De-Automate Accounts Payable

Most of us run businesses considerably smaller than Bank of America - or even Exxon. A good way for us "mere mortals" to keep track of things is to enlist more of our coworkers to review expenditures - by signing or approving checks. I know that check generation and bill paying can be automated, but the time saved sometimes deprives us of valuable oversight and coworker education. Few things help coworkers appreciate the business more than reviewing a month's checks, and understanding - in very concrete terms - the real costs of doing business.

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Categories: Corporate Culture | Management Skills | Entrepreneurialism | Finance | Economics

2 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 10:57 PM

The Most Important Thing to Learn Before You Graduate

In a best-case scenario, we learn both career skills and money skills before leaving school, but most schools do not offer much in the way of financial education. The evidence is all around us in this recession: even people who excel in academics are at risk of life-long insecurity if they do not learn how to manage their money.

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Categories: Education | Management Skills | Finance | Economics | Optimism

8 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 4:44 PM

The Healthcare Questions We're NOT Asking

From the White House to the Wall Street Journal to the table next to you at Starbuck's, everyone seems to be talking about healthcare. Except that they're not. What people are debating right now is how to pay for healthcare. That's a tough enough question, but society might be better served by asking some tougher questions first.

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Categories: Education | Nutrition | Finance | Leadership | Economics | Ethics | Environment

7 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:44 PM

The Deficit Tightrope

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Categories: Finance | Leadership | Economics

1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 1:28 PM

Interest Pays Dividends

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."

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Categories: Education | Finance | Economics | Investing

1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 3:22 PM

Losing the Leveraged Lifestyle

One needn't wonder why people with large obligations, like the taxes on six or seven figure bonuses, don't have money put away to pay those taxes, or for their private fund capital commitments. It's the myth of the leveraged lifestyle, the fantasy that we can borrow ourselves into wealth. People forget that when we apply too much leverage, sometimes the lever breaks.

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Categories: Corporate Culture | Finance | Ethics

4 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 4:36 PM

"When you run into debt..."

Americans marvel at the wisdom of our nation's founding fathers, who crafted a Declaration of Independence and Constitution that so eloquently express the aspirations of humankind through the ages. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, in particular, get a lot of praise for their genius.

Too bad we ignore their financial advice.

Both men spoke about the dangers of debt. Jefferson warned against public debt, perhaps generalizing from the demoralizing weight of his extensive personal debt. Franklin, one of the richest Americans in history and a lifelong proponent of liberty, made his position clear: "Think what you do when you run into debt; you give to another power over your liberty."

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Categories: Education | Finance | Economics

10 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 10:16 AM