Month: October 2011

For some reason, many mistake a free market as synonymous to capitalism. The 2008 crisis proves that this is not the case!

Free markets provide perfect competition, letting the market regulate itself, whereas capitalism now is made up of 5 gigantic companies controlling the entire market!

If that is not enough, then those 5 companies take the money that the small companies and hard working class make, and ask the US government to pay back their debts!

And if you believe that the US is out of the financial crisis, according to Jack Cafferty from CNN- the current reports indicate that: “Almost half of Americans – 48.5% live in households that get some kind of government aid” (Jack Cafferty CNN’s blog) while tax payers are decreasing.

In case you worry about the welfare of the management of Lehman brothers, they are certainly not part of the 48.5% of Americans households that receive government aid.

According to THE TIMES Christine Seib in New York, Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld ‘sold’ his mansion to his wife for $100 (worth 13.75 million dollars) (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5594623.ece).

In my opinion, it is safe to say that CAPITALISM is a failing economic system.

citation: Cafferty, Jack. “How long can we go on with almost half of Americans living in households that get government assistance?” CNN blog. October 6th, 2011 <http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/06/how-long-can-we-go-on-with-almost-half-of-americans-living-in-households-that-get-government-assistance/?iref=allsearch>

Seib, Christine. “Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld ‘sold’ mansion to wife for $100″ The Times, 27 January 2009 <http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5594623.ece>

While all over the news there are reports are showing images of Steve Jobs and his great success, he also experienced FAILURES.

Steve Job’s success did not come easily!

While studying in college, he had to drop out after the first term, because his adopted parents were unable to finance his tuition fees.

Yet Steve Jobs stayed around and attended Calligraphy classes and later said: “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiprocessors or proportionally spaced fonts.”(Stanford Report. June 14, 2005.)

 In late 1984 he was fired from Apple, (after a great sales slump) and founded a new company – NeXT.

Even then he had tough times, creating a workstation that was way over priced. However, something good did come out of the NeXT workstation.

According to physicist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, he was able to invent the world wide web because the workstation had provided him with the tools he needed.

In 1996 Jobs returned to Apple and learning from his previous mistakes (one of the biggest ones was that he refused to license the Mac’s graphical operating system and gave Windows its biggest successes) and became what we all know today. (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/275890,vale-steve-jobs-worlds-greatest-failure.aspx)

Maybe his biggest success was consistency and going all the way with his vision.

citation: Cochrane, Nate. “Vale Steve Jobs: World’s greatest failure”. itnews. Oct 6, 2011. <http://www.itnews.com.au/News/275890,vale-steve-jobs-worlds-greatest-failure.aspx>

This week I had an accounting class, in which I asked my fellow
students if I could borrow their notes because I had missed a class.

 I asked five different people and received a creative variety of excuses why they could not
give me their notes.

Embarrassed, I ended up asking my professor if I couldborrow hers, which she gladly provided me with.

 HOWEVER the whole scene made me think that, with all due respect to competition and wishing to be successful, I
believe that we should also be GOOD to each other, and HELP.

 Acting on your own can only bring you partial success.

 If you wish to succeed beyond that, one should start treating people better.

 Furthermore, one might need some help some day, or one might find out that our world is very small and round!

 You never know where you’ll find people you mistreated, especially in the business
world.

 Therefore, I should like to  point this out  loud and clear to all the kind
SAUDER students out there – BE  KIND TO OTHERS, IT WILL NOT HARM YOUR
POSITION OR SUCCESS !IN FACT- IT WILL SHOW YOU OFF IN A VERY POSITIVE  WAY!

I would suggest that all should be kind to others on their way up the ladder of success(one never knows who one will meet on the way down!).

Interesting book on this matter:

http://www.businessknowhow.com/growth/power-nice.htm

citation: Kaplan Thaler, Linda & Koval Robin.”The Power of Nice: How to Conquer The Business World with Kindness”

Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc, 2006.

As a great lover and supporter of the electric car, I was furious to see that even though GM and Honda had  created perfect cars back in 1990, and the pilot customers who had received the cars were all extremely satisfied and wished to purchase them once the lease expired, yet  GM and Honda called on their customers to return the cars, which were then destoyed. 

 The technology was there.

Why did they do it??

One can speculate….

For more details:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2009/electriccar/

One wouldl think that nowadays the electric car would be eagerly welcomed, however, Canada’s federal government does not allow “Zenn” Motor (which is a proud Canadian company), to sell their international winning award,electric car in Canada!

citation: CBC news network. “Who Killed the Electric Car?” CBC news website. May 23, 2010 <http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2009/electriccar/>