This is not a paid post. This is a shout out for a product that I think is the best of its kind and I wanted to share with all of you.
The Gotham Gal found this product a few years back and we've been using it in our home for about five years now. It's called "In The Raw Body Wash". I am a fan of grapefruit/tangerine, but it comes in about a dozen frangrances.
Here's why I like it so much; great packaging, the pump works flawlessly, it's plastic not glass, its the right consistency, it washes off well, it's thick enough that I shave with it, and every one of the various frangrances is a winner. And the products are organic and handmade.
A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a friend who is a very successful entrepreneur. He told me he'd been having some problems recently with American Express. They'd been denying charges and giving him all sort of grief. Our lunch turned into a support group. Because I've been having the same experiences. We shared our horror stories and I felt a bit better about it.
My friend sent me a link to this story by David Lazarus in the LA Times last week. It turns out we are not alone in getting hosed by American Express. They are doing it to all of their best customers. David starts out his story with the following observation:
What does AmEx want?
That's a question American Express cardholders are asking more and more
these days as the company turns the screws on long-standing customers
and seems determined to show as many as possible the door.
I've been a customer of American Express since 1983 and have never failed to pay a bill. Right now, between my business interests and family, I carry and pay for five American Express accounts. I'm not going to get into the monthly amounts that these accounts turn over, but I will say that they are significant.
The smallest of these accounts is an old Flatiron Partners account. We don't use that account very much anymore, but we do still use it occasionally. A month ago, we were accidentally late paying that account. And as a result American Express shut down all of my accounts without notifying me. My partners in Union Square Ventures could not use their cards, I could not use my personal card, they shut off all of the accounts I have with them even though they were not in any way related to the Flatiron account. I suspect the accounts are linked because they all funnel membership miles into one single account.
But that's just one example of the hassles of being an American Express customer these days. My wife and I are routinely denied when making charges at stores and restaurants. When we call to ask why, we are told that the charge looks "fraudulent". And then they ask us if we really are making that charge. When we assure them that we do indeed want to make that purchase, American Express authorizes it.
I understand that credit card fraud is a huge problem these days and appreciate that American Express protects its customers from the fraud. But I've noticed a 180 degree change in the company in the past year or so and I think they've simply gone too far.
Maybe American Express should offer its customers the opportunity to pay an annual fraud charge that insures that American Express will not deny any charges on our accounts. I'd be happy to do that. I realize they are taking a beating and I also feel that whatever algorithms they are using to detect fraud are often wrong at the most inconvenient times.
As for deadbeats, the credit history of a person should be the single most important data point in determining credit risk. When I called American Express to figure out what was wrong with my cards in the middle of the Flatiron situation, I was told it was their policy to shut down all accounts if there was a late payment on an account. I asked if my 26 year perfect credit with them was material to the situation and I was told it was not. I hung up on them.
I understand the business challenges facing American Express. Fraud and increasing default rates makes for a very unpleasant business situation. But as David points out in his article, they should be careful not to show their good customers the door.
During the brief time I was without all of my American Express cards, I used my Chase VISA card and the experience was not any different. A swipe is a swipe and not one of them was denied.
I stopped celebrating christmas a few years ago. My kids grew up and stopped enjoying it. We are raising our family in the jewish faith and christmas was always a bit of a 'dad thing' anyway
We've been doing these big two week trips to other parts of the world over the christmas/new years break and I haven't been home for christmas in seven years. For a while we timeshifted christmas to early December and that worked well but probably led us down the path that ultimately got us to where we are now
I don't miss christmas much to be honest. I certainly don't miss the materialistic parts of it. I've been getting gifts that I don't want or need since high school and it always bothered me. I am so much happier to be done with that. I don't like material gifts very much anyway. And I hate shopping.
I do miss getting the tree, putting it up, and decorating it. I don't miss taking it down and cleaning up the mess it made.
I miss the big family dinner and the excitement on the little kids' faces. We don't have any little kids in our family right now but when we do again, I'll want to figure out how to get that back. Its the best thing about christmas in my mind
I also miss going to church on christmas. A few years back we were in Siena and I went to the Duomo for christmas mass. That was great. I don't subscribe to any religion invented by man (which is all of them), but I do enjoy the sounds and smells of church on christmas. And it was better for me to go to church in a foriegn country where I didn't understand a word the priest said. I got to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of it all.
Even though I've given up celebrating Christmas, it still means something to me. Its a time of year when we stop doing what we do, take a break, spend time with our family, think about others, and give them gifts. That's a pretty special list right there.
I've been very fortunate in life. I'm only 47 but have obtained most of what I've wanted out of life; a wonderful family and a work life that has been financially and intellectually rewarding. We've done this in our own way and on our own. We've been incredibly lucky and we've also worked hard at it.
I get gifts all the time like the bottle of wine sitting on my desk in the office or the box of chocolates. I honestly could care less about that stuff and getting it sort of annoys me. I'd love it if people stopped giving me stuff like that.
The gifts that matter to me are the emails I get from people sharing a personal story with me, or the comments on this blog and others that make me laugh, think, or cry. Or the contributions to Donors Choose you all made in October. Or the ideas you share with me about how we can work together to fix this broken world and make it better.
I'm going to spend this christmas with my family in Berlin, seeing art and history and then we'll go to the Nutcraker this evening and finish with a family dinner. So I guess I've not given up celebrating Christmas entirely after all.
Merry Christmas everyone, including all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other faiths out there. Have a wonderful holiday and let's share some gifts with each other that really matter this year.
I saw a chart in the european WSJ today on my flight to Berlin that showed housing sales are now lower than they were 20 years ago and with the recession in full swing, it appears they will go even lower.
That begs the question 'when does it end?'
I've always liked to look at rent vs buy analysis to tell me when real estate is fairly valued. Rents can and will go up and down (likely down in this market) but its been my experience that rents, particulalry residential rents, are more stable than residential sale prices.
People need to have a place to live. They can make the choice of rent vs buy, but they have to do one or the other (I know that in tough times there are other scenarios for some on the lower end of the economic spectrum).
If its costs $2000 per month to rent a home for your family and the same home can be bought for $200,000, then it might cost less to purchase the home than rent it.
And even if the bad economy is forcing families to sit on the sidelines because they can't come up with a down payment, they can't get a loan, or they think prices will go even lower, there are real estate investors who will step in at some point and buy.
Let's look at that home you can buy for $200,000 and rent for $2000 per month. If you assume carrying costs (real estate taxes and maintenance) are $6,000 per year, then you can get a net rental income of $18,000 per year on the rental. If you pay $200,000, that's a 9pcnt yield. But if you can borrow (and that's an if in the current credit market) $160,000 at 5pcnt per year interest only, then your net rental income is $10,000 per year on an investment of $40,000. That's a 25pcnt yield.
I think that's the next leg of the housing market. Smart investors will step in and buy homes and rent them. They'll probably start in the distressed/foreclosure market so the impact of these buyers coming into the market will not be felt in the traditional real estate market for a while.
But there's a price where the market clears and I think we may have already reached it in parts of the housing market. A rent vs buy analysis will tell you a lot. When its cheaper to buy than rent by a meaningful amount, then you know the market has overshot and a bottom is near.
I wrote this on my blackberry on the flight to Berlin and I've just added a link to the WSJ story (sorry they didn't put the chart on the web). I apologize for any typos or math errors and if you find any, please point them out in the comments.
I’ve heard people say, “If you want to know about a company, all you need to do is look at the leader” and it certainly is true that companies exhibit the traits of their leaders. But it’s also true that companies exhibit the traits of their founders. In fact, I’d argue that founders leave a longer and more indelible imprint on the DNA of companies than the person who is currently running them.
There are a host of reasons for why that is. To start, the business that the company is in is more often than not determined by the founder. And companies can move into different businesses over time, but most stay fairly rooted in the initial business that they started in. It’s also true that the culture of a company is defined early on and it’s hard to change it. Some companies are technology driven, some are product driven, others are marketing driven, and others are sales driven. That most often comes from the founder and it’s hard for a new leader to change that mindset. Another important reason that the founders often have the greatest impact on the DNA of a company is the entire initial management team is most often built by the founder. That initial selection of people is a critical determinant in the way companies evolve and behave and new management will always struggle to change the behaviors a company exhibits.
And it is also true of countries and nation states. I finished Steven Johnson’s The Invention of Air on the flight to Milan and the last chapter is about Joseph Priestley’s impact on Adams and Jefferson. From 1812 until their deaths on the same day in 1826, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson engaged in a continuous debate over the lessons of the American revolution via an exchange of letters back and forth. And central to that debate was the role of science and the explorations of “natural philosophy” in the core beliefs of the new nation. During Adams’ administration, there was a panic about spies and seditious behavior which resulted in the infamous Alien and Sedition acts. Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen and the father of modern chemistry who had moved to the US to escape his enemies in England, was among the people who were suspected of seditious acts. Adams ultimately protected Priestley from those who wanted him silenced but that didn’t spare Adams from Priestley’s attacks. Jefferson, on the other hand, was an ally of Priestley’s in the debate and when Jefferson followed Adams into the White House, Priestley went from an enemy of the state to one of its most celebrated members. And the meaning of that whole drama was debated by Adams and Jefferson to their very end.
The fact is the United States was founded by an amazing set of men that included Franklin and Jefferson, two of the greatest friends of science and innovation that have ever lived. And our country has benefited from that fact immensely. The DNA of the United States comes directly from our founding fathers; Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and the rest of them. And their desire to make the big experiments, to push the envelope of what a nation could be is firmly implanted in our psyche a full 233 years after the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson wrote to Priestley the following words shortly after he became President:
As the storm is now subsiding, and the horizon becoming serene, it is pleasant to consider the phenomenon with attention. We can no longer say there is nothing new under the sun. For this whole chapter in the history of man is new. The great extent of our Republic is new. Its sparse habitation is new. The mighty wave of public opinion which has rolled over it new. But the most pleasing novelty is, its so quietly subsiding over such an extent of surface to its true level again. The order and good sense displayed in this recovery from delusion, and in the momentous crisis which lately arose, really bespeak a strength of character in our nation which augurs well for the duration of our Republic, and I am much better satisfied now of its stability than I was before it was tried.
It’s hard for me to read those words, which were written about the alien and sedition acts and the ensuing crisis, without thinking about 9/11, our country’s reaction to 9/11, and the “recovery from delusion” that it appears we have now made in our election of Barack Obama. Now it’s very high praise (and not yet earned) to compare Obama to Jefferson, my favorite founding father and President, but I am also “much better satisfied of our nation’s stability” and I believe that our nation’s commitment to science, innovation, and what is “new” will pull us out of the serious mess we are in. It’s in our DNA and I am so thankful that it is.
The Gotham Gal and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night. It's a great movie about destiny, poverty, class, survival, gumption, and above all, love. Go see it.
It's worth remembering that today is a national holiday because on this day our country remembers soliders who have died in service to our country.
Some of you will visit cemeteries or watch memorial day parades. Others will celebrate the day with picnics or outings or sporting events.
But no matter how you celebrate memorial day, make sure to spend a minute or two thinking about the sacrifices that military men and women have made and continue to make.
Having grown up in a military family, I have come to believe that military service is a calling, like the clergy or public service. It's a hard way to live your life, but thank god that so many choose it.
And speaking of military life, here's a neat example of two women who met on twitter who have teamed up to deliver a service to families separated by military service.
Happy Mothers Day to all moms out there, particularly my wife the superhero known as Gotham Gal and my mom who reads this blog religiously so I know she'll read this post.
Tom Friedman has an oped piece in the Times today titled Call Your Mother. It's about his mom who passed away this past year at the age of 89. He ends it with the following line:
So on this Mother’s Day, if you take one thing away from this column, take this: Call your mother.
I sure wish I could call mine.
After reading that how could you not call your mom? I'll be making my call this morning once I am sure she's up.
The photo that anchors this post was taken by my oldest daughter Jessica who contributed it and two other of her works for a charity art show called Art Action that is running this weekend at 7 Mercer Street here in NYC. We visited the show yesterday.
I wanted to buy something to contribute to the causes that the show is supporting and decided to purchase the photo that anchors this post for my mom as a mother's day gift. It's called Lava Rock and it reminds me of my mom. Happy mother's day mom.
No, that's not the name of a George Clinton song (at least to my knowledge) but it should be.
I pretty much eliminated my funk yesterday with the following steps:
1) Blog about it. I've gotten (so far) 117 comments from readers and I cannot tell you how great it made me feel to know that people took some time out of their day to try and help me out. Thanks.
2) Took some time off and spent it with the Gotham Gal. It was a beautiful afternoon in NYC yesterday and we spent it in lower manhattan walking around and shopping and talking. Nothing like "someone to love" to take a line from one of the comments.
3) Cooking on the grill and having a great family dinner with the kids.
5) A killer bike ride this morning. I rode hard and fast and got up to the GWB and back before I had to wake up the kids.
6) Some more time off. I am on jury duty the next couple days and really enjoying the time off. I am twittering it if anyone cares to follow the case or at least my attempt at getting on a case.
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