Great Minds, Great Quotes...and the PLCB

Apply great wisdom to the situation of the PLCB...and you realize how badly this has all turned out.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill 

     What organization does that sound like?

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” - Henry Ford

“Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” - John Wooden

“Don’t bury your failures, let them inspire you.” - Robert Kiyosaki

“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” - Bill Gates

"It certainly wasn't a failure." 

- Joe Conti, about the failed wine kiosk program.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill

     Then the PLCB must be an immeasurable success; 

that's all they ever do!

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." - Henry Ford

     "Intelligently" being the key word here. Of course, you have to have a Board that has some intelligence for this to work.

"Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure." - James Altucher

Graft, collusion, nepotism, lost paperwork, lying & 

destroying evidence are probably not what he's talking about.

"You have to be able to accept failure to get better." - LeBron James

Joe Conti, again: "It certainly wasn't a failure." Yeah, Joe: it was.

"Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." - Andy Grove

Isn't that right, Charlie "40 Years At The PLCB" Mooney?

"Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure." - John C. Maxwell

And when you have all of the above -- plus $1.9 billion in liabilities -- 
you have the PLCB.

Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That's really where failure comes. Tom Cochrane
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

"Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day." - Jim Rohn

"If you can't admit a failure, you're not an entrepreneur. You are not a good business person. There's nothing brilliant about what you are doing." - Mark Cuban

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles. Jawaharlal Nehru
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

One more time: "It certainly wasn't a failure."

Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure. James Altucher
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/colin_powell_121363?src=t_failure

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/failure

A Christmas Gift for the PLCB

I don't often do things for free, and I don't do much at all to help the PLCB. But in the spirit of Christmas, here is my gift to them. I'm giving it to them early, so maybe they can get a head start on using it. I'm not optimistic about that, but you never know.

One shining example of beneficial government regulation is the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture registration for all baked goods (widely defined as any food that has been cooked in any way). They are good and sensible health regulations for those foods. That is why you see "Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr." on so many products. If you sell it in Pennsylvania, it must comply with the rules we have here.

HARK!  I bring you higher variable prices!

If the PLCB is going to pick our pockets with "variable pricing," they could try to make it up by applying the same kind of forward thinking the Department of Agriculture did in 1933 to protect the citizens. How about if the PLCB required labeling for the amount of added sugar in wine and liquor? There are some wines that have the same amount of sugar per serving as Mountain Dew (Barefoot Moscato is one), and of course the flavored whiskeys and rums almost all have large amounts of sugar.

By requiring sugar content labeling, the PLCB could finally help improve, in some small but significant way, the health of the citizens. It's not completely new, either: both the LCBO (the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the largest purchaser of wine and spirits in the world), and the Quebec SAQ (their liquor board) require the sugar content be made available on their websites already, so every major vintner, along with thousands of smaller ones have the information ready to go.

The PLCB could and should go further by mandating sugar content be listed on the label. Like anything governmental, it doesn't have to be immediate, say one year to get the sugar content info on the website, and then four years before it HAS to be listed on the label.

So if the PLCB really wants to be a world-class leader, wants to benefit the citizens, wants to help combat poor health, and wants to do something for the first time in 83 years that actually is helpful to their owners (that's us!), they should jump on this bandwagon wholeheartedly. I know it will be a hard pill to swallow, taking an idea from me, but guys: you can always claim it was "under consideration" for the past few years. I won't tell.

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan...

How long has booze privatization been debated and promised in Pennsylvania? Decades.
How much has been done about booze privatization in Pennsylvania? Nothing. 

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Party campaigned this spring on a platform that included transitioning their provincial monopoly liquor stores to privately-owned stores. They were put in power by the electorate, and now, less than two months later,, they've announced that they will convert 40 of the 75 government liquor outlets to private stores, and create twelve new private stores.

Dear Pennsylvania General Assembly:

The Madness Just Won't Stop

Some random thoughts.

A little bit of turmoil at the top of the PLCB financial empire? First August Hehemann was let go on November 10, 2014 after saying the PLCB needed to raise prices to offset the continued growth of expenses...in other words, for telling the truth. His replacement,  Oren Bachman, barely makes 15 months and now they are looking for his replacement. Of course, the fiscal year ends in about 50 days, so you have to wonder how long it will take to spin the financials this year with a new guy (or not) there. It took 125 days last year.

One of the better comments about privatizing the PLCB in the past few months: "How seriously can we take the argument that unnecessary government jobs should not be eliminated...because then there will be fewer unnecessary government jobs?"

The PLCB, moving at a speed unheard of in real business, only took 5 years and 10 days to approve a new store in Renovo. Of course, it isn't open yet, and might take who knows how long to actually open, but it made the list.  The new store at 167 Seventh St. is a whopping 327 feet from where the old store was at 536 Erie Ave. This beats the old record of taking over a year to move the Mountain Top Store 50 feet. I wonder if the blogs of last year and this year helped move them along, and if it did how many more years would it have taken otherwise? "Convenience is our middle name.  PLCB convenience that is, we don't give a crap about the consumer" could be the motto of the state stores.

Crap!  I'll never finish modernizing like this!

Canada is again showing how much more progressive they are in some things. A recent court case tossed out provincial restrictions on the purchase and transfer of beer, wine, and liquor from one province to another. It could potentially change the entire Canadian system of trade between the provinces. This is something that Pennsylvania (and U.S. constitutional courts) should look closely at.

Why was it good to have a restaurant or bar license for every 1,000 people in your Grandfather's day, one for every 2,000 people in your Father's day, but not now when it is one for every 3,000 people? What has changed? The PLCB of course, not the citizens' desire to have a drink with their food or to go out. Why is it up to them and not local government to decide what is best for their local citizens?

The PLCB serves no useful purpose in retail, it does not provide better selection, it does not provide better service, and it does not provide the convenience the citizens want. It cannot even be proved definitively that it provides more revenue to the Commonwealth than a competitive private system would. It only provides jobs to the PLCB.

While I wait (and I've been waiting a very long time) for someone to come up with a quote about why a government monopoly on a retail good is something worthwhile, I'll leave you with this:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."   - C.S. Lewis



PRIVATIZE.

State Line = State of Mind

Not too far south of the Mason-Dixon Line is an odd little Pennsylvania-like anomaly within Maryland: the Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control. It's the last municipal control county in the U.S. They actually go the PLCB one better (one worse?): they have a monopoly on spirits, wine and beer sales, wholesale and retail off-premise. But like the PLCB, they are being called out for not serving the customers well and there are calls to privatize the system.

The funny thing is, the calls are from the DEMOCRATIC leadership of the state.  Specifically Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot (D), whose office is in charge of liquor regulation for the state. Unlike the Democrats here in PA who would never say  something like “The county’s monopoly is bad for consumers, bad for small businesses and for our local economy” about the PLCB, the Comptroller is not only saying that, but saying it out loud and producing these anti-control broadsheets:

Clearly Franchot is not a student of Wolfonomics. He even has put out a report detailing exactly how and why privatization is better.

Of course the Union (who else?) opposes any talk of privatization saying that privatization would not create real competition.
"Under Maryland state law, two wholesalers may not distribute the same product in the same market at the same time. There is always one approved, designated wholesale distributor in a given market for each brand or product. Private liquor will have its own liquor monopoly."

So there won't be competition when Smirnoff is in direct competition with the other 40 brands of vodka in their price range? Somebody needs to go back to school and take some Econ classes. Competition will hold except at the very ends of the bell curve where there is no suitable substitute for the product you want: like a 60 year old bottle of Glenfiddich Scotch or a half-liter bottle of MD 20/20. That's true for the majority of states and countries, and is considered the norm so it really isn't pertinent to the privatization argument.

Of course, this ignores the indisputable fact that there is NO COMPETITION at all, be it real or fake, in Montgomery County now.

We here at the blog wish you the best of luck, Mr.Franchot! May you show our legislature the way to satisfying the consumer and ridding us of the archaic system now in place.

Read Orwell, understand the PLCB

We all know some of the Orwellian things the PLCB does.* One can see Big Brother gone rampant in ideas like wine kiosks, or after 80 years wanting to get the "right people" (by getting out from under those pesky Civil Service rules). The Ministry of Love is all too apparent in the BLCE with anonymous tips to the beer registry control section. Then there is the Ministry of Truth, hard at work trying to put a positive spin on everything no matter how banal or counter-intuitive it is.

Of course, there is the PLCB's greatest fear...rats. People in the system who are not happy with the rewriting of history (Kiosks were innovative!) who talk to people like me. They send the Thought Police out in the guise of Business Managers to stalk them, and when they are found they are "reintegrated" before their release and ultimate execution - or so they wish. Firing is the best they can do. If a person somehow survives, the powers that be know that his heart is now filled with love for the Party PLCB, and will gladly make any statement to protect them.

They even have their own catchy little phrases:

MONOPOLY IS COMPETITION

CONTROL IS FREEDOM

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

LESS CONVENIENCE IS MORE

COMPETITION RAISES PRICES

TAXES ARE PROFIT

It didn't start with Wolf and the Ministry of Truth, of course. Recall Governor " Old Major" Pinchot saying they have to rebel against the evils of the Twenty-first Amendment and run the state their way, making liquor as difficult to procure as possible.** He knows FDR is a drunk and not doing a good job of running things. The three Drys in the state put together a plan where the people live under PLCBism. Where all clerks are equal (except for those that are more equal than others) and they will be looked upon with admiration for the job they do.

One pig man is appointed to lead the people from chronic alcohol use (more than one drink a month), having proclaimed all power over wine and liquor. He uses his private PLCB army to control those who don't believe his power, and crush them. Life at the Pennsylvania Farm gets worse and worse. They don't play well with other states, and punish the animals citizens for wanting better things. They don't want improvement, but control. "Boxer" Newman was a great believer in improving the lot of the citizens, working with great zeal toward the prosperity of the Farm with careful Selections. But the PLCB sees the threat to their control, and sends "Boxer" Newman to his untimely fate as "Napoleon" Conti takes over and begins his plan to build a windmill kiosk at great expense and labor by all. 

When the citizens rebel against this idea, and years of other false promises and schemes, Napoleon aligns himself with powerful forces who like things as they are, to work against the citizens. The citizens notice the free sports outings, strip clubs, booze, golf trips, gifts, bribes, and nepotism at the top. They begin to demand the simple freedoms they see in other states. The PLCB, to counter this new threat to control, puts forth all of its power into "modernizing" its message, saying there will be prosperity for all, not just the "more equal," if they are just given one more chance. Of course, if given that chance, they'll hold onto power for decades to come. Spoiler alert: that's not a happy ending for the animals citizens.

It doesn't have to be that way.
No more lipstick on the PLCB pig!
No more doing things the pig's way!
No more false "modernization"!

END IT, DON'T MEND IT!


*A quick 1984 study guide is here if you need it.
** A quick Animal Farm study guide is here if you need it. 

Do Philly's Democratic legislators love the UFCW more than poor children?

Short posting, for two reasons. I'm busy as hell right now writing a book; and Jon Geeting pretty much says everything that needs to be said in his new Keystone Politics blog post:

Why Didn’t the Philadelphia Delegation Offer to Trade Alcohol Reform Votes for School Money?

He's spinning it off a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial today by Patrick Kerkstra: Ineffective Philly Leaders.

You should read both. Here is the Inquirer link; read it first. Then read the Keystone Politics link, here.

The point? Philly's almost entirely Democratic legislative delegation voted in lockstep against liquor privatization to satisfy organized labor, and missed a chance to compromise with Governor Corbett and Republicans to get desperately needed State money for Philadelphia's schools. As Geeting put it,

The only reason the Democrats aren’t offering Tom Corbett this trade is that they are putting coalition management concerns – placating the United Food and Commercial Workers union – ahead of adequate school funding for kids. Which makes sense in a perverse way – UFCW members donate money and this is a voting issue for them, while poor kids in Philly aren’t legally allowed to vote and can’t donate money to Democrats because their families are poor. The coalition management calculation is obvious, but the moral calculation is even more obvious. Consumers and city school districts could get a badly-needed win if Democrats would simply vote their districts rather than subsidizing rural Republicans’ drinking habits.

This is a voting issue. If your legislator screwed up on this vote, tell them, NOW, that if they screw up again in September, they've lost your vote.

Gotta go. I'll be back shortly with some news about where this blog is headed; major changes coming because of major changes in my career.

How to 'save' the State Stores and make privatization go away

All this time we've been talking about privatizing, and the union and the social conservatives and the beer retailers have been railing about it, and yet the talk continues...wanna know a secret?

It would be really easy to get Pennsylvanians to accept the State Store System forever.

Really. Here's all you have to do.

1. Change the name of the Johnstown Flood Emergency Tax. Just change the name. Call it the Pennsylvania Alcohol Excise Tax, and most people will never say another word about it. It's the idea that the tax was for the Johnstown Flood and we're still paying it that drives them crazy.
2. Get rid of Joe Conti and the CEO position. The man's a disaster: the wine kiosks alone would prove that, but the constant ethics investigations are a drag as well. The CEO position is such an obvious patronage job that it's painful.
3. End the police-enforced monopoly. Just give up. It's rarely enforced, and it's galling to Pennsylvanians. Accept you're going to have to compete with businesses over the border...just like every other retailer does (and consider lowering the PA Alcohol Excise Tax to be more competitive...and watch sales go up, and overall revenues go up as people have fewer reasons to buy booze -- and food, and gas, and everything else -- outside of PA).
4. Kill the case law. It's not part of the State Store embroglio, but it's a thorn in our sides, and taking it away will calm us down. 
5. Link advancement of product knowledge to retention and promotion in the work force. If the union wants to keep their jobs, have them make this major concession: their retail jobs will actually depend on them selling products. 
6. Double the number of stores, kill the stock requirements, and allow local control of stocking. Do we really need 2500 SKUs in Clarks Summit, when you can -- supposedly -- easily order something through the stores? Cut the operational costs of running State Stores. Allow local control of ordering, not one plan put in place in all stores by a committee in Harrisburg.
7. Put the BLCE back under the PLCB. The PLCB and their enforcement arm don't work together. The BLCE used to be part of the PLCB; put them back together.
8. Make the PLCB answerable to the State Government. A lot of the arrogance and crap we've seen out of the PLCB over the past five years stems directly from the agency's independence. There's no reason it should be so independent. The easiest way would be to make it part of the Department of Revenue.

Do those things, and Pennsylvanians will be satisfied enough that privatization will never pass. Not in my lifetime.

Why do I lay this out, when I dearly want privatization to pass? Simple. I know the Legislature and the PLCB will never get their shit together enough to do any of this, even though none of it would hurt state revenues.