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Bernard Madoff, convicted of running an $65 billion Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 150 years in jail. What’s your take on his punishment?

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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 2, 2009

By year-end or so, Congress will give the nod to a major rewriting of the nation's financial regulatory system. This week’s Kiplinger Letter explores whether the package will do more harm than good and what lawmakers are likely to include.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: The Economy, Business Costs, Taxes, Supreme Court, Energy, Workplace Regulations, Climate Change, Health Care Legislation and Foreign Policy

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

-- fender

Rethinking Warehousing, Distribution

The cost of energy has many companies and cities moving distribution centers back into town to be closer to customers -- and to cut shipping costs.

Worth Reading: The Quick Take from Kiplinger

September 2008

GreenTips

GreenTips is a monthly Kiplinger Recommends feature from Greener World Media Inc., which writes environmental news and advice for business through a variety of Web-based outlets, including GreenBiz.com, GreenerComputing, ClimateBiz , GreenerBuildings and GreenBiz Radio.

Leslie Guevarra is an associate editor at GreenBiz.com.

Cities have been warming up to the idea of "infill" -- using urban plots of vacant land, brownfields and old or even abandoned buildings for development rather than expanding ever deeper into the suburbs. Now, with the help of rising energy costs, the idea is advancing from multifamily housing and retail outlets to more industrial uses, especially distribution centers.

"Energy is such a huge percentage of the total distribution costs that our customers have largely stopped building large singular distribution centers and are re-evaluating their entire supply chain, so that they have the ability to carry more inventory in infill sites that are closer to their customers," says Steven Campbell, a senior vice president and director of environmental and development services for AMB Property Corp. in San Francisco. This month's GreenTips column is a GreenBiz Radio interview with Campbell that looks at how large and small businesses alike are moving away from huge but distant distribution centers to smaller urban ones that are closer to their customers.

Campbell estimates that every dollar increase in the cost of oil translates to a 1% increase in total distribution transportation costs. With oil hitting $150 a barrel not long ago and unlikely to dip much below $100 anytime soon, that's put pressure on companies to be creative about cutting costs for getting their goods to retailers. In response, AMB is bringing to the U.S. a practice popular in Japan and other densely populated parts of Asia but never heard of here: going vertical. Campbell says that, rather than relying upon huge, sprawling single-level transportation centers, urban infill centers can make efficient use of land with "four- to six-story buildings with circular truck ramps that allow full access for full-size, container-carrying trucks to every single floor. You end up with coverage ratios approaching 200% on the land parcel."

City officials and neighborhoods in areas near such projects may be skeptical of such projects, but Campbell says concerns about congestion, energy conservation, underdeveloped urban property and pollution can help ease those worries. "If you can move the trucks back in, so that they have a shorter haul to the point of consumption, then that's good for everybody. …We've spent a lot of time, as have others, working to re-educate the political and planning side in these communities."

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