Something To Think About Archive

“The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind said Visa founder Dee Hock; “but how to get the old ones out.”

Two years ago, the Biden Administration made a stupendously bad trade in exchanging Russia’s number one arms dealer for a WNBA player arrested in Russia on drug charges. Now, Viktor Bout, known as Putin’s “Merchant of Death” is back at it selling small arms to Iran backed militants in Yemen. We hope Brittany Griner appreciates her freedom and what it’s costing in other people’s lives.

Long-time CEO of GE Jack Welch believed that “Excellence and competitiveness are totally compatible with honesty and integrity… People who cheat are simply weak.”

Essayist and author Phyllis Theroux once noted that “Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.”

According to author and publisher Helen Gurley Brown, “Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody.”

Shakespeare said: “There’s small choice in rotten apples.”

General “Stormin’ Norman” Scwarzkopf claimed that “To lead in the 21st Century you will be required to have both character and competence.”

As the two candidates for President fight over who can buy the most votes with the biggest tax or government benefits giveaways, all voters should note and be alarmed by the forecast increases in the deficit over the next decade: Trump’s tax “plan” grows the deficit by $7.5 trillion and Harris, by comparison, a paltry $3.5 trillion which is still unsustainable. Remember when candidates ran on a pledge to balance the budget and reduce the National Debt? We miss those days.

English historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee believed that “Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action.”

Opera diva Beverly Sills said: “I’ve always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.”

Ambrose Bierce defined “Peace” as “…a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”

“When a thing is funny,” said playwright George Bernard Shaw, “search it carefully for a hidden truth.”

“Trust yourself;” advised baby doctor Benjamin Spock. “You know more than you think.”

The dockworkers union initially sought a 77% pay raise over six years but have tentatively settled for 62% increase over five years on their current base salaries of around $81,000. Compare that to Harold Daggett, president of the ILA, who had vowed to “cripple” the U.S. economy over automation and wage demands. Daggett earns $728,000 annually as union chief, lives on a 10-acre estate in a seventy-one hundred square-foot mansion and drives a Bentley. Nice work if you can get it

Author Flannery O’Conner: “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”

Automotive and manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford claimed that “I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”

Dick Cavett once noted that “It is a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.”

Over two years, more than $1.4 billion has been committed from FEMA-administered programs to support non-federal entities that are taking care of migrants. And now Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “does not have the funds” to see Americans through the rest of this Atlantic hurricane season. The border crisis has just hit home in the destroyed southeast.

Take Risks. Correct Mistakes. Learn from Both.

“Shame on her,” says West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin. He’s referring to Kamala Harris’ recent support for eliminating the filibuster in the Senate. Manchin went on to note that “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.” And, we would add, we all know how dysfunctional that elected body is.