An upside of crisis can be the inevitable deep analyses that tend to follow. And the recent financial turmoil is no exception -- likely keeping the world's economists at near full employment. An adjunct phenomenon resulting from this process is that many of us have become Monday morning macroeconomic quarterbacks, playing with a minefield of data. In reporting on Federal Reserve figures released yesterday, this morning's WSJ has offered up a trove of new data and interpretation that would have seemed preposterous -- and may still be -- just a short time ago.

[More]

I've never been much of a coupon clipper. For one thing, I rarely see coupons for the things I buy. When I do, they either expire before I use them, or -- if I remember having clipped them -- I can't find the coupon when I need it. And more importantly, clipping coupons doesn't seem to be efficient from a cost/benefit perspective -- time searching, clipping, filing and all those things clippers do, divided by real savings. But according to yesterday's WSJ, there's a core group of consumers out there who would vehemently disagree.

[More]

This post is authored by Spend Matters contributor William Busch. He wrote it in response to a recent story surrounding procurement fraud in the food/CPG markets that appeared in Spend Matters last week.

Since fraud seems to be ubiquitous cross culturally, it's fairly safe to say that its inevitable commission represents a dark side of human nature. Fraud's perpetrators run the gamut from incredibly stupid to very bright. What they have in common is that they're all narcissistic. Narcissists are over the top needy, self-absorbed and -- here's the important part -- self-concerned and self-protective.

As a society, there are many things we can do to prevent personality disorders like this from evolving and even treat these conditions once they take hold -- but that's a separate topic. Let's be clear that technology cannot prevent deviant behavior. And while these people can be clever and difficult to spot, what we can do is clearly spell out the personal consequences of committing fraud within organizations.

[More]

Benjamin Franklin -- who would most certainly be a blogger if he were alive today -- is famous for having popularized the phrase "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." And as a logical extension, I've always been struck by how the business of death has appeared to not only be resistant to market fluctuation, but also likely to continuously expand as population increases. Enter the biggest economic downturn in 70 years and consumers have now begun to focus their new found frugality on the casket industry.

Back in Ben Franklin's day, coffin making (the six sided version) was a welcome and steady sideline for local carpenters and cabinet makers in the small towns and villages where most people lived. Now no longer a cottage industry, casket making today is big business. And while not a death knell just yet, theWSJ chronicles the impact of doing death on the cheap and states that "some casket makers worry their business is hitting a dead end". Quoting the example of Marc Kruskol, a 52-year-old publicist in Palmdale, CA, The Journal says "He doesn't want a casket burial regardless of how strong the economy is ... When he dies, he wants to donate his organs and be cremated. Traditional burials are a waste of cash, he says. 'It's like taking a bag full of money and burying it'." Mr. Kruskol appears to epitomize the nail in the industry's ... you get the idea -- sorry but the puns are too irresistible.

[More]

Our recent economic malaise has revived the debate over discounting goods and services in nearly every business sector. Arguments pro and con abound, but the crux of the matter is whether it's possible to re-establish a brand without diluting its premium status once a price is lowered either to increase market share, attract a new customer base or decrease excess inventory. It's difficult to generalize the findings but given that alcohol consumption has probably been a dominant source of self-medicating through the recession -- today's WSJ reports "the 2009 volume of spirits sold in the U.S. rose 1.4%, but the total revenue for spirits producers was essentially flat at $18.7 billion" -- recent sales figures from the spirits industry offer the basis for a sobering analysis of the debate.

[More]

If you're in the market to grow your supply chain credentials, the US Department of Labor wants to help -- at least sort of. According to an article on Procurement Leaders this morning "the US Department of Labor has awarded $290m toward green jobs training grants, and aims to prepare more than 120,000 Americans for environmentally friendly jobs by 2012." And if this small stimulus for the procurement profession isn’t sufficient incentive, a Pew Charitable Trusts' study is quoted saying "that the number of jobs in America's emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007."

[More]

Jobless claims rose by 31,000 last week "…largely reversing a 41,000 drop in the prior week and lead[ing] to new concerns that jobless claims are stalling at a high level" according to today's WSJ. Headlines such as this are a gnawing reminder to those seeking employment that the market will remain tight for some time to come -- and might, in fact, not return to pre-recession levels for a very long time.

[More]

The construction and home building industries have suffered more than their share of hardship through the financial crisis and recession for well over a year now. Cautious home owners wary of employment security and wanting to reduce debt have put off discretionary repairs and renovation to say nothing of how and why new housing starts have tanked. So just as manufacturing appears to be making gains and other numbers appear encouraging in advance of a change in employment, lumber prices have sawed their way up -- way up -- in contrast to other building related commodities.

[More]

The news cycle on Toyota's recalls as been relentless -- and I suppose this is appropriate given the automotive manufacturer chaos of the past year coupled with western culture's pre-occupation with product safety. But I can't help but feel -- and I know this isn't going to be popular -- that the whole thing is a bit over blown.

[More]

I was perplexed by a report on yesterday's Fox News.com that "The Office of Personnel Management estimates that the shuttering of the federal government due to the snowstorms in Washington, D.C., is costing taxpayers about $100 million every day in lost productivity." Now measuring productivity in business is relatively easy. In its basic form productivity is measured by the ratio of output to input. But since none of us can be quite sure about what government actually produces in aggregate, how in the world was this number calculated? Fox didn't question the calculation but rather decided to weave a story about "what does $100 million buy?" along with partisan politics. No surprise there.

This claim by the OPM offers valuable insight – if also an oxymoron – in that it appears to be a rough measurement of daily input of dollars required to run the D.C. federal bureaucracy. But it would be far more interesting to know how much productivity is lost in the Capital City on a clear day. I'll attempt to discover how this "lost productivity" was measured and report back in the coming days.

- William Busch