EleBlog

30 Sep, 2006

I've been posting the "EleBlog Report" here every 2 or 3 weeks -- for a couple of month. #5 just went up. It's a special report with U.S. government data -- taken from a variety of places -- on electrical contractors. It's worth your time, I promise -- click here to read it.

30 Sep, 2006

Lots of folks are starting to get louder about their suspicions about U.S. inflation data – and how they understate the case. I have been saying, for some time, that they understate the case dramatically. I am not the only one, and I can’t claim to be leading this charge . . . I read people like Bill Fleckenstein and John Williams (Shadow Government Statistics is his site).

However, some folks are starting to catch up.

From the construction industry, there’s “Government Inflation Statistics Don’t Reflect Reality” – the 9/25 editorial in Engineering News-Record (online here, if it’s still available free). In the conclusion, ENR combined the ridiculously understated consumer price index numbers with the coming worker shortage:

“And the most startling changes may yet be coming. Construction craft and other project labor has been a sleeping giant for much of the past decade. But that giant is stirring, and for good reason. Because the real cost of living in the U.S. is not reflected by the CPI, employers that rely on it as a measure are in for trouble.

“When it comes time for workers to assess compensation in relation to the demand for their skills and how much it really costs to live, decisions will reflect reality, not a statistic. Some employers already are in shock and many more will be in the future.”

You perhaps have not heard of Caroline Baum, but you know about the Bloomberg financial service and Bloomberg.com. Baum writes a bond-market column, available free online, 3x/week. Her 9/15 offering: “ U.S. Inflation Measure May Be Rotten at the Core” (click here to see it). Here’s a bit from Baum:

“Let's go to the video tape. The consumer price index was running at about 2 percent year-over-year during the deflation scare in the middle of 2003. Crude oil prices were hovering near $30 a barrel.

“Three years later, with crude oil prices hitting a record $78.40 in July, the CPI was rising 4.1 percent. In all that time, the price of something else should have fallen to offset the higher oil prices. The fact that it didn't means our friendly central bank was accommodating the oil-price increase, printing enough money to prevent that from happening.

“For the record, the core inflation rate has almost doubled to 2.7 percent in July from 1.5 percent three years earlier."

Additionally, a guy named Martin Weiss calls the number-manipulating in D.C. “the greatest scam of all time” (follow this link). Here’s a piece of his contention:

“Almost every number coming out of Washington has been thoroughly massaged and greatly distorted, almost always with a bias toward sweeping the dirt under the carpet and sugarcoating the truth.

“This is not a conspiracy. It just happens naturally. But that doesn't diminish the potential impact on your money. It's easily the greatest scam of all time.”

And then there’s Barry Ritholtz, a guy I am reading more and more of these days. He calls his blog “The Big Picture” – and here’s something out of a recent entry, “What Is Wealth II” (see the whole thing here):

“Let's all agree on two things: First, Human progress is inevitable, with each generation benefiting from improvements in medical are, technology, etc.; Second, there is a systemic bias built into the government reporting machinery that understates the declining purchasing power of the US dollar.

“The more the Fed prints, the less its worth -- that's basic law of supply and demand at work. That's something I would hope ‘one of the country’s leading macroeconomists’ would understand.”

It’s been “Case Closed” for me on REAL inflation for a long time. Fleckenstein, who is my investing guru, considers all government data to be humorous! I’m glad to now see more attention paid to this by people closer to the mainstream.

Consider: It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep – and the value of that! No matter how much you save, or how successfully you invest (unless your Buffet or Soros), your wealth and earnings BOTH lose value due to inflation. Think about it.

28 Sep, 2006

I get confused when people use the term “eco-friendly.” Isn’t everybody friendly to the economy, for chrissake? And doesn’t economy, which stems from the Greek word “oikos,” have a better claim on “eco” than . . . ecology?

In any case, a Greenbiz.com item (see it here) reported on a Mortgage Lenders Network survey item. The bit that caught my eye:

“a larger percentage of Americans ages 45-54 would prefer to work in an eco-friendly building vs. their less eco-minded counterparts ages 25-34 (74% vs. 62%).”

Up until I read that, I had no reason to believe that the folks 25-34 were a bunch of miserable heathen.

28 Sep, 2006

Servidyne, Inc., is the new name from a company called Abrams – which is in the energy management and building services business. In the 9/14 quarterly results release, the company says it is a “building performance expert services company.” Interesting!

28 Sep, 2006

According to a 9/12 release, EMCOR Facilities Services (a unit of EMCOR Group) now “operates and maintains over 1 billion sq. ft. of space internationally.” The company serves more than 150 buildings in the Washington, D.C. area.

28 Sep, 2006

The Wyndham Smart Chair offers hotel guests a single place to use a laptop computer, charge a PDA, connect to the Internet, and more. The chair’s fabric “resists stains and bacteria.”

Further info: From Wyndham. From Interior Design.

28 Sep, 2006

Voyager 1 left our planet in 1977. It’s still moving – out past Jupiter and Saturn, its initial targets. According to info from NASA (click here), it is finding “magnetic potholes” out there in the deep stretches of the solar system, as well as “magnetic speed bumps.”

Field strength of the “heliosheath” (from helios, as in The Sun) varies from a typical value of 0.1 nanoTesla down to as low as 0.01 nT or less, and on up to 0.2 nT.

Our scientists don’t have a “why” for this, and explanations for some other stuff (detailed if you follow that link). Wow!

25 Sep, 2006

According to its Web site, Xcelecom has just six component companies left to sell. Here's a bit about a few of them:

Allan Briteway of New Jersey -- assembled by Xcelecom in 2004 from its much-earlier acquisitions of Allan Electric and Briteway. This unit, for some reason, did not work out very well; recent UIL financial statements have made reference to problems at this unit.

Diefenderfer -- a PA electrical and telecom/datacom contractor that was once known as Orlando Diefenderfer. To my recollection, this company was (and perhaps still is) a class act. See this 4-page company background PDF.

McPhee -- certainly a great company. I saw "certainly" because I was lucky enough to interview and do a story for Electrical Contractor magazine about McPhee that run in the 12/00 issue -- before it was acquired (see it here). More recently (2003), E.C. ran another article on McPhee's casino work.

Other components for sale are JBL Electric, J.E. Richards, and Terry's.

25 Sep, 2006

One of the last electrical/datacom conglomerates cobbled together in the "roll-up mania" of the 1997-2001 period is now being disassembled. The company's name is Xcelecom. It's a subsidiary of UIL Holdings -- a holding company with one prime asset, United Illuminating, a small Connecticut electric utility. UIL put Xcelecom together by buying electrical and VDV contractors. At one point, Xcelecom's sales were (if my memory serves) equal to about 25% of the total sales of UIL Holdings.

Problem was, Xcelecom had the usual "lumpy" results of construction companies -- some quarters were good, some weren't so great. This was not tolerable to the shareholders of a small utility! So it has been banished.

In April, UIL announced its intention to rid itself of Xcelecom. In July, it began the sell-off -- piecemeal. The effort to get rid of Xcelecom accelerated on 9/1. Find information here:

Xcelecom ranked #400 on the VAR Business 500 -- 4 pages of info.

UIL's decision to sell off Xcelecom (and other non-construction subsidiaries) -- here.

Sale of M.J. Daly op in July, to folks at that company -- SEC filing here. Interesting sentence: "Xcelecom sold $3.8 million of book value (assets less liabilities) for $1.75 million in cash."

NWN of Waltham, Mass., takes three Xcelecom operating units off of UIL's hands for $16.4 million. 9/1 release here.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

In the short- or long-term, the sell-off of Xcelecom -- by itself -- means nothing much, really. As part of the overall back-tracking on the buy-a-contractor trend of 1997-2001, of course, it's one more nail in the coffin. Many, many, MANY companies bought up in the 1997-2001 mania have now been sold off or sold back. The only electrical contractor/datacom roll-ups of which I am aware that remain viable are:

• Integrated Electrical Services -- a shrunken version of its former self. IES sold off various units in recent years.
• Black Box Corp. -- it's bought a lot of datacom cabling and voice installation contractors, and has kept them all.

That's it. Some people throw EMCOR Group in here, but EMCOR did no buying in the mania. EMCOR was assembled in a wild flurry of buying in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then it went bankrupt. The company kept its powder dry during the 1997-2001 period -- then bought up a failed roll-up (the Midwest operations of Comfort Systems) at what might have been a bargain price.

24 Sep, 2006

Engineering Inc.'s Sept-Oct issue included a one-page "Marketwatch" column, "The Changing Face & Impact of U.S. Manufacturing." I wrote it. See it here.

24 Sep, 2006

That's what David Seiders, chief economist for the Natl. Assn. of Home Builders, writes in his latest column (he puts two of them online each month). He's normally been a fairly optimistic guy; but then again, times have been good for housing for a very long time . . . see Seiders' comments here.

For historical data on housing starts in the U.S., go here. Early in the 1990s, the 1.5 million starts/year level seemed great . . . we haven't been that low for 8 years.

22 Sep, 2006

I've posted a 1.02-MB file from InfraSource, an electrical contractor that specializes in powerline construction. It's a 38-page PDF which consists of 31 slides from the company's presentation at the 5th annual Engineering & Construction Conference sponsored by D.A. Davidson & Co.

Download it by clicking here.

22 Sep, 2006

"We feel we have to take responsibility to look at the most cost and energy and power-efficient technologies that we can . . . An Idling PC uses about $100 annually in wasted power. And as you look, even chips in idle mode . . . they still use a significant amount of power as compared to when they are just trucking along."

That quote is from Scott McNealy, the huge brie at Sun. A new product from his company used "about a third the energy" of predecessors. "WHen you look at driving a thousand-CPU data center, you can save a half-million dollars annually just in power and cooling."

Note that the item from which this comes (see it by clicking here) quotes Hector Ruiz of AMD: "In the past 12 months, I've met with quite a few CIOs in this business, and there wasn't one who didn't say performance-per-watt was at the top of the list of priorities."

Here's another interesting quote (from AMD's CTO): "A watt at the system level is about 3 watts at the meter, once you pay for cooling and distribution."

As I hope this item proves, electricity is really important to people who operate data centers. It's an amazing opportunity for electrical contractors who can respond with ideas (and perhaps by teaming with HVAC contractors, who perhaps can be creative insolving the problem of cooling these places).

22 Sep, 2006

I've been intrigued with the huge oil field discovered in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico) by Chevron. It seems to put the kibosh on the "peak oil" theory -- a theory I was starting to believe. Keep in mind that, for me, this is not academic; I write a 6-times-yearly energy commodities column for Energy & Power Management magazine.

To sum up: When this thing was announced, I stopped reading "Twlight In The Desert," the peak-oil Exhibit A book by Matthew Simmons. I was about to write my November column for E&PM on the book. Instead, I shifted gears and ended up with a neat column headlined, "Disregard All Forecasts."

I'm not familiar with the Web site Energy Bulletin, but on 9/6 it provided an 8-point post, "Clarification of the Huge Chevron Gulf Oil Discovery." Assuming for a moment that the facts in here are true, you ought to read it (click here).

One fact of which I was aware, and it's regurgitated here, is that the range of the discovery has been given as 3B to 15B barrels of oil. The first point puts that in perspective: "reserves of Esson Mobil are around 14B barrels total." That puts the high end of the range in perspective.

Other points of note: "Full production will not start at the very earliest [until] 2013."

The discovery "is comprised of no single field of more than 300M barrels." Wow.

Read the post. It might be off-base, but it's food for thought!

22 Sep, 2006

I was led to the San Diego Creative Investors Association -- a blog, I think, which describes itself as "San Diego's Oldest Real Estate Investment Club.  The post to which I was referred is from a "sales manager of a branch office of a top-10 national lender." He runs an office of seven loan officers. This person provided a bullet-list tally of the last 100 loan apps taken. Here are a few of the bullets:

22 (of the 100) "were either in forfearance or had been in forbearance within the past 12 months."

66/100 "had Pay-opeion ARMs." 27 of those were late on their mortgage payments.

16/100 "had LTVs over 100% at the time of application." LTV = loan-to-value.

Then comes the kicker: "We took 14 applications today, and we cannot qualify a single borrower for any type of loan. We are sub-prime; in fact, sometimes I say we are sub-sub-prime. We can qualify almost anyone for a loan. Not today."

See the post in its entirety here.

22 Sep, 2006

You've probably seen it or heard it somewhere -- there's a debate on whether the fall in housing is minor or a collapse, and whether the "soft" or "hard" landing will have an impact on the broader economy. One of the free economic/market opinions I read regularly is a short weekly brief from Comstock Partners, Inc.

These guys are bearish. Summarizing quickly, they don't think the market fall of 2000-2002 went far enough. They think there's more to come.

On 9/14, the headline on their weekly piece was "The Hard Landing For Housing Is Already Here." They gathered up the facts and presented them as bullet points. You can read it by clicking here.

The bullet that got to me: "10% of all home owners have no equity in their homes." If that's true (and I assume it is -- these guys aren't stupid) -- that's 10% of ALL homeowners across the U.S., not 10% of last year's buyers.

That's frightening.

 (More)

21 Sep, 2006

"I could be a door greeter at Wal-Mart and make more money than I have in the last thre years, with a whole lot less stress."

That quote from Randy Enevold, president of John's Electric in Lewiston, Idaho, printed in the 6/18 Lewiston Morning Tribune. The item notes that Johns was going out of business, after 50 years as an electrical contracting firm. It once employed as many as 40 people. A few other things from the story:

Enevold started work at the company in 1973, as an apprentice.

Other area electrical contractors are fine. A local economist quoted in the article claims the number of ECs "in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley" increased from 10 in 2002 to 15 in 2005.

One problem: Potlatch Corp., a big customer for John's Electric, reduced its modernization spending in 2000. It reportedly went from "tens of millions per year" in modernization projects to just "millions" per year.

21 Sep, 2006

According to a publication from The Lone Star Growth Investor (which I do not necessarily endorse):

"Currently, the U.S. and Canada consumer around 25 barrels of oil per capita per year. Japan and South Korea consume roughly 15 barrels of oil per capita per year. China nad India -- two of the world's fastest-growing and dynamic eocnomies -- each consume less than 3 barrels of oil per capita per year."

Wow. What's the point? Here's what LSGI says it is:

"As the middle class in these countries [India and China] expands -- and their citizens begin to enjoy the luxury ofautomotive transportation, upscale housing, and other material comforts -- expect the per-capita demand for oil to expand at an accelerating pace."

That, in fact, is precisely what I expect. That's the reason the current drop in the price of crude oil should be disregarded, even if it extends downward from here and for additional weeks or months.

21 Sep, 2006

A guy name of Walter Jowers writes the "Helter Shelter" column for a publication called Nashville Scene. I know nothing about him, the column, or the newspaper. His 8/17 column, headlined "Tired Wires," starts with "If your house is more than 20 years old, there's a good chance that some parts of your electrical system need to be replaced."

Here's how it ends:

"So, when you decide to rewire your house—and everybody will have to do it sooner or later—choose your electrician very carefully. Not that a license makes anybody any smarter, but make sure he’s licensed—and not just working under his employer’s license. Make sure he’s bonded and insured. If he looks funny, smells funny or acts funny, don’t hire him. Eventually, you ought to be able to find somebody who can do the job."

Really great advice. See the column here.

21 Sep, 2006

If you're in the building services/construction business, sooner or later (I hope it's sooner!) you'll be dealing with wireless mesh networks. You probably need to know the basics. I somehow ran across a 6/1/04 article on "The Realities of Dealing with Wireless Mesh Networks" -- more than 2,000 words, six figures, one table.

If you've allowed yourself to fall behind on this, catch up by clicking through here.

21 Sep, 2006

In an earlier post, I listed resources for CEDIA coverage (if you didn't go -- or maybe even if you did!). If you missed that one, page down (or click here)

I just noticed that the CE Pro magazine blog has 50 "CEDIA Expo" entries, logged between late August and very recently. Browse them here.

20 Sep, 2006

A 2,300-word article in the July Cabling Installation & Maintenance talked about “taking installation methods to a new level . . . in the face of advanced technology and copper cabling’s unwavering position in the marketplace.”

Writer: Betsy Ziobron, a freelancer. This article was written for Beast Cabling Systems.

Here’s a piece of it:

“When budgeting for a job, installers build in a buffer of about 10% to 15% for waste, but these numbers are not always realistic. Upon viewing final testing results, installers are often shocked to discover the amount of cable installed versus the amount bid for and purchased.

“Even the best installers end up with between 17% and 25% waste.

“At approximately $0.30 to $0.50 per foot of cable, that waste ends up costing between $50,000 and $125,000 for someone installing one million feet of cable per year.”

How does she get to that higher number? 1 million feet x 25% waste x 50 cents per foot.

Interesting eh? You can see the article here on the CI&M site; you might have to register first (it’s free).

I also liked this quote within the article, from an RCDD at Allison Smith (Atlanta, Ga.): “If we pull 1,000 cables and two are labeled incorrectly, we don’t have a two-cable problem – we have a 1,000-cable problem. We don’t know which two cables are wrong, and it ends up being a combination of hunt, peck, and hope.”

Allison Smith is an electrical contracting company. 

19 Sep, 2006

I didn't get to the CEDIA Expo this past week in Denver. I can't be everywhere; perhaps you, too, couldn't be in Denver. Here's how to catch up (at least, a start on that).

1. A Web site called ExtremeTech has posted coverage of last week's CEDIA show:

Day One, page 1

Day One, page 2

Day One in Pictures (there's also a slide show)

Day Two, page 1

Day Two, page 2

Day Two - Slideshow

2. From HomeToys.com -- lots of press releases from CEDIA exhibitors.

19 Sep, 2006

“Sun Toying with DC Power for Data Centers” – that was the headline on a 7/7/06 story in the East Bay Business Times. Here’s a link to a three-page PDF.

What is Sun Microsystems doing? “It’s running a mock data center on DC power. If successful, the approach could save billions in electricity and trim new construction costs for data centers across the country,” the story says.

This brings us back to Thomas Edison, who thought electrical power distribution could be done using direct current, with no need to convert it to AC (and no risk of fires).

19 Sep, 2006

SunEdison of Baltimore (find ‘em here) claims, after a recent acquisition, to be the nation’s largest “solar electrical contractor.”

Reading an online story the other day, I found that SunEdison has formed (working with a North Carolina entrepreneur) a company called Carolina Solar Energy. CSE “has won contracts to build two solar-powered plants in the state with a combined investment of $1.4 million.”

Find that story here.

19 Sep, 2006

Posted 9/7 to TEDMAG.com -- More On Home Depot. Be sure to see the links at the bottom of this column for a lot more.

9/13 -- World Affairs & Your Bidniz. Aimed at TED's audience (electrical distributors), this piece asks you to think about the impact developments in the news, which may seem remote at times, might have on a given electrical business.

18 Sep, 2006

A “Summary of Industry Sectors” was offered up by a Web site that blogs about Alternative Energy Stocks earlier this month. It’s pretty good – and concise, too. If you want to read it, go here.

What attracted me in scanning it were these bullets under the heading “Energy Consumption and Oil:”

·  2 billion of the world's 6.4 billion people still do not have electricity

·  there is one car for every 65 people in China

·  China is expected to have 7-fold increase in vehicle ownership by 2020

·  a 50% increase in worldwide energy demand is expected by 2030

·  'peak oil' is defined as the year in which half of exploitable oil is gone

·  peak oil estimates vary but some believe it is between 2015 and 2020

·  investments in oil are not being made by major oil players

I’m reading more about “peak oil” – I haven’t made up my mind yet about it. But the data on China (in fact, the first four bullets alone) are enough to wake you up!

That blog relies on an 8-page PDF, “The Alternative Energy Revolution,” from Guinness Atkinson Funds as its source. To cut out the middleman, download the PDF here.

18 Sep, 2006

Any article that includes a subhed that says “Wire Like A Genius” should ultimately end up linked on this site. In this case, the 1,600-word article ran in the August issue of Security Distributing & Marketing (SDM). Here’s a link.

OK – it’s about audio systems and speakers. There’s no reason that residential electrical contractors shouldn’t be doing that work . . . and reading articles like this!

18 Sep, 2006

Ever get one of those spam e-mails touting a stock? I get a bunch of them. A Web site I’m starting to really like, CXO Advisory Group, posted to its blog 9/12 an investigation of these things.

On days when there is touting, a touted stock is the most actively traded stock 81% of the time, it says. Investors who “respond positively” (which I think means buy the damn thing) “lose, on average, 5.25% in the two-day period following touting.” That doesn’t include commissions.

See the CXO note here.

Why is this bad news? Because some large group of people are ACTING after receiving these e-mails – opening them, reading them, and then investing their money based on what the anonymous spam TOLD THEM TO DO.

. . . instead of deleting them, unopened.

18 Sep, 2006

A lot cheaper. At least, that’s what it says on the site of EDN, an electronic engineering magazine. Ed Sperling, the Editor-In-Chief of Electronic News, let loose with a blog entry on 9/5. Here’s a link.

Here’s why you should read it:

“Solar energy is about to get cheaper – much cheaper. The cost of installing solar panels on a roof is expected to drop to about a third of what it now costs over the next several years, turning an experimental industry into a mainstream boom.

“In real dollars, that means the average residential installation will drop to $8,000 from the current $24,000, not including state and federal rebates.”

Now – doncha wanna follow that link?

 As a follow-on – a story in a Portland (Ore.) newspaper noted: “Oregon Solar Energy Industry Experiencing Shortage of Tradespeople to Install the Technology.” I found it online in an unusual place; you might be able to get to it by clicking here.

18 Sep, 2006

There were 45 posts to the EleBlog in August. I've rounded them up and put them in one place. Here are three ways to access them:

1. Click here to download a 29-page PDF. (309kb)

2. Click here to view the 29-page MS Word doc. (327kb)

3. At right, click on the August 2006 link under "Archives" to see the same thing in HTML.

17 Sep, 2006

I found the 737-word “Shedding Light on Iraq’s Electrical Challenges” an interesting story. The source is listed as “Multi-National Force Iraq,” which I think is us.

Some highlights:

• “Most of Iraq’s electrical structure dates back to the 1950s and 1960s . . . ‘Most of the transformers serving local communities and homes . . . date back to the ‘50s’.”

• “The failures of [Saddam’s] regime to provide for network maintenance have been compounded by the new Iraq’s relative affluence. With a rise in incomes and availability of goods, the demand for power has frequently spiked.”

• “Most of Iraq’s transmission lines cannot handle today’s rated power outputs of 400,000 volts coming from electrical generation sites.”

Read it (if it’s still online) here.

17 Sep, 2006

Here’s a quote from the 9/11 Pittsburgh Business Times, in a 670-word article on how copper prices are killing electrical contractors (and others):

“Lawrenceville-based Wellington Power Corp. [a contractor] has been watching copper prices on an almost daily basis and jumping in to buy in bulk when the price is right for data, building, and telephone wire, according to Mike Doerfler, a senior VP . . . ‘We’re trying to protect ourselves,’ said Doerfler, although he said Wellington officers don’t envision any pricing relief in the near future.”

Here’s what this means:

•             The price of copper wire falls a bit in the Pittsburgh area.
•             In moments, Wellington jumps in and boosts demand by buying in bulk at lower prices.
•             Having seen demand increase, suppliers prices.

There’s NOTHING WRONG with what Wellington Power is doing. Further, the company’s Web site says it has $116 million of biz under contract (and thus in progress) – there’s really no other way for the company to run its business.

However, as long as there’s one or two contractors of size doing this in every market, here’s how it looks to suppliers of copper wire: “Every time we drop our prices, even a bit, demand comes out of the woodwork!”

What would you do, were you a wire manufacturer or electrical distributor, seeing this pattern? I think you would raise your prices. There’s really no other way for these companies to run their businesses!!!

15 Sep, 2006

Somehow, while working just now I stumbled across this -- as presented on the site of The Daily News-Journal (Murfreesboro, TN):

. . . in place of communities like these well-known historic sections of Murfreesboro and Franklin, what are we building today? Are we thinking long term? Are we protecting what we have? Are we making connections to our past that our children and their children will remember? What are the "homes" that future generations will remember?

I suggest that instead of building those types of communities, what we are doing instead is spending billions of tax dollars for new highways, sewer, electrical, and water systems to take our existing population and spread it around. We're ruining our historic cities and towns and we're destroying our countryside. We're building gated communities so that individuals who have money will not have to live around - and interact with - our citizens from the lower and middle economic classes. What we are building today is urban sprawl and it is having a devastating effect on our life as Americans.

There is in America today the equivalent of 4,000 abandoned shopping malls. As I've driven through Murfreesboro through the years, I've seen more than a few of them. Our building patterns encourage a "use-it-up and throw-it-away" mentality that includes buildings, land, and - some might say - people.

We are building communities where you cannot get from one place to another without a car. Most suburbanites have to drive everywhere for such simple tasks as buying bread, getting to work, and picking up the kids after school. I happen to live now just outside of Washington, DC - which has five of the 10 richest counties in America. We also have - and this has just been documented - the worst commute in America. All our wealth has not been able to help us build communities that work.

It comes from a speech by David Brown, EVP of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. You can find the whole thing here. This guy is right. Further, this economic freedom -- which I enjoy as much as the next guy -- is, literally, bankrupting us. We are spending our treasure and spilling our blood (and that of others) in the Middle East (but not in Darfur or Cambodia or Rwanda) specifically because we need more and more crude oil . . . in significant part because of this lifestyle.

14 Sep, 2006

The occasional newsletter from this site went up today, 9/15. See it by clicking here.

14 Sep, 2006

Natural gas prices fell like a stone today, to lows not seen since May 2004. Also today, Energy & Power Management posted to its Web site the contents of its September print issue, including a Joe Salimando column on natural gas.

Timing really is everything! See the column here.

12 Sep, 2006

It's the Home Lighting Control Alliance, yet another "group" from the folks in the consumer electronics area. It's not my imagination -- these folks have a lot of alliances, associations, and other semi-formal structures. Anyway, read about this one here.

11 Sep, 2006

In doing some work recently for TED magazine (the print edition), I came across something I didn't know existed -- a breakdown of construction by state (and D.C.), with $ value data for 1990 and every year from 2000 to 2004. It provides housing units, construction employment, and totals for the U.S. as well.

Pretty neat. And it does it all on a 1-page PDF! I posted it here.

09 Sep, 2006

Guarantee Electrical Co. is a privately held electrical contractor. They've been issuing press releases on occasion; the one below is the second this summer. I'm not sure why they do it; is it for the exposure (to get more business?) -- or is the company toying with the idea of going public? I don't know. Here's the release:

Guarantee to Wire Historic Building

Electrical contractor will illuminate old building with new radiance

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 7, 2006 - Guarantee Electrical Company has been selected to provide electrical design-build services for renovation of the Syndicate Trust building in the Old Post Office district.

The redevelopment project will convert the historic Syndicate Trust building into residential units with ground-floor retail. The development plans incorporate 102 condos and 70 apartments, as well as converting the first three floors to parking. A mezzanine level will be added above the existing roof elevation and integrated with the 16th and 17th floors to create three-story penthouses. Design is nearly complete, and construction will begin in the fall.

Guarantee will install electrical, fire alarm, phone/data, CATV and security systems for the 460,000-square-foot building. Primary and backup power, originating from two different feeds, will be coordinated with Ameren UE to allow for more reliable power sources. Guarantee also will assist with the interior lighting design for the shell and core.

Guarantee's project team includes Mike Minor, vice president of design-build; Dave Livorsi, electrical designer; and Steve Kellenberger, project manager. GECO Systems/TelVi will perform all low-voltage work. BSI Constructors is the general contractor and The Lawrence Group is the architect. The project is scheduled for completion by the first quarter of 2008.

Founded in 1902, St. Louis-based Guarantee Electrical Company provides a complete spectrum of electrical contracting services, including
electrical construction, electrical engineering design, design-assist, value engineering, procurement, service and preventative maintenance.
The company's subsidiaries include Guarantee Electrical Construction Company, GECO Engineering Company, Denver-based Guarantee Electrical
Contracting, and Benicia, Calif.-based Guarantee Electrical Construction Company. Guarantee is a founding member of the Federated Electrical
Contractors (FEC) and is thereby affiliated with 33 of the most respected electrical contracting firms in 60 cities in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.geco.com.

06 Sep, 2006

An engineer at Lockheed Martin thought there were critical security flaws on Coast Guard patrol boats. No one listened. So: He made a YouTube video.

I'm not sure how much notice this has attracted -- so you might have missed it. I'm also not sure if this is the beginning of something important (and good!) . . . or just a blip on the radar screen.

See a report on the item here.
http://news.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029694,49283172,00.htm

See the YouTube video here; it's 10 minutes long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd3VV8Za04g

The Washington Post coverage of this item (I didn't link to it, because they'll put the story behind a firewall soon), quoted a woman who may or may not know something: "This is an excellent example of the democratization of the media, where everyone has access to the printing press of the 21st century." That's from Dina Kaplan of Blip.tv.

Note that the Post reporter did his job. The next sentence of his story: "Kaplan, like others, was hard-pressed to think of another video" like the one linked above.

06 Sep, 2006

One of the economists that I "follow" -- which means read religiously, as his stuff is free -- is Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust. You'll see Kasriel quoted quite frequently, in a lot of places. A main reason I read Kasriel is that I don't always agree with him.

I saved his July 18 commentary, headlined: "Homebuilding and Retailing Stock Indices Speak Volumes."

In it, Kasriel displayed charts of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Housing Sector Index and the S&P Retailing Index. The document, including the charts, can be found here(page down to click on the July 18 link, which will get you a PDF).

If you're not going to look, I can sum up how the charts look:

• Housing Sector Index -- sick.
• Retailing Index -- sicker.

After yesterday's stock-market decline (albeit a minor one), I went back this morning to check on the health of these indices.  Here's the performance:

Housing Sector Index -- 190.88 when Kasriel charted it; now 199.46.
You can track the HGX on Yahoo! Finance, here: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5EHGX

Retailing Index -- 412.82 when Kasriel said it was "speaking volumes" -- now, 437.60
The S&P Retailing Index is here on Yahoo!: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5ERLX

I'm not a "technical analyst" of the stock markets (or commodities, for that matter). It's possible that all that's happened here is that these awful-performing indices have "bounced off of their lows."

But for the record, the Housing index is up 4.5% since the 7/17 date Kasriel grabbed the chart, and Retailing is up 6.0%. For comparison's sake, the S&P 500 (the broad market measure) is up 5.35% in the same time period.

03 Sep, 2006

I snipped this from an 8/31 Washington Post story on upcoming local elections. The "council" noted below is the Washington, D.C. city council.

This is paragraphs #12, 13, 14, and 15 of the story:

Lawyer A. Scott Bolden, who is challenging two-term incumbent Phil Mendelson (D) for his at-large council seat, has already flooded D.C. mailboxes with six pieces of campaign literature in a desperate bid to gain name recognition.

Now, Bolden is getting a little help.

Voters recently received yet another mailing, this one paid for by the Citizens for Empowerment Political Action Committee, a $200,000 operation funded by Dulles-based electrical contractor M.C. Dean Inc. and Bethesda-based Miller & Long, one of the largest concrete contractors in the nation.

The four crisp photos in the action committee's literature are identical to shots in material produced by Bolden, a former president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce who has had an adversarial relationship with local labor unions.

From Joe: M.C. Dean is a huge local (and non-union) electrical contractor in the D.C. area.

# # #

03 Sep, 2006

Here's a look at the impact construction has on Gross Domestic Product -- from Chad Hudson, a guy whose column I read every week:

Second quarter GDP growth was revised up to 2.9% from 2.5% initially. This was slightly lower than the 3.0% economists forecasted. We have long discussed the strength in commercial construction. Non-residential structures jumped 22.2%, almost twice the 12.7% initially reported. It also accounted for 60 basis points of GDP growth instead of 36 as originally reported. Residential construction was revised down to -9.8% from -6.3% was a drag on GDP by 63. In aggregate, the increase in commercial construction has offset the decline in residential construction.

Read Hudson's piece here (that's all there is on construction); see an archive of his Mid Week Analysis pieces here.

01 Sep, 2006

Construction spending revisited: I went back + checked UNadjusted private residential construction spending for the past three months (May-June-July) vs. year-earlier numbers. Here's what I found:

3 months combined, 2005 = $174,835,000,000

3 months combined, 2006 = $174,884,000,000

The figures are about even; there's a $49 million difference, and I don't believe that the government can measure anything as big as construction to that level of accuracy.

NOW: Throw some inflation (pick your favorite number) into the hopper, and residential construction is, over the past three months, DOWN compared with the same period in 2005.

Additionally, the July 2006 private residential number -- $58,989,000,000 (subject to revision) -- was below the July 2005 number ($60.8 billion). That hasn't happened a lot since 2002, if at all (I didn't go back to check).

AND

Overall, through 7 months of 2006, private residential construction came in at $367.57B, up 3.9% over the same period in 2005. The rest of construction (everything else) is up 16.8% in the same period!

01 Sep, 2006

As has been (or will be) widely reported, construction spending -- seasonally adjusted -- fell in July from June (U.S. Dept. of Commerce report). I try to look at the REAL dollars, not the seasonally adjusted crap. Here's the scoop on that:

June 2005 -- $103,702,000,000 in consruction spending

July 2005 -- $105,478,000,000 in construction spending.

July 2006 -- 110,562,000,000

June 2006 -- 111,230,000,000

What probably matters more than one-month changes is year-over-year shifts. June 2006 (last month) was up 7.2% from the year-earlier total. July 2006 was up 4.8% from the July 2005 number.

IS THAT A TREND? I went back and checked the May 06 vs. 05 number. May 2006 was up 7.36% over May 2005.

1 -- We can tentatively conclude that there is a slowdown in construction spending, based on year-over-year comparisons. It's not dramatic. But it's happening in summer, which is contraintuitive.

2 -- I know, I know -- that doesn't square with increasing employment in construction overall in July (and August), as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Go figure (literally).

3 -- Inflation in the general economy is running at 4.5% or so -- officially, NOT subtracting food + energy. Inflation in construction material costs AND construction wages is about that, or maybe higher. Therefore, a 4.8% year-over-year gain for the month of July equates to breakeven or slightly worse, in REAL terms.

# # #

01 Sep, 2006

Bureau of Labor Statistics data for July:

Overall construction -- production workers (guys/gals in the field) -- added 39,000 workers in the month. Total: 6,023,000.

Electrical construction -- production workers -- added 9,200 workers in the month. Total: 707,600.

Both numbers are preliminary (and thus subject to revision). Some notes:

Electrical construction production-worker employment as a % of total construction in July = 11.75%

Electrical construction as a % of construction production workers added in July = 23.6%, or double the sitch in the existing base.

Total construction topped 6 million for the first time ever in July (and did it again in August, according to preliminary estimates). 

Electrical construction had been above 700,000 before. But it last topped 700K in September 2002, on the downside of the boom. The highest-ever figure for electrical production workers was 784,100 -- in September 2000.

Of importance: In September 2000, when electrical peaked, electricians made up 14.18% of the total # of workers in construction.