After World War II, many aspects of life were better, for example because of the concentration of resources and desire to win in the war those military findings can create new ways to do things. In the war, the idea is to kill more people so they surrender, but after the war those advances can be used for peaceful purposes. During the war, the Germans engineers were far ahead of the Americans and Russians, this resulted both sides took as many Germans engineers as possible to their countries to work on rockets. These rockets were to be aimed at space – outer space and who arrived first besides bragging rights could control space. There was a long time between WW II and when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon but all the wonders and themes of technology to help man are wrapped up in the story. The story is written in a book called The Race – The Uncensored Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon by James Schefter, Doubleday, NY, 1999.

The book is a wonderful guide and story to how we arrived at where we are now – looking back decisions are made while innocent at the time lead to new ideas and the continual improvement. One idea was when a person is sent to space how involved should they be? the answer was without man being in control why go? Another idea was the miniaturization of the materials to save weight and space, this continues today. In the 1950’s and beyond computers and equipment were big, today they fit into your hand.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the Race was leading by Russia (the first satellites) and then President Kennedy said we will land on the moon in the early 1960’s with the Americans landing in 1969. This decade lead to great research and development and wonderful engineering problem solving with significant spinoffs to everyday life. Those spinoffs helped create companies that exist today for they had the foresight to do something with the learning. Dividend paying stocks are the profitable ones and although there is no great race today, companies still have to be conservative enough to keep paying dividends and liberal enough to look forward to future earnings.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In 1977 a blockbuster movie came out about World War II called a Bridge Too Far. It had a long cast of famous actors and depicted the actions around one of the most disastrous battles during the war The operation was called Operation Market Garden and on paper it seemed like a good idea. The war was winding down by September 1944 (it was over in 1945) and the allies controlled the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. In seem like a good idea to jump ahead, control the bridges over the rivers in the Netherlands (Holland) and put a end to the war quickly. It seemed like a good idea, confidence was high and the thought was the area in question was not highly defended. It turned out, by accident or luck the Germans had moved a highly skilled tank unit into the area, the allied commanders dismissed the warnings and had a great desire to go ahead with the plans did not put those considerations into the plans. Some bridges were taken but the main bridge was not, which meant because there was one road leading to the bridge, the allied troops could not go over the bridge and after many lives were lost, the allies retreated.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the combination of overconfidence and not estimating the moves of the competition is a deadly one In battle, it leads to people dying; in economics it leads to loss of market share or no return on your investment. Confidence is a great thing – companies and people gain it over time and believe what they are doing is good and can lead to even better results Under estimating your competition is a death nail, particularly now when companies are so nimble. There is more competition because the barriers or ability to compete are continually falling. If the management of the companies you own underestimates the competition they will be out of their seats in a short time and you will be changing companies

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

Recently a picture was in the newspaper about Ford’s Ergonomics Lab with the caption line since 2003, Ford has reduced the injured rate for its more than 50,000 US assembly line workers by 70% through ergonomics technology. This statistic screams to me about declining insurance and hospital costs paid by Ford Motor. There are a number of You Tube videos of how they do what they are doing, needless to say it is very good they are doing it. An assembly line means vehicles come down the line and parts are added to it; in the world of design the heights would have been set to an average person – but if you look at who the company hired, most of them are not average. For example, someone is a little shorter and standing on their toes to do the job, causes back strain which is an extremely hard thing to prove and get over. Standing on a raise platform solves the problem. In the Ergonomics Lab the lab can go through the motions and see the stresses on the joints and pressure points and design the line to significantly reduce the stresses. The healthier the people are, the less the insurance costs and the company can use the people it spent time and effort to hire in the first place.

There are many ways to save costs, one method is to force it onto the employees or the government, which means the company does not pay for costs,  but the problem is not solved. The Ergonomics Lab helps save cost which is why you might ask the larger companies if they have the capabilities or have used the lessons to design to save money – both insurance and human costs. From my perspective this is something all companies should be using for their employees because great design saves money, bad design costs money.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

When we sign on to any electronic device, we have the ability to find information or to create or to be curious about any subject or many other descriptive ideals that can or could bring the world closer to each other. Those are valuable ideas, but there is also organizations generally governments which only want us to go so far and then they monitor us. The internet has two sides one open and free the other all the issues of surveillance, privacy and the dark side of the internet. In a book called Black Code published by Signal – a division of Penguin Random House, Toronto, 2013 the author Ronald Deibert takes the reader into the darker side of the internet. The world of the internet can be a friendly place, but it has many attributes of carefully watching and in some instances acting on your concerns. In the world of Big Data, the individual is not focused on because it is trying to figure out the patterns of many people. In the aspect of surveillance and privacy the individual is focused on, typically the government of the day can easily find what words and when you are using words which they do not want you to use. Mr. Deibert and others focus on what the government is following. In some cases – China – it focus on those having too friendly relations with countries they consider to be there territory. In some cases – China – it focuses on gathering data which can be used by state companies. In some cases – Russia – there is a the fraud aspect. In some cases – Syria, with the internal war going on, the internet is used to pinpoint where the opposition is (there is a old movie Independence Day where to defeat the alien enemy morse code is used, if you are going to be in a war zone learn morse code). There are many methods which the internet can be used in the dark side.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while these companies earn profits which pay dividends the threat is fraud and draining banking accounts. All companies have information on the internet and use the pipelines of the net. What happens if something goes wrong? Part of the internet network is based on trust, and if you are easily looking trust can be broken for a price, how does the company protect your investment?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

At the library was the movie Countdown to D-Day a 2004 movie staring Tom Selleck as Dwight Eisenhower. The movie takes place the 90 day preparation for the Allies to Operation Overload which was the beginning of the end of World War II. In the movie, there are plenty of prima donas to deal with and that including the other generals. The Ike portrayed by Tom Selleck came across as a highly sincere, thoughtful, and good general. One would think the toughest part of the preparation is knowing that the people sent into battle many will not come back. In the movie, Ike would tell his generals go over the plans to ensure the least number of lives will be lost. The lives lost will affect no only the lives they could have lived but the families they leave behind. The actions in the film showed Ike thought long and hard about his approval.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while most companies do not put their employees into life and death circumstances, it is great to know that the senior management is thinking about the junior employees in their decision making. A classic example is it relatively easy to close a plant for strategic and corporate reasons, but what happens to the community when it is closed. The people there did nothing wrong, it could have easily been past managements did not invest into the plant. When a company considers the affects and tries to do something to mitigate them, then you can reasonably take for granted it is doing all the other things well. Doing the same things, means the larger items can have assurance of being done right.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

As the world becomes smaller, all types of factors will affect the markets – from debt in countries such as Greece (and others) to China’s stock market, to something going on in the economy of the world. The questions is what should you do with your investments and John Heinzl writing in the Globe and Mail offered a 5 step plan. Hopefully you have heard many, but they are deserve repeating for part of investing your money is not to lose it.

1. Invest in Quality

You will hear and read about some stocks doubling and going up multiple times in one year; (it was much easier when the world’s markets all fell, but in an seemingly average year, always buy the best or quality companies you can. If you have a reasonably diversified portfolio which gives you dividends, you can ride out the downs and profit even more on the up swings.

2. Thing like a business owner

When you own an asset and it goes up in value do you sell when the price goes up or do you continue with it? It will depend on opportunities but if you own real estate as your home and price goes up do you sell, where do you move to? By ensuring your debt levels are manageable and you have cash flow you do not have to sell when prices are depressed, you can buy more assets,

3. Focus on the long term

Ideally you should buy and hold for 3 to 5 years, which means if today the markets are down, then it is okay. If the market is up today then it is better but you have not hit your targets which allows waiting even better.

4. Count your dividends – not your paper losses.

If you own dividend paying stocks, focus on how well are the dividend paying relative to the other alternatives such as bonds and a bank account. If the companies are doing as expected and continuing to increase their dividends, the market will reward the share prices with a higher multiple. Focus on the cash from the dividends.

5. Keep some cash on hand

The best time to make money on the stock market is after a market had a major correction. This is the time when the quality companies can be bought for less. As the markets improve, the best companies will bounce back fastest and your portfolio assets will increase.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, buying quality stocks which pay a dividend help you ride through the economic cycles of the markets and you will see downturns as great buying opportunities. We all saw bank stocks lose value during the 2008 mortgage back securities fall out, but the best ones have regained and surpassed their previous highs. The market giveth and takes away, but you can benefit from the cycles.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In every company the words maximizing the potential of brands and business is easily found, what is harder is to actually do it. At the moment, the world’s eyes are on a Brazilian company called 3G Capital and for they manage to find profits in the restaurant chain Burger King. The company also owns the beer brewer InBev and they teamed up with Warren Buffett to buy Kraft to combine it intor KraftHeinz. From a financial point of view, 3G creates value by putting dynamic management teams in charge and instilling a culture of cost cutting that incumbent management did not achieve. Part of the process is a zero based budgeting in which managers have to start from scratch in year to justify their operating budgets. The process has lead to higher operating margins (making more money); closing of manufacturing plants and elimination of less profitable product lines. From a financial point of view these are good things to be doing. The big question is can the team from 3G Capital turn around Kraft? for in the past Kraft’s execution of those wonderful words of maximizing the potential of brands and business was not that great. In an article by David Milstead he believes it is not quite the time to buy shares in KraftHeinz.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, Kraft is a large company with a healthy market share but has not been lean and operationally efficient as Heinz. There maybe reasons but times are changing and using the companies resources to the best return for the shareholders is going to be a good thing for the combined company. The results will likely take a number of quarters and then the company can be a long term hold.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions

Raven Strike is a fiction book written by Dale Brown published in 2011. The book is about drones and what happens if the technology falls into the wrong hands. In the book, there is a new software program which targets very specific individuals rather than a point on the earth. The drone is launched but since it is a test case, a second drone is sent along to monitor it; they accidentally hit each other and the drone goes down. The bad guys find the drones and since the test was in another country all sorts of situations develop. The elite team called Whiplash goes in and uses the latest technology to have an operational advantage of those who do not have the latest and greatest technology. It is interesting to see how a small group can have a large advantage of a large organization.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while the book is fictional, it does create interesting capabilities of the technology – drones, satellites, GPS, communication all within the team setting. Sometimes we expect non fiction companies to do the same thing, and although there is some overlap, it is not quite reality. The real issue is using what is available to your advantage and generally the larger companies because of being large and profitable can experiment or use test situations better. Then the world will change the technology comes to the smaller companies and then they have the advantage and the cycle continues.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

We all know that China has been one of the key economic drivers of the world and with a billion people living within its borders it is not surprisingly that some have gone overseas and become successful. In the book The Dragon Network – inside stories of the Most Successful Chinese Family Businesses by A.B. and Patricia Susanto published by John Wiley & Sons, Singapore,2013 some of the stories are told. Similar to most people leaving their homeland to another country there is discrimination which leads to turning towards people from the family or the same town or province to both get ahead and to succeed. This leads to the organization of the business which is a family run business. In all families some are wonderful, some want to build and some only want the spoils of success. Chinese society goes back thousands of years and within Chinese culture is a core of Chinese ethics, traditions and social organizations. Individuals are members of the family, which translates for you to be successful the family will be successful, to go against the family is not good. The resources of family are grouped together to ensure a self sufficiency. The working for the glory of the family means to live frugal to encourage savings, conserving resources and displaying modesty. Patience and the long run view are important attributes.

The book goes through a variety of concerns for family run or private companies which is useful to anyone who works in such a company.

Linking to dividend producing stocks the attributes for Chinese traditions lend themselves well to business which can lead to many opportunities. Through living frugally which leads to savings can lead to good investments and greater self sufficiency. If you think about a dividend stock, at first you may own a few shares but through the years dividends and reinvestments the number grows and the size of the dividend grows. It is sexy to own shares which double and triple and go even higher, but unless you sell you may end up with little more than started with. Sometimes slow and steady wins the race.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.