What is the world coming to?  Is the recession taking that big a toll on the gum industry that they can’t send a coupon for a free pack of gum to a customer that was truly disgusted by one of their products?  I took the time to write and sent back the entire package of gum (minus two pieces for A-Yo and I), and the best they can do is a letter from a customer service representative?  Seriously.  They are the number one gum-seller in the world with annual revenue of $5.4 billion and 2007 profits of $2.3 billion and they can’t give me a free pack of gum in a flavor that I can stomach?

To be fair, I did not ask for a free coupon – partly because I did not want to seem like I was only writing to get something for free rather than truly complaining, and also I was curious to how they would rectify the situation without my asking for specific recourse.  Well, I guess we know the answer to that now.  NUTS TO YOU WM. WRIGLEY JR. COMPANY, SUBSIDIARY OF CANDY CONGLOMERATE MARS, INC!!!

Their letter is below the jump:

Dear Yulzopolis,

Thank you for letting us know how you feel about Orbit® Positively Pomegranate gum.  We’re happy to hear from you and we truly value your feedback.  Input from customers like you helps us to constantly make improvements and ensure that we are always providing you with top-quality products.

We introduced Orbit® Positively Pomegranate gum to provide customers with a fresh, new flavor for the brand they love.  We’re very sorry that you didn’t like this flavor, but we greatly appreciate you taking the time to try it and sharing your thoughts with us.

We’ll be sharing your feedback with our researchers, who are constantly working on new flavors to add to our product lineup.  We hope you’ll keep an eye out for our new products, try them when they come out and let us know what you think.  Thank you again for reaching out to us and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy Wrigley products in the future.

Sincerely,

Sarah W.

Customer Affairs Representative

One good thing about having a competent/Democratic administration, is that I have a lot more faith in the mid- and hight-level appointments. While I think it is doubtful Bush was very hands on in this decision, he appointed the guy that screwed it up. And when the CBO and GAO starting raising red flags, the Bush administration either missed the warnings or willfully ignored them.

Bush has so many huge screw ups that it is easy to miss these relatively small ones, but they are still important.

Let’s hope Obama is better at the actual work of governing, and when mistakes get made, let’s hope Obama fixes them and holds people accountable.

I was certain that I would never finished the pack (for which I spent $1.30), so I knew the only logical thing was to write a letter to Wrigley to complain and return my unwanted nasty-berry gum.  A-Yo and I had a laugh riot writing the letter, and even though we tried for a humorous tone, the gist of the complaint was real.  So their customer service people better send me some coupons for free gum….otherwise I’m out $1.30 for the gum and $0.42 for the stamp.  Our masterwork below the jump.

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing in regards to your “Positively Pomegranate” flavor of Orbit gum. Unfortunately, my experience was not very positive. Today I purchased a pack of the pomegranate gum, and tried a piece. Needless-to-say, I was not pleased with the strange, berrylike taste. When I came home, my wife asked what smelled like some sort of chemical emanating from my coat pocket. I showed her my recent purchase and she was shocked and appalled. She tried a piece, and immediately spit it out.

I usually don’t complain about products, and I have always been pleased with Orbit gum, even the fruit flavors. However, I would like to return the offending package of gum, which is enclosed within.

What is most amazing to me is how this product made it through your product testing and focus groups. I am shocked and puzzled that anyone would like this flavor and recommend selling it to millions of people.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Yulz!

My favorite (well…actually least favorite…) examples of wasteful construction in Japan are tetrapods, the eye sores that line every beach in Japan.  Supposedly they prevent erosion, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not.

Japan has many chronically underfunded needs and problems.  For example, their is not enough affordable day care for working mothers.  This is one of serveral reasons why Japan has such a low birth rate, and as a result, women are choosing to have fewer children and having them later in life.  If Japan spent more money on day care,  it would provide direct economic stimulus by employing  more people in the child-care industry while providing further benefits from the  increased productivity of women in the workforce and helping to ease Japan’s demographic problems.

Unfortunately, Japan’s unelected, unaccountable, and very powerful bureaucrats, along with their political benefactors decided to throw money at a $250 million dollar airports that now has two flights a day and bridges that no one uses.

Hopefully Obama will do something with the rest of the bailout money to actually affect home foreclosures, which is what is behind the capitalization problems at banks and the problem with mortgage-backed and other credit-related securities.  And if Obama succeeds in reducing foreclosures and stabilizing the banking sector, home prices should start to rebound, and the rest of the economy along with them hopefully.  If this chain of events happens, it will be another judgement on Bush (as if history or his legacy need any more damning judgements on Bush) that he wasted months dilly-dallying with a bailout that doubled the size of the annual deficit without actually acheiving any results.

I’m hopeful that Obama can do this and that the rest of the bailout money will be  managed better and more productively.  The crash in home prices has had a huge impact on the economy, as well as on the psyche of the population.  Yes, housing prices were overvalued and unrealistic (in some markets more than others), but the market needs to find a pricing floor, so people can accept their losses and move on.  People shouldn’t have to worry that their primary investment (or if thinking about buying a home, future investment) is going to be losing them money or is basically worthless (if you have a mortgage that is underwater).  Keeping foreclosures from flooding the market is an important step for stabilizing housing prices and stimulating the economy as a whole.

1. I got married (legally) in 2008 – which is a plus since I get a larger standard deduction and am spending my life with the woman I love.  And since A-Yo can’t work, she has no income to bump me up into a higher bracket.  But this leads to some trouble since…
2. I’m married to a nonresident alien without a Social Security Number.  This isn’t a big deal, we just have to apply for an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.  And since I am a US citizen, we can choose to file jointly and count her as a resident for tax purposes.  So we have to do the ITIN form and attach a statement claiming A-Yo as a resident.  More complicated than usual, but probably a piece of cake compared with dealing with immigration bullshit with USCIS.
3. The other big change:  Moving to Colorado and taking a new job – which is good since I make more money and can deduct the moving expenses.  But now…
4. I am renting out my house in Tallahassee.  So I have to count the rent I receive as rental income.  But I do get to deduct all the expenses and the depreciation of the rental property.  And since I lived in the house as my primary residence for most of the year and converted it to a rental mid-year, I have to split  my deductions for personal use from the rental business use.  So in some ways it balances out (I get to claim my homeowner mortgage interest deduction for part of the year and claim mortgage  interest as a business expense the rest of the year), but it is a bit more complicated than usual.
5. Now that I am in Colorado, I have to pay state income tax (The horror!).  I had it easy for so long in Texas and Florida…this is the first time I’ll ever have to pay a state income tax   Hopefully it won’t be too big a pain and I’ll get a refund from that too.

Taken together, all these things make my taxes this year a lot more complicated and tough to get a rough idea of how big a refund I’ll be getting.  I’ll just have to wait for all my W-2s and other tax documents to come in the mail, pay to unlock some of the advanced features in TaxCut or TurboTax (or do my taxes by hand the old fashioned way!!!), and file a little later than usual so I can make sure everything is in order.  HopefullyI won’t have to pay to go to an accountant.  I think I should be able to figure it all out and manage to pay my taxes without getting arrested for tax evasion.

One bright spot for struggling Americans this holiday: gas prices hit a five year low yesterday. “We’re paying about a billion dollars per day less than we were in July” for gasoline one analyst. “We could probably bail out some banks and maybe even some of the auto companies with the savings.” The news isn’t all good. Pump prices have fallen in part because more families are staying home, driving nine billion fewer miles in October. Pump prices are now down to a national average of $1.64 a gallon, a far cry from the $2.98 average a year ago. Oil producing countries responded immediately with plans for more production cuts.

Americans are conserving gas? That is terrible news! Americans should not only be able to get cheap gas — we should be able to use as much of it as we want!

I guess some of the conservation is due to bad news.  For example, people driving less because they are out of work.  However, Americans buying smaller cars, driving less, inflating their tires (suck on that McCain/Palin!), and using public transportation is great news.  

Actually, I think this is more sloppy editing/writing than anything else. The original AP article says that the low gas prices are “bittersweet news”, which I think was then poorly rewritten in the news summary.

Union members have been declining for the last 50 years.  Their political involvement as an extension of the Democratic Party is good for GOTV and raising money, but I’m think public perception of hyper-political unions like SEIU (and the teamsters and others before that) has alienated many Americans from organized labor and fed the perception that all the political involvement is about advancing the interests of the union rather than the interests of the workers.

Pretty soon, Democrats are going to have to make a decision about where labor fits into the party’s goals. A large number of Democrats like myself are economically moderate, non-protectionist, pro-free (and fair!) trade, but unions obviously have a different agenda.  So while I’m happy for the party to reap the dollars and volunteer time of Local 434, listening to the pandering on NAFTA or card-check silliness (since that’s a great thing to spend political capital on compared with health care reform…) are enough to drive me crazy.  I think there is going to come a point when labor unions realize that most Democrats don’t support a lot of their proposed policies and most Democrats (and independents)  come to belive unions are corrupt and promote economic inefficiencies.  Of course, even with these irreconcilable differences, Big Labor doesn’t have anywhere else to go and Dems will still want labors money and time, even as the party continues to marginalize them in many ways.

The details of the automaker bailout look similar to the financial sector bailout in some ways…the government gets an equity stake in the companies in exchange for credit (for the automakers, this will be 20% of the credit given) and there are limits to dividends and executive compensation.  However, the automaker bailout has some differences and in many ways will function like a bankruptcy.  The government will appoint a “car czar” that will preside over the restructuring of the companies (not unlike a bankruptcy judge) and try get the companies to renegotiate agreements with the labor unions, suppliers, and other creditors so that the companies can eventually return to profitability.

There are some good parts of this plan.  The automakers need a bankruptcy restructuring so that they can get rid of their long term labor and other costs that put them at a permanent competitive disadvantage.  However, the Big 3 (and many others) believe that bankruptcy is not a viable option for the companies because no one would want to buy from a bankrupt car company and sales would further plummet.  So if this bailout can let the needed changes be made without technically calling it bankruptcy, that would be a good step.  And if the “car czar” feels that progress is not being made by one of the companies during the restructuring, he or she could withdraw the loan, which would basically force the bankruptcy and liquidation of the company (Harsh!)

However, the fact remains for the American car market that there is excess inventory and production that must come down.  The Big 3 are making more cars than people will buy.  There needs to be some consolidation and/or elimination of some brands or even whole companies (I’m looking at you Chrysler!).  GM cannot continue to make GMC and Chevy trucks.  There is no reason for Buick and Cadillac.  Pontiac has been dead in the water for some time (perhaps since 1991?) even with this wonderful attempt.

Personally, I think Chrysler is the most expendable and prime for making an example of, while preserving the other two larger companies.   I don’t see why a private equity firm needs to be bailed out.  They made the decision to try to turn the company around and failed.  They should be allowed to fail, just like they would have been allowed to reap the profits if their turn around had succeeded.  If this means Chrysler has to be broken up or closed down, that would be fine.  Chrysler has some assets that could be sold…Dodge has some decent-selling cars that might make it an attractive fire-sale acquisition and the Jeep brand is still well known, even if Chrysler has watered it down (does the world really need a Jeep Compass, Cherokee, Liberty, and Patriot?  They all look fairly similar to me…).

Ford seems to be in the best shape of the Big Three, since they lined up credit before the current credit contraction, but they still need to cut costs, reduce dealerships, and  make its fleet more competitive and fuel efficient (Yay Ford Focus!) if it is going to be viable in the long run.

What do you guys think?  Save em?  Let one or more crash?