This New York Times article does a great job explaining the very tricky path our government must navigate, incurring deficits big enough to stimulate a recovery without spending so much we scare off creditors or trigger massive inflation.
Categories: Finance | Leadership | Economics
1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 1:28 PM
by Dean Zatkowsky
I happened to be visiting Yellowstone National Park on my 51st birthday, and noticed that I was wearing the same black sweater I wore in Yosemite on my 18th birthday. Before the sweater was mine, it had been my brother-in-law's letterman sweater in the late 1960s.
When I reminded my sister that my favorite sweater for thirty-three years had been her husband's for who knows how long before I got it, she said, "They don't make sweaters like they used to."
Her son corrected her: "No, they don't make consumers like they used to."
Categories: Economics | Ethics | Environment
2 comments - Posted by Dean Zatkowsky at 11:52 AM
Randall W. Jeffs of Progressive Capital Managers included this story in the May issue of his "Greed & Fear Monitor" newsletter:
"As little as five years ago, I thought that virtually all older people knew quite a bit about investing. But I was startled to learn that most I spoke with knew virtually nothing. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. When at USC, I once had an ancient finance professor, who put a question on a test: Name Three Stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Virtually the entire class went into a tizzy. They proclaimed that such hadn't been covered in class. The old guy half smiled and half chuckled. He said I don't know, I kinda thought that senior business students at USC should know the answer to that question without it being covered in class."
Categories: Education | Finance | Economics | Investing
1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 3:22 PM
By Dean Zatkowsky
Because I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on my computer, I've seen a certain AT&T ad about a hundred times in the last couple of months. The ad explains that the company will soon be replacing its vehicles with a fleet that operates on "American natural gas." The spot concludes, "It's smart business. And if it makes our country stronger, that's even better."
Well, yes it is, but I think AT&T's ad agency has unintentionally illustrated a bit of a problem in our society these days. Their verbiage suggests that business comes first, and the country is an afterthought. AT&T may not feel that way - I'm not going to hold them responsible for a copywriter's syntax - but many companies do. Writing about Wall Street for the last decade, I've read the work of hundreds of investors and CEOs who preach that a public company's sole responsibility is to generate profits for shareholders. And they are adamant about this - the very idea of social responsibility seems heretical to them. As far as they are concerned, creating wealth and employment is social responsibility enough. But what if it isn't?
Categories: Leadership | Economics | Ethics
0 comments - Posted by Dean Zatkowsky at 9:43 AM
by Dean Zatkowsky
Wall Street's financial innovations transformed our economy into Capitalism's evil twin, where Social Darwinism degrades the invisible hand into a sociopathic pickpocket. Business people routinely operate with the understanding that anything not specifically forbidden by statute is ipso facto legal and ethical. And in a pinch, they can buy a change in the statute. Disguised as pillars of society, they are really savages that feel entitled to whatever spoils they can carry off.
A free market is the path to greater world-wide prosperity, but a market free of ethics is not free at all. When "Let the buyer beware" was revealed as the real law of our land, people stopped buying and froze the economy.
Categories: Leadership | Economics | Ethics
3 comments - Posted by Dean Zatkowsky at 9:08 PM
Author and traveling storyteller Donald Davis recalls the shock of receiving his first paycheck at his first job and finding the amount considerably smaller than he expected. He was furious, and told his father - a banker -how badly the government was treating him. His father took the teenager over to the local library reference section and pulled down a copy of the most recent federal budget.
"Spend a little time going through this," advised his father, "and find something that you like. Then, pretend that's what YOUR tax dollars pay for." Donald read through the massive document grudgingly, until he came to the allocation for national parks. For many decades since, Donald Davis has taken some solace on April 15 by reflecting on the real estate he owns all over the continent!
Categories: Philanthropy | Economics | Environment | Optimism
9 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 6:25 AM
By Dean Zatkowsky
1. "The business of America is business," said President Calvin Coolidge, justifying his administration's laissez faire policies. Then he handed the White House keys to Herbert Hoover in 1929 and slipped out of sight as the economy collapsed. And yet, one still hears Coolidge's words repeated as gospel. Do you believe that business is the business of America?
Categories: Entrepreneurialism | Economics | Ethics | Investing | Optimism
7 comments - Posted by Dean Zatkowsky at 9:39 AM
