Statutes, codes and customs are important in a legal context, as lawyers and judges spend a lot of time in liability cases looking at these three categories of rules to apply to the conduct of the parties before the court.
Read More It’s winters like this past one that drive independent propane marketers into an early retirement.
Read More Guaranties are hard to come by. Sure, they are offered, but always at a price. When you buy a new appliance or electronic, they try to sell you a warranty to cover product failure after 12 months. Of course this is in addition to your purchase price, and the sad truth is, sometimes, you will need it.
Read More Implications of this redefinition of profits serve a useful purpose in the measurement of a retail propane company’s performance. The first purpose cited above is how we historically view profits — the excess or what’s left over after we have paid our bills. However, in the second point it may be that the profit is not sufficient to replace capital for worn-out equipment.
Read More Virtually all propane marketers have seasonal customers, primarily on their residential accounts and usually in areas where vacationing is a big part of the local economy. People often purchase second homes or have a hunting lodge that they might only use for a portion of the year or just on weekends.
Read More Companies and employees too often fall victim to unfortunate events that are of their own creation. A long-standing accident theory (Heinrich’s Domino Theory) states that accidents and injuries are a result of unsafe acts or conditions that are caused in part by personal fault due to a person’s environment or ancestry.
Read More Each year, retail propane marketers face a whole new set of issues. In 2005, wholesale propane prices seemed to cause the most headaches, pushing retailers to look at new ways to become more profitable.
Read More Driven by requests for this topic and my interest to discuss only issues that will add value to retail propane businesses, I address the continued, flawed thinking in many companies that say if their gallons are up year over year, then they have had a good year.
Read More As the second session of the 109th Congress gets underway, the propane industry is working to take advantage of new tax advantages as outlined in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and other recent tax laws.
Read More Aside from writing this column, I also defend propane marketers who are sued for liability in gas explosion accidents.
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