Lewisville’s Westbend Vineyards Closing to Public March 2, 2014

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This is big news for the Yadkin Valley wine community and for the town of Lewisville, NC:

Westbend Vineyards – one of North Carolina’s oldest and most pioneering wineries – stunned the Yadkin Valley wine industry with its announcement that it plans to close its winery, brewery and tasting room to the public March 2.

Winemaker Mark Terry offered this twist on the news: He and his daughter Nicole are opening a wine and beer retail store in downtown Winston-Salem. They hope to open Corks, Caps & Taps in early April. From that location, Terry will market Westbend’s extensive wine portfolio, in addition to other North Carolina wines…

Terry said Westbend will continue to maintain the vineyard, keep winemaking permits current and continue making wine until all inventory is sold through the new retail store. The future of the grapes – and the winemaking facility and equipment – is unsettled at this time, he said.

 

5 Ways We’re Proving Marx Right

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Because calling someone/something Marxist is as damning a critique as we have in America it's important to share the last part of this piece from Rolling Stone first so that we can keep an open mind for the author's main thesis – that in five ways Marx accurately predicted the current state of our capitalist world:

Marx was wrong about many things. Most of his writing focuses on a critique of capitalism rather than a proposal of what to replace it with – which left it open to misinterpretation by madmen like Stalin in the 20th century. But his work still shapes our world in a positive way as well…

Without further ado here are the five ways Marx accurately predicted the effects of capitalism:

  1. The Great Recession (Capitalism's Chaotic Nature)
  2. The iPhone 5S (Imaginary Appetites)
  3. The IMF (The Globalization of Capitalism)
  4. Walmart (Monopoly)
  5. Low Wages, Big Profits (The Reserve Army of Industrial Labor)

Reading the rationale for all five is definitely worth the time.

 

Thinking About Water

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Update 2/4/14 – Fast on the heels of posting this yesterday I came across this article about a coal ash spill from a shuttered Duke Energy plant into the Dan River on Sunday. That hits very close to home.
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Over at Head Butler there's an interview with one of the co-authors of Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource and it's eye opening:

JK: As the book explains — with unusual restrain and modesty — you did. Now that you’re an expert witness, tell me: Which is the bigger crisis, oil or water?

SL: Water, definitely. When I talk to people, I start by saying, ‘You know, it’s the same water since the beginning of time.’ They ask: ‘What do you mean?’ I say: ‘We’re using the same water — just recycled. Water is finite. How we treat it affects the quality of all of our water in the future.’ And I go on to say: ‘There is no substitute for water. Solar or alternative energies might replace oil, but there’s no alternative to water.’ At which point, someone says: ‘Desalinization.’ I say: ‘Do you have any idea of the cost, the energy, the environmental impact?’ They say: “But Israel…’ I say: ‘Israel is a small country.’ And then they start to get it…

JK: Sounds almost like we’re going backwards.

SL: The basic problem: People get 30-year mortgages — but they don’t know if they’ll have water for 30 years. And they don’t think to ask. We’re on a collision course between the increasing demand of a growing population and a finite amount of water. To make matters more complicated, we pollute the water we have and then you can add climate change into the mix. We already see the effects of climate change in the West with decreased snowpack and water shortages. On the East coast, climate change means storm surges that overwhelm the aging waste water treatment plants…

JK: In some California counties, water companies are paying customers to remove their lawns. How about golf courses?

SL: Golf courses should be using recycled waste, and we’re seeing a trend toward that. A greater concern for me is how little individuals understand that they have a water footprint that is much larger than their daily household use. Most of us think we use 80-100 gallons a day. Wrong. Our water footprint is about 1,800 gallons a day. Like me. I love steak — and we need 630 gallons of water for one 8 ounce steak! But now that I know that, I am a much more conscious consumer of beef and other water-intensive foods. (Emphasis mine- JL)

I'm thinking about getting the Kindle version of the book, but part of me is resistant since I really have enough to worry about these days without adding water to the mix. 

 

Easy Money in Camel City

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Earlier this week the Winston-Salem City Council approved a $100,000 loan for the Winston-Salem Chronicle newspaper. The loan raises all kinds of ethical questions for the newspaper and it also calls attention to a small business loan program administered by the city and is likely not well-known to most people.  That makes for an interesting item on Yes! Weekly's blog:

The city has approved $6.1 million to 142 businesses over the past 28 years, according to information provided by Assistant City Manager Derwick Paige. Of those, 21 businesses withdrew, two are under legal action and two are pending. Alarming perhaps, only 48 remain open, while 69 are closed. The city estimates that about 491 jobs were created through the loans, which equates to about $12,398 per job…

Camino Bakery, owned by Cary Clifford, received a $24,845 loan in FY 2011-2012 and currently owes $24,384.

The city loaned Ziggy's (partially owned by YES! Weekly publisher Charles Womack) $50,000 in FY 2010-2011. The borrower currently owes $49,923.

What this piece doesn't reflect is how much interest has been paid on the loans mentioned, but if the terms are similar to the terms the Chronicle received - the newspaper would not have to begin making repayments for the first 36 months after receiving the loan. At the end of the deferment period, the Chronicle would have to make monthly payments with a 2 percent interest rate (source Winston-Salem Journal) – then it can't be much and you have to look at these and think, "Man, what a SWEET deal!"

Seriously, Ziggy's got $50,000 in 2010-11 and still owes $49,923 which means they've repaid $77 in four years. Let's hope they got the same deal as the Chronicle and have just now started to make payments and not that they're stiffing the city because they're struggling financially. Either way though, the real point here is that these loan terms appear to be amazingly generous and it's going to be interesting to see if the publicity this story has generated will prompt a flood of loan requests. 

Anyone want to partner with me on my dream coffee shop-book shop-beer garden business somewhere downtown? I hear there's money to be had! 

New Etiquette for the Always On Observers

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Two recent articles highlight the side effect of "wearable computing" – personal cameras that automatically capture the world around us. First is this piece from a Wired writer describing his year as a Google Glass user:

My Glass experiences have left me a little wary of wearables because I’m never sure where they’re welcome. I’m not wearing my $1,500 face computer on public transit where there’s a good chance it might be yanked from my face. I won’t wear it out to dinner, because it seems as rude as holding a phone in my hand during a meal. I won’t wear it to a bar. I won’t wear it to a movie. I can’t wear it to the playground or my kid’s school because sometimes it scares children.

Next up is a piece in The Wall Street Journal about cameras you can clip to your shirt so they can take pictures automatically throughout the day:

But there's a cost to amassing so much photographic evidence. The tiny cameras made others uncomfortable when they found out they were being recorded. Some friends wouldn't hug me; gossiping colleagues kept asking, "Is that thing on?" These devices upset a fundamental (though arguably flawed) assumption that even in public, you aren't being recorded.

Makes you squirm, doesn't it? One reason I wanted to review these cameras is that this kind of technology isn't going away. "Always on" cameras are becoming popular in home electronics like the Xbox One and a new wave of streaming video security systems. Now you can buy cameras that attach to your wrist, ear, bike helmet and eyeglasses. They're also fast becoming part of the uniforms of cops, soldiers and doctors.

Both articles explore the positive utilities of these devices, but the authors also highlighted the discomfort that these things caused in people around them. It's not surprising when you think about how uncomfortable you'd be if someone were to just start snapping pictures of you with a traditional camera while you're out and about, but it's even more discomfiting when you realize that people can do it without you even knowing it. What this means is that in the very near future we're going to go through a societal learning stage about what will be the appropriate (polite?) way to use these new devices.

What's scary is that we still haven't mastered the etiquette for proper mobile phone usage and those things have been with us for 20 years! Hell, someone was shot and killed in Tampa this month because of dispute over texting in a movie theater, so it's a bit scary to think what we'll be seeing with these always-on cameras. Of course we'll figure it out eventually but there are going to be many uncomfortable moments until we do.

The Week That Spanned a Year: 12/29/13 – 1/4/14

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Current Events – Everything you need to know about Obamacare in one place – Probably the best, most easily understood piece about Obamacare and what it means for you…with video!

Oh Shit! Issue of the Week – Retirement crisis being brought on by aging boomers who didn’t save squat and fewer young workers to fund the retirement system.

Cutest Video of the Week – A dad, his daughter and a pink plastic ukulele.

Stupid Person of the Week – The man who didn’t bring home the beer.

Technology – Year of the Glasshole – Excerpt – “An anecdote: I wanted to wear Google Glass during the birth of our second child. My wife was extremely unreceptive to this idea when I suggested it. Angry, even. But as we got a bit closer to the date, she began to warm to it and eventually landed somewhere in the neighborhood of bemused hostility.”

History – Nattering Nabobs of Negativism Through the Ages – From the printing press to the internet and how pundits of their times thought they’d ruin society.

Marketing – How to make things go viral – A must read for anyone in the business of getting attention, whether for themselves or their business.

Small Business – 10 Bold Predictions for 2014 – #9, that Obamacare will be very popular with super-small businesses, is spot on.

Oy of the Week – Meet the people who think the US is 2014 years old

Quote of the Week – “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

Ripple Effect

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Rex Hammock has 10 Bold Small Business Predictions for 2014 and #9 is dead on:

This is a non-partisan prediction. If you love Obamacare, or hate Obamacare, this prediction doesn’t care. With the bungled launch of the Healthcare.gov online insurance market and the non-stop accusations slinging back and forth between the political parties, it’s been hard for small busines owners to separate fact from vitriol. But here’s one fact: millions of “nonemployee businesses” (a census bureau segment that are independent free lancers, developers, consultants, authors, artisans, etc., who, collectively, account for 4% of all U.S. sales and receipts, but represent the largest number business entities) are now able to obtain healthcare insurance at a competitive price, even if they have pre-existing health condition. Not having access to such insurance has held back lots of employees of lots of big companies from setting up their own shop. Here’s another fact: If a small business has less than 50 employees, the only requirement they have under the Affordable Care Act is to inform employees of the availability of private healthcare insurance sold through marketplaces administered through (depending on the option of a state) federal or state healthcare insurance marketplaces. As Mark Cuban recently told the Wall Street Journal, “As someone who owns chunks of small businesses, the one thing all those companies have in common is [that] buying and providing health care is not a core competency,” he says. “It’s expensive.” By removing the responsibility to provide coverage from these firms and giving it to the government, he says, “You’ve freed up money and time.”

My long-besieged wife has heard me say this for years – if the health care system in the US was fixed there would be an explosion of entrepreneurialism. It's hard to overstate how many people have been tethered to a deadend job because they needed the benefits. Imagine what they would do if that wasn't hanging over their heads and I'm sure that thought is a big motivator in the fight against health care reform.

Hanesbrands vs Hanes Hummus

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Winston-Salem's very own Hanesbrands seems to feel threatened by a tiny Canadian hummus maker and they aren't going to sit back and let those Canuck chickpea smashers get away with riding on their branding coattails:

The difference between underwear and hummus may be as vast as the distance between Hanesbrands' headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the food business that Yohannes Petros built in the city of Saskatoon, in Saskatchewan, Canada, five years ago.

But earlier this month, the gulf was closed, just like the plastic container sealing his hummus products when Petros received a two-page letter from Hanes' legal department.

The letter said Hanesbrands Inc. objects to Petros' use of the mark Hanes Hummus in his application to register the name in the U.S. and Canada. The company required a response by Dec. 16 in its request to "cease and desist from all use of the mark Hanes Hummus" and withdraw its pending trademark applications.

Petros decided to fight back and retained his own attorney who, thankfully, seems to have a sense of humor:

In response, Petros' attorney, Nathan Dooley, wrote a three-page letter to Hanesbrands with 36 pages of supporting case law saying he disagrees with Hanesbrands' conclusion that consumers will confuse the hummus maker with the apparel brand.

"I was not aware that HBI [Hanesbrands Inc.] was in the business of manufacturing and selling hummus. In fact, I am confident that HBI is not in the food production business at all, let alone the production of fine and tasty hummus of the type manufactured and sold by Hanes Hummus," Dooley writes.

"I was not aware that HBI's T-shirts were edible, made with chick peas, lemon or garlic," Dooley adds…

Dooley holds back no punches, writing to Hanes, "It is safe to assume that you have done no research whatsoever" and "If you had done that research, you would not have sent the letter because, in reality, no rational person who is familiar with Hanes Hummus could possibly allege any confusion between Hanes Hummus and HBI's Mark or HBI's product."

I pity the HBI PR person who caught this one.