What is a business person to take away from the recent political clap-crap to come out of DC? You’ve come to the right place for the answer. There are three lessons.
1. Raise prices. Every single business person knows what absolutely no politician knows, namely that taxes are an expense—like rent and travel costs. You try to control expenses, but you simply cannot control some things, and the worst of those uncontrollable things are taxes. If you cannot control an expense you build it into your prices. Of course that means customers will pay more in taxes, but that is not your problem. The liars in Washington and all the talking heads in the LameStream Media know taxes are paid by consumers. But certain miscreants can get reelected—or get quoted—precisely because they lie. Again, not your problem.
2. Make room in your business plan for “government relations.” Used to be the best product and service won in the democratic institution called the “marketplace.” Not anymore. Politically favored industries like “alternative energy” get handouts while lightbulbs are outlawed. Why on earth would you want to compete on customer demand and product quality when the full force of government coercion through political connections picks winners and losers? Markets are no longer democratic; the Land Of The Free now loathes freedom, preferring to elect “smart people” to tell us all what products we must buy and which ones we are not allowed to buy. To succeed now you must become politically connected and learn how to direct at least some of your marketing efforts at the political controllers. Customer decision making is waning.
3. Move offshore. America is bankrupt and the dollar is being debased to prop up the non-productive members of society. You should have started moving your company outside the USA in 2006 before the Democrats took over Congress. But the slide in America’s international influence and the demise of the dollar are only accelerating. If you don’t start diversifying your income into other currencies and your markets into other countries, you will soon be stuck working 80 hours a week to pay for that “free Obamaphone” given to the homeless people who live in the park.
These are certainly opinions, but I’m not the only person espousing them. Google the key words above and you’ll see a plethora of similar advice. The worst thing you can do right now is expect America to continue to be the land of opportunity that it has been for previous generations. The best thing you can do is to seek out advisors who are “thinking differently.”
Seriously. America has changed. Are you changing with it?