•  THE MOST CRITICAL FACTORS IN BUSINESS SUCCESS include (1) Leadership – defining and guiding your team, with decisiveness, in a strategic direction based on clarity in goals, objectives and communication; and (2) sufficiency of Systems to monitor and control the business – both organizationally, thru “people structure which dictates culture in regards to management, communication, trust & decision-making,” and (2) operationally, which procedurally clarifies “all the steps it takes to go from concept to product or service delivery and what paths those steps take.” DCG has decades of expertise and experience in optimizing business results. Let us help. [AMEX OPEN FORUM – Sep 12, 14]
• THE NATIONAL MOOD IS ALMOST UNITED IN A BELIEF THAT AMERICA IS HEADING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION… Voters now express a generalized contempt for established parties… their biggest worry that middle-class incomes are stagnating and the job-for-life is dead. Politicians instinctively blame their domestic opponents’ wicked or foolish policies… Conservatives growl that Democrats buy elections with ‘free stuff’ for the feckless poor, destroying the national work ethic. Liberals says it’s because Republicans are too heartless to care about the middle classes and because unpatriotic billionaires send jobs overseas.”     [THE ECONOMIST – Nov 15, 14]      Reality is that they’re all correct: the ‘American Dream’ is simply and sadly a non-recoupable casualty of globalization which has demoralized people to the point that nearly four in ten Americans are unemployed by choice.  According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 86 million adults “have simply given up and don’t want to work,” even if jobs were an option. This group comprises 58% of people aged 55 and above and 17% of kids aged 16 to 24 – “a remarkable statement on the nation’s work ethic!”  [LEVINE BREAKING NEWS – Nov 14, 14]
• THE EDIBLE INSECT INDUSTRY IS MOVING FORWARD. The U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization has been commissioning studies for a decade; recently a conference on ‘Insects to Feed the World’ was attended by 450 of the “foremost experts on entomophagy – insect eating.” With global population forecast at nine billion by 2050, insects are probably the necessary step: “chock full of protein and essential micronutrients (such as iron & zinc), needing less space than livestock, emitting lower levels of green-house gases, converting protein twelve times the rate of beef…generally drought-resistant and requiring less water than cows, pigs or poultry.”  Some two billion people worldwide already eat insects, but “it’s not the insects themselves that are going to make it sustainable; it’s the humans” – most of whom presently find insects disgusting because they’re “found on, in or around waste and commonly associated with dirt, decay and disease, all of which can significantly up the yuck factor.”  [THE WEEK – Nov 28, 14]
• EUROPEAN INFLATION IS A MATTER OF “WHEN, NOT IF.” The Eurozone economy accounts for the single-largest share of GDP in the world – nearly one-fifth of the global economy… But because Europe’s economics are in a shambles, people are increasingly scared to go out and spend, so prices are getting cheaper… The EU is teetering dangerously close to outright deflation,” and all Central Bank signals are that Quantitative Easing of the money supply is about to be effectuated, as “politicians look at the QE-fueled economic ‘prosperity’ of the U.S. and Britain” and expect the same effect.” But what gets overlooked are factors like the changing workforce demographic as population gets younger, and “millions of underemployed, car-sharing, apartment-renting 20-somethings hit their prime working age…  leading to tighter labor markets and higher systemic wage growth.  Next add in all the necessities demanded by this new mini-boom of young cohabitating couples swapping apartments for houses, babies and the rest,” and inflation is a pretty sure thing.  [FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT – Oct 14]
• BEWARE OF YET ANOTHER MALWARE RISK: ELECTRIC CIGARETTES. Some Chinese-manufactured devices have malicious software “hardcoded into the charger which, when plugged into a USB port, phones home and infects the system… Production-line malware has been around for a few years, infecting photo frames, MP3 players… and involved in more than 100 fires in less than two years.”     [THE GUARDIAN.COM – Nov 21, 14]
• THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: “Each of us starts with the same 24-hours in the day. How we utilize those hours determines the quality of our lives. We go to extraordinary lengths to manage our time, save time, and make time. The best definition of prosperity is simply ‘saved time’ and the true measure of something’s worth is the hours it takes to acquire it.” – Peter Diamandis