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.
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
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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.
Appeared in the March 28, 2022, print edition.
Posted at 11:00 AM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: attire, Biden, China, Climate. Supply chains, cover letters, email, Iran, North Korea, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Schools, solar, teacher Unions
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.
Posted at 12:41 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Biden, China, commute, gas, Inflation, Iran, ISIS, Job, Labor, Money, mullahs, North Korea, Putin, Taliban, Un, War, Xi
THE ENTERPRISE--A TURBULENT MONTH FULL OF EVENTS, LARGE AND SMALL, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC
"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.”
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.
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.
Posted at 11:34 AM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Biden, CNN, Inflation, Putin, Rebar, Russia, School Boards, Turkey, Ukraine, Woke
THE ENTERPRISE--WHAT ARE REPUBLICANS FOR? AN ANSWER TO CONSIDER
Posted at 12:15 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Biden, Capitalism, defense, Elections, Foreign policy, Freedom, Government, Immigration, Leaders, Prosperity, rights responsibility, schools, Trump
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.
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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!
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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…..
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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.
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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.
Posted at 05:02 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Biden, China, Congress, Covid, Democrats, Fed, Forecasts, inflation, Manchin, Omicron, Sinema, Supply Chain, Trump
Posted at 01:21 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Biden, Borders, China, climate change, Democrats, Immigration, Inflation, Iran, Kim Jong Un, MAGA, North Korea, Ports, Putin, Russia, Stock Market, Supply chain, Trump, Woke, workfare, Xi
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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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
Posted at 02:02 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Children, Family, Friends, Love, Thankful, Thanksgiving
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.
Posted at 07:42 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Climate Change, Immigration, inflation, Jobs, Leadership, Slavery, Socialism, unemployment, Will, Work
Climate Change Brings a Flood of HyperboleDespite 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 JournalThe 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.”
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. ...
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.
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.
Posted at 04:25 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Climate Change, deception, Gore, Heaven and Earth, journalists, Koonin, media, Models, Plimer, politicians, Unsettled, Weather
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
Posted at 03:18 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: BATH & BEYOND. TOYS R US, BED, BEST BUY, COVID, DICKS, HOMEDEPOT, KMART, LOWES, PAYLESS, RECREATIONAL SHOPPING, SEARS, STARBUCKS, TARGET, WALMART
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!
Posted at 10:37 AM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | Permalink | Comments (0)
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