Larry's Log » Business

Replacing Alaska pipeline may cost BP $100m

Larry D. Burton — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:18:05 +0000

This is why record profits by the oil companies isn’t something I’m perturbed about. The $100M is only a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of revenues. Somedays you get the gold mine other days you get the shaft.

The Shrimp Wars

Larry D. Burton — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 00:28:09 +0000

China and Viet Nam are being accused of dumping shrimp in the US and the US is about to impose some awful large tariffs on these countries’ exports of shrimp. I guess I can kiss cheap shrimp goodbye.

Of course this source is from a Chinese news source so I can expect a little bias toward the Chinese from it but it sounds an awful lot like the Chinese have a point.

An official from the Chinese Shrimp Industry Alliance, an organization established specially because of the dumping charges, said Chinese shrimp producers were able to sell at prices far lower than American shrimp producers because they had invested in modern technology for their shrimp farms and had lower labour costs.

“We are simply more efficient than the US industry, which mostly harvests shrimp from the sea,” he said.

Ewww, I hate hearing those words that another country may be technologically superior to the US but it’s most likely true. That’s the problem with govenrment subsidies they tend to dry up all the reasons for applying technology to a problem.

My Own Economic Indicator

Larry D. Burton — Sun, 28 Sep 2003 04:07:00 +0000

I’ve got a personal economic indicator that is telling me that things are looking up. This indicator is the number of callbacks resulting from all the resume’s I’ve sent out over the last few months. As I stated below, this past week saw me interviewing and being offered a job that I accepted on Monday, a phone interview with another company prior to my interview with the company that I’m now employed by and, since then, several e-mails requesting more information and another couple of companies wanting to interview me.

Now, my getting a lot of interests in my resumes isn’t much in itself but considering the types of nibbles and hard bites I’ve received this is telling me something. One of the companies I interviewed with is a distributor for automation equipment and software. The job they were hiring to fill was a customer support type position that also required developing prototypes for customers to use to know if what they were wanting to do is possible. This tells me they see their customers gearing up to implement new processes and upgrade older ones.

Another company that wanted to interview me but I had already accepted the job with my current employer is looking to upgrade their plant and they wanted to hire people to enable them to do this in house, something you just don’t do unless you are looking at a the project becoming an ongoing job. The company makes mats for industrial work areas, kitchens, etc., the kind that covers concrete floors to give the workers a little cushion under their feet. If this type of business is ramping up what does that tell you about manufacturing?

Yet another company that I interviewed with was seeking a service tech for automated chicken processing equipment. They are looking at their sales expanding and want to make sure that they have people available to resolve service issues with their equipment.

The company that hired me is an electrical engineering company that is getting more work than their current staff can easily handle. Their customers are manufacturers looking to improve productivity or are starting up new lines. Most of their customers are domestic and located throughout the US but I was told I needed to have my passport in order in case I needed to travel overseas unexpectedly.

In July there were no jobs out there and over the nine months since my previous employer closed their Atlanta office I have managed to pick up only a handful of short term projects. Starting in August some jobs started appearing and this month I’m seeing new postings daily and getting people calling me daily. This is not just my job search skills getting better, jobs are appearing and the types of jobs are indication of more jobs opening up on down the pike for manufacturing.

Anyway, that’s my indicator. If you see any flaws in my reasoning please point them out to me but I believe we are looking at unemployment numbers starting to drop in the near future. At least I’m hoping that’s the case.

Think Buggy Whip

Larry D. Burton — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:54:00 +0000

Mitch Ratcliffe: The problem is that the media industry is not adapting to changing market conditions, not that illegal copying is destroying the industry.

This is something I’ve been saying for a long time. Sure, there needs to be criminal penalties in order to discourage copyright infringement but if one’s livelihood depends on a business model working then one needs to adapt there business model to current market demands. What we are seeing now is an industry resisting adapting to new technologies and wanting Washington to legislate their business model back into a profitable model. That wasn’t what IP laws were written to accomplish in the first place.

Oh, and don’t think that these laws are being passed just because our legislators believe this is the right thing to do. Influence appears to be being purchased in this areana.

Leap Wireless Files Chapter 11

Larry D. Burton — Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:23:00 +0000

When my oldest son started driving I bought him a cell phone. “What”, you ask, “How can you afford to give a cell phone to a teenager?” It was a Cricket phone. This service offered only local calling with no roaming and unlimited air time. It is the perfect service for a suddenly mobile teenager. He had a phone for road emergencies, I could check up on him and I got my home phone back. He’s nineteen now and he still uses this service but now the services has been upgraded to offer 500 long distance minutes for about $3 more a month. This is very handy with us living in two different cities.

Now you can understand my consternation in hearing that Leap Wireless has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Leap Wireless is the parent company of Cricket. A year ago the stock was selling for $10, now it sells for less than 8¢. Their build out has resulted in about $1.8 billion in debt and they are having problems paying it back.

Hopefully they will be able to reorganize and get out from under the bankruptcy courts in fairly quick order but I’m afraid the major players in the industry may decide to push them out of the market while they are weak. You see, Leaps threat to the major carriers isn’t in their wireless market, its in their wired market. A lot of Leap’s customers are using their Cricket phone to replace their home phone. Verizon, Cingular, SBC all have interest in selling wired service to homes.