Should the Federal Government put a limit on Corporate Profits?

Stunning interviews with DNC Convention Delegates......Total Idiots!

They do not understand that their Union Pensions are funded by profits from corporations!


http://youtu.be/07fTsF5BiSM

Leadership Advice from Chalmers Brothers - LISTEN

Link to Chalmers website......

https://www.chalmersbrothers.com/blog/leadership-skills-coaching-tip-listening-vs-hearing-results/?wt=3&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=wordtwit&utm_medium=web

Leadership Skills Coaching Tip:

Listening vs. Hearing (and Results)

Success in organizations – as well as in any set of relationships, for that matter – has a great deal to do with the level of shared commitment to common goals that is achieved. And shared understanding is a pre-requisite for shared commitment. Shared understanding is produced in conversation, which includes both speaking and listening. Below are some ways of looking at the connections between listening and Results that I have found to be valuable – I hope the same is true for you:  

• Listening and hearing are 2 very different phenomena. Hearing is biological and has to do with a small bone vibrating by the eardrum. Listening is linguistic and has to do with active interpretation, with making sense, building an internal narrative, telling a story to myself. Listening is generative and creative.  All human communication is based on listening, on interpretation – not direct data transfer.
• Two people can hear the same thing, and absolutely listen something different!  Because of this, it’s not what we say that’s so important – it’s what others listen (interpret). Did we or did we not produce the interpretation we wanted to produce?  Do we have shared understanding?
• Organizations are all about coordinating action, the goal being impeccable coordination of action. And how well we coordinate action is directly tied to shared understanding of promises or commitments, as well as to how we’ll manage our promises in an ongoing way. In this way, we can greatly reduce the poor productivity and resentment that usually accompany broken promises.
•  An “event” is not equal to your (or my) “explanation.” The event belongs to itself, while my explanation belongs to me, your explanation belongs to you. Some explanations are more powerful, more helpful, than others. Our explanations are created in our listening. And our explanations – not the events themselves – are the primary influencers of our Actions and Results in the world.
  
• Listening with the intent to reply is not the same as listening with the intent to understand.  Starting our internal response while the other person is still talking takes us away from being present. Say to yourself “Quiet” to still your inner dialogue before important conversations.
• Our listening is much more connected to 1) our moods and 2) our beliefs than is our hearing. And many of us are not very good observers of this, which limits our possibilities.
• We are each fully responsible for how we listen. And we are each partially responsible for how we get listened. I cannot “make” you listen a certain way… but I can take as a given that you will interpret what I say, and can then take time for us to check our listening before we set off to coordinate action.

Inc 500 - Financing Tricks for your new business

The Inc. 500 list came out last week, and we were proud to again make the list. We also were pleased to see that Avondale was in the vast majority of Inc. 500 companies that financed their growth through personal savings and cash flow. You might be somewhat surprised, in this era of venture capital, angel investing, and crowd funding, that many of the fastest-growing companies didn't raise a single cent from outside sources.

Every year, Inc. surveys the CEOs of the Inc. 500. Here's what they said about funding their growth:

• 77% of companies founded the company using their personal savings
• 74% of companies funded their growth over the past three years largely through cash flow from operations
• 42% of CEOs said they have no need for outside funding going forward
• Only 34% claimed that access to capital has been essential to our growth

This seems to fly in the face of the popular belief that successful companies require venture capital to fuel their growth. In fact, some entrepreneurs we talk to seem to believe that getting funding is a necessary validation of their business model. While that might be the case, these statistics show that outside funding is not necessary to create a high-growth business.

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Here's what we take away from the Inc. statistics:

1. Successful entrepreneurs have shown they can create value from a relatively small amount of start-up capital by focusing on the needs of their customers and serving them in a way that uses "customer capital," or capital that comes from selling something to a customer.
2. Self-funding does not equal slower growth. If that were the case, the majority of the Inc. 500 would be venture-backed companies. The fact that most were self-funded suggests these companies grew faster than many others that used outside capital to fuel their growth.
3. It's possible that self-funded companies actually obtain some advantage over those receiving outside capital. There's no doubt that many companies that receive venture funding are successful, but there also are significant benefits to be gained from bootstrapping. Maybe entrepreneurs and companies that are self-funded are more prudent about taking on risks and achieve better or more lasting results. These data are not sufficient to say.
4. Growing through self-funding is preferable to bringing in outside investors.  Given the downside of raising external capital, such as ownership dilution, loss of control, and management team distraction, entrepreneurs should only look to outside investors as a last resort.  In the case where self-funding is a viable option, the benefits of outside capital don't outweigh the costs.

Too many start-up entrepreneurs look to outside capital first rather than attempting to build incrementally with internal sources. It's nice to see that many CEOs have been successful pursuing growth within their means.

Vistage - CEO Peer Group

World economies for Dummies!

World Economics for Dummies

Economic Models explained with cows

SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRACY: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new President of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL: You have two cows. You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy....

A WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

Welcome to my new Blog

I decided to start another Blog that provides Business and Finance information for Entrepreneurs and Start-ups.