Oil-rich Venezuela can’t keep the lights lit
posted at 2:55 pm on February 9, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
It’s been a while since we last visited the Bolivarian Workers Paradise of Venezuela, where “the pluck of a harp on the radio” means Big Brother Dear Leader Hugo Chavez is about to address the nation. However, in order to hear Hugo, one needs to have power for the radio, and that has become a big problem for Chavez. Despite having massive oil resources, Chavez has relied mainly on hydroelectric generation for the nation’s power — and now faces a critical shortage of electricity, thanks to a drought:
President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a folksy new radio talk-show on Monday by declaring an “electricity emergency” in oil-rich Venezuela.
Despite its huge crude reserves, the South American OPEC member relies on hydro-electricity for 70 percent of its power needs, and a drought has hit supply since late 2009.
“We are ready to decree the electricity emergency, because it really is an emergency,” Chavez said in the first edition of a show on state radio air waves called “Suddenly Chavez.”
With electricity cuts weighing on Chavez’s popularity ahead of important legislative elections in September, the government blames the shortages on the drought and soaring demand during five years of economic growth until 2008.
But critics say poor management and under-investment have undermined the power grid and exposed the failings of Chavez’s “21st century socialism” policies during his 11-year rule.
“Suddenly Chavez” broadcasts whenever Chavez feels like talking, which is why Venezuelans have been instructed to listen for the harp music. This comes in addition to his “Hello Mr. President” television show, which usually lasts for hours each day. Rumor has it that Chavez will shortly launch his own “Law and Order: Caracas” edition of the franchise, too. No, I’m kidding about that, of course; Chavez would be more likely to start a celebrity reality channel with 24/7 coverage of himself, a sort of “Truman Show” without the charm, humor, or intelligence. Maybe he’ll call it the I Smell Sulfur Channel, available only when people can actually turn on their television sets.
That won’t be any time soon. Chavez has called for Venezuelans to turn off the lights, while he mulls an emergency decree that will allow him to seed the clouds and produce rain. He will also likely impose rationing rather than rely on voluntary compliance, as little in this regime has been left to the latter.
Chavez still exports his crude oil, a necessity for his survival as it generates the majority of Venezuela’s GDP. The oil facilities have their own generators, which means that the export business will remain relatively unaffected. However, the standard of living will continue to slide for Venezuelans, who may finally decide that they’ve had enough of Fidel Castro’s Mini-Me, strip him of his power, and reclaim their own. For the moment, however, Chavez’ ubiquity on Venezuelan broadcasts and the lack of power to the people provide a perfect picture of the strutting, sawdust Caesar* of Latin America.
* – Not an original phrase; William Shirer used it to describe Benito Mussolini in his seminal The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Bobby Kotick, Warm and Fuzzy, Defends Notorious No-Fun Statements
Bobby Kotick, head of Activision, thought he was Luke, not Vader. And he didn't mean that thing about wanting to make game-making no fun.
“I don't know how this happened, but all my life I was the rebel flying the Millennium Falcon or the X-Wing fighter and suddenly I wake up and I'm on board the Death Star.” That's the second quip Activision's oft-vilified CEO said to start his talk at the DICE gaming convention today. His first was a joke about the height of his microphone, set not for his height (he's short) but for former EA chief Larry Probst.
Mistakes, Kotick has made a few and he was ready to admit them today.
Most notorious was a late 2009 comment he made that seemed to cement his position as more Vader thank Luke. No, he said today, he didn't mean to sound like, his words, “a dick.”
In September he had told a group of investors: “The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”
Today, he said, after describing Activision as a company striving for greatness, “Sometimes that commitment to excellence, well, you can come across as being like a dick. And when I say things like 'taking the fun out of making video games,' it was a line that has been often-quoted lately, but it was a line I used for investors. It was mainly because i wanted to somehow come across in a humorous way that we were responsible, in the way we made our games in that it wasn't some wild west, lack of process exercise and that we really did give some thought to the capital being used to provide a return of investment to shareholders. So I say things like 'taking the fun out of video games' knowing full well that all we're actually trying to do is keep the fun in the process because, as most of you know, when you're getting into crunch time it becomes really difficult to meet those milestones or get things polished the way you would like, that isn't a lot of fun. That is not what I meant by it.”
The Kotick speech today was one of of putting on the good face of Activision and the man at the podium here at the Red Rock Casino. Kotick admitted that he's sometimes been so much the businessman that he's cost his shareholders money by not remembering to get close to game creators. “Sometime what winds up happening when you are 50,000 feet above is you can get insulated from that creative passion.”
Blizzard? He should have bought them sooner. He had thought that a subscription version of World of Warcraft was “the silliest thing” he'd ever heard of.
Maxis? “When Maxis was getting sold everyone was being sold on Sim City 2000 being this fantastic product that was incredibly late and wasn't coming out.” Kotick went to visit some executives at the company. In another office, Will Wright was working on a game called Jefferson. Kotick didn't meet with Wright. No one could explain the game to him. What Kotick missed was the game that would become the Sims.
For a CEO who has been vilified as a business-first enemy of video game creativity, Kotick wanted to reveal that he has made mistakes staying too distant from passionate game creators.
The most vivid example he gave was how he handled the purchase of the Guitar Hero brand and blew off the talented studio, Harmonix, that had built them, prioritizing the Guitar Hero franchise owner Red Octane and handing the development of the series to Activision-run Neversoft.
“When we were buying Guitar Hero, or buying Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, we knew about Harmonix,” Kotick said. “We had always known them as sort of somewhat a failed developer of music games.” Activision decided that their own studio, Neversoft, made good games, so they would make Guitar Hero from now on, not the Boston-based Harmonix. He said that had Activision met with Harmonix, things would have been very different.
That's Bobby Kotick saying sorry. Note that Harmonix, now owned by MTV Games and creating the Rock Band games, has been distributed by Activision rival EA since then. That distribution deal is set to expire next month.
Kotick was warm and fuzzy, zip-up sweater over polo shirt, no suit and not much business talk. He was reminiscing in his 20s, the ex history of art major spending about $400,000 for a stake in Activision, a company he was worried was losing its soul. He wanted to explain that he was a gamer originally, then a businessman, one with apologies for some of the creators he may have ignored or insulted — and of course a company to brag about now.
“I loved Zork,” he said of his gaming days. “I loved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I loved the whole idea behind Activision.” That idea was that it was the anti-Atari, the company that rebelled against the corporate attitude of Atari and would champion creators.
He recalled scheming in the late 80s with his friend who had started a hedge fund to try to buy Commodore. “I tried for a bout a year to acquire control of Commodore,” he said. He thought it could be turned into a great 16-bit console. The Commodore console could be better than the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System being sold in Japan at the time, he recalled himself thinking.
Kotick went from gamer to game maker to businessman. Kotick said he's not playing many games anymore. He's a single dad with three daughters and is wary of the kind of developer he would become, knowing his addictive personality (He confessed he is “addicted to food”). Did he used to be an avid gamer? “I still have callouses from Defender. I still wake up in the middle of the night and see the words 'Use key to open door.'” Does he play now? Not much: “If I was regularly playing Modern Warfare 2 I would not be able to stop and it would be at the expense of all my other responsibilities.”
Kotick said that Activision is a company that supports creators and champions vision. He took barely-veiled shots at EA, comparing his interest and efforts in the past to help start companies such as Jamdat and Pandemic with the eventual fates of those companies now folded into EA and, in the case of Pandemic, shut down as an independent entity.
“If you have a company and you want to protect your creative freedom and the integrity of the creative process, if you want to retain your identity and culture, if you want the support of the mothership and the resources of the mothership, we're a really great mothership. But if you want to sell out and move on, there are definitely other companies to talk to.”
Kotick made no mention of the deep cuts Activision announced earlier this week nor of the couple of hundred developers who were let go. He focused on projecting a game developer-friendly image and announced the start of a $500,000 independent games development contest.
Send an email to Stephen Totilo, the author of this post, at stephentotilo@kotaku.com.
There's lots of advantages to owning a franchise. You can operate under an established name, sell products people already want, have a pre-determined pricing structure, and it can be a valuable opportunity. Some may be more beneficial than others, and you'll have to do your homework though! Is a franchise investment for you?
While it's still no walk in the park; a franchise could be saving grace for anybody who wants some of the 'work' that owning a business involves done for them. This bonus comes at a heft cost, and there are lots of pros, and cons to the situation. Let's examine each of them.
The number one pro to owning a franchise is of course operating under an established name. Let's say somebody is driving down the road, and they see two resturants – Burger King, and Joe's burger shack. People are more likely to stop at the place that they are familiar with (Unless of course they're an avid BK hater).
There's always the one extremist who's totally against Mc Donalds, KFC, or any other chain. Whether it's because they're funded by the Church of Satan, they way they supposedly treat employees, ect. The people who appreciate a chain store more than outweighs those that do not; else this model would not exist.
You also can take into account that all your product sourcing, pricing, and materials are through the company. This means that you won't have to barter with dealers, and go through the hassle of making sure you can turn a profit for the price you charge. The only problem with that is that the corporation can charge you anything that they want. You're only allowed to by cups from them, buy computers from them, buy fries from them, ect.
There's also a certain code of ethics you're not allowed to change. Typically regarding wages, benefits, practices, how employees are handled, ect. For example somebody I know used to be a manager of Papa John's. Per their chain's rules they are not allowed to hire any drivers with traffic violations – No exceptions. Things like this will be beyond your control with a franchise; wherein if you owned your own business the law is made by you.
There can be other rules involved with you even purchasing a franchise though too. For example Chik Fil-a manually approves buyers, and if they deem that where you wish to put the franchise is unacceptable they'll deny your claim. The fees for operating different entities varies a lot as well. It can be anywhere from $70k to upwards of $1 million dollars. The price tag is not for the faint of heart, but if you've got the cash it can be worthwhile to you.
Some people own several franchises whether they be the same store or different businesses, and make a pretty penny doing it. A franchise owner does not always manage the franchise either; meaning they don't come to the store everyday, and do the dirty work. Many simply bank roll the operation, and collect the rewards – opting to pay somebody else to over see operations for them.
You also will not have to deal with the hassle of supplying benefits to your employees. Since you are owning a franchise any of that goes through the actual corporation, and they can take part directly. This goes for training as well – Your store will most likely recieve pre-made materials for your future employees.
If you decide you want out of this particular franchise you're free to sell it at anytime most cases to another individual. Our local Dominoes pizza store trades owners probably a couple times a year – Mostly because they find out that particular chain has a very low profit margin, and expensive equipment.
Enterpeneur.com recently released their list of the top franchise opportunities for 2009! Start up costs in parenthesis.
1. Subway ($78k -$238k)
Subway is a very popular sub chain. Growing in name for value, and health reasons. Personally I detest their food, but considering the low start up costs, and big profit potential I'd probably still own one of those if I were to go a franchise route.
2. Mc Donalds ($950k – $1.8M)
The biggest burger chain in the world of course commands a high price. No doubt you're paying for their big name, and not equipment charges. While this is pretty much guaranteed to turn a profit – It might be a while before you recoup your expenses on this one.
3. Liberty Tax Service ( $53k – $66k)
Very cheap start up costs, but low profit potential in my opinion. More, and more people are getting their taxes done online, and with software these days (including me). It's not hard to do them yourself, and I don't think it will be much longer before people refuse to pay $70 to pay money to the government. There's also a limited time frame to do business so the earnings seem small to me – Not something people would want every week like fast food.
4. Sonic Drive-Thru ($1.2M – $3.2 M)
This franchise seems rather expensive considering their popularity, and their equipment costs. This resturant pretty much consists of a kitchen, and outside dining room!
5. Intercontinental Hotels Groups (Varies)
In the right area a hotel could be a very good investment. I live in what may be the vacation capital of the United States – Everyone wants to come to sunny Florida, and they need a place to stay! The pricing is unlisted, and probably varies by location, and building size.
6. Ace Hardware ($243k – $1m)
Ace Hardware is of course a hardware store – which again looks overpriced to me. They pale in comparison to competitiors like Home Depot, and Lowes who have a much bigger selection. The store layouts are basic, and unimpressive. I don't see the huge profit potential from something so pricey, and yet so small.
7. Pizza Hut ($638k – 2.9 M)
A popular pizza chain. The have the advantage sometimes of being both a sit down resturant, and a delivery service. Similar stores like dominoes, Hungry Howies, and Papa John's do not offer a dining room. Again, a tad pricey for their offering I think. Perhaps to be more exclusive, but they may offer better profit margins than competitors.
8. UPS Store ($171k – $280k)
This one looks like an opportunity to me – Owning an internationally recognized postal carrier outlet. Especially in a busy shopping center where people could do their shopping, and mail their packages all in one go. While I use USPS myself; I know somebody who mails packages at UPS about every week. The start up costs are much lower than some of the other options as well. Could be very busy during holidays too.
9. Circle K ( $161k – $1.4m)
Circle K is a quickie mart type of store, but can also have gas pumps. Any place convienient to the main road that sells gas can make a pretty penny. I'm surprised this one is so cheap considering the prices to install pumps, maintain gas containers, ect. Though that will probably all come out of your pocket – Something to watch out for.
10. Papa John's Pizza ( $135k – $431k)
Cheaper than the other pizza place on the list, but probably not quite as popular. This one seems like a better value to own, but you'd have to do your market research before buying. Some of those marked as more expensive may be that way, because of their desirability. The profit margins they turn, the desire for their product, ect. Investing in a business peddling pricey products at this time may not be wise, but a company like Mc Donalds with it's dollar menu should be seeing pricing booms.
Even if a family can't afford to drop a good $100 at Outback for dinner they can afford to spend a few dollars at McDonalds instead. A recession puts a strain on every business, but some are doing better than others. You might look into lower cost resturants, or discount stores such as Dollar Tree too.
If you don't have a load of cash sitting around it is possible to get financing for a franchise purchase – though this will be no easy feat. If you have less than perfect credit then you will have quite a time doing it. Below 700 probably will not net you a loan for an expensive business venture.
Oil-rich Venezuela can’t keep the lights lit
posted at 2:55 pm on February 9, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
It’s been a while since we last visited the Bolivarian Workers Paradise of Venezuela, where “the pluck of a harp on the radio” means Big Brother Dear Leader Hugo Chavez is about to address the nation. However, in order to hear Hugo, one needs to have power for the radio, and that has become a big problem for Chavez. Despite having massive oil resources, Chavez has relied mainly on hydroelectric generation for the nation’s power — and now faces a critical shortage of electricity, thanks to a drought:
President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a folksy new radio talk-show on Monday by declaring an “electricity emergency” in oil-rich Venezuela.
Despite its huge crude reserves, the South American OPEC member relies on hydro-electricity for 70 percent of its power needs, and a drought has hit supply since late 2009.
“We are ready to decree the electricity emergency, because it really is an emergency,” Chavez said in the first edition of a show on state radio air waves called “Suddenly Chavez.”
With electricity cuts weighing on Chavez’s popularity ahead of important legislative elections in September, the government blames the shortages on the drought and soaring demand during five years of economic growth until 2008.
But critics say poor management and under-investment have undermined the power grid and exposed the failings of Chavez’s “21st century socialism” policies during his 11-year rule.
“Suddenly Chavez” broadcasts whenever Chavez feels like talking, which is why Venezuelans have been instructed to listen for the harp music. This comes in addition to his “Hello Mr. President” television show, which usually lasts for hours each day. Rumor has it that Chavez will shortly launch his own “Law and Order: Caracas” edition of the franchise, too. No, I’m kidding about that, of course; Chavez would be more likely to start a celebrity reality channel with 24/7 coverage of himself, a sort of “Truman Show” without the charm, humor, or intelligence. Maybe he’ll call it the I Smell Sulfur Channel, available only when people can actually turn on their television sets.
That won’t be any time soon. Chavez has called for Venezuelans to turn off the lights, while he mulls an emergency decree that will allow him to seed the clouds and produce rain. He will also likely impose rationing rather than rely on voluntary compliance, as little in this regime has been left to the latter.
Chavez still exports his crude oil, a necessity for his survival as it generates the majority of Venezuela’s GDP. The oil facilities have their own generators, which means that the export business will remain relatively unaffected. However, the standard of living will continue to slide for Venezuelans, who may finally decide that they’ve had enough of Fidel Castro’s Mini-Me, strip him of his power, and reclaim their own. For the moment, however, Chavez’ ubiquity on Venezuelan broadcasts and the lack of power to the people provide a perfect picture of the strutting, sawdust Caesar* of Latin America.
* – Not an original phrase; William Shirer used it to describe Benito Mussolini in his seminal The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Bobby Kotick, Warm and Fuzzy, Defends Notorious No-Fun Statements
Bobby Kotick, head of Activision, thought he was Luke, not Vader. And he didn't mean that thing about wanting to make game-making no fun.
“I don't know how this happened, but all my life I was the rebel flying the Millennium Falcon or the X-Wing fighter and suddenly I wake up and I'm on board the Death Star.” That's the second quip Activision's oft-vilified CEO said to start his talk at the DICE gaming convention today. His first was a joke about the height of his microphone, set not for his height (he's short) but for former EA chief Larry Probst.
Mistakes, Kotick has made a few and he was ready to admit them today.
Most notorious was a late 2009 comment he made that seemed to cement his position as more Vader thank Luke. No, he said today, he didn't mean to sound like, his words, “a dick.”
In September he had told a group of investors: “The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”
Today, he said, after describing Activision as a company striving for greatness, “Sometimes that commitment to excellence, well, you can come across as being like a dick. And when I say things like 'taking the fun out of making video games,' it was a line that has been often-quoted lately, but it was a line I used for investors. It was mainly because i wanted to somehow come across in a humorous way that we were responsible, in the way we made our games in that it wasn't some wild west, lack of process exercise and that we really did give some thought to the capital being used to provide a return of investment to shareholders. So I say things like 'taking the fun out of video games' knowing full well that all we're actually trying to do is keep the fun in the process because, as most of you know, when you're getting into crunch time it becomes really difficult to meet those milestones or get things polished the way you would like, that isn't a lot of fun. That is not what I meant by it.”
The Kotick speech today was one of of putting on the good face of Activision and the man at the podium here at the Red Rock Casino. Kotick admitted that he's sometimes been so much the businessman that he's cost his shareholders money by not remembering to get close to game creators. “Sometime what winds up happening when you are 50,000 feet above is you can get insulated from that creative passion.”
Blizzard? He should have bought them sooner. He had thought that a subscription version of World of Warcraft was “the silliest thing” he'd ever heard of.
Maxis? “When Maxis was getting sold everyone was being sold on Sim City 2000 being this fantastic product that was incredibly late and wasn't coming out.” Kotick went to visit some executives at the company. In another office, Will Wright was working on a game called Jefferson. Kotick didn't meet with Wright. No one could explain the game to him. What Kotick missed was the game that would become the Sims.
For a CEO who has been vilified as a business-first enemy of video game creativity, Kotick wanted to reveal that he has made mistakes staying too distant from passionate game creators.
The most vivid example he gave was how he handled the purchase of the Guitar Hero brand and blew off the talented studio, Harmonix, that had built them, prioritizing the Guitar Hero franchise owner Red Octane and handing the development of the series to Activision-run Neversoft.
“When we were buying Guitar Hero, or buying Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, we knew about Harmonix,” Kotick said. “We had always known them as sort of somewhat a failed developer of music games.” Activision decided that their own studio, Neversoft, made good games, so they would make Guitar Hero from now on, not the Boston-based Harmonix. He said that had Activision met with Harmonix, things would have been very different.
That's Bobby Kotick saying sorry. Note that Harmonix, now owned by MTV Games and creating the Rock Band games, has been distributed by Activision rival EA since then. That distribution deal is set to expire next month.
Kotick was warm and fuzzy, zip-up sweater over polo shirt, no suit and not much business talk. He was reminiscing in his 20s, the ex history of art major spending about $400,000 for a stake in Activision, a company he was worried was losing its soul. He wanted to explain that he was a gamer originally, then a businessman, one with apologies for some of the creators he may have ignored or insulted — and of course a company to brag about now.
“I loved Zork,” he said of his gaming days. “I loved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I loved the whole idea behind Activision.” That idea was that it was the anti-Atari, the company that rebelled against the corporate attitude of Atari and would champion creators.
He recalled scheming in the late 80s with his friend who had started a hedge fund to try to buy Commodore. “I tried for a bout a year to acquire control of Commodore,” he said. He thought it could be turned into a great 16-bit console. The Commodore console could be better than the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System being sold in Japan at the time, he recalled himself thinking.
Kotick went from gamer to game maker to businessman. Kotick said he's not playing many games anymore. He's a single dad with three daughters and is wary of the kind of developer he would become, knowing his addictive personality (He confessed he is “addicted to food”). Did he used to be an avid gamer? “I still have callouses from Defender. I still wake up in the middle of the night and see the words 'Use key to open door.'” Does he play now? Not much: “If I was regularly playing Modern Warfare 2 I would not be able to stop and it would be at the expense of all my other responsibilities.”
Kotick said that Activision is a company that supports creators and champions vision. He took barely-veiled shots at EA, comparing his interest and efforts in the past to help start companies such as Jamdat and Pandemic with the eventual fates of those companies now folded into EA and, in the case of Pandemic, shut down as an independent entity.
“If you have a company and you want to protect your creative freedom and the integrity of the creative process, if you want to retain your identity and culture, if you want the support of the mothership and the resources of the mothership, we're a really great mothership. But if you want to sell out and move on, there are definitely other companies to talk to.”
Kotick made no mention of the deep cuts Activision announced earlier this week nor of the couple of hundred developers who were let go. He focused on projecting a game developer-friendly image and announced the start of a $500,000 independent games development contest.
Send an email to Stephen Totilo, the author of this post, at stephentotilo@kotaku.com.
bill bartmann on making mortgage audit established franchises for sale, existing franchises for sale, low cost franchises sale
