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Trump’s Problem: His Business Experience

by | Jul 13, 2017 |

Over a career of consulting with family businesses, including very large ones, I came to know many CEOs who rose to the top of the business the way that Donald Trump did:  by being the son of the founder and thus the heir-apparent.  (All of them were men.) It’s more than a coincidence that a majority of them had similar behavioral traits and leadership styles as Trump does.  They steamrolled over others, bristled at criticism, didn’t resolve conflicts effectively, had high ego needs, and created chaos by making decisions impulsively and unilaterally.  Whatever their business acumen, they...

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Make Gravel Out of Plymouth Rock

by | Jul 11, 2017 |

As seen in the news, there is a movement to tear down monuments to the Confederacy and to change the names of university buildings that were named after slave owners.  The proponents of this movement argue that it is inappropriate for a society to honor those who brutalized, enslaved, or killed innocent men, women, and children. They have a point. But why do they restrict their principled argument to the Confederacy and Southern slave owners?   Why don’t they extend it to others who brutalized, enslaved, or killed innocent men, women, and children? For example, for intellectual consistency,...

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The Declaration of Dependence

by | Jul 4, 2017 |

When in the course of human events the political bonds that used to tie the people together in freedom have become shackles that have made them dependent on government—then at that critical juncture, it is time to officially declare a state of dependence. This Declaration of Dependence replaces one of the greatest political documents in history, the Declaration of Independence, which, 241 years ago, gave birth to one of the greatest nations in history. In the context of those times, the former Declaration was a remarkable document, in that it turned upside down the prior belief that man was...

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Business Joins the Propaganda Ministry

by | Jun 26, 2017 |

Karl Marx said that a capitalist is someone who will sell you the rope to hang him.  Actually, a capitalist today will sell you the government party line instead of rope or any other product. A growing number of companies no longer tout the features and benefits of their products in advertisements.  Instead, they tout their feigned social conscience and environmental awareness, or parrot government propaganda to stay in good stead with politicians and regulators, or repeat canards, platitudes, and pieties believed by society at large, especially by the millennial generation. Take General...

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Justice under JFK versus Justice under Donald Trump

by | Jun 16, 2017 |

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is lionized, partly because he was assassinated, but largely because of myths about Camelot and because he was handsome, suave, debonair, and a gifted speaker. President Donald Trump is vilified, partly because he is anti-establishment, but largely because he comes across as a boorish, vindictive buffoon. Image counts in politics, or actually, in all human endeavors.  We imperfect humans make superficial judgments about our leaders, sports figures, Hollywood stars, and neighbors based on image and not substance.  This is due to how we are hardwired to make...

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What Trump’s Cabinet Meeting Reveals about Government

by | Jun 14, 2017 |

You may have seen the video of President Trump’s cabinet meeting.  Democrats are atwitter over what they saw as obsequious comments of cabinet members directed at an egotistical president.  Republicans are atwitter over what they saw as sincere comments of cabinet members directed at a great leader. Both sides missed the larger point:  that no matter who sits around the table at cabinet meetings, and no matter who is president, the federal government has become so large, so complex, so centralized, so bureaucratic, so costly, so caught up in minutia, and so involved in the affairs of...

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Single-Payer for Food, Shelter, Clothing and Transportation

by | Jun 7, 2017 |

The non-thinking of many highly educated people is sobering. Case in point:  The Wall Street Journal ran a letter to the editor yesterday, written by a physician from Berkeley, Calif., who spoke of the efficiencies and wonders of a single-payer system for medical care in the United States. Gee, imagine that:  Someone from Berkeley advocates socialism, which is what single-payer is, but by a different name. As with other advocates of single-payer medical care, the physician apparently hasn’t given much thought to where his thinking, or lack thereof, logically leads.  If single-payer is the...

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Black Racists versus White Trash

by | Jun 5, 2017 |

Perhaps you’ve watched the YouTube video of the “students” at Evergreen State College screaming racist slurs about whites, as they tried without success to form intelligent thoughts in a meeting with the college president. If you’ve watched it, my condolences for the resulting brain damage.  If you haven’t seen it and are a masochist, it can be watched at the following link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO1agIlLlhg On a related note, I recently read the book, White Trash:  The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.  I’ll explain momentarily how this is related to the Evergreen...

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