The documentary IOUSA will be shown in select theaters August 21, 2008 along with a live discusion with the following people:

• Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
• William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute
• Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP
• Pete Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation
• Dave Walker, president & CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General

The panel will be moderated by Becky Quick, co-anchor of CNBC’s morning news show Squawk Box.

I’m going in Branford CT. Find your location here.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the movie but it was recommended by someone I respect and the list of names is pretty significant.

Takeaway:

1. If you’re reading this after the 20th you can see the movie’s web site at http://www.iousathemovie.com/ or http://www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html

[tags] finances, entrepreneur, warren buffet, iousa [/tags]

Are Health Care Costs a Problem for Your Business?
What the article doesn’t mention is how this problem affects business. I see several effects. One is that companies who can locate across the border will. A car plant in Ontario has significantly lower health costs than one in Michigan. Along with those jobs go all the business it sends to sub contractors etc.

Another is that it forces companies to compete on performance – not if their work force has too many pre-existing conditions which could raise your costs or lower that of your competition.

A third is that having healthier customers who live longer and don’t spend as much on health care is probably a benefit to more companies.

Takeaways:

• This is a problem with a political solution. I know it won’t be easy since it cuts across many deeply held beliefs. But sometimes the facts need to win out over the comfort of a deeply held belief.

[Note: My policy in this blog is only to discuss politics in the context of how it affects business.]

However, there are times when the larger issues do have an impact, but small companies don’t usually take time to consider them. Here is an exercise to solve that problem.

 

Financial Impact Grid
From The Star Bulletin by Ralph Perrine,

SOMETIMES I sit with business decision-makers and draw what I call an Impact Grid. In the middle square we put the company. In the next square we put the company’s clients. In another, the client’s customers.

In adjacent squares we put the company’s partners and vendors. We talk about what impacts these squares. It helps business leaders think about the impact of economic factors: employment, interest rates, and so forth.

It also reveals lines of impact for specific scenarios: If client A’s customers are hit with a shock (hurricane, bird flu, rising energy costs), then client A is going to experience a downturn in sales. That in turn will have other implications. 

I’ve checked out properties I know around New Haven, Connecticut and the estimates were on the high side (25-50%). But ones I know in McKinney, Texas were priced right.

Andrew Tobias said “When I tried it on some Florida homes I know, the estimate was low but the level of detail was remarkable, and the ability to edit for corrections / improvements – well, knock yourself out.”

Your mileage may vary. But if I were a real estate agent, I’d prepare to go the way of the travel agent. You won’t be able to charge for access to information anymore. Sure some will pay for service, but (a) most won’t and (b) your service level better be in the top half of the top 1% if you expect to charge for it.

If you’re not in real estate but you charge for access to information in your field you’re not safe either. Zillow won’t hurt you but something else will. An accountant I know told me he thinks in a few years the IRS will be doing the taxes for most people.

Think about it – they already know what you make (your employer told them when they sent in the taxes they witheld). Your bank told them what you paid in interest deductions. For most people that’s about it. You could log on to their site, and after proving your identity, they would tell you what they think your tax return should say. You’d have the chance to approve or amend it and be done. So much for H&R Block and Turbo Tax.

So if I was an accountant, I’d be figuring out how to provide some value that can’t be so easily replicated as filling out a tax form.