Tag: Business

Remarkable people: Guy Watson

Down to earth integrity!

GUY-WATSONBrought up on a farm, working as a management consultant and returning to farming, Guy Watson brought something from outside and applied it to a “field” in which he had a passion.

After starting an organic farming business from nothing, and after many trials and tribulations, he latched onto distribution by delivering food boxes directly to customers. The business grew until he was personally delivering boxes weekly to 800 customers; nowadays the business serves 40,000 customers weekly through a network of co-operating growers and franchised distributors and has revenues over £30 million ($45m) per year.

Read more about Guy Watson

A tax is a tax is a ….COST !

The role of taxes.

We’ve talked a lot about taxes as revenue to the Government and the inefficiency of government spending on this Learning from Dogs, but a far more important issue is the impact of taxes on the costs and output of businesses.

Any imposed cost to business is a “tax,” whether it’s called that or not.  And any tax is an additional cost to that business, which lowers its output, reduces employment, and raises prices of goods and services to you and me.

Read more about taxes

Sunflowers in the desert

Stop doing what you are doing and watch Jacqueline Novogratz!

Small things add up to make larger things! This concept of “integration” is seen everywhere that we look.

The subject and content of this presentation are fundamental to the future of the world. And the presenter is showing what can be done.

I found this presentation particularly poignant.

By John Lewis

The Plain Truth about Government Spending

Core differences about how society spends that really need to be understood.

Government spending is fundamentally a different animal than private spending!

Private spending is the essence of the freedom of choice.  When you mull over the decision to purchase an item, you are making a very personal decision based on your current income or resources, the prices of the other goods and services you currently purchase or may purchase, and your personal tastes, risk preferences, needs, and wants.

You make so many mental comparisons and tradeoffs when you consider a purchase that they truly cannot be listed.  And then you live with the consequences of your choice, for better or worse.  If bad, you learn.  If good, you enjoy.  And the process repeats itself every time you make a buying or investing decision, updated with new personal, private information on the circumstances, choices, and preferences of the individual.

Read more about spending

Hire the attitude, train the skill!

Alex Cheatle
Alex Cheatle

How can we help you?

In a reversal of business models which are all too common, Ten UK sets out to help customers: what a novel idea!!

The following video describes the need to recruit and train staff who understand the real value and expectation behind asking:

What do you want in the context of … ?


Alex Cheatle describes what they do and how they do it.

Read the article on Real Business here.

By John Lewis

Health Care vs. Health Insurance

Being clear about the terms Care and Insurance when it comes to US health.

The issue for the day is the distinction between health CARE and health INSURANCE.

As we all know, they are not the same thing.  But, as we all have noticed, the two are often confused and the distinctions ignored by many, if not most, in the media, Congress, and the White House.

Health Care and Health Insurance are certainly interdependent. But it helps first to separate the two and take each in turn.

Let’s start with health insurance.  And let’s think of it first as just any “insurance,” like a policy on your house or car.

What is insurance?  It’s a contract that you buy to limit your losses if a bad event happens, even though the likelihood of the bad event occurring is usually very low.

Read more about this important issue

Rationing by Government or the Market?

Rationing.  First of all, what does rationing mean?

It means that there is a finite or limited supply of a good or service, and that not everyone will get all of it that they want.  Rationing can occur through the price that is charged for the good, or through limiting the quantity of the good by some centralized authority.

Yes, it is true that regardless of whether we get our health insurance from private insurers or from a government program, there is rationing.   But there is a huge difference between the type and scope of rationing by the market through price, and rationing by the federal government through control. When the service is rationed by an insurance company, a doctor, or a hospital, if we don’t like the decision, we have a recourse.  We have options. We have choices.  We can go to a different doctor, a different insurer, a different plan; we can report the company, sue the company, fire the company.

When your health care is rationed by government-sponsored single-payer health insurance, that’s it. If you don’t like the rationing decision, you can’t get “another government,” you can’t sue the government, you can’t fire the government, you can’t pay a higher price to get more services out of the government (not legally anyway).  You have no recourse.  The government decision is the end of the road.

So rationing in and of itself is not the point, is not the problem.  Government rationing is the problem.

By Sherry Jarrell

Chancellor Angela Merkel

Important lessons from former East Germans.

Have you ever noticed how the most ardent supporters of capitalism and free markets are those who’ve experienced a world without them?

How those who speak out most poignantly against health care reform in the U.S. are those who’ve experienced nationalized health care?  No?

Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel

If you can, then, take a moment and think back to the coverage, the news, the sound bites.  Take a look, perhaps a second look, behind the headlines and I venture that you will find endless examples of this phenomenon.    It is those who have done without freedom of choice, free markets, and self-determination who treasure it most, who most understand its value, who’ve lived with the consequences of its absence.

We need look no further than Chancellor Angela Merkel and her recent victory in Germany’s national election.

Chancellor Merkel grew up in communist East Germany and is now leading Germany out of recession with tax cuts and reduced government spending.

We should be listening to what the world is telling us.  Very hard, and very quickly.  We don’t want to have to lose it before we appreciate what we have.

By Sherry Jarrell

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Growth of eBooks

Expansion or replacement of the traditional book?

My guess is that most people still value the convenience and sheer pleasure of holding and reading a traditional paper book.  It is difficult to think of a more pleasurable activity than browsing the shelves of a book-store or library.  But the eBook also is carving out a valuable niche, it appears.

Thus it was a delight to come across a ‘store’ devoted to eBooks.  Based in Paris, that virtual store is called Mobipocket.  New to me but, perhaps, not to many others (I can sometimes be a little behind the new technology drag-curve!)

Nevertheless, a veritable labyrinth of virtual book shelves with prices often well below print prices.  Here’s the WikiPedia background.

By Paul Handover (who has no commercial interest in promoting Mobipocket, not even a cent is earnt if you click through.)

Starting a business

Looks like a nice series from USA Today newspaper.

Just happened to be staying in a hotel last week that offered free copies of USA Today.  Too mean to buy my own copies!

Anyway, that Monday was the start of a small business entrepreneur’s series running for 6 weeks.

Don’t worry if you missed the paper version, all available online.  Week One is here, Week Two here.  Bookmark it if you want to follow all 6 weeks – seems well thought out and mostly relevant to both sides of the Pond.

By Paul Handover