Chris Banescu

Five Attributes Of Enduring Family Businesses

Five Attributes Of Enduring Family Businessesby C. Caspar, A. Dias, H. Elstrodt
The keys to long-term success are professional management and keeping the family committed to and capable of carrying on as the owner. Family businesses are an often overlooked form of ownership. Yet they are all around us–from neighborhood mom-and-pop stores and the millions of small and midsize companies that underpin many economies to household names such as BMW, Samsung and Wal-Mart Stores.

One-third of all companies in the S&P 500 index and 40% of the 250 largest companies in France and Germany are defined as family businesses, meaning that a family owns a significant share and can influence important decisions, particularly the election of the chairman and CEO. [Read more…]

After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington

Amazon.com | by Nicole Gelinas | 2009

Robust financial markets support capitalism, they don’t imperil it. But in 2008, Washington policymakers were compelled to replace private risk-takers in the financial system with government capital so that money and credit flows wouldn’t stop, precipitating a depression.

Washington’s actions weren’t the start of government distortions in the financial industry, Nicole Gelinas writes, but the natural result of 25 years’ worth of such distortions.

In the early eighties, modern finance began to escape reasonable regulations, including the most important regulation of all, that of the marketplace. The government gradually adopted a “too big to fail” policy for the largest or most complex financial companies, saving lenders to failing firms from losses. As a result, these companies became impervious to the vital market discipline that the threat of loss provides. [Read more…]

Government Workers Make 45 Percent More Than Private Sector Employees

A new report from the Bureaus of Labor Statistics that was released today, shows that almost 15 million Americans are currently out of work and unable to find jobs. Worse still, those with jobs have not seen their wages increase much in the last 10 years. However, government workers are enjoying a boom in hiring and generous salary increases thanks in large part to very cushy pensions and other benefits. [Read more…]

America’s ‘Free’ Falling Economy

Investor’s Business Daily | Feb. 1, 2010

The latest index of economic freedom shows America falling fast, being ranked for the first time as “mostly free.” We’ve fallen behind Canada, and it’s look out below.

Our accelerating descent into a command-and-control economy with government pulling the strings is taking its toll.

The Heritage Foundation’s 2010 index of leading economic indicators shows that the land of the free is only mostly free, falling to eighth in the world from sixth last year, now sandwiched between Canada and Denmark. [Read more…]

Swerving Off the Path to Prosperity

Townhall | by Ed Feulner | Jan. 26, 2010

When future historians characterize this era, chances are they won’t label it as America’s “golden age.” Indeed, they may well mark 2010 as the year the United States became the home of the “mostly free.”

That’s the finding of the latest “Index of Economic Freedom,” an annual compendium published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. earned an overall score of 78 out of a possible 100 points in the Index. That was good enough for eighth place, globally. But that score was down 2.7 points from last year’s. It’s the biggest drop recorded among the world’s 20 largest economies. The decline was comparable to Venezuela’s (down 2.8) and Yemen’s (down 2.5), two poster children for bad economic behavior. [Read more…]

Crash Course

FT | Review by John Gapper | Jan. 22, 2010
Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster – by Paul Ingrassia

Japanese car companies, which overtook US ones in the early 21st century, leading to the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler last year, used a method of industrial innovation called kaizen, usually translated as “continuous improvement”. From a humble start, the Japanese companies had got better and better at making cars that were economical and reliable.

Meanwhile, Detroit perfected the technique of occasional improvement. As the Big Three – GM, Ford and Chrysler – slid deeper into trouble over decades of complacency, union obstructionism and mismanagement, they would occasionally stage a temporary recovery, with some new car or initiative prompting books and magazine articles about a Detroit revival. [Read more…]

How Data On Income Distribution Are Misunderstood And Misapplied

Investor’s Business Daily | by Thomas Sowell | Jan. 8, 2010

Most intellectuals outside the field of economics show remarkably little interest in learning even the basic fundamentals of economics. Yet they do not hesitate to make sweeping pronouncements about the economy in general, businesses in particular, and the many issues revolving around what is called “income distribution.”

Famed novelist John Steinbeck, for example, commented on the many American fortunes which have been donated to philanthropic causes by saying:

One has only to remember some of the wolfish financiers who spent two thirds of their lives clawing a fortune out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back.

[Read more…]