Risky Business

I was at my usual Wednesday breakfast yesterday and was privy to a conversation regarding the mission and vision for certain year-round camp that is currently in the process of being passed from one generation to the next.

The younger generation was arguing that the camp should be closed each winter, rather than expanding it's services, because it is so expensive to keep it open and it does not generate enough revenue. The older generation was being very emphatic that the orginal mission was a year-round camp and that the next generation should proceed very cautiously if they wish to make such a change because money should not be their deciding factor.

The younger generation expressed that they preceived the core mission of the camp to be two weeks in July each year that the board runs a camp. The older generation was arguing that, 'no, that is incorrect', the core mission is the availability of the camp to all the other groups who use it the rest of the time. Both were arguing that the camp needed to focus on it's core mission, they just could not agree what it was.

To make his point the younger generation brought up the case of General Motors in the late eighties buying up everything but Toyota because they had lost their primary focus, building automobiles. I replied that the problem was that General Motors has quit taking risks many years earlier and simply focused on continuing to build automobiles, rather than building innovative automobiles or improving the automobiles were already building.

Until about 1965 the most dynamic and successful auto manufacturer in the world had to be General Motors. New lines were introduced, new features were added, risks were taken, unexpected failures were shrugged off and unexpected successes were built upon. Then along came Ralph Nader's attack on the Corvair in, Unsafe at Any Speed. The Corvair was probably General Motor's crowning achievement, years before there was ever an energy crisis they had an entire line of fuel-efficient compact cars that could compete head to head with the coming Japanese imports and the best that Europe had to offer; I read a review of the Corvair SS by someone who raced Porsche 911s - he said that the SS was just as good or better and at a lower price. Had the Corvair division not been killed off General Motors would have had a proven, tried and true compact truck, mini van!!!, four door sedan, coupe and convertable established in the market before the buying public had ever heard the names Toyota, Datsun, Mazda or Honda (who risked their entire motorcycle company to build a car). General Motors introduced a fuel efficient garagable van 20 years ahead of Chrysler and Toyota!!!

General Motors lost it's way when it began playing it safe and began following others, the Camaro to compete with the Mustang (arguably the only real success), the Vega to compete with the Japanese, or converting a gas engine to diesel to compete with Mercedes-Benz, to name just a few. Any innovations they did come up with were either mediocre, because they played it safe or downright failures that discouraged them.

Business is about taking risks and being dynamic. Chrysler has rebuilt their company on love it or hate it design, Ford risked going retro with two of it's icons, the Thunderbird and the Mustang. They understand that their mission, taking their cue from General Motor's Harley Earl, is to build practical automobiles that evoke emotion in people, cars that people buy not because they are practical, but because they excite them. Nobody needs to buy a new car or a $100,000 car, people buy them because they want them and they want them because someone took a risk when they designed it.

Hiring a full-time maintenance person and spending the money to bring the camp up to year-round standards is a risk, but it is keep it's eye on it's mission. The camp in question was one of the first year-round camps in Saskatchewan, it was built because a group of men had a vision and a passion. It is beautiful and well constructed, times have changed, the board has changed, but should mission? The passion that drove General Motors had driven them to success and was continuing to drive them toward success in the coming decades and economic realities, but they quit listening to their visionaries and started listening to their bean counters.

Western Canadian magazine publishes Muhammad cartoons

Why do I smell a rat?

Ezra Levant would publish Holocaust cartoons? Somehow I think not!! Or at least not unless he is a self-hating Jew.

I believe he is hiding behind freedom of the press and Liberatianism. I admit that I published a thumbnail and linked to the cartoons on my faith based blog, Search For Righteousness, but this story was still in it's infancy and my point was what I perceived to be hypocracy on the part of the Muslim community. Furthermore do not possess any implied public authority and am free to be as much of a raving lunatic as I choose. Ezra Levant publishes a magazine that people subscribe to (implied public authority) and be cause he is a jew and it can be extrapolated that he is also very antagonistic toward Muslims, hense his true motives for publishing.

The impression I have always received of him is that he is a right-wing nut. A good idea is not a good idea unless it is a proposed by some one from the right and the further the right the better because the right can do no wrong. He did this because it is not politically correct and he can hide behind his right to publish whatever he wants.

I can not even think straight. I simply think that if he had some integrity he would have long ago barbequed some conservative politicians for their foolery and ineptitude like he has repeated done to the Liberals.

Mr. Levant can say whatever he wants, but remember he would die for any conservative cause before admitting that either the NDP or the Liberals could or ever have done one thing correct. His credibility is suspect at best because otherwise Maurice Vellacott and Stockwell Day would targets of his as would Stephen Harper's decision to bring a senator and a liberal into cabinet but, I at least, have heard nothing of that issue from Mr. Levant.

Do I here the death of the tobacco industry?

Forgive my rambling I am working out an opinion before your very eyes.

It would appear that the chapter of world history Sir Walter Rawleigh's began is coming to a close. China is banning the construction of any new cigarette factories.

A smokeless world. As much as I revel in the idea I really am concerned that it will just be driven undergound. Before long we will begin hearing about hydroponic tobacco operations, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will begin raiding countries and destroying their tobacco fields, okay so I'm getting carried away. But I really do wonder how people will react.

Laws are obeyed because they are respected, if we do not respect them we do not obey them. Obviously non-smokers have no problem obeying anti-smoking laws but smokers are known to flaggrantly disobey rules if they believe they can get away with it. Add to this the billions and billions of dollars that the tobacco industry makes each year and the death of the cigarette is probably a long way off.

However this is a good first step. Now I do fear a proliferation of new factories in China as bribes are taken and current plans are rushed through. But at only 36% of the population with a target of 18% by 2050 it is encouraging to think that China is now joining the rest of the industrialised world on this point too. Hopefully smoking will be virtually eliminated in the next couple of centuries but that is optimistic.

There are some serious economic concerns though, tobacco is big money, they have deep pockets and they are aggressive about wanting to stay alive. There will be some serious fights ahead as they lose markets and struggle to gain new ones. The upside is that Muslims smoke very heavily in the Islamic countries and given their current level of anger it may not take long before they begin to quit (boycott actually) smoking as they decide to punish the west.

Basically if China can pull this off and the Muslims remain as angry as they are we may once again see a smoke free world, driven by the twin forces of the market and religious zeal.

You GO!!! Tim's

Click on the title for the story

We may have lost the Bay, but the new Canadian insitution is showing those Yanks how it is done.

Tim's is profitable and Wendy's is in red ink.

I really have nothing to say, I just want to gloat.

A cartoon

I simply like this one when I came across it. From what I can figure out it is drawn by an American Muslim.
Strom Thurman