Telling It Like It Is

THE ENTERPRISE--HOW TO MAKE THINGS BETTER AND OTHER POSITIVE THOUGHTS

THE ENTERPRISE--HOW TO MAKE THINGS BETTER AND OTHER POSITIVE THOUGHTS.  I WANT TO COVER SOME IMPORTANT "SIGNS OF THE TIMES”—THAT WILL BE HARD TO REVERSE

 

EDUCATION: "Least surprising headline:" In-Person Classes Boost Test Scores.  The impact of school shutdowns (driven largely by teacher's unions) is huge. The loss of learning, especially by the under-performing, heavily minority youth in big city schools has set this group even further behind. This headline article pointed out that return to regular school classes has helped catch up, but there is still a residual negative impact. Unintended consequences of misguided decisions and actions are pervasive—and too often unnoticed until further problems surface.

 

CAREERS: “The tip of an iceberg:” The Hot Job Market Is Killing Cover Letters. The inability of today’s youth to express themselves in writing is partially a byproduct of school failings and partially the impact of smart phones and texting with abbreviations (e.g., LOL) and emojis 🙄. This combination has undermined the ability of youth to express their thoughts—and in the case of “cover letters”—their job qualifications and aspirations. There is only one chance to “make a first impression.” Covid discouraged the firm handshake, and the hot job market has further undermined that important first impression by encouraging less and less use of a thoughtful cover letter and resume use by job seekers. The outcome is that important indicators of probable job success or failure are missing, leading to rampant turnover (worsened by voluntary job switching).

 

OVERFLOWING EMAIL (& VOICEMAIL) INBOXES ARE FALLING PREY TO TEXT MESSAGES (AND OTHER BRIEF, GRAPHIC EXCHANGES--SNAPCHAT, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER).  When we tried emailing college age veteran students about a mentoring program, responses were slow, few or none at all. Texting got a relatively faster reply, better even than a telephone call (telephone voice—remember actually hearing spoken words?). Zoom fatigue was epidemic at many schools and companies. The problem: long emails and voicemails with no meaningful “subject” or indication of whether the purpose was to ask a question, provide information or seek a decision (or CYA by cc:All). 

 

Add the blizzard of Attachments, Political Campaigns, Junk Mail, Solicitations, Spam/Phishing, and Cartoons/Pictures and in-baskets become almost like electronic “waste baskets.” Solution: try making and enforcing “rules” for reducing email clutter and verbosity (and on overflowing voicemail boxes—restrict the message time allowed to seconds, not minutes—just enough time to leave a name, subject and return phone number.

 

"DRESS FOR SUCCESS” HAS DETERIORATED TO DRESS FOR COMFORT, AS CASUAL OR SLOPPILY AS POSSIBLE

A piece of good advice for all job seekers is the dress for one level of formality higher than you expect the prospective hiring company to use.  Even on Zoom, when only the upper half of a person shows, a neat, pressed shirt or blouse makes an important impression. Caution: occasionally a person will stand and move about during a Zoom call. If the camera is on, be sure what you are wearing from the waist down is “appropriate.”  IF very casual dress is the favored choice, it’s still wise for that to be “presentable” and not “sloppy!” Few things look worse than a wrinkled T-shirt or blouse with a badly stretched out or ill-fitting collar.

 

UNINTENDED OR UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES—THE “RIPPLE EFFECT” OF CHAOS, WARS, AND GLOBAL TURMOIL

While countless buildings in Ukraine are being destroyed by Putin’s violent invasion, other places are finding that a key part of concrete construction—steel reinforcement (rebar) is in short supply. Ukraine, Russia and neighboring places (like Turkey) are (or were) major steel producers. Not any more. Nearby ports are locked down or disrupted. Mills are shut down, or face demand disruption due to sanctions. Sanctions on Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have a ripple effect of driving buyers to seek alternative suppliers from other countries—who may be unprepared to respond. That goes for oil too.

 

President (Clueless) Joe Biden will find that the costs are climbing for his alternative, renewable energy sources. They will now cost much more and the mining, refining, fabrication and transportation of batteries and electronics, wind turbine blades, solar cells and again, rebar—and maybe concrete for reinforcing the bases to support huge wind turbines. Anti-dumping sanctions against China (on Solar equipment) is adversely impacting solar.

 

Supply chains are not likely to recover any time soon due to these sanction driven disruptions. There is very little cushion of inventory in the supply chains either. Ports are making progress but shortages and imbalances  have been hard hit by transportation problems—both labor and equipment (like containers and truck chassis for to & from transport)

 

Cyber attacks, ransomware and simple network disruptions are impacting more places that are publicly reported. Prices of everything are up and will continue rising as labor shortages lead to wage increases, oil price increases lead to higher energy and fuel costs ($5.00/gal. gas & diesel) is just one item.

 

Climate Change, being blamed for everything, is a media-driven sensational-headline hoax. Yes, weather varies wildly and destroys things humans build in nature’s way…but weather and climate change are two very different things. Related but different. Read Steven Koonin’s fine book “Unsettled,” to learn the truth.(Or articles he’s written, including for the WSJ.)

 

FINALLY, A VERY INSIGHTFUL EDITORIAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

(Attached below is also the .pdf file of this editorial in case you want to share it via email or text.)

 

NO ONE KNOWS WITH ANY CERTAINTY WHAT THE FUTURE HGLDS IN STORE FOR US.   ALL WE CAN DO IS DO OUR BEST TO FIND THE FACTS, THE TRUTH, AND PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND  WISDOM,

 

BEST OF LUCK

JOHN

=================

OPINION | REVIEW & OUTLOOK from the WSJ

The President We Have

Biden needs new advisers and help from Congress to deter Russia and other escalating threats.

By The Editorial Board March 27, 2022 6:31 pm ET   ©DOW JONES 

More or less the whole world—including his own advisers on background—has criticized President Biden for his latest gaffe in saying in his Warsaw speech on Saturday that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” There’s no need to pile on. And someone should say that Mr. Biden’s unscripted remark did have the virtue of telling the truth that the problem in Russia won’t end even if Mr. Putin orders his troops out of Ukraine.

Mr. Biden’s remark, even after its repudiation on Sunday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, may well make it harder to negotiate with Mr. Putin over Ukraine or anything else. And Mr. Biden’s habit of misstating his own policies—no fewer than three times during his European trip—is especially dangerous amid an international crisis.

Then again, the same critics who are lambasting Mr. Biden helped to hide his obviously fading capacities in the 2020 campaign. They circled the wagons around his Delaware basement because they thought he was the only Democrat who could defeat Donald Trump.

The reality is that we have to live with Mr. Biden for three more years as President. And please stop writing letters imploring us to demand that Mr. Biden resign. Do you really want Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office? She was chosen as a bow to identity politics to unite the Democratic Party in the election campaign, not for her ability to fill the President’s shoes. In the last 14 months she has failed to demonstrate even the minimum knowledge or capacity for the job. We are fated to make the best of the President we have.

In that regard, Members of Congress of both parties will have to play a more assertive role, and the good news is that they have been doing so to good effect on Ukraine. Congress has stiffened Mr. Biden’s resolve on sanctions and military aid. The pattern is that the White House resists a tougher policy until it faces a defeat or difficult vote on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan coalitions of the willing will be even more important as the war continues, and threats from Iran, China and North Korea escalate.

As we’ve argued, Mr. Biden would also be wise to bring some high profile conservatives and Republicans into his Administration. In 1940, as the prospect of world war approached, FDR brought in experienced GOP internationalists Henry Stimson as Secretary of War and Frank Knox as Secretary of the Navy. They built credibility with the public and on Capitol Hill for the hard choices to come.

Harry Truman worked with GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg to build support for NATO at the dawn of the Cold War. Jimmy Carter at least had the hawkish Zbigniew Brzezinski as his national security adviser when the Soviets tried to exploit Mr. Carter’s weakness.

Mr. Blinken has shown impressive energy as Secretary of State, and he was right in advising Mr. Biden not to withdraw in toto from Afghanistan. But Mr. Biden desperately needs to diversify the advice he gets beyond the liberal internationalists who dominate his councils. Susan Rice, Ron Klain and Jake Sullivan have the Afghan failure on their resumes.

Better advice is needed because Mr. Biden is right that the Russia problem won’t go away as long as Mr. Putin sits in the Kremlin. This doesn’t mean open advocacy of regime change is wise. Russians will have to decide if Mr. Putin must go.

But Mr. Biden’s muscular assertions in the written text of his Warsaw speech need to be supported by more than rhetoric. The U.S. and the West need to urgently restore and strengthen the credibility of their military and diplomatic deterrents. More hawkish advisers would send a more determined signal to the world—and especially to adversaries.

The world is entering the most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed, and perhaps since the 1930s. The Covid crisis obscured the trend, but the dangers have become obvious as adversaries have reacted to what they perceive to be the American decline, division and weakness at the root of the Afghanistan debacle. Mr. Biden needs to back up his Warsaw words with a defense buildup and far more diplomatic realism to confront the great risks ahead.

Appeared in the March 28, 2022, print edition. 

 

THE ENTERPRISE—WHAT'S THIS YEAR SHAPING UP TO BE LIKE—THE MOST COMMON QUESTION PEOPLE ASK. IN A WORD: TURBULENT

THE ENTERPRISE—WHAT'S THIS YEAR SHAPING UP TO BE LIKE—THE MOST COMMON QUESTION PEOPLE ASK.

IN A WORD: TURBULENT 

Election years are always hard to predict. Throw in $5/gallon gas, 8% inflation and a Fed prediction of 6—yes—a half dozen interest rate hikes, and a year of turmoil.

INFLATION IS HERE TO STAY—YOUR MONEY HAS LESS BUYING POWER

I’ll try to identify the factors that will shape the year—or at least the first half of it. First, the government has NO wealth of its own. It only has what it collects from us in taxes, or gets from duties it levies on goods coming into the US—which also cost us more.

 

"Retail sales growth slowed in February.”  No surprise as the $50 fill-up at the gas station and nearly 8% inflation cuts into disposable income. Then Putin’s brutal attack on Ukraine and its people leads the new everywhere. Anyone who sees a government led by Clueless, Bungling Biden, understands how dropping newly printed money from planes into peoples' homes will temporarily create spending growth. With nothing tangible of value behind that new money (but record levels of government debt) you have—voila’—inflation. Contrary to Clueless, Bungling Biden and his acolytes in government and media, this inflation is neither temporary nor can it be blamed on Putin. It’s the fault of Biden and his administration’s stupid policies. (A trick Biden learned from Obama—anytime you screw up—blame it on somebody else!)

 

When government spending climbs because it can, by taxing us and using our taxes to invest in even more, larger government boondoggles, our hard earned, invested money is crowded out of markets. Worse yet, like an illegal money laundering scheme, the government keeps part of it and we can only expect our government largesse (freebies) funded by part of it. Inflation hits us first in things we must buy—gas, food, shelter, clothing, medical needs and so forth.

 

When Putin starts his own private war to take back Ukraine from its independence, he creates still more inflation by spending money to destroy cities, buildings and possessions (and kill innocent people). By destroying productive facilities (and people) in Ukraine, he makes things even worse. So, learn to live with inflation…and it might go even higher before it goes down…as politicians try to force down inflation as a campaign promise.

 

LABOR—TRAINING PEOPLE HOW TO GET ALONG BY NOT WORKING—TAX THOSE WHO DO WORK, AND GIVE FREE MONEY & STUFF TO THOSE WHO DON’T (FLOODS OF “UNDOCUMENTEDS" TO TAKE JOBS — OR USE OUR WELFARE

Then act surprised that labor force participation drops and drops. Ignore border control and let in thousands more who can’t earn their way and pay zero taxes, or follow US laws, but expect to be taken care of. Worse yet, US companies fire their workers in downturns and let the government (funded by tax paying Americans) to pick up the tab, sometimes for more than a working wage would provide! Then getting people back to work—in jobs (when, or if business recovers), competing with illegal immigrants (at lower pay that Americans, is hard or impossible. Plus when they were allowed to work from home (“unsupervised”) during Covid, they learned how great freedom from work felt—and with no commute in traffic, using $5/gallon gas.

 

The best companies (and sports teams) try to get the best people (players) they can afford, and pay them well. With good leadership, the results are usually quite good. The opposite happens when marginally qualified, unmotivated people are hired at rock bottom pay. Companies fail and people are back on the government welfare wagon….Paid for by whom? By working tax payers, of course.

Final thought: Employee Retention is an Oxymoron these days. A regular job used to provide security for the worker and also for the employer, that help would be there when the business needed it. NOT ANY MORE!

 

What’s happened: Culture has changed to an ENTITLEMENT CULTURE; Education has changed to being more focused on WOKE, SOCIAL AND POLITICALLY CORRECT BEHAVIOR rather than skills that are employable and productive. Helicopter parents of  Gen Z+ have provided such a laissez faire attitude that too many young people don’t realize that “work" means showing up, on time and willing to actually work!

 

Wages are climbing rapidly; work at home has become a perk with vague expectations of results, and being there when the zoom call is schedule—but no need to commute and pay high gas prices—and have a government subsidized electric or hybrid car).  Some form of energy (who pays for that) must provide the charging stations with fuel. What is the motivation for this new culture to be more productive, to be more innovative (is it watching streaming TV or playing interactive video games? I’m hoping that the appeal of being part of a productive, collaborative, high energy team with strong leadership will still energize the best people to be the workers of the 2020’s.

 

LEADERSHIP, TURMOIL, INDECISION AND CONFLICT—WAR—OR THE PROSPECT OF MORE ARMED CONFLICTS

It’s clear that Putin is a strong leader in a ruthless, brutal way—to get what he wants at any cost—lives of innocents, destruction of cities, and whatever else he imagines. He’s not crazy per se. He just lacks the human values that most of the world wishes a leader would have. And, in this war—he never should have started—there’s no easy way out for him, to save face when it stalls except to grind Ukraine into blood, rubble and dust.

 

Feckless “old" Joe Biden is totally incapable of strong leadership in the face of such opposition.  He’s slow to act, indecisive, “tone deaf” and easily goes off track—chasing some illusion planted by the radical left wing of his party. All good leaders depend on input from their followers, staff and constituents, but Biden’s counsel is flawed and failing. Worse yet, should his aged body and mind fail him further, his VP choice is even worse as a leader. The best outcome is to hope that Biden doesn’t screw up too many times, too badly, or fatally, and finishes his one term, then gives way to a whole new “regime,.”

There are many articles and columns written about Biden’ failings. Some of the best appear in the Wall Street Journal, including those by Kimberly Strassel, Gerald Seib and Peggy Noonan.

 

IF THIS ISN’T ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT,  ADD CHINA (XI) NORTH KOREA (UN), AND IRAN (MULLAHS).

China wants Taiwan back, and control of the South China Sea (with all the sprawling “manufactured" islands claimed as Chinese territory). North Korea is led by an immature, murderous 3rd generation leader with hopelessly inflated self-esteem. He’s dangerously meteoric in his behaviors. Iran is a country whose leaders’ values and ideas are based on century old tribal and religious cultures and loyalties. There’s the whole next level: Hezbollah, the Taliban, remnants of al Qaeda & ISIS, and so many more. The most frightening thought after making this list is Clueless Bungling Biden (even understanding the threats) and his band of minions “translating" these threats into US policies and actions.

 

AFTER THIS LITANY OF WOES AND PROBLEMS, AMERICA, WITH ALL ITS DIVISIONS & CHALLENGES, IS STILL THE BEST COUNTRY ON EARTH—BY FAR. How do I know that? Apply the most basic test: That’s why so many people from so many places want to come here?

 

WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO MAKE 2022 & BEYOND THE BEST POSSIBLE?  “United we stand, divided we fall.” contains the core answer. We must unify; elect new, better leaders to Congress, in our States and Cities and towns—and ignore the stupid, shallow media who only cares about ratings and sensationalism. 

 

Re-read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. FREE Copies are available on line. https://lp.hillsdale.edu/free-pocket-constitution/   Then do the next right thing, over and over. You will know it when you see it.  Finally, read what's on our money: In God We Trust… and then follow that.  And pray for God’s help.

 

Best, JOHN

 

THE ENTERPRISE--A TURBULENT MONTH FULL OF EVENTS, LARGE AND SMALL, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC

THE ENTERPRISE--A TURBULENT MONTH FULL OF EVENTS, LARGE AND SMALL, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC

(click on the .pdf files embedded with the message—they include important info)

A GRIM SET OF SCENARIOS UNFOLDING…ALREADY TOO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT THEM

A SUMMARY OF PUTIN’S RUSSIAN INVASION PLAN FOR UKRAINE—HE “WINS” (his opposition loses and dies)! He will kill anyone (innocents included) who stands in his way. Putin has replaced Stalin as the brutal, ruthless and murderous leader in Russia’s modern history. He is in absolute control and anyone who thinks they can negotiate anything with him is delusional.  Those who continue the dialogues with him will get nowhere. There’s no valid argument or negotiation with a ruthless dictator.

This includes any actions (all too slow, too vague) or muddled statements by US President (Clueless, Bungling) Biden and his band of second-rate appointees. Putin understands one outcome—his devious, murderous way—learned in the KGB of old. The only way Putin can be stopped is if someone, some entity “stops him” before he unleashes ever more horrific (nuclear)? Weapons.

I’m hoping that God is watching, preparing for His own special form of retribution, out of love for Putin’s Ukrainian victims. Even the Russian people that Putin dominates by fear and brutality, are shocked and repulsed. The rest of the world can only take rapid action to help Ukraine and isolate Russia & Putin, shutting off money, energy and everything else — even when that punishes the Russian people who are not Putin’s willing accomplices, and Americans indirectly. Biden already limited US energy in spite of his feeble reassurances—his energy independence obstacles remain in place.

CHINA’s XI IS WATCHING & WAITING TO EXECUTE HIS TAIWAN & SOUTH CHINA SEA TAKEOVER
Taiwan has the buffers of American support but will have to watch for attacks by air and sea. IF Xi goes after Taiwan, and the South China Sea, the US will be entangled.  The inept leadership of Bungling Biden and his cronies is not a pleasant prospect. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is also watching from nearby, waiting to see how that failed country can develop or buy ICBMs and “ride on China’s coattails.” With Bungling Biden and his liberal masters at the helm, America is weaker that it’s ever been!

HOW CAN THE US BE PREPARED, AND TO DO WHAT?
Fast track the bulking up of our military forces, including rebuilding countless Naval vessels taken out of service. Upgrading the electronics alone, with maintenance of the vessels & weaponry (leaked to media) will send a signal—if only Bungling Biden will stay out of the way of US military leaders. Neither Putin nor Xi wants to engage the US militarily. They want to “provoke” the US into taking the first shots!  Small US shows of resolve by military leaders, only in response to “incidents” of actual weapons use against the US, while bolstering its Defenses, might delay or stop Armageddon.

 

BIDEN BLUNDERS COST THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE’S LIVES & HOMES & AMERICAN’S (THE GLOBAL ECONOMIES

"President Volodymyr Zelensky pinned blame for Russia’s invasion into Ukraine on Democrat President Joe Biden’s refusal to enact sanctions against Russia before Russia launched the invasion.  Zelensky told Senators that if the U.S. “had started sanctions months ago, there would not have been war.”Reuters noted just a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine that Biden was “refus[ing] to unleash sanctions on Russia” until Russia invaded, despite numerous officials, including Zelensky, saying that the sanctions could stop the invasion from happening. … “You tell me 100% that there will be war in a few days’ time. What are you waiting for?” Zelensky said before the invasion. “We will not need your sanctions after there is a bombardment, or after our state is shot at, or if we have no more borders, we do not have an economy, or parts of our state is occupied.”

FEW OF US REALIZE THE POLITICAL MACHINATIONS THAT INHIBIT DOING IMPORTANT THINGS

Download How Removing a Handful of Screws Allowed the Pentagon to Deliver Stingers to Ukraine - WSJ

THE GLOBAL SHORTAGES ARE CRITICAL

Steel Rebar, which is critical for concrete construction, is a global commodity with major sources in places like Turkey, which is impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s out of sight and out of mind, until it's not available for concrete construction. Just as the LA port jam starts to clear up, sanctions aimed at Russia have secondary consequences whose ripples are yet to come.

 

EVEN COFFEE “TO GO” CUPS WITH LIDS
In my book THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS was asked by an editor to describe how complexity of too many (backup) suppliers cause trouble. I chose "to-go cups and lids” as my example. If multiple suppliers provide (theoretically interchangeable) lids and cups, statistical variability happens. One supplier has cups a little larger (but still in spec), so it makes its lids to fit. Another supplier’s cups are slightly smaller (but still in spec), and its lids are made to fit. Start mixing them—as if they are truly interchangeable—and you’ll get lids that are either too tight (crushing the cup putting them on) or too loose (wearing your coffee instead of drinking it!).  Message: order matching lids and cups from the same supplier so they fit right. Otherwise your error will be evident on your clothing. 

VOICEMAIL—A DYING MESSAGE FORMAT DUE TO MISUSE
If you have finally realized how long it takes to listen to dozens of voicemails that go on and on, politely tell those who record them to stop filling your voicemail—or choose another messaging format. Voicemail boxes fill up, and the message waiting light keeps on blinking—but no one has enough time to listen. Finally, most voicemail systems let you choose how long (or short) you limit voicemails to be. Do it!  People will adapt to leaving a subject/topic and a call back number before it cuts them off. Junk callers won’t leave messages. You’ll save time and stress.

THE OLYMPICS ARE OVER—WHEW! 
Did you watch any of them? I watched 5 minutes of the opening ceremony parade. That’s all! I feel bad for the athletes who had to try to show their accomplishments under the Communist Chinese influences. I’m betting this Olympics sets the record for low ratings—as it should. The incredibly political USOC should have never awarded the games to Beijing (again) after holding them there just a few sessions back.

CLIMATE CHANGE MEDIA MISINFORMATION & LIES CONTINUE
Here’s the factual truth from THE leading authority (used to work for Obama & quit!) on the subject. His facts are so powerful, it’s worth reading his whole book “Unsettled” to get the totality of how badly media sensationalism and political meddling is misleading and lying constantly. Is the Climate Changing? Sure. It always has and always will.  Are we flagrant humans causing it? Hardly at all.  Only if we keep developing and building in places where that is totally foolish, will weather continue to tear down what was  built inappropriately. (John Kerry—yes, he’s still out there trying to blame climate change for everything—and helping the awful Iran Deal stay alive. (FYI--Kerry has several family members in Iran, fueling his misguided efforts.)

 

Download Greenland’s Melting Ice Is No Cause for Climate-Change Panic - WSJ

 

CNN IN TURMOIL

The network is in disarray— unraveling from the inside out. This couldn’t happen to a more deserving group & company.  Palace intrigue at the highest levels of gotcha journalism.  And the crooked Coumo brothers knee deep in it!  What goes around, comes around!  Even CNN at its most scurrilous couldn’t invent this saga! The WSJ exposes it well.

Download CNN Clashing Executives Office Romance Angry Anchors: Inside the Week That Shook CNN - WSJ

 

PEGGY NOONAN’S WSJ COLUMN TELLS THIS BETTER THAN I CAN…SCHOOL BOARD REMOVAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Summary: In the most liberal school district imaginable—San Francisco—the 3 School Board members were voted out with 70%+   votes to remove them.  Even in “Pelosi’s liberal backyard” parents recognize wrong thinking about schools.  READ IT—you’ll see the start of the revolution against the liberal, “Woke,” and mismanagement of important institutions:

 

Download San Francisco Schools the Left - WSJ

BEST NEW SERIES ON TV & STREAMING: REACHER, ON NETFLIX 
Based on Lee Child’s books. At times violent, but far better than the two movies where Tom Cruise (at 5’8”, 150 lbs.) tried to play Jack Reacher, Child’s character who is 6’5” and 250 lbs.  This 8 part first season starts with Child’s first book, and there will be additional seasons (I think and I hope.)  

Best, JOHN
=============================
BONUS Feature 

 

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER  This one is a little updated...Two Different Versions ... Two Different Morals

 

OLD VERSION

The ant works h

ard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The  grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. 

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN  VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dancesand plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.  How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green'

Occupy the Anthill stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the Black Lives Matter group singing, We shall overcome. Then Reverend Al Sharpton has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper  while he damns the ants. He later appears on MSNBC to complain that rich people do not care.

Former President Obama condemns the ant and blames Donald Trump, President Bush 43, President Bush 41, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer exclaim in an interview on "The View,"that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to bethe ant's old house crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't  maintain it.

The ant  has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

 

 

MORAL OF THIS STORY:  Be careful how you vote in 2022....

 

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant not a grasshopper! Make sure that you pass this on to other ants. 

 

THE ENTERPRISE--WHAT ARE REPUBLICANS FOR? AN ANSWER TO CONSIDER

THE ENTERPRISE--WHAT ARE REPUBLICANS FOR? AN ANSWER TO CONSIDER

 

A RECENT WSJ OP ED PIECE QUESTIONS "WHAT ARE REPUBLICANS FOR?”

    "Rather than what are they “against”—rampant crime (mostly in cities), lack of border control/management, progressive giveaway programs, etc. "

In the OpEd, Joseph Epstein cites English philosopher Roger Scruton’s essay: 

"Those tasks that only governments can perform—defense of the realm, the maintenance of law and order, the repair of infrastructure, and the coordination of relief in emergencies—are forced to compete for their budgets with activities that free citizens, left to themselves, might have managed far more efficiently through the association of volunteers, backed up when necessary by private insurance.” … 

Scruton continues, "Conservatism should be a defense of government against its abuse by liberals.”….and closes with “The true message of the Republican Party, then, is not that it is the enemy of government but the advocate of a far better government, one that is both necessary and yet comports with the freedom of the citizens."

 

I'LL SAY IT MORE SIMPLY: "GOVERNMENT IS INTENDED TO SERVE & WORK FOR THE PEOPLE (NOT VICE VERSA), TO DO ONLY THOSE THINGS THEY CAN’T DO BETTER FOR THEMSELVES.”

 

SO, "What Republicans Are For?" (or at least this Republican)

1. Freedom & Rights —from excessive regulation, & for following what is stated in the US Constitution
2. Opportunities —to work & succeed, not to be reliant on government largesse or unearned welfare
3. Fiscal Responsibility —to reasonably spend within means, & limit excessive indebtedness.
4. Free Enterprise Capitalism—to create & accumulate wealth, benefit from it, & keep the gains, without excessive taxation
5. Minimize Government Interference —in American citizens' lives, but including rules & regulations, consistent with maintaining law & order
6. Responsibly managed Elections w/secure voter IDs —to ensure voting is only done by legally eligible American voters
7. That the “American Dream” of Prosperity —is within reach of families at all socio-economic levels 
8. A strong National Defense —to protect America and Americans and our collective & individual welfare & freedoms
9. Secure Borders and entry ID's —where coming in illegally is a crime, & entering legally offers a path to citizenship … over time.
10. Good Schools, public and private —teaching facts, untainted by political agendas
11. America-First Foreign policy —protecting America’s economic, social & human rights, beliefs & freedoms, via working with allies & without using appeasement
12. Elected Government of competent/qualified people —to lead & manage municipalities, states & the country, by these principles, but term-limited to assure periodic turnover
13. Elected Leaders who can and do speak in understandable, complete sentences—without reading from Teleprompters scripts—who "say what they mean & mean what they say," about what & how they intend to do (or not do) things, and are held publicly accountable for what was promised.

OF COURSE THIS LIST COULD BE MUCH LONGER, BUT IF ALL REPUBLICANS WOULD UNIFY ON THESE THIRTEEN  POINTS, I BELIEVE MOST AMERICANS WOULD AGREE. 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

 

ON THE LEADERSHIP ISSUE:

The question being tossed around is whether Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party (and should he run again in 2024)? In many respects, as the last President, one might quickly say YES, but considering Trump's (bad/questionable) behaviors both while in office, after he felt the election was stolen from him, many would say NO—Hell no! 

 

This is a pivotal issue, because so much of what Trump did or caused to happen was positive and right, it’s tempting to choose him to run again in 2024. He set the stage for both the Operation Warp Speed and the strongest, economy in years—until Covid and shut downs crippled it. The current recovery was to be expected when Biden and Democrats and the Fed dumped trillions in stimulus into the USA. Bidenomics put the USA economy on a “sugar high” unprecedented in history. It’s downer, will come, but when and with what causes, remains to be seen. Face it, President Biden is an embarrassment to the USA and a huge risk in foreign policy.

 

WhetherTrump might be better than Biden, based on results, the answer is maybe YES, but based on his behaviors, it’s now a no-win question to answer. Biden has done so poorly, in so many areas, and his Democrat “puppet masters” have steered him so wrong, he’s a weak and vulnerable leader and candidate (and this VP choice has been even worse). However, Donald Trump’s abhorrent personal behavior spawned an army of "Trump haters,” who can’t imagine him back as President.

 

Will either man change much? At their ages, and with ther track records—you know that answer—NO WAY!

 

My conclusion is that 1) the Republican Party must settle on a series of policies and behaviors and philosophies that it can unify behind and 2) get the American people to unify behind too. Only then can Americans like you and I start deciding who’s best to lead America for the next decade.

 

Mid-term elections will tell a lot of this story—but not all of it. Let’s start a dialogue with our elected leaders as citizens with strong positive views and hope for the greatness of America—and unify by choosing a leader worthy of our Country.

 

JOHN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE--SO MANY UNCERTAINTIES WILL TEST EVERYONE--PERSONALLY & PROFESSIONALLY

THE ENTERPRISE--SO MANY UNCERTAINTIES WILL TEST EVERYONE--PERSONALLY & PROFESSIONALLY

IT’S NOW MID JANUARY, AND THE START OF THE NEW YEAR SEEMS TO HAVE ADDED, NOT REDUCED THE UNCERTAINTIES WE ALL FACE

 

COVID

The Worst First!

The most pervasive uncertainty is what happens next with Covid. Why? Because it disrupts all aspects of our life—personal, work, economic, family, etc.

So far mutations of the Covid virus continue to vary: that’s what viruses do. Like many living organisms, they try to stay alive by finding new hosts. Up through Delta, the vaccines—Pfizer & Moderna, et. al.—seemed to really help reduce suffering and deaths. 

Many anti-vaxers resisted at their own risk and fell seriously ill (or died). Yet an unmentioned (and hard to confirm) aspect of the deaths were that 95% of the Covid related deaths were people who already had four or more co-morbidities. (Health problems that made them more vulnerable when the stress of the virus hit them.)

 

Facts please?

What was measurable is that during 2H 2021, a high percentage (about 70-90%+/-) of the hospitalizations were unvaccinated people. The prevalent Delta mutation attacked the lungs, a lief threatening place for a viral attack. The lack of vaccinations seemed to be ill-advised, with unnecessary suffering and deaths. However, in a free country like America, the citizens can opt to remain unvaccinated and take the risk of death.  

Omicron has changed all that (it seems, but nothing is certain yet). Omicron was so infectious, it took over from Delta as the primary variant. Omicron seems to attack the bronchial system, more than the lungs; thus the death rate is lower and the suffering is different. 

 

Still unknowns...

The huge recent unknown is how effective vaccines are against Omicron.   Many vaccinated people are getting Covid (presumably Omicron). Both Moderna and Pfizer publicly admit that their annual shots no longer have much effect on the Covid Omicron variant, and the booster shots lose effectiveness faster. WHY? 

Nobody knows—or at least they aren’t saying. This new Omicron variant will make you feel terrible, but usually doesn’t require hospitalization and is less often fatal. The best preventative measure seems to be masks—and not just single layer cloth masks—medical masks.

 

OTHER UNCERTAINTIES—SOME OF THEM FAMILIAR ONES.

Supply chain disruptions—due to shortages of products, labor, shipping containers, or all of the above. Nobody knows what will be delivered where, by when.  

 

I had two good service experiences, one was at (YES!) the Summit Broadband Cable TV store. (Noted for poor service!)

The two young ladies, Valerie and Courtney were great, treated me like a customer, and ultimately got me what I needed (a DVR). Last week they were out of DVRs, so they told me when to come back, that one would be available. It was! (Pity the poor regular customers—no standard digital boxes were available.) They got me the equipment, told me how to set it up and gave me their email addresses to tell them I was ready to activate the DVR—and they did so—before they left at 5PM

 

The other was MacMobile, my computer consultant. My computer mysteriously refused to accept my latest (correct) passwords for email & web browsers, I called AppleCare—(They were no help except to scold me for using my computer for 5+ years and not keeping up with Apple's operating system updates.) When my help person called the morning after getting my “sos” messages, she solved my dilemma in minutes. (FYI: I let my computer get unplugged from the charger. The battery ran so low, it didn’t maintain the correct time and date. When powered up, it defaulted to a years ago date & time. We fixed that, and things improved fast.)

Futurist Alvin Toffler described this issue in a term for the predicted future: High Tech—High Touch. A medical provider of mine recently replaced voicemail with a person. They couldn’t keep up with listening to long voicemails. The person could handle patients needs via phone calls, faster and better.

 

================

That said, here’s the age old dilemma of Supply Chains, described in a 27 year old IndustryWeek column.

Forecasts will always be wrong

Which means there are only two or three options for planners.  ©John Mariotti 1995

“If only we could have accurate forecasts...." How often have managers or executives in most businesses heard--or used--those words as an excuse for excessive inventories or poor customer service? It is an almost-constant plea from production planners, materials and operations executives.  Salespeople take a different view of this. It is they who must try to provide accurate forecasts. Of course, forecasts will never truly be accurate because they are predictions about the future. If we could accurately predict the future, all sorts of wealth would be at our fingertips.

Recognizing the inevitability of forecast errors, managers and executives have long sought some magic solution to enable them to respond to the pressure for excellent service in the face of ever-declining lead times. There is no "magic" solution. True, timely information about actual marketplace demand can minimize the problems created by faulty forecasts. But even with the best of information, only two real production options exist: holding more inventories or developing more flexible/shorter-cycle production systems. (A third option might be a "make-to-order" business, where the order lead-time is long enough for production to respond.)

Manufacturing businesses are not alone in this dilemma. Service businesses face similar uncertainty--but the limiting factors are people (staffing levels) or resources (like telephone lines or computers) instead of materials. So how can a manager or executive cope with inaccurate forecasts in the face of pressure for faster and faster response?

One answer is to consider the links in the supply chain that can be forecast with some precision. By communication with suppliers, their available future capacity can be accurately determined. So can the lead-time to respond to volatile demand swings. And the suppliers' response times can also be determined.

Some demographic trends can be forecast reasonably well. Barring plagues, mass migrations, or wars, the age-group of populations (except for birth rates) can be pinpointed fairly accurately for most developed countries. And when a customer has committed to buy an item, that fact can be factored into production plans, as can the timing of an upcoming sales promotion or a new product launch. But is this enough for the poor production planner? Unfortunately, it's not.

Here is where flexible inventory and production strategies come into the picture. Guessing at how much finished-goods inventory to hold is no picnic. The risk of error is high; but can be reduced by inviting customers to participate in forecasting. New systems like Efficient Customer Response (ECR)—using information technology to bridge multiple levels in the supply chain—are helpful. ECR systems are being used increasingly in fast-turn retail environments like grocery stores to link supply and demand more closely—in the expectation of better in-stock positions without corresponding increases in inventories.

After all, it is data at the level closest to end-user demand that can best help quantify expected future demand. If the product or service lends itself to such an approach, keeping inventory in a semi-finished state allows flexibility in meeting different customers' demands. Temporary personnel agencies and outsourcing can be a big help in handling demand surges, too.

The Japanese taught us the wonder of SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) and rapid setup/changeover technology.  This increases flexibility. But too few companies engage their suppliers in discussions about how they can jointly speed production changes and increase flexibility. Often it is as simple as sharing more information, more often. Field sales forces equipped with modern communications tools can feed back changes in customer plans faster than ever–-if only they will.

With all of this, will forecasts be accurate enough? No! But even so, parts of the traditional forecasting process can be improved, more than we often realize. New PC-based forecasting software--such as "Focused Forecasting" and "Demand Solutions"--can help analyze trends and historical demand patterns. Using better information and insight, forecasts can be improved. But they will always be wrong. The manager or executive who understands this will search out the best strategy for deploying assets (either in inventory--finished vs. unfinished--or flexible production capacity).

Doing nothing but the same old things and wishing only for a better forecast is no solution at all!

@BIO: John Mariotti, a former manufacturing company CEO, is president of The Enterprise Group. He lives in Knoxville and is affiliated with the University of Tennessee’s College of Business Administration. His 1995 e-mail address was: [email protected].

 Update PS: Beware of basing forecasts on prior year’s data without careful analysis. This can cause “errors of repetition”—because if you ran out of an item the prior year, and if you base forecasts on that, you might make the exact same error and run out again this year!

  ================

SHORTAGES IMPACT THE SUPPLY CHAIN & OFTEN TURN INTO EXCESSES AFTER THE CAUSES HAVE BEEN FIXED

There’s a classic teaching tool in the Logistics field called “The Beer Case.” It illustrates how spikes in demand that cannot be serviced, leads to overreaction, and overcompensation (over stocks) in the Supply Chain. A purchase for one big party, when passed through the suppliers in the supply chain triggers a surge in buying, increased inventory and even new production capacity—all of which becomes unnecessary—once the one-time event is recognized—too late.

 

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THAT IS A SEGUE TO MY NEXT TOPIC—LEARNING VS. UNLEARNING, & CAUSATION VS. CORRELATION—FROM A 1999 COLUMN—AN EXCERPT

Change requires learning--and unlearning—both!

Relapses are common, and can negate prior progress.  ©John Mariotti 1999

The pace of change is accelerating, driven by rapid and widespread advances in information technology. When combined with advances in transportation and logistics, this radically increases the rate of globalization. The implications for business organizations are profound.

For manufacturers, one of the most important implications has to do with the importance of building empowered learning teams. Only "top-to-bottom" learning organizations can survive and succeed in such an environment.

  A major obstacle to embracing rapid change is that change requires people to unlearn old behaviors if they are to fully benefit from new learning. Old habits become the de facto barriers to change until they are unlearned--thus allowing the newly learned behaviors to become firmly implanted in their place.

  Much has been written about the benefits to businesses that evolve into learning organizations. From the work of Douglas McGregor and Chris Argyris at MIT decades ago to the more recent work of Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday-Currency, 1990) and Jim Barber ("From the Working Class to the Learning Class," National Productivity Review, Fall 1994), learning organizations have been recognized as the most effective avenue to sustainable competitive advantage. With the pace of change accelerating, the pace of learning must also accelerate.

  To clear the way for rapid new learning, the rate of "unlearning"—letting go of the old ways--must also accelerate. It is here that resistance is often the greatest. Another challenge may be even more daunting: simultaneously becoming both a learning and an unlearning organization.

  Unlearning sounds easy: Just forget the old way and use the new one.  Abandon old beliefs and habits, and practice the new ones. If resistance to change were not so great, unlearning would be simple. However, change is difficult to bring about—and frequently more difficult to sustain. Because change creates discomfort, change initiatives fail far more often than they succeed. When they fail, the inescapable conclusion is that the learning/unlearning process has not been effective.

  In many cases, corporate change processes fail because unlearning does not occur. Some don't fail outright, but due to inadequate unlearning, they regress or experience periodic relapses…..

  ================

WILL YOU LEARN/UNLEARN, AND DISCERN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAUSATION (CAUSE) AND CORRELATION (EFFECTS)

George Santayana is popularly known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Replace the words “remember" with "learn from" and substitute repeat (its errors). Some say we learn from experience. Maybe so—maybe no. In many cases the outcome that could have caused the learning from experience is too far separated in time and context to learn from it. Fail to maintain your car for a long time and it will likely fail in some way. Will you connect that failure to your negligence? Maybe so—maybe no.

Many of us watch TV shows in which detectives must separate correlation from causation (or probable cause, as they call it). The fact that a victim and a suspected criminal both live in a high crime area may satisfy correlation—the data supports that. But Only the evidence can confirm the causation. We all encounter this difference constantly. A person is not performing well in their job. Which is it (data-based) correlation or (evidence-based) causation?

My favorite way to describe the difference is this: If I snap my fingers or clap my hands five times every day, I have no problem with elephants trampling my landscaping. The correlation is very high—100%. But why? There’s no causation. No elephants live anywhere near me (except the Columbus Zoo & The Wilds). So, unless there is an escaped elephant around, the causation is absent.

If your company is losing business in a nearby market, why is that happening?  Could it be that the sales team is at fault. Data will support correlation, but not causation. A new competitor (or a new buyer) may have entered the picture and is taking away business for any of several reasons. A relationship may have changed, or the mix of product may have also shifted.

Are your deliveries always late around the holidays? Data on correlation might reveal which deliveries and to whom. Causation might reveal that your have not adjusted lead times or delivery methods for the seasonal peak volume. Do you learn? And do you also unlearn old ways, and that you must replace old with new learning,  before it becomes entrenched in your behaviors? The rapid advance of technology dictates that a lot of learning/unlearning is critical to stay competitive in today's fast moving global business world. Doing nothing (in the face of rapid change) is a decision too; usually a bad one.

===================

 

WHEN FACING UNCERTAINTY, THE BEST APPROACH IS TO REDUCE AS MANY VARIABLES AS POSSIBLE, EVALUATE THE OUTCOME, THEN LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCE AND ADAPT.

Covid is another story. Pay attention to what qualified Doctors say, not journalists of politicians. Let’s hope that Omicron is going to fade soon.

 

Best, 

John

 

PS: News just out: US Inflation hit 7% on its way higher. Those responsible (the ones in control of our government’s runaway spending) seem to avoid the blame entirely. Why? They shift the blame to everything and everyone else. Actually Covid (thanks to the Chinese) deserves a lot of the blame. However, the flagrant spending (Biden, Congress & the Fed) with no underlying value is a big cause (including Trump’s excessive spending near the end of his term). Thanks to Joe Manchin and Krystem Sinema, it hasn’t gone completely bonkers. A big blame on reduced purchasing power in the paychecks of working Americans is Bidenomics and his ridiculous Build Back Better boondoggle. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE--A LOT GOING ON THIS YEAR…A LONG EDITION, TOUCHING ON THE BIG ISSUES AS 2021 ENDS

THE ENTERPRISE--A LOT GOING ON THIS YEAR…A LONG EDITION, TOUCHING ON THE BIG ISSUES AS 2021 ENDS

 

DO NOT DESPAIR—many of the bad things that are predicted never happen and there is little we can do about the others. The best solution is to stay well-informed from reliable sources—and use your insights to elect better, more competent people to lead the US government in 2022 and 2024!

 

SUPPLY CHAINS HAVE BEEN REFINED SO MUCH THEY HAVE NO SURGE CAPACITY, “LEAN" WAS GOOD; NOW IT’S NOT SO GOOD

What’s going on with global supply chains? Years ago I wrote the column posted below in a .pdf file.  Notice the emphasis on “lean” and communications. Over the decades since I wrote this, more and more communications technology has permitted every one to wring out the excess supply in the supply chain. Most folks know of JIT—Just In Time. Few have heard of JTL —Just Too Late. 

 

Consider the complex global networks that are called a “supply chain.” These are not actually chains, but rather a very complex network spanning the globe. Throw a few unexpected problems into them—like Covid, labor shortages (no truck drivers), overloaded ports, shortage of storage space, unbalance of material flow, and a surge in demand caused by the USA handouts to stimulate a recovery. Throw money, we don’t have but can borrow, at every problem. And voila’ the problem gets bigger and nastier. 

 

Download A Lean Logistics Pipeline

 

US PORTS ARE UNABLE TO HANDLE THE NEEDED FLOW OF GOODS—TOO FEW PEOPLE, TOO LITTLE EQUIPMENT & TOO MUCH POLITICS

California’s regulations alone are obstructing the flow of goods through its ports. Labor, space, equipment and environment are all constricted. This one will be around for a long time, because few understand what to do and ever fewer know how to do it. Goods from across the ocean (especially the Pacific) are  floating on ships, waiting to be unloaded, but there’s not enough manpower, space or equipment to handle the flow of containers. The result: wait and wait and wait. Christmas gifts will be late. Necessities will be late. Logistics tells where the goods are, but not how to get them where they need to be.

 

GLOBAL WARMING: HUMAN BEHAVIOR DOES AFFECT WEATHER, BUT HAS LITTLE/NO IMPACT ON CLIMATE — OVER DECADES OR CENTURIES

All promises to be “carbon free” by 2035 or 2050 are PIPE DREAMS of politicians who have no idea what they are promising. Just watch this short video (skip the ads) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqppRC37OgI  You’ll see the true issues, and how big lies are being used. People impact weather, that is true. They build where they should not—on unstable ground—in the random path of storms, which leads to damage and loss of life.

 

CLIMATE SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED—NOT AT ALL 

I wrote an entire edition of THE ENTERPRISE on this topic.  The best information I found is summarized in Steven Koonin’s book: “Unsettled.” Koonin was Obama’s expert in this field for 5+ years—until he determined that the Climate Change panic was all “bunk”—resigned and wrote Unsettled. See more here: https://a.co/bpAAs4t …and if that doesn’t convince you read what noted Australian Geologist Ian Plimer’s book "Heaven and Earth” written a decade ago. Yes, it seems humans are impacting climate, but the true science says, humans have not altered climate for centuries. It just goes in cycles. Headlines that say “this is normal” or "everything is going to be fine” don’t attract readers, or money because they are not sensational even if untrue or distorted. 

 

(NOTE: You can scroll backwards through editions of THE ENTERPRISE on my blog site https://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/  read the Sept. 21, 2021 issue)

 

RUSSIA IS THREATENING A UKRAINE INVASION—BAD NEWS

Numerous fictional books have described this potential next bold invasion by Putin, who is unscrupulous, and devious. Russia wants Ukraine back and it's amassing the troops to take it back, sooner rather than later. Putin will “dare" NATO to intercede, and NATO will back down. Russia as a country is still powerful but also broken—failing economically. Only by taking back more of it’s lost territory, does it hope to grow.

 

CHINA IS THREATENING TAIWAN & SOUTH CHINA SEA & HAS HYPERSONIC MISSILES—WORSE NEWS

Premier Xi, unlike Putin, is not masking his aspirations for China and they are SCARY. He plans to take back Taiwan, using whatever force is necessary, daring the US to intercede militarily. China is building a Navy with more Warships than the US, while US government leaders dither and quarrel. China dredged entire islands to build military airfields in the South China sea, (which China claims is its territory).  Last, and maybe scariest, is China’s Hypersonic Missiles that are now a reality. Too fast and elusive for America’s existing defenses, and nuclear-warhead-capable.  China building silos across its vast country, from which to launch missiles.  Be afraid; be very afraid, if this happens.

 

IRAN IS ENRICHING NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR WEAPONS; SO IS NORTH KOREA—MORE BAD NEWS

Few things are worse than having a fight with a “crazy person.” That kind of foe doesn’t know when to quit, or if to quit, ever. The latest two irrational foes are North Korea and Iran. Both country’s leaders (Kim Jong Un in Korea, and the Mullahs in Iran) are nearly ready with enough enriched uranium (weapons grade) for bombs—and can buy the missile technology to deliver them. Both are zealots, just of different kinds. Nukes in the hands of the wrong kinds of leaders/countries are a threat to the entire earth.

 

THE USA THREAT: INCOMPETENT AND INEPT LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT— WORSE NEWS

Anyone who has watched President Biden try to read a Teleprompter and get it right, sees that he is cognitively slipping. Who’s guiding US foreign policy? John Kerry? Bernie Sanders? Democrats in Congress? Or the cast of second rate appointees Biden is pushing into his administration. Certainly not VP Kamala Harris, with her scary laughter ?  For this group of people to be who we rely on to lead the world's largest economy, and contend with threats like the ones noted above. This may be the SCARIEST THREAT OF ALL. It seems like “the inmates are running the asylumIn” in the USA.  And yet, millions of people are flooding across the US uncontrolled borders, clamoring to get into America—because with all its problems, it is far better than where they come from.

 

BIDEN HAS UNDONE MOST OF THE GOOD THINGS TRUMP PUT IN PLACE—AND AMERICA WILL PAY THE PRICE, AND MORE

Trump may have been a personal mess, but his career in business, and ego-driven actions to keep his campaign promises, helped get America moving again. Because Congress opposed and attacked him at every turn, he could only do most things by executive order. And Biden has reversed most of these, like throwing a fast moving vehicle suddenly into reverse. Everyone knows what happens when you do that!  Chaos, turmoil and damage, and lack of clarity on the direction to move. MAGA WAS TRUMP’S (REVILED) MOTTO, BUT IT WORKED. BIDEN’S BBB IS NOT WORKING, IT HURTS AMERICANS.

 

AMERICANS ARE SPENDING IRRESPONSIBLE BIDEN & THE DEMOCRATS' SPENDING IN PLACE OF TRUE LEADERSHIP—SPEND MORE!

Biden learned this as Obama’s VP. When you are clueless about how to solve a problem, "Throw money at it." That makes everyone feel better temporarily, and no one worries about where the money comes from (taxpayers and debt. This kind of action will be followed certainly by INFLATION! WATCH!. IT IS AT ALMOST 7% ALREADY. HOW MUCH HIGHER WILL IT GO, REDUCING THE VALUE OF EVERYONE’S “NEST EGGS?"

 

OUR BORDERS ARE OVERWHELMED WITH IMMIGRANTS, MANY BRINGING DRUGS, DISEASE AND/OR DESPERATION TO AMERICA

One of "Biden’s Bonehead" moves was how he opened the American borders to all comers, without any regard to the consequences.  Crime, Covid, Cocaine,  Fentanyl, death and sadness. ICE was overwhelmed. Next came fragmented families and abandoned children, sent ahead alone (with Coyotes) because parents couldn’t come. When a fool is in charge of anything, it gets worse not better—just look—and Biden sends Kamala Harris, a big city lawyer, to fix it? She didn’t even want to go near the border, let alone know what to do about it. Her mantra is “find the ROOT CAUSE of immigration problems.  HELLO: It is “you guys” and your policies!

 

AMERICANS HAVE ABDICATED THE WILL TO WORK—TOO MUCH WELFARE—AMERICA NEEDS A RETURN TO “WORKFARE”

“The behavior rewarded is the behavior repeated.” This is a truism. If you give people enough money to live on and stay home, they will stop working. After a while, that irresponsible freedom is like a drug too. They believe someone (who) owes them a living, so they want more, for longer. More food stamps, more unemployment. More freebies of all kinds = millions of unfilled jobs and millions of unemployed people.  Sooner or later “Other people’s money runs out.” Socialists should have learned that, because Socialism has never worked. A WHOLE GENERATION THINKS “SOMEONE” OWES THEM GOOD PAYING JOBS—WRONG! THERE IS STILL NO "FREE LUNCH"—NEVER HAS BEEN—NEVER WILL BE—SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY SOMEHOW, SOMEDAY

 

THE OVER-HEATED STOCK MARKET IS LULLING PEOPLE INTO A FALSE SENSE OF FINANCIAL SECURITY—BEWARE A BIG “CORRECTION”

The laws of gravity say, “What goes up, must come down.” The only question is when and how fast. In the meantime, Americans feel wealthier and are spending the government largesse on things they want and need—if they can get them. So far, only America’s role as the world’s reserve currency and being the best place for foreign investment has saved it. Will that continue? We can only hope so.

 

THE TRUTH IS STILL THE TRUTH, RIGHT IS STILL RIGHT, WRONG IS STILL WRONG—BUT AMERICAN MEDIA NEITHER SAYS SO NOR ADMITS IT

There is a danger in finding easy words to describe wrong-minded thinking. Being able to rationalize bad behavior or poor choices is an attractive trap. Beware. We all know, deep down, what’s right and what’s wrong. Pay attention to that little voice in our heads that reminds us of both.

THE WHOLE “WOKE”—POLITICALLY CORRECT TREND HAS DAMAGED COMMON SENSE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

 

COVID CONTINUES TO SICKEN AND KILL TOO MANY PEOPLE WHO REFUSE VACCINES (& AVOID COMMON SENSE PRECAUTIONS)—COVID IS RUNNING WILD DUE TO ANTI-VAXERS

I’ve been told by many people why they are afraid or the vaccines. Side effects, unknown long term effects, and the belief that they can get by, or get Covid and survive it, building natural immunity—and some of them are right. But far too many are wrong, flooding hospitals and even dying. Protect yourselves and your loved ones. Take whatever precautions you can, because the ultimate side effect to fear is suffering and death!

 

PEOPLE LIKE THE FREEDOM OF WORKING FROM HOME, NO COMMUTE, NO HOVERING BOSS, BUT NO WAY TO “MANAGE” THAT EITHER

The days of the big HQ offices are gone. The illusion that all being in one place (the office) caused people to work together harmoniously has been shattered. Some of the time, in some of the places, this togetherness promotes collaboration—but not always. Now more people are quitting their jobs to be their own boss. Too many of them don’t realize that they may not be qualified to do that—or able to earn a living that way. The shock of that realization comes when they can no longer “make ends meet” and pay their bills. Early retirement is no panacea either, unless people have plenty of financial resources carefully built up over years of work. A single big catastrophe can deplete even sizable savings & retirement funds. Caution: proceed very care fully.

 

TRYING TO UNDO DECADES OF DISCRIMINATION HAS LED TO A DIFFERENT KIND OF DISCRIMINATION

Yes, black lives matter, so do white, brown and every other shade of skin color. It’s wonderful that dark-skinned people are getting opportunities they’ve never had before—IF they are prepared to capitalize on them. For years “proportional representation” (by racial minority) has been a goal for casting directors in TV, Movies and public-facing positions. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Far more “shades of brown-skinned people are featured in media that are represented in the 30+% of the general population. Let’s hope that this trend finds the right mix to represent Americans of all skin colors. Remember, skin color is contained in only a very thin layer of the outer skin. What matters is what's beneath that skin—what’s inside. As intermarriage and immigration continues, America will become increasingly all shades of light and dark, but above all, we must hope it will still be an America we can feel proud about.

 

SOMEHOW, EVEN WITH INEPT, CLUELESS, LEADERSHIP—ALREADY POLARIZED BY THE QUEST FOR PARTY & POLITICAL POWER—AMERICAN CAN WIN — BUT POOR LEADERSHIP CAN CONTINUE TO REDUCE THE QUALITY OF AMERICAN LIVES & REDUCE THE JOY OF WINNING

IF We pay close attention to who we choose as our elected leaders in 2022 and beyond, "We will reap what we sow.” Choose good leaders to elect, with the right motives and integrity, and they will help preserve and protect our great country. Choose the wrong one, selfish ones, or those misguided about how America’s growth and success came about—and we will suffer the consequences. 

 

The best way to close this edition is to cite what it says on our currency—and believe it—IN GOD WE TRUST,  and E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). 

In following those mottos, we can hope for a better, happier, healthier and more prosperous 2022.  

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

JOHN

 

JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS...AND SOMETHINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR ON THANKSGIVING

These are not original pieces that I wrote, but they are wonderful thoughts to share with all my friends on this special weekend.  I’ll be sidelined for a bit (an outpatient procedure, which was successful) and that gives me something else to be thankful for!

This first piece was found and shared by a friend.. It really struck me with how right it was. The other one was written by Alan Miller, Editor of the Columbus Dispatch, who always writes thoughtful columns..” 

FIRST A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR ALL MY FRIENDS WHO (LIKE ME) ARE "OLDER THAN AVERAGE"

JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS...

A newlywed young man was sitting on the porch on a humid day, sipping ice tea with his Father.

As he talked about adult life, marriage, responsibilities, and obligations, the Father thoughtfully stirred the ice cubes in his glass and cast a clear, sober look on his Son.

"Never forget your friends," he advised, "they will become more important as you get older." "Regardless of how much you love your family and the children you happen to have, you will always need friends.  Remember to go out with them occasionally (if possible), but keep in contact with them somehow."

"What strange advice!" thought the young man. "I just entered the married world, I am an adult and surely my wife and the family that we will start will be everything I need to make sense of my life."

Yet, he obeyed his Father; kept in touch with his friends and annually increased their number.

Over the years, he became aware that his Father knew what he was talking about. In as much as time and nature carry out their designs and mysteries on a person, friends are the bulwarks of our life.

After more than 70 years of life, here is what he, I and you will have learned:

Time passes. Life goes on. Children grow up, cease to be children and become independent. And to the parents, it breaks their heart but the children are separated from the parents because they begin their own families.

Jobs / careers come and go.Illusions, desires, attraction, sex....weakens. People can't do what they did physically when they were young.

Parents die but you move on. Colleagues forget the favors you did. The race to achieve slows.

But, true friends are always there, no matter how long or how many miles away they are.  

A friend is never more distant than the reach of a need, intervening in your favor, waiting for you with open arms or in some way blessing your life.

When we started this adventure called LIFE, we did not know of the incredible joys or sorrows that were ahead.

We did not know how much we would need from each other.

Love your parents, take care of your children, but keep a group of good friends.

Stay in touch with them but do not impose your criteria.

Send this to your friends (even those you seldom see) who help make sense of your life.... I just did.

By the way, thank you for being my friend.

Happy Thanksgiving,

JOHN

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Amid a second year of pandemic, we still have much for which to be thankful

Alan D. Miller

The Columbus Dispatch

Last year at this time, I wrote in this space that, "in this year like no other in modern history," it was easy to focus on the significant challenges we all faced and overlook the blessings.

Sadly, 2021 has been very much like the year before it as we struggled through a second year of the coronavirus pandemic.

And yet, as we head into the week of Thanksgiving, it's worth repeating what I said last year: We can still give thanks for so many things.

We can be thankful for the doctors and nurses, EMTs and other first-responders, and the researchers who are all working to keep us safe and make us well.

We give thanks for the grocery workers who have kept shelves stocked throughout the pandemic. For the truck drivers, mail carriers, package delivery teams and others who bring things to us so that we can remain safely in our homes. And for so many others who work tirelessly to bring some sense of normalcy and comfort to us amid a most unsettling time.

I give a personal note of thanks for being blessed with a loving and supportive family. I'm also blessed to spend each day with colleagues in newsrooms across Ohio who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to bring you the news and information you need to navigate life in uncharted waters.

And we all can give thanks for the beauty and bounty of nature. After more than six decades on this Earth, I remain in awe of the natural beauty of Ohio, especially at this time of year.

I have said it before in this column, and it is worth repeating, that a drive through the countryside in fall gives a clear image of more of the many things for which we can be thankful: Fertile land, hardworking farmers and the abundant food produced on the 14 million acres of agricultural land between Ohio's many cities.

The patchwork of gray-brown soybean fields, golden cornstalk stubble and the still-green pastures stretch out for miles. Cows loaf near their barns, deer graze on the corn kernels dropped by pickers, an occasional hawk scans the naked fields for vermin, and we can count among our blessings that we live in a place as beautiful as this.

We also can give thanks for what those fields and farms represent – the land from which we receive our food for Thanksgiving, Christmas and every other day.

Turkey, chicken, beef, pork, milk, eggs, wheat for flour, fruit and vegetables produced here, combined with the food processing and packaging businesses around all of that farming, make up Ohio's largest industry.

So in this challenging year of 2021, take a moment to thank a farmer, remember the true meaning of Thanksgiving and consider a little of the history of what has become a national holiday.

President George Washington issued a proclamation in 1789 declaring the first national day of thanksgiving, asking people for gratitude to God "for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country" and "the favorable interpositions of his Providence."

In following years, states set their own dates for the day of thanksgiving until President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November for all to give thanks on the same day – "reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People."

He issued that proclamation on Oct. 3, 1863 – a year in which America was more divided than ever, one in which tens of thousands of American troops died in Civil War battles.

"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to invite and provoke the aggressions of foreign states, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union," Lincoln's proclamation said.

Amid that time of unparalleled division, President Lincoln took time to remind people of the many reasons to be thankful, and he easily could have been talking about Ohio today:

"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God."

Alan D. Miller is editor of The Dispatch. [email protected] @dispatcheditor

THE ENTERPRISE—DOES AMERICA HAVE THE WILL TO BE GREAT?— THE LEADERSHIP & WILL TO WORK FOR IT?

It’s been too long since I published an edition of THE ENTERPRISE… My fault is from "waiting for the dust to settle" on so many issues—and realizing that "the dust never settles.” Thus I am adding two versions of columns I wrote first ten years ago. They are more appropriate now than ever.  We have millions of unemployed people and millions of jobs going unfilled. That conundrum is, in my opinion, a result of the accumulated effect of political policy, current conditions and human nature.

A wise person once said, “The behavior rewarded is the behavior repeated.” 

TWO 2011 ARTICLES BELOW EXPAND ON TWO ASPECTS OF A MALAISE THAT AFFLICTS AMERICA TODAY
Current political leaders believe government knows best and must do everything to drive that point home. That includes every imaginable form of welfare and government largesse, and some that no rational person ever thought were imaginable (until Bernie Sanders, the Democrat Socialist weighed in with his personal form of foolishness.)

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” is a quote from the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism. This quote assumes the man is willing to "learn how to fish," and will expend the effort to feed himself.  These days, that is not so true. By spending inconceivable amounts (Trillions) of borrowed money (that it doesn’t have), the USA has convinced millions of people that they don’t need to work to feed themselves. They can just expect the government to “take care of them!”  As they buy into this concept, they are putting themselves into a form of “Economic Slavery” where the government is their de facto “master."

About half of Americans no longer pay income taxes—they live off the efforts to the other half. Many people can stay home and have more government supplied income than their skills could earn—if they were willing to work for a living, in regular jobs. The American government led by Obama’s compromise VP, “Clueless" Joe Biden (a long-term Senator with no real achievements except getting elected, and no real experience except how government can spend taxpayers earnings). He is now the President. His policies seem to be controlled by liberal Socialists (now marketed as “progressives”) within the Democratic party. Socialism has been proven over and over to be an unworkable system.

I guess I’m old fashioned to think that people should earn their living by working, rather than being wards of the government welfare state. The government and its programs create NO wealth. All government income is collected from taxes on the wealth creating (working) Americans or levying/collecting tariffs on goods coming into the US from foreign entities.  

The government was created to work for the people, not vice versa—(to do for them what they alone couldn’t do for themselves.)  Disagree if you wish, but that statement is a fact.

To finish let's consider the other aspects of America’s plight. 

“Slavery" comes in many forms — to control people’s behavior— to serve other masters:

• Worker Shortages—(Already described.)

• Inflation—Printing more money, with nothing of value backing it, creates inflation and devalues the money. BIG Problems follow.

• Covid—Allowing hundreds of thousands to suffer and die when vaccines exist to stop this is inhuman, immoral and irresponsible

• Supply Chains—Finely tuned  “just in time” supply chains lack the capacity/resilience to respond to unexpected surges in demand

• Welfare—If excessive largesse creates “Economic Slavery,” so does excessive reliance on China, et.al. to create "Supply Chain Slavery”

• Climate—Misguided political/media alarmism re: short-term Climate Change adds widespread panic to create “Climate Change Slavery”

• Information—Mis-information & big tech censorship creates “propaganda” & widespread disbelief & "Information Confidence Slavery”

• Immigration—No Border control leads to chaos, and adds countless unfortunate people to our country…A Human Tragedy

• Foreign Policy—Confusion creates chaos and mistrust, and contributes to weak, Ineffective Leadership

 

Ironically, we need more "willing workers" in the USA. Immigrants have always filled the gap in our falling birth rate. Fewer willing workers leads to lower national productivity and less wealth creation. 

Finally, someone needs to remind the people in charge of our country, our states and cities: There is no such thing as a “free lunch!  Somebody always pays, even if the person “paying" is unknown, unwilling, hidden or simply unaware. 

 

The natural tendency (in families and organizations) to economize in one place to compensate/pay for an economic need in another has been completely forgotten (ignored) in American government—especially at the Federal Level.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS
Just “Telling it Like it Is”
JOHN

==================

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
Mar 24, 2011,04:43pm EDT

Forbes.com

A Nation of Grown-up Children? 
@2011 John Mariotti, Contributor

When I see the reaction of so many Americans in the polls and the demonstrations, I am reminded of the days when my children were growing up.  I often had this same reaction when leading a large group of corporate employees.  I felt like these “grownups” were exhibiting the same reactions my children had (in their formative years) to discipline, good behavior and accepting responsibility for their actions (and the consequences). This is one of the most important responsibilities of parenting—to teach their children to be accountable, responsible and practice good behavior and judgment in the face of difficult situations.

I fear that what our U. S. (and State) government(s) have done over the past few decades is to “train” a huge number of people in America that they don’t have to be responsible for their actions, their financial affairs or the consequences of misbehaving. Somehow, the government—“Uncle Sam”—or another “big brother” (such as the union, the welfare agency, etc.) would take care of them—somehow.  And someone else would pay for it.  YOU!

Katrina’s Bad Example: New Orleans and Louisiana

Nowhere was this mentality more evident than during the catastrophe of hurricane Katrina, when thousands of New Orleans residents failed to heed the warnings to leave the city.  They had plenty of time.  The buses were just sitting there, but no leadership demanded their use.  Then these people were finally driven by flood waters to converge on the Superdome where they sat, whining “help me, help me,” while demonstrating vociferously and generally acting like petulant children who had been denied their allowance.  It was both tragic and appalling at the same time.  Misguided mainstream media made it worse with their bleeding-heart sensationalism—interviewing a few of the most outrageous “victims” over and over.

Katrina’s Good Example: Mississippi

It was instructive that the other state as hard hit by Katrina, as Louisiana was its neighbor Mississippi.   There its governor, Haley Barbour, took an entirely different tone in what he said, as he spoke “hitching up his pants,” saying to Mississippians and the world (paraphrasing), “We really got slammed; now we have to get on with cleaning up the mess and rebuilding our state and cities.  After all, it’s our state and if we don’t do it, who will?” Barbour led Mississippians in a positive direction, and the results were notable.   Mississippi immediately rebuilt the coastal casinos that provided such a large source of the state’s revenue.  Then they pulled together to get on with the massive job of rebuilding other parts of their state and cities.  Some areas are still devastated, but unlike New Orleans and Louisiana, Mississippians showed a sense of resolve, of courage, responsibility and a mature, can-do attitude—derived from their governor’s leadership.

Unaffordable Entitlements

Now we have the massive government entitlements:  Social Security (A Ponzi scheme if there ever was one), Medicare and Medicaid driving our country rapidly toward insolvency.  Few politicians have the courage to tackle and cut these unaffordable programs because they know that many of these dependent, grownup children can vote—and will likely vote them out of office.  So instead, they nibble around the edges, trimming smaller (but still huge and wasteful) “peripheral” budget accounts.  While these cuts will help, they are like pruning a few small the limbs on a dying tree—too little, too late.  Where is the leadership?  What are they showing us?

Union “Tantrums” 

Unions are now exhibiting the same kind of “tantrums” that spoiled children use to get what they want, whether they deserve it or not.  After a decade or two of negotiating unaffordable pay and benefit packages, and then redirecting union dues to elect sympathetic politicians, the unions are now being called to “fess up and pay up.”  Citizens of so many states are now supporting too many public employees (and their unions) unaffordable pay and benefits (especially under-funded and un-fundable pension plans).  These unions, the members, the officers and liberal political friends believe that if they have bad enough tantrums, they’ll get to keep their non-competitive, unaffordable pay and benefit plans.

We cannot let that happen.  Spoiled grown-up children, like our own children at formative ages, learn what kinds of misbehavior they can get away with.  It’s time to stop this nonsense.

Endless Unemployment

Another area of “spoiling grown-up children” is the practice of extending unemployment benefits almost forever.  Before you accuse me of being unsympathetic to the plight of the unemployed, I am not.  I do feel bad for them and their families.  BUT—I have heard far too often the comment, “What’s the point of going out looking for a job which is hard to find, I have to get up everyday to show up, and my take home pay is hardly more than unemployment—where all I have to do if fill out a form and stand in line.”

“The Behavior Rewarded is the Behavior Repeated”

Once again, we train these dependent “grownup children” that if they wait long enough, someone will rescue them; relieve them of their “grownup responsibilities.”  And the government does, time after time.  If there are no negative consequences of the failure to accept responsibility, so what?  That unemployment check comes out of the pockets of employers and indirectly out of the potential pay for working people: grownups who are being responsible—that’s what.  The longer we teach people that there are no consequences of their actions, the more they avoid responsibility.  We call companies “too big to fail” and then bail them out, when their fate should be bankruptcy. We feel sorry for cities and push unfunded mandates on states to help them—even if the state is flat broke.

Bright Spots—Courageous Governors

Courageous governors are facing these issues and trying to bring fiscal responsibility back to the U. S.: Chris Christie in NJ; Mitch Daniels in IN; Scott Walker in WI, to just name a few.  Other states, such as CA and IL are so deeply mired in their own irresponsible spending that they are functionally, intellectually and morally bankrupt.

But then what would you expect from a government whose leadership calmly proposes a budget that spends $1.40 for every dollar of income.  Perhaps we have found the “grownup-child-in-chief” and he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. When the President of the United States fails to accept his responsibilities, why should the rest of us worry? 

John Mariotti

 

© John Mariotti 2011
DOES AMERICA HAVE THE WILL TO BE GREAT?

There is an apocalyptic piece that has been circulating around the Internet for several weeks, entitled “Changes are Coming.”  It is written in two parts, and is quite long.  I’ll summarize it and just include a bit of the language—which is that of a very concerned author.

The first part says “Big Changes Coming” and cites the evolution of our way of life and the disappearance of familiar things we have known:

§  The post office (failing),

§  The personal check (replaced by debit cards),

§  The newspaper (replaced by on-line news),

§  The book (replaced by e-books),

§  The land-line telephone (replaced by cell phones),

§  Music (“discs” being replaced by “downloads”),

§  Television (broadcast and cable replaced by “streaming video”),

§  Privacy (becoming non-existent—being replaced by total transparency).  

The loss of these old, familiar part of our lives is troubling but more so, it is sobering. Change is constant—some would call it “progress.”  Life evolves and we adapt.  Or we don't--which is usually a bad decision.  

Many people long for the "good old days," but those days are gone forever. Some would say they weren't so good either.  They were simpler.  But so was life a century or more ago--but few would argue that our predecessors had it so good either. Pioneers led harsh and brutal lives—and simpler was not better. 

But adapt and evolve we must.  With change come opportunity and our lives and the possessions and services we surround ourselves with will continue to change with accelerating speed.  We must deal with change; but better yet, we should capitalize on change to make our lives better.

The second part of this lament is troubling.  It is titled “The Deindustrialization of America.” But it can also be interpreted as either tragedy or opportunity in the face of change? 

This blogger describes the symptoms of America’s "deindustrialization" in terms of the loss of manufacturing jobs and factories, but the way the data is presented and interpreted is designed to support only one point of view—“the glass is half empty!”  The words that follow are from “The Economic Collapse Blog”—I have inserted some different explanations where I believe it is either misleading or could be interpreted differently.

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe.  All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. America was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. America showed the world how to mass-produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes.  The great American manufacturing base crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.  

The preceding is true but that was then, and this is now. The rest of the world has “caught up.”  Germany and Japan were war torn and have been rebuilt, as has South Korea. China and Taiwan have grown into industrial powers.  Nothing the USA could have done would have slowed or stopped this from happening.  What is important is what the USA does now that this is the global reality.



But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America.  The United States has become a nation that consumes almost everything and produces almost nothing.  Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined.  Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. 

In fact, the US is still the world’s largest manufacturer out-producing the manufacturing output of China, India, and Brazil combined, despite manufacturing being a very small portion of the entire US economy as compared to most other countries.

The U.S. produces approximately 21% of the world's manufacturing output, a number that has remained largely unchanged for the last 40 years. The job loss during this continual volume growth is explained by record-breaking productivity gains. In addition, growth in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, aircraft, heavy machinery and other industries along with declines in low end, low skill industries such as clothing, toys, and other simple manufacturing have resulted in U.S. jobs being more highly skilled and better paying.

If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children? 

 Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things.  So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation?  

There is no doubt that the measure of industrial and commercial greatness in the past century was measured in terms of manufacturing competence and output.  However, in this century, I contend those metrics must be reevaluated.  The explosion of global electronic communications has made it possible for knowhow in manufacturing (and many other areas) to be quickly and easily transported to wherever it can be best implemented—and that is not always a high standard of living, developed country like the USA, Japan or Germany!

We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. So what happens when the debt bubble pops? 



Sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them. Perhaps what they read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.    

---------------------------

The following are facts about the deindustrialization of America, (circe 2011, when written).

The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.  About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.



As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.


In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output.  In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.



The manufacturing share of the USA economy dropped from 21% in 1980 to 18% in 1990, 16% in 2000 and 13% in 2008. Still as previous posts show the USA manufacturing output has grown substantially: over 300% since 1980, and 175% since 1990.

The proportion of manufacturing output by the USA (for the top 14 manufacturers) has declined from 31% in 1980, 28% in 1990, 32% in 2000 to 24% in 2008. The proportion of USA manufacturing has declined from 33% in 1980, 29% in 1990, 36% in 2000 to 30% in 2008. While manufacturing output has grown in the USA it has done so more slowly than the economy overall.

As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing.  

The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941
In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.
The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use.  

Today it ranks 15th.

The agrarian age passed by, and the numerous farmers who fed themselves and rural America decades ago are now largely gone too.  The industrial age came and now it too is moving on.  The jobs that created the golden age of America have been taken by people in faraway countries, who can and will do them for far less in compensation, and the global economy is a hyper-competitive marketplace.  The new age of America is clearly based on knowledge and information, and on being what I would call "systems integrators."

America of the 21st century must also evolve and adapt to the new world realities.  The question is not "will America evolve and adapt?  It is "does America have the will to evolve and adapt?  Or have we created a country of lazy dependency, unrealistic youthful expectations and governments populated by people that have forgotten that government was created to work for the people and not vice versa.  

The America "of the people, for the people and by the people," must be recreated by a new group of leaders.  We need leaders who practice common sense and fiscal responsibility.  We need leaders who realize the extreme positions in any matter are a great risk.  We need leaders who listen--and hear--what the vast majority of Americans are saying.  Help us, serve us, but do not oppress us or burden us with a bureaucratic monstrosity that is unmanageable, unaffordable and dysfunctional.

As we approach this holiday season, I am including this "anonymous" author's perspective to make us all think

What kind of America do we want?  Are we willing to make the sacrifices to return it to a solid financial footing?  Will we find and elect leaders who want to serve us and help us and not oppress and control us?  When we find those, will we support them--and hold them accountable?  We may not ever be able to return to the good old days, but we can create good new days.  However, it will be neither simple nor easy.  But it is not our only choice--but it is our best choice.  Do we have the will to choose correctly?  Do you?

We are just seeing the end of the second era, the industrial era.  The first era was agrarian, when small farms were all over and much of the population was engaged in farming, and now it is only a small percentage.  

Congress created the (farm) extension system nearly a century ago to address exclusively rural, agricultural issues. At that time, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural areas, and 30 percent of the workforce was engaged in farming. Extension's engagement with rural America helped make possible the American agricultural revolution, which dramatically increased farm productivity:

      In 1945, it took up to 14 labor-hours to produce 100 bushels of corn on 2 acres of land.

      By 1987, it took just under 3 labor-hours to produce that same 100 bushels of corn on just over 1 acre.

      In 2002, that same 100 bushels of corn were produced on less than 1 acre.

That increase in productivity has allowed fewer farmers to produce more food.  Fewer than 2 percent of Americans farm for a living today, and only 17 percent of Americans now live in rural areas.

Then came the industrial era, when factories proliferated, and now that activity is in decline, finding its "steady state" at some level.  

BUT--A total of 3.2 million – one in six U.S. factory jobs – have disappeared since the start of 2000. The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses over the past several years 

In January 2004, the number of such jobs stood at 14.3 million, down by 3.0 million jobs, or 17.5 percent, since July 2000 and about 5.2 million since the historical peak in 1979. Employment in manufacturing was its lowest since July 1950.

What is the next era?  Knowledge and information workers--service businesses--or perhaps AI and "systems integrators?"  Enough for now—there is always some transition taking place and change is scary—but necessary.

[1] http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/19-facts-about-the-deindustrialization-of-america-that-will-blow-your-mind

THE ENTERPRISE--SPECIAL EDITION--CLIMATE CHANGE—THE FLEECING OF AMERICA VIA WIDESPREAD MYTH & MISINFORMATION

THE ENTERPRISE--SPECIAL EDITION--CLIMATE CHANGE—THE FLEECING OF AMERICA VIA WIDESPREAD MYTH & MISINFORMATION

Why do countless scientists and journalists and political figures continue to distort and manipulate climate reports for decades? The answer is the phrase from the movie Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money!”  Scientists depend on grants. Journalists depend on readers/viewers. Politicians are known to distort information (or lies) so they can win elections. 

A headline, “Everything in Climate Change is OK—Not much different than it's ever been” would not encourage grants, attract audiences or stir the emotions of voters. 

IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS, NO MATTER WHOSE BLOOD IT IS. —William Randolph Hearst, 1898. News paper publisher.

The opinions I have formed on this topic of Climate Change are drawn from multiple sources, and several people whose expertise far exceeds mine. A couple of important distinctions, actually definitions—to begin with. Weather and Climate are often confused as being interchangeable terms. They are NOT. According to NOAA: "Whereas ‘weather' refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, ‘climate' describes what the ‘weather' is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates…"

Here’s just one of many typical FALSE statements carried widely by news media attempting to sensationalize Climate Change:
President Joe Biden often says:  “Climate change is 'the existential threat of our time” is simply wrong.

(It's actually unfair to blame Biden’s ignorance—or cognitive impairment—for the inaccuracy of this statement. His speechwriters write nearly everything he says/reads.)  When anyone, including President Biden talks about “the science [about climate change] being settled”—they are also simply wrong. 

 

Whoever claims that may be simply misinformed, mistaken, lying, distorting the facts or all of these things, usually to to support what they want us all to believe about “Climate Change” or that The Science is settled.  The Science is "not settled." Maybe it never will be!

I capitalized The Science, as did author Steven Kooniin (former science advisor for the Obama administration) in his excellent recent book “Unsettled —What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters. 

This is necessary to differentiate what so many politicians, scientists, reporters and journalists are claiming is “settled” —when it fact, it is far from settled—and probably cannot be “settled.” 

 

Rather than duplicate a fine piece from the WSJ, I am posting it here. It explains far better and more succinctly than I could. 

 

Climate Change Brings a Flood of Hyperbole

Despite constant warnings of catastrophe, things aren’t anywhere near as dire as the media say.

 

By Steven E. Koonin  Aug. 10, 2021 6:33 pm ET   ©Wall Street Journal

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its latest report assessing the state of the climate and projecting its future. As usual, the media and politicians are exaggerating and distorting the evidence in the report. They lament an allegedly broken climate and proclaim, yet again, that we are facing the “last, best chance” to save the planet from a hellish future. In fact, things aren’t—and won’t be—anywhere near as dire.

 

The new report, titled AR6, is almost 4,000 pages, written by several hundred government-nominated scientists over the past four years. It should command our attention, especially because this report will be a crucial element of the coming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Leaders from 196 countries will come together there in November, likely to adopt more-aggressive nonbinding pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. 

 

Previous climate-assessment reports have misrepresented scientific research in the “conclusions” presented to policy makers and the media. The summary of the most recent U.S. government climate report, for instance, said heat waves across the U.S. have become more frequent since 1960, but neglected to mention that the body of the report shows they are no more common today than they were in 1900. Knowledgeable independent scientists need to scrutinize the latest U.N. report because of the major societal and economic disruptions that would take place on the way to a “net zero” world, including the elimination of fossil-fueled electricity, transportation and heat, as well as complete transformation of agricultural methods.

 

It is already easy to see things in this report that you almost certainly won’t learn from the general media coverage. Most important, the model muddle continues. We are repeatedly told “the models say.” But the complicated computer models used to project future temperature, rainfall and so on remain deficient. Some models are far more sensitive to greenhouse gases than others. Many also disagree on the baseline temperature for the Earth’s surface.

 

The latest models also don’t reproduce the global climate of the past. The models fail to explain why rapid global warming occurred from 1910 to 1940, when human influences on the climate were less significant. The report also presents an extensive “atlas” of future regional climates based on the models. Sounds authoritative. But two experts, Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens, write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the lack of detail in current modeling approaches makes them “not fit” to describe regional climate. The atlas is mainly meant to scare people.

 

As is now customary, the report emphasizes climate change in recent decades but obscures, or fails to mention, historical precedents that weaken the case that humanity’s influence on the climate has been catastrophic. The Summary for Policy Makers section says the rate of global sea-level rise has been increasing over the past 50 years. It doesn’t mention that it was increasing almost as rapidly 90 years ago before decreasing strongly for 40 years. 

 

Extreme weather events are invoked as proof of impending disaster. But the floods in Europe and China and record temperatures across regions of the U.S. are weather, not climate—singular events, not decades long trends. Both Europe and China have experienced equally devastating floods in past centuries, but these are forgotten or deliberately ignored. The drought and wildfires in the Western U.S. are part of a trend going back a few decades, but forest management and expanding human presence in the forests are perhaps more important than climate change in causing these events. 

 

The report expresses low confidence in most reported hurricane trends over the next century, and it remains uncertain whether there’s any trend beyond natural variability in Atlantic hurricanes. In other words, we have no scientific proof that humans have made hurricanes worse, despite what many say.

 

Refreshingly, the report deems its highest-emissions scenarios of the future unlikely, even though those are the ones you’re mostly likely to hear about in media reports. The more plausible scenarios have an average global temperature in 2100 about 2.5 degrees celsius warmer than the late 1800s. The globe has already warmed 1 degree since that time, and the parties of the Paris Accord arbitrarily agreed to limit further warming to another degree. But since humanity’s well-being has improved spectacularly, even as the globe warmed during the 20th century, it is absurd to suggest that an additional degree of warming over the next century will be catastrophic. In fact, the AR5 report from 2014 says even 1.5 degrees of additional warming by 2100 will have minimal net economic impact.

 

Good science is characterized by detail, data, proven models and reasoned debate. That takes time. Meanwhile, we should be wary of the torrent of hyperbole that is sweeping the globe.

-------------------------

Mr. Koonin, a professor at New York University, is author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”

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THE YEAR 2010—WAS WHEN I CONCLUDED THAT CLIMATE CHANGE HYSTERIA HAD SOMETHING PHONY ABOUT IT

 I found a 2009 book— HEAVEN AND EARTH global warming the missing science, by Ian Plimer, Australia’s best known geologist, and part of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide.  I read Plimer’s book shortly after it was published and a correspondent (reader of THE ENTERPRISE) told me about it. I will quote just a few of his most convincing statements. He takes almost 500 pages of scientific information to support his premises. (Confession: I didn’t actually read all 494 pages. NOTE: I read the material that follows from Plimer in the year 2010—a full decade ago.

Plimer’s Introduction p.11 says, "To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2 or more correctly, a small portion of one variable human (human produced CO2) is not science, especially as it requires abandoning all we know about planet Earth, the sun, and the cosmos. Such models fail.(He adds a graph of temperature increase from 1990 to 2008 that shows this.)

He adds two other simple sentences in the next few paragraphs. "If we humans in a fit of ego, think we can change the normal planetary processes then we need stronger medicine.”    He goes on to say, “To argue that we humans can differentiate between human induced climate change and natural climate change is naïve.” But as he later explains, “Humans can change the weather."

As for models and projections, Plimer writes, “A phenomenon is not scientifically proven because various authorities and some scientists Say so.  Evidence now no longer matters". …  Models with simulations,  projections and predictions prove nothing.  All a model shows is something about the model itself and the modelers, normally their limitations.  As the Talmud states, ' We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.’ “

Once again, Plimer strikes out at the naivete of the modelers. “...to try to predict the future based on just one variable, (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly." (Remember Al Gore and his later debunked movie, An Inconvenient Truth?) 

 

As far back as 1996, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was formed in 1988) was the source of what is called The Science”  and ever since then, it has been altering its reports to support conclusions reported in the media, all of which were proven to be either wrong or misstated and exaggerated. 

Way back on June 11, 1996 the Wall Street Journal exposed this in an article entitled Coverup in the Greenhouse, followed by similar article by the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled Major Deception on Global Warming. In the IPCC'S report, the authors/editors simply decided to add “discernible human effect” and deleted passages, one of which said, “No study to date has positively attributed all or part (of the climate change observed) to (man-made) causes.”  The final phrase deleted was “We do not know.”

 

RECENT NEWS RELEASES REVEAL THAT THE WIDELY TOUTED “PARIS ACCORD” IS ALREADY FALLING FAR BEHIND ITS GOALS AND PROJECTIONS. The solution, I’m sure will be "to throw more money at solving a problem that is falsely created.”

 

THE ODDS ARE HIGH THAT IF YOU READ AN ARTICLE IN MASS MEDIA USING THE PHRASE “CLIMATE CHANGE” IT IS FULL OF LIES, MISREPRESENTATIONS AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS TO SENSATIONALIZE WHAT WAS ESSENTIALLY WRONG!

 

NOTE: NOTHING IS CHANGING THAT HASN’T BEEN CHANGING FOR CENTURIES, AND YES, HUMANS CAN EFFECT WEATHER, BUT HUMANS HAVE A VERY SMALL EFFECT ON THE CLIMATE OVER THE LONG TERM, THUS EFFORTS TO “FIX THAT” WILL KEEP ON FAILING!!

=============

 

I titled this newsletter “Telling it Like it Is” a long time ago. THAT’S WHAT I’VE DONE HERE.

To disagree is your prerogative. Gather your own data, but you might want to read on…before deciding...

 

Best, JOHN
 
=============
THERE ARE MORE ARTICLES POSTED HERE WITH SNIPPETS OF EACH, FOR THOSE WHOSE WANT MORE INFO.

===========
Download Same Climate Report Different Day - WSJ

CLICK ON THE PDF TO READ ALL OF THIS...The solar panels Americans are being subsidized to install, the Wall Street Journal recently noted, are produced in “carbon-dioxide- belching, coal-burning plants in China.” Your subsidy to buy an electric car is the manufacturer’s subsidy to consume fossil energy in mining the lithium and rare metals needed to make it. Your subsidy to get a Tesla is the electric company’s subsidy to burn more fossil fuels to keep it charged….

...A carbon tax, because it reduces the incentive to consume fossil fuels across the board, is the way to lower emissions meaningfully. But a carbon tax would be unpopular and never pass, exclaimed President Obama as he abandoned his climate promises the moment he took office. …

...This week the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a draft of its long-awaited sixth assessment report coupled with an unscientific and fatuous preamble that said “no one is safe” from a warming planet. Yes, and no one is safe from iced tea and Kylie Minogue either, since both also involve costs and benefits just like humanity’s habit of using the atmosphere as a CO2 dump….

...Of interest to the nonfatuous was the track of real-world temperature changes. The IPCC estimates a rise of 1.1 degrees celsius in the past 150 years. This information, which it highlighted in bold print, led the IPCC in much finer print to lop 0.5 degree Celsius off its likely worst-case impact of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In other words, real-world warming, the IPCC finally acknowledges, has been less than that expected from its climate models. ...

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Download Climate Change Has Consumed Journalistic Standards - WSJ

CLICK ON THE PDF TO READ THE FIRST PART OF THIS...It’s extremely hot: Climate change. It’s extremely cold: Climate change. It’s raining a little: Climate change.

With the definitive affirmation comes the lurid panic followed by the stern lecture: The Earth is going to combust (or drown, or freeze, or starve—the science isn’t fully settled on that yet). And it’s all our fault. Specifically, it’s all Americans’ fault for driving SUVs, cranking up the air conditioning and refusing to become vegetarian. How can we expect the Chinese to stop building 50 coal-fired power stations a month if those Republican-voting rubes in Missouri insist on eating hamburgers?

Be ready for much more of this in the coming weeks after the publication Monday of the update by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change in advance of the so-called COP 26 meeting in the U.K. in November. You will scarcely hear a dissenting voice as the monolithic media faithful echoes every frightening forecast from the scientists whose livelihoods depend on maintaining the highest level of alarm.

My beef here isn’t mainly with climate extremism itself. I’m no climate scientist: I’m confident the planet is warming and that evasive action would be smart. I’m less confident that a spate of historically familiar extreme weather events constitutes proof that we’re all going to burn in the next decade or that the answer lies only in the most drastic government-mandated responses, which the media will insist we must immediately adopt. Better-informed writers on these pages have put the case for a more measured judgment and approach. “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” a recent book by Steven E. Koonin, a scientist and former Obama administration official, provides an elegant rebuttal to much of the extremism. 

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Download Media Can’t Handle the Climate Truth - WSJ

 

CLICK ON THE PDF TO READ THE FIRST PART OF THIS...Imagine the news industry was still able to discern news. If the latest in a 40-year succession of climate forecasts differs from its predecessors in finding temperature change and emissions not as bad as previously projected, this would qualify as news. That is, to a media not wedded to the senseless assumption that climate science can only produce a succession of ever more dire discoveries.

Our climate fluctuates under many influences, but one factor that overwhelms all others is the increase in human beings and their valuable property placed in the path of extreme weather, behavior encouraged by politicians. Even so, human preparedness has advanced faster than climate change or even human building propensities. As University of Colorado Boulder’s Roger Pielke Jr. has patiently pointed out, your odds of dying from extreme weather have been declining drastically all through the period of growing human climate impact.

This progress had been made, so far at least, without help from climate policy, unless you consider fracking, which has led to a decline in total U.S. emissions, to be climate policy. Since mankind demonstrably is not going to arrest climate change by banning fossil fuels, and quite likely would leave itself on balance worse off if it did, let this be your good- news story of the day. 

=============

 Download Doctors Join the Climate Lobby - WSJ

Medical journals are supposed to be forums for doctors to publish research and debate ideas. But like traditional media outlets, many are finding it harder to control their political bias. Now some 200 journal editors are showing their political hand on climate change in an apocalyptic and misleading joint editorial this week ….CLICK ON PDF TO READ MORE

 

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GEOLOGISTS HAVE LONG CONTENDED “THE ROCKS DON’T LIE”

The history of the earth and its climate is contained in the rocks (and in the ice, if you want to watch the video below.

 Download 0p)

 

This four-minute recent video example—proves that climate temperatures now are only warmer than the coldest time in 10,000 years—starting to warm just 140 years ago!

================

PEOPLE CAN INFLUENCE WEATHER, AND IF THEY CHOOSE TO BUILD IN WEATHER PRONE AREAS, THEY CAN ALSO CAUSE MUCH GREATER DAMAGE AND LOSS OF LIFE.

Thus much of the media hype about Climate Change causing loss of property and life are directly linked to human behavior—not the Climate Change itself. Weather is different from Climate. Humans can effect weather, and be effected by Weather. READ THE TWO PDF FILES ATTACHED BELOW TO LEARN MORE...

Download UN: Weather Disasters Soar in Numbers Cost but Deaths Fall | World News | US News

 

Download Report: Climate change could see 200 million move by 2050

THE ENTERPRISE--THE END OF AN ERA, AND SEARCHING FOR A VERY DIFFERENT "NEW NORMAL" FUTURE

SEARCHING FOR THE "NEW NORMAL" FUTURE

First the column I wrote 7+ years ago:

WHAT’S A RETAIL STORE, GRAMPS?   By John Mariotti, ©2014

The time is only a decade or more in the future. Little 4-1/2 year old Susie just finished her Christmas—whoops—“Year End Annual Holiday” (YEAH) wish list using her latest 3D tablet. The list was instantly posted electronically to Gramps' and Gran's tablets. 

They reply with a question. "Would you like to go to a retail store to shop for your YEAH gifts? The answer nearly floors them. "What's a retail store, Gramps? And how do you 'shop' in one? What does 'shop' mean? How will I find what I want? Is there a way to ‘search’ for what I want? And then can we buy it and do we carry it home with us?"

If you think this is a far-fetched scenario, think again. Imagine the inefficiency of the entire retailing process. First someone must 'guess' at what consumers might want to buy. They are inevitably wrong, to varying degrees. Then the merchandise they 'guess' is needed must be ordered and transported either from the producer, or from a distribution center, to numerous stores spread all over population centers.

Then people must drive their electric or hybrid vehicles from store to store, wasting energy and creating traffic jams, consuming huge amounts of time, just to see IF the desired items are there, and in the desired shape, size, color, spec or whatever. Often they are not, so it is on to yet another "store" (even the name implies accumulation and storage of goods) where the hunt continues...often fruitlessly.)

The signs are clear that traditional "bricks and mortar" (BAM) retailing is in decline. America has been "over-stored" for decades, so a natural selection process continues to winnow the number of retail outlets, forcing losers to close and winners to adapt to an entirely new landscape of "shopping and buying."

Regional discounters were wiped out by Walmart and Target's growth, which devastated dozens (too many to list here) of less efficient discounters who no longer exist. The hulks of their stores still litter the urban landscape, unused or being torn down and/or repurposed. Big box stores fell next. Circuit City, Linens 'N Things, Borders, and more, are simply gone. Consolidation further narrowed the field as new retailing concepts emerged, spread, then consolidated all within a few decades. Wholesale/warehouse clubs are a prime example of this...as are video rental stores, and recently, office products superstores.

The explosion of e-commerce, on-line shopping, behemoths like amazon.com, and next day delivery is eating away at conventional BAM retailers faster and faster. Sears Holdings (Kmart) has been slowly sinking into oblivion, kept alive only by cash from real estate holdings. JC Penney is reeling after a failed makeover attempt. Office product superstores, spawned only 3 decades ago continue to consolidate and shrink. Office Depot & Office Max are merging, and Staples is closing 225 stores and shrinking the footprint of the remainder. Radio Shack, once ubiquitous, is disappearing before our very eyes.

Considering that the life cycle of both wholesale/warehouse club and office product superstore evolution was only 3 decades (early 1980’s to date), and that the rate of change in how goods are sold is accelerating, then Susie’s question is only a decade or two away from being realistic.  Even behemoth Walmart at nearly $500 Billion in annual sales is wondering and reconsidering what its “stores” should evolve to look like in a decade or two.  It is an enormous question for all retailers. Their very future existence depends on how well they answer it.

So, what's a retail store, Gramps? Little Susie's question is a harbinger of a future where a retail store is more of a "presence" than a "store." Retail stores of the future are more like physical "samplers" where "shoppers" want to see, feel, touch and investigate potential purchases--but not necessarily buy them. Ask Best Buy how this feels. Not so good, unless there is a newer, better revenue and profit model developed for BAM locations.

If this future of retailing were completely clear, everyone would be charging toward it, but it's not. What's clear is that just as hybrid autos are bridging the gap between gasoline/diesel vehicles and fully electric ones, and streaming audio and video are eating into sales of CDs and DVDs, there is a big transition coming. How soon no one knows, nor exactly what it will be, thus Susie's question might still be very appropriate: "what's a retail store, Gramps?"

 ======================

LESS THAN A DECADE AGO...

Unlike many of my older columns and articles, this one is less than a decade old. It was also written before Covid even existed in anyone’s imagination—except maybe a few futuristic (apocalyptic) authors. As you read this, I suspect you will realize how impractical the way mass shopping is done, and why it is rapidly falling prey to better ways to choose—and actually find—find what to buy.

The naïveté of a child seemed a good way to illustrate the impossible shopping of today’s (yesterday’s) mass retail, especially department stores and even large discounters like Walmart & Target (who survived the demise of Kmart, Sears and a huge list of discounters who have disappeared in the last few decades. Some of those stores sales moved to “big box” specialty stores in electronics (Best Buy), sporting goods (Dicks), housewares (Bed Bath & Beyond), toys, (Toys R Us), etc. Those also are struggling, suffering and some have already disappeared

Home improvement stores like Lowe's and HomeDepot are currently thriving, because they offer both the abiliy to find and buy exactly what is wanted—with a degree of confidence in what need it fulfills. Departments stores are disappearing faster than the 17 year Cicadas. To survive, many are shrinking their formats, in hopes of finding a new “shopping experience” that is economically viable.

I once had a theory that a good indicator of retail financial success might yield a Surivial Index considering inventory turns and gross margins. It seemed that multiplying the inventory turns by the gross margin, might yield a number that was a Survival Index. For example, a IF big discounter like Walmart or Target had a gross margin of 25+%, and inventory turns of 5-6, that Survival Index would be 125-150. The same test for Macy’s might show its problems. Even at a gross margin of 33%, it would need 4-5 inventory turns to reach a Survival Index of 130-160, and to get the turns needed, discounting would drop the gross margin, thus reaching one factor in the Survival Index caused a decline in the other.

Shoe stores (e.g.,Payless—now gone) with a large number of styles and sizes have a bigger problem. Housewares, like Bed, Bath, similarly have problems with styles, fashions, sizes, and trying to offer multiple price/value choices in too many product categories. Sporting Goods are both seasonal and regional. Fishing in coastal (salt water) areas is far different from fishing in lakes (fresh water). Boating needs in warm climates and cold climates differ widely, as do sporting apparel (sizes, styles, colors, etc.). And they also carry shoes for many sports, in a range of sizes, styles, prices, etc. It’s hard to see how big box Sporting good stores can make the Survival Index.

The bottom line is that on-line pre-shopping is far more efficient, and thus it has grown rapidly. Shopping as a “recreation" is the only salvation of too many retailer stores/chains. Assemblages of stores whether Malls or strip malls, or Lifestyle Centers survive as destinations for “Recreational Shopping” where there are also resting, dining and beverage spots (Starbucks!).

However Covid is resolved—hopefully making gatherings possible via vaccines and seasonal boosters—recreational shopping can only save a fraction of America’s “over-stored” retail environment.  Just as many restaurants are pre-order and either pickup or delivery, so too will the new normal mean pre-shopping on line then deciding whether to do pickup, have the goods delivered, or go for the old fashioned “treasure hunt” for “good deals” among way too many choices.

Putting other recreational options where recreational shopping concentrates, will define many of the new “centers.” The malls of yesteryear and the huge “anchor” stores, are dinosaurs just waiting to become extinct. Plan to survive by capitalizing on a very different “New Normal” future, or join the many who are going or gone extinct. 

Which retailers will survive? And why?

JOHN

 

AMERICA HAS A LEADERSHIP CRISIS—OR RATHER A "LACK OF LEADERSHIP CRISIS”

AMERICA HAS A LEADERSHIP CRISIS—OR RATHER A "LACK OF LEADERSHIP CRISIS”

 

Why would I say this? I CAN NO LONGER REMAIN SILENT! (I apologize for this edition being late. I was torn about exactly how to open it.)

 

Too many responsIble leaders are simply retiring from Congress and gov’t jobs, rather than fight this wave of idiotic non-leadership…

Our President must be led around G-7 by his wife, or reading (poorly) from scripted teleprompters for his garbled remarks.

Our Vice President is flying about the world, looking for something/anything she can do—to avoid the dealing with the real problems—listed below:

1. The US Border is swamped with uncontrollable floods of illegal immigrants—no one (including the VP, supposedly in charge) has a clue what to do.
2. Major US cities are riddled with crime, murders, rioting and worse—amidst questions about defunding police—and inept majors making it worse.
3. Major US cities controlled by Democrats in top government spots are all bankrupt/and deeper in debt than imaginable. (Farewell Cuomo & DeBlasio!)
4. Democrat leaders controlling the major branches of government are “throwing money at problems” (hard-earned taxpayer money & massive debt.)
5. Uncontrolled spending is driving deficits to record highs, and fueling inflation-driven costs higher than ever; consumers will suffer.
6. There is little or no attempt to find bi-partisan, compromise solutions to problems.(exception, maybe, the misnamed Infrastructure bill).
7. Education is in disarray, controlled by powerful teacher unions, instead of school boards and parents; it’s time to change that.
8. Political correctness under the banner of “woke” (rhymes with “joke”) and cancel-culture runs rampant, threatening reasonableness.
9. The "Biden solution" to Covid was to continue the Trump solution—but without support of most Trump devotees (a bad result).
10. Covid-Delta surge among unvaccinated/younger age groups grows, until "adults in charge”(if any) make shots mandatory for work & public venues.
11. The Tax increases in the pending “Bidenomics” tax bill will dramatically hit most Americans in either direct taxes or inflation or both.
12. The exit from Afghanistan (which is years overdue) was poorly managed (no surprise) and a de-facto concession to the Taliban. Now what?
13. Aggressive foreign leaders: China (Xi), Russia (Putin) & North Korea (Kim) are pushing Biden (& his Socialist manipulators) hither & yon with ease.
14. Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE)—worthy causes all—have been co-opted and distorted, pushing good intentions aside.
15. A true Scientist (former Obama admin.) has revealed that the Science of Climate Change is “UNSETTLED" in his new book of that title—and unlike Biden’s favorite phrase, climate change may NOT be an "existential threat to the the future of life on earth!" (Read the book—if you don’t believe it.) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=unsettled+steven+koonin&crid=MFLQZCD4MDZR&stprefix=Unsettled,aps,231&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_9

I’ll stop there, but the list could be much longer. Only the Stock Market continues to rise—but the cumulative effect of INEPT LEADERSHIP will force it to drop preciptously at the first sign of big, bad news. The US can only be thankful that the rest of the world offers no better places to invest.

 

NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM; IN THE ABSENCE OF STRONG LEADERSHIP, THE MISGUIDED MANIPULATORS TAKE CHARGE. 

WELCOME TO THE USA OF 2021.6, IN YEAR-ONE OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS-SANDERS-SCHUMER-PELOSI-AOC ADMINISTRATION

 

Take a few moments and think about Leadership. We may not be able to define it precisely, but we know it when we see it, and feel its impact. 

List the “great leaders” you personally know, have met, or at least are aware of and believe in. Most people find it hard to list very many, living (or dead.) 

 

If you read the piece below that I wrote two decades ago, in answering the question of "what it takes to be a great leader” you’ll see why. It’s a high bar to clear, especially over a span of years.  Even great leaders have flaws—but they are usually revealed or admitted, and overcome by their positive behaviors.

 

Here’s my latest “2021.6 list”…a few of whom I’ve met or known, most I have not (which makes it risky to confer “great leader” status from afar, except by observing how they led.)  See who’s on your list. I stopped after ten because many leaders in history are highly regarded until their flaws were later revealed.

1. Vince Lombardi (never met)—Green Bay Packers coach
2. Sam Walton (knew him)—Walmart founder
3. George H. W. Bush (met once)—US President & former government official & decorated military officer
4. Ronald Reagan (never met)—US President, California Governor & noted actor
5. Chuck Rolinski (knew well)—Toluca, IL HS coach & teacher
6. Lou Holtz (met twice)—Football Coach
7. Mitch Daniels (never met)—Former Governor of Indiana, now President, Purdue University
8. Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State, National Security Adviser and Professor.
9. Mike DeWine (met briefly)—Governor of Ohio, former US Senator
10. 4-way tie: Ryan Day & Luke Fickell (met briefly)—Football Coaches; Frank LaRose,(know well) Sec. of State OH; Steve Stivers (know well) US Congress retiring & Brigadier Gen. US /Army Reserve.

NOTE: The absence of women on my list is due to a “generational” effect. (Most of the female leaders have emerged in recent years, as women became more prevalent in leadership roles.) The recent years’ history and resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of NY shows how fragile a public (political) person’s leadership can be—both perceived and actual.

 

Download What It Takes To Be A Great Leader-1

The Role of a Leader 

© John L. Mariotti 1998

A few months ago, a reader emailed me about the several pieces I have written on leadership. He was going to a session with noted author Warren Bennis and wanted to get my perspective on this topic. I was flattered until I realized the difficulty of the question he posed. He asked that I define leadership in one sentence.

I responded with the caution that Bennis has written numerous books and studied leadership exhaustively, so my one-sentence attempt was unlikely to add much to that body of work. After I wrote it, and he attended his session, he emailed back that the one sentence I wrote was very useful to him, and it was then I decided to share it here.

Leadership is the ability to convince people to follow a path they have never taken to a place they have never been and upon finding it to be successful, to do it over and over again.

For any business to be successful the one ingredient, which is not optional, is strong leadership. This leadership consists of many people, throughout an organization. A single leader at the top, usually the President/CEO, is the starting point. Put a weak leader there and strong leaders in other parts of the organization will become demotivated and leave. Without a strong leader at the top, if the organization that retains a few strong leaders in other positions, it will be pulled hither and yon as each of them pursue their own agendas, taking some part of the organization with them.

But what, exactly, is the proper role of a leader? A few years ago an MBA intern in my company posed this question. My answer at that time was lengthier, and less logically formed, but I have refined it over time.

The role of a leader is:

• To create a clear understanding of the current reality, and

• A healthy dissatisfaction with it (the current situation);

• To help develop a shared vision of a more desirable future situation;

• To create the belief that there is a viable path from the former to the latter; and

• To create an environment in which people are motivated to embark on the journey to that future.

I had no sooner finished the answer to his first question than he fired a second one. " If that is the role of the leader, then what are the responsibilities of the leader?" Once again, I launched into a spontaneous answer:

The responsibilities of a leader are:

• To help the organization remove or overcome obstacles on the journey, and 

• To assure that the resources needed for the journey are available or can be obtained.

• To provide encouragement, honest feedback (positive or negative) and continued support during the journey.

• To take part in the journey.

At an IW conference a few years ago, when I asked noted leader and retired chairman of Motorola, Robert Galvin, “What is the most important aspect of leadership?” His answer was, “To take people to places they would be afraid to go alone.” I liked that answer so well; I followed with a second question. “Can leadership be taught?" His answer was, “Not exactly, but rather it can be role-modeled and then emulated.”

As I reflected on those answers I realized that there is a large quantity of "latent (undiscovered) leadership" in everyone. The amount varies, and the circumstances under which it emerges (if ever) depend on the need, the alternative leaders available, and the risk of taking a leadership role. In one of my earlier pieces on leadership, I concluded that great leaders needed one ingredient more than anything else--great followers. Those followers are also leaders, but they are leading only one, or at most, a few people-- themselves and those in their immediate circle of influence.

The key conclusion is that leaders must help the followers decide where they are going and how they will get there. Then they must continue to lead, keeping the group on course during the journey as unexpected obstacles and pitfalls are encountered. When leaders assume their roles properly and take their responsibilities seriously, followers will almost always follow them-- usually successfully. Are you living your leadership role? Are you taking your leadership responsibilities seriously? If you are, then you are a better leader because of it, and others will follow you! 

 

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UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE IN AN ERA WHEN MEDIA, CELEBRITY OR STAGING WRONGLY CONFERS AN AURA OF  EXPERTISE, BELIEVABILITY AND PERCEIVED LEADERSHIP.

 

Followers have a big role in bestowing leadership on anyone.  The next time you see President Biden speak, (or worse yet, VP Harris) and many other prominent elected leaders. ask yourself, "Do you think these people embody the leadership principles you want in a leader you’ll be proud to follow.” 

 

In about 15 months, we wll all get to make new choices for the leaders we elect. That’s one of the great benefits of a country that can have (we hope)"free and fair elections." 

 

NOTE: I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, for the exemplary job he and his office did with our Ohio elections last fall. It was a model of behavior that more states in the US should emulate. When people in positions of responsibility like Frank step up and do the right things, we should all be proud—and choose more leaders like this.

 

Now go back to the top and read about the characteristics of great leaders, and TRY TO IDENTIFY CURRENT LEADERS WHO MEASURE UP! 

IT’S HARD, VERY HARD.

 

AS WE LOOK FORWARD TO 2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, I HOPE YOU’LL SAVE THIS LIST TO USE AS A CHECKLIST FOR CANDIDATES.

 

BEST WISHES FOR OUR FUTURE

 

JOHN

 

 

Here’s a book on Leadership that I co-authored with Dave Lukas several years ago. 

Check it out; there’s a link below the cover photo that will take you to it on amazon.

It appears that President Biden is repeating many of President Obama’s leadership mistakes all over again.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Not-Strategy-Leadership-Presidency-ebook/dp/B007KDGO9G/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hope+is+not+a+strategy+Mariotti&qid=1628691836&s=books&sr=1-1