Know it all soaper…Business Econ 101…

Know it all soaper…Know where to get it

 

As we addressed last week, there’s a lot of important minutia in our lives. Take that sink, or wash tank that needs to be charged to a specific concentration. There we need to multiply the inches of its’ width, times the depth and length to determine its displacement in inches …  Then divide that total by 231 to determine the gallons of water, followed by multiplying that value times the 8.33 pounds that a gallon weighs and that weight by the desired percent concentration to (finally) arrive at the necessary detergent charge.

 

And occasionally there’s the matter of remembering that there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot and that foot holds right at 7.5 gallons of water, weighing 62.5 pounds. And if we have to do the metric thing, we can convert that gallon to liters by dividing it by 1.065, or those pounds to kilograms by remembering that a kilogram equals 2.2 pounds. Then we get to the pH scale and have to remember that every number is ten times stronger than the former one.

 

Of course, there are the handy memes like, “A pint’s a pound the world around” (a pint of most liquids will indeed weigh just about a pound). And we can’t forget that each pound of increased atmospheric pressure raises the boiling point of water two degrees F.

 

And of course, there’s the conversion of Fahrenheit to Centigrade – which is probably best left to that app you can fetch off the internet. In fact, the good news is that we can get a bunch of these from there these days, making it a bit easier to appear to be a real know it all!

Business Econ 101…Playing both sides

Unemployment’s at a seventeen-year low, housing prices are up, 401K’s are looking darn good, most businesses are thriving, and folks are feeling pretty happy about their paychecks. So, everything is perfect, and we shouldn’t have a care in the world. Right?

 

Well, not so fast. The truth is things are very good just now, but these are also the times to be a bit wary because in the end there will be a shift in the other direction. And while we can’t know when that might be, we can be sure that it will come.

 

So, what are we doing to prepare? Well, for starters, we need to stay vigilant on collections – especially on those new start-up accounts. They will be the first victims of any slump and those marginal operators who are just getting by will be close behind.

 

In the meantime, we also need to make hay while the sun shines. That means prudent investment in our businesses for more growth in the immediate future and aggressively pursuing new business opportunities – as well as people who can help us gain maximum advantage of the current situation.

 

Hey, living (and prospering) in a volatile economy is a tough balancing act, but nobody said it was easy!