June 27, 2008 9:28AM
By Robert Ray
10:57 PM
Definition of Money: Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being intertemporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments.
Well, there it is, the definition of money.
I spent the day at the Morningstar Convention in Chicago. You may have seen our broadcast, and if you did I hope you gained insight from the dynamic interviews conducted by Dagen McDowell and Jeff Flock.
This convention/conference is all about cash and advice about cash.
At about 2pm today I thought of something, the definition of money. Before I tell you why I must ask you to pause…please look away from the screen…look at something in the room that means a lot to you…did you find it?…Ok, now that you have located your item or object, please ask yourself, is it worth a transaction that will include another person or major corporation or is it just worth something to you, only you?
A unit of account, a store of value or a medium of exchange? Which one is it?
At 2:04pm today I realized that the world revolves around cash. But, I know that the human spirit revolves around people, not loot. Having said that, today Crude Oil hit another all time high, the Dow Jones went south, Presidential campaign debt was mulled over, and don’t forget that people in the Midwest are still trying to figure out what in hell they are going to do with their business or farm operation that was destroyed buy the flooding.
There is not one aspect of your life that does not include cash. Not one. Even if you are naked with no clothes lying in the middle of a desert with no possessions you still had to come up with some sort of greenback to get there or get something on the way.
You may have used some of these words on your way to the desert where you are naked;
Argent, bankroll, bequest, bill, blunt, boodle, booty, brass, bread, capital, cash, cent, change, chattel, chips, clink, coin, coinage, currency, cush, dinero, dough, dump, finances, funds, gelt, gilt, gold, gratuity, greenbacks, green stuff, grig, handsel, hansel, hard cash, income, jack, jake, kale, legacy, legal tender, lettuce, livre, long green, loot, lour, lucre, mammon, mazuma, medium, mina, moola, moolah, moss, oof, ooftish, pelf, proceeds, profit, property, purse, rebate, reimbursement, resources, revenue, rhino, riches, rocks, scratch, specie, stipend, swag, tender, tin, wad, wampum, wealth, wherewithal, windfall.
Holy cripes…Have a sip, i just did.
So, when I realized that the world revolved around cash I realized the world will never be simplistic and thus I and you must find that small object in the room that means only something to us and our inner thoughts…..look at it one more time…it’s nice, especially in a society that’s kicking bucks.
June 26, 2008 10:26AM
By Robert Ray
5:53pm
From covering natural disasters in the Midwest to advice on my 401(k) plan at the Morningstar investment conference it’s been a roller coaster two weeks. Gotta tell you, this business news stuff aint so boring after all. I mean who says that business is stodgy or blah? Well, I beg to differ because you see the American Economy and people’s money will never be boring because those are two topics that will be talk points until the planet stops spinning. That’s a long time.
We have a terrific two-day of live broadcast coming from McCormick Place in Chicago.
Dagen McDowell will be anchoring and interviewing key investment advisors and Jeff Flock will roam the convention floors in search for the most interesting investment advice on the planet.
The space of the convention floor is enormous, about 5 football fields. This morning the place was totally empty and now at 6pm it is bustling with booths and people chatting a low roar. Our crew here at Fox Business Network is the best in biz, these guys have been erecting our set, lighting and camera testing, what a job! And not to mention the hard working people in the trades…the carpenters, electricians, all folks in a great business roles that make the end result shine.
So if you have the time check out the broadcast in the next couple days, and if you can’t make it to the tube you can always watch our special behind the scenes segments right here on this very website that you are staring at. Hope you enjoy one of the many media platform we will provide of this exciting conference that is all about cash. On that note, I have to go to the ATM now and check the balance in my checking account.
June 24, 2008 8:34AM
By Ashley Webster
The Jeddah Energy Meeting may not have generated any surprises, at least not the kind that woud cool down prices on the oil markets, but the city itself is surprising for a reporter who is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time.
To be honest it reminded me of Phoenix, there’s certainly not as much fake greenery and swimming pools, but like Phoenix there’s lots of desert brown, heat and strip malls. Of course Jeddah sits on the Red Sea so the heat has some humidity thrown in as well but bottomline this Saudi City is more westernized than I had imagined. How westernized? Can you believe Chuck E. Cheese? Baskin-Robbins? Burger King and of course McDonald’s? I was amazed to see some of these great American gastronomic exports in a country so culturally different to the United States.
It is heartening to know that with so much conflict in the world we can speak the same language… namely the love of cheeseburgers and fries. Jeddah is one of the more liberal and westernized cities in Saudi Arabia, strict religious laws are slighly looser here and the local population seem to enjoy the contact with western tourists and businessman. I was stopped on several occasions and told that the Saudi people are not all bad and are not all terrorists as the western media would have everyone believe. It was a common theme and the people I talked to wanted to make sure they made that point.
As I head back to London and the cool, rainy weather I will remember both the warmth of the desert and of the people who live there. There may not be enough oil to go around but I’m happy in the knowledge that there’s a never-ending supply of cheeseburgers.
June 22, 2008 4:53PM
By Ashley Webster
In the end the Jeddah energy meeting came down to just over three hours of discussion. It feels like a lot of hullabaloo for so little actual work. Representatives from 38 countries, the major oil companies and the majority of members belonging to OPEC descended on the Red Sea town amid cries for crude oil relief.
I don’t think anyone expected a major revelation to emerge on how to stabalize the oil markets and reduce prices but I couldn’t help getting the impression that much of this exercise was clearly an effort by Saudi Arabia to appear sympathetic and proactive about the impact of high oil. Sure, we heard the Saudi’s say they will up production by another 200,000 barrels a day in July. Of course we heard about the need for long term investment from producers to ensure greater future capacity. We even had British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking OPEC to invest in wind power but in the end we got what we expected… more talk.
The Saudi’s maintain that the high oil prices are the result of market speculators who have poured cash into oil futures as a hedge against the weak dollar. U S Energy Secretary Sam Bodman says the speculators aren’t to blame, it’s a simple case of supply failing to keep up with demand. Then of course you have government subsidies, militant attacks in Nigeria, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the plight of the lesser spotted hedgehog and so on.
I think the truth is we can blame a little bit of everything and if nothing else this three hour meeting may have confirmed that a quick fix is just not possible at least not in three hours.
June 22, 2008 4:17PM
By Ashley Webster
Since arriving in Jeddah as part of the traveling media circus I have spent countless minutes, if not hours, waiting in line for one reason or another. On this day, the big day of the Jeddah Energy Meeting, all journalists were ordered to assemble at the Westin hotel where we would then be bussed to the Hilton, en masse, to the conference itself.
I would call it a sea of humanity, although I realize there are those of you out there who believe journalists are anything but human, nevertheless we were crammed into the hotel lobby. With the air conditioning struggling to stay at the bearable level we shuffled sweatily toward a security x-ray machine and metal detector before being led back outside to board the bus.
I was one of the first journalists aboard the very first properly air-conditioned bus and I knew it was too good to be true. After driving with purpose toward the conference our bus was turned around at the Hilton and before you knew it we were back at the Westin. Totally perplexed we were bundled out of the bus and back into the Westin lobby where we again stood in line for the x-ray machine with sweat running down our faces.
It turns out our bus was turned around because we did not have a proper security guard traveling with us. Naturally the other two buses did and those journalists were happily dug in at the Hilton by the time my poor, over x-rayed group limped into the conference.
The early bird may get the worm but apparently early journalists get the shaft. Such is life.
June 22, 2008 3:08AM
By Ashley Webster
The day of the hurriedly assembled oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is upon us and for the hundreds of journalists from all over the world who are here to cover the event the big question remains… will it matter? We’ve already heard from U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman who says OPEC has to open the taps to help relieve a tight market that has pushed crude oil prices as high as $140 a barrel. Is it that simple? Not according to Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi Deputy oil minister who is calling the oil price issue “complicated” and says the problem is “multifaceted and multidimensional”. Those are big words which simply mean.. we don’t really know. Is it a supply problem? Are the emerging markets proving to be too thirsty for the oil market to handle? Is it the fault of speculators who are driving prices ever higher? It depends on who you talk to and who you believe, others say it’s a combination of all those factors.
It is hoped this collective gathering of oil producers and consumers will generate a coordinated plan to calm the oil market, restore confidence over supply issues and provide an overall appearance that something is being done. But without Venezuela and a solid consensus among OPEC what will be achieved? We’ll see what revelations emerge from here in Jeddah later today and more importantly how the oil market reacts on Monday.
As they say in our business… stay tuned.
-Ashley
June 21, 2008 5:44AM
By Ashley Webster
After leaving the London rain behind us, my producer Lauren Bedsole and I are sitting in the Frankfurt, Germany airport waiting for our next flight to Saudi Arabia and the oil summit in Jeddah. We are truly flying into the unknown, to a meeting of some of the world’s biggest oil producers and consumers who hope to find a way to cool down the surging crude oil market. The morning newspapers are full of skepticism that this meeting will achieve anything of substance and at least two commentators believe it’s a public relations exercise orchestrated by the Saudi’s to improve their image as the world’s biggest oil producer.
Ironically a meeting to calm the market could have the complete opposite affect if the summit fails to produce some sort of consensus of bringing oil prices down but based on the previews so far, the expectations are not overwhelming. We shall see. Next stop Jeddah.
-Ashley
June 18, 2008 9:10PM
By Jeff Flock
There are lots of reporters and crews out in the flood zone. But we like to try and tell you something you don’t already know or show you something you haven’t already seen. I think that’s what you’ll get in our Fox Business News Special: “Mud, Sweat and Tears: Stories from the Flood,” which airs this weekend on the Fox Business Network. Here is a sneak peak at a few characters you’ll meet.
HENRY LaBRIE is the owner of a company called FloodMasters. Based in Beaumont, Texas, he has a fleet of 6 18-wheeler semi trailers full of dehumidifiers, fans, disinfectant and other more sophisticated tools of the disaster recovery trade. Many of the businesses in downtown Cedar Rapids have hired Henry and his team to help them dry out and clean up from the Cedar River flood. One building owner told me he chose Henry because he was willing to work with him on price while other disaster recovery firms quoted just a flat rate. But I think it may have been Henry’s perfectly-manicured fu manchu mustache and Texas drawl and his hands-on approach to making flood debris disappear. Decide for yourself after meeting Henry in our special.
CHARLES WHITEMAN is Senior Associate Dean in the college of economics at the University of Iowa. In addition to stacking a mean sandbag or two against the rising Iowa River, Whiteman also has some interesting perspective on the flood that inundated 19 buildings and shut down the university and is now making its way down the Mississippi. Whiteman, who has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and specializes on impact studies did some extensive research on the 1993 Mississippi flood. He says while the economy may take a short-term hit from this disaster, it figures to boost economic growth as time goes by. Lots of new re-building to do and new things to buy to replace all the stuff out at the curbs in places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and the Mississippi river towns now getting the worst of the water.
That’s got to be good news to STEVE EMERSON. I mentioned him the other night as the “Donald Trump of Cedar Rapids”. Steve owns ten buildings in the downtown Cedar Rapids flood zone. He just put 3 million into renovating the Paramount Theatre office building…restoring one of the gems of old Cedar Rapids. It and all the others lost the flood fight…despite his best efforts to pump and sandbag. Though these are multi-milion dollar properties his insurance only covers $25,000 of damage on all the buildings put together. Steve started as an architect before starting to buy distressed buildings in the now-thriving downtown.
GARY SHEDD farms corn and soybeans in the Illinois town of Rockton, Illinois. He walked us out in a 100 acre corn field partly swallowd by the Rock River. Shedd’s crop isn’t a total loss. He has other corn acres on higher ground. But he’s what they call “forward-contracted” a lot of it already. That means, when corn shot up to $4 a bushel on the futures markets earlier this year he sold much of it in advance of the harvest. That was an all-time high. No need to be greedy. Now with corn futures around $8 a bushel if only he hadn’t sold some and hadn’t been wiped out from the flood he’d almost be rich. Speaking of rich and in case Shedd, sounds like a familiar name, Gary is indeed a distant relative of John G. Shedd, benefactor of the aquarium that bears his name in Chicago. The elder Shedd was a former president and chairman of the board of the Marshall Field and Company back around the turn of the century. Gary says Mr. Shedd donated $3M to build the John G. Shedd aquarium in part because he loved to fish. Ironically that’s what’s swimming in Gary Shed’s cornfield right now.
I hope you just learned something you didn’t already know. For more, watch us this weekend: “Mud, Sweat and Tears: Stories From the Flood”.
Air time to be announced shortly.
