EleBlog

30 Aug, 2006

I've puzzled over the topic covered in the "Marketbeat" entry below -- quoted in its entirety (including a later update). How could housing be declining, yet market prices not have fallen yet? It seems to make Zero Sense.

Maybe there's an explanation. Read the item. If you're not aware: There's an ongoing daily diary, called "Marketbeat," on the Wall Street Journal Web site. I think you need to pay for a sub to the site to access it; this one came from the Marketbeat of 8/24 (access that day's stuff, including what's below, here).

Just to make it clear: Everything below this line comes from the WSJ.

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Home Sour Home

1:43 p.m.: One puzzle about yesterday's existing-home-sales data from the National Association of Realtors is that, while the number of sales plummeted and inventories rose to a 13-year high, the median price nationally was up year-over-year.

Some skeptics have begun to wonder whether that reflects reality.

The NAR system has leeway for local brokers to enter price information about home sales into the database, according to analysts. Kynikos, Jim Chanos's short-selling hedge fund, has been watching the Florida market closely and noticed something odd about the Florida Association of Realtors press release, put out yesterday along with the national release.

Yesterday, the FAR said statewide realtor sales fell 33% in July to 14,451 from 21,691 a year earlier. But the median price went up 1%, the association said, to $250,800 from $248,200 in July 2005.

Mr. Chanos was suspicious and had his analyst pull the data from last year's press release. Sure enough, last year's chart for July 2005 has different numbers. Last year's chart says 21,669 homes were sold in July 2005, 22 fewer than the July 2005 number in this year's chart. More strikingly, the FAR said last year that the median price in July 2005 was $252,300, more than $4000 higher than the number in this year's chart.

Use the price figure the FAR used last year for July 2005 and compare it with the price figure for July 2006, and the median price drops year-over-year. Sure it's a modest 0.6% fall, but a drop is much different from a gain.

Perhaps those 22 fewer homes made the difference, but why were they excluded? There is no explanation in the release or the chart. It's important to note that economic data get revised all the time. Indeed, NAR has changed its numbers, as well. Last August, it said national sales clocked in at a 7.16 million-unit seasonally adjusted annual rate in July 2005. Today, the NAR said July 2005 sales rose at a 7.13 million-unit pace.

The FAR did not return calls for comment; if they do, we'll update this post.

Update: Kynikos produced a spreadsheet with the past 19 months of FAR data, tracking similar restatements of prior-year numbers. Analyst Robert Tracy found that for 12 of the 19 months, the restatement had the impact of magnifying the year-over-year growth in median-sales price

30 Aug, 2006

Date: 8-30-06. Access the newsletter by clicking here.

30 Aug, 2006

A 2,100-word case study on a Hershey candy plant in Virginia was the cover story in July's Energy & Power Management magazine. Disclaimer: I am a columnist for E&PM. But that's not why this is here. I printed the story out to read later. Yesterday was later (yes, it was Aug. 29th). Deep in the story (under the subhed, "Cost Savings") was this (quoting plant designer Lorin Droppa) --

The Powerlogic system has contributed to major cost savings for the facility, but Droppa is quick to point out that the savings can’t be calculated in the conventional sense, such as quantifying an annual amount. Instead, the savings are situational. For example, manufacturers of packaging equipment recommend a certain amperage of service for each individual piece of equipment. Add up several pieces of such equipment, though, and you can end up with a faulty picture.

“We had a situation on a recent line where we provided 2,400 amps (A) of service total to run the whole production line,” Droppa says. “A year later, I logged those three feeders, summed them up and found out I could run that whole line on less than 500 A. So the next project comes along and I have no breaker space on my substation now, and I have these three feeders that are supplying 2,400 A, but I only need 500 A. I can take all three of those and put them on one circuit breaker, and now I’ve freed up two spaces.”

The bottom line? For the next new production line, Droppa didn’t have to buy a new substation. ”In just that one instance, I avoided a hefty expense that I would have had to incur had I not had that information,” he says. “As it turns out, we eventually did fill up that substation and we had to buy one, but it was three years later.”

See the full thing here.

29 Aug, 2006

The American Institute of Architects does a monthly "Billings Index" survey. It fell in May and June -- small declines. The July report, online here, put the index at 51.8 -- a bounce up. Supposedly, "any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings."

Kermit Baker, Ph.D., chief economist for AIA, puts this together. If you go to that page, be sure to look to the right -- where verbatim comments from AIA-member respondents are posted.

29 Aug, 2006

Network World magazine recently put together a special section on Rewiring New Orleans. The mag is talking about Telecom wires, of course.

Part 1, all 2,150 words of it, can be found here. The article is on SIX Web pages; my advice is to click on the "print" link on the bottom of the page, and access (or print) the whole thing at one swell foop. There's a slide show accessible from that page, called "Hell or High Water."

There are other stories in the NW package -- access them from here.

A few nuggets from the piece that I read:

"BellSouth invested nearly $1 billion in a rebuilding effort that included replacing 100,000 copper cable pairs with fiber optics."

"Verizon Wireless put permanent, redundcant generators in its cell sites that were fueled by natural gas. This alleviated the need to access each cell site manually to replenish the generators with diesel fuel." The company lost 20 cell sites in downtown Nola after Katrina.

About 1.4 million of the 4.7 million lines in AL, LA & MS were affected by the storm."

29 Aug, 2006

For those who haven't kept up with "green buildings," here's a handy-dandy resource. It's a regurgitation on iGreenBuild.com of a 4,200+-word column, "Ask The Green Architect." The topic: "Why Should I Care About Green Building Anyway?" A good question, which writer Eric Corey Freed handles in a Q-and-A format. The 10 questions he asks himself, and answers for us, are:

• Why do green buildings cost more than traditional buildings?
• What is a "LEED" building?
• What do you mean by a "green" building?
• What is indoor air quality?
• Which is better: A recycled material or a natural material?
• How can I determine if a material is green or not?
• Where can I purchase green materials and products?
• Are there any buildilng code restrictions on the use of green materials?
• Why should I care about green building?
• Why aren't ALL buildings built to be green?

Find the answers here.

28 Aug, 2006

This came from a PR person + seemed worth passing along --

WHO:            Eaton Electrical: Larry Stahl, Industry Director of Eaton’s Electrical Business

National Fire Protection Association:  Joe Sheehan, NFPA Principal Electrical Engineer

WHAT:          The podcast features Eaton’s Electrical Business Industry Director, Larry Stahl discussing arc flash safety issues with NFPA’s Principal Electrical Engineer, Joe Sheehan. The discussion

focuses on compliance with NFPA 70E and features a wide range of solutions to improve workplace safety. 

WHEN:          Ongoing

WHY:            The arc flash podcast was produced to help educate employers, facility/safety managers and electrical personnel about arc flash safety and ways in which companies can work towards a

safer working environment to prevent injury and death caused by arc flash hazards. The podcast explains how listeners can improve the safety of their facility with a wide array of

solutions to address this problem. Compliance with NFPA 70E 2004 is discussed and reviewed.

Download the podcast -- www.arcflashsafetysolutions.com or www.NFPA.org.

28 Aug, 2006

From a release from George Risk Industries (a co. about which I've previous been ignorant) --

"Sales of specialty products continue to grow. Examples include . . . the Current Controller, a device that turns lights on in various areas when a door is opened, has spurred growth with electrical contractors." Stock symbol RISKA.

From a release from Robert A. Amey Co., a manufacturer's rep firm, on its expansion (by hiring a guy) into the voice-data market:

"The company says the expansion is in response to the continuing move of traditional electrical contractors to the low voltage market. 'Many of the same contractors we work with daily are being asked to complete data and voice installations,' explains Jim Amey, president of Amey Co. 'They aren't sure where to turn for help in product selection or installation'."

28 Aug, 2006

An 8/5 story in The Roanoke Times has been rolling around in my head. See it here, if it's still on line.

While the story is about the take-over of an electrical contractor based in Roanoke, details embedded in the thing reveal there might be a new roll-up out there. The acquired company is Richardson-Wayland Electrical, "a heavy-utility construction company" that dates back to 1913. The co has 145 employees in the field

It's the acquirer that's of interest to me -- Argos Utilities Corp. of Washington, D.C., "a newly formed compoany that says it has a growth strategy in an industry that's bulding new generating plants and power lines, especially to supply the Norhteast. Argos is funded by New York equity company Cadent Energy Partners I, which provided $30M for the Argos start-up."

Richard-Wayland will "apparently" be the "cornerstone" for Argos . . . what in the old roll-up days they called "a platform company."

The Web site www.argosutilities.com is still under constrution. Here's the Argos info page on the Cadent Web site.

28 Aug, 2006

A writer for TheStreet.com covers stocks in the construction/building materials area. It's mostly about wallboard, but it's possible to infer stuff about electrical construction. For example:

"All the indicators are that commercial construction is really buoying up the demand for wallboard."

"People shouldn't be buying these stocks because they think the wallboard market has a lot of growth over the next 12 months, because it doesn't."

"One believe is Warren Buffet."

See the piece here.

25 Aug, 2006

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released data 8/10 on workplace fatilities in 2005. For everyone, the total was about 1% lower:

2004: 5,764

2005: 5,702

For Hispanic/Latino workers, the figures went the other way -- up 4.87%:

2004: 596

2004: 625

Highway accidents were the top killer in construction. #2 was deaths caused by falls -- 822 of the 5,702.

What about construction? It led the pack, with 1,186 deaths on the job, according to an 8/16 item in BNA's Construction Labor Report. That figure was down 4% from 2004.

25 Aug, 2006

An article -- headlined Plugged In: Electronics Make Us A High-Energy Society -- ran 8/9 in the Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, as in Kansas). Westar Energy is a utility there. Here's the sentence that caught my eye:

"The average family in Westar's northern region, which includes Lawrence, annually used 13% more energy in 2004 compared with 1993."

25 Aug, 2006

Marilyn Michelson and I have collaborated on various things at various times over the years. She's one of my all-time favorite people! That explains why I've taken the unusual step (for The EleBlog) of running her full press release below:

Website, www.bcsreports.com, opens Up New Channels of Information

“How To” Reports by Leading Experts in the Networking Industry

Jackson, California, August 23, 2006—Business Communication Services (BCS) is announcing a new website (www.bcsreports.com) and new services--reports written by leading experts in the networking industry.  These new reports are focused on helping the user, the trainer or student, the sales or marketing staff, or your customer.   The president of BCS, Marilyn Michelson, previously published the Cabling Standards UPDATE.

Reports cover grounding and bonding for Fieldbus performance, data center cabling, and residential security systems.  The current promotional give-away is a cabling warranty review report for new customers.  Each report is clear and practical and focuses on an essential function or element of a network.  Take one to work as a guide; use it to help customers understand concepts; or use it as backup for your decisions and actions.

If you need to know about or be at the cutting edge of industrial automation, data center design, security, or networking, you need to see what these experts have to say.  The reports describe techniques and practices to help you design and install reliable cost-effective networks—in the commercial, residential, or industrial environment.  The writers, skilled experts working in the telecommunications and networking industry, are also actively involved in the development of performance and installation cabling standards for local and industrial area networks--nationally and internationally.

BCS started with the Cabling Standards UPDATE which was known for being factual, unbiased, and without advertising.  Today, BCS continues that same practice through these reports, by bringing the facts directly to those who can use them on their job(s).

For additional information on this website and its products, contact Marilyn Michelson (randm@volcano.net) at 800-492-8422 or visit www.bcsreports.com.  Each report is individually available and the Cabling Warranty Review is sent to a customer at no charge when a purchase is made.  Any report can be reviewed before ordering online or by mail.  Reports are delivered to buyers in PDF format. 

The Publisher, Marilyn Michelson, BCS, has been in telecommunications for over 15 years--as a Telecommunications Manager and as a Consultant.  She is an active member of the TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association who develops the performance standards for the physical layer) and maintains working relationships with the NFPA (National Fire Protection Assoc.), BICSI, ICEA (Insulated Cable Engineers Assoc), SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers), and the IEEE.

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24 Aug, 2006

This is more than news.

From Building Design & Construction's site:

In an effort to address and solve problems caused by industry fragmentation, lack of clear communications across professions, and old business models, The American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), and the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) recently announced the formation of a new collaborative working group to spearhead design and construction industry transformation issues for the three organizations. 

See the item here. It includes links to three documents:

Collaboration, Integrated Information and the Project Life Cycle in Building Design, Construction and Operation

Optimizing the Construction Process: An Implementation Strategy

A report on the May "Construction Industry Summit," a joint AIA/AGC meeting.

Based on what I've read and heard in the past, I have a feeling this might prove to be important when one looks back, years from now. Of course, I could be wrong.

24 Aug, 2006

With the release yeseterday of data from the NAR about a decline in existing-home sales, there's worrying about the ultimate prospects for the U.S. economy. Soft landing? Hard landing? Etc.

My guess is that it's going to be on the "hard" side -- and it's going to take an extended period of time for the worst news to get out. From the construction industry perspective, residential construction is still going great guns (which will turn out to be a mistake for home builders) . . . and commercial/industrial construction is doing a lot better than it had been. It will take time for all of that to cool off.

I'm not expecting "fall off a cliff." I'm expecting "gradual decline from a cliff."

I ran across a Q-and-A with Wendy Liebmann of WSL Strategic Retail, "an advisor to retailers and manufacturers," online (from the 8/06 issue of Retail Traffic magazine). WSL publishes How America Shops, a report on U.S. buying habits. Get a load of what Liebmann had to say:

RT: What's the major conclusion from the latest study?

Liebmann: We've seen a dramatic shift that really reflects the impact of the last five years and the toll that constant turmoil has taken on the consumer. In the last five or six years, the shopping at every channel — other than the traditional department stores — increased.

In 2006, that no longer happened. We were so shocked by our findings that we actually did the research twice — once in November and then again in February. We wanted to make sure we weren't just reading the immediate impact of Katrina. But we went back in February and we found the effect was still there.

The mindset of consumers is of uncertainty and economic anxiety. We're calling it the “never normal” mindset, where after a period of the Iraq War, Katrina, gas prices, a cooling housing market, etc., people are always waiting for that next shoe to drop.

RT: What does that mean for consumers?

Liebmann: There's been a retrenchment. Consumers have hit a wall. There's an emergence of a “great divide.” Over the past 10 years there had been very little differentiation when looking across channels. Everyone shopped everywhere, it was a sort of shopping democracy. Even lower-income consumers were strategic and making luxury purchases here or there.

Now what we're seeing is that the people with higher incomes — above $75,000 — are shopping everywhere. People below that have become very price conscious. So basically if you don't supersize or specialize, then you're floundering right now.

I find that to be interesting -- and about what I would expect. See the full Q-and-A here.

If you missed the news from the NAR about existing-home sales, go here.

24 Aug, 2006

From 1984 to 1989, I was Editor of Waste Age magazine. By happenstance, those were probably the most interesting years to do that job -- and the most lucrative for the pub's owner, the National Solid Wastes Management Association.

In the period, waste incineration ("waste-to-energy") got really hot. Recycling took off. The NYC "garbage barge" took float, and made headlines for weeks. The U.S. EPA tried to put forth its new "Subtitle D" regulations for municipal solid waste landfills. And on and on.

Also during that time, Waste Age published a "show" issue that ran over 400 pages; it remained the #1 magazine in the industry (that's what it was both when I got there and when I left), and extended its lead in % of ad pages; and the editorial staff went from one person when I started in January 1984 to nine when I left at the end of 1989.

I met -- and hired -- some good people there. Tom Naber, who is president of the National Association of Electrical Distributors, came in for a job interview in 1985, and I hired him. He filled the first "new" staff position at Waste Age, and eventually went on to create "Walt Waste Not" (the waste-reducing cartoon squirrel), serve as founding editor of Infectious Wastes News (a newsletter); and also found a quarterly publication, Waste Alternatives, again about waste reduction and recycling.

Why this trip down memory lane?

By happenstance, I recently discovered that a North Carolina agency has scanned in several articles that I wrote back then and posted them online as PDFs. I don't know that I should get all "puffed up" about it -- but I sure appreciate seeing my byline on these things on the Net, as there was no other way they would get there.

Here, for the record, are the articles and where to find them:

Why San Jose Goes The Extra Yard
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/05/04818.pdf
6/87 -- 3 page PDF

Recycling's Future Is Now (Palo Alto, Calif)
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/05/04813.pdf
10/87 -- 4 page PDF

Divert As Much As Possible
["the edict of delvecchio"]
http://www.owr.ehnr.state.nc.us/ref/05/04858.pdf
9/88 -- 5-page PDF

Recycling By Objective (Sunnyvale Calif.)
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/09/08495.pdf
9/88 -- 3-page PDF

Meeting The Spec In Newark
(glass recycling)
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/10/09709.pdf
date not apparent, 4-page PDF

That's Gold In Them Thar Tree Limbs
(San Mateo Calif)
http://www.owr.ehnr.state.nc.us/ref/08/07900.pdf
8/88 -- 3p PDF

Nation's First Merchant MRF (New Jersey)
(MRF = materials recovery facility)
http://www.owr.ehnr.state.nc.us/ref/10/09712.pdf
2/89 -- 4p PDF

Editorial: No, We're Not Recycling . . . Yet
http://www.owr.ehnr.state.nc.us/ref/10/09712.pdf
5/88 - 1p PDF

An Education In Recycling (central Illinois)
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/08/07905.pdf
11/87 -- 3p PDF

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 (More)

23 Aug, 2006

An 8/18 Wall Street Journal feature, "Aged Equipment Sends A Jolt Through Strained Power Industry," is actually WORSE than the headline might make it appear.

Here are my favorite horrible-sounding bites from the 1,524-word article:

"We've been using equipment far beyond its original intended life." -- a guy from Black & Veatch, the consulting firm.

"Few utilities know the exact age oftheir oldest pieces of equipment, which often lie buried below city streets and are hard to get at. 'Records are pretty sparse,' says Chet Knapp, manager of reliability for Pepco Holdings . . . It is not unusual for utilities to find equipment dating to the era of the Model T Ford."

"There's another aging mechanism going on and it's related to the overheating of equipment that's caused by heavy electricity use." -- from a guy at KEMA consulting.

27% of Con Edison's system (in the New York City area) "consists of the old paper-insulated cable." According to the article, the utility expects to finish replacing old cable by . . . 2024.

Southern California Edison asked regulators for a $145 million rate hike, the cost of replacing 800 miles of aging underground cable. "But consumer advocates . . . [argued] that there was no proof that the worst cables would be replaced first, given inadequate utility records."

Utilities are just now "installing more sensors in equipment to warn of imminent failures. 'We're the last industry to aggressively embrace sensors'," accordign to a guy from the Electric Power Research Institute.

All in all, if you took the article and set it to music . . . it would be a musical comedy.

23 Aug, 2006

The stock market rallied the week of 8/14 thanks to relatively low inflation numbers. But the general euphoria was stupid! Discounts of $4.5 billion, granted by GM to spur light truck and SUV sales, accounted for most of the producer price index's decline.

Here's the explanation, from a blogger:

Core PPI (excluding food and energy) fell 0.3%, the first such drop since October '05. Stocks rallied, as did Bond prices, driving yields down 75 bps across the curve.

A closer look reveals how this happened:  Vehicle prices fell 2%, with Car prices down 0.8%. But the real action was in dropping Light Truck prices: Given Q2 surge in Oil and gasoline, its no surprise that light truck prices fell 3.1%. I expect to see this metric to be under continued pressure for the foreseeable future.

The drop in Car and Truck prices accounts for nearly the entire decline in the core PPI.

More here.

23 Aug, 2006

Prof. Philip Krider of the U. of Arizona has been hired by West Virginia's Office of Miners' Health Safety & Training, according to an 8/15 Associated Press item. His assignment: Help investigate the Sago Mine explosion. "State and federal investigators have yet to determine the cause of the accident," the item says. Twelve miners died.

International Coal Group, which owns the mine, says lightning caused the explosion. A lightning strike could have caused the problem "by igniting a buildup of naturally occuring methane in the mine."

Does the state of West Virginia believe this? From my reading of the item, not necessarily. But Krider's expertise will help look into the fact.

If it's still online, here's the AP story. Here's Krider's home page.

23 Aug, 2006

NECA's convention + show will be held Oct. 7-10 in Boston. For more, go here: www.necashow.org

A recent item noted that the authority that owns the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (the site for the NECA event) has won $24 million from design firms to cover repairs to the facility -- "primarily its roof drainger system, mechanical air-handling units, and roadway expansion joints and drains."

The Mass. Convention Center Authority sued four firms. Read more here.

My thought: As a Yankees' fan, I was thrilled to see the team sweep 5 games recently from the Red Sox.

As someone who follows the construction industry, I was dismayed to read the recent stories about the horribly inadequate construction at "The Big Dig."

Now this convention center thing.

Perhaps "The Curse of the Bambino" has . . . mutated?

23 Aug, 2006

Here's an interesting [and probably unanticipated] tale of how a technological change [at the supermarket] is forcing a major change in basic marketing tactics.

IHL Consulting Group has done a study on consumer use of self-checkout lanes in supermarkets. I didn't read the study, but did peruse a three-paragraph summary of it included in the weekly e-mail newsletter from Chain Store Age magazine.

[Stray fact: I worked for a now-defunct sister publication of CSA -- Chain Store Age - Supermarkets - for almost five months in 1979. I was there long enough to write, with another staffer, what was perhaps the first cover story about supermarket scanners!]

"Consumers in the study said that they purchase impulse items such as gum, candies, and magazines 45.4% less often when they use self-checkout than when they use a staffed checkout lane. The impact is greater for women, down 50.0%, vs. a drop of 27.9% for men in the study."

CSA's item includes a quote from Greg Buzek of IHL, also of note: "Retailers are being forced to re-think their merchandising as the front end as they deploy self-checkout systems. The impulse displays have not caught up to this new technology. By definition, these are impulse items. Thus, they must engage the senses."

What's the answer? Here's what Buzek said: "Retailers such as Meijer and Kroger have adjusted by offering items such as rotisserie chickens and fresh-baked breads [at the check-out] to rely more on the sense of smell to drive sales rather than simply visuals when trapped in a staffed lane."

23 Aug, 2006

An e-mail from DEFG flacked about an article, "Three Signs of a Ripening Market for Alternative and Distributed Energy." I've looked the article over -- it comes complete with statistics, graphics, and feedback from readers who frequent the site on which it's posted.

The article offers "three signs" of favorable trends to "ripening" of DG --

1) positive market trends,

2) growing investor interest and availability of capital, and

3) favorable regulatory treatment

Although flacking is generally to be discouraged, I can't possibly see everything; so I'm "rewarding" this e-mail with this item. And while the word "Ripening" is an interesting word choice, the article is probably worth your time, unless you are positively up-to-date on everything going on in the DG field. Find it here.

23 Aug, 2006

Todd Harrison is a financial market commentator. Marketwatch.com has posted a speech he made to a gathering of his club (Minyans). I've read stuff by Harrison before; I generally agree with him.

This recent speech perfectly sums up my own feelings about the general economy. In one part of it, he advises "preparatory steps" that should "greatly enhance our odds of prosperity" --

• Capital preservation
• Debt reduction
• Downsizing
• Saving

I could not possibly agree more. You need to read this thing -- it's here.

19 Aug, 2006

I ran across a post on a blog about the housing market in Florida. The poster led his 7/20/06 item (which totaled 4.5 pages on my printer) with this:

We recently had two more of Wall Street’s finest out on a tour of Florida real estate markets.

After the first day, these guys needed diapers.

They’ve been listening to the garbage from home building company management teams and what dribble they hear on the conference calls.

I showed them reality, and it hit them like a ton of bricks. 

Emphasis added by EleBlog. Headline on the thing: "Ghost Housing Market." Go here to read it.

17 Aug, 2006

The 8/17 EleBlog Report (the 2nd edition) is now available. Click here to see the HTML doc.

16 Aug, 2006

Housing starts are "down," we are told today. Worse, building permits -- the ultimate indicator of future activity -- are down bigger than starts. Permits, the subheadline says, are at their lowest level since 8/02.

Wow! We're really in for it.

As a skeptic, I've been waiting for the Mortgage Finance bubble to collapse. It's happening, but in super-slow motion.

Consider today's housing report:

Housing starts fell to a SAAR of 1.80 million in July. The decline (from June 06) was 2.5%.

Building permits fell 6.5% from June, to a SAAR of 1.75 million.

SAAR = seasonally adjusted annual rate. See the Marketwatch.com story here.

Some really important notes:

a. 2.5% is really not that much more than a rounding error.

b. The SAARs reported above are FANTASTIC. Yes, they are down from previous highs. But a year in which 1.8 million new housing units are constructed is a VERY good year for the U.S. economy, the construction industry, and the home builders.

c. Want proof? See this page -- historic housing starts data (1978-2005), as compiled by the NAHB. There are 20 years from 1986 to 2005. In how many of these years did actual housing starts (single- and multi-family combined) pass the 1.8 million figure?

Answer: In 2003, 2004, and 2005. But before that, you have to go back to 1986 to get above 1.8 million starts (the figure for that year was 1,805,400. The economy had some bad years between 1987 and 2002. But it also had some wonderful years!

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What's the problem? The business, financial, and general media tend to slap urgent-sounding headlines on news. There is little perspective provided; the reporters and writers seem unable to cruise the Web and give readers an idea of what this month's number might actually mean.

At worst, reporters should look at the data, re-analyze it, and present a three-month trend. I hope to come back here and do that later today or tomorrow.

But even without doing that, here's some perspective.

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Yes, housing is slowing. But based on this month's numbers (and those that have come earlier) it is NOT grinding to a halt. If we end up flatenning out at 1.7 million housing starts/year -- which is a further decline from July's numbers -- the nation will have experienced a positively gentle, smooth, didn't-even-wake-the-baby landing.

Personally, I don't expct this to be sustained; I have expected the popping of the Mortgage Finance Bubble to have some very extreme economic consequences. Thus far, however, my expectations have been . . . unfulfilled. The numbers don't indicate a collapse. Perhaps later on (in 2007?) we'll see a big decline, and we'll be in a recession.

Right now, though, there's no such indication -- and nothing in the numbers to indicate such a trend.

15 Aug, 2006

According to NASA, a "backward sunspot" popped up recently on the big light in the sky that rises every morning in the East. It's probably not the end of time, but it couldn't hurt to sacrifice a goat.

11 Aug, 2006

Yes, jeans. Like those you wear. With a computer cable. Thess are iPod-ready jeans. They go for $250. No, I didn't make this up -- go here.

10 Aug, 2006

A few days ago, I provided links to the four columns I wrote for TEDMAG.com on Contractor Roll-Ups & more. The columns listed contractors in alphabetical order -- which probably means it would be easier to access as one continous (albeit LONG) document.

My TEDMAG bosses gave me permission to merge the four columns and post the single document here. It's 138KB -- an 18-page PDF. Click here to download it.

10 Aug, 2006

I have in front of me the 2005 annual report of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (www.nwalliance.org). I'm on their mailing list. This is a group that's done studies about -- and followed up with Action -- "market transformation."

Chalk me up as a skeptic. What "market transformation" means is changing the behavior of the buying public. The Alliance's goals include getting consumers and businesses to buy energy-efficent products and be smarter about using energy. I've followed "market transformation" efforts on and off for two decades; my six years as Editor of Waste Age magazine included soliciting and running articles about recycling. When recycling took off in the late 1980s, it became obvious that a limit on growth would be use of the recycled stuff; I created a monthly column, "Building Markets For Recyclables," in the magazine, about "market transformation."

That effort (the effort to build markets) was not a fabulous success, and still isn't.

BUT: For a skeptic, the first page of the Alliance's report is eye-opening. Here's a piece:

"In 2005, we saw a number of examples of success in market transformation. The most stunning was in residential lighting, where the regional sales of ENERGY STAR-qualified fluorescent light bulbs increased by about a third from 2004 to 6.8 million bulbs purchased by consumers in 2005. This increase exceeded the goal of raising bulb sales by 1 million bulbs a year through 2009.

" . . . the Northwest's investments are now paying off. We see four times as many bulbs per capita being sold here as the national average."

Unfortunately, the 2005 annual report is not yet online. If you go here, however, you can download 13 documents on Residential Lighting -- and heck of a lot else.

09 Aug, 2006

I'm trying a new idea -- The EleBlog Report. It's designed to post three times a month, and it's patterned on the old "Web Prowler" that I wrote years ago for ecmag.com. Take a look at the first one [please] by clicking here.