Rick Sommer's

ADDICTION

Many tour guides will take you to places where they can earn some spiff. In Florence we were taken to a paper merchant. Florence is well known for its kaleidoscope colored tissue-thin papers. The guide wanted us to see how it is made. I suffered through the various demonstrations and tried to retreat to the street. But HH was and is in love with all things Florentine so we both stayed and ultimately bought some paper in their retail store.

We have had similar experiences in Mexico with regional pottery, Egypt with oriental rugs and perfume, Peru with woven fabric, on and on. The quality of these consumer goods varies dramatically. Mexican pottery is universally of high quality while Egyptian rugs less so.

However, the final quality or the desirability of these goods is enhanced or detracted by employee working conditions. Outside of Cairo we were exposed to children of nine, or so, working the carpet looms. They seemed happy, at least they smiled broadly when I did. Mexican pottery workers are older, in their twenties, and were working hard in this big windowless room. Each had a wheel upon which they were spinning a vase or bowl. The workers, men and women, were pretty well dressed and all attractive looking. But it was weird; no one was talking, singing, humming. Silence. Perhaps they were instructed to remain silent with gringos present. I never asked and have long wondered.

I thought about all this after reading the devastating story in the NYT’s about Apple’s Chinese factories. When we were in Hong Kong we looked across a river valley into Mainland China. There is a city, Shenzhen, in the distance. The buildings are numerous and huge. Ten years ago the place consisted of huts. Shenzhen, among hundreds of other China cities is where many of goods we buy, particularly electronics,
are made. Huge companies, some with 200,000 workers assemble vast quantities of computers, mobile phones etc. Most of these workers come from the country and are housed in enormous dormitories. Many seem to want to work for a couple of years then head back to their origins and open a shop.

With little in the way of labor laws to protect the workers there are charges of brutal conditions. Apple builds a lot of their products under these conditions. We all love these gizmos, I know I’m addicted. Now I’m wondering if I am supporting my habit on the backs of child labor and unfair living conditions.

Jim Cook, Apple president, sent an email to employees yesterday professing high corporate working conditions for all workers, company employed or Other Equipment Manufacturers (ORM). Cook’s email may not be enough. Apple will really have to prove to me and others it is doing something to eliminate the infringement of worker’s rights.

Addictions can be cured.

Shenzhen in the distance:

Cocktail Hour

The pace around here is pretty slow. We awake anywhere between 6am to 8am. HH is more likely to doze longer than I. Of course, I tend to take a power nap around 3pm. Also, I have been known to slip back into bed by 10am for a morning snooze.

I’ll usually get up around 7am, grind the coffee and put on the pot. I’ll take a diluted glass of OJ to my man cave then head out to gather the newspapers. I have become a bit (in)famous for picking up the Widow Carol’s newspaper. I toss it onto her front steps so she doesn’t have to come out in her pajamas. Meanwhile I am quickly retreating home. At least once this wasn’t fast enough. In my pajamas and robe I had thrown Carol’s paper and then heard a car approach. I waited behind some bushes, hoping the car would pass without seeing me. After a bit it was clear the car had stopped. So I crept out from behind the bushes and, sure enough, it was one our security vehicles. Of course these guys know I’m a board member of our HOA so I kinda slinked across the street. To almost anyone it would appear I had left the Widow Carol’s house at dawn….in pajamas and robe. I kinda waved to the security guy and quickly scooted into our house, slamming the door.

So the day progresses. I’ll head to the gym on my bike during good weather. HH will head to the patio and put in a good three hours of reading. After a modest lunch we will again part to our respective corners. At 4pm, or so, each of us will have a cup of tea or coffee. This helps us push into the evening hours.

About 5pm the pace quickens. You can tell we are both becoming restless as cocktail hour approaches. Each of us will begin moving a bit faster. HH will talk a bit more and I’ll be a bit more communicative.

Then it happens. HH will hit the ice machine with her glass. Chunk, chunk, chunk. Chunk. Ice against crystal is the Pavlovian starting gun. I resist for at least a few minutes as she fills up at the bar. I’ll mosey over, very disinterested of course and pick up where she left off.

We again head to our corners. She to watch public TV. I’ll tune into Fast Money on CNBC and then PTI.

So the pendulum swings.

Good Morning

Well, Apple did it again. In what may be the most astounding quarters in corporate history Apple blew the doors off. You can read the numbers elsewhere. But believe me, this was a jaw-dropping report.

And that may be a problem. The law of large numbers challenges the sustainability of those numbers. Apple now has the largest capitalization of any company on the planet. And since the company doesn’t have a sustainable revenue stream (each purchase is a decision) the likelihood of Apple having another quarter like the last is in question.

Even though the shares are still cheap I’m going to take advantage of the overnight thirty point gain and sell a few shares.

Perhaps more important is how the entire market reacts to Apple and other reports during this earnings season. As said a couple of days ago the market has been in a roll. And I re-learned last year to take profits when I can.

Just had to share this. Daisy normally sleeps in grandson Jack’s room. Like many teenage boys Jack loves, loves his sleep. Daisy sometimes just gets tired of being ignored.

• I cannot understand why the television ads for President Obama highlight solar panels. Isn’t the Solydra scandal enough?

• When the omnipresent ads for Jos. A. Bank are on I hit the mute. And I wonder how good their products are when they constantly sell them 70% off.

• Chevron is bringing out the big guns in its fight with Ecuador. After the company bought Texaco it was charged with massive pollution of the Amazon basin. Chevron has exhausted its judicial court appeal in Ecuador so is attempting to appeal to the country’s National Court of Justice. Whatever that is. More than $9 billion is at stake. I’m thinking Chevron will lose. And if they don’t apologize for the damage it will owe an additional $8.6 billion. Big stakes.

• Fox Business Chanel is unwatchable.

• The market is up 4.8%. It’s hard for me to think these are the lows of the year. So, am not convinced some profits shouldn’t be booked. Meanwhile I succumbed to Microsoft’s momentum. I’ve read quite a bit about Ballmer and have concluded he’s OK. Not a great leader but OK. And with a new wave of super slick notebooks to be unveiled this summer Windows 8 could be a winner. BTW, Ballmer is worth more than $18 billion. With a b.

An overcast, foggy morning here. Temps expected in low 70′s but little sun. Movie day? If it happens I’ll see The Artist.

Do something nice for yourself today.

An acquaintance of mine, Jim, related this story to me. Several years ago he was playing golf on one of our courses late in the afternoon of the fall. His tee shot went very far but veered to the left, a bit into the woods. He had a good eye on its direction so he trudged into the rough. As he was looking for the ball he thought he heard his name being whispered. Jim, Jim, very softly. Jim did a 360 but saw no one. Again, Jim, Jim. This time there was Jim, up here. He looked up and here was a friend of his dressed head to foot in camouflage. He was standing on a little stand and had a bow and arrow at the ready.

Jim waved and said hello, found his golf ball and continued his game.

For many years our community has invited licensed bow hunters to cull the herd. This is the deer’s natural habitat, of course. But they are mischievous little things. And bold. Yesterday we awoke to find potting soil all over our front steps. A deer had grabbed one of HH’s prized winter-flowering pansies from one of the vases on both sides of our front door. They don’t just nibble, they take the whole plant. Friends down the street spray their plants with bobcat urine and that stops the deer for a while. Of course this treatment always makes me wonder how the urine is acquired.

We try to keep the herd at sixty deer. This the number the conservation officers suggests our land (or pansies) can support. The culled deer are butchered with the meat going to local soup kitchens.

While in Hong Kong last year our guide took us to an area full of small grocery stores. These are mostly stores open to the street. They are filled with sacks of a never ending array of spices, condiments, medicinal curatives, food stuffs and shark fins. The quantities of all these things cannot be overstated. Store after store seemingly sell the same products but our guide suggested some stores specialized.

Asians have long maintained the curative powers of herbs, plants and spices. They fervently believe, for example, that eating shark fins increases male potency and beautifies female skin tone. Visiting one small Hong Kong store I was horrified to see thousands of fins of all sizes for sale. I mean thousands. I’ve tasted shark fin soup; it tastes like wall paper paste. So, apart from the humanitarian issue I’m not clear why anyone would think this a good idea. Especially in the age of Viagra.

Our guide suspected our reluctance to embrace the butchery of a fish just to slice off the fin. He explained that a dead shark provided food to the living sharks, thereby perpetuating the species. This convoluted justification was almost laughable but I restrained myself. For once.

Now, it turns out, at least a few Asian providers of shark fin soup have come to their senses. The Peninsula Hotel in HK, where we stayed, banned it two months ago. Yesterday several other hotel chains in Asia followed. Since a tureen of the soup sells for as much as $400, these are not insignificant decisions. Almost every banquet at these hotels offer the soup. The timing, on the eve of the Lunar New Year, a holiday when shark fin consumption is most popular, is especially important.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a new era of Asian awakening towards some of their more bizarre thinking towards “natural” cures. But I doubt thousands of years of beliefs will be overturned by the actions of a few hotel chains.

The photo doesn’t adequately portray the environmental colossus that is the oil sands destruction of Alberta, Canada. Why would the US encourage this behavior by building the XL pipeline?

Am recovering from last nights Republican debate. It will take a while to make sense, if there is any, of the blood thirsty growls. My friend, Boston Bob, gave me an operative word; decency. Our country seems to have abandoned the concept. When Rick Perry receives a standing ovation for his state being the leader in capital punishment, when Mitt Romney thinks it’s OK to say “put a bullet in his head”, when 500,000 gun permits were taken out in the month of December…..well, decency has escaped my understanding. I’m not giving up but am cocooning a bit. Call it denial, call it defeatism, call it what you like, I’m tired. Tired of people’s denial of facts. Tired of untrue innuendo. I’m tired and sad. I cannot change it. That’s very sad.

• I have reversed the direction of our ceiling fans. Now, instead of blowing down the fans pull the warm air up and pushes it to the walls. This circulation helps keep the warm air down.

• Also replaced the intake filters. We have four, two up and two down. 3M seems to have this market cornered. And damn they are expensive. I usually buy the mid-level filter and always at Wal-Mart. They are changed every four months. The house is still dusty.

• During the summer I put up Sunbrella fabric shades over three sky lights upstairs. HH made them. In the winter I remove them to allow the sun in. I also open the blinds.

• If you are heating with natural gas you gotta be loving the dramatic price decline.

• If you have wondered how much water and exactly which chemicals are used in natural gas fracking wells look to Texas. Starting Feb.1st the drillers will have to tell. We think we know that one to five million gallons of water is used per well. Crazy.

• Do you see ads for furnace duct cleaning? I’m not claiming fraud but am highly suspicious of efficacy. The EPA web site carries extensive warnings. Try Google: EPA/duct cleaning.

• Gas Buddy is an OK iPhone app. Consumers enter price paid for gasoline by location.

• Tell me again why I don’t own Costco’s stock. The lines at their gas station are always pretty long. But their high speed pumps move us along. And I’m usually saving eight to ten cents per gallon. I’m also buying their house brand coffee beans and loving it. And I bought a burr grinder there for the beans. Get one, but be sure it’s a burr grinder.

• I use cruise control in the car whenever I can. My cars computers do a better job at regulating gasoline consumption.

• It looks as if Nigeria will resume the gasoline subsidy. Something had to be done to quell strikes.

Markets are closed today so I’ll have to figure out something to do. My friend, Peter, wants me to see Iron Lady. At the Golden Globe awards Meryl Streep proved she does a better job repeating other’s lines, not her own.

Stay warm!