Chinese Capitalism ... Book Clubs ... and Dandelions in Detroit
June 7, 2007
- On PBS the other day, I heard an interview with a press correspondent who had just written a book about China's modernization and growing capitalist economy. He said that although there have been many positive changes in the standard of living for many Chinese, he sees "fault lines" in the political system that worried him - though he didn't say what exactly he is worried about.
China is an interesting country with a huge, increasingly capitalist economy and an old-fashioned, bureaucratic, centrally controlled government. Another story on the same PBS program talked about the former minister in charge of food and drug regulations, who has been sentenced to death for taking bribes from Western countries.
- Have you ever thought about joining - or starting - a book club? If so, you would do well to follow the model created by Steve Leveen.
Steve is the founder and CEO of the Levenger company, the well-known vendor of reading and writing "tools," such as desk lamps and memo books and fine pens. I joined his book club about three years ago - and we discovered that we have a lot in common: a love of fancy cars, competitive sports, good books, and writing.
In addition to contributing ideas to AWAI's catalog-copywriting program, Steve has written and published a very good little monograph on reading called The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life.
As a business leader and book lover, Steve has the skills to run good book club meetings. Although I've never asked him how he does it, here is what I've observed:
1. He doesn't try to do too much. We meet only once every other month, and most of our books are less than 400 pages. Keeping the amount of the reading manageable is important when you are dealing with busy businesspeople.
2. In choosing titles, he asks for suggestions but he makes the selections himself. He knows that it would be time-consuming to try to get a group of successful, headstrong people to agree on any one thing.
3. He mixes it up between fiction and non-fiction. Many businesspeople I know pride themselves on reading only non-fiction. I've always thought that was foolish. By mixing it up, Steve's been able to open some minds to fiction - and, in fact, our best discussions are usually provoked by the fiction books.
4. He makes sure everyone has input into the conversation. (Usually, this means keeping me from dominating it.)
- One of the problems Steve faces in running Levenger is that he has to deal with inventory. Because he sells hard goods, his inventory is limited by the cost of warehousing his products. That is changing, he told me. He is looking into the possibility of customizing and manufacturing his products on demand.
On-demand manufacturing will become a reality for all sorts of products - certainly information products, but also hard goods like the leather-bound calendars and notepads Steve sells. By customizing the inside of these items according to the customer's inclinations and binding them in the quality materials Levenger is known for, Steve can offer infinitely more product choices to his customers without using up extra warehouse space.
- Steve told me that he realizes he has been "asleep at the wheel" as far as customer contact is concerned. "One of the things I do well and most enjoy," he said, "is talking to our customers about new products we are developing. I have a knack for explaining why these products are so great - and when I occasionally write little letters to them, we always get a good response."
"You are the founder and CEO of your company," I said. "Who better than you to talk directly to your customers? They want to hear from you, and you want to speak to them. That sounds like as good a combination for communication as you can get."
- "Ninety five percent of the science and engineering Ph.D.s who graduate from American universities are from China, India, and other countries," a friend told me. "And as soon as they are done with their studies, we send them back to where they came from. Even if they wanted to stay here, they couldn't because of our immigration laws. If we were smart, we'd hand each one an American passport along with their diploma."
- A good friend recommended that I see Journey's End, a new play on Broadway. "But you'll have to see it soon," he said, "because it's closing the night of the Tony's. Nobody wants to see great dramas anymore. Everybody wants to see musicals and comedies."
- PBS ran a story called "Stealing History" about the trafficking of protected antiquities and art. The practice can't be stopped by chasing the robbers, the reporter concluded. The way to stop it is by going after the buyers - such as Christie's and Sotheby's.
Nobody stopped to ask why there was a black market in the first place. Nobody stopped to wonder if it made any sense to "protect" art by making it illegal for foreigners, who treasure it, to buy it. It seems to me that if you want art to be preserved, you want it to be in the hands of those who will take the best care of it. The people who will do that will be the people who value it most - and the people who value it most are the people prepared to pay for it.
A free and open and international market is the answer, not ridiculous, chauvinistic rules and regulations. This is the same kind of idiocy that prevents orphans from being adopted by foreigners.
- Florida, the state I live in, made a ton of money from real estate taxes during the real estate boom. Now some legislators are taking the lead in lowering taxes, because property owners are being driven out of the state and into localities where the cost of home ownership isn't so high.
In June, Florida's legislature will meet to slash as much as $30 billion in real estate taxes over the next few years. There will be resistance from municipalities that have enjoyed the benefits of all the extra revenue, but there is a strong push by real estate developers, brokers, and the general public to bring down the taxes. A recent report by Goldman Sachs estimates that homes in Florida are still 40 percent overvalued and likely to fall 10 percent to 15 percent this year.
- It is important to admit that you have committed theft ... that you have committed adultery ... that you have lied ... that you have hated others ... and that you turn from such sin. "However, even more important that this is to discover the fact that your heart itself is dirty and evil." This is the message that Pastor Ock Soo Park preached in a full-page ad in The New York Times.
His church, Good News New York Church, is growing in leaps and bounds, thanks to his bizarrely written advertising campaigns.
The secret of forgiveness of sins and being born again, he says, is to recognize that you are essentially "filthy, dirty, and evil" and that you cannot have redemption until you surrender yourself to his church. "Most people dwell within the frame of their own thoughts," he warns. And that sometimes keeps them from accepting the truth of "the word" when "the word" contradicts rationality or common sense.
Of course, Pastor Ock Soo Park, like most born-again Christians, doesn't believe in rationality or common sense. That, he says, "is a product of a flighty, dirty, and wicked heart." What you need to believe in is the word of the Lord. But not in your own interpretation of God's word, in Park's interpretation. He has been granted the power to know what God wants, and what God wants is for everyone to know how horrible and ugly they truly are. "If you could see into your neighbor's heart like you can your own, you would feel so disgusted that you would not want to see that person again."
- A new law allows the Venezuelan government to shut down media groups for 72 hours if their coverage incites people to engage in violent protests - and President Hugo Chavez closed the country's oldest television station recently because it "lacked respect for the Venezuelan people." RCTV has been openly critical of the president since he has come into power. It was, apparently, the only private station in Venezuela to criticize Chavez after he took office.
- "When I see dandelions, I worry," Sylvia Hollifield, a long-time resident of the West Outer Drive community in Detroit told The Wall Street Journal. Hollifield is talking about the condition of her neighbors' lawns. Several of them have been forced to sell their homes, and several more are having financial trouble because of rising property taxes, insurance costs, and mortgages payments.
Over the past several years, the newspaper reported, seven of the 26 households in Hollifield's neighborhood have taken out sub-prime loans (loans to borrowers who don't qualify for loans from mainstream lenders). But instead of using that money to hang onto their homes, most of them used it to "pay off credit cards, do renovations, and maintain an appearance of middle-class fortitude amid a declining local economy."
"This has stripped us of our whole pride," said April Williams, one of the people facing eviction. "There's going to be no people left in Detroit if they keep doing this to them."
Nowhere in the article was I able to find who "they" are and what, exactly, they are doing. Did Williams mean the press that promoted the borrowing boom, the banks that made the sub-prime loans, or she and the other people who were foolish enough to take them? Which is more undignified: Lending money to people who can't afford to pay you back? Or throwing away any home equity you've created by taking out loans for non-productive expenditures?
posted by M. Masterson @ 8:28 AM,
2 Comments:
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At 2:25 AM,
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As for property owners being driven out of Florida...
I would expect that renters are being driven out at a much higher rate than are homeowners:
In Florida, as in most states, property taxes are higher on rental property than on owner-occupied property of equal value. Nationally, median income of renters is less than half the median income of homeowners. Therefore, on average, renters are less able to bear tax increases than are homeowners. -
At 5:50 PM,
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To comment on the blog on Pastor Ock Soo Park. He is not in any way stating that you have to join his church, or that his is the only true church. He is how ever taking the gospel back to the basics of showing what true forgiveness and righteousness is.
You can be righteous and not be a member of his church. Since I do not have the article that was written I can not state that it came from a mistranslation or something added by someone to imply that notion. I know that Pastor Ock Soo Park is not trying in any fashion to state that his is the only true church either. Jesus in his time was called a heretic and in our day and age probably would have been called a cult leader. So if a preacher says that he is not worthy and the only ones worthy is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and takes no credit upon him self, then I say he is in good company with Jesus. Jesus placed all credit and goodness on God the Father when he was on the earth. No one can be a member of the true church in which Jesus Christ is the head without it. You are a member of the true church so long as you have salvation and have obtained righteousness. You have to become righteous in the eye of God by having the blood of Jesus wash away the sin that you are born with which in all essence is the wickedness in our own hearts of the "I" mentality of selfishness rather than the mentality of unselfishness which is of agape love. Once you have salvation you do not wish anything but the best for others and hope that they obtain salvation also. Whether they are an enemy, stranger, acquaintance, or a fellow righteous member of Christ, ethnic or not; you love them as a fellow human being whom God created, you pray for their salvation, you pray for their well being all in the will of God. We are not here to judge but by another's actions we know which individuals we should avoid for our own safety and sanity by the direction given to us in the bible. Once you have died to your selfishness and selfish ways and give yourself to God and His ways you are not going to follow the path of sin. Your heart will not be filled with selfishness but with agape love. For none of us are islands. None of us can work to obtain salvation or righteousness of our own works, deeds, or thoughts. All of these must be in alignment with God's words which are in the bible. Jesus is the embodiment of the word of God. When we read the Bible in totality we are reading of Jesus and our salvation though him. If you can show me any story in the bible that does not show the path of being found guilty of sin by the law - forgiveness by blood - and righteousness by faith I would be happy to read and be so informed. There is no sin that is greater than any other except for Blasphemy. All others can be forgiven except Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as for as I am able to tell at the moment. If I am wrong please show me where in the bible I may find it by giving me the book, chapter and verse so that I may be of better understanding. He does not take credit upon himself but gives God the credit and praise for his salvation and righteousness. He places God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as the ones deserving of glory and praise. He himself as he states is unworthy of anything. If there is anything I have written that has offended anyone I truly am sorry but the truth is the only light we have. It will offend those without understanding for that I pray that God’s will be done concerning us all.
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