The Perfect Presidential Candidate

 

          We are already getting a lot of speculation about who the next Republican and Democratie Presidential candidates could be in 2016.  I think one of the parties should nominate a sure winner based on the profile of that candidate.  That candidate would be a gay, black female.  Just think about it.  This candidate would be assured over 90% of the black vote and over 90% of the gay vote.  The female vote would not be 90%, but would be a strong majority.  The advantage would extend way beyond these captive voter blocks.  If anyone criticized or disagreed with this candidate in anyway, they risk being called a racist, sexist, and a homophobe.  Sounds like a sure winner to me.

        This candidate should also be an atheist, as this would insure the vote of everyone that thinks total separation of church and state is desirable.  Anyone that criticizes the candidate could be called a right-wing Bible thumping nut.  A Muslim would be better than an atheist because that would guarantee 90% of the Muslim vote, and anyone criticizing the Muslim candidate could be perceived as a being against freedom of religion.  The problem is finding an openly gay Muslim woman that was still alive, so that probably wouldn’t work. 

        Think of all the people that will vote for her so they can say they voted for the first woman president or the first gay president.  It’s too late for the first black president, but still a factor.  When President Obama was elected, I heard a lot of people say, “Isn’t it nice to have a black president?” 

The next thing is experience.  The candidate can’t have any.  I had a college professor once told me that a truly qualified candidate could never be elected president, because their record would offend too many special interest groups.  He may have had a valid point.  The candidate cannot have a successful record in the private sector.  An undistinguished career in the public sector is best.  If the candidate is an elected official, they need to be fairly nondescript. The majority of votes cast should be simply “Present” so no one is offended. 

        Personal wealth is good, but it must be inherited or earned in some way other than being successful in the private sector.  Being a show business celebrity, star sports athlete, or an author are okay.  If an author, the writings cannot spell out specific political agendas, as this could alienate too many people.  Marrying wealth is also okay, but in this case the candidate should be from a state where same-sex marriages are legal.  The spouse’s wealth must meet the previously mentioned criteria. 

Academic achievement is good, but if it is marginal or if the candidate received special consideration due to affirmative action, the records must be sealed.  Political science and law degrees are always good for politicians. 

Personal history is not too important, as long as there are no sex scandals.  Most drug history, financial indiscretions, fraud, and even some felonies can be handled in most cases.  The crime or indiscretion is not a problem, but the candidate can’t get caught in a cover-up.

The candidate does not have to have any real talent, except she must be photogenic, she must have a good speaking voice, and she must be able give a good speech.  She does not have to know what she is saying or memorize.  She just needs to be able to read the teleprompter and deliver the speech convincingly.  There are plenty of speechwriters that can write a speech to appeal to any audience and still keep it generic enough so people can hear what they want to hear.

Let’s recap.  We have a gay, black female with money, but no achievements, record, history, or talent in business or politics.  She is photogenic and can deliver a good speech.  Sounds like a sure winner to me. 

This blog was fun, but it is just a tongue-in-cheek spoof, or was it?

Promoting Obama Care

 

       In my book, Business Fits, I state that every business must have marketing of some kind to survive and be successful.  The saying, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." describes one of the major mistakes of new inventors or entrepreneurs.  History shows that the people marketing a product are the ones making most of the money and not the inventor.

       Marketing includes many things like sales and advertising.  The problem with advetising is it is expensive and often has a lot of waste coverage.  All of this is covered in my book Business Fits.  I also point out that the best advertising is often free publicity.  If you can get your product covered by the media, more people are made aware of your product than is possible with most acvertising and it is free.

        With all the free publicity the media has given Obama Care, there obviously is little or no need to advertise.  I was appalled when I recently learned the federal government is spending over $684 million of our tax dollars to advertise Obama care.  Who is stupid enough to think some advertising with celebrities and a few good speeches can make an unworkable concept successful.  If any private business operated this inefficiently, it would be quickly out of business.  Of course we know big government does not have to use common sense or operate efficiently. 

        Obama care cannot work economically, unless large numbers of healthy young people sign up for the insurance.  This will not happen, as healthy young people do not feel they need the insurance yet.  It is cheaper to pay the penalty, plus they can be covered under their parent’s plan to age twenty-six.  They can wait until they do get sick because they can’t be denied medical insurance because of a prior existing condition anyway.  An ad featuring a celebrity is not going to change this.

        The workable solution for more affordable health care is catastrophic medical insurance and medical savings plans.  We must move toward this solution.  Obama care will fail, but big government never goes away, so the next step is the government as a single payer followed by a government provided healthcare.  That is socialism and I don’t like it or want it.  We better start voting for representatives that reduce the size of government and observe the Constitution.

Cloward & Piven

       Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were a married couple who were both professors at Columbia University School of Social Work.  They proposed a political strategy in 1966 to have the federal government take over all welfare from the states and expand welfare until it overloaded and collapsed the government and the economy.  This would then force the federal government to provide a guaranteed income to everyone, and eventually take over the private sector of the economy.

       Cloward and Piven’s plan was much more detailed, and involved many steps, but the basic plan and objective was as I have stated.  Their proposal is quite interesting and I would recommend reading it in detail.  I must warn you it is a little scary when you look at recent history.  Cloward and Piven felt the Democratic Party was the best vehicle to implement the plan.  I think the plan kind of sounds like socialism, communism, Marxism, or Maoism.  I don’t think the term Progressive was the politically correct term then.

       In 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36^th President of the United States.  His vision for the country was what he called the Great Society.  In 1964 LBJ announced what he called the war on poverty, which drastically expanded federal welfare programs.  There are now over eighty federal welfare programs, and total welfare expenditures have increased 11,000%.  Yes, that is eleven thousand percent since LBJ’s war on poverty. 

       Has the war on poverty worked?  The percentage of the population living in poverty is about the same.  We now have two and three generations that know nothing except living on welfare.  We have enslaved these people to a life of welfare.  I understand I have used a politically incorrect term, but it best describes what we have done to these people and it has nothing to do with race. 

       If these policies have not worked after fifty years, do we make a change in policy, or just throw more money at the problem?  Our national debt has increased $6 trillion since President Obama took office and we a now approaching a $17 trillion debt.  What did Einstein call the Definition of Insanity?  I think it was, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 

        Maybe creating jobs and teaching a responsible work ethic is a better plan.  Is it time we elect some fiscally responsible representatives with some real plans for change?

       

       

The Plan

 

        I get so tired of hearing liberal Progressives say no one has a plan for the country except them.  It does not matter if the problem is the economy, jobs, healthcare, immigration, or anything else you can think of, liberal Progressives think they are the only ones with a plan.  These plans always have several things in common.  They increase government spending, increase the size of government, increase government debt, and restrict individual freedoms.

     I can understand why Progressives, liberals, socialists, and communists all support these Plans, because they all believe the Enlightened Political Elite should be making the decisions on how the rest of us live our lives.  I can also understand why the rich support these Plans because they have the resources to buy privilege and get even richer.  I can understand the poor supporting these Plans because they get things for free.  The poor don’t understand that these Plans enslave them to a life close to poverty.  The end result is; the political elite become more powerful, the rich get richer, and more people become poor. 

        I have a big problem with our elected officials that claim to be conservatives supporting and voting for these Plans.  Some politicians sell out to campaign donors in order to stay in office, and increase their power and personal wealth.  Representing the people that voted for them becomes secondary in some cases.   What I don’t understand is why the working middle class of this country allows partisan politics and special interest groups to divide the country and avoid any real plan for change. 

        The real Plan for Change is simply; cut government spending, reduce the size of the federal government, balance the budget, pay off the debt, and obey the Constitution.   The solution is simple if we stick to the most important issues and not get sidetracked with issues that probably should not be the responsibility of the federal government anyway.  We better address these major issues first, because if we don’t, some appointed bureaucrat with no responsibility to the public could be making many decisions controlling our live.

       

Product Management

 

      I have a chapter titled "Product Management" in my book Business Fits.  At first thought product management seems to be a simple job.  All you need to do is provide your customers with the products and services they want, but maybe this is not as simple as it seems.

     I recently was looking for a nice warm woman’s robe for a Christmas gift.  I would think this is a common Christmas gift so it should be easy.  Wrong. There was a specific request that presented a problem.  The robe needed to have a zipper front and not have a belt or tie. 

      Macy’s, Younkers, Kohl’s, Herbergers, Penney’s, and Sears were all checked.  They all had large quantities of warm robes with wrap fronts and ties but none with zippers.  This is terrible product management.  What is wrong with the store buyers?  Were they all fed some kind of Kool-Aid to make them all buy the exact same product. 

     Maybe the store buyers just bought what they liked personally with no market research.   Making decisions based on personal perceptions is one of the greatest mistakes in business.  This was one of the primary reasons I wrote Business Fits.  Entrepreneurs looking to buy or start a business frequently make this mistake.  The good news about the poor product management by large companies is that it provides great opportunity for small businesses that are willing to take a gorilla or flanking marketing approach. 

When I was a Ford-Mercury dealer in the early 70s, Ford introduced the Granada.  Ford made a big deal of the dealer introduction with a national show for dealers in Las Vegas.  When I walked into the convention hall, it was like black-tie night at the annual auto shows.  There was a lot of glitz, glamour and girls.  The featured Granadas were all the fancy Ghia models with a vinyl tops and lots of options.  As we walked around looking at all the cars, my wife pointed to a car stuck in a corner and said, “I like that one”.  The car she was pointing at was a plain four-door sedan.  It was plain, but it almost had the look of a Mercedes. 

When I got back to the dealership, I started doing my market research including checking out what Granadas my competitor dealers were ordering.  They were all ordering the higher priced Ghias featured in the Las Vegas introduction.  I ordered the lower priced base model with a minimum of options.  I was heavy on four-doors, but ordered a few two-doors. Some two-doors with equipped with manual transmissions for the youth market.

When the Granada was introduced to the public, I was the only dealer in my area with a good inventory of the lower priced models that were very desirable to a large segment of the market.  I had competing dealers calling every day wanting to make a dealer trade for a lower priced Granada.  I was pretty protective of my inventory as it gave me a significant advantage for a specific segment of the market. 

Poor market research and the resulting poor product management by larger competitors can give a small business a significant advantage in a specific segment of the market.  Don’t try to be everything to everybody.  Even huge corporations fail when they try to do this.  I did a blog on J.C. Penney and possible irrevocable errors they made when they got away from their core customer.  See Business Fits at: http://businessfits.com

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2014.

Christian Charity & Capitalism

 

       As we approach the Christmas celebration our thoughts go to the birth of Jesus Christ, faith, hope, and charity.  THe Christian religion teaches us to be charitable and help the poor.  Many Christians play a very active role in charity.  These charities are dependant on gifts of time and money.  The monetary gifts are dependant on the great capitalist system we live.  Capitalism affords people the opportunity to provide for their vamilies and support charities of their choice.

      The term “Their Choice” is key.  Proponents of big government like progressives and socialists feel the enlightened political elite are in a better position to determine who should receive charity and who should pay for the charity.  They actually believe that government action to redistribute wealth is beneficial to the country.  I think people should have the right to determine which charities they support. 

        I support Christian’s right to celebrate and practice their religion, and pick which charities they want to support.  This may not be politically correct, but I have a question.  Why is it that if a Christian says or does something that someone disagrees with or finds offensive it is politically incorrect, but if other special interest groups do the exact same thing, it is their civil liberty or free speech?  I don’t understand how we let this happen.  I know Christians are very tolerant of others with different beliefs, but we can’t let this tolerance take away our own rights to celebrate and practice our religion. 

        Merry Christmas to all. 

Helath Care OR Medical Insurance

  

        Do you want affordable health care, OR first dollar billing medical insurance?  Does this sound like a dumb question to you?  Maybe you still think you can have both.  Politicians interchange the terms health care and medical insurance.  The two terms are not interchangeable, and this perpetuates the confusion and delays addressing the real problem.  Some people now predict potential problems with a medical insurance card that is not accepted and no good.  As long as we don't address the couase of the problem, it is hard to get serious about a workable solution.

        In 1965, my university insurance professor, Emmett J. Vaughan, first made me aware of the potential problem with first dollar medical insurance.  Emmett knew his subject and was probably the best teacher I ever encountered.  I reference Emmett in my book, Business Fits.  I considered him a friend and he also was a potential investor in one of my business ventures.  Emmett pointed out that for the premium cost of first dollar medical insurance, a person could buy major (catastrophic) medical insurance, put the difference in premiums in the bank savings account, and the money in the savings account could hire a CPA to handle all your healthcare bills, pay the healthcare providers, and you would still have money left over in the savings account. 

        First dollar medical insurance should actually be referred to as first dollar billing medical insurance because the policy does not pay until a deductible is met, but expense is incurred with first dollar billed for both the insurance company and the health care provider.  Everyone should understand that this expense raises both the cost of health care and medical insurance without providing the consumer with any benefit except a false sense of security and convenience.  It’s just common sense.

        I have been talking and writing about this subject since before the Affordable Care Act.  I feel like a broken record, but slowly and surely more and more people are being made aware of the problem.  Obama Care has done a lot to speed up this awareness.  “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, period.”  “If you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor, period.”  Many people like myself questioned these two lies at the time.  Obama Care may not have passed without these lies, but its just politics, so who cares?

        Maybe enough people will be affected personally by Obama Care to force our elected officials to start addressing the real problem and start working on a real solution to affordable health care.  I hope this happens before we have a complete government takeover of our health care.     Catastrophic medical insurance and medical savings plans are the most probable solutions.  Lets start talking about this real change.  Cost savings of 40% are 80% are a real possibility.  I understand the negative side of this solution is that it does not increase the size and power of the government.  Personally, I think that is a good thing.