Category: Business

Fewer retail stores in cities due to higher insurance rates going forward?

by philg

“$1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history” (Axios):

The vandalism and looting following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police will cost the insurance industry more than any other violent demonstrations in recent history, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The protests that took place in 140 U.S. cities this spring were mostly peaceful, but the arson, vandalism and looting that did occur will result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims — eclipsing the record set in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who brutalized Rodney King.

Shops in the suburbs weren’t torched or looted, right? Rational insurance companies will therefore charge higher rates going forward for retail stores in urban areas. Combined with the extra risk of being shut down due to coronapanic, the risk of losing customers as richer city-dwellers flee during coronapanic, and the higher minimum wages that some cities mandate relative to surrounding suburbs, why would rational business owners decide to continue operating a lot of these shops? So the white suburbanites who came into the cities to join the protests, ostensibly to help their Black brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters, will have ended up permanently degrading city life for Blacks of all gender IDs.

Full post, including comments

BLM theme meals at fast food restaurants?

by philg

Stopping alongside one of the elegant restaurants that the Maskachusetts License Raj hasn’t managed to shut down, I was offered a gourmet meal:

If there can be a “Travis Scott Meal”, why not a “Jacob Blake Meal” for those who want to demonstrate their commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement? For those who never think about anything other than COVID-19, a “Dr. Fauci Meal” whose contents may change from day to day? For the politically oriented, a “President Harris Meal”?

Full post, including comments

Why are we still out of paper towels and spray cleaner?

by philg

It has been six months since coronapanic started. Why is the local Target still out of paper towels, spray cleaners such as Formula 409, cleaning wipes, etc. People are actually using way more of these items? The Chinese can build a hospital for 5,000 patients in 10 days, but American factories can’t expand production in 6 months?

From August 26, 2020, the Target store in Watertown, Maskachusetts:

(shoppers were continuously reminded via the overhead audio system that wearing a mask was required, a bit like being at an airport and hearing warnings about unattended baggage over and over again)

Maybe AOC and Ed Markey are right? Capitalism is a failure?

Full post, including comments

U.S. retail will have permanently shorter European-style hours as a result of coronapanic?

by philg

With tens of millions of Americans on the “$600 per week and chill” plan, a lot of retailers shortened their hours. In theory, things should be getting back to normal (it was a brief shutdown to “flatten the curve,” right?), but at least our local supermarkets seem to have kept their new shorter hours.

Are we on track to become more like Europe, where if you don’t want to conform to the standard hours you won’t be able to get meals, food, etc.? (walk around Paris and see if you can find a 24-hour CVS!)

Readers: What have you seen in your regions of the country? Are hours still curtailed?

Full post, including comments

Department of Bad Business Timing: Microsoft Flight Simulator released today

by philg

For the first time in 14 years, as of today it is possible to buy a new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. How’s that for bad timing? If this thing had been released in mid-March, after 13.5 years instead of 14, when governors had locked Americans down into their electronic home bubbles, how much more money would it have made?

The Icon A5 is included! Also the Airbus A320. You need to spring for the Premium edition to get the Cirrus SR22.

Who has tried out this new game? How great is it?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Focus on Black Lives Matter degrades business performance?

by philg

I am hopeful that readers will notice a more responsive server as of last night. The virtual server behind this site had hit a load average of 21 while simultaneously using only 1-3 percent CPU for user processes. How is that possible? The Unix top command was showing up to 98 percent CPU used for “st”. If you’re a dinosaur like me and most of what you learned about top was learned in the 1980s, this is confusing indeed. “st” is “steal time”, i.e., time that was “stolen” by other virtual machines on the same host and/or the hypervisor. If st is more than 10 percent, that’s a sign that the underlying physical machine is overloaded.

Why hadn’t the hosting service noticed this issue and migrated some of the demanding virtual machines off the physical machine to prevent this kind of overload? What could they be doing if not writing a Perl script to catch problems like this? “We stand with the Black community”:

(The page notes that the company will offer “Paid time off for voting”. Perhaps there will be a few decades of unpaid time off for any employee who shows up with an “All Lives Matter” T-shirt or a MAGA/KAG hat!)

The company is sufficiently committed that a banner reading “Black Lives Matter. Linode is committed to social justice and equality.” appears at the top of every page for a customer’s tech nerds. Want to know the operating system running underneath your server? IPv4 versus IPv6 traffic? See if your server was backed up? The hundreds of pages that show information like this are all headed by a “Black Lives Matter” message.

Readers: On the theory that humans aren’t great at focusing on multiple goals at the same time (witness nearly the U.S., now entirely devoted to the single goal of avoiding coronadeath and the folks who switched attention to BLM immediately abandoned all thoughts of social distancing), is it fair to say that any company that truly commits to Black Lives Matter will also deliver an inferior product and service compared to if they hadn’t made this commitment?

Related:

Full post, including comments

The Frito Bandito delivers a lecture on Black Lives Matter

by philg

Who knew that the Frito Bandito was an expert on social justice? Frito-Lay’s Doritos brand delivers Do You Hear Us Now? #AmplifyBlackVoices via YouTube:

On the YouTube site, the company says “Doritos is taking meaningful action in the push for real change.”

(How many tens of thousands of pounds have black Americans gained from eating Doritos while locked into their apartments and houses for 4+ months during coronapanic? Maybe the “real change” Frito-Lay is talking about is transitioning from obesity to morbid obesity?)

From the slender friend who sent this to me: “I’ll do a 180 on social justice warriors if they get Doritos cancelled. So gross. Cool ranch Doritos are an abomination.” (she also coined the term “coronapudge”)

Related:

Full post, including comments

Helicopter pilot and cosmetics entrepreneur

by philg

Nicole Vandelaar Battjes is the founder, CEO, and Chief Pilot of Novictor Helicopters, a Robinson R44 tour operator in Hawaii. Now she has launched a cosmetics company too! Nicol Cosmetics (pilot/founder is in the middle):

It is rare for me to get excited about cosmetics, but I am hoping this company is a big success.

Full post, including comments

How productive are you during this coronplague shutdown?

by philg

Happy International Workers’ Day, comrades!

How productive are you and your co-workers now that everyone has gone to work-from-home?

In my small survey of for-profit enterprises that are still up and running, but dispersed, popular answers are in the 75-80 percent range. (Massachusetts public schools, however, are down closer to 10 percent.)

One manager at a “Big Tech” firm said that he expected productivity to fall as new projects were undertaken, but that 75-80 percent was a good number for the current work. He’s in Silicon Valley where hardly anyone has children. A manager at a “Big Tech” coding plantation here in Cambridge, also said that her team was at 80 percent. “Really?” I asked. “What about the people with children.” Her response: “Oh, they’re useless.”

Readers: What are you experiencing? If companies can truly work at 80 percent without an (expensive) office, can this be boosted up to the point where office space can be cut out? And if remote work does become popular, why will people want to stay in high-tax high-cost mediocre-weather states such as Massachusetts, New York (#1 in overall state and local tax burden), and New Jersey? Why not sell the $1 million 2,000 square-foot house in MA and work from home in a $1 million 6,000 square-foot house in Texas or Florida, while paying nothing in state income tax?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Coronavirus will breathe life into my two-thirds-full airline idea?

by philg

David St. Hubbins: “It’s such a fine line between stupid.”

My idea for an airline that wouldn’t sell its middle seats was greeted with derision back in December 2019. Apparently it was on the “stupid” side of the fine line.

If people won’t support the idea in the name of comfort, speed of boarding/unloading, and overall efficiency, maybe fear of death will make the proposal look better?

A coach seat with a guaranteed empty middle seat provides even more separation from a potentially disease-ridden fellow passenger than a first class seat, right? How is that not worth 50 percent more in the coronavirus age? Set a minimum pitch comparable to JetBlue’s Extra Room seats and everyone can travel again for a reasonable price, with reasonable protection from contagion, a lot faster (total time, including boarding), and with a lot less stress from Fall of Saigon-style lines at the gate. (Throw in a free N95 mask for each passenger as soon as the supply chain returns to normal.)

Full post, including comments