THE ENTERPRISE: SETTING THE STAGE FOR PROGRESS—IT'S CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS MONTH
- I have been saying it and writing about it for more than a decade (recall, I started on THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY back in 2000, and actually published the predecessor version as THE SILENCE in 2002.
- Everything I predicted is happening, and more. Hackers and huge cyber-crimes are everywhere. Yahoo exposed the largest number of people, but not the most damaging information. Sony arguably lost more reputation capital and content. BUT...Equifax gets that prize by exposing critical information like Social Security Numbers, Driver’s License Numbers, Birthdays, and much, much more on 145 million Americans (if you don’t count children, that’s over half of all American adults. Now the SEC and perhaps some US Elections have also been compromised. There will be no end to it.
- PROTECT YOURSELF/YOUR INFO, AND BE VIGILANT.
- EQUIFAX deserves the harshest possible penalty for its flagrant disregard for protection of sensitive information—don’t put it out of business. Keep it in business, on a short leash and penalize it most of its profits.
- I’ve been pleading for a more aggressive role of Homeland Security in slowing Cyber-crime and cyber-threats. The only way to slow/stop Cyber-attacks is to “attack back” —broadly and with little concern about exactly who the attack injures as long as it’s one of the identified perpetrators—country or group.
- SELF-DRIVING CARS will be a hackers’ delight…
- This topic of CYBER-AGE issues is HUGE! Why? Read this, and you’ll see. The Cyber Age is just in its infancy.
Download Driverless cars—a terrorist delight
Download The Cyber Age Has Hardly Begun - WSJ
- President Trump has found a way to begin unraveling Obamacare, and accomplishing some of his goals (or bring bi-partisans in Congress around to help with changes.) If Barack Obama caused so many problems with executive actions, it’s only fitting that Trump undoes them that way.
- As the NLRB gets fully repopulated under Trump, watch for a roll-back of pro-union, anti-business, anti-competitive rules (like forcing rushed elections). About time someone started correcting this. Unions hinder businesses competitive position far too often, and don’t even seem to care.
- North Korea is an ALMOST unsolvable problem. It is a rogue dictatorship run by a ruthless and power-crazed psychopath, armed with nuclear weapons. (Who murders family members because he fears their competition? A murderous dictator!) Only two paths might slow the scary escalation. 1) A combination of ALL the countries in the world bringing pressure (Iran and ISIS won’t help). 2) Regime change —a new leader, which infers the demise of the current one—and even that is no guarantee. Look at Libya. One bad guy replaced by chaos and many bad ones.
- Tesla’s aspirations are grand, but its results are now being exposed as being far less grand. Major breakthroughs are hard. Reinventing something as complicated to build as an auto (even without the gas/diesel engine/drivetrain complexity) is harder. Doing it in volume and fast is still harder. If Elon Musk’s companies can send rockets into space and recover them, one has to believe Tesla will figure it out. It will just take longer, and improve slower—far slower—than investors hoped.
- CFPB* rides on, ungoverned, with Richard Cordray at the helm. He’s clearly in jeopardy IF President Trump want’s to mount a case against him. The fear is that Cordray will become a public martyr and then run for Governor of Ohio…and be a real threat to win as the Dems flood Ohio with campaign money for Sen. Sherrod Brown’s reelection as well.(*Consumer Financial Protection Board)
- GUNS DON’T KILL—PEOPLE WITH GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE—A LOT OF THEM, in groups or one at a time. However, that’s not a sufficient reason to continue to allow it to be so easy for anyone (sane or otherwise, nefarious or well-intentioned) to have easy access to the kinds of guns that can kill so many people so fast. We do not allow people to buy (Easily or legally) tactical nuclear weapons, or other military hardware. That doesn’t mean they can’t and don’t buy them: RPGs, SAMs, IEDs, plastic explosives, and every other kind of military/quasi-military killing device terrorists and nut-cases prefer is available for illicit sale somewhere, by someone.That’s no excuse for not making it as hard as possible, policing it hard and locking up violators with maximum sentences. (Even the NRA will have trouble opposing that common sense solution.)
- OPIOIDS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN GUNS: Time to drastically limit their use, but that won’t stop illegal ones from flowing into the USA. Border control will help, especially if it’s increased.
- MEDICAL ERRORS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN GUNS TOO: The medical/health care industry knows of many things it should do to reduce errors. Technology will help, but the lack of cooperation between Medical providers gets in the way. One of my medical providers, OHIO Health, has a great on-line tool “My Chart” which helps in many ways. Unfortunately the Urology firm I use has a different one. The Gastro firm I use has yet another one. The Doctor I go to in FL has a different one too. All are similar. Someone needs to mandate that they are compatible and the data be merged. The excuse of a proprietary advantage doesn’t hold up. I go to different medical providers because of the doctors—not the on-line record system used. Cleanliness (e.g., hand washing and regularly cleaned garments on doctors and staff ) in hospitals/medical facilities has been one of the largest causes of infections which can lead to health. (go see: https://hospitalinfection.org)
- Tax reform will be slow, late and modest—if at all. The only way to pass it is to put a limit on the tax breaks for the very wealthy (top 1%), even though they already pay the lion’s share of taxes. Life isn’t fair, and politics certainly ignores fairness—Barack Obama proved that by distorting the word “fair” to mean “wealth distribution” from those who earn it, to those who don’t (and many how don’t even deserve it).
- Badly needed Infrastructure programs are stuck in the gridlock.
- Badly needed Immigration reforms are stuck in the gridlock.
- The Filibuster—and institutional obstacle—seems destined to stick around!
- Dreamers legislation will make it through Congress, but not without argument about immigration rules and the Wall.
- Obvious beneficial things like a better Air Traffic Control system are also stuck.
- CONGRESS IS BROKEN—DOMINATED BY FACTIONS, AGENDAS AND EGOS (AND REELECTIONS)—LOOK FOR CHANGES IN CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP—IN BOTH PARTIES (You read it here!) Too soon to guess at or predict outcomes of 2018 elections.
- MEDIA IS NOT FAR BEHIND CONGRESS IN BEING BROKEN: TOO MUCH BIAS, NOT ENOUGH FACTS; TOO MUCH “FAKE NEWS;” SO CREDIBILITY IS HORRIBLE.
- AMERICAN IS SPLIT BETWEEN "THE COASTS AND THE CHASM” Read this article I wrote 17 years ago…some examples are dated but the message is still as valid as ever.
FIRST A SERIES OF SNIPPETS TO PROVIDE CONTEXT
THIS IS A TIME TO BE SERIOUS, NOT "SMALL, TATTY, AND CHEAP" (SOMEONE TELL THE DEMOCRATS, PLEASE?)
The Republican party has a problem. It cannot get together to agree on much of anything.
Thus it is in 3-way deadlock for which is its worst problem:
1) The Democrats mindless, thoughtless blind obstruction of anything Republican.
2) The Republicans failure to agree on anything and/or get the President and White House involved, and then follow its lead,
3) The Media which has largely devolved to the voice of the liberal left, opposing anything Trump, despising anything Republican, and ignoring anything truthful, so it can make up story lines that support its misguided sense of mission. The media is no longer the “fourth estate.”
(It is used to accentuate the freedom of the press, not to be confused with the term "fourth branch" which proposes that they are not free from the government. The press is called the fourth estate in the United States usually because they observe the political process.)
4) The “circular firing squad that is now the GOP needs to stop it—reassess—and change its behavior and policy positions.
Come together or you will come apart!
This turmoil forces President Trump to resort to executive actions to move forward on his agenda—which a majority of Americans still support. (Some of them don’t like him, but do like his plans—or at least most of them.)
ON LOONY BERNIE SANDERS AND HIS "MEDICARE FOR ALL” INSANITY
A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE STORY FROM TWENTY YEARS AGO:
I was called to speak at the Annual Convention of the National Health Service Trust Hospitals of the United Kingdom. This was a 750 person group of CEOs, Presidents, and the most Senior executives of NHS Hospitals in England, Scotland, Wales, et. al. where wide ranging changes had just been implemented in an attempt to save, and hopefully improve its failing single-payer health care system.
Since I had recently written “The Power of Partnerships, the sponsors hoped I would be able to tell them ways to find common ground and partner to salvage what was clearly a flawed system, but one they were “stuck with.” It was then that I learned how “Single Payer Health Care Systems” only work with one of two options: 1) huge expenditures (far beyond anyone’s imagination), or 2) rationing of care (interminable waiting lines, refusal of surgeries to old people and ultimately deaths!).
What I could offer them was the time-proven principles of successful partnerships. Trusting, open relationships, and balanced (if not equal) risks and rewards, agreed upon in the most desirable (or least undesirable) set of compromises. The problem was, no one wanted to compromise on anything! Standing amidst a circle of 8-10 of these Brits from the far flung regions of the UK, listening to them argue, was my most memorable take-away. The NHS single payer health care system was unaffordable with desirable benefits and undesirable with affordable benefits. Period.
Not much has changed in 20 years as the GOP grapples with the same issue trying to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. During those twenty years, the laws of physics, gravity and economics have remained steadfastly in place, and intractable. So has human nature.
—The Democrats want to “give everything to everyone, and damn the consequences.”
—The GOP wants to “give everyone as much as they can afford (or be likely willing to pay for) even though it won’t be ‘everything’."
ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Excerpted from “Amazon Takes Over the World” by Scott Galloway, WSJ Sept. 23-24, 2017
"Why does Amazon’s ascent matter? Aren’t lower prices and greater efficiencies better for everyone? They are, in all the obvious ways, but that’s not a complete picture. Amazon’s seemingly boundless growth forces us to wrestle with difficult questions about the reasons for its dominance.
For one, Amazon, unlike any other firm its size, has changed the basic compact with financial markets. It has replaced the expectation for profits with a focus on vision and growth, managing its business to break even while investors bid up its stock price.
Amazon’s strategy of break-even operations also means that it has virtually no profits to tax. Since 2008, Wal-Mart has paid $64 billion in federal income taxes, while Amazon has paid just $1.4 billion. Yet, while paying low taxes, Amazon has added $220 billion in value to the stock held by its shareholders over the past 24 months—equivalent to the entire market capitalization of Wal-Mart.
Something is deeply amiss when a company can ascend to almost a half trillion dollars in market value—becoming the fifth most valuable firm in the world—without paying any meaningful income tax. Does Amazon really owe so little to support public revenue and public needs? If a giant firm pays less than the average 24% in income taxes that the companies of the S&P 500 pay, it logically means that less-successful firms pay more. In this way, Amazon further adds to the winner-take-all tendencies plaguing our economy.
Because Amazon is more efficient than other retailers, it is able to transact the same amount of business with half the employees. If Amazon continues to grow its business by $20 billion a year, the annual toll of lost jobs for merchants, buyers and cashiers will be in the tens of thousands by my calculations. Disruption in the U.S. labor force is nothing new—we have just never dealt with a company that is so ruthless and single-minded about it."
.... During [a recent Jeff Bezos] talk, he made the case for a universal guaranteed income for all Americans. It is tempting to admire his progressive values and concern for the public welfare, but there is a dark implication here too. It appears that the most insightful mind in the business world has given up on the notion that our economy, or his firm, can support that pillar of American identity: a well-paying job.Amazon has brought us many benefits, but we all must recognize that the rise of the One brings with it much more than free two-day delivery. “Alexa, is this a good thing?”"
WARREN BUFFETT MAKES ANOTHER SMART BUY—PILOT FLYING J
The wizard of Omaha is buying a huge stake and will take a majority stake in within five years, of this dominant leader in the Truck Stop business with 750 Stops in 44 states, and $20 billion in revenue. Imagine when the transformation moves to “self-driving trucks” or “electric hybrid trucks” to handle the millions of tons of freight on the nations Interstate highways. Buffett’s new firm will be in a remarkably dominant (and that means profitable) business.
YES, VIRGINIA, THERE WILL BE A SANTA CLAUS—AND A CHRISTMAS (OR WHATEVER THE SECULARISTS TRY TO CALL IT)
The National Retail Federation (NRF) recently published its estimates of a 3.6-4% growth over last year. I’m familiar with the Worthington, OH group that gets this info for and it has an excellent track record of calling things mostly right. Several other large forecaster raise the number: 3.6-4.5% and one big league accounting firm is forecasting 6%. That may be a bit too generous considering our Gridlocked/do nothing Congress, but IF the DOW and other stock market indices keep climbing (without a long past-due 10% correction downward,) people will feel wealthier than ever—and that’s when they spend, spend, and spend some more. Struggling retailers will be torn over whether to "stock way up" (to maximize sales) or being more practical and "sell out of stock" (and lose sales).
PRICE INCREASES ARE COMING—the Stock Market is driving them too.
- Government spending just goes up and up and up, requiring either more taxes, or larger deficits with more interest costs or both.
- Look for proposals to simply scrap the Debt Ceiling, vs. arguing over renewing it over and over...
- Jobs will co up. Trump’s Admin. is doing far more right things to help this happen, even if Democrats are blocking every nominee he chooses.
- Wages are increasing, health care costs are increasing, natural disasters are causing increases in many commodities, and so forth.
- As the stock market continues to climb (where else are people going to invest their money?) people feel wealthier and spend more.
- More demand equals easier to increase prices except where voracious competitors drive them back down. (See prior amazon.com piece)
- Grocers will be in turmoil Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods will disrupt things as its prices come down from the stratosphere to reality. Attack by European discount grocers ALDI and LIDL is coming too. ALDI has been in the USA, but it’s upping its aggressiveness. LIDL is a newcomer.
- Credit card debt is rising. Student debt is rising. Mortgage debt is not. More renting than buying, as Millennials choose to stay flexible, or can’t get home loans due to massive college debt where they learned about things that too few employers want or care about.
- High skills—Medical, IT, Engineering are still in hot demand.
- Malls will continue to die off, and be repurposed as churches, office buildings, and other uses—or torn down and redeveloped (Why? Anchors like Dept. stores are struggling; Sears is dying; JCPenney is hanging on; Lifestyle Centers are replacing Malls.)
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