Who would have thought, and yet many are thinking it.
By Lou Pritchett, Procter & Gamble
A LETTER FROM A PROCTER AND GAMBLE EXECUTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT*
THE LAST SENTENCE IS THE MOST CHILLING
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true living legends- an
Acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest
Rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize
Him as the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way
America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to
Be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to
Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and
Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike
Any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive
Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no
Visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth
Growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus
Don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned
Yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to
Publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America '
Crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style
Country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system
With a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly
Capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose
That lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of
Living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics
Against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from
Challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider
Opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both
Omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything
You do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the
Limbaugh's, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing,
Conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will
Probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett
*
*
This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it.
Big surprise. Since it hit the Internet, however, it has had over
500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed
Is that good men do nothing.. It's happening right now.*
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
The Demise of American Small Business
“Is the recession over?” “Probably.”
We have been hearing since late summer and early fall – that the recession is/was over. Is it true? Let’s hope so. But why do we not see things getting better?
The fact of the matter is simple. It is all in the definition of “recession;” - A significant decline in activity spread across the economy that lasts longer than a few months.
When it is being stated that the recession is over, what is being declared is that the decline has stopped; nothing more and nothing less. Liken it to face planting off a 3 foot porch. You don’t fully feel its effects until you hit the bottom. Will it leave you with a bruised ego, a bloody lip, broken nose, or kill you from an undetected subdural hematoma? You don’t truly know until you try to get up.
Thus far we have experienced all of the above with the worst effected being small business. The divergence was most apparent last June when large companies, though still constricting began hiring a net average of 32,000 employees per month while the small business was losing 158,000 jobs in the same period of time. The difference between a bloody nose and subdural hematoma was glaringly obvious. Worsening the situation for Americans is the fact that 41% of the American workforce is employed by small business. The banks have since been incentivized by government to “not loan” and the once curable condition has become a death sentence not only for small business, but for any hope of a rapid recovery. It was almost as if someone placed a DNR sign outside the door of the American small business.
The recession being “over” is lauded by big and getting bigger government. It is hailed in a grandiose fashion as if to say, “We have made it through!” The reality is that it is just starting point in terms of difficulty. Having a recession end is followed by slower constrictions within small business. Businesses today are still shutting their doors. After the unemployment rate dropped to 9.2% it again climbed to 9.9%. This is a residual effect of small business where many have made it through the “worst” they lacked the equity to sustain in a persistently tight market.
The administration sought a jobs bill that was designed to extend unemployment benefits; not create jobs. Economic studies show that the more unemployment benefits are extended, the longer unemployment persists. Even the Obama administration economists have extensively written about the reality of unemployment benefits in terms of how they hinder employment recovery efforts. Take a look in your local paper and you will find available jobs. Take a look in your communities and you will find record unemployment levels. Go back to your local help wanted ads and you will find something that may surprise you, it is not small business running the help wanted ads; it is big business. This is because the small business constriction is still taking place.
Small business in America made a fatal move; reliance on credit. Credit both for the business itself and credit on behalf of their customers. As the recession began to take a firm foothold, demand decreased causing a drop in revenue. As credit tightened, the small business found itself with even less customers and credit to sustain itself on. The American small business owner soon learned that he or she was a mere ward of the bank and not a true owner. Unlike the early years when small business relied on cash transactions, they followed the new national standard of having more debt than equity. For this error in practicality, recovery will be prolonged. Big business has far more equity and thus buying power. Small business cannot get the loans that big business can. As big business begins its recovery, it will have less competition from small business which in turn will drive pricing up. Big business, the once willing participant in the market taker position, becomes the market maker with less competition for its products in a given geographic region. They once had to buy in bulk to undercut the small businesses prices who lacked the equity and buying power to take advantage of best pricing practices from distributors. Without the completion of small business they will assume 39% of the long term value creator which will have a direct impact on regional price variations. This all before the VAT and Cap and Trade.
Big business no longer has the need to grow to control. Their desire is to get back up to capacity rating, not grow beyond that due to cost variance of productivity. As they return to the profitable cost curves they will begin to conserve, not expand. The long term impact on small business is obvious. A person opening a small business with a product similar or identical to that of a large business will be instantly undercut as to not allow them to enter into a positive position in a cost curve (that they probably have never planned out to begin with). A small business will have a short run life expectancy. The failures will only further tighten small business lending.
Citing that 41% of Americans are employed by small business, which is still in its constricting phase; unemployment could fluctuate around 8.3% for a prolonged period of time. Remembering that the job loss/gain ratio between small and big business is almost an 80% differential, we can safely assume cresting 10% unemployment again is likely and as unemployment begins to ease thereafter, the decline will be slow and steady until such a time that big business sees its cost curves actualized at which point a new established unemployment standard will be established. An unemployment rate that is likely to be considerably higher and far more persistent that those of the past.
Under employment will become the new acceptable standard. Lost in the melee’ of job and budget cuts are those that have sought “lesser jobs” and part time employment to stay afloat. Moreover, the representations become more obvious with the increase of the marginally attached workforce who are NOT counted as “unemployed” because they “have not looked for work in the preceding four weeks” of the national unemployment survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. This population grew from 2.1 million to 2.4 million; in essence increasing unemployment to more than 10% by administration standards. Between those discouraged workers, the marginally attached workforce and the under employed, the situation becomes one of dire straits that is not fully appreciated.
In response, the Obama administration searches for relief for the unemployed. The unemployed do not relief, they need jobs. They do not have jobs because the demand for products and services is low. As demand begins to increase, the needs of the consumer are being increasingly met by big business. What the current administration has failed to realize is that legislation cannot increase demand. Only freeing up US dollars to US households can do that. A jobs bill that is statistically proven to ONLY lengthen unemployment only serves to further ensure the decline of the American small business and in turn devastates unemployment realities. Further complicating employment through demand is the new taxes the American consumer now faces. The smart consumer has begun to save under the threat of knowing how much products and services in the future will cost. The smart consumer knows their electric bill will increase 90% and the gas bill increase 55% under Cap and Trade while gas pump prices are likely to increase 74%. Couple that with the Bush tax cuts expiring and you have a fiscal issue within the American household that scares consumers. The likely hood of the VAT, the increase in premiums to pay for the “UnAffordable Care Act” that has crested the trillion dollar cost mark and you not only have the destruction of small business, but no opportunity for true recovery – ever. This is what happens when government attempts to spend its way out of a recession.
Bush spending was terrible, but Obama has out spent the Bush years seven fold in less than a quarter of the time. This is how we as citizens and taxpayers pay for the lack of governmental fiscal responsibility. Just as small business has relied on credit over equity, government has done the same. To offset the damage of government, the burden is placed on not government, but the taxpayer. This forces the taxpayer to focus on paying government for their wasteful ways and not supporting the economy. The demand decrease this will cause will not be fully felt until next year at which point it could contribute to a double dip recession. If the economy were to again ebb, the likely hood of a full recovery could prove impossible – even a recovery to the point at which the economy began its second recession.
Small business as it was once known could well be done in America. As much a victim of its own misgivings in financial prudence as it is victim of rouge government spending over two consecutive administrations. In its place, big business with big prices and big controlling interests in their communities.
We have been hearing since late summer and early fall – that the recession is/was over. Is it true? Let’s hope so. But why do we not see things getting better?
The fact of the matter is simple. It is all in the definition of “recession;” - A significant decline in activity spread across the economy that lasts longer than a few months.
When it is being stated that the recession is over, what is being declared is that the decline has stopped; nothing more and nothing less. Liken it to face planting off a 3 foot porch. You don’t fully feel its effects until you hit the bottom. Will it leave you with a bruised ego, a bloody lip, broken nose, or kill you from an undetected subdural hematoma? You don’t truly know until you try to get up.
Thus far we have experienced all of the above with the worst effected being small business. The divergence was most apparent last June when large companies, though still constricting began hiring a net average of 32,000 employees per month while the small business was losing 158,000 jobs in the same period of time. The difference between a bloody nose and subdural hematoma was glaringly obvious. Worsening the situation for Americans is the fact that 41% of the American workforce is employed by small business. The banks have since been incentivized by government to “not loan” and the once curable condition has become a death sentence not only for small business, but for any hope of a rapid recovery. It was almost as if someone placed a DNR sign outside the door of the American small business.
The recession being “over” is lauded by big and getting bigger government. It is hailed in a grandiose fashion as if to say, “We have made it through!” The reality is that it is just starting point in terms of difficulty. Having a recession end is followed by slower constrictions within small business. Businesses today are still shutting their doors. After the unemployment rate dropped to 9.2% it again climbed to 9.9%. This is a residual effect of small business where many have made it through the “worst” they lacked the equity to sustain in a persistently tight market.
The administration sought a jobs bill that was designed to extend unemployment benefits; not create jobs. Economic studies show that the more unemployment benefits are extended, the longer unemployment persists. Even the Obama administration economists have extensively written about the reality of unemployment benefits in terms of how they hinder employment recovery efforts. Take a look in your local paper and you will find available jobs. Take a look in your communities and you will find record unemployment levels. Go back to your local help wanted ads and you will find something that may surprise you, it is not small business running the help wanted ads; it is big business. This is because the small business constriction is still taking place.
Small business in America made a fatal move; reliance on credit. Credit both for the business itself and credit on behalf of their customers. As the recession began to take a firm foothold, demand decreased causing a drop in revenue. As credit tightened, the small business found itself with even less customers and credit to sustain itself on. The American small business owner soon learned that he or she was a mere ward of the bank and not a true owner. Unlike the early years when small business relied on cash transactions, they followed the new national standard of having more debt than equity. For this error in practicality, recovery will be prolonged. Big business has far more equity and thus buying power. Small business cannot get the loans that big business can. As big business begins its recovery, it will have less competition from small business which in turn will drive pricing up. Big business, the once willing participant in the market taker position, becomes the market maker with less competition for its products in a given geographic region. They once had to buy in bulk to undercut the small businesses prices who lacked the equity and buying power to take advantage of best pricing practices from distributors. Without the completion of small business they will assume 39% of the long term value creator which will have a direct impact on regional price variations. This all before the VAT and Cap and Trade.
Big business no longer has the need to grow to control. Their desire is to get back up to capacity rating, not grow beyond that due to cost variance of productivity. As they return to the profitable cost curves they will begin to conserve, not expand. The long term impact on small business is obvious. A person opening a small business with a product similar or identical to that of a large business will be instantly undercut as to not allow them to enter into a positive position in a cost curve (that they probably have never planned out to begin with). A small business will have a short run life expectancy. The failures will only further tighten small business lending.
Citing that 41% of Americans are employed by small business, which is still in its constricting phase; unemployment could fluctuate around 8.3% for a prolonged period of time. Remembering that the job loss/gain ratio between small and big business is almost an 80% differential, we can safely assume cresting 10% unemployment again is likely and as unemployment begins to ease thereafter, the decline will be slow and steady until such a time that big business sees its cost curves actualized at which point a new established unemployment standard will be established. An unemployment rate that is likely to be considerably higher and far more persistent that those of the past.Under employment will become the new acceptable standard. Lost in the melee’ of job and budget cuts are those that have sought “lesser jobs” and part time employment to stay afloat. Moreover, the representations become more obvious with the increase of the marginally attached workforce who are NOT counted as “unemployed” because they “have not looked for work in the preceding four weeks” of the national unemployment survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. This population grew from 2.1 million to 2.4 million; in essence increasing unemployment to more than 10% by administration standards. Between those discouraged workers, the marginally attached workforce and the under employed, the situation becomes one of dire straits that is not fully appreciated.
In response, the Obama administration searches for relief for the unemployed. The unemployed do not relief, they need jobs. They do not have jobs because the demand for products and services is low. As demand begins to increase, the needs of the consumer are being increasingly met by big business. What the current administration has failed to realize is that legislation cannot increase demand. Only freeing up US dollars to US households can do that. A jobs bill that is statistically proven to ONLY lengthen unemployment only serves to further ensure the decline of the American small business and in turn devastates unemployment realities. Further complicating employment through demand is the new taxes the American consumer now faces. The smart consumer has begun to save under the threat of knowing how much products and services in the future will cost. The smart consumer knows their electric bill will increase 90% and the gas bill increase 55% under Cap and Trade while gas pump prices are likely to increase 74%. Couple that with the Bush tax cuts expiring and you have a fiscal issue within the American household that scares consumers. The likely hood of the VAT, the increase in premiums to pay for the “UnAffordable Care Act” that has crested the trillion dollar cost mark and you not only have the destruction of small business, but no opportunity for true recovery – ever. This is what happens when government attempts to spend its way out of a recession.
Bush spending was terrible, but Obama has out spent the Bush years seven fold in less than a quarter of the time. This is how we as citizens and taxpayers pay for the lack of governmental fiscal responsibility. Just as small business has relied on credit over equity, government has done the same. To offset the damage of government, the burden is placed on not government, but the taxpayer. This forces the taxpayer to focus on paying government for their wasteful ways and not supporting the economy. The demand decrease this will cause will not be fully felt until next year at which point it could contribute to a double dip recession. If the economy were to again ebb, the likely hood of a full recovery could prove impossible – even a recovery to the point at which the economy began its second recession.Small business as it was once known could well be done in America. As much a victim of its own misgivings in financial prudence as it is victim of rouge government spending over two consecutive administrations. In its place, big business with big prices and big controlling interests in their communities.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Failing Freedom
Recently I had to make one of the single toughest choices of my life; to sell my interest in a business to the other partners.
You have to understand, going down with the ship is only honorable when the ship itself is worth dying for. The glory is only found when the ship is sailing on a course of honor. It only matters when the fight of the journey itself is worth the arrival to a destination of greatness.
The fight for and of the journey was no longer worth the arrival of a destination that drifted further and further into horizon; despite pursuing it with all the effort and conviction I could muster.
The American Dream is disappearing.
I did not leave small business for me, I left it for the same reason I ventured forth into it; I did it for my kids – they are great.
The problem with small business today is the same problem with the American Dream. It is being destroyed by the Modern Liberal dream of anit-Americanism. Success is punished and underachievement of social dependency is becoming the new status quo.
“There comes a time when you have made enough money.” - Barak Obama
This is to say that working hard and striving for more is to cease in order to not make the underachiever and socially dysfunctional – not envious. If all can’t be better off; no one can.
It is all about “fairness” anymore. Let’s all underachieve together shall we?
This America, I can’t say that I much care for.
We have become too over sensitive. Too lazy. And too stupid. So stupid that the Modern Liberal can no longer decipher what is wrong from right. A Modern Liberal America that has the nerve to defend a teacher and school for FORCING students to remove t-shirts adorned with the AMERICAN FLAG because it COULD BE offensive to ILLEGAL students.
A Modern Liberal America that boasts a DHS that finds pride in failed border security. A DHS that boasts thwarting a failed terrorist attack on American soil while the Vietnam Veteran, hotdog vendor that actually drew attention to it, remains humble.
A Modern Liberal America that cannot see such flaws in governance for what they are.
We are losing America to Americans that do not understand what America is.
We have all grown up with the same dreams; it is just that some have pursued it more vigorously than others. It is okay to want it, just so long as you don’t acquire it. For when you do, the Modern Liberal wants the rewards of the success of others for no effort on their own while they make excuses for not being able to do better.
Under direct attack in America is small business, not because people get “rich” in it, but because it is part of the Dream itself. The Obama administration has launched a series of systematic attacks aimed directly at destroying American small business. This is not to say that they will succeed at doing so given the resilience of Americanism, but to say that unlike the Modern Liberal, I believe my children’s futures are my responsibility – and if I fail, they fail. Small business in pursuit of a fleeting Dream was no longer worth the risk.
So, I did the responsible thing and sold my vested interest and entered a line of work that even the government will have a hard time destroying. My children are owed my 100% and that is all they will ever get out of me – even in my final dying breath.
Success, (as hated as this administration has made it and as vile as they have painted it, in order to force an emotive response of jealously while the Obama administration ushered in a new era of racism to bifurcate a great nation – by using black against blacks – by using black against whites) is still attainable.
The choice to change fields came over a period of six headache stricken, nauseating and stressful months. The choice to change came in the belief that if I were to uphold my responsibility to my children, it had to happen with 100% commitment. 100%.
And that is what is missing from Americans today. The willingness to give 100%. The fear of going all in and failing. The forgotten concept that being able to fail is one of the greatest luxuries of freedom ever adorned a nation. Contrary to popular belief, failure is an option that you can opt out of through determination, hard work, methodical calculation and good old fashion effort. You learn that by failing first; over and over again while believing on yourself enough to persist.
But, because failure exists, the American Dream is being destroyed and the nation turned into a controlled test tube where failure is not feared, it is forbidden through controls that systematically disable opportunity through risk. The beauty of failing is efforting a dream - no matter the result. It is experiencing the harsh reality of the price of freedom – first hand. Failing is living and humbling yourself to try again – harder and with more commitment. Failing is picking yourself up and dusting yourself off - then creating a better plan. The willingness to fail is the willingness to live free.
The will of America is being broken because this administration does not believe in America and the ideal that the costs of freedom are varied and run deep into the fabric of this great nation; a fabric being ripped to shreds by the anti-American Modern Liberal.
You have to understand, going down with the ship is only honorable when the ship itself is worth dying for. The glory is only found when the ship is sailing on a course of honor. It only matters when the fight of the journey itself is worth the arrival to a destination of greatness.
The fight for and of the journey was no longer worth the arrival of a destination that drifted further and further into horizon; despite pursuing it with all the effort and conviction I could muster.
The American Dream is disappearing.
I did not leave small business for me, I left it for the same reason I ventured forth into it; I did it for my kids – they are great.
The problem with small business today is the same problem with the American Dream. It is being destroyed by the Modern Liberal dream of anit-Americanism. Success is punished and underachievement of social dependency is becoming the new status quo.
“There comes a time when you have made enough money.” - Barak Obama
This is to say that working hard and striving for more is to cease in order to not make the underachiever and socially dysfunctional – not envious. If all can’t be better off; no one can.
It is all about “fairness” anymore. Let’s all underachieve together shall we?
This America, I can’t say that I much care for.
We have become too over sensitive. Too lazy. And too stupid. So stupid that the Modern Liberal can no longer decipher what is wrong from right. A Modern Liberal America that has the nerve to defend a teacher and school for FORCING students to remove t-shirts adorned with the AMERICAN FLAG because it COULD BE offensive to ILLEGAL students.
A Modern Liberal America that boasts a DHS that finds pride in failed border security. A DHS that boasts thwarting a failed terrorist attack on American soil while the Vietnam Veteran, hotdog vendor that actually drew attention to it, remains humble.
A Modern Liberal America that cannot see such flaws in governance for what they are.
We are losing America to Americans that do not understand what America is.
We have all grown up with the same dreams; it is just that some have pursued it more vigorously than others. It is okay to want it, just so long as you don’t acquire it. For when you do, the Modern Liberal wants the rewards of the success of others for no effort on their own while they make excuses for not being able to do better.
Under direct attack in America is small business, not because people get “rich” in it, but because it is part of the Dream itself. The Obama administration has launched a series of systematic attacks aimed directly at destroying American small business. This is not to say that they will succeed at doing so given the resilience of Americanism, but to say that unlike the Modern Liberal, I believe my children’s futures are my responsibility – and if I fail, they fail. Small business in pursuit of a fleeting Dream was no longer worth the risk.
So, I did the responsible thing and sold my vested interest and entered a line of work that even the government will have a hard time destroying. My children are owed my 100% and that is all they will ever get out of me – even in my final dying breath.
Success, (as hated as this administration has made it and as vile as they have painted it, in order to force an emotive response of jealously while the Obama administration ushered in a new era of racism to bifurcate a great nation – by using black against blacks – by using black against whites) is still attainable.
The choice to change fields came over a period of six headache stricken, nauseating and stressful months. The choice to change came in the belief that if I were to uphold my responsibility to my children, it had to happen with 100% commitment. 100%.
And that is what is missing from Americans today. The willingness to give 100%. The fear of going all in and failing. The forgotten concept that being able to fail is one of the greatest luxuries of freedom ever adorned a nation. Contrary to popular belief, failure is an option that you can opt out of through determination, hard work, methodical calculation and good old fashion effort. You learn that by failing first; over and over again while believing on yourself enough to persist.
But, because failure exists, the American Dream is being destroyed and the nation turned into a controlled test tube where failure is not feared, it is forbidden through controls that systematically disable opportunity through risk. The beauty of failing is efforting a dream - no matter the result. It is experiencing the harsh reality of the price of freedom – first hand. Failing is living and humbling yourself to try again – harder and with more commitment. Failing is picking yourself up and dusting yourself off - then creating a better plan. The willingness to fail is the willingness to live free.
The will of America is being broken because this administration does not believe in America and the ideal that the costs of freedom are varied and run deep into the fabric of this great nation; a fabric being ripped to shreds by the anti-American Modern Liberal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)