Courage of Conviction

Richard Viguerie has a petition to stop the federal bailout.

Feel free to sign it here:

http://conservativehq.com/active-petitions/petition-to-stop-the-bailout/

Glenn Beck wrote a great piece on the bailout.  I agree that something should be done, just not the proposed bailout.  Here’s the impending consequences:

So now that we’re here, what do we do? I am massively conflicted about this bailout program. The idea of government stepping in to bail out international banks that were reckless with their own business literally makes my stomach churn. We are privatizing gains and socializing losses.

As George Will wrote this week: “Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. In fact, it would have to take an absolute disaster to make me even consider supporting something like this. Welcome to that absolute disaster.

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While it took the people in power far too long to recognize it, they are now understanding the same sad truth. This bailout plan is not a good idea — it’s an absolutely terrible idea. It’s just the only idea we have left.

Our financial system is like a 747 flying around with all four of our engines on fire. The bailout effort will not stop us from landing hard, but without it, we may simply drop out of the sky.

What Congress is attempting is a last-second search for an open field to land this plane with as little damage as possible. With that in mind, I think some kind of action may be a necessary evil, but we must be very, very careful.

Action for the sake of action, much like change for the sake of change, doesn’t solve problems. It usually inflames them. And what’s worse is that it creates brand-new catastrophes we haven’t even considered yet. Wall Street and Congress have been playing with fire, and now it’s Main Street that’s beginning to sweat.

I read an excellent piece on the federal bailout proposal by Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune.  Here are some snipits from the article:

Nor is there any guarantee the plan would work. The cover of the latest issue of Fortune magazine hails the “steely-eyed Treasury chief” under the headline “Paulson to the Rescue.” The story appears brilliantly timed—until you realize it is about the earlier rescue of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That was just one of several steps taken by the feds that were supposed to halt the downward spiral. None of them has.

The latest action was justified by the threat that the entire credit system would cease to function. “Last week, our credit markets froze,” Paulson told the Senate Banking Committee. “If that situation were to persist, it would threaten all parts of our economy.”

George Kaufman, a finance professor at Loyola University Chicago, is skeptical. “The last refuge of a scoundrel regulator,” he says, “is to shout ’systemic risk.’ ” Usually, the alarm is false. He notes that aside from interbank lending, the credit markets were functioning tolerably well at the height of the crisis. Rates on 30-year mortgages actually dropped last week.

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The point of the plan, after all, is to shore up struggling firms by awarding them more for those assets than they could get anywhere else. As an analysis in The Washington Post put it, “the more effective the plan, the more expensive it will be.”

Not only that, the more effective it is, the more damage it will do to the free-market system. Saving companies from their bad gambles turns business into a game of “profits for me, losses for you,” corroding the incentives that make capitalism so innovative and efficient.

And for what? Bernanke warns of a recession. But economic downturns are not to be avoided at all costs. And one good thing about recessions is that they end, usually in a matter of months. An intervention of this nature, by contrast, would have malignant consequences for decades to come.

A group of 122 economists, including at least two Nobel laureates, signed a letter this week summarizing the danger: “If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.”

Not to mention the risk of giving the executive branch powers that a Russian czar would envy. If this bailout goes through, the term “limited government” will have to be permanently retired.

Paulson and Bernanke say, and probably believe, that their program is for the good of us all. But remember what Thoreau thought of their 19th Century counterparts. “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good,” he wrote, “I should run for my life.”

Have you ever thought about the habits that you have and how they affect you, your business, and your clients?  This past week, I’ve been taking extra special notice of the habits I have and how they impact others and myself.  The information I’ve been collecting on myself has yielded a variety of responses to my own behavior - some good and some not-so-good.

This has allowed me to determine not only what I don’t like, but also what upsets me enough to actually make a change.

This self-assessment has also been good from the standpoint of reminding me of my strengths.  So often we take our strengths for granted.

Have you ever done your own self-assessment?  What are you learning about yourself and your business?  What changes would make a big impact on your business?

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As you are well aware by now, I drove up to Rochester, NY to run in the half-marathon this past weekend.

I decided to take our son Grant with me on this trip - he’s 19 months old.  The trip served two purposes.  First was to run the race and second was an opportunity to visit my family.

I learned a great deal from this trip.  First, 19 month olds have a lot of stuff.  I had 2 bags for the trip, everything else was Grant’s.  Now understand, we have three children, so we are used to taking a lot of stuff for a trip.  It just struck me about how much stuff we needed for this little person.

I also learned to take notice of things I would have never noticed as I drove.  Grant is great at pointing out animals, big trucks, and anything that catches his eye.  This gave me an opportunity to see the world through my son’s eyes.

Third, I learned to appreciate more frequent stops on our trip.  Grant can only sit in the car seat for so long before he needs to stretch out a bit.  Well, that stretching helped me as well.

So why do I share all this with you?  Well, I don’t have employees, but I do have clients.  What Grant taught me was to take a look at the world through his eyes for a bit.  It made the trip more enjoyable.  I wonder what would happen if I looked at the world through my client’s eyes?  What would happen if you looked at the world through your clients’ or employees’ eyes?

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Over the last few weeks as I’ve been working on implementing my strategic plan, something has been bothering me - my vision statement.  I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that bothered me though.  I just knew that something about it wasn’t right - which means that it was time to re-examine the vision statement.

I scheduled time over the last week to rework my vision statement, worked diligently on the statement and now have a new vision statement that keeps the theme the same as the previous statement, but is more focused and more compelling.  Most importantly, my new vision statement brings the strategic plan together nicely.

In case you were wondering, my new vision statement is “To be the invaluable resource that assists EADD entrepreneurs to turn their own “Someday Island” into paradise on earth.”

I tell you all this to ask you a few questions. What’s your company’s vision?  What does it mean to you?  Is it compelling or just a bunch of buzz words strung together?  When’s the last time you looked at it?  What do you do with your vision statement?

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Every once in awhile you have one of those weeks that just wow you.  That’s happened this week.  So many good things happened this week that it can only be summed up with “wow.”

Meetings with suspects and prospects, a great teleclass, excellent meetings with clients, great networking events, moving forward with my own strategic plan, meeting my financial goal for the month, a great training run, my oldest daughter starting kindergarten, and some political news that I was excited about.  I’m sure there’s more, but the list is big enough to make the point.

Each time I was wowed it built on the last wow - building momentum.  And that momentum didn’t just affect me, it had an effect on everyone I touched this week.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?

So what is it that wows you?  What about your business wows other people?  What would it mean to your business to be able to wow someone else, a co-worker, or a client?

- Like what you are reading?  Want more?  Be sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter - Passport for Success. It is delivered to your e-mail box every Monday morning.  Sign-up at somdayisland.com