Business Finance 101

Companies measure their potential for growth by evaluating their Earnings to Assets (E/A) ratio. This ratio gives them a measure of how much of the money they spend on expansion comes from their profits or from borrowing. Growth cannot be sustained with excessive borrowing so the higher this value is, the better.

Also, nearly every corporation in the world touts that their employees are their biggest asset. With this in mind let's examine ways to improve E/A ratios. If earnings are driven by the market and the market is down, what would a company have to do to increase its E/A? You do the math.

Adventure Vacations

A lot of news shows like to showcase what we fondly call "adventure vacations", where people get some restorative benefit by risking their lives involved in dangerous activities. Today on Weeked Today I saw a story about a company that sells week long vacations where you "swim with sharks". In good journalistic style they tempered the positive aspects of this activity by reporting about a guy who bled to death after being bit. Personally, driving to work everyday is dangerous enough for me.

There are any number of other adventure vacations people can have that involve some verb performed with some noun. A short list might be climbing with Sherpas or hiking with snow shoes or skydiving with instructor or jumping with bungee or hunting with shotguns (Dick Cheney). This year I've decided to take adventure vacation. I think I'll run with scissors.

Chillanthropologist

Young people today..............they have a knack for making descriptive words by combining two or more words. Like my sons and I were sitting around chillaxing at our hotel on our first night in NYC. I particularly like combining the word chill with other words and fancy myself to be a chillanthropologist; a person who studies how people chill. If you think about it, the chillanthropology profession has been around a long time. In my day we called them gurus.

Hershey's Squirts

The weather was nice this past weekend. It was warmer than it has been in a long time. It's probably safe to say that the hot chocolate season has ended, which makes me think of how I make hot chocolate and how I might describe it.

Big Cities

Now that I've had the NYC experience it's nice to reflect on that experience and compare it to others I've had. I've been to a number of big cities in my lifetime. The list includes London, Chicago and LA, but the only city with a similar crush of people that I've visited is Mexico City. Driving in either city is not for the timid and even if you are brave enough to drive, there's no place to park once you've arrived.

The traffic is very similar in both cities except there are no people wandering in the streets of NYC selling soft drinks and snacks to hapless drivers stranded in the crawl. I do believe there are more people in NYC who speak Spanish as a first language, though.

Happy Birthday Greg

Greg and I went to see the Weekend Today Show yesterday on our last day in NYC. It was his birthday. Coincidentally it was Lester Holt's birthday too. What a thrill for Greg to get happy birthday wishes from Mr. Holt on national television. He told me after the show that he'll "have bragging rights at school tomorrow".

We stuck around long enough to get a mug shot with Peter Alexander, who was at the news desk that day. The crowd on the plaza quickly thins once the "Big Names" go inside. That concept wasn't lost on Pete since he had to introduce himself to us by name before we got the snap shot. A good time was had by all.

Good 'Ol What's His Name

Me and my boys are in NYC today. The older one, Joe, has an interview at a medical college named after a famous guy with bushy gray hair and eyebrows and mustache that match. I've got it narrowed down to two potential names. I hope my Garmin can find the right one so we won't be late.

Miracle on the Hudson

Cities in New York

I'm going to New York City this week and it made me think about cities in general and the people who live in them. New York is an "er" city where the people who live there are New Yorkers. Other "er" cities would be Detroit, Berlin, London and Cleveland.

Other cities are "ian" or "an" cities. Paris is an example where the people are called Parisians. Others that come to mind are Philadelphia, Chicago, Rome, Atlanta and scores of others.

What do you call the people from Coxsackie?

Mushrooms

To most of us mushrooms are a fleshy, spore-bearing fungus that humans use for a variety of reasons, mostly as food. Besides the obvious images we have of mushrooms as foods, medicines, dyes and psychotropic agents, mushrooms can inspire other images.

Shiitake can be for folks who don't take shii from anyone. If I have Portobello on my pizza I'll get a portly belly. In Germany you can order dinners with either Pilz or Champignon; who wants to swallow some bitter pilz when they can have the Breakfast of Champignons.

The Dating Scene

Just for grins I went cruising on eHarmony to check out the available ladies on the market in Kabul. These girls were looking for a Sheik or Imam with a little extra room in the tent for some free spirited fun loving companions. These girls like hiking, camping and occasionally hunting or other outdoor activities like laundry and raising children. They love warm summer nights and long walks on the beach.