On the train at the Atlanta airport, I made a call to my local Micro Center (computer store) to discuss the service they were doing on my faulty Mac mini. I informed the gentleman who answered the phone that when the technician left me a voice message, I was unable to understand his name because he spoke with an accent.

After ending my call, I heard a lady standing next to me say, “When did we turn into a third-world country?”

I understand the need for tight border security and enforcement of immigration laws, but I am deeply concerned over the sentiments of the populace in our great Nation towards immigrants.
Why the attitude that borders on arrogance? Forget that most of us came from nations that (a) did not speak English and (b) were “third-world” at the time of our departure. I am confident that this young man waited for years for a student visa just to come to the States for an education. Then, his process of getting a longer term work visa was probably lengthy and difficult. But it was legal, just like my great-great-grandparents and probably yours.

These young people realize that the BEST way to success in the US is through achievements, accomplishments, and education. That’s simply because it is difficult for them to advance by “who you know”. Instead, they depend on “what you know” to reach the pinnacles of success.

Many of our domestic young people steer their careers away from technology, science, and math professions because they can do just as well or better based on their relationships. They choose careers in sales, business management, law or finance where relationships jump start careers and provide the means to further growth.

However, our country’s ability to lead the world in innovation, GDP growth and military supremacy depends on young people choosing fields in the sciences. We need them. Without them, our national productivity will decline and those of us depending on “who you know” jobs will find it harder to produce revenue growth.

Support tough immigration policies and strict border control, but we need to open our arms to foreign students who are willing to come to the US to pursue educations and careers in the sciences. We need them.

Certainly the H5N1 hysteria will affect the industry’s profitability, but what about the people employed in the industry? If demand for poultry drastically falls due to an incorrectly informed public (cooking raw meat to 165 F will eliminate any possibility of contracting H5N1), then who will be to blame? Consider the French and Italian situation as mentioned in this article:

The staggering U.S. industry, which produces more than 35 billion pounds of poultry a year, is why farmers in Georgia, the nation’s leading poultry-producing state, and elsewhere are taking extreme precautions.

If news from abroad is any indicator, their fears are well placed. France’s poultry industry, Europe’s largest, reported losing $48 million in monthly sales as countries scale back their chicken imports. In Italy, consumer fears of the virus have forced the industry to lay off 30,000 workers.

Most industry experts and company spokespeople do a decent job of slanting their opinions in favor of the industry or company they represent. I found this report somewhat surprising (although factual) and the comments from Dr. Lobstein unusual. When the industry expert is predicting an unstable future, how can one purchase shares in publicly traded poultry companies?

His assessment: the U.S. poultry industry is well positioned to handle a disease outbreak, but the reactions of trading partners would be unpredictable and possibly would not conform to international agreements.

Dr. Lobstein cited estimates that the disease could cost the U.S. industry $142 million per month in export income and another $104 million in domestic price losses, equaling $246 million.

As the H5N1 virus has progressed around Asia and parts of Europe, consumption has declined by between 30 percent and 50 percent in many U.S. export markets, affecting primarily chicken consumption. “While U.S. export volume has held, price levels of chicken leg quarters dropped from 48 cents to below 10 cents within four months,” Lobstein reported.

With the weather in Atlanta so nice recently (today’s high is 68, tomorrow and Wednesday should be 72), I’ve been thinking about how temperature relates to climate. Temperature over the long-term (multiple years) helps to define the climate of a location. One specific day can be extremely hot or extremely cold. Even an entire season or year can vary wildly from the norm. However, the climate is determined by years of recorded temperatures.

Business is the same. Cycles occur and profits go up and down. One year may look bad, but the long term fundamentals should be checked. Do they make sense for the business to be profitable over the next decade?

Investing is the same. The stock market may fall in any year, but most investments for the long term will grow.

Your job is the same. Any one day may be terrible. You may hate your job for a week or a client may rake you over the coals once. But how does it fare over 5 years?

Decisions should be made based on the climate (long-term) not the current temperature (short-term.)

After arriving in Palm Springs, I made the drive down to Indian Wells, California. With the sickness last week, I haven’t run in over a week in an attempt to recover. Enough! For this trip, my suitcase carried my running shoes and 2 sets of running clothes so that I could pack in 2 good runs.

With a couple of hours of down time, this afternoon seemed like a perfect change to break the rut. Little did I know when I started my run that it is 95 degrees outside.

When I run these days, I wear a heart rate monitor and base my exertion level and speed on my heart rate. My target is between 142 and 165 beats per minute. It was very, very difficult to keep it below 170 during today’s run. The loop was about 3 miles but took me over 35 minutes. My average heart rate was 163 and I spent a bunch of time walking. It was too easy to get my heart pumping pretty hard in the heat.

So, what did I learn? Although a scenic outdoor run can be fun and enlightening, check the weather before venturing out. I wish I had hit the treadmill and done the scenic run early one morning.

When you are looking for a company to work for, look for one that you can fight with instead of one that you fight against.

Although I imagine you read this today, I found it interesting considering my previous post about cycles. “After posting a $127 million US loss for its second quarter, Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE:TSN), the world’s largest meat processor, said Monday it will continue its strategy of developing more prepared foods, making its system more efficient and growing in foreign markets.”

What’s amazing to me is that Tyson actually made money in its chicken business segment. I guess it’s not that amazing because it is where most of their value-adding product development has occured. The beef segment with little value addition (yet) lost an eye-popping $188 million. By the way, that’s for only 1 quarter.

A great man recently gave me a book, Paris 1919, which I started tonight. In the foreword by Richard Holbrooke, I read these two lines which refer as much to business and life as to diplomacy:

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertant, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided – in the parlance of modern bureaucrats, lessons learned.

As if my previous posts weren’t gloomy on the industry outlook, check this headline out: “Russia Bans All Poultry Imports“. Here’s a clip of the article:

It was unclear how long the ban would be in effect, but it could have a big impact on foreign poultry suppliers, which account for 47 percent of the Russian market, according to 2004 figures from the U.S. Egg and Poultry Council. Russia is the largest market for U.S. poultry, which provides 73 percent of all imports or some 34 percent of all poultry consumed here.