Answer: J.D. Power and Associates J.D. Power and Associates, best known for telling us what consumers think about products, from cars to cell phones, is now extending its reach and research know-how to determine advisor satisfaction levels with their employers. J.D. Power and Associates Reports: Firm Performance and Organizational Support Are Primary Concerns For Financial Advisors in Volatile Marketplace.

It's a great time to see a report such as this. Why? Advisors, especially independent or independent-minded advisors, are "go-betweens" placed in the middle of a financial institution and an individual client. They are financial shock absorbers of a sort, working to align the capabilities of the financial markets (in this case, the road, unyielding and without emotion) and the client (the car hoping for the smoothest possible ride on the way to its destination).

Understanding satisfaction levels between advisors and their firms gives us an inside look at how these firms are doing in helping the individual clients reach their goals. I know many advisors and all of them want their clients to succeed. If the advisor is satisfied with their firm, it's a good clue that their clients are satisfied, too. Or, at least, given the markets these days, they are as satisfied as they can be with the institutions they rely on to implement their financial plans.

Advisors care about other things besides just making their clients happy. They care about having their job made easy and they care about making money. On any given day, there can be healthy competition between these three aspects of their job, but, all things being equal, it's better to hire a happy advisor than an unhappy one. Especially now, when we have once again been reminded that no one, not even Warren Buffet, knows what's going to happen in the markets in the short term.

All you can rely on in times like these are that the firms you are connected with have integrity, communicate well and do their level best to do what they promise to do. An advisor's satisfaction with their firms, now measured by J.D. Power, is a useful clue in determining whether or not these institutions can live up to these expectations.

The Big-3 automakers went back to Capitol Hill yesterday to ask Congress for more money.  Executives for GM, Ford and Chrysler warned lawmakers if they don't get an infusion of cash, they could collapse by the end of the month.

The economic stimulus proposal from President-elect Barack Obama could re-start some of Utah's stalled road construction projects. Right now, about $4 billion in roads projects are on hold.  The stimuls package could coast $500 billion and would create jobs by investing in the nation's infrastructure.

New figures show November was absolutely brutal for retailers.  Electronic sales fell by 25% compared to November of 2007, department store sales fell by 20%, and sales of luxury goods were down by nearly 25%.  While we don't know for sure, the numbers suggest that the traditional "Black Friday" deals did not help retailers as much as they were hoping.

The slowing economy and late start for the ski season is having a detrimental effect on the Hispanic community in Park City.  Workers seem to be leaving because there aren't as many jobs available as last year. 

1857: Novelist Joseph Conrad was born in Berdychiv, Ukraine.

1947: "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.

1997: South Korea struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a record $55 billion bailout of its foundering economy.

Yesterday, economists confirmed what most Americans already knew...that we've been in a recession since December of 2007.  In reaction, the Dow plunged nearly 680 points yesterday as skittish investors reacted to the news.  The S&P 500 and NASDAQ each dropped nearly 9% on the news.  And it could get worse later this week.  On Friday the new jobs report is due from the government, and experts say that should show another 325,000 jobs lost in November.

Speaking of jobs, JPMorgan Chase plans to dump 9,200 employees from Washington Mutual, which they aquired when that bank failed earlier this year.  That represents 20% of WAMU's workforce before the failure.

The state's largest employer says they won't contribute their share to employees' 401(k) accounts next year.  Intermountain Health Care says the rough economy is forcing them to forego the donations in 2009. IHC says the move will allow them to keep costs low for patients and help them avoid layoffs.  Upset employees estimate the move will cost them 4-5 percent of their base salary.

1939:  New York's La Guardia Airport began operations.

1942:  A self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago.

1969: The Boeing 747 jumbo jet debuted.

It's long been accepted cannon in advertising that you have to repeat a message multiple times in order to make an impact on your audience.  That may be changing as consumers are tiring of seeing the same message over and over again.

Ad Week has an interesting look at how the struggling economy is pushing companies to cut back on their advertising, which means fewer new commercials and more airings of current spots. 

Savvy creative executives have long protested that viewers will stick around to see really clever ads, but chances are that even a Coke and a smile wear pretty thin when you see the same commercial for the 88th time. In the ad world, the phenomenon is known as "wear-out," and it's the point at which consumers no longer listen to a message that's being pitched to them because they've seen or heard it so many times that it ceases to be new or interesting.

Advertising executives say 10 years ago it took 15-20 viewings of an ad for a consumer to get tired of it.  Today that number is about half.

Complicating the matter is the DVR.  More than ¼ of U.S. households are expected to have a DVR by the end of this year, which allows consumers to skip commercials entirely.

So, what's the fix?  More and more marketers are sponsoring series, individual episodes or specific events.  They're paying to have their products used in shows.  Think about American Idol.  Those red Coca-Cola cups on the judges desks aren't there by accident.

When Erica Lyn Townshend's dog Buddy cut his paw last November, the vet gave him a clunky plastic lampshade collar to prevent him from chewing on the wound. But Townshend hated the idea of torturing Buddy with the cumbersome contraption. Instead, she sewed an elastic strap onto a long sock, placed the strap around the dog's body, and put the sock on his leg. She dubbed it the Strock.

A few months later, after being eliminated from the second round of the reality show American Inventor, Townshend quit her job at IBM to peddle the Strock full time, forming a company called Best Buddy Pet Products in Longmont, Colorado. She hit pay dirt during her third sales call, at a veterinary hospital that was part of a 600-location chain, when the doctor in charge recommended the Strock to the system's board of directors.

Townshend, who had been making Strocks in her home using a sewing machine, needed money to fund mass production. But both her local bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration turned down her loan applications, citing her lack of income, past credit card delinquencies, and lack of a track record.

"It was a Catch-22," she says. "I would have to pay for the inventory up front before the clinics paid me." Then she saw a TV news segment about Prosper.com, a new person-to-person moneylending website designed to connect those who need cash with people willing to lend it.

In May, under the username All4Buddy, she landed a $9,500 loan from a group of 77 individual lenders. The money appeared in her bank account two days later. Townshend is part of a small but growing cadre of business owners taking advantage of person-to-person lending sites, namely Prosper.com and its British counterpart, Zopa.com, which plans to launch a U.S. version this year.

For entrepreneurs with poor credit ratings and unproven track records, the sites offer a chance to raise funds when banks and other traditional lenders say no. Lenders on the sites profit as well: In return for taking a risk, they often receive higher investment returns than they would with savings accounts. Still, the interest rates are usually lower than those charged by credit cards, the last-ditch funding source for many start-ups.

It's "Black Friday."  As shoppers hit the stores looking for bargains, many feel this could be the worst Christmas ever for retailers.  Some stores are betting their very survival on today's shopping frenzy, cutting prices deeper than they ever have before.  Consumers are in a "spending lockdown" from the economic turmoil, and that's already forced some retailers out of business.  

It's so bad that online shopping is falling as well.  Analysts are predicting zero growth in online sales this quarter.  Zero!  For comparison purposes, last year saw a 19% growth from the previous year.

Cable giant Comcast is feeling the pinch as well.  The real-estate market downturn, coupled with increased competition, has the company forecasting fewer new subscribers than they anticipated.   The company is having to cut prices to lure customers, but so are their competitors.  That could lead to even more trouble for Comcast's bottom line.

1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait that now bears his name.

1895: The first automobile race took place, between Chicago and Waukegan, Ill.

1925: The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville made its radio debut on station WSM.

2001: Enron Corp., once the world's largest energy trader, collapsed after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over.

Source:  New York Times

On a predictably rainy october day in Seattle, Tim Jenkins and Darran Littlefield, co-founders of the consulting firm Point B, met with their newest employee. At most companies, that probably would mean introducing the newbie to the rest of the staff and giving him a tour of the office before showing him to a cubicle. But despite $46 million in annual revenue, Point B does not have an office. Instead, Jenkins and Littlefield met their new recruit at a Starbucks.

The idea of the virtual office is not exactly new. But despite all the hype telecommuting has received, few businesses have truly broken free of the traditional cubicles-and-a-boardroom mold. When Jenkins, Littlefield, and Jim Hodge founded Point B in 1995, they were determined to do just that. The partners had spent years working at Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, and were fed up with spending half of their time in airless offices and the other half on the road. They loved consulting, but they hated the lifestyle that came with it.

Today, Point B has 223 employees in Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, and Portland, Oreg. And they don't work the way most consultants do. Rather than hopping from city to city, employees work only for local clients, spending two or three days a week at home and the rest at their clients' offices. As a result, Jenkins and his partners can run a lean organization-- without having to worry about leases, travel expenses, and the like--which allows them to bid competitively on projects and offer employees generous salaries and benefits.

Source:  Darren Dahl in Inc. Magazine