In his statement preceding the portion I've included in today's quote was this additional line from Admiral Halsey, who by the way, was one of only 4 individuals in U.S. history to attain the rank of Fleet Admiral ( 5 stars): All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens' famous opening sentence continues "It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity." …
Yes, the holidays are here and already the list of things to do continues to grow – completing the annual budget, planning parties, visiting with friends, figuring out what to get who for when … and so it goes.Yet, my spirit remains strong, so I’ve prepared a menu of 12…
You probably know someone, don’t you, who is a star performer who believes that her achievements go unrewarded?I’ve talked about the value of incentives before, but it keeps coming to mind as I talk to senior executives who don’t seem to have spent any time at all considering whether their incentive plans are working as intended … or whether they need to be revised.
In some ways, it reminds me of the comment that Bloomberg attributed to Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, during the $20 billion bonus scandals during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown.
According to Bloomberg, this was his comment … (more…)
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So, why not jump into the deep end right now by reading Business Finance is about much more than finance
I’ve said before that leaders don’t have the luxury of confining their interests to just a few things
~ Thomas Carlyle
A lady walked into a neighborhood market one day and spoke loudly over the counter to the head butcher.
“Your prices these days are atrocious, Sal. Joe’s Deli across the street is selling your $10 chuck roast for only $5!”
“I know, Mrs. Haggle. I saw the sign. The thing is . . . Joe doesn’t have any chuck roast.”
So, the law of supply and demand rears its head again, some days a beautiful vision, other days an ugly hag. We’re surrounded by her mystique everywhere we go. Traffic is tied up because there are more cars than highway space. Starbuck’s is backed up because people want coffee faster than it can be made. There are no paper clips in the supply room but there’s plenty of fruitcake left in the kitchen.
Supply and demand drove markets long before economists appeared … and its jarring prevalence is unavoidable. One of my favorite examples is (more…)
We knew that 2010 was a pretty "fowl" year didn't we ... but did you think that the price of a French hen would increase by 233%? Or that two turtle doves would now cost 78.6% more? That a lone partridge would go up 20%?Not that there's anything wrong with…
“Speed, for lack of a better term, is good”.
That’s not quite what Gordon Gekko said in the original Wall Street movie, but it’s close enough for our purposes.
So, who’s complaining about the super-fastest fiber-cable ever? Nobody that I know of, but here’s what caught my attention. It isn’t just the extraordinary speed extolled in Forbes’s recent article, Wall Street’s Speed War. Sure, it cost about $300 million to bury a one-inch underground cable over the 825 mile distance between New York and Chicago. Yes, it’s been done in stealth mode so no one would find out and build one even faster, and yes, it’s about to go live.
Big deal? Apparently so … but here’s the thing. The only reason this cable got built was … grab your abacus … to save 3 MILLISECONDS off the previous route for such cable traffic. That’s equal to THREE 1/1000 OF A SECOND!
What for? Here’s a few of the effusive remarks that Forbes quoted: ‘That’s close to an eternity in automated trading” … or “Anybody pinging both markets has to be on this line, or they’re dead.” (more…)
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Why is this so hard? We find ourselves entrenched in the quagmire of a lingering and painful recession … more companies than ever need stronger financial management … and yet so many of them remain painfully slow to recognize it. Sure, many have trimmed costs and are paying closer attention to nickels and dimes, but few of them have a comprehensive financial strategy.
So, in some misguided way, I guess it feels good to have some company … because the need for financial discipline was a common refrain among wine industry cognoscenti at this year’s Symposium, Competing in a Rapidly Changing Global Wine Market. The economic shock waves of the last 24 months have rocked the wine industry, dragging many of its members, in some cases kicking and screaming … into an era where professional management and greater financial discipline are demanding front row seats alongside the entrepreneurs and artisans that have reigned over the California wine industry
[pullquote]Stronger financial management is overdue in the California wine industry.[/pullquote]
Building a bridge between the financial community and the wine industry is one of the founding precepts of the Wine Industry Financial Symposium formed in 1992. Last Monday, I was privileged to lead a 90 minute workshop devoted to Practical Strategies to Improve Cash Flow, in which I shared a few “diamonds in the rough” about how to get more juice into your bank account … and how the California wine businesses can integrate Strategic Finance into their everyday business decision making.
During the preceding From Survival to Prosperity – Strategies for Transition session, (more…)