The engine that built America is obviously the private sector.  We provide the jobs, we provide the innovation and creativity, and we provide the products and services that have value in the marketplace all over the world.  In history, there has never been such a job creating, revenue creating engine. 

The world is both excited and troubled by the rapid growth of China’s economy.  By the way, this growth is not coming from a communist inspired nation but by a nation that has embraced our example of free market capitalism.  In other words, they were smart enough to copy us!  They are on an annual run rate for their GDP at $5 trillion, passing Japan in the process. 

This is a tremendous achievement by a country that just a few years ago was a communist run, communist inspired nation.  However, even in a time in America when we are economically in the tank, and our financial system is near collapse, our run rate for our GDP is $15 trillion, three times that of China, and still bigger than China, Japan and Germany combined. 

Our economy today, by all calculations and according to most every economist you ask, will most likely have a paltry growth rate of one to two percent for the conceivable future.  That being the case, the private sector understands that the only way that we can survive and keep people employed is to operate our businesses more efficiently, and cut out the fat.  And believe me, there is fat in every business, large and small, that serves no productive purpose.  We understand that revenue is important, but profit is more important.  A prime example of that is Wal-Mart. 

Wal-Mart recently reported flat growth in revenue, but an increase of 7% in profitability.  That’s because Wal-Mart, and every other business, looks at their expenses every single day to make sure that we are spending our money wisely, and investing our money to bring the best return so we can keep our businesses robust. 

A rule of thumb is this – the more money you have, the more money you are going to waste.  And no one has or wastes more money than the United States government.  When is the last time you heard of any politician cutting any program that did not work, or eliminating any earmark from any bill, or stopped any pork project that built a bridge to nowhere that served no one?  The answer to that question would be never!

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is trying to cut fat from our military budget, and make it operate more efficiently, but he is running into stiff opposition.  There are Republicans and Democrats who are not interested in streamlining the military and eliminating inefficient operations.  They are primarily concerned with losing programs, as bad as they may be, that provide income for their constituencies.  These politicians need to go!  These are not political issues.  They are not Republican or Democratic issues.  These are American issues.  If we are going to make changes in our government and demand that they stop the waste and cut the deficit, we are going to have to have the same resolve—as a country – as our forefathers had in fighting World War II.  President Roosevelt did not commit the United States to the war until he was sure that this country had the resolve to stand together, committed to end the tyranny of Nazi control.  Pearl Harbor served as the catalyst. 

We, as Americans, have had a wake-up call in the last two years with the near collapse of our financial system and the ongoing problems of our brothers and sisters losing their jobs and facing months, even years, of unemployment and seeing their benefits exhausted.  Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke, and other “financial geniuses” cannot solve these problems, and government hand-outs will not be the silver bullet to solve these problems.  There isn’t one silver bullet in the world that will be the solution to the financial crisis we find ourselves in.  But the first thing we must do as Americans is find the resolve to stop the craziness in Washington, which did not start with the current administration or with the current Congress.  This started a long time ago.  But we – the American people – have let it go on long enough.  We – the private sector, private citizens –are the customers of the United States government.  We make the United States government possible.  Our tax dollars run the country. 

We have to demand accountability and results from whoever is in Washington, and we have to do it now.

If you agree with this message, please pass it on to everyone you can.  We need to take our country back and make it great once more. 

Fran Tarkenton

Link:  http://www.frantarkenton.com/

August 27, 2010

I have a very diverse group of friends.  I love them all, and I relish their diversity.  I am hearing strange rumblings from my liberal friends lately that they, and their liberal friends, are beginning to abandon Obama. 

One such friend was on vacation for the summer, and he told me that he and his friends, who were main financial supporters of Obama, were now feeling embarrassed that they had put their support and money behind Obama.  I’m quoting here – he said, “Tell all of your friends to go vote in this election!” 

My friends come from all walks of life – all religions, all economic levels, different political parties.  I talk to all of them, and I listen to all of them.  And I am now hearing a panic in my liberal friends about the direction that this country is going in.  It is a panic I expect to hear from my conservative friends, but from my liberal friends, I find it shocking. 

But I also find it hopeful, that maybe the tide is turning, and people are finally seeing the signs.  If that is the case, then maybe this country has a chance

Be sure to join me on Fox Business News today, 4/13/10, for more discussion on Small Business and the government.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/index.html

An interview of Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site, and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures.

Q. At what point in your career did you first become somebody’s boss?

A. I was probably 28 or 29 years old and in the jewelry business. I started my career counting diamonds and schlepping gold jewelry around the world. The jewelry business is a very, very tough business — tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.

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The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things. They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems. Both are serial innovators. Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word.   View Full Story

Would you believe that the price of gas is over $4 a gallon and moving towards $5 a gallon? You know, I see that happening and I watch the reports on the news. This price increase is affecting all of us, some more than others. It affects every aspect of our lives and that price increase is reflected in what we pay for everything! And because this is having such a dramatic impact, we are actually seeing a cause and effect happen.

I read recently that for the first time in 20 years our use of gas is down dramatically and is continuing to go down, which tells us what? We are adaptable. We are going to find that we can maybe not drive our cars to as many places as we did before. We’ll ride bicycles, we’ll ride motorcycles or scooters, we’ll walk, we’ll combine our errands, we’ll not take trips because we have got to adapt. We will do all these things because we can not afford to travel and drive as much as we did before. This cause and effect is happening in America….the land of plenty. And we are really adapting. For the first time in 20 years, and I find this astounding, we are saying, “No — I am not going to pay this price” and we are reducing the demand for gasoline in this country by not using as much.

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