Get Your Team Thinking Like Entrepreneurs

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog, By 1789, a lot of French people were starving. Their economy had long since deteriorated into a weak, pitiful shell. Decades of unsustainable spending had left the French treasury depleted. The currency was being rapidly debased. Food was scarce, and expensive.

Greece has more economic problems than just excessive government debt and a 21% unemployment rate, it's got an excessive government bureaucracy that is choking off private enterprise and small businesses.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's because of the excessive government bureaucracy that Greece has excessive debt and 21% unemployment.Here are two anecdotes of excessive bureaucracy in Greece that "get at the very heart of how Greece landed up in its current condition and why rapid change is unlikely":

As readers will know, I'm an arch proponent of being very selective about investing in large caps and investing in smallcaps which combine: i) exceptional knowledge incorporated into applications which improve the productivity of direct and indirect customers, and ii) those rare management teams who have acquired their commercial skills within large caps and have demonstrated the ability to deploy those skills successfully in smallcaps - one of the difficulties with large caps can be pinpointing who was actually responsible for a particular piece of success! The latest piece of data supporting

As readers will know, I'm an arch proponent of being very selective about investing in large caps and investing in smallcaps which combine: i) exceptional knowledge incorporated into applications which improve the productivity of direct and indirect customers, and ii) those rare management teams who have acquired their commercial skills within large caps and have demonstrated the ability to deploy those skills successfully in smallcaps - one of the difficulties with large caps can be pinpointing who was actually responsible for a particular piece of success! The latest piece of data supporting

Secretary Gary Locke and Education Secretary Arne Duncan participated in a conference call today to discuss comprehensive immigration reform with members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The pair made the case for why effective immigration reform is vital to U.S. economic competitiveness and why the involvement of the business community is crucial to move this important priority forward. Approximately 175 people from at least 30 states joined the call, including 80 CEOs and representatives from businesses, local and state chambers of commerce and industry and trade associations.  Locke discussed how comprehensive reform will help create jobs in the U.S. and stressed the need to build an immigration system that will attract the brightest, most highly-skilled people from around the world, so their skills, ideas and entrepreneurial spirit can help start new businesses, enhancing U.S. global competitiveness.  Locke specifically highlighted two proposed approaches for reforming the current visa system: encouraging top foreign talents who receive a graduate degree in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to remain in the U.S. after they graduate by allowing them to acquire legal permanent residence; and issuing two-year visas to immigrant entrepreneurs whose start-up companies receive investment from a U.S. investor, and giving these entrepreneurs permanent residence if their companies create full-time jobs in the U.S. within those two years.  Locke urged members of the Chamber to help make the case in their communities that comprehensive immigration reform is an economic imperative critical to America’s future economic competitiveness.  Locke asked participants on the call to add their voice to the national conversation by visiting www.whitehouse.gov/immigrationaction and hosting a conversation in their community about why we need to fix the broken immigration system. 

It seems that everyone wants to be an entrepreneur these days. Everyone wants to be the boss and run their own show. I can certainly understand the motivation. The idea of doing your own thing, of ruling your own destiny, is certainly an attractive one. Besides, the job market sucks. That's why there's a nearly insatiable demand for start-up and leadership advice. 

Given some of the abuses suffered by customers of the banking and financial services industry, no person of reasonable intelligence would deny there’s a place for an external body to resolve bank-related disputes. In 1996 Ottawa set up such a body, the Ombudsman for Banking Services, to perform such a task, a task undertaken after the client and an institution have tried but failed to reach a satisfactory result.

From today's WSJ editorial "The Shale Gas Secret": "One of the few bright patches in the Obama economy is the booming production of shale gas and, increasingly, oil. The U.S. ranked 159th in GDP growth last year. But in natural gas production, it's now No. 1.