Monday

Here's a little recognition to 1 and 3 as Daughters of the Day for doing the family thing this past weekend. Glad that 3's schedule worked out to catch the crew before she returned to Beantown. And 1 figured out that chasing a marathoner has it's own stress factors. Way to go you two!

Bad news for the Midwesterners. I walked out of my house at 0630 this morning to fire up the Taurus, and as I efforted to wipe the dew off the windows, I discovered, not dew, but ice!!! Not sure that the ground had frost, but there was no mistake about the glaze on the car. So I took the Buick. Even before noticing the ice, I had put on the dryfit runner's gloves as I knew it was a bit cool outside. I guess you could say that we are in a full Fall weather system at this point.

A couple of economic observations. Three points actually.

First, the September auto sales numbers were back in the dumper. Did Cash for Clunkers actually work, or did the government hand-outs just accelerate normal purchases by a quarter or so? And I saw some pretty damning figures on the "benefits" of getting those clunkers off the road. Something like saving $300-400 million in gas money by exchanging to more efficient cars. For $3 billion in a government supplement program. I'm real anxious to have those Einsteins re-tool healthcare for similar savings.

The second rhetorical point on economics is in regard to my Kohl's shopping habits. I basically only shop now when I receive a 30% discount coupon in the mail for my Kohl's charge card. I'm wondering about the variables in the equation that the Kohl's financial people are following when they try to get everyone who comes through their store to use a Kohl's credit card. If they regularly send out discount coupons to these card holders, and the card holders only shop when the coupons are issued, getting the people into the store sooner, and buying at lower prices must yield a better result than selling less stuff (or selling the same amount of stuff over a longer period of time) at higher prices. I actually think about these things.

And the last lesson in economics today is that my confusion in Italy over dollars and Euros, and gallons and litres, led me to what has to be my pal Roy's routine reality; I gave up trying to figure out the cost of day-to-day needs. If I needed gas, I pulled into the first conveniently located station and filled my tank, without regard to whether it was the best deal or not. And if I wanted a snack, I picked out what I wanted and handed over my VISA. A little like Vegas. Once you're there, whatever it is, is whatever it is.

Back to work. Maybe a little more later.

BCOT