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Little and Grand Chute and Monica Lewinsky
The owner of a Jenny Craig diet franchise in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin does not want to run their Monica Lewinsky T.V. commercials.
David Lahey, who owns a Jenny Craig diet franchise in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, which is considered to be part of the Appleton-metro area, has said he does not want to perpetuate the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal by running the new Jenny Craig T.V. ads with Lewisnky as spokesperson. And having grown up in Appleton I am not surprised.
I certainly can't speak for everyone in Appleton or Grand Chute or for that matter Little Chute, which is right next to Grand Chute and coincidentally, all you need to know about dieting, don't eat an amount of food that could pass through a Grand Chute. Stick to amounts that fit through a Little Chute.
But anyway, the people of the Appleton metro area, which includes Kaukauna, Kimberly, Neenah and Menasha, the two Chutes and Hortonville... are in my mind, the salt of America's earth. They are the kind of people would never dream of asking you how much money you made or what your house is worth and so I am not surprised Mr. Lahey doesn't think the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal was any of our business.
I am also not surprised the hard working people of the Fox River Valley, which encompasses the Appleton Metro as well as the Green Bay metro area 30 miles to the north, but not Oshkosh, which is on Lake Winnebago 18 miles to the south, don't want to see people like Monica Lewinsky get fat, in a financial sense, from screwing up. Literally or figuratively.
One customer at the Jenny Craig clinic in Grand Chute who is a public school teacher and knows a few things about how we shape our kids thinking, said, even though she has personally done very well with the dieting program, she will quit if Jenny Craig keeps using Monica Lewinsky, a bad role model for our kids, as their spokesperson.
Which is a pretty patriotic, self-less attitude because, and I don't mean to offend, but the good people of the Appleton metro area could use a little dieting. What with all the cheese and the bratwurst and beer they consume it's no small wonder bib overalls were invented right there in Oshkosh, 'cuz those are not lo-cal foods.
What's my point? Just that our economy and our culture are tied together. Where you spend your money becomes part of who we are. And for some reason I wanted to say Hortonville on a national broadcast.
Did you know there are men in America playing miniature golf for money?
I don't mean guys hanging out at fun-land betting on who can smack one through the dragons mouth on the first shot. I mean there is a professional miniature golf tour and they show it on cable T.V. And to that, I say, God Bless this great country of ours. And when I say God Bless I don't mean to offend anyone who doesn't believe in God... for you I say, Evolution honors this great country of ours. Or, Darwin loves America best!
Anyway, with all these 24 hour sports channels there has to be something to fill up all that air-time and thus professional miniature golf. Now, I'm not an economist and I don't play one on the radio but professional miniature golfer is not the kind of job that exists in a weak economy. People only get paid to triple bogie the windmill when money is flowing like water.
The existence of a professional miniature golf tour means our economy is on fire but coupled with unemployment at a 30 year low and consumer spending on the rise these generally positive things can join forces to become bad news for the stock market.
It's like a FOX T.V. special When Good News Goes Bad. Tonight, on FOX!! (Dramatic FOX guy voice)
Now, I know there are real reasons for low unemployment being bad news for stocks but I also know today's stock market is not all nuts and bolts there is a lot of emotion and hysteria and certainly as far as the dot.com stocks are concerned, just a lot of a wing and a prayer involved. And when I say wing and a prayer I don't mean to offend those who don't pray. For you... let's say there is a wing and a hope.
But if there is a lot of blind emotion in the market why don't we just agree that we shouldn't panic and bail out of stocks no matter how good the good economic news gets? Who could that hurt?
I'm saying let's not blow this good thing we've got going because of this good thing we've got going. If we, against all common sense, decide that lots of people having jobs and spending money is a good thing and defy tradition and keep our money in the stock market our economy will continue it's amazing growth and one day the professional miniature golf tour will be able to afford caddies... which they didn't have when I saw them on T.V. Because in an economy like ours no self-respecting professional miniature golfer should suffer the indignity of carrying his own putter.
Did you see this in the paper the other day? And I am not going to be more specific than that.
There was an article in the paper describing how food firms, companies that put food in wrappers and sell it to stores, are trying to address, which means make money off, the "health and well-ness concerns of affluent baby boomers."
According to this article many big food companies like Nestle, Heinz, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Captain Krunch, Kraft Foods... wait, Captain Krunch is not a company, he is an officer in the cereal army, hmmmm... anyway, these companies want to investigate, make money off, organic foods and what they called functional foods.
Which is an interesting concept to me because organic food is a potato. A tomato. An apple. If whoever (or whomever) grows your potato doesn't use pesticides or alter it too radically before you eat it, that's organic.
What does Nestle have to do with that? They're from Switzerland for goodness sakes. The Farmer's market is right down the street from me. I don't need Nestle to get me an apple. What I need from Nestle is more chocolate. They're very good at that. You Swiss should stick with watches and chocolate and cheese... and those knives from your army that will never fight.
I guess I'm not terribly opposed to companies that make Sugar Smacks and Oreos and Cheetoes getting involved in carrots or rutabega. If you big companies want to take soy beans and turn them into soy burgers, then good, most days I don't have the time to do that on my own. If the hot new trend is functional foods make Powers Bars, fine. Yogurt with extra acidophilus, good, thank you. But I don't need a big corporation to get a potato. In fact, I think a big corporation might screw up the potato.
What's my point? If it's true you affluent baby boomers really are concerned with nutrition just head to your local farmer's market. All the food there has function in that it's edible and good for you. And you're financially directly rewarding farmers, literally and figuratively the people doing our nutritional dirty work/heavy lifting. Certainly, we still need big corporations making some important foods because I have never seen handmade organic Cheetoes at the farmer's market.
But wherever you get your functional food it is good to see giant food companies taking an interest in the health concerns of affluent baby boomers. I know them. Some are my friends. I myself am not yet an affluent baby boomer. If I was you probably wouldn't be hearing me on public radio? In Los Angeles, eating cheetoes on the way to the farmer's market, I am Tim Bedore for Marketplace.
What would a marketing consultant say about the lifetime lightbulb?
On the one hand it's a great product. On the other hand, every time someone buys lifetime light-bulbs... the lifetime light bulb company loses another customer... for life.
Undaunted though, the tele-marketers that sell the lifetime light bulb keep calling, trying to sell me more bulbs. I keep telling them unless I buy more lamps I don't need any more of their lifetime light bulbs. The bulbs I currently have, as they predicted years ago, are lasting a lifetime. Then they suggest I could buy more bulbs and give them as gifts. Apparently to them, nothing says love like a lifetime light bulb.
The dilemma for the owner of the lifetime light bulb is in 50 years if a lifetime lightbulb has burned out prematurely where is the money-back guarantee certificate? I can't find whatever it was I was looking at just a minute ago. The only way for me to know where my lifetime light bulb money back guarantee certificate is 50 years from now is to frame it and put it up in my office. Which might be kind of funny... people come in, think it's a diploma or an award, walk closer and see a lifetime light bulb money back guarantee certificate that I am so proud of I've had it framed and tripled matted.
What made me think of this? Manufacturers and retailers are advertising stuff, like the color printer we got my parents for Christmas, at $150, after a $50 rebate. Never do they mention the $200 you actually pay. The price you paid only becomes $150 if you cut the UPC sticker off the original box and send in two completed rebate forms and a copy of the store receipt and then they remember to send you your 50 bucks back.
Well, the six week waiting-for-my-50-dollar-rebate on the color printer period is over and I am getting this bad feeling my check isn't in the mail.
And seeing as how another store had that same color printer for a flat $158, I would have gladly spent an extra eight bucks to avoid these past 42 days and nights of rebate hell.
Next Christmas I will avoid rebates all together by not buying my parents any more complicated, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't computer equipment. I am going to get them life time light bulbs for their entire house. For as long as they live they will never break a hip falling off a step stool with a burned out 60 watt-er in their hand. I guess you can say love with a lifetime light bulb.
The Walter Cronkite Bedore Year In-Review
This is Walter Cronkite Bedore with the Marketplace year in-review of the top economic stories from the year 2000.
Unbridled optimism and blind greed drove Wall Street to record high levels in the spring of 2000 but the fall saw the markets tumble and with it, the NASDAQ went out of whack, the DOW had a cow, and the S/P suck-ee , as many dotcom stocks land in the dotcom dumpster.
Firestone and Ford play rollover ne ner ne ner, each blaming each other for deaths caused by faulty tires blowing out on top heavy SUV's.
The U.S. normalized trade relations with China. U.S. labor and environmental groups e-mailed and faxed their fierce opposition to this action across the nation using products made with Chinese components.
Californians suffer a bad case of gas and electric prices. "Re-regulate" and "laissez faire, don't go there" are the battle cries of hacked off consumers who see monthly utility bills double and triple due to less government interference.
In the year 2000 the airline industry stunk like a week old fish.
The year 2000 saw AOL and Time-Warner attempt the biggest merger of all time. Proponents say the combination of the two company's content and delivery system will fully realize the potential of the Internet. Critics say "E-mail and 57 cable channels of un-watchable horse pucky do not, an industrial revolution, make."
In the biggest anti-trust case ever Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson tells Microsoft it is they who have performed an illegal operation and have to cut and paste themselves into 2 or maybe even 3 different companies, fulfilling the biblical prophecy that the devil will appear to you in many guises.
The tobacco industry was hit with a 144.8 billion dollar judgment by a Florida jury. A hacking, wheezing, phlegm expectorating industry spokesman said "Americans love known carcinogens and it's our right to deliver them directly to the soft, pink unprotected tissue of their life giving lungs." Many experts believe the tobacco industry will find a more sympathetic ear in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court than they did in Florida.
Economists, speaking between the lines to President elect Bush, claim "We can scare ourselves into a recession with negative talk about the economy." The President elect asks advisors what that means and then says "The tax cut is still on," which between the lines means "When you're rich and handed a $50,000 tax refund a recession is not that big a deal. In other words, "I'm dancin' with and writin' checks to them that brung me." In a sign of tough times to come for the President-elect protestors carry signs around the White house saying "Our new President can't read this sign."
Early in the year 2000 Alan Greenspan and the Fed fear inflation will hit the nation and jack interest rates, but by years end see no red ahead, expansion dead, investors who fled and an economy sinking like lead. Vague promises of a rate reduction in January, leave consumers a reason to be optimistic, perhaps very.
And that's the way it was, the year 2000 in review, in Los Angeles I am Walter Cronkite Bedore for Marketplace.
What the Kids Want For Christmas
"I want dis' and I want dis'"
The tech sector is going to be O.K. if all kids are like my daughter. She's not yet three years old, and for Christmas she wants a computer. Actually, she wants a "peter" which is how she pronounces computer.
So, we go to the stores to look for a toy computer and discover buying toys for a three year old is an unholy nightmare. First of all, kids have the attention span of a gnat. A three year old doesn't know what toy they really like beyond right now and the next ten seconds.
And then there is the issue of educational versus fun toys. If you give your kids Play Station instead of the Elmo and Big Bird-translates-English-to-Spanish game, at age three, your child is already losing ground to their peers in the world economy, circa 2026.
My daughter has such high, three year old expectations of how great Christmas is going to be and my nightmare is, she opens her toy computer and it's not exactly what she wants, so she grabs it by the mouse, twirls the whole thing over her head, flings it into my Mom's Hummel Nativity set, crushes the ceramic baby Jesus and my very Catholic Mom spends the rest of the night clutching her rosary, praying for her figurine crushing granddaughter.
This could all happen because what my daughter really wants is a real PC like Dad's but an innocent child should not deal with Windows. It would be better to get a five dollar keyboard and a one dollar mouse, duct-tape them to a busted toaster oven and tell her to compute away. Fantasy play is supposed to be very important at this age.( And it would get her ready for actually using Windows.)
Anyway, E-toys should be happy to hear this-- I tried looking at toy catalogs with my daughter, hoping she'd really go nuts and fixate on one thing. Instead she pointed at every single toy in the catalog and said "I want 'dis, and I want 'dis, and I want 'dis..."
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