Craig's Corner

Governor Jerry Brown just declared the three-year drought in California over. There have been record rains and snows throughout the state with some of the worst storms that I can recall. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Meteorologists all predicted a La Niña year (low to no moisture). Weather forecasting is the one job where it’s OK to be wrong most of the time. Wanting to know what’s going to happen is natural. Popular entertainment has explored the future and its relationship to the past and present in a myriad of ways (books, movies and on TV where the SyFy channel is loaded with shows exploring the subject). Some of us read our horoscope; others go to psychics and mediums. As a business strategist, much of my career has been spent making and implementing recommendations based on forecasts. I take an array of data points and mix them in a proverbial bowl and then make determinations as to which ingredient should be weighted more than another. Each business is d...

At the start of every movie, concert, theatre performance (“ticketed performance”) in California audiences are directed to “look around for the nearest emergency exit.”   This admonition/warning was the result of a law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger effective January 2007.      Airline passengers are accustomed to extensive safety announcements thanks to federal law and the FAA.   I’ve taken enough cruises so I actually know how to put on the lifejacket for the mandatory safety drills.   Products carry warning labels as a matter of course.   Living in “Earthquake Country” there is a certain amount of preparedness that is commonplace in my life.   There’s extra bottled water on hand, first aid kits, a few hundred dollars in small bills for when the ATM’s go out, etc.   I don’t have a bunker and food storage is, well, more likely to be consumed than saved.   There are communications plans for friends and family and I have a couple of power ...

Today, March 20, is the first day of Spring.   It is the eighth anniversary of the launch of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” where a coalition of countries led by the U.S. invaded Iraq on a futile hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction.   Yesterday, the U.S. began its third conflict in the Middle East by bombing Libya.   We also mourn death of Warren Christopher, longtime diplomat and public servant, who was passionately opposed to war.   Not only did the former Secretary of State die yesterday, so did his ideal of diplomacy. President Barak Obama won the Nobel Prize for peace, not based on what he had done in the nascent months of his administration, but by what the committee expected he would do.   The President gave us hope :  “ I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior -- for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something.   Those regimes ...

It’s underway – determining the best college basketball team is the lively NCAA tournament that has become known as March Madness.   My alma matter (Syracuse) sends out near daily email updates and keeps their Facebook page current with the latest information as I’m sure the rest of the schools do.   TV viewership is high and betting takes places in offices around the country.   The condensed schedule is part of the allure:   we can watch teams “go all the way” in a few short weeks.   The fact that the competitors are amateurs – college kids – is a huge part of the appeal.   Big dollars are at stake for school programs, television networks --- but the players are just college kids playing the game.   Well, that’s the illusion anyway.   Not like the NFL. Last week the NFL Players Union (NFLPA) disbanded themselves. The union was in negotiations with the owners about the next contract…a process known as Collective Bargaining where the workers...

Early Sunday morning (late Saturday night) most of us “Spring Forward” to Daylight Savings time, “losing” an hour of sleep but gaining additional daylight. A genesis for the twice-annual process of adjusting sleep patterns and disrupting businesses is the popular (if inaccurate) notion that harkens back to days of farming when having more daylight allowed the harvest to be reaped. In reality, commerce and transportation figured more prominently. The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin . Standard time in time zones was instituted in the U.S. and Canada by the railroads on November 18, 1883. Prior to that, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by a well-known clock (on a church steeple, for example, or in a jeweler's window). Daylight Saving Time has been used in the U.S. and in many European countries since World War I. By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving ...

I enjoy watching the myriad of house hunting, decorating and renovation shows that are on TV. Seeing what money would buy in LA versus Kansas versus New York is illuminating and a great way to escape the dredge of figuring out how to pay the mortgage. Several entire networks are dedicated to these shows and variations appear across the cable box – and they are all rooted in perpetuating home ownership. Americans have a tradition of home ownership – from the 1800’s “land run” where previously-restricted land was opened for homesteading often on a first-come basis. By 1900 46.5% of Americans owned their house. During the Great Depression of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s many lost their homes. Fannie Mae was established in 1938 as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal. Once a bank approves a loan to their customer, the bank then sells the loan to the government and uses the funds to loan to somebody else for their home. Banks no longer had to wait to be paid back before having ...