Realty strategy: monopolize

Interesting observations in this story and a unique setup for hungry brokers.

The Sunday paper has always been a realty mainstay, but it can't offer virtual video tours. Radio can develop, host and drive traffic to video tours for audiences on their way to work, where they become online listeners/web visitors. Same story for the return commute: radio listeners become online consumers when they get home.

The key here is that a real estate broker could easily own a station if not the entire medium of radio/online. You combine reach & frequency with well-known online services -- and the scarcity of competition in this apace. Wouldn't that be the killer app in marketing?

While cohorts are in the Sunday paper, hitting their traditional weekly audience like a slow drumbeat and you've already shown homes to dozens, virtually, through online video -- and maybe even set several appointments.

The article gets into the nuts and bolts by asking how many new homes must one close to pay for a moderate radio campaign.

Let's look at that. If frequency builds preference, then you want to be able to mention to your prospects three times a week, which translates to an ad schedule of 21 units per week. In Central Iowa, that can easily be done for under $3,000.

McCain's healthcare plan exposed

The Washington Post covered Sen. John McCain's visit to a cancer research center in Tampa today and report that he rejected calls by his Democratic opponents for universal health coverage, and for his part embraces a market-based solution.

But McCain's so-called market-based solution still relies on insurance companies, which has effectively isolated the market from the providers for generations, causing health care costs to explode.

As an example of the affects of health care greed, in 1960, a typical birth cost an uninsured middle class family about two weeks salary. Today, the expenses associated with child birth can easily soar past six months salary, whether the family has insurance or not.

McCain's web site suggests that the government would make health care insurance innovative, portable and affordable if he's elected President.

Let's focus on the insurance element by itself for a moment. When groups of people pay continual premiums into a fund managed by companies who then pay medical bills on behalf of patients, then the patients are bound by the company's rules. Insurance administrators aren't frugal and aren't as motivated to comparison shop and health care prices subsequently rise.

But when patience pay as they go, they're motivated to find the most reasonable balance between quality of care and cost. When you're paying the bills with your own money, you care about the cost.

Let's be honest. There are no market forces in play when an insurance company insulates patients from poor buying decisions (don't get me started on silly emergency room visits).

And while we're being honest, let's examine the real motivation behind frivolous lawsuits. The key ingredient that creates an environment for litigation is deep insurance company pockets, not bad doctors. Who's bright idea was it to create this litigation funds anyway? The only natural result is higher health care costs that make a few people very rich (mostly lawyers).

Every citizen and every community should be permitted to employ doctors and medical facilities without outside interference. In fact, we should be very cautious about who we permit to get involved in our health care as no outside party will act in your best interest. Not insurance companies and not the government.

If people want to help those who cannot afford essential medical service, then they'll always be free to contribute money and volunteer their time to non-profits, charities and churches.

It should be in extremely rare cases that Uncle Sam pay medical bills out of taxpayer's pockets.

Cotlar & Company: Adam Emmenecker

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Drake Basketball point guard Adam Emmenecker joined KXnO's Cotlar & Company in-studio Monday morning, April 28, 2008.

Des Moines' I-235 Speed Sting

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A joint task force consisting of Des Moines Police and Iowa State Patrol troopers executed a sting operation in an effort to raise awareness of the speed limit along I-235, the metro freeway.

Perhaps too green

Hard not to notice an emerald tint on the media, but not everyone's happy someone named "Liv Greene" has popped up on their AOL/Gmail buddy list; people think it's all gone too far. This blogger's viewpoint isn't an isolated one.

Stephen Foskett says, "AOL seems to have invented a whole new way to annoy us all with advertisements: injected AIM buddy bots! Yes, it’s another way that social networking companies are annoying the very users they (supposedly) covet! Well, today my (gtalk) buddy list was invaded by 'Liv Greene', a shill for the web site, Greenopolis. And check out the astroturf-with-a-hammer campaign on AOL’s bot page! Way to get your bot ranked number one! I’m so sick of this. Note to all social network providers: Never inject a new “friend” into my network without my consent."

Crazy Snow

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This is April, right? The promise of rains this month is our assurance of flowers next. So what's the deal with these huge snowflakes?

Speed, Drugs and Dangerous Weapons

Things that teenagers should not be permitted to carry include really nasty looking knives. The one pictured is stamped "Pakistan" and "Stainless", but at least the stain-free promise may not pass inspection as rust is developing along the blade.

But that's not really the point. This knife was temporarily seized during a search of a teenager's car last month. Pulled over for speeding, a state trooper conducted what he called a weapons check of the subject's person, which revealed a pill bottle and pipe, purportedly giving rise for a full search of the subject's car.

This happened on a rural Iowa highway some 30 miles northeast of Des Moines. The trooper suggested to his subject that "everyone" he lets in his car has to be checked for weapons, "for my own safety".

The trooper commenced the initial pat-down as the subject was attempting to open the passenger-side door (conveniently off-camera), but the door was locked. This is when the fruits were discovered.

A person's Fourth Amendment protection from search and seizure is subject to a few exceptions, such as in the case of a stop and frisk situation, in which the officer must have reasonable suspicion that the subject is armed and dangerous.

In this case, it was stated as a matter of protocol or standard procedure to do a weapons pat whenever permitting a subject into his patrol car. If there had been a legal reason for the search, the trooper had several opportunities to say so, but consistently said, "I just always do this".

When the trooper found the pipe, he felt further justified to search the car and the contents of the trunk. All totaled, he found the pipe, a bag with apparent pot residue, an empty pill bottle (over the counter meds) and the knife you see above.

It gets a bit more interesting. I said earlier the seizure of the knife was tempoary. The trooper actually put the knife back in the subject's car and scratched it off the seized property report, saying, "I don't want to deal with that".

Does any part of this bother you? Why?