Marlin (our real, live case-study millionaire) was invited by his bank to one of their tea and crumpet parties to hear a PhD of economics speak about the economy. Marlin, who never goes to the wine and cheese affairs because he has to work, thought economics might be a good topic, so he went. After the talk the doctor took questions. Marlin asked if he thought he should send his employees job’s over seas. The good doctor thought he should to save 30 percent in business costs. In short…he didn’t like what the professor had to say, and wrote the following letter (part of which was in their local paper.)
Dear Dr. (Eco),
I attended the recent breakfast meeting on the economy at (my bank) would like to thank you for your efforts. However, I must confess that, with
exception to the historical data you presented, I believe your conclusions are
incorrect.
I can empathize with your perspective as you, in your own words, confess that
you never left school after kindergarten. I assume this means that you have
never signed a check on the front, made a payroll, or had an entrepreneurial
idea that you have backed with your own cash, blood sweat and tears? Your
view of economics is based strictly on theory. Perhaps that is why you can be
so cavalier in telling me to send my jobs overseas.
Aside from the local job loss that would result if I followed your advice, let me
give you an example of another drawback to your suggestion for me to import
my goods and services. GM currently outsources the production of their
transmissions to India. As you may be aware, India is on strike and production
is halted in Michigan as a result. Boy, am I glad we bailed them out so that
production can be paralyzed by something beyond our control! This is certainly
a downfall of having our supply chain spread all over the world, wouldn’t you
agree?
In response to your perspective of why our economy is in its present state, I will
give you my opinion. In short, it is due to our lack of ability as American
businesses, to compete globally. This inability cannot be blamed on small
business and its entrepreneurs. Part of that credit can go to our educators. Why
were Tom Peters and a Ph.D from mighty Harvard visiting China in 1995 to
study their system? In short, they knew then, as we all know now, that our
education system is broken. We are not competitive on the world stage in large
part due to our curriculum shortfalls.
Further credit for our lack of competitiveness can be given to the incompetency
of our government. Ours is a bloated government that has been lobbied into
oblivion by special interests. Big business has yet to understand that capital,
labor and management must work together to create return on investment for
the investors. These are investors who have risked their hard earned money to
wager that a company will be a winner, not the MBA that thinks he can create
subprime loans to gamble with all of our futures. Add to this the fact that there
are 535 lawyers creating laws that they have no experience to author, and you get exactly what we have now. Americans lack confidence in our government,education system, and the financial sector.
In the future, I would carefully consider the answers you give in a non-academic
setting, for there are some who heavily weigh your credentials. For those of us
that have created a company, supplied health insurance, 401k plans, paid
vacation, paid maternity leave, ROI for its investors, created jobs for the people
of the surrounding counties so they could buy homes, and pay taxes so the
state can employee esteemed teachers, your perspective was offensive and
skewed.
I do agree with your student,(Jim) . (Our) County will continue to
decline in real estate sales until jobs are created. Despite your advice, I will
keep my jobs here and continue to work to get the government off my back. I
will compete with any nation one on one, if you untie my hands from the
bondage of big government.
I do believe you to be a very intelligent man. Why not pool all the great
financial and intellectual resources at your disposal through the University of
(our state) to create a plan for success for American business? This would lessen
the burden of government on small business, increase state revenues and
prevent further unemployment. This in turn would eliminate the furlough days
that you are currently experiencing.
Best wishes on your future endeavors,
Marlin
President & CEO
When small business owners talk…we need to listen. Like I’ve said before, sometimes you gotta get your hand dirty it’s part of the American work ethic.
Simply,
Sis
Tags: China, competeing with China, creating jobs, economics 101, economy, job hunting, job loss in America, jobs, jobs going oversees, Simple Money
