Midspan of the Poplar

Our "Spock in Chief" had a most logical moment at his press conference yesterday. But because I didn't see anyone else cover it on the news last night, I thought I'd share it here.

Obama was answering a question from reporter, David Jackson, about the "public option" part of his health care plan. He outlined why he thought it was important. Jackson followed up with, "Won't it drive private insurer's out of business?"

President Spock answered with, "If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical." He then went on to acknowledge that, yes there would need to be discussion about the specific form such a plan would take. He was then quick to add, "Just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they are giving consumers the best possible deal, that they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision (as to) what's the best deal, that defies logic."

After I picked myself up off the floor from laughing at the way he pummeled all the free-market cheerleaders with their own arguments, I realized something more. The public option as discussed would need to cover all the uninsured, underinsured and uninsurable. I'm thinking that it's something that the private companies would be happy to see. Those are the high-risk consumers aren't they? That should free them up to make more profits.

We need more Vulcans.

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Earlier this morning I got an email asking me to take a leisure travel survey. As someone who spent sixteen years working for Marriott, I was curious about what the questions would be.

I went through several pages of questions about favorite vacations destinations, activities while on vacation, household income, and ages of my family. Then we got to questions about future vacations. You know, "How likely are you to take a trip to destination A in the next two years?" "How likely are you to travel to that destination in the next five years?" As I answered these questions it suddenly occurred to me: vacation destinations are likely to see decreased business, not just for the duration of the current downturn, but for a long time to come. Why did I come to this conclusion? Let's use my case as an example.

My wife and I had planned to take a 10th anniversary trip to Europe next year. Most likely going to Spain and Portugal for two weeks. I am currently unemployed, for about six months now, so that requires that we think about changing our plans and downsizing.

Maybe we go to New Orleans instead. We could drive. Maybe we could come up with discounted hotel rooms through some of the connections I still have. Otherwise, maybe a vacation home rental somewhere through vrbo.com, which is fast becoming one of favorite websites. We could drive and save money on dining by making some of our own meals.

The lack of disposable income in many households is a bad thing for the travel industry. Until the unemployment rate comes back down, it's not going to get any better for airlines, hotels, restaurants and transportation providers in destination areas. Nothing new here. I think we all understand this.

Here's the kicker. I was thinking that if I got a job tomorrow, we would still be able to go to Europe next year. But it hit me, I probably won't have enough vacation time to make that happen. When I left Marriott, I had nearly five weeks of paid-time-off per year. Using a couple of weeks in one chunk was not a problem. It will probably take five years to get back to the level where my wife and I can take a long vacation again.

With more and more people losing jobs, their vacation time will also be "reset" when they are finally able to find another. It's going to take five years into a full recovery before the leisure travel industry gets back to the levels from a couple of years ago.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open, we should see some pretty good deals. Don't expect a lot of extras or particularly great service for some time to come. This is going to be long and painful in my former industry.

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Last night KSDK St. Louis aired an investigative report by Leisa Zigman exposing a lavish meeting held by Anheuser-Busch executives. At this meeting decisions were made about job eliminations. An anonymous employee was outraged over it. The story was hyped on teasers for a few days and then aired on the 10 o'clock show.

I'm impressed with KSDK news and their investigative team. They work very hard and sometimes face hostility and physical threats to get the story and get it right. And Ms. Zigman got it right in this case. My question is the relevance of this particular story because of the way it was hyped.

Was the meeting lavish? It didn't appear so to me. Off-site meetings where large scale HR initiatives are discussed are common. A sensitive meeting should not take place somewhere where a misplaced proposal or a hallway conversation can be overheard and rumors initiated. So the fact that this type of meeting took place off-site was actually prudent.

The lake-side facility is owned by Anheuser-Busch, so otherwise, it sits empty. The same goes for the "yacht" which was used to transport the group to a dinner at a lakeside restaurant. The meetings did involve an overnight stay so feeding your employees is proper. As someone who worked in the hotel industry for several years, trust me, there are much more expensive ways to hold a meeting. As far as the drinking that went on, as long as they weren't drinking a competitors product, I don't see a problem with that either.

Currently out of work myself, I don't begrudge companies doing this sort of thing at all. Many of the workers and managers who do have jobs, have unrealistic expectations placed on them. Getting out of the office where there are fewer distractions is a good way to get them to focus and be creative.

We are letting the public hysteria over corporate spending grab hold like a runaway train. If corporations cut all of these type of events, will there be any jobs worth returning to when the economy rebounds? If anything, it provides stockholders ammunition to keep cutting perks in the workplace to the point where a coffee pot in the stockroom is considered "lavish". No surprise that someone like Juli Neimann, who is one of the best financial analysts in the St. Louis area, and someone who I admire, would come down on the side of corporations cutting expenses. In the meantime, with reduced spending, who gets more profits? Stockholders and CEOs.

Keep up the good work, Ms. Zeigman. Your report was mostly balanced as you presented some of the Anheuser- Busch PR departments facts about the meeting. I might suggest an independent expert meeting planner be consulted to give the audience an idea of how cost effective the meeting really was.

The problem with the story was the hyping of it. If the teasers had been presented as a question, "Did these Anheuser-Busch employees go too far?" the same report plays with a more balanced tone and creates a forum for civil discussion on what constitutes "corporate greed". Instead we get an emotionally charged debate leading to the memo released yesterday at Anheuser-Busch attacking Ms. Zigman personally.

Unfortunately, that increase in the rhetoric around the issue makes the piece irrelevant.

Just my $0.02.

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