Paul Holstein's Blog

I went to the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway yesterday.  By the looks of it, many people are concerned about Warren Buffet's health.  Unfortunately, given Mr. Buffets comments about health, it looks as if neither he nor Charlie Munger will maximize their potential lifespans.

Mr. Buffet indicated that he works out 3 times a day.  That's good for him and excellent advice for all of us.  He said he doesn't like working out, but feels as if it is a good idea.

On the nutrition side, he makes no efforts to eat healthy.  He recommended everyone eat See's candy, Wrigley's Gum and Coke products.  Of course he was kidding a little bit, but then his partner, Charlie Munger added to this.  Charlie indicated that neither him nor Warren Buffet make any efforts to watch what they eat.  Charlie, 84 years old, thinks everything has worked out great for him.

Wrong, both men are overweight and Charlie is probably obese.  This puts both of them at increased risks for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and other health problems.  Now, you may be saying the man is 84 years old, give him a break.  But I believe either of them could live past 100 years old if they made some additional efforts.

Later, in the meeting, Mr. Buffet missed a key opportunity to educate the world.  A seven year old boy asked him what advice he'd give to someone his age.  Mr. Buffet told him to take care of his mind and body.  He elaborated on how to read and constantly keep learning.  He also made an analogy about maintaining your car.  Too bad, Mr. Buffet just doesn't get it.  This is probably because Omaha is a Nutritional Wasteland, but it's just too bad, he missed such an important opportunity to educate the world.

I hope he is healthy enough to make next years meeting.  Hopefully, by then, he'll get the message.

Yesterday, I attended the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway.  BH is headed by the richest man in the world, Warren Buffet and one of the other richest men in the world, vice chairman, Charlie Munger.  The annual meeting is quite a spectacle.  There were over 31,000 people in attendance at the Quest Center in Omaha, Nebraska.  Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and former richest man in the world, is a member of the board of directors and was in attendance at the meeting.

My impression of Warren is very favorable.  He is 77 years old and extremely likable.  The meeting started with a company movie featuring all the company brands.  It was followed by a Q&A session with Warren Buffet.  During the Q&A, it was easy to get a feel from what kind of person Mr. Buffet is.  His answers were always insightful and thoughtful even when the questions from the audience were in poor taste or designed to embarrass him.

Two examples stood out.  First, a group of native American Indians were upset about a dam on the Klamath river.  They were very persistent in their beliefs that the dam must be removed and blamed BH for excessive pollution and toxins in the lake.  The Indians hung banners inside the arena and staged several rude protests during the event.  They managed to ask about four questions related to the dam and made long winded speeches every time.  Despite this, Warren treated them with respect and answered all their questions as best he could.

The second example was when a fundamentalist right wing religious fanatic asked Warren Buffet if he accepted Jesus Christ as his lord and saviour.  Despite the inappropriateness of the question, Warren answered that he was an agnostic.  He simply doesn't know who created life on earth and doesn't have an opinion as to which religion, if any is correct.

I've been in Omaha, Nebraska now for three days.  After having eight meals here, I must declare this place to be a nutritional wasteland.  As some of you know, I've been seeing a nutritionalist for the past few months now.  As a result, I've developed a new sensibility about proper nutrition.  For example, I've learned to eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts and less meat. 

Unfortunately, I have found that to be virtually impossible here in Omaha. For the past three days, I've been a guest of EO Nebraska and they have planned our meals.  The choices here have been meat, meat, or more meat.  Every single meal consists mostly of meat and starches.  Granted, I happen to love meat and starches, however, this is not the way I wish to live anymore.  Luckily, I've managed to find ways around this.

On Friday evening, we had dinner at a catered event.  They featured meats from four different countries, chicken from India, Schnitzel from Germany, burgers and ribs from the US and meat from Australia.  After much searching, I found some lentils at the Mexican station and I also found a tray of raw vegetables in the middle of the American station.  The vegetables were completely untouched and ignored by the other guests --  probably because it was hidden behind all the meat.  Nonetheless, I felt compelled to load up.  So I ate as much broccoli, cauliflower, celery, carrots and cucumbers I could manage and I had a meat free evening.

The next evening, we attended another catered affair that featured... you guessed it, more meat.  This time, I convinced some of my fellow guests to duck out and get a proper dinner.  So we took a taxi downtown and found a French restaurant.  I ordered minestrone soup (basically veggies and pasta) and a dinner salad.

Therefore, I managed to keep to my desired meal plan of only having meat for one meal a day.  It wasn't easy, but I did it.

The foods we eat are constantly changing, and this may not necessarily be such a great thing.  First of all, keep in mind that humans have been modifying foods for about 10,000 years.  No kidding.  I read an article in Wikipedia that says farmers have been cross pollinating plants and selectively breeding them for some time.  They've done this for:

1. Increased quality and yield of the crop
2. Increased tolerance of environmental pressures (salinity, extreme temperature, drought)
3. Resistance to viruses, fungi and bacteria
4. Increased tolerance to insect pests
5. Increased tolerance of herbicides

 But apparently, they haven't done this to increase nutrition.  A study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2004, entitled Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999, compared nutritional analysis of vegetables done in 1950 and in 1999, and found substantial decreases in six of 13 nutrients measured, including 6% of protein and 38% of riboflavin. Reductions in calcium, phosphorus, iron and ascorbic acid were also found. The study, conducted at the Biochemical Institute, University of Texas at Austin, concluded in summary: "We suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content.^[1]"

So basically, our farmers appear to be more focused on running profitable businesses than they are in making us healthy.  This should come as no surprise as most farms are, in fact, profit seeking ventures and not public services.  So it's up to us to try and reverse this trend.  That means we need to purchase healthier foods at the grocery store.  Once the farmers see that there is no money in producing fatty nutrient deficient foods, they'll immediately start producing healthier fare.  Ha, Ha, you innocent child.

The odds of the American public getting a clue about nutrition is virtually nil.  I was watching the academy awards tonight and saw a commercial for fried chicken that claimed to be healthy because it had no preservatives or trans-fat.  You've got to be kidding me.  They didn't mention saturated fat or cholesterol at all.  Unfortunately, most Americans get the majority of their nutritional information from TV commercials and product packages.  Anything with a health claim must be good, right?

Wake up and smell the GMO modified coffee.  Most farmers are not looking out for your best interests.

I recently read an article in Consumer Reports about the new flex fuel vehicle, the Chevrolet Tahoe FFV.  This new vehicle burns either regular fuel or E85 fuel.  E85 is 85% regular fuel and 15% Ethanol.  To the layman, this sounds like a good thing.  15% Ethanol sounds as if it would reduce our dependancy on foreign oil by 15%.  Who wouldn't be for that?  But wait, there's a catch.

Consumer reports tested the fuel efficiency of this vehicle running both fuels and found a 27% decrease in fuel economy when running on E85.  It went from 14 mpg to 10 mpg.  So you could drive 140 miles on regular fuel compared to 100 miles for E85 on 10 gallons of fuel.  Let me put this another way.

Let's say you had to visit your grandmother who lives 200 miles away.  If you used regular fuel, it would consume 14.3 gallons of regular fuel.  If you used E85 on the way back, it would consume 20 gallons of fuel for the same trip.  Because E85 is 85% gas and 15% Ethanol, it means you would burn 17 gallons of regular fuel plus the 3 gallons of Ethanol.

In other words, you would burn more regular fuel if you used the E85 plus burn polluting ethanol as well.  This means if everyone switches to E85, we'll have to import more foreign oil plus pay farmers to grow useless ethanol.  BTW, ethanol is more corrosive on your engine as well so your car won't last as long.  You might as well mix your fuel with water.

Who wants this?  The big oil companies are delighted by this because they sell more oil.  The farmers are happy because they sell their corn plus the corn prices rise with higher demand.  Finally, the car dealers are happy because they sell more cars and trucks with the reduced life and the politicians are happy because they get reelected with the help of the lobbyists and the hoodwinked public who think they are helping the environment.

What a scam.  When will we wake up and take charge of our futures?  The only sustainable sources of power are solar, wind, tides and currents.   The more time we waste  on other forms of energy, the longer it will take us to get to sustainable power.

Why do Internet Retailers ask us for our phone numbers when they have no intention of calling?  A couple weeks ago, I was running out of toothpaste so I went to Luckyvitamin.com to reorder.  At this point, most of you are thinking.  Why the heck is this guy ordering toothpaste off the internet rather than simply waltzing into the nearest grocery or convenience store and purchasing it there?  Well, the reason is that I'm a complicated person.  I'm allergic to Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) and every time I brush my teeth with regular toothpaste, I get mouth sores.  Hence the need for SLS free toothpaste.

Now, I've ordered from Lucky Vitamin two times before with no problem so I figured I'd have no problem this time.  Wrong.  About 10 days after placing my order, I decided to call them to get a status.  After waiting on hold for 30 minutes just to speak to someone, I finally got a rep to tell me that they were out of stock on this particular brand of toothpaste and that they decided to cancel my order.  No apology, no suggestion for an alternative SLS free product, nothing.  Simply, too bad for me.

I find this amazing.  Why wouldn't they call me to ask me if I wanted to wait longer until it is in stock again or even switch me to an alternative.  No, not Luckyvitamin.com.  They can't be bothered with all that.  It's far easier to simply cancel the order and not bother wasting time with the customer.  Who cares if they run out of toothpaste?  Who cares if they never purchase from the store again?  And who cares if they write a blog entry about what a crappy company they are?

A couple of days after I submitted web request for more info on the order, I got an e-mail informing me that they canceled the order and sent me an e-mail.  However, I am diligent about checking my e-mail and can assure you that no e-mail was received. 

So the lesson of the day is this.  If you care about good customer service, don't order from LuckyVitamin.com

It's been just over one year now that Windows Vista was launched.  So where do we stand?  I just checked the stats for CableOrganizer.com and noticed that Vista accounts for only 9.5% of our visitors. 

That's terrible.  Think about this.  Almost all new computers have Vista on them.  This would indicate that either people are only changing out their computers once every 10 years or they are still adding Windows XP to those new computers.  What about upgrades?  If Vista was popular, I would have expected most XP users to upgrade and a lot of folks to buy new computers with the operating system already on it.  One thing is for sure, Vista is not performing the way Microsoft hoped it would.

I was watching a special on Discovery Health last night about obesity in America.  It was fascinating.  One of the points in the special was that humans are predisposed to accumulate fat.  This was a great survival mechanism developed 40,000 years ago to help our ancestors get through famines.  When food is scarce, it's a great benefit to be able to put on fat.  Therefore, those able to store fat easily had more children than those who could not.  Blame your ancestors.

However, there were not a lot of fat cavemen running around either.  Just because we are predisposed to gaining weight, does not mean that we will gain weight.  In fact, the only way we actually gain weight is if we eat more calories than we consume.  In other words, you still must pull the trigger.  Unfortunately, that's all too easy these days.  The foods we eat today are at least 3 - 4 times as energy rich in fat and sugars than they were thousands of years ago.  So by the time you've consumed enough volume to expand your stomach to signal you to stop eating, you've probably already consumed more calories than you should have.  Our bodies have not yet evolved to signal us to stop eating after a smaller volume of food has been consumed.  Nor do I think it will evolve within our lifetimes.  So get used to eating less, even if you aren't full yet.

One way around this problem is to try and eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can.  These foods are less energy rich and will fill your stomach before you've had too many calories.  But beware.  Even today's fruits and vegetables are higher in sugar and calories than they were 10,000 years ago.  Thank modern breeding methods and modified crops for that.  To add insult to injury, we don't do half the exercise we used to do either.  It's the perfect storm.  So if you want to stay in good health, your going to have to eat far less, exercise regularly and you're probably going to be hungry a lot.  Fun, Fun.

Do you need a business plan to start a business?  A lot of people say yes, but when you consider all the facts, it's not an obvious decision.  Here's why?

First of all, I've never seen any evidence that businesses started with a business plan are any more successful than businesses started or operated without one.  If there is research on this, I'd love to see it.

Business plans are often compared to road maps -- a guide to help you get from here to there.  I've often heard the analogy that you wouldn't drive from Florida to Chicago without a road map.  So you shouldn't operate your business without a written plan either.  But this analogy is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. 

I live in Fort Lauderdale and often drive hundreds of miles to Disney World or Universal Studios in Orlando.  Despite the great distance, I virtually always drive there without the use of a road map.  I've driven there many times without getting lost.  How is this possible?  Because I already know the road.  I know what time to leave to avoid traffic, I know where the rest stops are, and I even know where to slow down for the speed traps.  All without a road map.  Experience has taught me these things.  Frankly, the road map is already in my head.

I've also heard that without a written plan, you won't know if you have met your goals.  This is hogwash.  I don't think most business people need a plan to tell them they are succeeding or failing.  You can simply look at your growth, profit / loss, balance sheet and pipeline to see if you are heading in the right direction.  Besides, a written plan won't tell you how to fix the business if something goes wrong anyway.

But a business plan is even worse than a road map.  You can't go out and buy one at your local gas station.  You actually have to create the plan yourself without much help.  Imagine if you had never been to Chicago and didn't already have a map.  Would you really be expected to create a map from scratch yourself?  How good would that map be?  Frankly, I've seen dozens of business plans and they all look suspect to me.  They are basically guesses as to the future of a company and the market.

The other problem I have with business plans is that they don't address contingencies very well.  To continue with the map analogy, you may have planned your trip to Chicago with the utmost care factoring in each gas station and hotel you'd visit along the way.  But the odds are that your trip will not go as planned.  If you are pulling into the gas station and notice that the price is $.20 cheaper across the street are you going to continue along the same plan?  Of course not.  That's how life is.  In business, you shouldn't follow a strict plan, you need to seek and exploit opportunities.

The time you spent preparing a business plan would better be served by taking care of your customers and finding better ways to provide them value. 

The only time I recommend a formal business plan is if you must prepare one to obtain outside financing.  Then it is simply a cost of doing business and should not be taken too seriously for any other purpose.