Letter from a small businessman

Uncle Merlin owns and runs his own business North of Boston, and like all small businessmen and women these days---hard to think of a guy six foot six as a small businessman---he's not feeling all that cheerful about the economy.  He's spent the last few days thinking things over, wondering how we wound up in this mess, and he's come to a few unhappy conclusions. He writes:

Hear the SNAPPING sound all around you?

It’s the sound of wallets and pocket books closing!

Americans aren’t buying and for very good reasons. And no matter what the media reports about Congress’ actions from my poll Americans aren’t buying that either!

We are in the midst of the second biggest SNAFU that the “GreedCats” have brought down on us in 30 years.

I had this friend  back in the 80’s, he was in Economic School and in the ‘80s they were filling his head with the stupid notion that Greed was good for the country. He went to work for a “Service Firm” out of college. He told me how wealthy they were all getting doing this contract work for the Commonwealth.

I shot back the he wasn’t getting wealthy at all and neither was his boss. If you have read or in my case skimmed “An Inquiriy into the Nature and  Causes of the Wealth of Nations”; Adam Smith 1776, (7 Books in all) you discern the sentient fact that the wealth of a people can only be generated in 6 ways : Mineral, Energy Production, Agriculture, Population to produce, Land and Abundant natural resources, Means to Transport.

Anything else is just shuffling money around the economy that was already generated by the 6 primary sources.

It is obvious the “GreedCats” have never read “The Wealth of Nations”.

The GreedCats supplanted the notion of “wealth” with “piling up of money”. This was the first great bait and switch which sold off the Quality of America.

The GreedCats also instructed back then that a Company was “worth” more sold off in pieces than it was whole and producing. Take Stanley Tools and sell it off to the highest bidder.

No one at the time ever thought we needed to make things anymore. We all bought our last washing machines in 1976 and have never needed another one since, right?

They need to heed the lessons of Adam Smith and Peter Drucker.

In an NPR interview Peter Drucker said a company’s most important asset is its Customer because that is where the money comes from. And what he meant was the money comes year after year in a stream, not at the end of the last and final quarter before the sale.

Fast Forward 30 years to the newest SNAFU.

Last nite Brian Williams reported, with not too much of a touch scolding tone, that “Consumers” were shutting their wallets. Especially damaging at the opening of the latest “Christmas Consuming Season”. Worst possible of all scenarios.

Worst for who I ask? The GreedCats at the top of all these piles of money that are dwindling everyday?

The new bait and switch today is we are all called “Consumers”! When I was a kid we were called either : “Wage Earners”, or “Salaried Professionals” or “CUSTOMERS”!

Even Congress calls us CONSUMERS not Citizens. No, we are only called Citizens when they are out vote hunting.

Bait and switch is the same  tactic WalMart pulled off when they supplanted “Quality” for “VALUE” in the minds of “Consumers” their favorite mantra. “Buy Overseas junk for “Value”.”

You start calling yourself a “consumer” then you start acting like one. That is an inescapable human behavior folks. WalMart and the GreedCats already know this.

They need to heed the lessons of Peter Drucker. Customers who earn real wages support your business not stockholders.

So everyone wants us to CONSUME especially NOW and Congress and the Media can’t figure out why we aren’t since all the credit markets are “back to normal”.

That I find humorous.
Here the Federal Government allows the GreedCats free reign to ruin the economy with their expert ignorance about “The Wealth of Nations” and  what real Wealth is and how to generate that.   

AND on the other hand they tell us that to save the Country they are doing us all a favor dolling out Billions which we as good CONSUMERS have to pay for.
We pay REAL money that 90% of us EARNED last year and Congress spends fake money they never EARNED. That’s why it is so easy to spend in big piles.

So the Media Pundits and Congress and, now thank God, the Credit Markets are confused about why we CONSUMERS aren’t spending. Well wake up GreedCats here is your weekly lesson from Uncle Merlin:

Americans it is estimated will have to pay out of pocket $7,000 each for the bailout. EACH!

Now, NO ONE is drawing the real picture that the “CONSUMER” sees.

NEXT YEAR, Dick or Jane average Consumer will have to not only pay the Bailout but also TAXES on Income so each of us is looking at not just $7,000 for the Bailout but on average $7,000 in income tax plus the bailout.
Which translates to $14,000 yanked out of our wallets when Mr.Congress comes around next year for taxes.
NO ONE  is drawing that connection EXCEPT the Customers of America who have to really earn that money.

Would you be spending anything in this climate?? My wallet is slammed shut.
I’m told I voted for all of this so that makes me responsible somehow. Can anyone tell me how?
And the experts can’t figure out why our wallets are closed for business.

Americans are answering with their wallets.

Remember that incident called the Revolutionary War, it started over taxes on Tea.
Again in 1776 and “Wealth of Nations” in 1776, a vary good year!

The GreedCats used to say in the 1970’s that the consumer market was bottomless.

What a way to look at your Customers. Nice relationship!

Well just maybe the GreedCats through their fumbling ignorance have finally taught the “Consumers” how it all really operates.

Take a look at the fall of gas & oil over the last 3 months. “Consumers” have cut back and found that they can cut back, so they are cutting back even more and by magic the prices have not only fallen, they have Crashed.
Why because Consumers have slammed their wallets shut.

Think about this artificiality: 
It took roughly over 100 years for gas to go from 0.05/gallon to $1.85/gallon but only 6 months to go from $1.85 to $4.35/gallon. And this without any major energy crisis, World War or collapse in supply.
Now by magic in another 3 months Consumers shut their wallets and gas is back to $1.99/gallon, the price at my local Mobil yesterday.

‘Consumers” should wake up and realize just how powerful a position you are now in today. As a Customer, You have the “GreedCats” by the “bxxx”- Tails.
Become a Customer again! You have the REAL money Congress wants. Dole it out “s l o w l y”!

If they want to be Pundits then as Customers make them  heed the lessons of Peter Drucker and Adam Smith.

And I need to go read all 7 books of Wealth of Nations!

1776 Was a Very Good Year!

Comments

[Janelle Dvorak]

The next step will be calling citizens unpatriotic because they have decided to stop spending.

[actor212]

Janelle,

Didn't Gramm basically do just that during the campaign, calling us whiners?

Lance, Uncle Merlin forgets one important point: those Greedmongers own our purse strings. They pay our salaries and buy our goods and if they ain't happy, we ain't happy.

Yes, we turn around and buy their products and yes, if we ain't happy, they ain't happy.

It's a zero sum game to be sure and right now, the zero has turned into an imaginary number, replaced by a lose-lose proposition.

[Jennifer]

Grizzled is spending... I don't get it. He's attuned to something else and is... spending.

[Janelle Dvorak]

"Didn't Gramm basically do just that during the campaign, calling us whiners?"
Probably. My mental firewall has long since refused to admit statements by Gramm. Alistair Darling's saying practically the same thing in the UK as well.

Sorry, I just can't consider courting personal financial ruin my patriotic duty. Spend, spend, spend on unsecured credit just shovels more sand under a house built on sand. Tear the damned thing down, I say, and rebuild.

[Gansky1]

Has the CONSUMER learned? Have they really? Perhaps a few. Dire predictions of holiday consuming have been made but my drive-by observations of malls and shopping venues yesterday revealed the opposite. News reports of consumers tearing a door from it's hinges and trampling several of their own, killing one, in their desperate attempt to begin consuming items of 'value' at bargain prices. Lower prices at the gas pump have lulled Mr. & Mrs. Consumer into believing the economy is now working in their favor. With little understanding of money or the economy, they push forward against the unseen forces that are working against them. Ignorance is bliss and for those with little or no savings (less than 0.5% personal savings rates overall) and who believe their emergency financial cushion to be an open credit line on one of their VISA cards, none of this has any meaning. Will the incoming administration stand up in front of congress and the world and boldly declare in the SOTU that this country's house is built on sand and that we must, as Jennifer says "tear it all down and rebuild" or will the status quo be propped up and allowed to continue? We all know the answer. Maybe it's not worth worrying about, really, just look at the deals on '09 cars!