Monday, March 16, 2009

Desperate Times?

Some would say these are desparate times in which we live. So my question is this. Is the sky falling or are people just getting caught being stupid? I personally think that it is more the later with a little of the former sprinkled in. Allow me to explain.

First realize that I am not an economist just an everyday guy who pays attention to the world that surrounds him. Most of the time. For those business owners who were just getting started in the late 90's and early 00's history kind of repeated itself. Once again we got caught thinking that we could run wide open forever. So what did we do... hire more staff... build mre buildings......borrow more money. Life was good. Or so we thought.

A wise man, by the name of Edward Graetz, told me along time ago about his business philosphy. PAY CASH! don't build anything you can't pay for. I used to think that those were the "old days". But, he built a multi-million dollar business from a blacksmith shop. He had every right to tell me his opinion. And he did on a regular basis. For you see he was my wifes grandfather. A man who lived through the depression, built his business, held 16 patents in his life time and forgot more about business than I will ever know.

So once again my question is....desparate times? People managed to make a way for themselves in prior times of economic hard ship so what makes this different. I personally think it is because of our unwillingness to admit that our elders know more than we would wish to give them credit for. Our education helps to change our thought process not make us more intelligent. The main differnce now is the speed with which we do things now because of technology.

Right now people, myself included, need to put our shoulder to the mill sone and get things done. No complaining, jst do what needs to be done in order to provide for our families. Whatever that is "Just do it!" I won't apologize for the rambling I just think we need to quit whining about how bad things are and be thankful for what we have. We suffer at a higher level than most!

My company:
www.theromgroup.com
My Linkedin profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/autenjim

Monday, March 2, 2009

Hey! I am Trying out ping.fm thanks to one of my tweeps

Current TImes

I have been thinking about this for a while. Not sure why but I have. The economic times we are in right now seem pretty dire. Jobless rate are up, value of the dollar is questionable, and suddenly everyone is looking for a new way to do business. Why is that?
I believe in part the new business models are created because alto of business people got caught with both hands in the cookie jar. In other words they were being really greedy. Greed makes people do stupid things. Why is it that whena company goes public common sense flies out the window? What the board of directors thinks becomes more important than “good” business practice or even outright honesty. I don’t get it! The people running these businesses are supposed to be very intelligent. So when intelect prevails does common sense lose? It appears that way. Or at the very least the people are protecting thier position as opposed to doing thier fiduciary responsibility.
Is cash really king? I had a friend forward an article where ther is somone saying that you can be profiable for long period of time with negative cashflow. I don’t get it! Whay would you even consider something like this. It’s almost like committing suicide. “the easy way to not have to face the problems you created”. It’s like the saying….”if you do not learn from history you are destined to repeat it”. Our grandparents faught thier way back to economic prosperity through hard work. Thier desire for our parents was for them to not have to work so hard so then a college education became the standard. We then became “sooo” smart that we could learn nothing from our uneducated parents. Then as we entered college an ”MBA” was the thing. “the next step in the evolution”. Once again we thought we had nothing to learn from our parents. Do you see where I am going with this? Once again, in order to rebuild our economy we must roll up our sleeves like our grandparents, set a course for where we want to go and work towards it.
Hard work never killed anyone! like the saying goes if it does not kill you it makes you stronger. Sometimes ther is just no easy way

My company:
www.theromgroup.com
My linkedin profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/autenjim