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At a time when so many U.S. businesses, large and small, are going overboard on spending, accruing unholy amounts of debt and paying their workers less while ratcheting up rates/prices (or dropping them dramatically) in order to stay afloat, it's refreshing to read about one company that seems to have gotten it right.
With thanks to Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn:
Trader Joe's, still a private company, has grown "from a 6 million to 10 billion dollar company." That's billion, with a B. Even more impressive, according to OTBKB, "the California company is debt-free; everything inside the store walls is paid in full." (Emphasis mine.)
As much as I like shopping at Trader Joe's, I've never been what you might call a TJ's regular. There was never a TJ's near any of my Manhattan apartments and, when I lived briefly in San Francisco, it was impossible to set foot in one of the two stores near me on a weekend. Just too bloody crowded for someone who values having enough oxygen. I did, however, go whenever I had the chance to slip in on a weekday or very early on a Saturday or Sunday morning.
Of course, anyone who's shopped at TJ's more than once has suffered the frustration of falling in love with a product only to find they didn't have it they next time you visited. But, by the same token, I've enjoyed being forced to try something new almost every time I've shopped at TJ's. And I've never been disappointed in something I've bought there. (Except for TJ's peanut butter, which tastes like peanut-flavored chalk mixed with sawdust from a dirty barn floor. Blech!)
So, while Wall Street falls around our ears and everyone involved blames someone else, I give kudos to Trader Joe's for keeping the dream of successful businesses alive (even if my grandparents still call it "Traders Joe"). I hope to visit the new Brooklyn store in the near future (after the feeding frenzy has died down a bit).
On a day when just about everyone in this country could probably use some lighthearted fun, I'm sure many of you are wondering, "If Sarah Palin--mother to Trig, Track and Bristol--were my mom, what might my name be?"
Well, now you can find out, using the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator.
For instance, if I'd been born to Sarah Palin and her drunk-driving hubby, I'd be a cute lil' moose-hunter known as Tarp Lazer Palin.
I may be quick to notice a misspelled word, misplaced apostrophe or misused comma, but ask me anything about the financial markets and what you'll get is an expression blanker than George Bush's when asked to point to Pakistan on a map.
Meaning: I don't know the first thing about investing, stocks, mutual funds, etc. In fact, finance holds the dubious distinction of being the only subject I know less about than sports. I can explain the finer points of a free-throw, but I'd be a dead woman if my life depended on explaining how the stock market works.
And yet, it's important to me to have as good an understanding as I can of what's going on in the world around me. That's why I'm glad to have come across this handy summary of what the hell this Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac business is all about. (No, they're not characters in a William Faulkner novel!)
I hope you find it helpful, too. I aim to inform as well as to please!
Against my better judgment, I listened to much of last night's RNC coverage. It's funny--I have far more respect for John McCain than for the people he has speaking on his behalf. Giuliani's downright vicious speech made me embarrassed to call him a fellow American (who knew the man had so much hatred in him?). Meanwhile, Romney's and Palin's turns at the mic left me wavering between nausea and anger.
Here are some excerpts from an interesting AP article that carefully picks through the GOP's claims in search of truths and non-truths:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending...and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress."
THE FACTS: As mayor, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for her town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.
PALIN: "...Listening to [Obama] speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform—not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: [Obama]...has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year.
PALIN: "[Obama] supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center...concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5% by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3%, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "[Palin's] been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20% of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20% of the nation's energy supply..." (From an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.)
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state—by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard.... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and D.C. where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
MITT ROMNEY: "We need change...change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington—throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.