The Best Presidents for Small Business ?

No modern president has really been good for small business.  Or even fair for small business.  Because all the provisions they made, with headline grabbing legislatiion, were overcome by the increased tide of regulation and big business subsidies.

The whole process became corrupted by the 1964 landslide victory of Lyndon Johnson.  At that point, big business, seeing the coming election victory for liberal Democrats, began to donate to both parties in earnest.    They have done so ever since.  It is no longer accurate to refer to GOP as the party of big business.

With Johnson’s victory and a spate of new federal regulations many giant corporations stumbled onto a new way to achieve monopoly, namely, by supporting regulations that small businesses could not afford.   Economic regulations, social engineering that included regulations for hiring, special tariffs, even environmental regulations could all be used to squeeze out small business competitors.

Right on its heels came the resurrected power of lobbies, stronger than ever before in American history, allowing big business to secure billions in government subsidies for various contrived purposes.  Thus for years McDonalds got millions from taxpayers, claiming that it needed the money to compete with French hamburger chains who – you guessed it – had French government subsidies, while the small American business hamburger joint down the street paid taxes to support McDonalds, their big business competitor.

All of this came home to me in its full fury during my time as special assistant to the president in the GHW Bush White House.  The American Disability Act was upon us and it struck me as odd that the reps of major corporations were in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing, using their power and influence to  urge a lower threshold for compliance.  At one point they wanted businesses with only 5 employees to be forced to meet all the requirements, ramps for wheel chairs, special phones and all the rest.

Why?  Were these big businesses concerned for the disabled?

No.  They wanted to drive up costs of small business competitors by saddling them with burdens that only big companies could afford.

In the Robber Baron days, the monopolies would lower the price to drive off competitors and then raise the price when they had the market all to themselves.  Today, they seek to drive up the price through government regulation and thus keep competitors out of their market.

Finally, to complete the triad and the corruption, big businesses began to hire large public relations firms who in turn hired former prosecutors, FBI agents and other government operators to use new laws and government agencies and editorial favors from media to destroy small businesses who posed a competitive threat.  This process accelerated as the world went global and corporations found themselves operating in countries where the media and the government were for sale.  But with enough money and advertising revenue, the process works even here.

Small businesses are tolerate as long as they remain small, very small.  And even then if they get in the way, they will be crushed.

See Entrepreneurs list of the Top Presidents for Small Business.

Presidents Day

When Will The End Come?

Here is a list of facts and a timeline that every American should have nearby. It may help you plan.  Although, it is a little late to be planning.

2001 Projected US budget for 2009-2012 :  Plus $850 billion a year

Projections now:  Minus $1.2 trillion a year

US National Debt:  $14 trillion

US Gross Domestic Product: $14.9 trillion

World GDP:  61.9 trillion

National Debt as a percent of GDP in 1980:  26.1%

National Debt as a percent of GDP last year:  62.2%

US deficit 2009:   $1.75 trillion

US deficit to GDP ratio: 11.8%

Greece deficit to GDP ratio: 12.7%

Ratio required to join European Union: Less than 3%

All 2009 US tax revenues:  $2.1 trillion

Net worth of the US and all its citizens in 2009: $54.2 trillion

To give you a point of reference, as stated above, theoretically, a nation must have a deficit to GDP ratio of less than 3% to join the European Union.  For example, Hungary is receiving great criticism for failing to raise taxes and is finding it difficult to meet a 3.8% target imposed by the Union.  Greece is out of control, its economy on the brink, hitting 12.7% deficit to GDP ratio.  And the USA?  By current standards we couldn’t even get into the Union.  We are not far behind Greece, posting an 11.8% ratio of deficit to GDP.  If Greece is going into the abyss, we may follow.

Now keep in the mind the following.  The USA has unfunded liabilities of $107 billion for Medicare and Social Security.  Liabilities for Medicaid are unknown.  Liabilities for federal pensions are not fully known.  In 2013 more than 78 million Baby Boomers will be able to collect Social Security without income limitation.  The first year that they are eligible for Medicare is upon us now, 2011.  They are signing up at the rate of 10,000 a day.

The Democrats and Republicans have been playing a game of musical chairs right up to the end.  Each is betting or hoping that they will be seated when the music stops playing and the other will be left standing and blamed by the public for the disaster.  The fact is that they are both to blame.  The end game is not far off now.

How FDR got us out of the Great Depression: Lessons for today

Conservatives and Liberals still argue about government’s role in ending the Great Depression and many people see the discussion more relevant today than ever before.  Conservatives point to a compelling 2004 study by two UCLA economics professors showing that Roosevelt’s New Deal policies actually prolonged the recovery.  Written four years before the recent crisis the report concludes that “ill conceived stimulus policies” prolonged the Depression.  But the conventional wisdom of history flows with such force that in 2008 George W. Bush dare not risk laissez faire.

The real story of how America came out of the Great Depression, and FDR’s role in the process, may be less about liberal and conservative government policies and more about good business sense than most modern ideologues might suspect.  The real story is about gold.  And FDR’s frugal, exacting, yes even “conservative,” management style.

What unfolding historic records now show is that FDR picked the British clean, that is, he rearmed Britain in her hour of need, giving her the weapons to stand up against Hitler, but only in exchange for “real wealth.”  First it was gold bullion.  At one point, when Britain dallied, claiming difficulty in getting the gold safely transported, a helpful FDR dispatched an American Battleship to Cape Town, South Africa to complete the task.  We not only took Britain’s gold, we took much of the French gold that had been smuggled out before the collapse of France and much of the Czech gold that had been smuggled out before the collapse of Czechoslovakia.

When the gold bullion was gone, we picked up military bases on British soil around the world.  At one point, Churchill offered the American president entire islands but FDR was too shrewd for that.  It would mean caring for the natives, providing food and employment.  No, FDR just took naval bases, thank you.  And when those were all strategically selected, he took intellectual property, such as radar and the beginnings of our atomic research, a story that until now, has been conveniently ignored by history.  To hear our version, it all happened under the bleachers at the University of Chicago.  Any work of British scientists is downplayed.  The full story of the Maud Committee, which operated in Great Britain in 1940, and developed the concepts of uranium enrichment and fission bomb design, is quickly passed over.

To give you an idea of how all of this put America to work and not only primed the pump and brought us out of the Great Depression but launched us into Super Power status, consider a communiqué from British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to Harry Hopkins, Franklin Roosevelt’s personal envoy.  The time is June, 1941, when Hitler is launching Barbarossa, his invasion of the Soviet Union.  On the 26^th Churchill writes that Britain will need seven months, maybe even nine months, of all available American tank production.  Imagine, no show rooms, no salesmen, no newspaper advertising needed.  Everything being manufactured is already sold in advance.  You get a bit of the picture of how American rocketed out of the Great Depression.

Before the war was over workers at General Motors and Ford in Detroit, Michigan, Nash-Kelvinator in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Studebaker in South Bend, Indiana, were all working in shifts around the clock, manufacturing armed vehicles for the USA, Britain and the Soviet Union.  This was not government stimulus.  This was American work, productivity.  We were manufacturing something that others were willing to buy.

Many times FDR’s emissaries would return from visits to Churchill’s weekend retreat, completely convinced that the cupboard’s were empty, that there was nothing left in Britain to pay for more American production, that the British Empire had been stripped clean.  We now had a moral imperative to defend Britain freely, they would say, to save Western Civilization.  But the wily Roosevelt was always dubious.  There had to be something more, natural resources from the colonies, perhaps something more from Canada or elsewhere that can be bartered and sent our way.  Only when Great Britain was absolutely threadbare, and the Commonwealth reasonably raided as well, and FDR’s many envoys and spies assured him that there was nothing left, did he generously announce “Lend Lease,” which meant we would now finally “loan” Britain the money to buy even more from us.  That was 18 months after the beginning of World War Two.

This is not to say that we Americans were not generous.  At the end of the war, under Harry Truman we offered magnificent loans of product and equipment to Great Britain, with minimal interest.  Our Marshall Plan saved France and Germany and the rest of Europe from descending into poverty.  It alone represented a subsidy of $13 billion at a time when our national GDP was $258 billion. But rather this is to show how American production, not American deficit spending, brought us out of the Great Depression.  And how our initial management of that production created the wealth we could later shower upon the world. It was the biggest transfer of wealth in the shortest period of time in modern history.  It dwarfs what the oil cartel has done since the 1970’s.  The British finally paid back their debts to the United States in December, 2006.

Well, you might say, “Why haven’t I heard about all of this before?” And the answer is that only now are historians beginning to catch up with the truth of those years for much of it was buried as “classified” by the Anglo-American governments.  And then, interested parties had their own political reasons for crafting alternative versions.  Churchill, for example, had no desire to go down in history as the man who lost the British Empire.  Indeed as politicians often do, he successfully portrayed himself as the very opposite, the man who tried to hold it together, wrapping himself in the Union Jack and openly mourning the ongoing loss of British colonies.

Keep in mind.  Wealth is basically what people want.  It may be oil to run automobiles, or timber to build houses and schools.  In the middle ages, timber was so scarce in Great Britain that stealing wood was a hanging offense.  Just as stealing a horse was in the American West.  So wealth may be a horse, or timber, iron, oil, diamonds or gold.  And while man can often create his own wealth, such as mixing cooper with iron to create the more malleable bronze for fashioning new weapons or tools, or today building computers or automobiles in a manufacturing plant, much of the wealth of the world is natural, God given, taken from the land and then transformed by man.

The British Empire had virtually ruled the world for a hundred of its three hundred years of existence.  The sun never set on their Empire.  So for years this natural wealth flowed in ships to the British Isles or was traded with neighboring nations for something else and that resource or luxury was then brought home.  It was extracted from the earth by colonial labor, a more politically acceptable form of serfdom.  And all those years those tiny British Isles were defended by the world’s greatest navy.

Now, all of this begs the following questions.  If FDR would not accept paper notes as repayment for American loans to our English speaking brothers, if he demanded gold bullion, iron ore, oil, diamonds, timber, intellectual property, military bases, all at a time when Hitler threatened western civilization, then why would the communist regime in the People’s Republic of China accept anything less?  Why would China subsidize and finance a trillion dollar American war in Iraq and accept printed paper money, diluted in value by inflation, as its repayment?

In 1940-41, Great Britain used her wealth to buy product from the United States, the greatest manufacturer on earth.  And when she had no wealth, we loaned her the money to buy even more and indebt future generations.  Today, the United States has used its wealth to buy product from the People’s Republic of China, the greatest manufacturer on earth.  And now that we have no wealth, she is loaning us the money to buy more.

So what will China now demand in repayment?  Will she demand intellectual property?  Weapon research? Military bases? Natural resources? The British repaid us in 2006, when will we repay China?

America’s economic and political future depends on your view of history.  If you still believe that she emerged from the great depression through government deficit spending and stimulus programs, our future will be bright indeed.  For our spending today in relation to GDP is staggering and is not far off from our spending of 1941-45.  But if you believe that America worked or produced her way out of the Great Depression in exchange for “wealth.”  If you believe that the bulging gold reserves of Fort Knox made us the world’s richest nation, then we may soon find ourselves in the position of Great Britain and Europe at the end of World War Two.  They were then at the mercy of the generosity of the United States.  We will be at the mercy of the People’s Republic of China.

Breakup over Civilization 5 – Sid Meier loses Jon Shafer, his boy genius.

 

This from the wonderful world of electronic games:  Young Jon Shafer, the genius behind Civilization V has left Sid Meier and Firaxis.  It kinda reminds you of Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving Disney.  Watch out.   Whatever happened, my money says that Shafer has depth and Firaxis has made a big mistake.

To give you some background, Sid Meier is the computer gaming genius who first brought to the world, Civilization.  It is a game that demands a strategic balance between economy, war and culture and it is the phenomenon that once and for all neutralized that dreaded wifely phrase “Sorry dear, I’ve got a headache.”  Now men had another option.  They could conquer the world onscreen which turned out to be the best thing since, well, since sex.

Sid Meier’s game lowered the birth rate in the English speaking world and is now doing the same everywhere else. For years he and his team have been churning out newer, cleaner, more artzy versions of the basic game,.  And like Channel it took number 5 to get it all together.

Which brings us to young Jon Shafer.  Forget all of the nitpicky criticism you may have heard about Civilization V.  This latest Shafer version of Sid Meier’s classic genre lives up to all the hype primarily because it solves one big problem and as an extra bonus, brings one very huge new dimension.

First, the problem.

I really shouldn’t call it a problem.  This game series has always been strategically sound.  In fact, it is so good that its climax is often a letdown.  It’s like getting to the end of The Lord of the Rings, by the time you see the pages winding down a deep depression sets in.  This story is almost over.  And there is no way that its end can be as good as the journey.

In the case of Civilization, call it post-playing depression.  The first few hundred times you play you have the patience to grind on to the bitter end.  But in each of the successive generations of games there was always a tipping point from which you knew that you would eventually win.  The suspense was gone and the work began as you had to do all of the patient little things to finish it off.  After a thousand games, well, it got tedious.  It was enough to drive you back into the arms of an Age of Empires game.

Civ 5 has dramatically changed all of that.  There are still definitive moments.  In the original games you found yourself anticipating the coming of the battleship and the power of the railroad.  Then, they got smart and dumbed both of those advances down a bit.  Now, you will find yourself keenly anticipating a fleet of bombers so you can attack those hard to get places, those impregnable fortress cities that are placed strategically.  Places that conventional artillery and infantry cannot dislodge.

There are now economic and population mood limits to armies and nation building.  An empire can get overstretched and see its economy unravel.  Sound familiar.  And because of the limits to armies there is great end game drama.  The fevered chess match that appears in the early part of the game now endures to the last move

Boredom, tedium, work?  All solved.  This game now plays to the last move.

Second, the new dimension.

The unique playing abilities and advantages of the various nations take the addiction to another level.  Remember when you started with Civ?  Remember how you couldn’t wait to see what would happen on the next move?  Well, now, you can’t wait to see what will happen with the next game, playing a new nation.  I’ve played the English, French, Americans, Chinese and Germans to the end and started a few of the others to see how they work.  Each has such differences that the whole game is changed.

Oh yes, Jon Shafer’s paper, scissors, rock concept from the old panzer games, works well. One has to plan a military campaign with Sun Tzu diligence.  You must know yourself and the enemy and the terrain. And at the higher levels of the game you must even make sure you are perceived by the world as morally just in your wars, a principle that Sun Tzu argued thousands of years ago and that the United States has recently flouted at great expense.

So enjoy your Christmas and conquer the world, whatever nation you choose.  And cheers to Sid Meier, and Jon Shafer.  It is too bad it couldn’t have lasted longer but hey, everything must come to an end.  (I am still waiting for a Civil War game that solves the personality – terrain problems.)

We don’t yet know what happened at Firaxis.  My guess is that Jon Shafer didn’t get his share of the kingdom.  And the stuffy board members or stock holders probably haven’t played enough of the game themselves to understand what this latest version has achieved.  Take heart young Shafer.  If you are a Jeffrey Katzenberg then we will all be richer in the end, especially you.

Meanwhile, for many Christmases’ to come it will be Channel  Number  5 for the women and  Civilization Number  5 for the men.

 

 

Glen Woodfin: Online Reputation Management Genius

“Blue skies smilin’ at me, nothing but blue skies do I see.”

There is Steve Jobs who gave us great computers and Bill Gates who led the software revolution.  There is Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose Google made it all meaningful and made education free.  There is Mark Zuckerberg whose Facebook made the world truly flat.  And finally there is Brad Fallon, whose Search Engine Optimization talents showed us how to earn a living with it.  But hold onto your hats, there is now Glen Woodfin, who can get you hired, elected, out of jail or just save your name from destruction.  Glen Woodfin is the guru and the unquestioned master of ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT.

When I interviewed Glen Woodfin for this piece he was pretty circumspect, explaining that the true geniuses of SEO and ORM are not even visible to the public.  “They are too busy making their millions of dollars to advertise themselves.  And their secrets are never for sale.  You can scour the internet for months and never see their fingerprints.”

So why is Glen Woodfin so open about what he does and how he does it?

“Don’t worry about me, I don’t tell everything I know,” he says with a disarming chuckle.  “I’m just giving away some of the goodies because it makes me feel good and I like to see people solve their problems and I enjoy what I do.”

What he does is take a look at your company, your brand, your idea or your name and he shows you how to give it an online “scrub” so your enemies and competitors won’t destroy it.  That’s right.  He “shows” you how.

Of course, for a huge fee of $50,000 a month, he will take your YOUTUBE to the top of a keyword search but for a much smaller, training fee he will teach you how to do it yourself.

“Aren’t you afraid that you may be putting yourself out of business?” I ask with genuine concern for a nice guy.

Glen Woodfin laughs at that.  “By the time you use what I teach you I will be so far ahead of you that there will be plenty more to teach.  And you will be back.  Don’t feel sorry for me.  I have all the clients and  customers I can handle.”

When I ask, “What is your most satisfying assignment?” Woodfin is coy.

“Now, you know I can’t answer that question,” he says laughing.  “It would defeat the whole purpose of my work.  I would have to do it all over again.  I will say this.  It is especially satisfying to have one of my online heroes, a specialist in some other area, come to me for help with his or her online reputation.  That is particularly satisfying.”

This online world has its heroes.  Jason Hennesy is up there with Brad Fallon.  Leslie Rohde can go into the website of a major company and reshape it to fit their changing needs, all the while making sure that it maintains its hard earned page rank.  He studies algorithm.  He is a mathematician.  John Wilson, in Oregon, is the security master.  Companies fly him all over the world to break into their systems and then have him show them how he did it and how to tighten up.   And now, as online reputation has begun to equal money, there is Glen Woodfin.

“I’m no big deal,” he assures me.  “The best are those invisible people I spoke about earlier.  They got into the game early.  They teach no classes.  The public has no access to them.  They run black hat, gray hat, white hat operations.   Some of them are spammers.  Sometimes they get banned.   But they are very, very smart people, making millions of dollars.”

That may all be true but Glen Woodfin is available, touchable, even affordable.  And he knows more about Online Reputation Management than 99% of anyone else.  So he is enjoying this moment in the sun, as he should.  More than one company, politician, movie star, sports hero, television evangelist, businessman or next door neighbor has Glen Woodfin to thank for pulling them out of the fire and giving them a new life.

Obama: Right speech, wrong time?

The only thing that history will remember about President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation tonight is the date.  Obama has called the oil spill his 9-11.  If so he is offering the nation too little, too late.  The oil spill happened on April 20, 2010.  He finally got around to addressing the nation on June 15, 2010.  Nothing he says or does now can erase that delay.  It is fixed in history.

Remember 9-11?  George Bush was criticized for getting spooked by the Secret Service who had him flying around in the air for hours to stay safe.  Eventually the president awakened from his lethargy, assumed his role of leadership, told the well intentioned Secret Service to stuff it, and flew back to the dangerous White House where he addressed the nation from the Oval Office.  It took hours for him to take charge, not weeks.

On December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the nation the next day.

Although very late, many observers expected President Obama to strike a lofty theme that would transcend the crisis.  He would appeal to the nation to strive for energy independence.  It would be compared to John Kennedy’s call to land a man on the moon in one decade.   Instead Obama seized on the crisis to pass another piece of his favored liberal agenda, his cap and trade plans.  It is seen by many as a repeat of the bait and switch of the Stimulus Package.  Obama had been elected to office, partially to resolve the mortgage crisis.  But his Stimulus Package raided the Treasury for key constituencies and promoted favored liberal programs while not addressing even the easy fixes for thousands of suffering homeowners.

Obama’s speech talked about “windmills, insulated windows for homes, gas efficient cars” and then his voice trailed off as he mumbled some other vague reference to energy technology.   None of the stated programs will solve the energy crisis.  Unfortunately none of them will even make a dent.  And of course, none of them will do a thing for the oil spill in the Gulf.   Now, they are nice pay offs to industries and corporations who have helped finance his campaign.  And his cap and tax will punish those who didn’t.

Obama’s speech is not much different from what he promised in the presidential campaign.  If you are a liberal and you believe in higher taxes and you do not fear the transfer of wealth to the Middle East and you want higher prices for gasoline, at European levels as he once said, then you can applaud his speech.  But you surely cannot applaud his timing.

The President’s strength is his calm, phlegmatic approach to a problem.  It is a contrast to the blustering, decisive but impetuous nature of his predecessor.  But our strengths can sometimes be our weaknesses.  And this issue, this time has demanded decisiveness and leadership.  And it still doesn’t have it.

Notre Dame Football? The problem is not the coach.

Okay, sports fans, here is something you will never read in The Blue and Gold.  Not because it hasn’t crossed their minds but rather because they need ongoing access to the players and coaches and I don’t.  They can’t afford to offend the administration.  I can.  You can thank Al Gore that this discussion can even take place.   But here it goes…. the real problem with the Notre Dame Football program is not the Head Coach.  It is not the past couple of Athletic Directors.  It is the administration post Theodore Hesburgh.

Blame Malloy and Jenkins and their team.  The administration had to go along with the subtle campaign against Lou Holtz, punching all of his buttons, hiring Bob Davie, Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis.   It was this administration that gave Charlie Weis his extended contract, which was deadly to him and the program.  The lack of administrative maturity and business common sense after Hessburgh is clear.  The brand of Notre Dame football has outgrown their competence.  They are in over their heads.

Now, I don’t blame the administration for its failings, it has a different agenda.  Its commitment is to the Church and its corporate and spiritual mission as an educational institution must take precedence over football.   When you are serving God and dealing with issues eternal, four or five years is not a big deal.  And football is certainly not a big deal.  Yes, the money can help God’s cause but if there is a mistake, well, “all things work together for good to them the love the Lord.”

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is our misfortune to be fans of a football program whose overseers are conflicted and therefore their program is destined to be flawed.   Meanwhile, some of us,  carnal and immature mortals that we are, care more about their football team than they do.

Twenty years ago, when college football was not a zillion dollar business it didn’t matter.  Now, these conflicts, academic and spiritual and business, can be the difference between success and failure.

At Ohio State, the football team and the school mission is synonymous.  Winning football means students and alumni money which translates into better academics and renown.  There is no spiritual dimension or even much of a conflict if a football player gets a bit of an academic pass.  There may even be a moral argument that it is in the best interest of students and teachers and the institution if the football player is given an edge.  To be tough on this special student could hurt many thousands of needy young men and women.

The point is, what would be “wrong” at Notre Dame could be considered “right” at Ohio State or Florida State or Texas.

Taking it one step further, it is far more likely that a recruiting coach from Southern California would send a prospect out to eat with a bunch of sexy co-eds than it would be for such a thing to happen in South Bend.  I am not saying it doesn’t happen in South Bend.  Top prospects are popular guys.  I am just saying that it is less likely to happen there.  And a coach who “let” that sort of thing happen would not last too long.

Now, I don’t want to take this too far.  I mean, this administration hired a guy whose every other word begins with “F.”  So they are surely trying to stretch a little, for the sake of Our Mother, of course.  And they have negotiated and renegotiated that golden ticket, the NBC contract, no small feat.  I’ll bet there are some good stories behind that.  I am just pointing out that by their very nature they are going to be less focused on this football business than many administrators because they have higher considerations.  Some of them may even resent or look down on their lucrative football income, as a necessary evil, in the true sense of the word.  This is what comes off as arrogance to many.

So, like I said.  I don’t blame the administration.  I understand.  I just wish they could find a way to resolve this.  I can see why they wanted Tony Dungy.  Their program needs integrity, in the sense of leadership that integrates all of these complex elements.  They can’t keep careening from the advice of one Alumni advisor and donor to the next.  Because none of them have the whole picture and they are assuming that the men in black are doing their due diligence and not just having knee jerk reactions.

It’s our fault for being stupid enough to get dragged into becoming fans of an institution that is so conflicted.   They want the money, after all “the wealth of the ungodly is laid up for the righteous,” and they can do great things with it, but they want much more than just a great football program per see and they believe that they have a higher calling and therein lies the conflict.

Alabama has no higher calling.

Russia: Land of Opportunity

by Doug Wead

What country’s individual tax rate tops out at 13%?

Hint.  It isn’t the USA where federal and local taxes in New York are projected to reach a 57% bite.  If you are rich? Move to Florida or Nevada to avoid State Income Tax.  If you wanna be rich?  Move to this new “land of opportunity.”

What country’s higher education fosters a curiosity and practical involvement for its student body in free enterprise?

Hint.  It isn’t the USA where ironically the very corporations who fund university endowments are seen as the enemy by professors and students alike.  They are viewed as polluters and exploiters of a beleaguered laboring class.  But in this country, this new “land of opportunity,” the professors, themselves, own real estate businesses, factories and sit on the boards of directors of major corporations.

Meanwhile, state corporate taxes in the USA have reached scandalous proportions and all but kill the chances for a new, emerging, small business.  For example, all fifty states have higher corporate taxes than the nation of France, which has the fifth highest corporate taxes in the world and is frequently held out as the poster child of anti-small business and entrepreneurs.  But in this new “land of opportunity,” the maximum federal and regional corporate tax is 20%.

What country has sensible consumers who pay their bills on time and save their money?  Only one in 100 even carries a credit card?  Where capital investment potential abounds?

Hint.  It is surely not the USA where Americans carry 450 million Visa cards alone and where their credit card debt approaches $2 trillion.

What country is a true metling pot of religion, culture and race, where Moslem, Jew and Christian live and work side by side and their values are openly appreciated?

Hint. Not here in the good old USA, where government and big business restrict language and clothing in schools and the public marketplace. (I have a friend who writes screenplays for television movies.  He tells me that “Jesus” cannot be mentioned on one of the networks except as a curse word.)

What country boasts an airline where the stewardesses are still tall, trim, bright and attractive?  They still smile at their passengers, and wear elegant white gloves as part of their smart uniforms.

Hint. It isn’t the USA where a $15,000, first class, round trip international ticket on a US airline will get you a bitter, grouchy stewardess, who hates her job, her passengers but has union guarantees that virtually prevent her from ever being fired.

Answer to all the above?

Russia.

Welcome to the new land of opportunity.

Yes, there are still problems galore in Russia.  The roads outside of the major cities are still in disrepair. Grade schools are awful.  Airline equipment is dated, even for the clever, well run, Rossiya Airline. The government still struggles to deal with endemic corruption. (If security personnel at the airport will steal your coins going through the x ray machine, which happened to me, it kinda makes you wonder how vulnerable they would be to a terrorist bribe.)

The biggest problem of all?  Excessive regulation.  Perhaps, a hangover from the Soviet years or needed to combat corruption or maybe just part of the Russian DNA.  A new restaurant, for example, faces endless government regulations not only regarding hiring, but even regarding the choice of entrees on a menu.  And such rules not only limit the imagination of their people, they are cleverly exploited by competitors to block the emergence of any newcomers.

In complex industries, like “Direct Sales” the DUMA is vulnerable to manipulation by big companies who seek monopolies by regulating competitors out of the market.  Members of the DUMA must be generalists and can’t be experts on everything so some will be innocently led by foreign companies seeking to “clean up” their industry.  The result? Expect new regulations that will confine and harass their own Russian work force and limit their income opportunities, all to the advantage of big foreign corporations.

Nevertheless, Russia under Putin brought law and order to the streets, began an aggressive campaign against corruption and released an entrepreneurial spirit that is quickly producing a growing middle class and a Russian nouveau riche.  When the “dreamers” and “doers” outnumber the “takers” Russia will truly explode.  The atmosphere is right.  Immigrants, the bane of fortress America, are welcome in Russia where they are needed and wanted.

And the Russian Miracle is not just a Moscow – St. Petersburg phenomenon. There are business and cultural zones now popping up all over the Russian landscape.  For example, Putin helped the city of Kazan win the 2013 Universiade.  The city is being transformed in preparation. Yekaterinburg is a showcase city.  Distant Khabarovsk has it all.  Booming Black Sea resort Sochi will host the 2014 Winter Olympics and anyone who has visited this exotic city can tell you that it will forever after become one of the world’s glamour spots. 

So when President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin sit down together in the coming days to discuss their relationship and their future, they hold the hopes and dreams of millions in their hands.  And they are on the verge of history.  What has happened in Russia, its diversification, its wise use of the oil boom, its new freedoms for the marketplace now make it a “land of opportunity.”  And just in time for a world in global crisis.

Новая страна возможностей

В какой стране мира индивидуальная налоговая ставка, ниже 13%?

Намек.  Это – не США, где федеральные и местные налоги в Нью-Йорке  достигают 57%.  Если вы богаты? Переезжайте во Флориду или Неваду, чтобы избегать налога на прибыль.  Если вы хотите быть богатым?  Переезжайте в эту новую “землю возможностей.”

В каких странах высшее образование поощряет любознательность и личное участие студентов в свободном предпринимательстве?

Намек.  Это – не США, где по иронии судьбы сами корпорации, оказывающие материальную поддержку университетам,  рассматриваются профессорами и студентами, в качестве врагов. Они рассматриваются как угнетатели и эксплуататоры рабочего класса.  Но в этой стране, этой новой “земле возможностей,” профессора сами владеют фирмами по продаже недвижимости, фабриками и сидят в советах директоров этих корпораций.

Тем временем, налог на прибыль компаний в США достиг скандальных размеров и тем самым убивает возможность развития появляющихся новых фирм малого бизнеса. К примеру, все 50 штатов имеют более высокий налог на прибыль компаний, чем  население Франции, чей налог на прибыль компаний пятый по величине в мире  и часто воспринимается как враждебный малому бизнесу и предпринимательству. И в этой стране максимальный федеральный и региональный налог на прибыль компаний – 20%.

В какой стране есть здравомыслящие потребители, которые платят по счетам вовремя и копят  деньги? Где только один из ста человек имеет кредитную карточку? Где огромный потенциал капитальных инвестиций?

Намек.  Это – несомненно, не США, где американцы имеют только 450 миллионов карточек Visa, и где долг по кредитным карточкам доходит до 2 триллионов.

Какая страна является местом, где реально переплетаются религии, культуры и расы, где вместе живут и работают  мусульмане, христиане, евреи  и их ценности принимаются?

Намек. Не здесь в старых добрых США, где правительство и крупный капитал ограничивают язык и одежду в школах, и общественный рынок. (У меня есть друг, который пишет сценарии для телевизионных фильмов. Он говорит , что имя “Иисус” нельзя упоминать на одном из каналов, т.к. как там оно звучит как проклятие).                                                                                                                Какая страна может похвастаться авиалиниями,                                                                                               , где все бортпроводницы высокого роста, аккуратны, умны и привлекательны?  Они все еще улыбаются пассажирам и надевают изящные белые перчатки как часть  своей элегантной униформы.

Намек. Это – не США, где заплатив $15,000 за билет первого класса на международном рейсе американских авиалиний, вы  получите обслуживание, которое вам предоставит вредная, ворчливая бортпроводница, которая ненавидит свою работу, и своих пассажиров, но имеет гарантии профсоюза, которые фактически делают невозможным ее увольнение.

Ответ на все эти вопросы?

Россия.

Добро пожаловать в новую землю возможностей

Да, все еще есть проблемы в изобилии в России.  Дороги за пределами главных городов находятся все еще в ветхости. Образование в школах ужасное. Авиаоборудование устарело, даже в такой умной компании с хорошим управлением как Российские авиалинии. Государство до сих пор борется с эпидемией коррупции. (если служащие охраны аэропорта украдут ваши монеты проходящие осмотр, как это произошло со мной, то это заставляет задуматься на сколько их легко их подкупить террористам.)

Наибольшая проблема всего?  Чрезмерное регулирование. Возможно, пережиток  Советских времён, либо нужно было бороться с коррупцией либо возможно только часть Русской ДНК.  Новый ресторан, к примеру, сталкивается с бесконечными государственными ограничениями, не только по вопросу найма, но  даже выбору блюд в меню. И такие правила не только ограничивают воображение их людей, их умно эксплуатируют конкуренты, чтобы блокировать появление любых новичков.

В комплексной промышленности, подобно «Прямые Продажи» Дума уязвима к манипулированию большими компаниями, которые ищут монополию путём ограничения конкурентов вне рынка. Члены Думы должны быть универсалами и не могут быть экспертами во всем, таким образом, некоторые будут невинно приводить зарубежные компании, ищущие «очистить» их индустрию. Результат? Ожидайте новые ограничения, которые ограничат и будут беспокоить их собственную русскую рабочую силу и ограничивать их возможности прибыли, все для удобства больших иностранных компаний. Однако, Россия с Путиным во главе, принесла закон и порядок на улицы, начал агрессивную кампанию против коррупции, выпустила предпринимательский дух, который быстро создаёт и развивает средний класс и русского nouveau riche. Когда “мечтатели” и “исполнители” перевесят количеством “потребителей” Россия по настоящему взорвется.  Атмосфера правильна.  Иммигранты, the bane of fortress America, желанны в России, где они нужны и где их ищут.

И Русское Чудо – не только феномен Москва – Санкт Петербург . Есть деловые и культурные зоны ,которые сейчас возникают по всей русской территории. К примеру, Путин помог городу Казан выиграть в конкурсе по проведению универсиады в 2013 году. Город преобразовывается во время подготовки. Екатеринбург – город витрин. Отдаленный Хабаровск так же имеет все. Быстро развивающийся Сочи, курорт на Черном Море примет в2014 году, зимние олимпийские игры и кто-либо, кто посетил этот экзотический город, сможет сказать вам, что после их,  это будет одно из самых эффектных мест в мире.

И так, когда Президент Медведев и Премьер-министр Путин садятся вместе, чтобы обсудить их взаимоотношения и их будущее, они держат надежды и грезы миллионов в их руках. И они на грани истории.  Что случилось в России, её диверсификации, её мудром использовании нефтяного бума, её новых свобод для рынка сейчас делают её “землёй возможностей.”  Как раз вовремя для мира в глобальном кризисе.

Russian scientists close in on Fountain of Youth

Now, this is interesting.  An international group of scientists have embarked on the ultimate quest.   To find the fountain of youth.  Not since Ponce de Leon has the world been this hopeful. This time we should all expect a little more due diligence.The goal of the project is “to extend the period of human youth.”  And – get this – a biochemical laboratory of Russia’s Southern Federal University has joined the project.  This is getting serious.  And they are testing the affects of various stimuli on the DNA of lab animals. Vladimir Chistyakov is the senior scientist at the lab.  Apparently, in the 1970s, an academician named Skulachev “dissipated the energy of a living organism on the molecular level.”  This according to Pravda. Human cells produce a toxic by product which speeds up the aging process and Skulachev developed nano-constructions to neutralize the toxins.  Sound likes XanGo’s new secret product x51. Anyway, Skulachev’s experiments worked on rats, (which means it should be immediately effective for most politicians.)  The rats remained vigorous throughout their lives but it did not extend their average life spans.   It translates into a life of longer youth but not of longer years. Meanwhile, a group of English doctors have compiled a list of everyday, ordinary things that have already proven to extend life.  And what is the one, single, biggest thing that most people don’t do that has been proven to extend life? Floss. Now, when the Russians figure out how to extend a youthful life without flossing we will be getting someplace.

MLM Hall of Fame

Having traveled the world for many years now and spoken at networking conventions and met and known many of its leaders, here is my own subjective list for a networker’s hall of fame.

I have not included many of the legendary founders, like Rich Devos, Jay Van Andal, David McConnell, Mary Kay Ash, Mark Hughes, nor did I include the popular speakers, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Billy Zeoli and Robert Kiyosaki.  Maybe someday I will do those lists.  But each one of the following men and women actually built their own significant, personal networks into the hundreds of thousands.

Many on this list have made mistakes but so to have most of the rest of us.  And some have done extraordinary things for their countries and the world. They work with different companies and each have their different ideas and personalities.  What they have in common is uncommon results.

Nowadays, there are many phony “trade lists” of income earners floated on the internet by shill websites.  Some of them list names of leaders who have been paid out huge sign up bonuses.  Some have never sponsored a single person themselves. But I have met most of the people on my list and spoken to their groups in coliseums or soccer stadiums and been in their homes and I can say that their accomplishments are real.

Doug Wead’s Networking Hall of Fame

Robert Ankasa: This former vice president of the Bank of America in Jakarta has built the largest network in Indonesia and has filled soccer stadiums and auditoriums across the fourth largest nation in the world.

Jeff Boyle: Founder of Jus, he is included in this mix because he actually built his company’s own networks. Young. brilliant, with a big heart.  No one knows the science of networking any better.  He is the Alvin Toffler of the industry.

BK Boreyko: He hailed from a family that built one of the largest organizations in the Matal Company and when a corporate crisis occurred he stared his own company, New Vision, which reached the $100 million sales mark in record time.

Bill Britt: At one time his organization may have represented half of all Amway volume.  He transformed the networking systems by being the first to build his own cassette manufacturing company.

Craig Bryson: He is Nu Skin’s biggest lifetime earner and one of the industry’s greatest storytellers.

Bill Childers: He built the largest, single, cohesive group in networking history.  His secret?  He insisted on always appearing as the second man to his upline, even when his own group was at times much larger.

Jim Dornan: The founder of Network 21 has the largest and most efficient system business in the world. His organization has donated $100 million to World Vision..

Tim Foley: He defied the accepted wisdom of all the other North America networking leaders and proved that system networks could be profitable outside the United States building giant groups in Brazil and Spain.

Attila Gidofalvi: This Hungarian businessman is the father of networking in the former Soviet Union, Attila built 120 Amway diamonds in two years and held meetings at Olympic Stadium in Moscow.

John Godzich: He built a network in France and then a company that reached $200 million in sales in two years and annually filled Bercy, the largest auditorium in Paris, four weekends in a row.  80% of the money was made from retail sales, allowing new people to make money too.  It is still an industry record.

Hal and Susan Gooch: They hosted some of the largest networking events in the United States, filling the 90,000 seat Indiana Hoosier Dome on multiple occasions.  While most wives of American networkers were limited to roles as “speakers,” Susan played an integral part in the organization of the business.

Bob Goshen: “Mr. Enthusiasm,” he was the first system’s person in Sunrider and drove its success.

Brig Hart: Already very successful in networking, he felt cheated by his experience and joined a new company.  Brig proved wrong the old networking adage that successful networkers are too soft to build it twice and took his new company, MonaVie, into the stratosphere, making himself a legend in the process.

Randy Haugen: He had a great run in the west.

Don Held: In his heyday he filled coliseums in Ohio and Canada, and launched an educational system, showing that a network can do more than just make money.

Dave Johnson: He is the giant of Nikken. Supposedly 99% of the company is in his downline.

Charlie Marsh: An early Amway pioneer. He organized the first events and functions. In some respects he is “the father of network marketing.”

Norman and Glenda Leonard: Masters of depth.  By some estimates there are 300 diamonds in their organization including all of Amway Russia, most of Eastern Europe, half of Indonesia.  They divorced in 2007.

Ken Pontious:  He was top earner with Enrich, was once taking home a monthly income which was twice the annual salary of the president of the United States.

Vladimir Pozdnyakov: He is nicknamed “The Poz” by his American colleagues, he is one of the new Russian millionaires, who developed a network out of trust, in a difficult environment.  His groups fill auditoriums.

Ron Puryear: He built one of the largest networks in the Britt system and for awhile, ruled in the northwest USA, filling the largest coliseums in Portland and Seattle to capacity..

Kaoru Nakajimi: He has more than 700,000 in his downline.  He built Amway in Japan.

Art Napolitano:  Top earner at ACN. Built  an organization to 500,000 customers that bill into the millions.

Nathan Ricks: The charismatic legend who helped build Nu Skin.

Mitch Sala: He is the great Australian networker who solved the problem of isolation downunder by exporting his business worldwide. Sala has one of the most geographically diverse groups in the world.

Max Schwarz has built networks east and west and has adapted to numerous changes in mlm systems.  He is a survivor.

Rick Setzer: He was once the third leg in the Yager-Britt stool.  Great systems knowledge.

Bo Short built all over again three times and each time  built a leading organization within his respective company.

Sherman Unkefer: A legend in XanGo, with an estimated $350,000 a month income off his XanGo business, Sherman’s simple prospecting package called “The Magic Wand,” helped him build a resilient networking business in only a few short explosive months.  No one has reached the top quicker.

Don Wilson: He succeeded by hard work.  Yager didn’t like flying on airplanes so Wilson soon owned the Yager system in the west.

Dexter Yager: The father of the so called “system,” he may be the greatest networker of all time, he has not only built one of the biggest organizations, he has maintained it big for the longest time.  His secret?  He keeps starting new groups and for years he has outworked everybody else.

Mark Yarnell: Formerly of Nu Skin, he is networking’s thinking man and its most prolific chronicler.

Natasha Yena: A wise and resourceful strategic thinker, Natasha is the mother of all Russian speaking networkers, Her events fill auditoriums across Russia and Ukraine and have spawned dozens of other networking women leaders with enormous businesses of their own, clearly disproving the misogynist declarations of some American networkers who insist that women can’t build the business by themselves.  Indeed, in Russia, it is mostly the women who do.

James Vagyi: He is a Hungarian whose business exploits put him on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.  He successfully launched networking in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Moldavia, Belarus, Romania, Slovenia and Croatia, making him “the networking father of many nations.”  And while others have appeared and died in some of those markets, Vagyi’s groups continue.

Jody Victor: He proved that networking can survive and even thrive into a second generation. Victor has seen the dozens of seismic changes in networking and landed on his feet each time.

Orrin Woodward: He took the so called “systems building” to its ultimate extreme.

George Zalucki:  One of the world’s most inspirational speakers and trainers.  He built a $150 million business with 150,000 distributors for ACN  in
Europe.

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