Then extract how much of that is done during work hours (mostly because that’s when customer service is available).

Then calculate how much money this wasted work time cost the economy.

I think I’ll write to Steven Dubner / Freakonomics Radio and suggest an episode just on that.

The customer no-service is getting worst. Only few companies (Chewy is a good example, McMaster-Carr is another) that are the exception, with customer service that really shine. I believe that over time these companies are the ones that will survive.

My analysis is that it all started with COOs and efficiency consultants that were pushing to optimize customer service cost, without understanding customer service, and/or being shortsighted to how it affects the people they are suppose to serve.

They took the tired customer service approach (first level, second level, developers) which worked great when done right, and butchered it. They figured that since first level cost per hour is so much lower, they should shield the other levels from getting any requests no matter what.

The goal of first level supper became to get rid of the problem, not to solve the problem.

And therein lies the problem behind it all. They think it’s more economical to get rid of the problem with low cost labor, than to try and solve the problem. They assume that they will exhaust the customers which will either give up and live with the problem, or will find a way to solve it themselves.

They are missing a major crucial issues.

Frustration and customer loyalty.

With government services, like the IRS or DMV, customer loyalty is not an issue, but with commercial companies, these two issues are a huge issues. If an alternative exists to get a better service, even if the cost is (reasonably) higher, most people will eventually choose the better service. In the long run it will cost them less, not just in money but also in time, and frustration. People choose Chewy, or McMaster because they get things fast, if something is wrong they can contact them and get fast and good answers, and they do not try to get rid of you. And what an agent tells you will happen, is actually what does happen!!! Amazing.

What is funny to me that we now are happy not with people and companies doing exceptionally good job, but from them just doing their job – we tend to forget that “the customer is always right) used to be the norm, now we’re so used to such a low level of everything, that when we see something reasonably good we are amazed.

I can go on for a few pages, but I have work to do… Hey, Dubner, I’ll write to you.

The post Customer No-Service & Wasted Time and Money appeared first on Opine Away.

And that’s all I have to say today.

The post Incompetence is the new pandemic appeared first on Opine Away.

So here’s an option that kills CO2 birds with one stone. Well maybe a few stones, but also maybe more than two birds.

1. Start with nuclear power plants. We need a lot of them.
2. Use the clean cheaper energy to produce and increase production of NH3 (ammonia).
3. Use NH3 to fuel current cars.

Yes, there are issues with everything, here are a few, and some answers to those issues.

1. “Nuclear power plants are risky.” Not really anymore. France’s energy is over 70% nuclear. They export energy. They plan to build six to fourteen additional reactors. In the US, nuclear power plants where pretty much stopped because of public opinion and Hollywood disaster movies. Wind and sun can not supply the amount of energy we need. Anything else (other than geothermic energy like in Iceland, which is not feasible, at least for now, in the US – other than maybe in Yellowstone and Hawaii). It also takes time to build nuclear power plants – so it needs an Operation Warp Speed like effort to cut time while maintaining safety. This can power everything.
2. NH3 production, used today mainly as agriculture fertilizer and as a refrigerant, is responsible for about 1% of global energy consumption which is huge, and by that is a huge CO2 emission contributor. Even just switching it to use clean nuclear produced electricity will reduce emission way more than any other effort. The process itself of producing NH3 is environmentally friendly.
3. Existing cars can use 10% of NH3 mixed with 90% gasoline with no modification to the car. With a conversion that will cost few thousand dollars (probably can be reduces to a couple of thousand) the mix can be 90% NH3. There can be incentives and tax breaks, and it’s way cheaper than any electric car – and the CO2 balance is better than electric cars, especially when you don’t have to manufacture new cars to replace existing ones. There is a minor exhaust issues of NOx, but it can be resolved relatively easily (gasoline produces it too), and then we get mostly water and nitrogen, clean and safe. New car design can use engines that are designed specifically for NH3.

There is already a network of NH3 distribution and filling stations, and these can be expended and incorporated into existing gas stations. Way easier than upgrading the electric grid and placing charging stations everywhere, and filling up the tank takes a fraction of the time compared to charging the batteries on an EV.

I know there is more to solve and discuss here, but there are a lot of studies already, NH3 engines were built over a hundred years ago, and NH3 production and distribution is proven and efficient through a hundred years of experience

Sounds to me like a much faster and cleaner solution than electric cars and legacy power plants. Until this is put into motion – we need energy to survive, and currently fusil fuels are the only option, so we better produce them here, and a lot of them, so we can afford to build green solutions. Without low cost energy, we won’t be able to switch to green energy.

The post Energy Oversimplified appeared first on Opine Away.

Neither was ever cheap, and the user interface and ease of use, well, gently put, left a lot to be desired. There were also technical issues, and were not always trivial to solve or get a solution for (and I’m pretty damn technical).

But, they were pretty much the de facto standard, and if you want overall for connections with other banks etc. to work, they were the gold standard, even if it was fool’s gold.

It was already annoying that they forced you to upgrade, making online sync/bill pay with banks stop after the software version was 2-3 years old. Annoying, but for about $200 cost for a good version with many features, that could be used for unlimited companies, and good for about three years, reasonable.

This year they discontinued the desktop version altogether. You can’t get a desktop version, the desktop version stops working with banks which renders it useless, and the only option they sell is an subscription based online version.

OK, you might say, if it works, that’s where the world is heading, SAAS is being done for many years now. I’d agree. In principal.

Assuming the online version is the best thing since sliced bread (giving them the benefit of the doubt), I wanted to switch and looked online – information was so partial and confusing that I opened a chat. First part seemed to be automated, fine, then I got to chat with a person (not pronounces can be used safely anymore, so assuming it was someone considering themselves (that was a trap right here) to be human, I’ll refer to it (ouch) as a person). That person was all “awesome” and “great” and “gotcha” and “I’ll find the best discount for you”. So, after half an hour of interrogating me of what I needed, which was really the very minimum, their cheapest and most basic version will do more than I need, that person gave me a price, a monthly subscription, for their best discount ever for my first year! Woohoo! How much you ask? Comes out to be $600/year for that super duper discounted first year, and $1,200/year after that.

Let do a quick calculation, ever with my fabulous discount, to compare it with the desktop version I’ve been using for over two decades. For three years my cost of the online version will be $600+$1,200+$1,200 i.e. Total for three years $3,000 before tax. The last desktop version I purchased on May 13 2019 was $166.73 before tax, had way more features, unlimited companies, and lasted 3 years before they stopped my access to online banking which renders it useless.

So, $3,000 compared to $166.73 for a lesser product. That’s 18 times more expensive. You say, sure, adjust for inflation. Ha, OK, let’s, inflation for the last 3 years, cumulative, was 13% (mostly this year, LGB) so $166.73 is $188.40. Happy? That’s 16 times more. And since inflation is now over 8% annually and rising, I’m sure subscription prices will go up too, and the actual factor will will be more like 20 times more.

So, I’m dropping intuit altogether and will find alternatives. Because Intuit sucks.

SIDE NOTES: There are many other things to not like about Quickbooks and Quicken – it is very unintuitive, they intentionally limit abilities like import and export, customer service is really bad, undoing something is really difficult, etc. etc. … People still use them (accountants especially) as they gained market share at the very beginning and held on to it by locking you into using them – like a gym that is very easy to sign up to, but nearly impossible to cancel your membership. Yep, they suck.

 All trademarks and images are the property of their respective owners.

The post Intuit Sucks appeared first on Opine Away.

I’m always for simplifying things, it makes it easier to grasp.

As I see it, from experience, when complicating an explanation, it’s usually to mask something, either facts or the lack of knowledge of the person explaining. Hamana-hamana-hamana.

So, as to politics, when trying to judge performance, I oversimplify. How did it affect or affect me now.

Here’s what affected me most during the last 3 administrations.

During Obama, two major things affected me most.
1. Obamacare regulations caused my health insurance provider to shut down and price gone crazy up, and kept going up while services you got for it were getting worse.
2. Obama promised that money will be available for small companies. The opposite happened, small companies couldn’t get a lone unless they had cash reserves, which of course means they don’t need a loan.
3. Obama was pretty terrible to Israel, and it indirectly affected me I have family in Israel.
During Obama gas prices were low at one point (mid of second term) but climbed back up to almost the highest levels at the end of his term.

During Trump:
1. Gas prices overall kept dropping and dropping , substantially.
2. Health insurance cost didn’t go down, but it hardly went up.
3. His support of Israel helped Israel and was a psychological relief that he showed strength that is so important to keep enemies of Israel and the rest of the western world at bay.
4. Amazingly fast Vaccine development saved lives and gave hope for a better day.
5. Stimulus checks helped with the pandemic situation, though sometimes too much (discouraged return to work).
6. Division over the president integrity became huge, to a point people didn’t admit they support Trump to avoid shit-show conflicts.

During Biden’s (first year and change as of now):
1. Gas prices more than doubled.
2. Mask and vaccine mandates pretty much killed my main income.
3. Inflation translates to a huge financial burden.
4. Store shelves are literally empty.
5. Local safety became a concern. I’m planning to get a gun just in case.
6. Israel and the world is threatened more than ever by everyone – Iran, China, Russia, which is highly unnerving.

As I said, oversimplifying. sure, and things that affect personally are definitely more short term. But that’s what I feel and how it affected me directly. Sure there are other things I see as huge problems, like the southern border situation (I’m sure in some of the border towns will list their huge concerns), pushing green energy that is insufficient to support us, while shutting down traditional energy production without solutions to replace it. I also mistrust the government now more than ever, and unfortunately that includes establishments that were pretty much considered bulletproof before like the FBI. Elections are questionable, media, traditional and online, is not to be trusted, corruptions and coverups, as Dr. House said, everybody lies.

So that’s it. If you have anything to add, please do.

The post Simplifying Politics appeared first on Opine Away.

The statement by FBI special agent Matthew DeSarno following this weekend’s hostage-taking situation in Texas that the incident “was not specifically related to the Jewish community” was proved to be true! Fakin’News exclusive!

We gathered information from witnesses, and carefully listened to the recordings form the incident. Here is what we found:

Malik Faisal Akram, the terrorist killed after taking hostages in a synagogue in Colleyville, TX, was sure he was walking into a Burger King, our sources confirm. He demanded food, and asked for a burger with extra bacon. Here is the full conversation in that exchange:

Malik: And I DEMAND a burger with EXTRA bacon!!!
FBI: You can only get plain pizza.
Malik: What the hell?
FBI: It has to be kosher.
Malik, to Rabbi Charlie: WTF, you guys are Jewish???!!!!

And there you have it. Total coincidence. All he really wanted that day was some bacon on his burger.

The post The FBI was right! Texas Synagogue Attack Was NOT an Anti-Semitic act!!! appeared first on Opine Away.

The post BIDEN THE UNIFIER appeared first on Opine Away.

Get in on the action! Living in LA? Just visiting? Use our maps to find the best locations and schedule to do a little SmashN’Grab!

We have special rates for the holidays! Visit www.LA-Loot-Sched.defund for LA maps, and www.Loot-USA.defund for a list of other great Equal Distribution location all over the US!

*Coming soon, global maps for your global vacations!

The post LA Star Maps are out, Equal Distribution Maps are in! appeared first on Opine Away.

They are making it an official annual event! The Friday before Thanksgiving will now be called Smash & Grab Friday. There’s nothing like free crap to show the holidays spirit.

A source in the well established CCA (Criminal Consumer Association) just leaked that as part of Criminal Prime the Friday will be extended and become Smash & Grab Friday Week, to give enough time and opportunities to Lowlifes across the nation to take advantage of it. You can sign up to Criminal Prime on the CCA website where you can purchase a weekly extortion subscription for the service.

In a statement to Fakin’News JJ “Hotstepper” Jones, an LLM (Lowlives Matter) official, stated “Yep, if we can get in who’s gonna stop us? And if we’re already there, we can’t leave empty handed, after all it’s the holidays and shit”.

The post Shop For FREE! Smash & Grab Friday appeared first on Opine Away.

Our dependency on China is huge. As you read this you are probably touching, seeing and hearing dozens of items that are manufactured in China or have parts in them that are. Hypothetically speaking, if we stopped getting parts and products from China, there will be shortage in most everything. Of course that would also hurt China as they relay on the income from the US, though an authoritarian dictatorship has more “flexibility” in handling shortages, but that’s a different discussion.

But China, and you see this with everything they do, do not declare to us what they are and will do, so to squeeze us all they have to do is gradually raise prices, the Chinese government can do that by raising taxes locally, and by that causing manufacturers to raise prices, – and it seems they already do just that. You can claim that the market will adjust, if prices are too high new solutions will be found. Yes and no. Manufacturing infrastructure and know-how takes time and investment, and prices will have to get over a certain threshold in order for this to even trigger the motivation to do that. But that’s only part of the problem.

The foundation for manufacturing anything is energy. Not only the US is not increasing energy supply capabilities, under the Biden administration energy capabilities seems to be shrinking and energy price is increasing by the second. Green energy as currently viewed is a pipe dream, it can be done in parallel but can’t replace other sources fast enough, and probably will never catch up with demand. China on the other hand, is building power plants, traditional and nuclear. The US is not really investing in nuclear energy (very small budget). Nuclear energy is not defined as but actually is the most scalable green energy solution. Without energy, we can’t have manufacturing. I wrote about energy here and here.

So what should be done?

Well, first, energy infrastructure investment must be huge. Until we have A LOT of nuclear powerplants, we need to use gas and oil, otherwise everything will slow down. That can be achieved by the government directly investing in building nuclear powerplants, but probably even better would be to give incentives to private investors to do it – Elon Musk is the first that comes to mind, as he can benefit across the board from low electricity prices (manufacturing and selling more EVs), but many others can as well, even current oil companies, as we used to say, if anyone is going to cannibalize out business, it better be us. Let’s for a second think that energy in this country was free. We pay a flat fee as part of our taxes, and nuclear energy is scaled up to a level that we can export energy (ignore the how) and make it virtually free in the US. This has impact on everything – from prices to innovation to every item you can think of. But even we go half way, decrease energy cost by 50%, it is already a huge enabler for everything.

Second, we need to get manufacturing to the US. Since labor in the US is expensive and will never be a bowl of rice a day, we need to invest in automation. Most manufacturing can be automated with minimize labor. The reason it is not done as much as we need in the US, is that we had China as a cheap alternative, it started just because of cheap labor, lack of regulation and them cutting coroners (not just with quality of the products, but you can be sure the material used and the specifications of products are not what they claim – I know this from first hand experience manufacturing in China). But Chinese factories started gaining automation and manufacturing knowhow that we are now lacking in the US. Again, the government should give huge incentives for that, injecting money specifically to manufacturing automation and infrastructure. And don’t let anyone say automation will kill jobs – currently all these jobs are in China and we pay for them dearly.

There is an issue of raw materials. but if the US gets energy and manufacturing right, agreements can be made where needed, giving preferred tariffs on US made products to countries that supply us with raw materials we need. I’m sure there are other ways to secure raw materials, and find alternatives to anything that is in shortage.

Yes, I’m sure I’m oversimplifying things, but I think that the concepts are solid. This should be treated as a war. It is a war. China will crush the US if they could, just because they can. The US became spoiled and by that vulnerable. That’s how empires collapse. We don’t want that. We need to set energy and manufacturing as a mission, incentivize innovation and define a very clear goal of not only reducing offshore manufacturing and import, but becoming again energy independent and becoming an exported of manufactured goods and not an importer. It might even unite Americans and push the political BS aside. My two (and a half) cents.

The post Thoughts about China appeared first on Opine Away.