Michael Arndt wrote about Kraft’s possible sale of Oscar Meyer several weeks ago. Avrum Lank keeps the thread going this morning.
Category: Business
Schools, Quality of Life, Jobs, Economic Growth and Globalization
Yesterday’s property tax bill (including not small increases in local and school taxes) along with recent articles on the China Price and Milwaukee’s loss of unskilled labor jobs serve to remind Wisconsin residents of the real issues facing our state:
- Encouraging the formation of more new businesses. I don’t believe the formation of yet another quasi-government organization is the answer. Rather, let’s simplify (and reduce) the paperwork that any organization must support to operate in Wisconsin.
- Broadband: Wisconsin is stuck with SBC, a telco that has done nothing to offer true, 2 way broadband (100X the speed of today’s rather slow DSL/cable services) to Wisconsin residents. I have not seen any indication that our state’s political leadership has boarded the cluetrain on this one.
- Biotech certainly has great promise for Wisconsin, however, historically the benefits have generally gone to out of state firms. Perhaps this will change somewhat over time.
Without a strong, growing tax base, we’ll continue to see substantial increases in local property taxes. I don’t believe this is a sustainable strategy.
Wisconsin Banks & Tax Shelters
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue continues to pursue local banks that have setup subsidiaries in Nevada to avoid Wisconsin’s 7.9% state corporate tax rate. More power to the DOR, but the $26M in settlements seems rather small. I wonder if this is done for effect? Paul Gores has more.
Entrepreneur: What not to do
Mark Henricks interviews John Osher who discusses the 17 most common mistakes startups make, along with 5 must dos to win:
Mistake 1: Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it’s viable. “This is really the most important mistake of all. They say 9 [out] of 10 entrepreneurs fail because they’re undercapitalized or have the wrong people. I say 9 [out] of 10 people fail because their original concept is not viable. They want to be in business so much that they often don’t do the work they need to do ahead of time, so everything they do is doomed. They can be very talented, do everything else right, and fail because they have ideas that are flawed.”
Wal Mart Blog
Interesting look at Wal-Mart from www.alwayslowprices.net. Glenn Reynolds notes that he’s never really liked shopping there. I have to agree. they do have great prices on some products, but you must be willing to put up with shopping their way (crowds and little in the way of aesthetics (which target has taken advantage of).
More on Microjets
Sara Kehaulani Goo on Microjets or Very Light Jets (VLJ’s) and the emerging air taxi system ($6/mile):
The fledgling industry is “going to be looked upon like the Wright brothers in 1903,” said Ken Hespe, a spokesman for the National Consortium for Aviation Mobility, a nonprofit group that has been studying and developing new uses for the nation’s tiniest airports and for small jets with NASA, which estimates a market for 8,300 microjets by 2010. “It’s going to be a revolution in the transportation industry,” Hespe said.
Analysts say microjets will appeal to a cross-section of customers including corporations, which might add planes to their fleets, and wealthy travelers who are looking for a less-expensive alternative to owning a jet. Since 2001, companies such as NetJets have grown by providing access to planes around the world for members who pay for fractional ownership of aircraft. Aviation experts say air taxis with all-microjet fleets could serve as an even more affordable version of the fractional ownership aircraft model.
VC Don Valentine Looks Ahead
Alorie Gilbert interviews “legendary” venture capitalist Don Valentine (Founder of Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital):
I really think it’s sort of embarrassing for South Korea to have an intrinsically greater disposition in broadband than California……..
I got to Silicon Valley in 1959. Nothing is revolutionary; it’s evolutionary. Look the sequence of Intel microprocessors. It’s all predictable. The nature of silicon and software and storage go hand in hand. In the case of software, you just have to be more clever about the nature of the application. So all these things kind of tick along, feeding off each other
Elephants in the Living Room
Kuro5hin’s Coryoth writes an op-ed piece on the possibility of a severe economic correction:
The first elephant is debt. There are 3 kinds of debt that are of concern: Household debt, the budget deficit, and the current account or trade deficit. Of those three, it is only the budget deficit that gets any real attention, and even then it is often brushed aside……
The second elephant is the US Dollar. At the time of writing, the US Dollar is running at about 0.77 Euros to the Dollar. One could claim that this is simply due to a strong Euro, but in reality most world currencies, including the Japanese yen and the Great British pound are trading strongly against the US Dollar……
The third elephant is the rise of India and China. Both the Indian and Chinese economies are growing very rapidly. These are the two most populous nations on earth, so they should not be taken lightly.
Oscar Mayer For Sale?
Michael Arndt writes about Oscar Mayer parent Kraft Foods (itself part of Altria Group) rationalization plans (which include asset sales):
Now Deromedi is evaluating which brands to auction off next. As with the sale of Altoids and Life Savers to Wrigley, he’ll look at secondary brands or those where Kraft lacks the clout with retailers to turn things around. Analysts and consultants figure Oscar Mayer is most likely. Despite being the leader in bacon, hot dogs, and luncheon meats in the U.S., with $2.1 billion in annual sales, it has been losing out to cheaper store brands and has little brand recognition overseas. Kraft’s $1.2 billion-a-year Post cereals division, a distant No. 3 that also is ceding market share, could also be on the block. Michael A. Crowe, a senior managing director of Mesirow Financial, which owns 200,000 Kraft shares, hopes the sales come soon. “It’s not long overdue,” he says. “But it is overdue.”
This could be a rather big deal for Madison.
The New Age of Advertising
Tom Moon (audio):
To announce its latest release How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 has partnered with Apple Computer for a series of now-ubiquitous television advertisements.