Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Bubble Man Takes On Coke


Forbes issue  August 6, details a story about the Bubble Man, Daniel Birnbaum.  He is taking on Coke and Pepsi with a similar product you produce at home using his CO2 machines to carbonate the water, and his (more healthy?) flavorings to add the taste.

What is the point?  For starters he is a little cheaper.  Perhaps a little more healthy.  But a big advantage is the reduction of wasteful plastic bottles and cans that currently transport the real Coke and Pepsi product.  How wasteful are these bottles?  I was surprised to learn that:

1.      The average family , over 5 years, consumes 10,657 bottles and cans  … multiply that by all the families in America, and you really do have an unsustainable by-product waste factor.  Are there enough landfills for all that?

2.      Fifty years ago, Americans were not drinking out of a plastic bottle (or can) and in 50 years they won’t be doing it either (so he says).  Good point.  Something has to give, will it be his product conquering the problem, or something else?

3.      Americans toss 130 billion bottles and cans a year.   A number that is just staggering.

He has taken his company public at $20 a share; it hit $78, is now back to $40.  In some countries he has the bulk of the non-bottled market already, but not in the USA. 

Coke and Pepsi respond that they are recycling a greater percentage of cans and bottles now than in the past.  How many?  Coke estimates that 36% of its cans and bottles are recycled.

Stock name:  SodaStream    fine retailers everywhere stock the product, but I have never heard of it.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Not Born In The USA


Not born in the USA is something I had not thought much about until I saw these numbers by state

California     27.2 % were not born in the USA
New York     22.2 % were not born in the USA  (the State, not the City)
New Jersey  21.0 % were not born in the USA

Other states with percents in the 13% or 18% to 20% range :

Texas
Illinois
Connecticut
Nevada
Maryland
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Hawaii

SC, in spite of what seems to be good number of Hispanic’s is officially only
4.6 % “not born in the USA”. 

We are indeed, relying on foreign born citizens for overall economic growth in the USA?  Presumably these new arrivals have jobs. And are doing something productive.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Are Americans Over-Medicating?


The percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug increased from 44% in 1999 to 48% in 2008.  

Over the same time frame  :

Use of two or more drugs grew from 25% to 31%
Use of FIVE or more drugs grew fm    6% to 11%

I went to the infirmary on a cruise ship some years ago for a minor thing, and got into the doctor’s office for probably 45 minutes.  He was British and took this job just to travel a bit. The passengers were primarily Americans, and he said he was shocked to see how over-medicated they were.  He said they bring in large zip loc bags with their prescriptions in them, and many were not in need of all (or even any) of them.  Many, he said, were conflicting with other meds they took.  He said that, in GB, he wouldn’t have prescribed a fraction of what he saw being used, and many were drugs that carried more dangers than benefits he said.

That led me to conclude that advertising or something is driving the drug use by Americans.  Of course a cruise could be skewed to older folks, but this one didn’t look like a particularly old crowd.

Cancelling Those Old Credit Cards. Hold On.


I read  today that a major component of your credit score is how much of your available credit you’ve used  --- called your credit utilization ratio.

Therefore, when you close an account you lower the combined credit limit on your cards.  It could look as if you’re closer to your credit limit. 

But there is more to the story, and so you might want to read up on it at SmartCredit.com  A consumer education website.

Let's Take Our Paper Digital


Those piles of receipts and cards and notes – why not digitize them?  There are some pricey options like NeatDesk.  They scan the documents and put them in PDF form, and file on your computer. They come with hardware and software.  They are good products, and have helped some people I know.

There are several on-line systems around, and they will get better over time.  One is called LEMON (app) .  This app for smart phones lets you snap a photo of a receipt and add a label (personal, business, food, etc) and Lemon arranges them based on labels and type of spending.  You can view them on your personal Lemon website.

More interesting for some might be Shoeboxed (app).  It emails photos to Shoeboxed, and for varying fees a human at Shoeboxed will verify the amount of money and make sure your expense records are accurate  -- a good feature if you are filing expenses for reimbursement.

Camcard LITE (app) transfers information from a business card to your (or another) address book.  It allows up to 50 cards a week.  Is a $7 app.  So it must be useful, expensive apps don’t move well if they are not working well.

 I have a few apps on my on smart phone for these purposes  (none of the above)-- but they don't seem to work too well, if anyone has such an app that is working for them, please post a comment.  Thanks.

Foods You Should Spend More On


I have long used organic milk (1%) for a number of reasons  --- healthier, has a very long shelf life in the refrigerator, tastes better.  Now I read that it is one of the three foods you should spend more on (and it does cost more, but not as much as you think if you shop around).

AARP magazine has a story on organic food and its benefits.  The three things they say everyone should spend more on: 

1.      Apples ..  most conventional apples contain pesticide residue, apples top the “dirty dozen” products list of most polluted produce.

2.      Salmon ..  farmed Atlantic salmon has been linked to higher levels of PCB’s with antibiotics overuse.  Wild Pacific salmon is cleaner and the canned version is budget friendly.

3.      Milk ..  if you can’t afford organic make sure the label says the milk comes from cows not treated with the hormone rBST (or rBGH), which is banned in the European Union and Canada.