What a gloomy view this was on the front page of the newspaper today about the crash on Monday as you can see here particularly the Lululemon stock dropping by 22.7%:

Seems like an event that would have caused a lot of people to curl up considering the billions of dollars in losses. I read that there was suppose to be some kind of new announcement of a bigger rate cut from the bank of Canada later today in response to all this.

Way to test people’s will power when it comes to investing huh?

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Today I went to get a haircut at the usual place that I go to and the couple that own and operate the business came back from a vacation. As expected, they mentioned that they had a wonderful time and their kids didn’t want to leave.

The lady mentioned how it wasn’t too bad financially as the whole two week trip for everyone came out to around $3000. While she mentioned she would love to do it again since it was so cheap, she brought up the point on how a lot of people neglect to remember that at the same time when you don’t work you are losing even more money in multiple ways. Example, no revenue is coming in and your building rent is going to waste.

With that in mind, that’s always the main reason why it is wise to try and establish some form of passive income source so that you can still generate an income even while you are not there. With her situation it kind of forces you to be more diligent with money since there is a business involved. In general though, it’s all about understanding where your money is coming and going.

Like with the vacation example, if you just see it as you have $3000 so it’s time to take a trip, it’s kind of a setup up to be living in a just getting by situation. Always have an income plan for downtimes as well.

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I heard a conversation today where people were paying for a bill at a restaurant and they decided to pay in cash. Like most restaurants, the workers would give you back your change in a coin tray and many times people would leave an X amount of money from that as the tip.

There happened to be some pennies in the tray and so they decided to leave the ideal amount as the tip as well as the pennies. However, a person then brought up the point on how she heard on a radio show that it is rude to leave pennies as waiters/waitresses hate that while considering it an insult and so they should take the pennies.

I was just thinking to myself there on how one can consider that as rude as the customer is essentially giving more free money to the worker. I personally would view it as the same as when someone buys something at a store and doesn’t want the change and so the store gets to keep it for extra profit.

I guess I can understand the cumbersome of counting pennies at the end of the day, but to classify that as rude is beyond me personally. Every penny counts in my opinion and money is money in this situation.

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A person was talking to me about a segment that appeared on the Oprah show that talked about how there was a lady that kept borrowing money from her family members to live on and as a result everyone was then suffering financially. I did go to the website to read a recap of it and it was definitely a precarious situation. The lady who was borrowing money decided to do things such as buying a new TV instead of using the money to pay for her rent.

I actually knew a person who did something similar as he constantly complained he was suffering financially with no money to live. Sure enough, when he was given thousands of dollars from friends and family members he decides to blow it on high tech electronic gizmos and other unnecessary things just to go back to others again to say he needed more.

From what I read in the recap, it was kind of interesting as the way they were trying to get through to the person was to make herself realize and admit that every time she didn’t pay people back or say her bills that she was simply lying her way through life. Seems like it was to a point where it was implied that how one handles money is a reflection of their character in general. Unfair assessment? Fair assessment?

One thing that I read from the recap was how some people would look at your FICO scores for more than just money loaning issues. It mentioned that it could also play a factor in a person’s employment chances. That was kind of interesting I thought as I have never personally seen an employer request for such information. I personally have a score of 800+ for the longest time, but that would still be kind of weird I think to use that information for purposes other than credit issues and such.

At the end the family members decided to stop supporting the person financially and to let her fend for herself. That’s the only way to do it based on the people I have met who consistently rely on others financially. When you think about it, there is a difference between helping a situation and encouraging it to continue.

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What an interesting episode this was. The task for this round was to create a mobile printing experience for the company Kodak on the sidewalks of New York. The teams were provided with an Airstream bus, Kodak cameras as well as printers to do so. The winning team would be decided by Kodak executives based on originality, brand messaging, and profit.

At the start Gene Simmons was asked by Donald Trump on whether or not he would be willing to lead team Empresario since they have yet to win a challenge. He accepted the challenge and as a result became the project manager for them. For team Hydra, Tito Ortiz was the project manager this time around. Donald Trump also had Jim Cramer, from Mad Money, as a special guest to help observe the team’s performances.

Similar to the last episode, Gene Simmons did not want to waste time talking to the executives. Instead, he sent Carol Alt and Nely Galan to do so while he focused on creating the visual presentation experience. The team created a very well designed presentation such as plastering the Airstream bus with the slogan and Kodak name. Nely Galan did not seem to listen to the executives very well though and as a result the information relayed back to Gene Simmons did not appear to be ideal.

Team Hydra did sit down with the Kodak executives to learn about the company’s product and direction. As a result, they seemed to be in tact with what would make the executives happy. They did experience a huge setup while Stephen Baldwin took photos of Tito Ortiz and Lennox Lewis on a table appearing as if they have been knocked out by the Kodak ink.

As they got off the table, all the weight caused it to flip up and it just happened that the laptop that had all of their art work had coffee spilt on it. As a result, they lost all the work on the computer and had to do a lot of last minute printing which made their presentation look very unpolished.

Team Empresario’s direction was to create a presentation revolving around a slogan of “It’s a Kodak world” where they attempted to highlight Kodak and its products. Team Hydra’s slogan was “The ultimate knockout experience” where they focused on Kodak’s new ink that enables people to print a lot more documents compared to regular ink in printers. Despite the poor presentation, in the end Team Hydra won as they did a better job conveying the message that the Kodak executives were looking for.

The boardroom got very interesting as it seems like a lot of people were more focused on getting rid of the people based on the future as oppose to the task at hand. Virtually every time Trump asked people on who they would fire the answer would be completely unexpected. For this boardroom session, Trump really wanted to fire Nely Galan and kept hinting at it.

When Trump asked Gene Simmons who he would bring into the boardroom, at first he asked if he could bring just one person and Trump agreed. Simmons mentions that he wanted to take Omarosa based one’s loyalty and Trump was just in shock. Now usually in past shows if the person made a strange request Trump would simply fire the project manager. Instead, he insisted that Gene Simmons choose another person as well and he then chose Jennie Finch.

To me, it looked like Trump really did not want to get rid of Gene Simmons or Omarosa for that matter. In the end, Trump mentioned that he didn’t really have a choice and had to fire Gene Simmons.

This was such an interesting episode especially with what happened between Trump and Simmons. I really liked Simmons’ talk about focusing on loyalty in people and how he was willing to stick to his final product to the very end. While it definitely wasn’t the best choice strategically if the objective was to stay in the show as focusing just on the task would have most likely resulted in Nely being fired, he was a very admirable business person there I thought. Makes me want to learn more about his background.

On semi related note, fellow Vancouver blogger and frequent reader Stewart Marshall actually works for Kodak and he informed me that before the show aired the staff at Kodak received a memo about the show encouraging people to watch it. He has made a post about it too with some behind the scene links and you can click here to read it.

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