Driving the Creek Bed

Here in the Los Angeles metro area we sometimes get news stories that are almost impossible to envision in any other place - like stories about Mel Gibson’s personal church. Last Thursday, January 26, a story appeared in the news about a 53 year old driver who apparently mistook a service entrance to the Verdugo Wash as a freeway on-ramp. The entrance gate had been left open because a maintenance crew was working in the wash. If you are not familiar with Los Angeles, you need to know that this “wash” is a 9 mile tributary of the Los Angeles River that was lined in concrete for flood control purposes back in the 1930’s.

Image from Tropico Station

The driver apparently accelerated up to freeway speeds of 60 or 70 mph once she hit the floor of the flood control channel and did not stop until the car, a Mercedes Benz, careened down a series of steps designed to drop the flow to a lower level. After going down 9 steps, the car came to a stop just short of another drop in the channel. Fortunately, the driver was rescued from the flood control channel and did not suffer any major injuries. There is an excellent description of the event at Tropico Station, a Glendale blog.

The story captured my attention. In spite of its “laid back” reputation, L.A. does have its share of automobile accidents. Every so often, we hear of a Ferrari that flames out somewhere along the PCH or an SUV found at the bottom of a ravine along one of the more precarious canyon roads. But this accident was different. This involved one of the many long stretches of concrete in L.A. that is not a road or a freeway. This is a creek bed!

There have been numerous proposals over the years to turn some of these concrete creek channels into car or bus lanes. Now we have a driver who has taken the matter into her own hands. Personally, I think we should convert these channels back into real creek beds. Real creeks serve a lot of useful purposes for both people and wildlife. Moreover, it is very doubtful that a natural creek will ever be mistaken for a freeway.

  

Rewards Credit Cards

In a  January 16 article, the Wall Street Journal reports that credit card companies are increasingly promoting "rewards" credit cards to their business customers."It's easy to see why," they say. "About 42% of small-business owners carry a credit-card balance, according to July 2011 data from the National Small Business Association in Washington, D.C."

The article points out that the small business credit cards do not carry the same protection as consumer credit cards. "Small-business credit cards were excluded from the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 that outlawed random interest-rate hikes and other practices on personal credit cards." Small business people are usually held personally responsible for the debt placed on these cards. The WSJ urges small business people to consider how using the card might impact their credit score.

I have another beef with the "rewards" cards. The "rewards" offered by these cards are not paid for by the credit card company. Rather, they are charged to the company that accepts the card for payment and deducted from the sale amount as part of the swipe fees. "Swipe fees" are the fees that a credit card company passes on to the retailer who accepts the card as payment. These fees vary, but I have seen rewards cards with fees as high as 4.6% of the purchase.

The seller who accepts the card has no way of knowing what the fees are until he receives his statement from the credit card processor. Moreover, there appears to be no limit to the fee that can be tacked on to the transaction in this manner. The consumer or small business person is happy to use the card for payment because he is collecting a "reward." It is the proverbial free lunch. But the reality is that retailers, and now suppliers who sell to small businesses, are simply jacking up prices to cover the cost of the fees. In essence, even cash customers are footing the bill for these cards.

The main benefactor in this arrangement is the financial services industry and, to a certain extent, those who have strong enough credit to qualify for a rewards card. If more businesses use rewards cards to pay for supplies, in addition to accepting these cards as payment for their products and services, prices will inevitably go up.

Happy Birthday Ben Franklin. Born January 17, 1706

Things We Need and Don't Need in 2012

2011 was a year filled with dramatic events: a devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan; the killing of Osama Bin Laden; widespread uprisings in the Arab world, the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak; the marriage of Prince William; the death of Apple Founder, Steve Jobs; a horrific car bombing and shooting atrocity in Norway; the occupy Wall Street movement; rioting in London; the phone-tapping scandal which closed Britain’s tabloid News of the World; the discovery of potential earth-like planets; famine in east Africa and North Korea; the survival of Gabby Gifford; the death of Kim Jung Il: and the end of the Iraq War. With all that has gone on, it has been an emotional roller coaster of a year.

As we stumble into 2012, it occurs to me that we may want a different kind of year than the one we just survived. Certainly, most of us would prefer to see less bad news and more good news. So I have started a modest list of things we need more of in 2012 and other things I would prefer to see less of in 2012.
 

What We Need Less Of:

In 2012 we need less earthquakes and tsunamis, less Reality TV, and less TSA pat downs of children and the elderly.

We need fewer people like Rod Blagojevich, Casey Anthony, Conrad Murray, Jerry Sandusky, Muammar Kaddafi, and Kim Jung Il.

We need a lot less drivers texting behind the wheel, less airline fees, fast food, and disappearing glaciers.

We need less traffic, less unemployment, fewer foreclosures, less hypocrisy, and dates that the world will end on.

We don’t need any more $100-a-barrel oil, or deranged people with guns, and we could certainly do without any more Kardashian family events. 

What We Need More of:

We need more jobs, more food provided for starving people, and more discoveries of earth like planets.

We need more people like Steve Jobs, Andy Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Duke Snyder, Betty Ford, Harry Morgan and Seal Team Six.

We need more stuff made in the USA, more exercise and more good ideas like Forever Stamps.

We need more public transportation, locally owned businesses, educated graduates and ice for polar bears.

We need more time to spend with family, more banks that actually lend money, more Peace Prize winners, and more miles per gallon.

Those are just some of the things that came to mind about 2011. I am sure I missed a few. So feel free to add your own list of stuff we could use less of or more of in 2012 in the comments. 

Have a Healthy, Prosperous and Happy New Year!

Twitter by Mail?

What would happen if your Twitter tweets were sent via mail instead of online? That's what Giles Turnbull asked himself one morning. Would it work? What would happen? Some of the answers to his questions are obvious, it was sure to cost more in postage and take a lot more time. But there were other revelations about the nature of our communications with each other that were not so obvious when he began the experiment.

First he had to work out the logistics, buy a lot of stamps, get the postal address of his followers, and determine how to replicate a tweet via postcard. Sending a tweet to all of his followers meant writing out the same message numerous times, so he limited the experiment to 15 followers. Still, that meant writing out his "tweet" 15 times and mailing it to 15 different people, some in foreign countries. A direct message, as with Twitter, could be sent to just one person. His followers agreed to respond in the same manner - via mail.

While it sounds like a tedious process, the emotive results were surprising. Turnbull found himself getting excited to receive his mail. "I began to associate the sound of the postwoman’s approach with the arrival of new, unusually personal messages. I’d get jumpy with excitement, and rush out to the hall the moment they’d been delivered." It turns out that getting mail with personal messages is fun. He began to wonder what letters were like before the advent of email and made some interesting discoveries. "Simple, short messages. That’s what the post was for. People love updates."

Today's postcard, Turnbull observes, has become an "obligation" to inform friends about your vacation. That is too bad because the short message on a postcard can be as imaginative, as funny or as interesting as a tweet. He learned the unique value of the written message:  "Conversations took longer, but they made just as much sense. If anything, they felt more real." He gained a new appreciation for the online and the offline.

Turnbull's article and samples of his postcard "tweets," can be seen at The Morning News.