Should we be afraid, very afraid? US Debt & Inflation Documentary

'Meltup is a new documentary about how the U.S. economy is at the beginning stages of a currency crisis that will ultimately lead to hyperinflation.



The National Inflation Association is pleased to announce the release of 'Meltup', a new nearly one-hour documentary about how the U.S. economy is at the beginning stages of a currency crisis that will ultimately lead to hyperinflation.

NIA believes Meltup is the most important economic documentary ever produced in world history. The Second American Revolution has begun! Please share this documentary with all of your friends and family members!

Meltup features Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, Tom Woods, and others. The documentary proves through facts and statistics how hyperinflation in the U.S. is now inevitable and how Americans could soon see the end of entitlement programs they have become dependent on to live and survive.

What is the purpose of Business in the 21C?

Having just come across a video from respected internet entrepreneur, John Reese, I found myself asking questions about the purpose of BUSINESS. 

If you have 15 minutes or so, please take a look at the video at OutsourceForce - $2/hour Power Formula (and no, it's not an affiliate link!)

If you do not have the time to watch it, as the name suggests, it deals with outsourcing as much as possible of your business in a global economy so that you have "little cheques going out but big cheques coming in".

John's analysis is entertaining (it's worth watching for his comparison of the Siegfried & Roy business model with that of Blue Man Group!) and informative.

John's formula emphasizes methods which have underpinned a system of global economic wealth rather than global economic health.

In the 21st century, I feel that business should be about finding ways to make the world fairer, more sustainable, more ethical, more socially responsible in a GLOBAL economy.  And as much as my mind cannot find fault with John's analysis, my heart has a problem with it.

With the current global economic situation being as precarious as it is, does the energy and innovation of business leaders, entrepreneurs and gurus need to be guided in new directions?  With the knowledge, hindsight and resources now available to look at problems and their solutions globally rather than unilaterally, I wonder whether there is the will to work towards a paradigm shift in attitudes...
* see Huffington Post review of The Zeitgeist Movement: Envisioning A Sustainable Future
* see Stephen Fry's post and comments about the UK 2010 election

* listen to Gary Hamel "ReManaging Management" on BBC World Service Global Business
-- "shareholders do not create wealth, employees create wealth"
-- "Apple has reinvented 4 different industries - music, retailing, computing & mobile phones.  Larry Ellison of Oracle said of Apple 'they seem to have the mind of engineers and the heart of artists'"

Leave your thoughts below whilst I'm gathering mine!

David Connor & Coethica

David Connor has just posted an excellent take on BFA's article about support for business failures - "Who Helps When Small Business Dreams Turn to Nightmares?".

David Connor’s Coethica is a UK company founded on embedded ethical values who offer specialist expertise across the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spectrum to private, public and voluntary sector organisations whatever shape or size.

Business responsibility is a rapidly emerging management area focusing an organisation’s ethos toward balancing economic, social and environmental impact. Most businesses already consider these impacts even if they don’t call it CSR, but the maximum benefits from a strategic identification of relevant opportunities are very often missed.

CSR is not a particular goal that can be achieved, but a themed journey that improves business performance.
Find out more on David’s sites and blogs at
http://davidcoethica.wordpress.com/
http://www.coethica.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/coethica

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm sure we'd all agree with that one!!

If you have had a failed business and if there was one thing that you wish you'd known, or been asked, or been told about before you started your business that may have helped you in your decisions to start, continue or close your business, what would that be?

Please either leave a comment below or if you have had a failed business, consider joining Business Failures Anonymous and leave a reply on the discussion forum here

From Business Link to NHS Shrink: Pending Replies!

I have just emailed several UK business support agencies for their opinion about the post at "From Business Link to NHS Shrink".  I look forward to seeing how many reply and their responses. It should be interesting so watch this space.

With some of them having offered their services at some stage of my business, I thought that they may be interested in the issue that I hope to raise in relevant publications, blogs, letter pages etc over the next few weeks.

I still feel that business failure is an area which needs serious attention especially in the current climate and, having spoken to other business failures who have felt 'abandoned', I do not believe mine is a one-off 'sob story'. I hope to take my experiences and offer them positively both as 'worst-case scenario' advice for pre-start ups and as moral support for post-failures, two aspects of the business life-cycle that are sorely lacking, in my humble opinion.

More at "From Business Link to NHS Shrink"

BFA has signed the Business Ethics Pledge

PREVENT ANOTHER ENRON, LEHMAN and CREDIT CRUNCH.
Help us work towards positive change in the business world by joining our campaign to change the way the world does business. We must make unethical business practices unacceptable.

You can succeed in the business world without dishonesty, greed, or unethical practices! BFA has committed to do business ethically and joined the campaign to share the message that ethical business is more effective and more profitable. Click here or click the logo to find out more.

From Business Link to NHS Shrink

Where are the business support agencies at the end of a dream?

I feel that business failure is an area which needs serious attention especially in the current climate and, having spoken to other business failures who have felt 'abandoned', I do not believe mine is a one-off 'sob story'. I hope to take my experiences and offer them positively both as 'worst-case scenario' for pre-start ups and as moral support for post-failures, two aspects of the business life-cycle that are sorely lacking, in my humble opinion.

When Small to Medium Enterprises succeed, agencies that provide 'free' start-up help and advice will bask in reflected glory, deriving kudos from having enabled those businesses to survive and thrive, and putting pictures and stories in their newsletters, on their websites and in local papers. Where, then, are those (salaried?) positive-thinking ‘shamans’ of business support agencies when SMEs fail? "Better to have tried and failed," I don’t doubt - but better still to have avoided any ‘free’ help, support and advice at the beginning from totally-unaccountable agencies who, under the current arrangement, certainly won’t be there at the end. 

When dwindling coffers become less than empty, entrepreneurs fall prey to rapacious insolvency practitioners and unscrupulous debt solution agents; faced with Kafkaesque nightmares of welfare benefit claims, CAB waiting rooms, - and, in the worst cases, calls to Samaritans, and the vagaries, waiting lists and delays of health service Liaison Psychiatry - all we have to rely on is ourselves (if we can avoid total despair) and our true family and friends.

We who end up saddled with debt, broken relationships, vulturesque offers etc., can, in our rational moments, put it down to naïve decisions as a risk-taker.  However, we are not merely rational creatures, and we need balanced advice and support at the beginning, i.e. from both sides - including a ‘devil’s advocate’ with real-world experience of worst-case scenarios and the effect on things other than the infamous ‘bottom line’.

Such a devil’s advocate is missing in practice, whereas it urgently needs to become not only a requirement but also an integral part of all business start-up advice. 

The agencies involved in the promotion and provision of so-called 'free' services to support and kick-start our dreams of enterprise - agencies that contribute to our initial enthusiasm by pumping us with advice and information (and in some cases, even finance & grants) to keep us positive - should be required to demonstrate that their interest in our participation means more than just another slice of government pie. 

Perhaps publishing detailed accounts of each stage of their involvement in our stories of business failure - were these agencies ever prepared to disclose, without being prompted, just what they didn’t do, say or tell us - might go some way towards helping others avoid great pain and despair.

Until then, however, advice and support agencies will continue to distance themselves from business failure; when Small to Medium Enterprises fail, friends and fellows, those agencies that provided 'free' start-up help and advice no longer want anything to do with us.