gerben1974

Investment for the future

Sun, 27 May 2007 15:03:58 GMT

As a working guy in the Netherlands, still having a job, not a lot has changed for me. My diet has changed a lot, due to problems with the food-supply, but that’s about it. I still drive a car to work although I have fallen back to car-pooling (which I already did for years in the past). I still live with my parents and given the circumstances have postponed buying a house, even though I can easily afford it in the current housing market. Instead I have decided to invest my money.

Ofcourse there are plenty of companies who have invented the perpetuum mobile and just need some money to commercialize, after which we will all get rich. There’s always something fishy about these companies though.

Other companies are facing ‘temporary’ set-backs and just need my investment money to keep afloat untill the crisis ends. Who says this crisis will end though?

Then I noticed a different type of companies. Investment companies that buy up companies that went bankrupt. And not just any company that went bankrupt. Companies that have no markets for their produce at all. Often high-tech companies. Companies that make airplane components. Or high-tech defence equipment. Electronic components. Most of the companies they buy are unique. All their competition went bankrupt as well. Investment companies are just keeping their know-how alive and letting them run on a slow pace. Generally only to supply spare parts. Even if that means taking a loss. One day governments will decide to buy new defence equipment, airlines will need new efficient airplanes and consumers will need to replace their laptops. And I will indirectly hold a small share in the only company that can supply the components.

Old manpower devices back in vogue

Sat, 19 May 2007 18:35:39 GMT

Here's a newspaper article I picked up from http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=3510&section=1. The Statesman is a Ghanaian newspaper. We haven't heard much from Africa, but I'd like people to know that apparantly everybody didn't starve to death there yet. I cut out a few lines, but the remaining text is original.

"There is a saying that necessity is the mother of all inventions, and Ghanaians struggling with the constant lights-out are certainly putting this into practice, with manpower appliances increasingly taking the place of electrical-powered goods.

The Saturday Statesman visited some places in Accra such as corn mill shops, clothing making shops, vulcaniser shops to find out the state of business in the current energy crisis. Innovation, and a return to the electricity-free methods of our forefathers, is how many Ghanaians are making ends meet.

Isaac Anoh, a resident of Awoshie and a corn miller, says he has been doing this job for four years now and uses the electrical corn mill machine. It helps him do the work early and quick, but because of the energy crisis he has taken to the use of the man power machine.

"When the light goes off I use the manpower machine and it helps us a lot because it makes us serve our customers. It is difficult using the man power machine because one has to peddle for so long before it starts to operate.
“When I use the electrical machine I charge ¢4,000 for an “olonka” but when it is man power I charge ¢5,000. My customers do not complain when prices are being charged because they think electricity is not reliable and they need to get their food prepared.

“The kenkey sellers and the “koko” sellers prefer this method to that of the electrical machine since that can make them prepare their food for profit,” he added.
The manpower machine used to be standard for corn millers across Ghana, but with the advent of the electrical machine, it has largely been relegated to back cupboards. Now, it is making a resurgence: “There is a saying that “sankofa” is not bad so if Ghanaians have gone back to their roots there is nothing wrong,” says Anoh.

However, the energy crisis is taking a toll on his business as it is businesses throughout the country, and he is eager to see it come to an end. “We are pleading with authorities to solve this problem because there are other machines we cannot use with man power, like the tomatoes machine,” he said.

“Business is not really good compared to when there was electricity and moreover we are made to pay taxes and other bills to Government.”
Martha Asante, a seamstress, explained that she reverts to using a box iron whenever the lights go off, but the situation is not ideal: “It is difficult using it compared to the electrical iron because with the box iron you need to fan the charcoal or fire before you can use it to iron the fabrics,” she said.
“But it does help a lot and customers sometimes prefer this because they need their dresses for occasions. Business is not as good as before. The charcoal sometimes stains the fabric which destroys the design of the dress. Also charcoal is very expensive and difficult for making fire,” she added.

Kwabena Obeng, a vulcaniser, also expressed resentment at the lights out. “I have to stop using electricity for my work sometimes because of the load shedding exercise, but I use man power to pump the car tyres for my customers since I do not want to lose them,” he added."

doing alright - bicycles and war

Fri, 18 May 2007 21:07:55 GMT

I got my bicycle today. When I bought it, about a month ago, the shopkeeper told me to expect some weeks for it to be delivered as the bike shop had a waiting list. But apparantly they have been boosting production. I’m not using the bike a lot yet though. I’m carpooling with a colleague. I’m just happy to be prepared for when things might get even worse.

The governement has decided to reclaim the Markerwaard (‘Marken Polder’), which is currently a lake. Reclamation of this polder has started in the nineteenseventies, but was later cancelled due to changing priorities. The land was no longer needed for agriculture as there was considerable overproduction of agricultural products in Europe. But now the government wants to produce more food. We are importing way too much of it. We also lack the land to grow biofuels. So now they have revived this project. They will keep use of oilproducts to a minimum; this means: thousands of jobs will be created for people who will be doing hard manual labor. This sounds like the 1930’s again (when they started the project by building a large dike).

Belgium has already protested. They say we should better put our effort in the missing piece of the “Iron rine”, a railroad from Belgium to Germany, through the Netherlands. Our governments have promised to build it decades ago, but it’s still not there.

On the German side there have been some protests about other things: apparantly our Royal Dutch Shell has been making sure we have plenty of gasoline and diesel in the area I live: near the harbour of Rottardam with Europe’s largest refinery and The Hague with the Shell HQ. Shell personnel need the fuel to get to work. I haven’t experienced much of the fuel shortages, but aparantly things are different in Germany. And they blame us for keeping it for ourselves. Ah well, they can ride on the thousands of bicycles, they stole during ‘the war’ (WWII).

I read a story of a guy who had to barbecue because of power failures. I immediately decided to buy an extra can of LPG for my camping gas set. Electric cooking doesn’t work if electricity fails. I also bought a 2nd hand natural gas cooking set. Only 10 km away and for very little money. I won’t need to eat raw if power fails.

I didn’t buy a house yet. I’m already spending more money than I used to. As housing prices seem to be going down, it seems better to just wait a while and buy a house as it hits the bottom.

Things can get worse. I am reminded of that regularly. There’s too many old people living around here (and working in our garden), who keep reminding of how things are just somewhat inconvinient now. Back in ‘the war’ things were a lot worse. A lot.

Coffee and more

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:15:01 GMT

Today I’m home early. I have a caffeine addiction. And the company I work ran out of coffee. And the shop was out of coffee too. I’m feeling feverish and my head is aching. I took the rest of the day off and went home, taking the colleague I carpool with, with me. How can they expect me to work without coffee?

The boss’d better have a new stock tomorrow or else I’ll leave home early again.

A colleague of mine sold her motorbike. She’s been complaining about her financial situation for months now and decided to give up here only true love: her BMW motorbike. It was only a few months old (apparantly she bought a toy she could not afford). She sold it to a guy in a Porsche. So even the guys with money have to save money and drive a motorbike to work, rather than their fast sports car.

Being home early I went to work a bit on our land and collected some ‘vegetables’ from the roadsides. I claim it’s for my rabbit. (Yeah right, I had one as a child. It survived till christmas.) Like I’m going to explain people what they can eat and what not.

We have no problems getting vegetables from the stores though, but it’s just a good feeling to be more self-sufficient. There’s still plenty of food in the stores and sold by local farmers, even though people from nearby cities are also finding their way here to buy cheaper vegetables.

Meat is a different story. Prices have gone up a lot. My father has begun fishing with worms we dig up from the roadside (never use the worms from your garden). Last night we ate some bony fish. We are not the only ones fishing here. There was plenty of fish in the water adjacent to our house, but I fear that they will get harder to catch in the future.

Three days ago a duck was curious enough to eat my fathers worm and swallowed the fishhook. The duck tasted pretty good. :)

Right now ducks have disappeared. We are probably not the only people who try to catch them. There are also a lot of papers hanging in public places from people who have lost their cats. I think someone has had a lot of free meat lately. I noticed there are no cats out on the street any more. People with cats don’t let them wander out free any more.

With housing prices down, I’m thinking about buying my own house, close to work. It’s not that I want to move out of house, but this is just an opportunity too good to be true. I can afford it, but do I want it?

Some good news for our village: as the touring car companies are facing a stop on holiday bookings, the touring cars are now used for public transport. There now is another bus line connecting our village to nearby cities. It’s a bit more expensive than the normal bus line, but since the normal bus lines can’t handle all the customers, there are plenty of people willing to pay a bit more for a bus they can actually sit in.

Another week

Tue, 15 May 2007 19:51:50 GMT

With diesel prices continuing to rise and ever decreasing availability I decided to have my car retrofitted to run on dual fuel CNG/diesel rather than pure diesel. The retrofit isn’t cheap, but since we are supplying the parts, I can get them at cost price. And I don’t have to wait in line to get the retrofit done. With the dual fuel I need one liter for every 40 km (and some CNG, which I can get at the office for free – when there is nobody else using the slow-filler – or for € 0,99 / kg at the pump, 3 km away). A lot of colleagues turned to CNG, so filling at the office isn’t realy working well. The company cars go first. At the CNG station there is often a line of people waiting to get their cars filled. And you are lucky to get it filled for 80% as the pump is not designed to be so popular. We are planning to build another station nearby, but that might take months to complete. We still need all the official paperwork and parts might take a while to get.

I started carpooling with a colleague. I was using my bicycle, but the whether hasn’t been too well lately and my colleague has to get to work anyway, so why bother. She uses gasoline, while I use diesel, so we can use whatever is most available. We keep are keeping score though. At the moment we both have enough juice to keep going.

We got the agreement for the land lease signed early this week. All the neighbors have been busy getting the weeds out and getting some vegetables planted.

The shops still have plenty of vegetables, but many goods are getting more and more expensive. The meat prices are going up fast. Many farmers had problems buying food for their animals (cattle food is largely imported here from all over the world). Many decided to raise less animals. This is being felt by the meat industry. The cooling houses are all speculating on scarcity and high prices even though they still have months worth of meat stored.

Some girl posted a video on the wwo-website. She’s stranded about 10 km from here. Apparantly she can’t get back to the US as the airline went bankrupt. I sent her a msg. No response yet.

I read another message about immigrants leaving for home from the UK. There is no need for immigrants to do the dirty work now. The English decided they have plenty of people now half the factories are closing down. The French are not very eager to let all those people in, despite the fact that anyone should be able to travel freely through Europe. I hope they don’t all decide to come here. There are no jobs here now either. There is a ferry to England about 10 km from here. We are on the road from England to Poland and beyond. I'm not sure the ferry is going though.

Retirement

Mon, 14 May 2007 15:43:33 GMT

I looked at the stock exchange today after receiving some disturbing messages from colleagues.

My retirement fund is worth only half of what it was worth a few months ago. I have a feeling my fathers’ retirement fund will not raise his monthly benefits to compensate for inflation. With inflation running high I’ll have to support my parents’s expenses in the future. Time to return what I received during my younger years.

My father is relatively fit for his age and using much of his spare time to help out. He rides my old bicycle. (I use his bicycle to get to work as it is better than mine. I bought a new bicycle, but it will take several months to get delivered.) On my bike my father goes out to the local farmers and shops to see what they have for sale. He also checks out the local gas stations to see if they have any gas and at what price.

My father is also going to start a vegetable garden again. There's some land nearby where houses are planned, but with the collapsed housing market, the project is postponed indefinitely. I called the development company and they offered me a 2 year lease on the land for quite a bargain. It's too much work getting all that land ready on our own (and without machinery), so we decided to lease some of it further to some neighbors and some people we know from further up town.

In the mean time I can't help but anxiously read the news about developments elsewhere. Many countries seem to have electricity and supply problems. I can't help but think of what would happen here (the Netherlands) without electricity. No electricity means no natural gas and no water pumps. I live below sealevel. No waterpumps. Below sealevel...

Sat, 12 May 2007 12:29:11 GMT

The PM was on the television last night, unfolding his cabinet's future financial plans. With respect to energy he announced the following measures:

high way maximum speed is reduced from 120 km/h (75 mph) to 100 km/h (62 mph). For some roads where there was already a 100 km/h maximum, the maximum will be 80 km/h (50 mph).

he canceled the Groningen natural gas price reduction (10% for wholesaleprices), which has been announced months ago. The price was connected to historic oil prices; with current oil prices the natural gas price would otherwise increase sharply in the next year. He anounced that the natural gas price would from now on no longer be connected to the oil price. Future prices will be based on local demand, local availability and global prices. A price increase next year however is considered 'unavoidable'.

the announced raise of the diesel tax has been canceled; gasoline and diesel taxes will also not be raised by 2008 unless oil prices fall sharply.

a tax incentive is created to stimulate the exploitation of smaller oil and gas fields in the country.

the house-ownership transfer tax (tax you pay when buying another house) has been canceled, to stimulate people buying houses nearer to their work.

the tax rate reduction for automotive application of natural gas (CNG) has been canceled for private stations. For public stations the tax rate has been raised by € 0,02. Stimulation is no longer considered necessary.

He also added some budget cuts. Seems like helping developing nations is now considered a less important isue.

Getting ready for the worst

Sat, 12 May 2007 11:16:40 GMT

Things got a bit nasty this week. Several petrol stations have temporarily run out of gas and/or diesel. I heard LPG also seems to have dissappeared from the market. In the Netherlands LPG is produced as a refinery by-product. Apparantly the refineries are not refining…

Light

I heard about electricity cuts in many developing nations (India, Africa, US) and several eastern European nations. I have loads of candles in stock. We always get a lot of them at christmas, and use up only one or two candles. I bought an extra lighter.

Water

I filled my bathtub with water in case the water supply stops (they work with electrical pumps) and have a few buckets with water outside for watering the plants. I also bought a water filter (with active coal) from the pet shop, just to have something in case we run into serious trouble with the water supply. You can do without food for a few days, but not without water.

Food
I'm still overweight. That's also a way to store food. And I have a room filled with canned food. I am not eating canned food though. There is plenty of fresh food coming in from local farmers at the shop. And it's quite affordable. There's not a great variety in choice of it though.

Transport

I use my bicycle, except when the whether is really bad. I do make sure my car stays filled up with diesel. I scout the petrol stations on my bicycle before driving there to fill my car up. I don’t do social visits any more. I don’t have time for that either.

Business

The CNG business is going stronger than ever. We obtained some local production rights for parts and have started production using a local manufacturer. Aparantly he had plenty of available machining time.

We took over part of the business of one of our competitors that went bankrupt. We bought much of their goods inventory and their customer administration. Their customers are already finding us. The phone appears to never stop ringing. We hired some extra personnel (including someone for our financial department, to make sure we actually get paid) and a new office location, across the street with a lot more storage space. It has been empty for months now, but with several businesses closing down, the owner decided to hire it to us ‘for a special price’. We had to pay a month in advance, but that's no problem for us yet.
Advance payment are getting more and more common now some businesses have started to collapse. Credit insurances have gotten quite expensive. We offer customers 5% discount if they pay in advance.
We had to lay of most of our personnel in our US office. We are hardly selling anything there. The US economy is looking grim.

Update

Fri, 11 May 2007 20:04:45 GMT

News about diesel shortages made the media bigtime. I didn’t notice any shortages yet. I heard it’s still about 90% available. At the local station it is 100% available. I do fill up my tank each day now, to make sure it’s full and stays full. I have a few bottles of vegetable oil standing by to make sure I can continue driving even if I run out of diesel. Down in the garage is a second car with a full tank of gasoline. No need to waste that just yet.
I called off a visit to my sister last week. Sorry, but I’m not going to spend € 50,- worth of diesel for a social visit.

The companies that do the regular transport for the company I work for have raised their prices. We are now working on a mailing to inform our customers that they will see the transport cost rise as well. We will not bear these increased costs ourselves. Some of our major customers have bankrupted. Our credit insurer says it will pay, but some small letters will force us to either accept a lower level of security in the future, or significantly higher insurance cost. Our margins are being reduced left and right due to rising cost.

On the good side, some of our PMCs (Product-Market-Combinations) are doing very well, even though we have some supply problems (not due to transport problems, but due to high demand for certain products). We are working on obtaining production rights for local production of some parts.

One of our main competitors went out of business today. That could give us a load of new customers in the future. Tomorrow’s a Saturday, but I talked to some colleagues that tomorrow will be a working day. No time to waste when business is high. But 10:00 o’clock is early enough to get out of bed on a Saturday. I’ve been working overtime for weeks.

Iran rationing gasoline

Thu, 10 May 2007 18:54:44 GMT

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=44965
I wonder if this could start a new revolution. Taking away the need to invade them.

More news:
- more violence in Nigeria
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/ap_on_re_af/nigeria_oil_unrest_35;_ylt=AhKU8swCLhswYRmsErUkSF2AsnsA
- production halted at an oil field in Congo (Brazzaville)
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/10/africa/AF-GEN-Republic-of-Congo-Oil-Fire.php

Tue, 08 May 2007 18:44:50 GMT

Many people will not be able to afford these prices for much longer. There has been a major protest this week against “het kwartje van Kok”. Again. This was supposed to be a temporary gasoline tax increase (fl. 0,25 / liter = € 0,11 = $ 0,15) many years ago, but it’s still in place today. Not that it makes a major difference now the price of gasoline has risen to about € 2/liter. (Diesel was € 1,28 when I looked today.)

People are also pointing the fingers at the Americans. Those fat asses are using up all our gasoline. There were even reported some shortages here and there. Not because we import insufficient oil, but because the Americans are buying up our refined gasoline. And those Americans refuse to consume less. Using up 25% of the worlds oil with only a few % of the world’s population.

And then our government wants us to use less.

I heard news about three oil pipelines being blown up today in Nigeria. Then there is that pipeline in the Ukraine that was destroyed. And some (unconfirmed) reports about gunfights in a Romanian oil field. Sounds like trouble is not over yet.

Business

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:38:51 GMT

I just read some emails from a late working colleague. Aparantly some of our customers are not doing well. Some of our major customers haven’t placed any new orders for several weeks now. The average order size is also decreasing: customers are trying to reduce their stock size, anticipating hard times. This means we have to work harder for the same turn-over. For several other customers our credit insurer has reduced its credit rating, forcing us to stop deliveries to customers untill they have paid some of their outstanding debt.

In the meantime delivery times for some of our key parts for alternative fuel applications are increasing. Good that we have this business or else some of us could be looking for a new job now.

Short update

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:00:18 GMT

Ok. I have a few minutes to make another post.

These last days I have been very busy, as I had expected with these high prices.

I’ve been ill for one day only, then went back to work – no time to lose when business is high. I’m currently at the point of exhaustion. In the mean time I made sure my car was filled up and my storage closet filled. I’m ready for what is here to come.

I try to go on my bicycle to work, but being back home late now just doesn’t really help to get up in time the next day. Going to work and back costs me only 2 liters of diesel. I can afford that easily.
Traffic jams have decreased, which helps me get to work faster and cheaper. Most I do to save money (well, more out of a feeling of empathy for others) is just reduce my speed a bit. 90 km/h on the highway is fast enough for me. And apparantly I’m not the only one who’s driving at a truck’s speed (and preferably driving in its suction).
I heard a politician talking about reducing the maximum highway speed. Not a bad measure in my eyes.

What strikes me is that my colleagues suddenly love that company CNG car. They all preferred using their own car, but now that suddenly costs them more than they get as compensation.

Wed, 02 May 2007 19:44:07 GMT

Ok. Aparantly it's just a case of abdomen influenza. You don't want to see what was in my pants after I thought I only farted.

Anyway, read this:

"The real estate market is crashing faster than anyone had anticipated. Housing prices have fallen in 17 of 20 of the nation’s largest cities and the trend lines indicate that the worst is yet to come. March sales of new homes plummeted by a record 23.5% (year over year) removing all hope for a quick rebound. Problems in the subprime and Alt-A loans are mushrooming in previously “hot markets” resulting in an unprecedented number of foreclosures. The defaults have slowed demand for new homes and increased the glut of houses already on the market. This is putting additional downward pressure on prices and profits. More and more builders are struggling just to keep their heads above water. This isn’t your typical 1980s-type “correction”; it’s a full-blown real estate cyclone smashing everything in its path.

Tremors from the real estate earthquake won’t be limited to housing—they will rumble through all areas of the economy including the stock market, financial sector and currency trading. There is simply no way to minimize the effects of a bursting $4.5 trillion equity bubble. "

He's forgetting that the US$ is already at an all time low. ($4/gallon is not only because of oil shortage; you destroyed the value of your currency by spending too much on Iraq and Afghanistan). You may be thankfull that the Chinese still have the dollar on a rubber band, letting it slip by only 2,5% per year. (Only because they don't want your economy to crash after which you stop buying their stuff.)

You Americans are about to lose your war against terror. Not against terrorists, but against the international market place.

Wed, 02 May 2007 16:08:15 GMT

I didn’t really sleep well last night. Felt a little nausea all day. Is this tension or did I just eat something wrong?

I was awake early so I took the bicycle to work. Work was busy as expected. One of our partners got into a really interesting project. And a lot of inquiries as I had expected. Most people really don’t have a clue what they are talking about though. They want alternative fuel, but don’t know what they are buying. LPG ≠ CNG

Note to self: I should instruct the secretary to handle all those stupid questions even she can handle.

At least I got home in time before the shop closed to buy me 5 bottles of vegetable oil at € 0.59 a liter. Added half a liter of gasoline I had stacked in the garage for better flow and combustion. The pump today charged € 1,20. 5 liter should get me a couple of days to work by car (12 km, while my car does 19 km on a liter of regular diesel; that is almost 45 MPG). Still plenty of bottles in store. And then there are several other types of vegetable oil. Slightly more expensive, but many not as expensive as genuine diesel.

At home my back and ehm… bum hurt from bicycling. Tomorrow I take the car again to go to work. I have to go to a commission meeting outdoors. Can’t arrive there exhausted and swetty. From work I take the company car. On CNG. :)

Tue, 01 May 2007 20:32:57 GMT

Ok. So waiting for the price to drop didn’t really work.

This morning I was late to go to work. I would have taken the bicycle if I hadn’t been (I just don’t get out of bed in time). When I drove by the gas station coming from work I noticed a line at the gas station. I’m not going to wait in line.

I just changed my alarm setting. Tomorrow I will be on time to go to work on my bicycle. And in the afternoon I will drop by at the supermarket to pick up some PPO for my old diesel (I already used it a couple of times and it works fine (as long as it’s not cold outside)).

I hope I’ll be back before the shop closes tomorrow though. Today’s been a busy day and tomorrow probably will be no different. Lots of inquiries from people who suddenly want to drive on CNG. And my colleagues are all out abroad.

So time for bed now.

Day 1

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:46:51 GMT

So here is my journal.

Today, April 30th, is a holiday here (the Netherlands). So here I am, browsing the internet. Looking at the news to see gas and diesel prices spike. Excitement. I already feared that this day would come one day. I've not been following the news on oil for no reason.

I just remembered I have an almost empty tank right now. Time to hop on my bike to see if they changed the prices at the gas station yet.

Ouch. € 1,17 for one liter of diesel.
I can still make it another day. Tomorrow the price might drop a bit again.