Can you do your job TOO well?

Suppose that you were in a job where a lot of people were doing the same thing. Now suppose all of the people around you were failing at their job, but you were succeeding. The boss comes around, you would expect he would praise you, right?

Well not if you were a bank. Seems a bank in Massachusetts was doing a good job. Actually, an exceptional job. They had NO bad loans. While this article isn't clear, I would assume they got no TARP money since they had no Troubled Assets that needed Recovering (that's the TAR part of TARP).

But instead of praising the bank, the FDIC is criticizing them. Saying they should have taken more risk. Helped out "the community" more. Now I'm all about helping the community. Search back through my blog for the word VITA and you'll see the way I'm doing this now. Taking every Friday & Saturday afternoon, not to mention the classes I went to before that. But that's my choice.

If this bank wants to help the community, there are lots of ways they can participate. I'm willing to bet they already help in a lot of ways, they've just chosen not to write bad loans. Isn't that what got us into this trouble?

Recession proof jobs

I think I've figured out a job that is recession proof. It's not glamorous, but it appears that this company has hired more people than they need to server their customers, and shows no signs of layoffs. The company? McDonald's.

Now, first, you have to understand their vision. Yahoo reports that "McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile." (highlighting is mine)

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I stopped at this McDonald's in Duncan, SC. This was in the middle of a lot of other activities (see here for a description). We stood at the counter and watched nearly half a dozen workers mulling around on the other side without caring the fact that we wanted to actually buy something. After waiting for several seconds, we decided that they obviously didn't want our business, so we left.

Then last Friday, I stopped in this McDonald's in Chapin SC on my way home from Columbia. I had skipped lunch and was tired and hungry. I only wanted a drink and something small. Why I went in, I'm not sure, but I waited a couple minutes while three workers discussed looking through the cash drawer for an Obama quarter (apparently, one of them believed that the new Hawaii quarter had President Elect Obama's face on it, something I seriously doubt).

And finally, this morning, I stopped at this McDonald's for a cup of coffee. The lady was quick and not impolite (but not great either) as she took my order and asked if I wanted cream and sugar, then asked how many. When she handed me my coffee, I asked where the cream and sugar was and she said it was in the coffee. Yep, she had mixed it in for me.

Now, I'm not sure that mixing the coffee for me qualifies as quality or value, but I typically like to mix it myself. But it strikes me that McDonald's is the kind of place to get a job that's recession proof. Apparently, it doesn't matter how bad the services is, you'll keep your job and stay in business.

No one ever expects a gourmet dinner at McDonald's, but they do expect the company to live up to it's vision of "quick" (not fast) food. And I expect reasonable service. Apparently, it really doesn't matter.

P.S. Not sure the links will work to the map sites, if you're interested in exact locations, let me know.

A Rescue Plan! (Diego style)

Ok, watching Go Diego Go with my 2 year old grandson has warped my mind. Everyone is calling the bailout plan a "rescue plan" and my mind switches to a silly video (see here). I get to singing the little song every time I hear it.

Previously, I posted on pyramid schemes (here) and multi-level marketing (here). I also talked a little about profits (here) and said they were a good thing. My goal was to get to this post and after a few interruptions I'm here.

My thought all along on this bail out plan (excuse me Rescue Plan! - Diego is very emphatic) is that it reminds me of a pyramid scheme. Everyone is saying that the problem we have is because of bad home loans. Ok, I've blogged about that too (here, here, here and here). I've been talking about this for over a year. The problem I have now is with our solution.

We've decided that the way to fix the problem is to allow more people to borrow more money. See, the problem before was that they couldn't repay all that they had borrowed, so now we're lending them more. Makes sense, right?

This is like the pyramid scheme. As long as people are buying and selling homes, we can keep the economy flying. Once people stop and look at what they really have, it all falls apart. I really don't like the alternative (lots of foreclosures, depressed home values, layoffs, general depression), but I honestly believe the longer we delay this the worse it will be. Someday, we have to pay the piper and it won't be pretty.

It's a recession!

Unless you missed the news, we are officially in a recession. You can see articles just about everywhere, here's one such article.

Everyone should be glad. We've talked about it for long enough, and just as many people predicted, we've been in a recession since late last year. If this had come out before the election, it wouldn't have changed the results, but may have increased the margin.

So, now that we have finally accepted the fact, what do we do about it?

Well, we have a couple of choices. We can wring our hands and go around crying and screaming, asking the government to bail us out. They've bailed out AIG a couple times, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and several others. Why shouldn't I get my share? You know, Wall Street and Main Street (even though I don't live on Main Street).

Another choice would be to keep doing what we should have been doing all along. Work at a job. If you don't have a job, go get one. Unemployment is still very low, which means there are lots of jobs available. Spend on things that you need, but save for big things you need. Plan for the future, for the next car you need, for the house, etc. Don't buy things you can't afford.

I heard a reminder story a few months ago, that pointed out that during the feast years, Joseph stored up grain for the coming famine. A wise man. We should do the same. We know that a famine is coming, then a feast, then another famine. We don't know how long each will last or the time in between.

One more thing. To my conservative friends to the ones saying "Yeah Baby!" at the points above. Now is not the time to rub this in people's faces. Instead, it's time to be the way Christians are commanded to do and to help others. Give help to those around you. Give a job to a jobless person. Pay a friend's power bill, give them a grocery store gift card. Praise Him who allowed you to be in a position to do all these things and then do them.

For my previous comments on the recession see here and here.

It's the economy stupid!

Much has been said recently about the economy. Are we in a recession or not? Several news people and politicians are looking for people who will say we are. It seems everyone believes we are in a recession, but it's hard to find someone in authority to agree.

Well there's a simple reason for it. We aren't in a recession. By definition, a recession occurs when the GDP goes down for two quarters in a row. (The GDP is the cumulative output of our nation - think of it as a paycheck). Not only have we NOT had two quarters of declining GDP, we haven't had ONE quarter of declining GDP.

Let's look at the details for a little bit. A paper in the UK says "US preliminary GDP for Q1 duly came in at plus 0.9pc which rather makes a mockery of all that talk of recession over the past six months or so."

But wait, you may say "The character of this recession is different than those of the past" just like Bill Fox, UT economist. "High gasoline prices, slow consumer spending and declining employment rates do not bode well for a quick recovery this time around, Fox warned." Wow, this sounds serious. It has to be a recession with a UT economist sayign stuff like this.

So what is it? Recession or no? Well, more importantly, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? If we could get every economist to agree that we are indeed in a recession, what should we do differently? The government has already issued everyone a stimulus check (which I still think is stupid and a bad long term decision).

I say it doesn't matter. I know my personal financial situation (do you know yours?). I know what my income and outgo levels are. I know what my major expenses are that are coming over the next few years (son going off to college). I know that both of my cars have over 100,000 miles on them and they could die tomorrow (I hope not).

This didn't happen to me overnight, my son has been preparing for college for 18 years. My cars have been going up in miles for 4 & 5 years. I've made slow steady steps to make sure I was ready for this day. So what will I do about the recession? What should you do?

Answer is simple. Just keep doing what you should have been doing all along. Save for expected expenses. Spend less than you make. And plan to make more. I believe economics is very personal, and reaction to it should be personal also.