Author: mlyou5823

With the high price of crude oil, and the current fluctuation in the price of oil due to the Iran war; Coal to Gasoline plants should be revisited. I am not a Chemist, but the the United States has huge deposits of Coal, and as oil prices rise, this technology may be profitable now.

In the 1970’s during the Arabian oil embargo, the United States considered this technology. It might be time to revisit it again. The global economy is linked to Crude Oil, and Crude Oil prices.

If their was a catastrophic failure in the production or distribution of Crude oil, the whole world would suffer. Militarys’ would stop, planes would cease to fly, the world would stop. Not to mention that most of the global power grids are powered by fossil fuels.

On a personal level, I was not in favor of electric cars, but as fossil fuel prices continue to be extremely volatile, and extremely sensitive to geopolitical issues; we do need alternatives. Also, fossil fuels are non renewable resources, and one day the world will run out of oil.

For the stability of economies, and the planet; the world needs to look at new forms of energy. This has been proven by a short one week conflict in the middle east, how week the transportation chain of oil can be. We as a planet are simply too dependent on oil as a fuel.

Many managers believe that consumers seek products at the most inexpensive price. From my 15 years of retail experience, I have observed that people will pay more for a product at a business where employees provide World Class Customer Service.

Think about a time and shopping location where employees greeted you. Now think about a time when employees tried to provide expert advice. Lets say that the previous company was 5 dollars more per unit than the competitor. Now lets take the more inexpensive competitor. In this business their are no employees on the floor, no employees acknowledging customers. The lines are long; would you shop there?

From my experience, the less expensive company would be Walmart and the more expensive company would be Target. Customer service in the Walmart’s in my city are lacking. Customer service in most targets in my town are excellent. As a note, I do not speak for the two corporations, this is just what I have observed in my regional US city.

On a more personal note, I spent almost 10 years in a corporation that’s product offerings were 5 to 10 dollars more than Amazon. However, our company invested in high quality training, so that our customer service was superior to Amazon. People payed more for the goods at my company in exchange for world class customer service. I actually later worked at a subsidiary of Amazon, and their upper management was constantly purchasing supplies from my former employer, not Amazon as they were suppose to do.

On a final note. Making a sale is not just about business. You have to get to know your customer, make small talk with them, discuss things other than the sale. I believe modern America has forgotten about Customer Service. Also remember one final statistic; 1 happy customer will tell 2 people about a positive experience, and 1 unhappy customer will tell 5 to 10 people about an unpleasant experience. Also price is not the main factor to making a sale; making a sale is about having well trained employees who are experts in customer experience.

The US has always and will always have inflation. In Finance there is a statement that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. This is due to inflation, and an investor must make more return than the inflation rate in order to accept the investment.

This makes the average consumer question what they should do today. There are two choices, a consumer can buy a product today or risk the product being more expensive in the future. We are going to consider that consumer X has the funds to buy the product today.

This scenario is best seen with coffee. When a consumer goes to the grocery store, they may notice coffee is continually rising in price. However, the US government has placed an import tariff, or tax on the American citizen; but in a way coffee has experienced double or triple digit inflation.

Inflation is usually caused by product input prices increasing. Labor is always increasing and base commodities are traded on the open market; and can rise and fall at will. For example AI facilities recent demand for silver has caused silver to reach a record high. Everyone that works wants to make more money, so labor cost will always increase across the economy.

Sometimes industry collude, an illegal practice, and all agree to raise prices across a sector. Apartment rents are a common example. No matter what location a person visits in a city, apartment rents are usually very close in price. I am in no way suggesting that apartment complexes are practicing collusion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles prices in a weighed average to form the Consumer Price Index or CPI. The index is based on a current price of goods compared to the base year of 1983.

To sum up this blog post Inflation will always exist. As long as we do not see inflation levels of 1000 percent it is ok. Inflation each year should be around 3 percent or less. We should never expect to see deflation in CPI. One product occasionally shows deflation or a decrease in price; Crude oil and gasoline for example. Due to the current political environment, deflation in the price of oil will not be happening anytime soon.

It is a common belief from people with business training, that pharmaceutical companies do not want a one time cure for diseases, because it only creates a one time revenue stream. However, if the drug company could manage the disease with medication, that would generate years worth of revenue. This dilemma brings up an ethical question, is profit more important than bettering society and helping people.

Also, if cures are unprofitable vs maintenance of the disease with medication; are companies even investing research dollars towards finding future one time cures for diseases.

Finally if I am a public traded corporation that answers to shareholders, the CEO is going to most likely choose the option that makes the most revenue per dollar invested.

Most business articles that I have read believe that corporations will always choose medications over a cure for disease to treat patients, because it is more profitable.

I know that this is a hotly debated subject, and their are many opinions on the subject. I would be interested to see what a researcher has to say vs a corporate CEO that answers to shareholders.

As an MBA who has worked in businesses most of my adult career, I know that the current 2025-2026 layoffs are not from Artificial Intelligence improvements. The US is in a slowing economy, and every quarter companies have an earnings target they have to make to keep their stock price high. So in order to make these earning targets, companies have decided to layoff thousands of employees in order to save wage expenses and improve quarterly total revenue. This tactic in business is called window dressing. Companies also cut hours to employees one week before the end of the physical quarter to make their earnings look larger than they actually are. Companies will do these things to make, or beat analyst earning forecasts. The true winners are the shareholders and the true looser are the workers or employees.

The US National Debt is as of today 1/29/26 trending at 38 Trillion US Dollars, and projected to grow to 40 trillion shortly. In 2026 the US interest on Treasury securities is expected to be 1 Trillion US dollars, and this amount will continue to grow every year. Currently the interest on the US debt is 22% of 2026 US revenues. I see a future where the United States has to issues new Treasury securities to pay the debt on old Treasury securities. If the US was a company, they could not stay in business long practicing this type of debt management.

A callable bond is a bond with provision that allows it to be reissued at a lower interest rate in the future. A high interest rate bond with a callable provision can be called and reissued at a lower internet rate. Many junk bonds use this provision when their bond rating improves and the bond can be reissued at a lower interest rate. Macy’s recently called a bond to lower their interest rate obligations. The transaction with Macy,s will complete on August 28.

The Consumer Price Index is a market basket of all goods and services in the US economy. The base year is 1983. It is important to note that some items in the CPI measurement such as food and beverage can go up and other items such as fuel can go down; yet CPI can increase. For example we might have deflation in gasoline, however, cereal, beverages, and housing could increase at a faster level. In this example CPI would increase over the measured period and inflation would rise. The key take away is that some goods increase and some goods decrease in price, but every year overall prices rise 2 to 3 percent. Finally, some goods always decrease in price over time. Some examples are laptops and flat screen TVs. Also CPI is not always a good measure of price level. For example, apartment rents will always be higher in New York, New York than they will be in Memphis, TN. Many people will argue that workers are paid more in New York City than somewhere like Memphis, TN to compensate for higher price levels. However, I would guess that the average worker would have a higher standard of living in Tennessee than New York. We will speak more on wages in upcoming posts.

Systemic risk is also known as market risk, and can’t be reduced through diversification in a portfolio. An example of market risk would be the United States putting a major tariff on a country like China. This would cause almost every stock to go down, so diversification will not help in this case.

Unsystematic risk can be reduced through diversification. A diverse portfolio will usually contain 30 stocks. When an investor obtains at least 30 stocks, with the same dollar amount invested in each stock; non-market risk is eliminated. In this scenario, even if one company goes bankrupt, the entire portfolio will not be lost. Just remember, do not put all your eggs in one basket.

You may also want to consider investing in corporate bonds or treasury securities as a further way to diversify a portfolio.