Columns

If you’re like many Americans – 71 percent, according to an AARP survey – you might be under the impression that your 401(k) plan administrator doesn’t charge you anything to maintain your account. You’d be wrong.
In fact, these companies typically charge fees equivalent to 0.5 to 2 percent of your account balance each year – sometimes as high as 5 percent. In addition to ongoing tariffs for managing your investment options, plan administrators often deduct numerous other fees from individuals’ accounts, including charges for administrative costs, sales commissions, advertising, insurance, and trading expenses.
Perhaps equally disturbing is that many employers – which have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the retirement plans they sponsor have reasonable fees and expenses – often don’t know what fees their employees are being charged either.
Over time, out-of-control fees can take a serious toll. The Department of Labor estimates that paying just 1 percent in extraneous fees each year could reduce your account balance by 28 percent during an average working career.

New Mexico businesses that want help becoming more efficient frequently call on the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership — a nonprofit agency of the U.S. Commerce Department that helps small and mid-sized U.S. businesses create and preserve jobs, become more profitable and save time and money. In New Mexico, where most businesses are small, MEP services are used by doctors’ offices, machine shops, small farms and agricultural operations, and businesses that serve the oil and gas industry.
MEP uses multiple techniques to help businesses increase profits by standardizing production and administration to provide continuous improvement that eliminates waste and strives for perfection.
Lean manufacturing theory recognizes that there will always be some degree of product variation but it seeks to minimize aberrations that result in added expenses when products must be discarded or returned to the production line for repair or reassembly. Motorola, in its drive toward perfection in 1986, introduced an idea called Six Sigma based on the letter in the Greek alphabet used to measure mathematical variations from a standard. Motorola aspired to refine its manufacturing process to a sigma rating of six, meaning that 99.99966 percent of its products would have zero defects.

 Why is a mouse when it spins?  Well, why not?
 That’s a “koan,” a nonsensical question given to a Buddhist student to help teach them the art of meditation and contemplation.  For me, it was just a great question to ask during an interview and then watch to see how long it took for the candidate to start breathing again.
  In high school, I always did well in math and I took equal pride in my inability to do well in my language classes (or should I say I dint do good).  I recall reading that the great mathematicians throughout history were usually terrible at language.  And at some point in my not-so-accurate education, I was told that people are either left-brained or right-brained (which by the way isn’t true), and that the left-brain controlled mathematics and language.
 And so the theory was that if you were good at math, you didn’t have any “brain room” for language.   I was subsequently told that I was “left brained,” which made perfect sense to my parents who often remarked that I was not in my right mind.
 But as I’ve gotten older (I’m still waiting for the getting wiser part), I’ve found language to be a truly amazing area of study.  The sheer volume of words out there leaves one nonplussed.

SANTA FE – OK, so here’s the latest national plan to woo Hispanics into the GOP. Showcasing Latino top officials such as Govs. Susana Martinez and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio didn’t help much in the 2012 elections.
So the latest plan is to create a super-PAC. Republicans are good at those. The idea isn’t to buy Hispanic votes. Hispanics are too honorable for that. It’s for buying congressional votes. That is usually pretty easy.
The biggest fear of moderate Republican members of Congress is getting “primaried” by the tea party and other right wing organizations. It happened in 2010 and 2012 and lists of Republicans who might stray from the fold already are being made for the 2014 GOP primary elections.
The new super-PAC, to be called Republicans for Immigration Reform, is intended to begin repairing the political damage left by years of anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric.
The organizers are former George W. Bush Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Washington lawyer Charlie Spies. Ironically, Spies was a co-founder of the pro-Mitt Romney super-PAC Restore our Future, which aired ads during this year’s GOP presidential primaries accusing some of Romney’s rivals of being too liberal on immigration.