Our services

Was asked to post a list of our consulting services, so here it is:

• Developer and Bank workouts on ailing real estate projects
• Social media services including set up, writing, public relations and listening post
• Sales training with a focus on real estate, mortgage lending, and new home sales
• Development market studies, with feasibility and planning assistance
• Strategic planning - company planning retreats, organization structure

That's the bulk of our services, please feel free to contact me directly if I can prepare a proposal for you and/or your company or project.

Email

10 Predictions not commonly held

I liked this idea, which I picked up while reading RSS feed from The Big Picture
Refers to 20 Surprises for 2009 by Doug Kass

Here's his list:

1. The Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs are found to be large investors with Madoff.

2. Housing stabilizes sooner than expected.

3. The nation’s commercial real estate markets experience only a shallow pricing downturn in the first half of 2009.

4. The U.S. economy stabilizes sooner than expected.

5. The U.S. stock market rises by close to 20% in the year’s first half.

6. A second quarter “growth scare” bursts the bubble in the government bond market.
7. Commodities markets remain subdued.

8. Capital spending disappoints further.

9. The hedge fund and fund of funds industries do not recover in 2009.

10. Mutual fund redemptions from 2008 reverse into inflows in 2009.

11. State and municipal imbalances and deficits mushroom.

12. The automakers and the UAW come to an agreement over wages.

13. The new administration replaces SEC Commissioner Cox.

14. Large merger of equals deals multiply.

15. Focus shifts for several media darlings.

16. The Internet becomes the tactical nuke of the digital age.

17. A handful of sports franchises file bankruptcy.

18. The Fox Business Network closes.

19. Old, leveraged media implode.

20. The Middle East’s infrastructure build-out is abruptly halted owing to “market conditions.”

And my list:

1. Housing recovery has already started, and will become big story in 2009. Home building will remain sluggish while inventories slowly drop.
   
2. Stock market rally in first quarter to 12,000 Dow ... with big stories dominated by mergers and acquisitions
   
3. Even though Federal Government gave out cash to GM and Chrysler, both will file bankruptcy in 2nd quarter, with GM being purchased by Ford and Chrysler by Toyota. This will break the union contracts and allow steel, textiles, and other union dominated industries to begin re-organizing labor contracts.
   
4. Mortgage rates will hang at 5% till end of March, with refinance boom helping dodge Alt-A reset crisis, but then start going up as "economic recovery" news causes inflation to become more certain
5. Oil will go back up to $80 by June 2009, the dollar will strengthen though. The US will lead the global recovery thus the dollar strength. Oil demand issues will recover traction thus the oil strength.
   
6. Conservative groups will continue rapid growth - #TCOT, #dontgo, #rebuild, and collaborative projects will push to hyperlocal since local races in 2009 and 2010 are more important than national ... ie. local state house control of re-districting in Indiana
7. Obama will be tied in knots, one the one side his radical left support, on the other the great middle of America that only heard "change" ... he will accomplish very little in 2009 and 2010 ... which frankly will be good for America
8. Governments all over the country will actually have to cut budgets, and cut deeply. This will be the first time in decades that budgets actually get cut. Some politicians will lose in 2010 merely because they couldn't deliver pork for the first time.
   
9. Hyper local blogger collaboration will hurt traffic to individual bloggers, with a rush to get added to collaborative projects. Monetization will only work in collaborative aggregates, with traffic and advertising connections. See circa 2006 model Northwest Indiana bloggers, old news. I better move or I'm dead in the water too.
10. Massive unemployment will actually be good for the economy, with consulting and home based contractors niche growing substantially. Companies will hire the work they actually need and leave the extras to the side as unecessary overhead. The fast and connected will not only survive but grow, the lazy and entitled will be left far far behind.
    

What are your predictions for 2009? Disagree with me, cool comment or email me, the engagement is more important than the prophesy.

Talk to Ford about auto bailout on twitter

Lots of talk about the auto bailout, and whether the Congress or President will give them cash. This guy has engaged on Ford Exec himself and is hosting a public exchange on twitter this morning

clipped from kirkpete.blogspot.com Lobbying in Plain Sight: The Auto Bailout on Twitter Update: Operation Ford Motor now has its own hash tag, #OFM, if you want to follow the action today. I don't know what if anything will come of this, but it's fascinating -- beginning at about 10:30 a.m. today, Scott Monty, the head of social media for Ford (yes, there is such a function now), began a Twitter conversation with Michael P. Leahy, head of a new Twitter-powered conservative group called Top Conservatives on Twitter (#TCOT). Even if you don't have a Twitter account, I believe you should be able to follow this search link, which currently shows the "Tweet" below as the first result:

Welcome TCOT members

This is my business blog, for our small business consulting practice. Feel free to subscribe and let me give you a list of my more political sites as well, thanks again for stopping by:

Porter County Indiana Politics

Red County - Porter County Indiana

Hoosiers for McCain

Hoosier Access - guest author

NWI Connect - guest author

If you follow me on twitter daltonsbriefs I'll get you followed back later this weekend as I'm cleaning out my follow lists. About 50% of my posts on twitter are related to politics, and the other half real estate-mortgage business in Northwest Indiana.

Could gasoline now be too low?

I'm worried that with gasoline dropping this low, we'll lose our interest in Drilling for More Domestic Oil. Come on nation, keep your focus, we need energy independence. Drill Here, Drill Now. Do you remember the Don't Go Movement in the summer, or have you already forgotten too? Our nation needs to get energy independent, now.

from CARPE DIEM

The chart above shows the cost of 1,000 gallons of gas purchased at the retail price from January 1980 to November 2008, measured as a percent of monthly per-capita disposable income using income data and population data from the BEA, and gas price data from the EIA and Gas Buddy.

At the current national average price of $1.83 per gallon, 1,000 gallons of gas ($1,830) would cost 5.22% of per-capita disposable income of $35,058. That's the lowest cost since December of 2003, almost five years ago. In St. Louis, where gas is available in some locations for as low as $1.33 per gallon, a thousand gallons of gas now costs only 3.79% of monthly per-capita disposable income, which is slightly lower than the February 1999 all-time historical low of 3.88%, when gas averaged 92 cents per gallon.

Happy Thanksgiving - Challenges and Blessings

Thanksgiving - We have overcome

No pun intended, Happy Thanksgiving. In this time of economic worry, I felt it important this morning to remember that we have overcome many obstacles along the way in our nation's history and we will overcome these as well. Now, before we take ourselves too serious, we've also been blessed by God and it's high time we take those blessings serious. No soapbox today though.

Thanks for our families, for our churches, for our communities. Thanks for the ability to speak freely and gather in whatever groups we choose. Thanks for our government leaders, although we may have voted different, their responsibilities are great and warrant our support. Thanks for Northwest Indiana, the Southshore of beaches and mills of jobs.

As we gather with friends and family today, remember those who are not as fortunate as you ... there are homeless in NW Indiana, there are hungry, there are families still suffering from the floods a few months ago, there are families unemployed or worried about being unemployed soon. Pause a moment, how can you help.

Buy a toaster - get a bank for free

I think I saw this last week, but forgot to bookmark so here it is

clipped from mjperry.blogspot.com FDIC Special: Buy a Toaster and Get a Free Bank