Just like “Green” houses, consumers couldn’t care less about nutritious junk food

Blech

Pepsi’s billions spent on push to switch to healthy snacks  evaporates and CEO Indra Nooyi is probably on her way out. Like any prominent executive who screws up horrendously, she’ll be moving on to a bigger job, rumored to be head of the World Bank, where she can squander taxpayers’ money instead of shareholders’.

While her push to play up PepsiCo’s nutritional offerings may have stumbled amid continued enthusiasm for sugary soda and salty snacks, it underscores her desire to make a positive impact on how people eat worldwide.

At least a home builder who follows his impulse to go environmental wastes just his own money. Nooyi comes close to destroying a company as large as Pepsi because she wants to feel good about herself? She should be fired and sued, immediately.

Although I’ve pointed it out here repeatedly, it probably bears repeating: home buyers don’t care about and certainly won’t pay extra for “green” features like bamboo flooring, low-volatile paint, recycled roof shingles or even an extra large blue bin.  Hell, I can’t even get them excited about a home’s super-efficient furnace, something that will actually save them hundreds of dollars a month in heating costs. Builders who bother with this stuff should figure that they’re reaching into their pockets because they feel it’s the right thing to do – that money is never coming back.

But why on earth would someone looking for potato chips and sugar water be the least bit interested in organic carrot baked swizzle sticks? Lose your focus, kill your company. So its off to the public sector for Nooyi, where incompetence is considered the norm.

UPDATE: Another thought: this lady’s move away from the traditional snack food business and into the loser organic program was inspired at least in part, I once read in an interview with her, by a desire to impress her teen-aged daughters. That bit of hubris will cost 8,700 people their jibs, according to this article, and force stockholders to spend $600 million to repair the brand name. I suppose the stockholders can afford the loss, but what about all those employees tossed out of work? I doubt Nooyi’s daughters are impressed. I know I’m not (and you know, when I read that interview a while ago where she announced her intention to move in this direction I thought to myself, “short this company”. I didn’t, but I’ll bet some traders made hay on this ill-fated bet).

Greenwich Time: we will print no news before it’s stale (and even then, we’ll rely on New York reporters to dredge up the story)

Six weeks after readers of FWIW reported that Ruth Madoff was in town and  living on Tomac Avenue, the Greenwich Time has figured it out, by reading yesterday’s New York Daily News. I certainly understand why no self-respecting GT reporter would even scan this blog – it’s a fireable offense (as I can attest), given their paper’s complete dependence on real estate advertising – but if they have to rely on a New York tabloid for local news, couldn’t one of the more enterprising young pups at least make his way from Riverside to Old Greenwich and interview Ruthie for himself? If they went in the morning they could still make it back in time to cover the important stuff, like boys basketball.

Accepted offers today

There were six, five of which were under $3 million while the other was in the mid-threes, and that was a post-foreclosure price. There are 60 houses currently listed asking between $3 and $4 million.

Democrat DOJ: no photo- id for Carlos

Democrats at work

Justice Department again rules voters cannot be required produce photo-identification proving who they are because it discriminates against Hispanics. Since Obummer and his minions have no such objection to identical rules governing other rights like freedom to travel – try boarding a plane and, shortly, a train without your passport, or carry a weapon, why the intense concern over a rule designed to prevent voter fraud? I can think of an answer, of course: they want Hispanics to vote early, often and illegally. The Democrats deny this, so what is their reason?

 

Slow day

Not much going on – I mentioned 63 Maple, a foreclosed spec house once listed at $5 million plus and last asking $3.999, has an accepted offer. My guess? Under $3.5, which wouldn’t be a terrible price.

23 Tomac in Old Greenwich, asking $2.6, has an A/O. If memory serves, owners paid around $2.1 for it in 2006 and put a lot of money into renovations. Still, seems as though they’ll make out.

A new listing at 37 Perryridge Road near the hospital is a renovation and asks $3.395. With the exception of Number 7  Perryridge, which sold for $2.150 million in 2007, nothing on Perryridge has ever broken the $2 million barrier. This one might, I suppose, because it sounds nice and Perryridge is a convenient to the hospital. Do doctors still make enough to afford $3 million homes? Guess we’ll see.

His lips are moving again – watch out

Fantasy Land electric car

No one else believes this, but hey, by the time the media gets through reporting it as fact, who’ll care?

Obama: “Electric car batteries getting cheaper, the Jubilee be coming”.

In “A Secure Energy Future: Progress Report,” President Barack Obama’s administration included advances in battery technology and battery-powered vehicles among the developments that promise to help the U.S. shake its dependence on foreign oil. And a key factor expected to drive the electric-vehicle market is the rapid decrease in the price of batteries by 2015.

At that point, the report says, a 10-kilowatt-hour battery that would give an electric car a 40-mile range would cost about $3,600 compared with $12,000 in 2008.

Much of the expected price drop is attributable to increased battery production, the administration said. According to the report, the U.S. had two factories making advanced batteries for cars in 2009.

“Since then, we have supported 30 new advanced battery and electric vehicle component plants that are opening across the country,” the report said.

Cost going down? Not likely, say those not associated with the Democrat party. Wonder who’s telling the truth?

Havemeyer

8 Arnold Street in Havemeyer Park just sold (February contract) for $910,000, down from its August price of $969,000 but still pretty good (for the seller), for this area and for three bedrooms. Owners paid $871,500 for it in February 2006 and looking at the renovations they performed, probably lost a little money here but they also had six-year’s occupancy, so how bad is that?