THE ENTERPRISE--SOMETIMES LOGIC FAILS TO EXPLAIN...

Download Mortimer Zuckerman: Those Jobless Numbers Are Even Worse Than They Look - WSJ.com

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES--70 DAYS AND COUNTING UNTIL ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH:@The Intersection IS READY (At least I hope so.)  The interior design is about done, but the cover design needed some work.  The message is unchanged.  Here are a few questions to think about (not stated per se in the book, but …read on:

• What business are you in?  Really?  Do you know? Have you truly thought about this?
• Do you make and/or buy and sell products, or services, or are the products just incidental to the services you sell, or are the services incidental to the ultimate end results you sell--which are success, and (you hope), profitable growth.
• Is that the business you want to be in?  Do your customers think it the business you should be in?  Why?  Why?  Why?
• What is it that you do, offer, deliver, provide, that makes you the most desirable place/person/people from which to buy that?  
• Figure that out--and it will unlock many more insights for you.

A NICE UPWARD TICK IN RETAIL SALES UNTIL YOU LOOK BEHIND THE NUMBERS

Almost all of it was either due to high gas prices or auto sales (and if you look behind them, you'll see that much of GMs recent sales success has been because the government (who owns a big piece of GM) bought a lot of vehicles for fleets.  Thus the question really should be: how much are real consumer retail sales up.  It's not the reported 0.9%--it's actually about 0.1%.  And last month's number was revised downward from +0.8 to +0.7, which means it didn't quite recover the drops of the prior two months.  The economy is still stalled and stagnant, paralyzed--waiting to see the outcome of the elections.

A QUOTE TO REMEMBER: "The Democratic party has suddenly developed a keen sense of morality. John Edwards has been banned from making a speech at the Democratic National Convention for having an affair and lying about it. —  In his place Bill Clinton will be speaking."  Clinton is a remarkable speaker.  His nearly hour long speech sounded more like he was running for office than Obama--and he is a master and mixing fact, fiction and hyperbole--all in a good ole boy demeanor.

But remember, when someone prefaces a remark with "honestly," they are most likely going to be dishonest with what they say, and when someone says, "here's the truth," what you will get is very likely only a piece of the truth--the part that serves their purpose.

If you wonder what Barack Obama's plans are if he is reelected to a second term:

PROPOSED BUMPER STICKER:  WANT FOUR MORE YEARS OF MISERY?  VOTE OBAMA!

THIS COLUMN BY MORT ZUCKERMAN IN LAST WEEK'S WSJ IS SO WELL DONE, I'M POSTING IT HERE FOR YOU TO READ

FALL IS ABOUT HERE, FOOTBALL IS IN FULL SWING.  ENJOY THE GAMES OF YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS.

BEST, JOHN

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OR OTHER  EBOOK FORMATS AT: 

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Author of the Award Winner: THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS, and the exciting novel: THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY.   Come see my blog posts on Forbes.com

John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group,  http://www.mariotti.net,   http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/