Economic Ju Jitsu

Somebody asked me after this posting, why I was so optimistic about America's economic outlook. I wanted to tell him "because I'm selfish". But I wasn't sure if he'd understand.

If you've never been in business, you've never been forced to make decisions on how to make money. The Bible for business is Peter Drucker's Management: Tasks and Responsibilites. The neatest thing about the book is that it clearly states that having great ideas isn't enough. I've boiled it down into my own little caveat, "The difference between creativity and innovation is doing it." When your job is related to sales, it often comes down to communicating the need to sell a good product rather than selling a bad product. Sitting in a room with six salesmen--each of whom knows that his time would be spent better elsewhere--is a challenge for the boss. How do you get across the idea that what you're selling is better than the competitions product?

Drucker talks about this directly. He talks about an appliance salesman who sells freezers to Eskimos, essentially. How did the salesman do this? Isn't this counter-intuitive? Why would you need to sell freezers to Eskimos?

But the part I really loved about Drucker was the role profit plays in work. Profit is the report card of a business. A healthy business has a healthy profit. Money follows success. But, there are people who feel that they have a better Vision thingy than stodgey old businessmen. People who are only interested in making money.

As Drucker points out, people who are only interested in making money, don't. Healthy businesses exist for different reasons than to simply make money. Jack Welch understands this. A lot of businesses don't get this. "Smart" people don't get it.

But people who love their businesses do, even if they never give it a second thought. That's why I love it when Lefties take on the business community as being driven solely by greed. They take a High Moral Stance. While taking dollars from the men and women who create wealth. They're theives for the Common Good. But what have they done with their power to take your wealth? Built bigger and bigger welfare states. Paid people to do nothing. Under the banner of compassion and caring.

BS. Would you rather give a man a fish, or teach him to fish?

"But wouldn't fishing for himself simply be a form of greed?" Heh. Sure is. And any extra fish he caught he could sell. And keep the money. Or, spend it. But rather than welfare, we'd be creating wealth. When I'm asked why I'm a Republican I tell people it's because I think people are better off creating wealth than consuming welfare. This is not popular with teachers or union members. Oh, wait, teachers are union members.

Here's a classic takedown of one of America's leading bleeding hearts, Phil Donohue. Milton Friedman was not only a great economist. He was a great teacher. Enjoy the teaching moment.