Russ: Good morning. This is the Business Makers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is that show about innovators, and entrepreneurs, the ones that are really stimulating the economy.

John: That's right, the real stimulating of the economy comes from the idea makers, the athletes, the artists of the free enterprise system, who actually create wealth and create products and services that people like.

Russ: And create taxpayers. All right, and here's our lineup for this morning. First up for the Aflac Business Makers Flashback, earlier this week I sat down with Jack Smyth, President of Spring Medical Sustems, a company focused on digitizing medical records. But get this, John, they're in that sweet spot. They're up for some stimulus bucks.

John: I know.

Russ: These resistance to change doctors, are getting money to buy his product. But for true stimulus to the economy, the featured guest this morning is Michael Holthouse and John Sheptor. Michael Holthouse, the originator of this incredibly successful Lemonade Day.

John: Yeah, he is a prepared for life group.

Russ: Absolutely, and John Sheptor is the CEO of Emperial Sugar, this year's big time sponsor for Lemonade Day, a cool, cool story. For those of you outside of the Houston audience, this is something to listen to because Michael Holthouse and this organization has kids learning entrepreneurship all over the place, and is getting ready to expand outside of the city.

John: Yeah, with lemonade stands.

Russ: Absolutely.

John: All over the place, thousands of them.

Russ: Absolutely.

John: Okay.

Russ: But first.

Russ: That's right, it's time for the Business Makers School of Business. And this is where we fill in those gaps and cover the missing pieces from regular business school.

John: There's a lot of gaps out there, and the gaps that are out there are wide.

Russ: That's right, and there's some new gaps all the time, as we learn how to do business in this new economy.

John: It's an opportunity every time, and someone's downside is somebody else's upside. We're in the upside education.

Russ: There you go.

John: There you go.

Russ: And we kick it off each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And today's quote comes from John Nye, the economist at George Mason University. "I sometimes think that being an economist today is like being an epidemiologist during the black plaque. Everybody has questions but nobody likes the answers."

John: What does he mean by that?

Russ: Well, he means, that number one-I think-that it's bad news time, and when the economists really take the lay of the land and figure out what does the future look like, it's bad news.

John: Thats right.

Russ: Okay, that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this week in business history?

John: Okay, we're going back to 1581 this week in business history. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the world.

Russ: Fifteen-eighty-one, gees, you get out there in the ocean and you see how big it is.

John: You ever seen the boats that those guys were in?

Russ: Oh!

John: I mean-they're not big ships. They were not big ships.

Russ: Yeah, and they're wooden.

John: I know, yeah, they're made out of wood.

Russ: Yeah.

John: And they get scurvy and rickets.

Russ: Yeah, all kinds of things happened.

John: I know, yeah. Okay, later on in 1803, this week in business history, is the first performance of Beethoven's Second Symphony in D Major.

Russ: Are you familiar with his Second Symphony?

John: A, a little bit, but he had a very interesting life. Everybody saw the movie Amadeus. It was true when Mozart wrote his music, it was already composed in his head, and he just kind of wrote it down, and that was it. Beethoven was a complete opposite. He was always revising his music, and he would revise the music on the score sheets by pasting over the things he wanted to alter, so some pages are like an inch high-you know-because he's pasting over all the time. The guy was constantly revising his music.

John: Okay, in 1902, this week in business history, Texas oil company Texaco forms.

Russ: Whoa, okay, yeah, they've done all right.

John: Yeah, you can always trust your car to the man that wears the star.

Russ: Right, cool.

John: Okay, what a great commercial campaign it was.

Russ: You bet.

John: Okay, this week in business history, in 1912, April 9th, the Titanic leaves Queenstown, Ireland, for New York.

Russ: So, that was the dreaded, fateful, last journey, right?

John: Especially for Leonardo DiCaprio.

Russ: Yeah, man, that was it for him.

John: Let me tell you something. Okay, here he is-you know-he's in love with this woman. Okay, they're both floating around in the ocean. She's on a wooden raft thing, okay?

Russ: Right, right.

John: Now, I've seen that movie a number of times. You can't tell me that she could've pulled him up, so he could've laid next to her and saved his life?

Russ: So you think she actually didn't want him to live?

John: Well, I think she was completely ambivalent about whether he lived or died.

Russ: Ah, okay, okay. I'm glad we straightened that out.

John: I know, okay. This week in business history, in 1916, the U.S. Senate agrees in a vote of 82 to 6, to fight in WWI. We lost a lot of troops over there.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay, this week in business history, in 1926, Mussolini's Irish wife breaks his nose.

Russ: Wow, I bet he didn't like it that that word got out.

John: I know-the guy's a fascist dictator.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1938 is the birthday of Jerry Brown.

Russ: Right, so he's 71 this week?

John: Yeah, and his father defeated Richard Nixon when Richard Nixon ran for governor of California, after John F. Kennedy defeated him, for president.

Russ: Wow.

John: Of course, Nixon is famous for that press conference, you know, everybody thought he was washed up. He appears at this press conference after being defeated by Edmund Brown. He says, "Well, at least you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around any more."

Russ: Right, a quotable quote.

John: A quotable quote, a few years later, he's President of the United States.

Russ: Right.

John: Go figure. This week in business history in 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, does a lot of crazy things. He tries to freeze wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless a war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases to common carriers and public utilities-I mean.

Russ: Boy, talk about control.

John: That is a handful.

Russ: It was. Okay.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1944, De Gaulle forms a new regime in exile. That was, of course, in World War II, where he was forming a government because they were getting ready to invade Normandy-

Russ: Right.

John: -take over France.

Russ: Right.

John: This week in business history, in 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were spies, gave atomic secrets to the Russians, and they were sentenced to death.

Russ: Pretty serious espionage there, right?

John: Yeah, and there was a controversial trial, and some people think that Julius and Ethel were not spies, but it's come out later that they were.

Russ: They really were. Yeah.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1954, Elvis Presley, who was not a traitor, records his

debut single That's All Right.

Russ: Good music there.

John: Okay, this week in business history, in 1954, TV dinners were first put on sale by Swanson and Sons.

[Music: "TV Dinners"]

John: This week in business history, in 1964, while the Beetles Can't Buy Me Love single goes to number one and stays there for five weeks.

[Music: "Can't Buy Me Love"]

Russ: Cool song.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1980-here you go-the Post-it note is introduced. Some guy that works for 3M. They had that adhesive that was not good enough to hold something.

Russ: Yeah, wasn't real tape.

John: And it wasn't weak enough to be something else, so he just decided to make Post-it notes.

Russ: Yeah, what would we do without those today, man? Gees, gees.

John: I know, they're cool. Okay. This week in business history, in 1991, Sam Walton, billionaire CEO of Wal-Mart, dies of cancer at 74 years old.

Russ: What an entrepreneur he was. Gees, man.

John: Oh man, yeah, he changed the face of retailing.

Russ: Yeah, and they're doing quite well these days-

John: Yes they are.

Russ: -in a down economy. It's a bargain city over there.

John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1998, Tammy Wynette, American singer, dies. And of course, she had that famous song.

[Music: "Stand By Your Man"]

Russ: Does that wrap up our history lesson?

John: Uh, yeah, it's kind of a weak week.

Russ: I don't know. A weak week, but you went from Beethoven to ZZTop with a little Tammy Wynette. A good lesson.

John: Okay, thank you, sir.

Russ: You're welcome.

John: All right.

Russ: And that brings us to our vocabulary lesson, our so-called navigating business jargon.

John: Or understanding it.

Russ: That's right.

John: Or defining it.

Russ: All right. And the way that we do it, is that I get to choose the word, and then I say the word. And then John uses all of his vocabulary and, and cognitive skills to make a good educated guess at what the definition is, and some of these are easy, and today's is not easy, because here's the word.

John: I'll tell you, the ones that I guess, you always say are easy.

Russ: Yeah, well.

John: The ones that I don't guess-you know.

Russ: Well, if you get this one, I will be impressed.

John: All right. Okay.

Russ: Are you ready?

John: I don't think so, but go ahead.

Russ: Here it is.

John: All right.

Russ: Vuja-de.

John: Vuja-de.

Russ: Vuja-de.

John: Okay, vuja-de. Opus day is that Catholic group that, uh-

Russ: You're way off course.

John: All right, okay. Day is a, is a day, okay, 24-hour day.

Russ: I think, I think it's a French word.

John: It's a French phrase, vuja-de. Well, I give up.

Russ: All right. It's the distinct feeling you've never been here before.

John: Oh, deja vu.

Russ: The opposite of deja vu. It's a pretty good one, man.

John: What is it again?

Russ: Vuja-de. It's like I, I experience vuja-de all the time, every day. I feel like I've never been here before.

John: That's pretty good.

Russ: All right. I thought you'd like it once you got it.

John: All right, okay.

Russ: Okay, and that brings us to dumbest moments in business history. What do you got?

John: Okay, this is a, a very illustrative story. We all know the governor of New York, David Paterson, right?

Russ: Right.

John: Well, he has $132 billion budget he has to get paid for, so he is going to raise all the marginal rates in the state of New York. And the top rate is for taxpayers earning over $500,000 a-

Russ: So, we're talking about state income tax?

John: State income tax, you bet. And the state income tax-he's creating a new bracket of 8.97%, which is about 13% higher than the next lowest bracket.

Russ: Okay, so he's going after these rich people, eh?

John: He's going after the rich people. Of course, there's a city, has a 3.6% marginal rate for earnings over $90,000.

Russ: The city of New York does?

John: The city of New York.

Russ: So, we're talking about the city has an income tax, and the state has an income tax, and we know that the United States has an income tax, so-

John: Now, now you have this liberal mayor, a Michael Bloomberg. He may be liberal, but he's not stupid.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Because he knows that there's about 8 million people that live in the city, but there's only about 40,000 to 50,000 families who pay all the taxes.

Russ: Okay, and that's who this is going to affect?

John: It's going to affect, so the people are going to leave. Okay, people will vote with their feet.

Russ: And the mayor is worried.

John: And, by the way, that represents about 2% of the population.

Russ: Wow.

John: I've heard the expression, if you've got too many people in the wagon and not enough pulling it, you're not going to go anywhere.

Russ: Well, no kidding.

John: And this goes to show you, when you start targeting income groups on tax increases, in order to be fair, in order to spread the wealth around, as our esteemed President once said to that Joe the Plumber guy, you're going to have problems because people will move.

Russ: Yeah.

John: You have this dynamic scoring. They never take into effect when you raise the prices or the cost of living to somebody, they may not want to stay there and take it.

Russ: The exact same thing happens at the country level-I mean-that's why so many businesses are going offshore now. And before we wrap up the School of Business this morning, it's time for PKF Texas, the entrepreneur's playbook.

John: Hey, Greg, have a seat. Here we go.

Russ and John: A one, and a two, and a-

[PKF Texas - The Entrepreneurs Playbook]

Russ: Okay, you're listening to The Business Makers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. Stay tuned for Jack Smyth, President of Spring Medical Systems, to tell his story about digitizing medical records, and then I'm going to be sitting down with Michael Holthouse, the founder of Lemonade Day.