwebs I got up and took a quick walk across the office.  Arriving back at my desk, feeling the victor, I picked up on emails again.

That's when it happened: my brain checked out and everything went dark.

ESPN, Give Us More

ESPN needs to take us to the next level.

We no longer care about the quality of the stitching on the near tackle's uniform pants.

We want it all; the whole field.  We want 22 players, sideline to sideline, the way the coaches watch film.

We also want it now... live.

We're talking, of course, about the NFL and watching it on television.  And by we, I'm referring to the millions of fellow Fantasy Football managers and League Commissioners who want MORE!

We're talking about the main camera view on an NFL Football Game.  It's too zoomed in.  On the average passing play, viewers get to see the o-line/d-line battle (which we know is a very important part of the game.)  But what we really, really care about is what gives us Fantasy Points.  And that occurs DOWNFIELD.  Somewhere off the screen, in general direction of where Aaron Rodgers is looking.

Iowa Corn: The Brand

In 2012, the drum beat from the corn industry's major players was this:

"It's just like regular sugar.  The body can't tell the difference between High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and the sugars found in a piece of fruit."

The campaign was led by the National Corn Growers Association and the handful of major industry players who count "corn sugar" as a source of revenue.  And as a result of the product's economic efficiency and reassurance from scientists at the NCGA, food processors continued to use HFCS as the sweetener of choice.

Today, health professionals are increasingly pointing out that the average American's diet contains far too much sugar.  For example, the Wall Street Journal asked a panel of experts what one dietary change the average American should make.

Why I Hate Your Lawn

Joe Homeowner has a mental image of what his lawn *should* look like.  Green and lush all year long, as if he desperately *needed* a lush green lawn for some very important purpose.

1.  Spring fertilizer application

Joe Homeowner shakes his head while the national news tells him that there's a dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico because of farmers and their leaching nitrogen based chemical fertilizers into streams which find their way down the Mississippi and destroy the environment.  Joe calls lawn care company, schedules nitrogen application.

2.   Grass grows, gets tall, "needs" mowed

Joe Homeowner complains to co-workers and anyone who will listen that he's gotten way behind on the lawn, it's like a foot tall and he can't even see his shoes when he stands in the west side of the back yard.  Spring rains have way of making grass grow, not to mentioned that triple espresso nitrogen cocktail that he paid for.  The lawn is on speed and Joe just can't find time to mow three times a week to get that prefect criss cross pattern.

"She's a Semi-Beautiful Woman"

LaVerne W. Andreessen (1938-2009)

Photo Courtesy:
wcfcourier.com

If I'm ever asked a variation of that question, "if you could pick three people from history to have dinner with, who would it be?" I hope I remember to name Professor LaVerne W. Andreessen.

Prof. Andreessen was a legend on campus at the University of Northern Iowa. Well, at least in Curris Business Building. He was an old school teacher who expected every student to show up bright eyed and bushy tailed and held no reservations about embarrassing someone who had the nerve to show up without the requisite preparation.

Andreessen had previously taught high school in the days when teachers weren't questioned for whipping a kid into shape--verbally or otherwise--and he had a knack for commanding respect. You weren't even allowed to wear a hat during class (story to follow), which seemed borderline cruel and certainly unusual when I attended college.

Professor Andreessen would be a great a dinner party guest, because of his magnetic story telling ability (his favorite topics being trains, auctions, and his dog.) He barely required an audience, although if nearby you couldn't help being drawn in. And you just knew when he started a story, if he'd told it once, he'd told it a thousand times.

His impact on me was surprisingly great, considering I only took one of his classes: CPA Review-Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR).

FAR was one of the major courses we took in our last semester as we prepared to sit for the CPA Exam. The accounting material alone made the course difficult, but the level of preparedness that Andreessen demanded made it infamous. I've never learned so much in just a few short months.

Not every student loved Andreessen, some even despised him. Mostly, those who made a routine of showing up for class unprepared and were subsequently embarrassed in front of their peers. And also, students who had a terrible sense of humor.

Luckily, I was never caught unprepared and I obviously have a fantastic sense of humor. As such, I attended class with two goals: absorb as much knowledge as possible before my brain turned to mush and try to avoid asphyxiation by laughter.

Professor Andreessen had a way of dropping bits of knowledge on you when you least expected it. I've always loved quotes and stories, so I would write as many of his comments and jokes in the margins of my notes as I could while keeping up with the chalk board debits and credits.

For my own occasional trip down memory lane, for any other former students who find their way to this post, I submit the following glimpse back to some of the toughest months of our lives.

Without further ado, a few of my favorite LaVerne-isms:

Andreessen The Motivator

"He who watches the clock, will always be one of the hands."

"If you're not going to put in the necessary time, you may as well drop this class. Go to the registrar's office and get yourself into 'Religions of the World'. Then start praying to various deities, because you're going to need all of the help you can get to pass the Exam."

"If you don't want to be here in class and put in the effort, don't waste your time. This is America! You can go pee your pants and lie in a gutter if you want and NO ONE CARES."

"Nerds win, they ALWAYS win. We may as well be a nerd and we may as well win. This is NO time to be COOL!"

"I used to be a weightlifter in the carnival, now look at me. Your brain will do the same thing if you don't use it."

"I have a hunch someone, somewhere threw up on their keyboard, wet themselves, and went home after seeing this question on the exam. Not us!"

"Don't just sit there like a blob of protoplasm."

"People attach an inordinate amount of respect to a CPA. We're not like lawyers or used car salesmen."

Andreessen's Random Comedy

"I shop for clothes down at Omar's in Waverly. Yep, Omar the tent-maker. He's the only one that has enough fabric."

"Smoking before breakfast used to bother my neighbor. Now it doesn't. He just doesn't eat breakfast."

"I was on the fire department years ago. The whole time I was on the department we never lost a foundation."

"I lost my train of thought. Did I find a rope or lose my horse?"

"I exercise extreme caution on these icy sidewalks. If I fall, I'm liable to rock to death before anyone finds me." *gesturing to his large protruding belly* "...like a turtle on its back."

First day of class, front row is wide open: "Don't sit too close to the front. You'll end up married or baptized or something."

Said to colleague of his: "Just because you suffer from disorganization doesn't mean I have to."

To an Unsuspecting Hat Wearer

"You know, hats are required to be worn down in Ames at Iowa State University. Do you know why?"

"No."

"Well ya see, they have an excellent veterinary school and agriculture program down there. As such, each semester, every student has to take a turn working in the livestock barns taking care of the stock.

"Part of that job, ya see, is to haul the excrement out of the barns. You shovel it into what's called a manure spreader. And then the men take turns driving the tractor and operating the equipment.

"Well in the days before enclosed tractor cabs, they needed to come up with a way to keep the excrement out of their hair. So they all took to wearing caps and the tradition stuck.

"Now, because we don't want to risk being confused for an Iowa State University student, we don't wear our caps in the classroom."

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If you have any great L.W. Andreessen memories, please comment below.

The Three Paycheck Month

May is the best month of 2013.

My employer pays my salary in bi-weekly direct deposits.  I have become accustomed to a monthly routine of my cash flow based on two paychecks per month.  All of my expenses and cash outlays are an allocation of these two pay days.

The month of May, however, was different.

It was better.

American Made... Sort Of

American Apparel, Inc. is a relatively young but growing clothing manufacturer and retailer.  The company's website boasts of it's "sweatshop-free" manufacturing facilities located in the United States.

The About Us section goes on to deliver self back pats with regard to compensation:

A garment worker in Bangladesh earns an average of $600 a year. An experienced American Apparel garment worker can earn $30,000+ and receive benefits such as comprehensive health care.

From the company's description, its compensation package is sound, including free parking, free massage, and subsidized health care.  Yet strangely no commentary on the relative purchase power of a US Dollar in Bangladesh.  True, $600 is a small amount of money, but don't get too high and mighty, $30,000/yr  in LA isn't exactly "swimming in it."  Let the record reflect that it's below the Federal Poverty level for a family of 6.

Why Congress Won't Simplify the Tax Code

Legislators from both major parties agree that the Tax Code in America is too complex.  Party leaders on both sides of the aisle are calling for simplifying the code and making it more "fair."  (Disclaimer: there is no consistent definition of the term fair, especially as it relates to the collection of taxes.)

The average taxpayer does not benefit, in the least, from the complexity of the tax code.  Complexity makes complying with the law extremely difficult and/or costly.  But the confusion does serve a purpose, it muddies the water allowing legislators to claim victory to their constituents for a job well done, without actually having to accomplish any feat at all.

Consider a media and political favorite tax provision called Bonus Depreciation.  In the bail out / stimulus packages of Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, both Presidents claimed victory for helping small businesses by passing or extending bonus depreciation rules.   These rules provided another vehicle for businesses to speed up tax deductions related to capital assets like equipment, machinery, planes, automobiles, etc.

The Proper Bipartisan Position on Internet Sales Tax

To all of those waffling legislators who are "treading lightly" while trying to decide what position to take on the Internet Sales Tax Bill here's the right answer:

"States already have the right to tax out of state purchases, whether those transactions are conducted online or otherwise, through Use Tax provisions.  The States, as it relates their concerns for increasing revenues, should be focused on enforcing their existing law or enacting other provisions to achieve their revenue goals.

This Federal legislative body will no longer spend any more time deliberating or attempting to legislate the matters which are reserved for the States to decide themselves."

Trust me... I watch Mad Men

Cases of marketing departments working too hard?

First, Kool-Aid launches a rebranding of the "big red mascot."  ABCNews reports that the mascot "will be computer-generated and take on the personality of a celebrity trying to show he's just a normal guy."

What could possibility make people thirstier for grape sugar water than a simulated celebrity trying to convince consumers that he's really not that big of a deal?

Also, according to the BusinessRecord:

Iowa Health System, the fifth-largest nondenominational health system in the nation, announced today that it has changed its name to UnityPoint Health. The change reflects the health system's shift from a hospital-centered care process to one that more effectively addresses the total care of all patients, officials said in a release.

So "UnityPoint" is supposed to conjure up images of total care and maybe even wellness?  Dropping "Iowa" from the name makes a modicum of sense, considering that the enterprise has operations in the state of Illinois and could be eyeing acquisitions in other states around the Midwest.  So why not just say it, if that's the reason?  Why do they have to get all touchy feely about it?

Full Disclosure:  I suppose it's not the newspeak name or the 'tired of fame' beverage pitcher that's bothersome, it's that I would have charged half the amount to come up with it. #Jealous

Responding to my State Senator

Senator Schneider:

I am a Northern Iowa Accounting graduate who passed the CPA Exam and am a member of the American Institute of CPA's.  I'm also one of your constituents and voted for you.  Because of this, I feel led to reply to a recent update you posted to your website  schneiderforiowasenate.com

Below is the text of the relevant portion of your post:

Are Actuaries Evil? No, Just Their Estimates.

In the murky waters of life lurks an evil that has haunted man for ages:  estimates.

Financially speaking, estimates are everywhere and affect the consumer and investor alike.  Estimates affect everything from the complexities of pricing insurance and revenue recognition on long-term contracts to the simplicity of a grocery store ordering enough milk or company on the verge of hiring another employee.

There are some popular quotes about opinions being foul smelling.  But what's the difference between an opinion and estimate?  Most likely, a sick Excel spreadsheet.

Sales: Never Pitch on The First Date

Highlights of my sales career:

• Red Wheel Pizza Sales while fundraising for my 4-H Club
• Cashier at the local hardware and farm supply store during High School
• In college sold old, non-moving, space-intensive inventory on eBay for my technology impaired boss
• Having a date to prom both Junior and Senior year (a true sales job, I’m talking ketchup popsicles to white gloves)

This body of words below obviously does not come from a trained, professional sales person.  But I do consider myself a student of the sales experience.  I’ve been on the buyer’s side of the table both as an individual and in business to business for products/industries including group health insurance, P&C and liability insurance, IT, retirement plans, automobiles, livestock, housing and many more.  From big dollars to small dollars, I love the process of buying and selling things and thinking about why people buy and how people sell.  So from one young professional to another, use this insight for whatever it’s worth… even if that’s the “circular file,” I’m okay with that.