11:06 – Barbara got home a few minutes ago from her sister’s birthday breakfast. A bit unusual, but Frances’ husband has to go in to work later this morning, so it was breakfast or nothing.
Reorganizing downstairs is proceeding apace. Last August, we went out to Home Depot looking for plastic storage bins. They had generic shoebox-sized 6.5-quart storage bins with lids for $1.17 each, so we bought 37, which was their entire stock. I was intending to buy another bunch, so I checked the website to see how many the local store had in stock. While I was there, I started looking at alternatives. They also had Sterilite plastic shoeboxes. That’s a decent brand name, but the Sterilite boxes were a lot more expensive. Then I noticed that they sold them in a 60-pack, on-line only, for $70. That item was flagged “no free shipping”, which concerned me a bit. But I added it to my cart anyway, and ended up paying only the $70 plus $5 shipping and $5 sales tax. That’s $1.33 each delivered, and they’re nicer storage bins than the no-name ones we bought before. And I don’t have to carry them home. I did check Amazon, of course. They didn’t have the 60-packs. They did have 12-packs with free shipping, but five 12-packs would have cost me $132.
When they arrive, 30 of them go downstairs on the work tables. We’ll use them to assemble batches of 30 each of the various chemical bags that go into the kits. They’ll replace the cardboard boxes we had been using. The other 30 stay upstairs, where we’ll use them to assemble batches of 30 of the small parts bags for the kits. The nice thing about these bins is that they’re stackable when not in use, which cardboard boxes are not. That means we can get them out, set up an array of 30 of them, build 30 (or 60 or 90) small parts bags, and then stack the bins out of the way.
Suggestion: Print a unique bar code for each storage bin. Ideally, print both the text and the bar code on the same label so you can be sure they stay in synch. It probably isn’t a problem with only 30 bins upstairs and 30 downstairs, but as your variety and quantity of kits grows and you get more identical containers, you’ll have trouble finding the one stinking bin with the 15ml bottles of toe fungus. With the bar codes, you can use a phone or a dedicated scanner to check the shelves of boxes and beep when it finds the right one.
Failing that, use differently, and brightly, colored labels for different categories of bins. If you know you’re looking for a bin with a yellow label, you’ll be able to ignore most of the bins without having to think about what’s written, and you’ll be less likely to skip over the one you want because you misread it.
Oh, these 60 bins are just for assembling groups of stuff like regulated chemicals, unregulated chemicals, small parts bags, and so on.
Inventory bins are a different story. I have 200 to 300 of those. They’re shelved alphabetically, and it never takes me more than a few seconds to locate the one I need.
Fotty-two here today in Retroville so fah; weather liars claim we will hit the fifties lay-tuh. Mostly sunny and windy, Mahch coming in like a lion, I guess. Whether it will go out like a lamb is anyone’s guess.
I had gone on Fairpoint’s site last night to report our landline phone problem, and expected nothing much, maybe a standard-issue email reply. Lo and behold, a van was here this morning at 09:00 checking the line. Which they say is fine. So something else is screwy; we have a dial tone and can receive calls on it, but can’t call out anywhere. Could it be the damn phone itself? Another electronics item that Mrs. OFD picked up on the cheap, again, per SOP.
The phone guys I have had to interface with, have always told me that Panasonic was tops. They actually hated Panasonic, because they use a lot of work-arounds, which by-passed the tech standards they were supposed to use, but they said Panasonic always implemented the standards properly. When I was in Boston, the company paid for a direct line for me, separate from our regular phone. Problem was that after a few weeks, I realized that I needed the phone available all over the house, not just at my desk. So I installed Panasonic 2-line phones everywhere there was a phone. Big problem: it would not put my direct line on hold at all. Turns out they had multiplexed the second line onto the first, so they would not have to install another cable to the outside pole, but that method does not present the phone with the proper voltages, which have to be re-created at every phone. The multiplexing was not SOP, but they got away with it in most cases. They had to string another wire in my situation, because I was entitled—by their policy—to have that hold button work. When they saw it was a Panasonic phone, they instantly resigned themselves to stringing the separate wire, proclaiming the problem was not the phone, without even checking it.
Panasonic is also superior in our video work. Our Sony products have to be serviced at least 3 times more often than the Panasonic. Last month, my camera was sent in for the first time in 12 years for work on the tape transport mechanism. The Sony Hi-8 unit we use for back-up recordings, gets sent in about every 4 or 5 months for complete overhaul of the transport mechanism.
Sorry I am not quicker in responding these days. I am often gone for the bulk of the day and touch base with the Internet only in early morning or late at night. At least that schedule is keeping me off the streets—and off the Internet.
I’m not sure what [Reagan] policies you are referring to. That said, productivity from 2005 to 2012 went up 9.3%. In the same time, total compensation went up 17.5%. I’m having trouble finding all the BLS data from before 2005.
I am referring to all policies. What Reagan instituted was not “trickle down” but trickle up. Just take a look back at what happened: spending and debt rose dramatically; government size began growing almost exponentially (that is only a slight exaggeration); inflation really took off; and the trend of the rich getting richer, while the middle-class did not keep up with the pace of gains by the rich became clearly established.
Total compensation does not tell the story, because the distribution of those gains needs to be examined. Since Reagan, most productivity gains have gone to the richest 1%. That is how they have been amassing more riches at the ‘expense’ of the middle-class and poor, who are just not gaining from the economic successes of the US.
My info comes in large part, from Dean Baker’s daily blog at
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
Both Baker and Paul Krugman at the NYTimes have addressed the productivity vs. wage issue regularly during the last several years—particularly leading up to the election. Same for the growing separation between rich vs. middle-class situation. I don’t keep their articles or save links to their sources (that would take time I just do not have), but both tell exactly where they get their info. Often it comes from places like the CBO, IMF, CIA, OECD, World Bank, Congressional Record, and sometimes private economic organizations and university economics departments that commission studies.
Baker recently noted that from the inception of the minimum wage in 1938 until 1969, the minimum was tied to productivity increases. If that tie had continued to today, the minimum wage would be $16.50/hr. Now you can either look at the current price of $7.25/hr and exclaim what a bargain that is for employers and therefore it must be for all of us because goods will be cheaper, or you can look at it as an indicator of how far behind the poorest 99% have gotten as we speed into the future.
It is not easy to find data that is useful regarding income. If one looks at average income figures, that ordinarily is derived from IRS data. Such figures only include those who earned and reported income. If you look at charts of average income, the dip through the Great Depression does not look all that bad—roughly a fall from $15,000 to $10,000, which is a one-third drop. But yet, that ignores the great masses of people who were unemployed (or suffered a 100% drop in income through loss of their jobs) and thus says nothing about how the country fared across ALL people—earners, jobless, and those who never intended to work.
Since Reagan, top executive compensation has far outstripped the gains by the middle-class, who—like minimum wage earners—have not kept up with productivity growth. If minimum wage earners need to double their income just to keep even with productivity growth, then middle-class earners are probably not far behind in needing a near doubling of their wages to keep up. The richest 1%, on the other hand, have incomes that are outstripping productivity gains by over 4 times, as noted in the following:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts
Then there is this:
http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2009/05/12/how-much-do-you-earn-2000/
The figures are from 2000, but total average wage gains since then have been less than 10%, and most of that 10% has gone to the richest 1%, so we are not talking about figures that have increased much for the poorest 99%. By far, the most common household income (mode) is about $17,000. 60% of HOUSEHOLDS—not individuals—make less than about $51,000/yr. The average number of wage-earners per household is 2, although higher income households have more, and lower income households have fewer, than the average. So, as you can see, a very large segment of the population makes less than about $25,000/yr per person.
I can personally attest that these figures are not good compared to the rest of the world, which the Mother Jones page points out. I took a devastating pay cut to return to the US. My first year back I earned less than 1/10th of what I was earning in Berlin. My best year since then has only been half as good as an average year in Berlin. I am used to telling folks that I fared far better as an immigrant in Germany than I do as a citizen in the US. And of course, there are NO benefits here in the US for me, whereas you can see in the Mother Jones charts the kinds of things foreigners get: paid maternity leave, 6 weeks vacation per year, a LOT better health care which is much, much cheaper. But by-and-large, Americans have no clue what is really going on, and think we are really doing great. That is very true, but only if you are in the top 1%.
Talked to Mrs. OFD in Kalifornia earlier tonight and even she admitted we oughta get a new phone now for the landline; thing’s been dropped and had stuff spilled on it (yeah, it’s in the kitchen) so it must be about shot by now.
Off to Staples or Radio Shack tomorrow after work…
Hi Bob,
Sterilite is two towns north of us in Townsend, MA. About 5 years back they had a $20 million library and senior center built and and donated it to the town; good citizenship and philanthropy isn’t dead…
Cheers,
Rod